When it comes to dragon slaying, there are two races of the Warhammer World that spring instantly to mind ' the Bretonnians and the dwarfs. Sixteen dragon-slayings are chronicled in various Games Workshop sources, all but five of these were carried out by dwarfs or Bretonnians. One of the others involved a number of dwarf slayers, even if the fatal blow was not struck by one of their number, and another two were carried out by vampires. It is implied in some of the references that these two races have also been responsible for a number of dragon-killings that are not chronicled. Below, I give details of all of the recorded dragon-slayings and a few attempted slayings.

The earliest recorded dragon slaying was that of Urmskaladrak, Father of All Dragons, by the dwarf ancestor-god Grungni[1]. While no date is given for this, it must have been prior to Grungni's disappearance into the Chaos Wastes, c. -4500 I.C.

One of the greatest dragons to assail the dwarfs was Skaladrak Incarnadine. He was first sighted near Karak Kadrin (the Slayer Keep) in c. -720[2] but it was in c. -650 that he carrying out his greatest evil ' killing the daughter of King Baragor of Karak Kadrin. Baragor took the Slayer oath in response and set out to face the monster. He succeeded in wounding it, but did not kill it, nor did he find his death in battle, thus starting the tradition of the Slayer Kings[2,3]. In 1420 I.C. Skaladrak returned again and was driven off by a large force of dwarfs[3,4].

Possibly the next to occur was the slaying of an un-named blood-red dragon by the vampire Abhorash, father of the Blood Dragons[5]. By drinking the dragon's blood, he freed himself of the curse of Vampirism. Unfortunately no date is given for this occurance, save that it must have happened after the fall of Lahmia in c. -1200 I.C.

Now we come to the first human to attempt to slay a dragon. But no ordinary human, for it was Sigmar, armed with the Ghal Maraz, who faced the dragon Abraxas. Yet although he wounded it, he was not to join the ranks of dragon slayers, for the beast escaped[6,7]. No date is given for this, but it must have occurred between Sigmar being granted the Ghal Maraz in -15 I.C. and his disappearance in 50 I.C.

The first human to get in on the act, at least with his name on record, was Emperor Hündrod the Furious, who is said to have slain the last dragon of the Drakwald with his axe in the 6th century I.C.[8].

The great dwarf hero Dorin Heldour is the next to feature. In 685 I.C. he brought the skin of the dragon Fyrskar to Karaz-a-Karak[4]. No record has been made of the actual battle, but it must be assumed that he had killed Fyrskar.

Dorin was almost the last dwarf dragon slayer, indeed some might say he was the last true dragon slayer given the nature of Skalf's victory as we shall recount later. The advent of the Bretonnians was nigh, and the next dragon slaying would fall to one of the greatest of that race. This was Gilles le Breton who, in 952 I.C., killed the dragon Smearghus, succeeding where Sigmar had failed[9].

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