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I found a great deal on Chimeras and was thinking of making some Hydras with WW2 Quad Antiaircraft guns. Is 9 Hydras to excessive a number of units?

You'll have no heavy support slots left.

So you'll have no heavy anti-tank and no anti-heavy infantry.

two squads of three could be a nice amount, two squads to pour fire into any AV13 or less/infantry unit with a third heavy support slot filling the gap.

How goods a good deal?

20 bucks a Chimera

Well, since your only talking 675 pts, that leaves you a ton of points to fill up the army. You have to make up for your lack of heavy tank hunting and heavy infantry hunting sooo....

Go with your theme of maximum over the topness with 2 melta CCS in chim, 3 melta vets in chims, 3 devil dogs with melta and 9 hydras.

That is 17 meltaguns, 3 multimeltas, 3 blast meltas, and 36 TL S7 shots at 72" PER TURN!

It is also 17 fraking AV12 hulls.

I shure as hell would not want to face it on the table.

I also sure as hell would not want buy or paint it, but hey thats on you brother.

Im trying to work out putting 9 vendettas and 9 Hydras in a Hard Boyz list of 2500 but its not working out

6 Hydras, 3 Vets in Chimeras, and a Company Command Squad in a chimera and you should have a very competent all-rounder force for any 1,000 point game. You can flush out your list with a Leman Russ Executioner, Psyker Battle Squad, and 3 Vendettas and you're pretty much rocking out and good to go.

If you can get Chimeras for 20 bucks, buy all that you can.

Hollismason wrote:20 bucks a Chimera

How many can you get?

Hook a brotha up.

I'm thinking 9 is too many. 2-3 or 4/6 I'm thinking 2-3 in one squadron since you want some Leman Russ tanks and maybe some artillery.

Where can you get Chimeras for 20 bucks?

How about ... "three". .

Dude Plasmacannon sponsons. r0xx0rz.

Im currently using 2-3 in my mech list depending on which list I use, hydras are some of my favourite tanks ingame and I wish I could use more but the medusa and leman russes are taking the remaining spots =(. I'd say 4-6 are a great number in 1500 if you got your AT sorted.

Its from a friend who is getting rid of his imperial guard he has 12 chimeras I was thinking about buying dem.

Well for 2500

2 CCS squads with 4x melta 180
2 infantry platoons with 5x FL, 1x HF each at 350
1 mystic inquisitor 32
9 vendettas 1170
9 hydras 625

gives you 6 scoring vendettas, 2 meltacide ccs squads and a "bleep"load of shooting.

Medium/Light armor will just vanish and you have 18 AV 12 vehicles but the fact that they are all squadroned reduces the durability quite a bit.

It will give some armies fits, but will be very vulnerable to others.

And frankly, ( in case you have not played with them yet) 9 valkyries is just not practical from a simple space standpoint on a typical 4x6 tournament table. You will just not be able to manuever because fitting a squadron of those monsters anywayre on the table will be a challenge, fitting 3 of them when you also have 3 hydra squadrons and a 2500 pt army for your opponent will be no fun for anyone.

As much as I love Air Cav as a concept I would not recoment any more than 6 ValkDettas in anything short of a big Apoc game. ( And 6 will be VERY difficult on a board with any signifigant terrain )

Get the Chimeras, so long as you're a good converter and like the various Chimera-hulled variants in the new IG codex - you can make a variety of turrets and a variety of army lists.

Re the Hydra specifically, it gives fabulous shooting against some targets BUT has big problems against MEqs and heavy armour, so 9 would seem overkill against most opponents

More importantly though - what WWII kit are you using to convert the Hydras? Im looking for suggestions...

kaiservonhugal wrote:More importantly though - what WWII kit are you using to convert the Hydras? Im looking for suggestions...

I've kitbashed up a couple of hydras using Old Crow turrets and barrels. They're pretty cheap, all you need to do is to come up with some kind of main body for the ACs.

I have to say, I'm slightly envious. I mean, part of the appeal of Hydras is the fact that you're "reaching out and touching someone" with quad Ma Deuce, or in this case, Quad Autocannons.

But, yeah, 9 might be too much. Unless you're playing in Apocalypse, and you're defending a firebase.

Come on, make at least one into a deathstrike missile launcher. That much brute force destructive power is the sort of thing that makes the Imperial Guard great.

warpcrafter wrote:Come on, make at least one into a deathstrike missile launcher. That much brute force destructive power is the sort of thing that makes the Imperial Guard great.

Plus, it gives you a reason to indulge in maniacal laughter.

9 probably is too many. Tried Hydras and ended up cutting them because they were slightly fragile and Valkyrie Vendettas killed light tanks well unless they were skimmers moving fast. Although poping Rhinos first turn is always nice.

ive been running Hydras since they came out in the new dex... i love them. Ive been running a squad of 3 and i wont leave home without them.

I dont think 9 hydras are excessive , especially they are dirt cheap + such incredibly long range.

Leave all the tank huntings / high armor save targetsto your 9 vandettas. Or park a chimera with melta veterans around too.

Problem is as many people have said the lack of heavy support options. Also point cost. For each hydra you can get a griffon with its own ups and downs. Try dropping three and replace them with griffons. See how you like that as that has anti light tank and anti horded infantry. Then adjust the level of hydras to griffons in your list until a perfect cocktail of flak and shell s found.

9 is far too many. You'll do fine with 3, and 6 at the most. You should leave a heavy slot for some Russes.

I would stop at three personally, but then I like a bit of variety.However I can see the attraction of nine, too many tanks to shoot. Not many weapons can deal with armour 12 compared to the amount fielded. Put where they get some saves the Hydras should last the game.

I would be tempted to max out vehicles and fill in the rest of the points with nine lascannon Armoured Senitinels and take infantry only with whats left. You only have 195pts to get HQ and two Troops though.

Should be fun.

In fact I've composed a 2000 points list of Armoured Infantry Attack Kampfgruppe, which features

9 Hydras
2 HQ squads with 2 Astropaths and 2 MoOrdnance
8 Chimeras with 2 Inf. Platoons (one is able to Outflank)

18 tw Autocannons
9 Multilasers
17 Heavy bolters
2 indirect furing Ordnance blasts
~14 meltaguns

What do you think about it?