How would winged humans fight dragons?

Question

So currently in my fantasy universe 2 races are at war, the Anglar and the Darus. (I previously had a question about melee combat while fighting ground troops that involved the same races, if some are wondering why this looks similar).

Info:

Anglar: winged humans (basically Angels without holy powers).

Darus: lizard people, they used to have wings but a strange ailment caused most of them to lose their wings.

Terrain: flying islands in the sky. Think Avatar's flying mountains (the blue people Avatar), below is a mist covered chasm that falls for many fathoms. We're unable to know if it has a bottom. The Darus use mages to build bridges across to each island to get across (but this takes time), the Anglar just fly across.

Some quickly built forts for the Darus, and several starter colonies for the Anglar.

Background: the Darus were in a mass migration due to the loss of their wings and an earthquake destroying their home. They found the flying islands but also found the Anglar who are an extremely prideful race and find any other creature who can fly their lesser. The Anglar began an extermination campaign on the Darus due to similarities to dragons, which the Anglar exterminated. With nowhere else to go the Darus launched total war on the Anglar colonies.

During this war the Darus discover dragons, and they make a pact with the dragons against the Anglar, as they both hate them, the dragons were though to be hunted to extinction by the Anglar.

Dragon info: they are intelligent beings, who can breath fire (duh), and are immune to pure magic attacks (like throwing a mountain with magic could still harm them, but a beam of magic energy would do nothing). Their only weak spots are their eyes, ears and throat, everything else is completely covered by a hard layer of scales.

The Anglar were able to win the first war/extermination of the dragons due to their use of barbed spears and a poison called bleeder savant. This poison would cause a wound to bleed profusely and almost never heal. They would trap dragons in heavy nets and then shove these spears in the dragons throats causing deep wounds within their throat, causing them to drown in their own blood.

But what other weapons would wing humans fight dragons with? as the terrain is much different in floating islands, than regular terrain.

Answer 1

TLDR: attack their supply lines and attack while they're transporting between islands when the ability to fly has maximum advantage

In any battle one of the most important aspects is mobility, it allows you to outmanouver and outsmart your opponent, and if neccessary make a tactical withdrawel. As such, limiting your opponents mobility would allow a serious tactical advantage.

The Darus don't seem to have much when it comes to mobility in the given terrain. They will be almost completely reliant on the dragons. The dragons themselves are no match for the Anglar (as proven by the fact that they were almost completely wiped out) and so they are dependent on the Darus. This means that the Anglar will win any battle where either:

• the dragons and Darus are seperated
• the dragons lose their ability to manouver
• the Darus lose their fighting ability

Of these, I would think the first two are the most promising weaknesses in the Darus/dragon army. There are multiple things that might work.

The easiest way would be for the Anglar to persuade the dragons to betray the Darus. Simply have them drop off all the Darus on an island and pick the Darus off from a distance. In return the dragons could be offered a peace treaty. However, the Anglar may be too proud to do so and I expect they'll only opt for this if this is the only remaining option.

Likely, the Darus will be riding the dragons, else their added help would be very limited. This would limit the freedom of the dragons, both slowing them down and limit the 'allowed' manouvers they can pull. In air to air combat the Anglar could use this to outmanouver the dragons, similarly to cavalry vs infantery. This would force the dragons to drop the Darus off, allowing the Anglar to fight the two forces seperately and winning as explained earlier.

The dragons are smart enough to realize that this is not a winning strategy. So the dragons/Darus will have to stick together with the Darus on the island and the dragons flying close by, moving from one island to another. I don't see how the Anglar would be able to best them here; the dragons will be free to fight on their own turf supported by Darus. If the matchup is anywhere equal the Anglar will have to refrain from attacking them.

The Darus/dragons are at their weakest when away from the islands. This means the Anglar should aim to intersept any supply chains and effectively starve their enemies. As soon as they move off from their island attack. Have a large enough group take any island their heading too so they cannot land. Generally force the fight to be soleley air to air combat.

Answer 2

A dragon is big, an Anglar is small. One would imagine that multiple Anglar squads attacking one after the other from various directions will be relatively safe if they're faster than the dragon, and get the dragon with multiple weak strikes.

I'd suggest either damaging or putting weight on the dragon wings. The attacking squads attach entangling material (tar smeared balls or ropes , arrows, sticky mud, small nets, anything that'll stick) to the wings, each squad doing little but speeding out of harms way.

As more and more material is attached to the wings, the dragon becomes less manoeuvrable and more susceptible to the attack. You only need to severely entangle one wing and let gravity deal the coup de grace for you.