Pimp My Zombie Dragon!

[Chilingsworth]

Hey Playground!

So, last session, my group killed a dragon and made a dragon zombie out of it.

It's effectively a homebrewed type of true dragon, possessing at least two breath weapons: a 60ft cone of fire, and a 60ft cone of cold, both for 5d10 (after halving from the zombie dragon template.) It's huge-sized and has 22 HD. It was crafted by our 8-th level dread necromancer in a desecrated area with an altar. All told, it has something well over 300 hp

I'm pretty sure it's going to get a target painted on it once we start using it. So, how can we maximize its survivability? I'm also interested in maximizing it's utility.
We have:
a paladin/bard (going for a sublime chord-based gish build) (me)
a dread necromancer
a cleric
a wizard (who is intentionally playing less than fully optimized)
a crusader
a swordsage

Things I've thought of so far:

Cast Awaken Undead on it at the first opportunity
Up armor it (i.e. put items on it)
Create some Necrosis Carnexes to act as healers for it.

We're an Evil party, so morality isn't an issue.

[Crake]

Hey Playground!

So, last session, my group killed a dragon and made a dragon zombie out of it.

It's effectively a homebrewed type of true dragon, possessing at least two breath weapons: a 60ft cone of fire, and a 60ft cone of cold, both for 5d10 (after halving from the zombie dragon template.) It's huge-sized and has 22 HD. It was crafted by our 8-th level dread necromancer in a desecrated area with an altar. All told, it has something well over 300 hp

I'm pretty sure it's going to get a target painted on it once we start using it. So, how can we maximize its survivability? I'm also interested in maximizing it's utility.
We have:
a paladin/bard (going for a sublime chord-based gish build) (me)
a dread necromancer
a cleric
a wizard (who is intentionally playing less than fully optimized)
a crusader
a swordsage

Things I've thought of so far:

Cast Awaken Undead on it at the first opportunity
Up armor it (i.e. put items on it)
Create some Necrosis Carnexes to act as healers for it.

We're an Evil party, so morality isn't an issue.

Can an 8th level dread necro control a 44HD zombie? or was it's 22HD after zombie resurrection? (For that matter, can he even create that many HD in a single undead at his current level? Oh, and what spell did you use to create it, because according to the zombie template in the monster manual, any creature with more than 10 base HD cant be turned into a zombie with animate dead)

[Chilingsworth]

Can an 8th level dread necro control a 44HD zombie? or was it's 22HD after zombie resurrection? (For that matter, can he even create that many HD in a single undead at his current level? Oh, and what spell did you use to create it, because according to the zombie template in the monster manual, any creature with more than 10 base HD cant be turned into a zombie with animate dead)

We used the zombie dragon template from Draconomicon.
it's 22HD before and after animation.

That's why it has a breath weapon, too.

With undead mastery, our dread necro can control something like 80 HD of undead. I think he can animate 32 HD of undead at a time, too (both these figures include applicable augments from the desecrated area and evil altar.)

[Chilingsworth]

I suppose I should note that I'm not looking to get into an arms race with my DM. I just want to counter the perfectly justifiable attempts by our hero antagonist foes to destroy our weapon and flying transport.

[Fouredged Sword]

There is collar in the AaEG that makes any creature small WITHOUT changing the abilities and such.

Make the dragon small and wear it like a backpack. Have it fly you around like a draconic jetpack.