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Hello All,

Can someone enlighten me as to why I'm seeing so many hydra's in lists? I see it as a complete waste of points for a autocannon with 72 inch range that takes away the speed cover-save from skimmers and bikes. Why waste a heavy slot for a hydra when other tanks could be game-changers.

Moastly because some other armies include things like hive guards, rhinos, dark eldar raiders, truks, all sort of skimmers etc.

In short they should cost 20 point more.

It would put a serious hurt on Dark Eldar, or mech Craftworld Eldar. It would also be a good fire support piece if you have a hill in your deployment zone. I've never personally faced one, the guard players at my FLGS favor the manticore and executioner. I hate them so much...

Also, they look awesome.

They can serious damage against transport vesicles, MCs, orks...

Aye, I get the idea of skimmers, but they can take a field on the DE raider (not sure about eldar) that gives a 5+ inv, where moving fast gives a 4+.

After fielding the hydra once, people would just adjust and you now have a very expensive autocannon that can die on one hit, where a squad with an auto would be able to absorb the shots.

There must be something more to this I am missing.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Jone96 wrote:They can serious damage against transport vesicles, MCs, orks...

Sure, but so can any other AC. 75 pts for a hydra (3 BS), 80 points for vets with an AC. I'd take the vets everytime.(4 BS)

Saying that it is one autocanon is significantly understating the actual capabilities I'm afraid. The reason people take them is the same reason marines take dreadnaughts with two twin linked autocanons. Its a lot of firepower for the cost. Hydra is very good at anti transport and should be a lot more expensive for what it does.

-Myst

Mysticaria wrote:Saying that it is one autocanon is significantly understating the actual capabilities I'm afraid. The reason people take them is the same reason marines take dreadnaughts with two twin linked autocanons. Its a lot of firepower for the cost. Hydra is very good at anti transport and should be a lot more expensive for what it does.

-Myst

Honestly that's what I'm trying to figure out. I must be understating it, but I just seem so lackluster on paper. Twinlinked is nice, just would rather have a vet squad with a AC and free up the heavy slot. Perhaps I've just had great luck with my AC squads that other's haven't and they've went the route of a hydra (sounds like some monk enclave's rite of passage)

Paeern wrote: Honestly that's what I'm trying to figure out. I must be understating it, but I just seem so lackluster on paper. Twinlinked is nice, just would rather have a vet squad with a AC and free up the heavy slot. Perhaps I've just had great luck with my AC squads that other's haven't and they've went the route of a hydra (sounds like some monk enclave's rite of passage)

Well, for the same points cost the Vets will deliver a maximum of 2 hits, and the Hydras will deliver an average of 3 hits. Plus, it's one more piece of armour on the field for your opponent to have to shoot at. I don't think they're overcosted myself, but I do think that they're jim dandy options.

How much do you hear space marines talk about Rifleman builds for dreads? This is the IG version and worth trying if you haven't.

Depends on the local meta. I play against Space Marines of all flavours (taste the rainbow!), mech guard and foot guard, so I really don't need autocannon shots but a lot of templates that ignore power armour and/or cover. Hydras aren't the greatest but they definitely aren't the worst. Many will run manticores instead, or leman russes, all of which are great.

Depends on who you're fighting. In general hydras will wreck mech armies with AV11-12 front severally restricting mobility. When out of rhinos and chimeras, they're still long range autocannons making them decent at punching infantry in the face. Obviously tactics change as the battle changes. I'd probably stick to manticores vs power blobs and green tides

kenshin620 wrote:Depends on who you're fighting. In general hydras will wreck mech armies with AV11-12 front severally restricting mobility. When out of rhinos and chimeras, they're still long range autocannons making them decent at punching infantry in the face. Obviously tactics change as the battle changes. I'd probably stick to manticores vs power blobs and green tides

Perhaps it is the meta of who I am facing that causes me to under-appreciated these tanks. My club has several marine armies (and one nasty CSM army Booo Hiss!), green tide and a semi mechanized IG (not counting myself). I'd almost always take AC's in squads to pick apart the transports and use tanks to show my love via pie plates. With this being said, a new player just showed up with DE, so I may have to relook at this depending how my guard do at taking down his transports.

Hydras are actually quite good as a dual role tank A pair of Hydras with hull heavy bolters in a squadron has a good chance of putting down any av11 or av12 vehicle while putting enough firepower down range with the help of the heavy bolter to put some serious hurt on small fire support units like long fangs, lootas, combat squaded tacticals with las cannon.

For 85 points I can field a light tank that can fire 4 twin linked autocannon shots with "it's on the board" range, and within 36" 3 Str 5 and 3 Str 4 (heavy stubber) shots... Minor bonus of ignoring the flat out cover save, but really, it is just 10 decent str shots... Park it behind the front Chimera and you'll get hull down to most of the field... I typically field a pair in a squadron to throw a LOT of shots at hordes, light transports, etc... Even the Eldar WSs get splashed pretty regularly, making them at least think twice about where they deploy, etc... Pretty cheap for what it actually does, but just my opinion as always :-)

A squadron of 2 hydras parked in a far back corner with good lines of fire is the ideal IMO. In cover if possible.

Corner deployment means they can face most of the table with their front armor, and the squadron of 2 is more survivable. But mostly it's the fact that they'll be outranging many of the weapons on the table that keeps them safer (from long-range fire at least). They're typically a lower-priority target than artillery & tanks, so if you deploy them far from the rest of your line, the outflankers and deepstrikers will tend not to go after them, or will be stranded out of position if they do.

Hydras' best targets are transports. Skimmers of course (and with grey knights you might be seeing more storm ravens around), but also that one rhino that really needs to be stopped. Averaging 6 hits, a pair of hydras firing together nearly always halts any vehicle, just on the luck of saturation fire. Heavy flamers on the hull give them a good weapon of last resort if they survive those outflanking genestealers or whatever.

And you get all that for 150 points and a heavy slot. Not bad.

Paeern wrote:Perhaps it is the meta of who I am facing that causes me to under-appreciated these tanks. My club has several marine armies (and one nasty CSM army Booo Hiss!), green tide and a semi mechanized IG (not counting myself). I'd almost always take AC's in squads to pick apart the transports and use tanks to show my love via pie plates. With this being said, a new player just showed up with DE, so I may have to relook at this depending how my guard do at taking down his transports.

I think either A: You have misread the Hydra's entry or B: You're severely underestimating the Hydra's ability to shot at infantry. The Hydra has TWO Hydra autocannons that each fire two shots, for a total of four. I also packs a hull heavy bolter. Furthermore, Twin-Linked BS3 is more accurate than BS4. 75 points for all that firepower on an AV12 non-open-topped front is substantially cheap. They're not useless against infantry, either. Nobody likes being hit with 8 S7 + 6 S5 shots, MEQ save or no. If you love Autocannons so much I really see no reason why you shouldn't field at least one. I think you'll be pleasantly surprised.

Paeern wrote:Hello All,

Can someone enlighten me as to why I'm seeing so many hydra's in lists? I see it as a complete waste of points for a autocannon with 72 inch range that takes away the speed cover-save from skimmers and bikes. Why waste a heavy slot for a hydra when other tanks could be game-changers.

Uhhh..maybe because the hydra (more accurately a pair of them) IS game changing???

2 hydras = 8 s7 TL shots, plus 6 s5 heavy bolter shots..if you are an IG player you will understand that this fits into the "volume fire" mentality in which the IG reign supreme.

2 hydras is one of my staple HS choices on which I choose from, the others being a manticore, a standard russ, or a bassie....meaning usually 2 to 3 of these units are usually in my HS choices...although sometimes I do try the demolisher or griffon once in a while....

With the advent of GK, I may need to include an executioner among the choices though...

KestrelM1 wrote:

Paeern wrote:Perhaps it is the meta of who I am facing that causes me to under-appreciated these tanks. My club has several marine armies (and one nasty CSM army Booo Hiss!), green tide and a semi mechanized IG (not counting myself). I'd almost always take AC's in squads to pick apart the transports and use tanks to show my love via pie plates. With this being said, a new player just showed up with DE, so I may have to relook at this depending how my guard do at taking down his transports.

I think either A: You have misread the Hydra's entry or B: You're severely underestimating the Hydra's ability to shot at infantry. The Hydra has TWO Hydra autocannons that each fire two shots, for a total of four. I also packs a hull heavy bolter. Furthermore, Twin-Linked BS3 is more accurate than BS4. 75 points for all that firepower on an AV12 non-open-topped front is substantially cheap. They're not useless against infantry, either. Nobody likes being hit with 8 S7 + 6 S5 shots, MEQ save or no. If you love Autocannons so much I really see no reason why you shouldn't field at least one. I think you'll be pleasantly surprised.

Little bit of A, and some B. I hadn't realized when I first posted it was 2 autocannon's due to the fluff entry not saying it, but the points entry does. And B, is the whole reason I am asking this question. I think I will do exactly what you say. Give atleast one (proxy) a try if not two and see where that goes. It may be one of those 'you don't know what you are missing' things that you aren't aware of until you see it in action.

I usually run 2 Russ' (either two LRBT, or 1 LRBT and a Demo) and a basilisk. I'll have to put some thought into which i'll drop; thinking the Demo atm. Nice to have it as a deterrent and to crack bunkers/landraiders, but maybe I should try a manticore as well.

Because you dont get the 4 cover for DE because it's ignored and a vets are more hydras deliver a max 4 hits and vets a max 2 that dont ignore cover plus hydras are twinlinked so much more accurate and they've got a heavy bolter and you say vets with more survivablity one splinter cannon forces morales and you fail and run but hydras are immune to that kind of fire.

Hydras are one of the best units in the game against transports. 'Nuff said.

The SMF cover save is 3+, compaired to a Dark Eldar Flickerfield save of 5+. Being able to ignore that cover makes a huge difference.

Gorechild wrote:The SMF cover save is 3+, compaired to a Dark Eldar Flickerfield save of 5+. Being able to ignore that cover makes a huge difference.

The skimmer moving fast save is 4+. The bikes moving fast cover save is 3+.

Flavius Infernus wrote:

Gorechild wrote:The SMF cover save is 3+, compaired to a Dark Eldar Flickerfield save of 5+. Being able to ignore that cover makes a huge difference.

The skimmer moving fast save is 4+. The bikes moving fast cover save is 3+.

Thanks Flavius, Was about to say the same.

2 Hydras were a mainstay of any IG list I built.

Their ability to sit behind a Chimera wall for all-the-time 4+ cover while dumping shots into anything on the table is phenomenal. If I could increase the FA by 1 anywhere in my org chart, it'd be HS and I'd fill it with more Hydras.

sourclams wrote:If I could increase the FA by 1 anywhere in my org chart, it'd be HS

Huh. That's an unusual position for a Guard player.

Paeern wrote:Sure, but so can any other AC. 75 pts for a hydra (3 BS), 80 points for vets with an AC. I'd take the vets everytime.(4 BS)

Hydra provides TL autocannons, vets do not. BS3+TL > BS 4

Hydras are an absolute fantastic bargain for 75 points, and the only reason you don't see them in every IG list is because there is no current plastic model for them, and the IG heavy support section is filled to the brim with other great choices.

Paeern wrote:Aye, I get the idea of skimmers, but they can take a field on the DE raider (not sure about eldar) that gives a 5+ inv, where moving fast gives a 4+.

After fielding the hydra once, people would just adjust and you now have a very expensive autocannon that can die on one hit, where a squad with an auto would be able to absorb the shots.

There must be something more to this I am missing.

Twin Linked, and its 2 auto guns.

I like hydras, but i dont spam them. I spam Heavy bolters and lascannons on my veteran squads. in addition, I spam Conscripts and order them to 1st rank fire, 2nd rank fire, after moving within range. Because 150 (ish) lasgun shots is nothin to laugh at.

It makes me sad that the Hydra is SOOO much better then the LR Exterminator, otherwise I would be using one of those in my lists because it looks great to me.

As I see it, Hydras are one of the best units in 40k, and any codex would welcome them into their army. The Guard Codex does it again!

Hydras have beast range, a good rate of fire, respectable strength and respectable AP. Excellent against anything not in power armour, and the name of the game is transports, and hydras oh so love transports! Hydras dont miss often coz of twin linked and they fire 4 shots a turn, and a weapon destroyed doesnt put them out of action! Landspeeders and generally eldar die in a fire to their shooting, they have av12 front armour so in a massive armourwall they are solid. Sure they are no keystone, but they are solid.

And all that for 75 points. And Squaddable. I think their pretty nice.