Hydra
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Hydra |
Prime This model is available in one Prime Army, Legions of Dawn. It can also be used in the Unlimited game mode. You can view the other Mk3 models that made it into a Legacy Army at this page. Note that the rest of this page is about the model's Mark III rules. |
House Shyeel has brought the power of its formidable myrmidons to the Retribution, fighting machines enhanced by sophisticated arcanika systems. The Hydra stores energy in its arcane batteries to unleash a torrent of crushing blows or a singularly powerful blast.
Contents
Basic Info
Hydra | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Warjack - All warjacks share the same set of special rules. Most notably being big and stompy. Click here for a newbie-friendly recap, or click here for the full rules.
Abilities
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Construct
- Field Dependent - While its Field Generator system is crippled, this model loses Kinetic Capacitor and can't attack with its Force Cannon.
- Focus Battery - During your Maintenance Phase, do not remove unspent focus from this model.
- Force Fields - This warjack has an extra damage track that takes damage first. Once per turn during its activation, this model can spend 1 focus point to remove 5 damage points from its force field damage track unless its Field Generator system is crippled.
- Kinetic Capacitor - When this model is hit by an enemy melee or ranged attack, after the attack is resolved this model gains 1 focus point.
Weapons
Force Cannon | ||||||||||||||
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RNG | ROF | AOE | POW | ||||||||||
12 | 1 | - | 12 | |||||||||||
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Force Fist (x2) | ||||||||||||||
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RNG | POW | P+S | |||||||||||
1 | 5 | 15 | ||||||||||||
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Theme Forces
- Defenders of Ios
- Forges of War. Hydras gains Shield Guard in this theme.
- Legions of Dawn. (1) In this theme Hydras can ignore friendly Dawnguard models when determining LOS, and it can advance through friendly Dawnguard models if it has enough movement to move completely past them. (2) If someone 'Jack Marshals Hydra in this theme, it gains Flank [Dawnguard].
- Shadows of the Retribution
Thoughts on Hydra
Hydra in a nutshell
It's a heavy warjack with a decent gun, and when fully fuelled is the longest on any Retribution jack, lagging only behind an aiming Arcantrik Force Generator, but when fully buffed, nothing can beat the Hydra for ranged threat in faction (out of theme, it can threaten up to a non-linear 33" (marshal'd to a Dawnguard Sentinel Scyir, Righteous Vengeance, walk and range/movement buffs from the AFG and Ravyn's Snipe and Locomotion), however unlikely it may be!). The focus investment to get the gun working at full-tilt can be a little off-putting, but Focus Battery completely offsets that, even when jack marshal'd if you're smart with your playstyle.
The Hydra's okay in melee, but quite weak in terms of both MAT (average) and P+S (on the low end for what is a somewhat expensive non-character heavy) and will often struggle vs other heavies, but Chain Attack Grab & Smash has great tactical applications such as knocking down enemies or throwing them out of scenario zones.
Combos & Synergies
- In Forges of War it gains Shield Guard, which enables you to trigger Kinetic Capacitator.
- Ravyn, as Snipe is a great tool to give this guy some annoying range, her feat also works wonders with the Hydra.
- Have him activate first. If the Hydra gets its two first punches in then whatever he knocked down becomes open season. Regrettably, to do this the Hydra either has to boost all three attacks, or his target was so low DEF that most other attackers would have hit it without needing it to be knocked down... but at least when knocked down one need not worry about the Target in Melee to hit penalty.
- Lord Ossyan has a great set of spells to help out our one-headed Hydra. Fortune for re-rolls on super long shots against hard to hit solos, and Shatter Storm for taking out piled up groups of troops (heh I made a rhyme).
- Scything Touch with Elara2 is exactly what you need to make his melee not only decent but useful.
- Due to not losing focus each round, it's a good jack to marshal - load it up with focus in the first turn then hold on to it unless you need to boost. The extra attack and +2 damage in melee doesn't hurt either.
- Under Thyron, the Hydra becomes extremely mobile, Sidestep/Assail helping deliver it further and reaching more targets. Assail is especially good on marshalled Hydras, as the can charge for free and thus receive the crush order for extra attacks and damage.
- Kaelyssa, Night's Whisper: Phantom Hunter has a number of good target jacks, but few, if any, are better than the Hydra, which allows a threat of assassination throughout nearly the entire game if there is a pair of Hydras on the board. The amount of board space two can cover can be very off-putting, with or without AFG's present. Against Warmachine, as well, the Hydras can pull their weight in combat without needing to worry about their chances of hitting (Kae can tag a heavy (or three!) with her gun to let them wade in without regrets).
- Goreshade4 wants his jacks to camp their focus as much as possible for his Field Marshal. The Hydra is designed around this concept already.
- Falcir - Full Throttle with three MAT 7 initials is quite potent.
Drawbacks & Downsides
- Well the sad truth of it is that there are better options. It can get long-range shots off and is focus efficient, but it only gets one shot. In melee its P+S is lackluster, and even Grab and Smash isn't much of a pro given the difficulty in triggering it without spending its entire Focus stack.
- RAT 5 makes the Hydra sad... meaning boosting to hit isn't an option, it's mandatory.
- Kinetic Capacitor is rarely relevant as when a clever enemy starts damaging the Hydra, they mean to destroy it (or at least remove its cortex)... yes, add all the focus... then take it all off again.
- So, by itself, it is good at is sniping out solos. That's a lot of points to waste on a solo-hunter.
Tricks & Tips
- Because of its Focus Battery ability:
- Figure out what you need to cast on turn 1, and anything leftover allocate to the Hydra - there's (almost never) no point camping focus on turn 1.
- If you have an Arcanist Mechanik with nothing better to do, use Empower on the Hydra (even if the Hydra has already activated).
- With the Kinetic Capacitor, you don't gain the focus until after the attack. So if the damage cripples either your Cortex or your Generator, you can't benefit.
Other
Trivia
- The Hydra is a reference (like most ret jacks) to a mythological monster. In this case the "Hydra" is referring to the three headed dragon beast that Hercules fought in his quests given to him by his father Zeus. The Hydra was a special monster as if it were to have one of its heads cut off two more would replace it making it one of the most famous Monsters in history. This likely relates to the Hydra's abilities Kinetic Capacitor and Force Battery: damage the Hydra and it simply builds its ability to strike back.
- Released in Forces of Warmachine: Retribution of Scyrah (Novermber 2009)
Other Retribution models
Rules Clarifications
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Rules Clarification: : Magical Damage (Edit) |
* The "Damage Type: Magical" is not inherited by "secondary" damage from a weapon. That is, stuff like arcs (Electro Leap) or hazards (Scather). (Infernal Ruling)
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Rules Clarification : Focus-Powered - None yet. (Edit)
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Rules Clarification : Chain Attack Grab & Smash (Edit)
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Rules Clarification : Open Fist (aka, Power Attack Throw) (Edit)
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Rules Clarification : Warjack (Edit)
Inert warjacks
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Rules Clarification : Construct - None yet. (Edit)
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Rules Clarification : Force Fields (Edit)
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Rules Clarification : Focus Battery - None yet. (Edit)
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Rules Clarification : Kinetic Capacitor (Edit)
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Rules Clarification : Field Dependent - None yet. (Edit)