Welcome to the Kobold King Guide - Dragon Wannabe's. I am a long-time Conquest of Elysium/Dominions player and I recently became very interested in the Kobold King and wanted to share some of my insights on their units and rituals. Everything contained in this guide are my opinions and the opinions of others in the community who made suggestions for this guide.

A special thanks to Maverick00053, mergele, and Draken for their helpful suggestions! And additional thanks to dopamine released for urging me to make this into an official guide.

It seems appropriate to start with a mention about the various color types for kobolds. All kobolds each have the advantage of being immune to their respective elements, e.g. Red is immune to fire, White is immune to lightning etc. For black kobolds, they have no immunities but are instead stealthy. Some of the colors also get additional advantages, such as green kobolds having forest stealth, swamp move, and their archers using poison on their arrows. White kobolds troops can often have flying. Blue kobolds have snow move and snow stealth. Each color has their own strengths which make them stand out, though red are possibly the weakest since they only have fire immunity and lack even archers (they have slingers instead)... they make up for this somewhat by having perhaps the strongest Dragon Spawn of any color. And fire magic is very common in the game and so they may be quite strong depending on what you're up against even without their Dragon Spawn...
Normal kobold troops:
Green -> Blue -> White -> Red
Dragon spawn:
White -> Red -> Green -> Blue

Red/White/Green/Blue Kobolds: These guys are your basic fodder troops. They have low morale, low hp, and low damage. Essentially these guys are among the weakest troops in the game aside from their resistances and terrain stealth/move bonuses. At best, they are useful against a magic user or elemental of their respective type. At worst... just feed them to the dragons/drakes at your earliest convenience.

Black Kobolds: These guys are also pretty awful EXCEPT that they can stealth. This may be useful in certain hit-and-run guerrilla warfare situations when you also have a black kobold leader (Chief/Shaman/Prophet). Otherwise they are only useful as fodder just like the others.

Red/White/Green/Blue Kobold Warriors: These guys at least have shields. A little bit better weapons, a little bit better hp, and as of this writing, the same terrible morale. Overall, they're essentially just a little bit more survivable than regular kobolds. Nothing to write home about and it is therefore debatable if they are worth the additional 5 iron you have to spend to recruit them. I would recommend just waiting for them to spawn from Kobold Strongholds whenever you start producing those.

Black Kobold Warriors: Same as above, just with the stealth bonus. Stealth is nice when used effectively but overall... meh.

Draken's Addendum: Kobold Warriors
The game values Kobold Warriors three times more than the basic kobolds. And I agree with that sentiment. Their statline is comparable to a senators Veles. Especially if you take into account that they get a javelin. This together with the +1 to hp, armor and shield means that they are an actual viable combat unit, if a weak one. Which is a big difference from the basic kobolds. It is in my opinion not enough to justify spending iron on them, but they can be used a lot more effective than basic kobolds.

Black Kobold Scout: I mean, you needed a scout to see all those pesky brigands right? Here you go. HOWEVER, there are Black Kobold Murderers which could serve the same purpose as these guys and get you a free disease-ridden hit at the beginning of a battle... Pick those up instead when you get the chance.

Red/Blue Kobold Slingers: Terrible, but better than the vanilla kobolds. Kobolds need massed ranged because their melee troops are so terrible. These will do in a pinch but prefer the archers.

White/Green Archers: Now we're starting to talk about some semi-decent firepower, these are the only units you should be recruiting early game in my opinion. They won't exactly one-shot a knight but a massed bunch of them will take care of most medium-range units all the same. The green archers are especially nice because of their poison ability but your army may already be half-destroyed before it really starts to take out units. I'd still take the green over the rest any day.

Flying White Archers/Warriors: These are nice if you want to ascend to the heavens and take a cloud city or some such. It's not like they're amazing in combat but they're decent like the above. If you get them with other flying units, you'll move quickly across terrain which is nice. It may even be game changing so consider this carefully.

Draken's Addendum: Kobold Archers vs Slingers
One difference between hiring slingers and archers is the cost per unit. 50 gold will get you 15 slingers, but only 10 archers. Your choice is +1 damage, which is a 50% increase in damage, or 5 more kobolds, which also is a 50% increase. Also the archers do pierce and the slingers blunt damage which might be relevant.
The white archers also have an advantage comparable to the greens poison. While all other standard ranged kobolds have a range of 4, the white archers have a range of 5. Which means you can effective utilize another full row (20 units) of them.
As for the choice between the flying and non-flying white archers, I would almost always suggest to get the flying ones. You get 10 White Kobold Archers for 50 gold, or 5 Winged White Kobold Archers for 25 gold. So the price per unit is the same. But the flying ones have one more hp and can fly. So unless you want to hire more archers at once, it is better to get the winged ones. One important note regarding Winged White Kobold Archers: They are limited recruitment. You can only recruit one batch of them every round. If you want more archers you have to get the normal ones.

Red/White/Green/Blue Dragon Spawn: These guys are fairly expensive but may be worthwhile depending on your situation. Yes, they fly. Yes, they have elemental resistances. Yes, most of them have some cool damaging abilities like bows on the white dragon spawn and flaming breath on the red dragon spawn. My friend Draken informs me that the White dragonspawn guys are amazing massed, even better than hoburg crossbows or enchanter longbows. Keep this in mind. BUT all dragonspawn cost a gem for each you recruit. And they have low hp and morale just like the rest of the kobolds but with some good armor to offset it. As Draken pointed out, you could get 300 dragon spawn for 300 gems and 1500 gold, versus using those 300 gems to upgrade a sorcerer to a king and getting level 3 combat magic. It may make more sense to opt for those 300 dragon spawn in the mid-game and then later when armies start to matter less to switch over to upgrading your spellcasters.

Black Dragon Spawn: These guys are actually decent if you want to surprise a castle/citadel that has a modest garrison. They'll fly over the walls and... well not exactly destroy everything but at least give the archers a decent fight. The downside is they're super expensive at 10 gems for five. Unless you are heavily investing in a guerilla warfare strategy, which may be a good idea, I would give these guys a skip.

Draken's Addendum: Dragon Spawn
Dragon Spawn are the elite units for the kobolds. They are unlocked by having a Prophet or Kobold King (see leaders) of the same color.
The dragon spawn are comparable in stats to a normal Swordman unit, at least close enough to have the same basic combat potential. (-1 hp, +1 armor, -1 damage, -2 moral, +2 magic resist)
They all can fly which is a great advantage.

White Dragon Spawn:
In my opinion the best dragon spawn. 1-5 piercing damage at range 7 is already great. The bow is also magical so ethereal and air-shield doesn't work against them. And the white casters have wind-guide and quickness as support spells. They are also quite resistant to counter fire as they are a rare ranged unit that has a shield. This together with their 2 armor and 5hp, as well as the white caster having air-shield themself, means that they are going to win most ranged duels. The white dragon spawn might actually be one of, if not the, best hireable archer unit in the game.

Red Dragon Spawn:
The Red Dragon Spawn are the barbarians of the kobolds. High hp and high attack, but no shield. They have an incredible, for kobold troops, hp of 7. On the offense they switch out the normal kobold shortsword with an initiative of 3 and 1-5 damage for a halberd with initiative 5 and 1-8 damage. And of course they have their 1-4 damage firebreath with an initiative of 7 that can also set enemies of fire. These two high initiative attacks give them an incredible alpha strike that can finish fights before the enemies even gets a chance to act. They do have one big weakness. Because of all their attacks having a range of 1, awe and fear are devastating thanks to their 2 moral.

Green Dragon Spawn:
The green dragon spawn come in two varieties. A melee and an archer version. And both are a bit underwhelming. The specialty of the green dragon spawn is getting a range 3 poison spit that does 1-5 poison damage. And this is basically the only real difference between a normal green archer/warrior and a dragon spawn one. 2 more hp, one more mr and str, flying and 1 more claw damage is nice, but is it really worth the gold and gem cost? The poison spit is also range 3 compared to the 4 range of the bows, so the last row of dragon spawn archers can't even utilize that. As to the warriors, it's almost the same story. 2 more hp, one more mr and str, flying and the poison spit is the difference between a Green Kobold Warrior and a Green Dragon Spawn. The dragon spawn even loses the javelin, which means that while it will deal more damage through poison overall, the upfront damage is less. All in all the green dragon spawn aren't bad. They can really pile up the poison and drag any enemy without poison immunity down. But it will take time. And that means quite a few causalities against stronger enemies.

Blue Dragon Spawn:
The Blue Dragon Spawn has the same stats as the Green Dragon Spawn, but instead of a poison spit it has a frost shield with a value of 2. Any enemy attacking it in melee will take 2 frost damage... That means in pure damage dealing capabilities the freespawning Blue Kobold Warrior is actually better of than the elite dragon spawn. As a whole the Blue Dragon Spawn is still better than a Blue Kobold Warrior, but it is certainly the weakest of the dragon spawn.

Black Dragon Spawn:
It's the only dragon spawn that requires special recruitment offers. They are also twice as costly as you only get 5 of them for the same price you get 10 colored dragon spawns. This fact, as well as them trading in the standard sword and shield for two disease daggers, means that they are more a niche unit. Use them if you want to be sure to disease enemy units.

Drakes/Wyvern Knights: They're all powerful and most of them are worth the price. The stone drakes might be the least worthwhile because they are so expensive in terms of iron so you will have to consider that based on your current supply situation... but it's still very strong and may indeed be worth it. The rest are easily worth the price and I recommend you recruiting them whenever you have the chance unless you are saving up for something better. Wyvern knights are a special case in that they offer decent damage but their main draw is their morale. In a faction that has many, many morale 2 units, this one stands out at morale 7. If you're having trouble dealing with fear spellcasters, keep an eye out for recruiting opportunities for these guys.

Red/White/Blue/Green Kobold Chiefs: These guys are basically weaker human captains with an elemental immunity. Treat them as such. They are uniquely useful to the Kobold King because kobolds will need lots of leaders to ferry units around from their kobold hatcheries/strongholds to the battlefield or to other mines to be devoured by dragons. Otherwise, use them with a sizeable squad of kobolds to secure your various resource points on the map. I like to keep 1 chief per 3/4 resource nodes to keep indies/roaming enemy forces at bay but your mileage may vary.

Black Kobold Chiefs: The cheapest leader to use for a stealth/guerilla force and also the least useful. If your crappy black kobold units can get the job done by themselves, then this is the leader to pair them with. If an enemy has a single patroller squad assigned to an area, you may be able to use such a pathetic commander as this and his pathetic black kobold units to randomly steal points away from the patroller squad and just harass them in general. I feel confident this is an effective tactic and have used it some myself, but the force will be weak and if you are surprised then that will be a decent amount of resources down the drain. It depends on the situation you're facing as to whether or not it is worth the risk.

Dragonspawn Chiefs(Red/White/Blue/Green/Black): I just don't see these guys being worth the cost UNLESS you are trying to ascend to the sky. There are some pretty cool resources up there and it could be worth it to use these guys for exploring BUT to capture those cool resources you are going to need alot of dragonspawn/white flying archers. Alternatively, you can use prophets and kings to assist with some serious spellcasting. More on that below.

Red/White/Blue/Green Kobold Shaman/Prophets: These guys are pretty good. They're one of the main sources of real power in your faction and you should value them. The more gems of a certain color you have flowing in, the more you should try to recruit shaman of that particular gem color. Ideally, you'll eventually have gems of all colors flowing in and have shaman of all colors available to take advantage of them. They start out with level 1 elemental magic of their color and will take a significant investment of gems to get them higher. BUT they are able to summon dragons to a mine even without upgrading them. What rituals they start with are random so you may have to invest in the normal mastery levels to get the dragon summoning ritual but that's a relatively modest investment. If you upgrade them, they will get to level 2 elemental magic and start being able to do some real damage in combat AND get access to summoning elder dragons. Also they can now fly. Whether or not they are worth upgrading depends on the situation. The level 2 combat magic is good, but you can get that from sorcerers. Elder dragons are an interesting case. We'll discuss dragon summoning further down.

Black Kobold Slayer Shaman/Prophet: These guys are interesting and, potentially, game-changing. Stealthy, with a disease assassination ability, equipped with dark magic spells... Highly useful in a variety of situations. You will want to upgrade these guys if possible. They are much more effective as Prophets, both because they can cast level 2 dark magic which tends to be very useful in combat, and also because they are now flying and they can summon their black dragons which are uniquely useful among all the dragons. More on that further down.

Red/White/Blue/Green Kobold Sorcerers/Kings: These guys are your artillery and the real power of your nation. They start with combat magic at level 2 and can be upgraded to kings with level 3 magic at a hefty price. Once you have a few mines with kobold hatcheries/strongholds and multiple colors of chiefs/shamans these guys will be easy to recruit. At mid-game you should be getting at least 1 recruitable sorcerer every 1-3 turns. That's the real power of the kobolds, which is their sheer access to huge numbers of magic users, albeit very physically weak magic users. But their magic is NOT weak, they can do horrific stuff on the battlefield just like any other witch/wizard. In fact, you have to be careful with some of their battlefield-wide spells, because they could end up destroying most of your forces in the process as well as the enemy (i.e. Gale from the Storm magic school). So read the spell descriptions carefully, especially of the Kobold Kings, and have fun blasting apart everything in front of you with tons of cheap spell casters. Also, these guys can found hatcheries/strongholds like the shaman and are great for expansion parties for both their combat magic and their ability to found new spawning locations. And the kings can fly, so there's that. You will want to start recruiting the sorcerers pretty heavily in the midgame and then starting to upgrade them to Kings towards the lategame when you are rolling in gems.

Black Sorcerer/Kings: Sorry, these guys don't exist from what I can tell. Which is okay, I would think level 3 dark magic on kobolds would be hilariously OP. Of course, I still wish they existed...

Kobold Hatchery: This is the beginning of your bid for world domination. Get one of these up and start spewing out terrible, crappy kobold units for free every turn ASAP. Yes, they are pathetic, but they're also a great screen for your ranged units and also serve as delicious meals for the drakes and dragons you'll be recruiting/summoning...

Traps: I haven't used these much, but they do seem like great help when defending a point. I would say they are likely worth the investment in highly contested areas. Don't bother with them in areas far away from the frontlines.

Kobold Stronghold: Like the hatchery, but instead spawns warriors and archers/slingers? Yes, please! Prioritize casting this. This ritual is expensive in terms of iron and so make iron gathering a priority from the start of the game. But it will be the #1 ritual that will ensure your success in a game, at least until late game.

Foretelling: A scouting spell for finding mines. Mines are the lifeblood of kobolds so this ritual is obviously very useful.

Summon Dragon(Red/White/Green/Blue): So fun. Who doesn't want a friendly dragon hanging out at your homebase? And how about if it goes and takes highly defended resource/fortification points nearby occasionally? Still not interested? What if it comes with awesome magic items that you can take and give to your other commanders/dragons if you so choose? You still think they're not worth it, they're too stupid and lazy, you say? Well, how do you feel if I tell you they increase your recruitment chances for casters of their respective colors? These guys are great. You cannot control them and they're expensive, they need a decent amount of gold, crunchy kobolds, and gems upfront to keep them satisfied. But they're hugely effective units. I would say don't use this ritual on your safe areas. Use them out in unexplored and highly contested areas, the dragons will make up for their cost by taking points, disrupting enemy forces, and providing excellent defense. Their breath and immunities correspond to their color, they cause fear, murder things with their tails etc, all the dragon things. So awesome.

Summon Dragon(Black): Even more fun. But also even more expensive. These guys cost more in terms of gems which is a tough pill to swallow. BUT they are even more effective because, instead of breathing magic breath on things, they cast level 2 dark magic spells. YES. Shades galore, ethereal buffs, fears, direct damage, you name it. This dragon is so powerful. Yes, it is more powerful than the other colors which is why it is more expensive. But is it worth it? Yes, in the right mine, it is hugely worth it. Prioritize these if you can, recruit the black shaman, upgrade that black shaman to a prophet, and plunk down the gems for this bad boy in a mine in enemy territory. You'll be glad you did.

Summon Elder Dragon: You thought a regular dragon was stupid awesome? These guys are basically gods. No you still can't control them and yes they are stupid expensive. They are competitive with the most dangerous units in the game, only bested by elemental lords, super strong horrors, and demon lords (maybe tartarians too... okay, there are alot of crazy strong units in this game but these guys are up there). It's a hugely physically powerful dragon with level 3 illusionism magic. It will wreck almost anything it encounters. It's also very, very expensive in terms of gold, kobolds, and gems. But it's basically incredible and perfect for summoning in areas you are having serious trouble holding. And hey, kobolds consider it an honor to be devoured by dragons, right? Don't feel too bad.

Thank you reading my guide on the Kobold King! Please leave any suggestions you have in the comments below.