I submitted my pretender then I played around with some alternatives I never even though of using in the past.
I've always just ignored the dragons, but they're pretty cool. In the test game I played I won the arena tournament with my frost dragon pretender then messed up some scripting so he ended up in his human form in a battle against a bunch of heavy infantry. Between the awe, the 30+ defense (about 10-12 base, a boost from W9, another boost from 4 experience levels, and the bonus from the arena item, plus probably a couple more from dominion) and the chill from level 1 Enchantment he won handily. Normally, when he was in his dragon form, he won even faster of course. I guess I've just never really used a supercombatant pretender. The main problem with the dragons (and supercombatants in general I guess) is that I don't really know what do with them after the initial expansion. I guess they make decent combat mages, although pretty highly specialized, and they can always research if there's nothing else to do. *shrug*