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Pojo's Dreamblade Mini of the Day

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Noble Dragon
Valor

Reviewed September 08, 2006

Constructed: 3.75
Sealed: 3.3

Ratings are based on a 1 to 5 scale
1 being the worst. 3 ... average.
5 is the highest rating

That Guy That Plays DreamBlade	NOBLE DRAGON Our final piece of the weak. Basically the biggest body this game offers to us without additional costs (I'm refering to Eater of Hope). Looking at the printout with all the Mini's stats, I immediately though this guy would see more play. Unfortunately, he is left in the blue due to the fact he provides no support to a heavy movement based warband. His effect is just for making sure he kills whatever guy he attempts to bring down. Being the better 12 drop over Axemorph Demon in my opinion, he has 6-11/12. I dunno about you guys, but 11 is pretty hard to achieve, let alone 12. 6 power is pretty sweet and very few pieces exceed it. Now for his effect: Payback. His is a Single Blade ability that takes the strongest power of a local enemy and inflicts that much more damage. Say Mr. Dragon becomes engaged in a battle between Mr. Scragglemaw. He has 4 power, so if Mr. Dragon gets a blade off his attack, he can choose to add +4 power to his onslaught. Very nice. Unfortunately, rolling a 12 rarely even happens, and even waiting until you have that many spawn points, you will probably be in a poor position anyway. Make sure to include a bunch of smaller characters as bait for more spawn points, and then wait until you've got command of the board before unleashing the ultimate force. Constructed - 4/5 - the cost can be an issue, but once this guy makes it past the threshold (the 1-2-1 row), good game. Valor has the pieces to get him there too. Sealed - 2/5 - the cost brings up a bigger issue here, and without Valor's movement abilities, it will be a while until the Dragon takes effect on the board. Artwork - 5/5 - really sweet. and I got one!!
King Sephiroth	"Noble Dragon" Finally for this weeks mini's, we end on a high note....a very, very high note. The Dragon is by far an away one of the strongest and biggest pieces in the game....and I'm not just talking about its actual size here. The Dragon can be put into a class. This class is basically of creature's that fall into the "only use 1-2 of this cost" category. This means anything usually above 9 cost, and most of those creatures are pretty darned good. Here's my rankings list of where I believe the dragon is, and where the other creatures are: #1.) Dreadmorph Ogre #2.) Noble Dragon #3.) Eater of Hope #4.) Axemorph Demon #5.) Inscribed Axebeast #6.) Painmonger #7.) Lone Wolf #8.) Steelborn Griffin #9.) Windborne Blademaster #10.) Unspeakable Freak "Noble Dragon" ranks two on this list, and pretty easily makes the top-4 as everything else pretty much has a huge draw-back. It's blade ability is hard to beat, and when put up against a hard opponent it's likely the Dragon will win. This is why the Dragon is especially good as it can not only take out alot of creatures as well as survive, but it can also very easily crush creatures like Dreadmorph Ogre, Eater of Hope, and Axemorph Demon. This guy is just a plain BIG beatstick, but just happens to work much better than most of the others. If you have him, you'll most likely want to play him in an all Valor warband. =) Overall Constructed: 3.5/5 Overall Sealed: 4/5 Artwork: 3.5/5 (Again, another kewl job done by Wizards.)
Charninja	Noble Dragon Oh yeah, the flagship has arrived my peeps. Fear has Dreadmorph Ogre. Valor has Noble Dragon. Anyone who read my review last week knows that. Both have roughly equivalent stats (only difference being in D&L), but their abilities are what breaks the bank. And personally, I am definitely of the opinion that Fear got the better end of the bargain with multiblade Expel. Now, I grant you that Payback is a nifty ability, and is basically a weird cousin of Crit. Whereas Crit deals a specific amount of damage, payback deals damage equal to the power of an enemy critter sharing the cell with Big Blue. I can think of no reason whatsoever that you would not pick the strongest enemy there, if there is a choice, which probably means that you can expect somewhere between 3 and 6 extra damage. It could easily wipe out smaller enemies, but the bigger ones are, at best, only going to be disrupted. Useful, sure, and it depends on your playstyle as to which you like the best, but let's face it, anyone who thinks that is better than MULTIBLADE EXPEL is... a great many things that are impolite. sigh One or two more power, or maybe make Payback a multiblade ability or SOMETHING, and this dude would have rocked like that thing on Gibraltar. As it is, I can't help but be a bit depressed at how weak the fatties are in this game. Ah well, always Baxar's War, eh? Constructed: 3.5/5 Hey, you playing Valor? Like big, uber pretty sculpts? Can't do much better, that's for sure. Limited: 4/5 With an aspect cost of just one V, this guy is actually BETTER here. Yes, you will need to hope for a good dice roll AND one or two units dying, but it isn't as though there is much your opponent is likely to get that is stronger. Unless he totally lucksacks and pulls a Dreadmorph Ogre or something, you get this, you play it.
Rolf the Ruf	Noble Dragon 12V P: 6 D/L: 11/12 Blade: Payback Reviewed by Rolf the Ruf Today we look at one of the premier minis in the DreamBlade Base Set. The big blue dragon is one an elite class of the fattest fatties. There are really only three other pieces worth comparing him to: Dreadmorph Ogre, Eater of Hope and Axemorph Demon. Let's start with the Demon. With identical power, the Axemorph is weak on defense and highly disruptible. But Crit 10 brings more heat than the dragon's Payback can ever hope to pull off. But the double-blade required to activate it means the dragon's ability is going to see a lot more service on average. With the Eater of Hope you get the flatout biggest beastie in the game, so far. And at a spawn cost of 10 he is cheaper than the Noble Dragon at first glance. But the Eater's Appease cost means he actually ends up costing you at least as much, if not more. For this you get an extra die of power and three extra points of Life. Sounds good, but Eater of Hope is a point lower on Defense and has no special ability to compare with the dragon's Payback. Finally we have the Dreadmorph Ogre. His stats are just about a wash with the dragon's so we can call that a draw and just look at their special abilities head-to-head. It has been previously commented that movement abilities are probably the most valuable in the game. But the Dreadmorph is not going to stand toe-to-toe with the dragon in a straight-up fight. Of the three, only the Dreadmorph may be a better piece than the Noble Dragon, in my view. And that is debatable as they serve distinctly different purposes. The Dragon's Payback ability allows it to deal extra damage equal to target local enemy's Power on a single blade activation. What this means is, the bigger they are, the harder they fall. The Noble Dragon may be the best fatty killer in the game and for that reason alone, he is a major asset to any band running Valor. Constructed: 4/5 Sealed: 5/5 (You pull this baby from a sealed pack and you're running him. End of story.) Artwork 4.5/5 (It's a dragon! What's not to like?)