How to Make Dracolines Great

Evocators are great, but what about Evocators on Dracolines? First let's examine and compare their warscrolls:

Dracoline Pros:

• Speed
• 5 wounds per model.
• Less models means fewer losses to Battleshock
• Larger models, but smaller unit footprint
• Two different melee weapons
• Can benefit from Pride Leader
• -1 Bravery debuff
• Better synergy with Command Abilities

Dracoline Cons:

• Only 2 in 3 can take Grandstaves
• 2 less models for Celestial Lightning Arc
• 100 more points
• 1" range on Claws and large bases
• Hard to fit in any Battalions

What niche do Dracolines fill that regular Evocators don't? Well for one they're much faster. With a 12" move and the ability to reroll charges, these guys can go really far. You can be aggressive and pick engagements the way you want (which is really important for melee units!). High movement means you don't need to use drop them into play with Scions, allowing you to stack a lot of abilities on them in the Hero Phase.

Their speed can be further augmented by a Knight-Heraldor to let them run & charge, but also retreat & charge. Getting your powerful melee unit stuck in a combat they don't want can immediately cost you the entire game, so being able to retreat to charge something else is pivotal.

Second, they are hard to take down. This may not seem to be the case when you look at the fact that you are paying 100 more points for the same amount of wounds, but there are a number of reasons that make Dracolines tend to live longer than regular Evocators:

• Part of their survivability comes from their speed - your higher movement and reliable charge range helps you take good positions, and also ensures you don't get caught by a Zombie Dragon or Stardrake. 
• Since they have the WIZARD keyword they can activate the Chronomantic Cogs. Against ranged armies you can cover a lot of ground with +2 move and +2 charge, but in general you will want to use the cogs for rerollable saves and another spell.
• 5 wounds per model synergizes very well with Cycle of the Storm and it makes healing more potent - especially when you have multiple Cycles! Saving a 5 wound model is a lot more valuable than saving a 3 wound model.
• 5 wounds per model means you won't lose a model to Spirit Flasks, and are unlikely to lose a model to a D6 mortal wound ability. 
• If you give them a +1 save buff from the Warding Lantern then you'll have a unit that is very fast and hard to burn down at range.
• Putting it all together you can have a unit of 6 models with 5 wounds each, a 3+ save, rerolling saves, backed by Cycle (or two!) and possibly some D3/D6 healing... that's pretty dang tough!

Third: they stack combat buffs very efficiently. 

• Pride Leader gives every attack +1 to hit rolls, so the entire squad is hitting on 2+. With an Azyros or Celestial Vindicators charge you can reroll 1s.
• If Dracolines use the Cogs they can cast Empower and Celestial Blades on themselves, wounding on 2+ with rerolls. 
• With two different melee weapons they synergize very well with abilities that increase Attacks, like Vandus Hammerhands command ability or the Celestial Vindicators command ability.

When you have a fast & powerful melee unit like this your enemy will want to turtle up and hide behind screens. Stormcast have some of the best answers to this tactic: dropping shooting into play to rip up screens, and dealing area damage using abilities like the heraldor shooting ability and spells like Everblaze Comet, Spirit Storm, and Chain Lightning.

So the Dracoline core ends up looking something like this:

Lord-Arcanum on Dracoline
6x Dracolines
Knight-Heraldor
360 Battleline (2x Lib + Jud, or 3x Seq)
Chronomatic Cogs
1360/2000

The best Stormhost for this kind of army is the Celestial Vindicators. Rerolling 1s on the charge is great for this since we will basically always be charging. The command ability is really nuts, giving each Dracoline +2 attacks (at 2+/2+ with rerolls), and the artifact + command trait turn a hero into a decent melee fighter. Another good choice could be Hammers of Sigmar for a 6+ ignore aura to help stay alive longer. You can also skip Stormhosts altogether and take Staunch Defender + Sword of Judgment (really good with Pride Leader).

There are a lot of options for the remaining 640 points:

• Incantor (another caster, void scroll, spirit storm)
• Everblaze Comet (punish stacked positioning)
• Lord Arcanum on Gryph Charger (another wizard, cycle + healing)
• Lord-Castellant (+1 save and a gryph hound)
• Ballistas or Hurricanes (shoot down screens)
• Azyros (reroll hit1)
• 3 more Dracolines 

Personally I like going with something like this:

Stormhost: Celestial Vindicators

Lord-Arcanum on Dracoline (General, Artifact, Pride Leader, Chain Lightning)

Lord-Castellant

Knight-Heraldor

Knight-Incantor (Azyrite Halo)

6x Dracolines (Celestial Blades)
5x Liberators

5x Liberators

5x Judicators

Ballista

Ballista

Ballista

Chronomatic Cogs

Everblaze Comet

2000/2000

This gives you a good balance between range and melee, allowing your Dracoline hit squad to hit the targets that actually matter and stay moving. With a big command point dump you can burst down key targets, especially with support fire from Ballistas. 

Using this many spells that cast on 6+ makes it an unreliable list... but that's just a weakness Stormcast have to manage!