Dragon Turtle | ||
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Race | Lizardmen | |
Req. Town Buildings |
Armorers' Guild, Stables | |
Construction Cost | 100 | |
Upkeep Cost |
2 1 | |
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# of figures | 1 | |
Moves | 2 / 2 | |
Melee Attack per figure | 10 * | |
Defense per figure | 8 | |
Resistance | 8 * | |
Hit Points per figure | 15 | |
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Fire Breath 5 * |
The Dragon Turtle is a type of Normal Unit unique to the Lizardman Race. For a Construction Cost of 100, it can be trained in any Lizardman Town already containing both an Armorers' Guild and Stables. The Dragon Turtle is a heavy mounted close combat unit. It has a powerful Melee Attack, coupled with a Fire Breath that allows it to initiate melee against flying opponents. It is as fast as most cavalry units on both land and water, while at the same time also very sturdy and well-armored. However, it only has one figure per unit.
A Dragon Turtle requires an Upkeep Cost of 2 and 1 to maintain. Failure to pay these costs will result in the unit being disbanded automatically.
Unit Properties[]
Physical Description[]
The Dragon Turtle unit is comprised of a gigantic sea reptile ridden by a single Lizardman. The turtle is massive, with a sharp beak and a hard shell covering almost its entire body. Despite its lumbering size and stubby flippers, the Dragon Turtle is surprisingly fast, both on land and in water. The beast's rider is a bipedal lizard-like humanoid clad in green scales, whose entire job is to direct the Dragon Turtle towards its prey.
The Dragon Turtle is one of the few Single-Figure Normal Units in the game.
Attack Properties[]
The Dragon Turtle possesses an impressive base Melee Strength of 10. In addition, since it typically starts out as Regular, and in fact never appears in the game as a Recruit, its initial score can be considered to be 11. This yields an average "raw" damage output of 3.3 – enough to get through most armor, and be threatening to all but the sturdiest of opponents.
The Dragon Turtle also possesses a fairly strong Fire Breath. Whenever it initiates a Melee Attack against an enemy unit, it will precede the "mutual melee" with a short-range attack. While this has an initial strength of only 5, as indicated by the magnitude of the Dragon Turtle's Fire Breath ability, it also benefits from Experience, and is thus increased to 6 at the Regular level. As a result, the Dragon Turtle does an average of 1.8 points of "raw" damage with this attack.
A Breath Attack also has two advantages. First, it is executed before the enemy could retaliate, which means that any damage it deals may reduce the amount of enemy figures that can strike back at the Dragon Turtle during melee. Second, it allows the unit to engage flying opponents, which ground units without special abilities are normally incapable of. On the other hand, this Attack Type only works on voluntary attacks – the Dragon Turtle can't use it when Counter Attacking against an enemy assault.
Defensive Properties[]
The Dragon Turtle is exceptionally well armored. It has the highest base Defense score among all of the game's Normal Units, at 8. It can deflect about 2.4 points from Conventional Damage attacks, on average, which is often enough to shrug off the attacks of low tier enemies entirely. Even what does get through, then has to chip away at the Dragon Turtle's mighty 15 – a fortitude nearing the sturdiness of an ocean-faring ship. This creature can take quite a bit of punishment before being destroyed.
Finally, with its elevated level, the Dragon Turtle has an initial Resistance score of 9. While this does not equate to complete immunity, it does give the unit a very good chance to avoid the effects of most Unit Curses and other combat maledictions. It also improves further with more Experience – as do the other two statistics.
Other Properties[]
The Dragon Turtle is faster than most infantry units with its Movement Allowance of 2, and may use this to its advantage to maximize the effectiveness of its Fire Breath. Like all Lizardmen units, the Dragon Turtle can also swim, which means that it can both traverse, and engage in combat on Ocean and Shore tiles, as well as land.
Basic Strategy[]
The Dragon Turtle is a great all-rounder unit. It has excellent survivability, powerful attacks, and enough speed to chase down most opposition effectively. It can move and fight over any terrain, including Oceans, and it can even initiate melee combat against flying units despite not being one itself. It's only real shortcoming is that it's a Single-Figure Unit.
While the Dragon Turtle can be considered cheap in relative terms, Lizardmen have generally poor economy, and can not construct any Town Buildings that enhance Production. Consequently, the 100 required to train a Dragon Turtle is actually somewhat high in practice. Granted, this is offset at least in part by the Lizardmen's increased Population Growth, which allows them to reach good City sizes quicker, and potentially allocate more Workers.
However, to start producing Dragon Turtles, a City must first build both the Stables and the Armorers' Guild, along with their prerequisite Town Buildings. With the exception of the Smithy, which is required by other building lines as well, these are all purely military structures, and provide no economical benefit at all. As such, they are often not worth constructing and maintaining outside of settlements dedicated to army recruitment, at least in the earlier stages of the campaign. This can change later on though, as Lizardmen run out of other things to build quite fast, leaving only a choice between these structures and Trade Goods.
Compared to the lower tier Lizardmen units, the Dragon Turtle has two major advantages. The first one is its much higher Attack Strength. This allows it to more readily penetrate enemy armor, and be able to consistently damage better defended foes. Arguably more important however, is that it also has an outstanding Resistance score, far above that of any other unit of this Race. It alone can reach a level where most Unit Curses and Special Damage will bounce harmlessly off it, making the Dragon Turtle invaluable against certain types of enemies and Realms of magic.
On the other hand, it being a Single-Figure Unit, the Dragon Turtle receives much less benefit from enhancement effects, including Experience. As a result, Wizards with access to many Unit Enchantments may still find the lower tier troops to be a better bargain overall, especially if their Resistance can also be improved. Even then however, the Dragon Turtle will likely prove itself to be a useful addition to the army.
In battle, the Dragon Turtle should strive to keep the initiative and make only voluntary attacks whenever possible. This not only maximises its own potential, but can also reduce the damage it takes during hand-to-hand combat – the Dragon Turtle may be powerful and sturdy, but it is not invincible. In addition, its large amount of Hit Points can take some time to recover after battles. Grouping the Dragon Turtle with a unit of Lizardmen Shamans can speed this process up considerably, although bringing the Shamans along into battles may not necessarily be a good idea, unless the enemy can somehow be prevented from sniping them.
Ability Overview[]
Fire Breath 5[]
- Whenever this unit makes a voluntary Melee Attack against an enemy target, it also delivers a Fire Damage Breath Attack with a strength of 5.
- As a Breath Attack, this damage is delivered before the enemy gets the chance to retaliate. Any figures in the target unit that are killed by the attack do not get to deliver any Melee Damage.
- This attack does not occur when the unit is Counter Attacking against an enemy assailant.
- Targets possessing Fire Immunity or Magic Immunity, or enchanted with Righteousness are considered to have a Defense of 50 against this attack. It also triggers the conditional protections granted by Bless ( +3), Resist Elements ( +3), or Elemental Armor ( +10); in addition to that of the Large Shield ability ( +2).
Experience Table[]
The following table illustrates how the Dragon Turtle improves with Experience. Any properties that are not listed here are not affected by Experience in any way.
Level Icon | Level Name | EP | Melee | Breath | To Hit | Defense | Resist | Hits |
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Recruit | (Not available for this unit) | |||||||
Regular | 20 - 59 | 11 | 6 | 30% | 8 | 9 | 15 | |
Veteran | 60 - 119 | 11 | 6 | 30% | 9 | 10 | 15 | |
Elite | 120 | 12 | 7 | 40% | 9 | 11 | 16 | |
Ultra-Elite | 120 * | 12 | 7 | 50% | 10 | 12 | 16 | |
Champion | 120 ** | 13 | 8 | 60% | 10 | 13 | 17 |
* To achieve this level, either the Warlord Retort or the Crusade spell must be in play.
** To achieve this level, both Warlord and Crusade must be in play simultaneously.
Average Damage Output[]
The table below details the average amount of "raw" damage that the Dragon Turtle will deliver with each type of attack, based on Experience Level. It can be used in comparison to the target's Defense rating to approximate the chance of hurting that target.
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Acquisition[]
Dragon Turtles may be recruited in any Lizardmen Town that has an Armorers' Guild and Stables already built. The Construction Cost of this unit is 100. Dragon Turtles may also appear as Mercenaries, provided that the player has a presence on Arcanus. In this case, they cost between 200 to 300 to hire per unit, based on their Experience – or half that much for Charismatic Wizards.