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I've run Hydras. They're amazing in their role. As everyone said, Vendettas get favored for duality; they can hit air and ground with equal effect. If you're exclusively looking for anti-air though, yes, the Hydra is probably best.

Most flyers are AV12, and while S7 means you only glance on a 5, you're talking ~3 shots hitting per Hydra, and the AP2 means those penetrating hits score high. Even an immobilized flyer is severely hampered. 72" range also means you effectively cover the board, and they can be squadroned. For 75 points, that is a lot of bang for your buck.

Of course, if your opponent doesn't have many (or any) flyers/skimmers, you may as well run your Hydra forward as mobile cover, 'cause you're only getting real use out of the hull weapon at that point (which should be an HB, btw).

 plus1jeremy wrote:
I've run Hydras. They're amazing in their role. As everyone said, Vendettas get favored for duality; they can hit air and ground with equal effect. If you're exclusively looking for anti-air though, yes, the Hydra is probably best.

Most flyers are AV12, and while S7 means you only glance on a 5, you're talking ~3 shots hitting per Hydra, and the AP2 means those penetrating hits score high.

AP4, unfortunately meaning no bonuses on damage table. This means on average you need squadron of 3 hydras to drop one flier.

 plus1jeremy wrote:
IEven an immobilized flyer is severely hampered. 72" range also means you effectively cover the board, and they can be squadroned. For 75 points, that is a lot of bang for your buck.

Well, not that much when you consider enemy bringing 2 outflanking Vendettas (260 points) vs 3 hydras (225 points) will end up with 2 of those hydras dead and 3rd damaged. Even if they come on from front, we're talking 3.4 AP2 penetrating hits and 1 glance, still pretty likely to drop 2 hydras. Wheres those hydras will on average kill one of the Vendettas.

 Peregrine wrote:

 Ailaros wrote:
My nerd raged just a little bit when I saw that CSM got an AV12 flier. I mean, come on, it's only a matter of time now until we get an AV13 flier...

Too late: http://www.forgeworld.co.uk/Warhammer-40000/Space_Marines/Space_Marine_Aircraft/CAESTUS-ASSAULT-RAM.html

Fun fact, the Caestus Assault Ram can't shoot at other fliers.

 mayfist wrote:


I am going to pick up 3 hydra's to deal with cron air

Fliers are prime targets but will almost surely get to hit your hydras first. This is actually not a good strategy by itself. Why? Hydra's only have strength 7 guns, and necron skimmers have quantum shielding. So you need a penetrating hit to drop the shields, but you cannot get one with just hydra-autocannons.

Glancing it to death? As you can see in my prior post, the probability that two hydras will glance an av13 skimmer with 3 HP to death, in any given round of shooting, is less than 1%. Adding a third hydra only increases the probability to about 1.5%, which is less than gak. Once the quantum shielding is down, the skimmers at av11 are an appropriate target for hydras. So, if you want to deal with the skimmers directly, you need some lascannons, to pen, then use the hydras.

So, possibly the best way to deal, although indirectly, is what Ailaros suggested above: Knock off all their units from the table and force an auto-lose before the fliers even hit the table.

Luide wrote:

Well, not that much when you consider enemy bringing 2 outflanking Vendettas (260 points) vs 3 hydras (225 points) will end up with 2 of those hydras dead and 3rd damaged. Even if they come on from front, we're talking 3.4 AP2 penetrating hits and 1 glance, still pretty likely to drop 2 hydras. Wheres those hydras will on average kill one of the Vendettas.

This is not telling you what you think it is telling you.

All you are saying here, is that the average result of a very large number of trials, consisting of two vendettas shooting at three hydras from the front, is 3.4 AP2 penetrating hits, and 1 glance. This is telling you absolutely nothing about what is likely to happen in small samples, say like a single trial. If you really want to know what happens in this subjective situation, what you want to say is that in any one round of shooting at front armour 12:

the probability of one vendetta destroying at least one hydra is 0.353745066
the probability of two vendettas destroying at least one hydra is 0.690048076
the probability of two vendettas destroying at least two hydras is 0.16756321 (definately not 'pretty likely')
the probability of two vendettas destroying at least three hydras is 0.029136658

Ofcourse, this ignores surpressing things via weapon destroyed results. Still, it gives a much better picture.

edited for clarity between skimmers/fliers

Necron fliers do not have quantum shielding.

You are correct, which is why I said

 Barksdale wrote:

and many necrons have quantum shielding

Perhaps I should have been more clear. Thanks for pointing out the inconsistency.

Sorry for the curt response, was busy. My point was simply that cron air (aka fliers) do not have quantum shielding and thus hydras are actually reasonable at dealing with them. Skimmers can be dealt with with other means as they do not have the hard to hit rule.

Flyers spend alot of time off the table, so if he is going to spend that time shooting at the AA guns, so be it. Meanwhile i'll be winning the ground war.

 mayfist wrote:
Flyers spend alot of time off the table, so if he is going to spend that time shooting at the AA guns, so be it. Meanwhile i'll be winning the ground war.

TL Tesla destructor is equivalent to 3 TL-autocannons. And NS can pretty easily get to side arc of your hydras. So you're taking 5.3 S7 hits on side armour for each NS necron player brings. So Necron player will most likely spend single turn killing all your hydras. Assuming 2 turns on table, 1 turn in ongoing reserves and average reserve distribution that leaves about 2.5 turns for those flyers to shoot at your army.

plus1jeremy wrote:Most flyers are AV12.

Of all the Codex flyers, 4 are AV12, 4 are AV11, and 1 is AV10, so no, most flyers aren't AV12. And given that Necron flyers are the most commonly seen also that puts the majority in the AV11 catagory. That being said, if you can't deal with AV12 flyers then don't bother trying to deal with them at all.

4 are AV12?

I see Stormravens and Vendettas and Valkeries. Whats the 4th?

 Grey Templar wrote:
4 are AV12?

I see Stormravens and Vendettas and Valkeries. Whats the 4th?

Heldrake.

 Ailaros wrote:
Yeah, hydras are fine. Especially if you know that a lot of other people play skimmer armies.

The problem with hydras, though, is two-fold. The first is that hydras perform poorly outside of their role of anti-flier and anti-skimmer. Secondly, autocannons aren't very high-strength weapons, which means that they will struggle against a lot of skimmers (tau and eldar ones come to mind), and, more importantly, they will also struggle against an increasing number of fliers (drakes, 'dettes, 'ravens), and that's the one thing that they're supposed to be good against.

There are other cheap things you can use (like lightning arc primaris psykers), and not-so-cheap things (like ogryn), but if you're not going to take vendettas to handle fliers, you might as well just focus on dominating the ground game. If you can take all of the ground objectives before your opponent pops their first scoring unit out of a flier, your opponent is going to have a very hard time of it.

Also, if your opponent is doing a necron flying circus, then perhaps what you really need is some guard artillery or something to blow up the likely very small pocket of stuff he has on the board while he waits for his fliers to arrive. I saw a guard player accomplish this feat two weeks ago. With the exception of an ark full of warriors and a lord on a chariot, everything else was in a flier. Guard player goes first. Top of turn 1, lascannons blow up the ark. Top of turn 2, stormies drop in and kill the chariot. A lascannon kills the lord, and a hellhound blows the warriors off the table. Nothing else that the necron player brought even got to hit the table.

You played this wrong its game turn not player turn. The necron player going 2nd had a chance to bring his reserves in.

As a guard player I run 2 hydra's in a squadron in every list. Its only 150pts and shoots 8TL autocannon and 6 heavy bolter shots a turn. Even though its snap fire you can still take out enemy transports. In addition how many armies dont have skimmer, fliers, or flying mc's? I also run an aegis with my mech guard it helps me stay alive with 4+ cover saves for both vehicles and unlucky guardsmen flung from their vehicles.

 Barksdale wrote:

 mayfist wrote:


I am going to pick up 3 hydra's to deal with cron air

Fliers are prime targets but will almost surely get to hit your hydras first.

This is why you go second and or bring a comms relay so you can reserve your hydra batteries and keep them off until the cron fliers arrive then roll on and shoot them down

 Red Corsair wrote:

 Barksdale wrote:

 mayfist wrote:


I am going to pick up 3 hydra's to deal with cron air

Fliers are prime targets but will almost surely get to hit your hydras first.

This is why you go second and or bring a comms relay so you can reserve your hydra batteries and keep them off until the cron fliers arrive then roll on and shoot them down

I'll do that