Re: Dealing with Hydras
 

Blindfighters is LA Agartha, right?

Do you have Enchant-3 for skelly spam Necros? With a big poison-immune undead shield you should do okay. 30 Hydras takes a while to build up, so you might have been able to get Evok-4 to blast them with a few Blade Winds before your chaff stops their advance on the battlefield.

Then you can switch to Magma Bolts or Farstrike etc, depending on the randoms on your Necros and what you have researched.

Fight in cold provinces if you can. If you've got friendly neighbors too in an MP game you could have them send you a Snake Ring for your god, and cast Wolven Winter to make your battle province colder.

Also, recruit some light crossbowmen. They've got bad precision, so you need lots to make sure some bolts land in the squares where the Hydras are. But Hydras are size-6, no shield obviously, so they're pretty vulnerable to missile fire. 'Fire Large Monsters' to avoid shield decoy tricks.

Re: Dealing with Hydras
 

I'm close enough to Enchant-3 or Evo-4 to reach them in one turn of research. What about Thau-4 for Plague? That seems like a really good spell for dealing with them to me.

I've actually got cold3 scale, so that's a bonus.

Re: Dealing with Hydras
 

fire shields tear the hydras up as well since they have so many attacks and a low prot value, if you can get a high-prot thug with PR...they don't have stellar strength scores either, so it's not THAT hard to get something that can stand up to them for a few rounds while they burn themselves to death.

Re: Dealing with Hydras
 

Terror is also a good choice. It causes them to run, which means that you can drive them back into their own forces. Its not as good as a kill, but its not bad.

Re: Dealing with Hydras
 

Objectively speaking, what the hell frightens a 9 headed, 12-ton, poison-spitting dinosaur?

Re: Dealing with Hydras
 

Spiders. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/laugh.gif

Re: Dealing with Hydras
 

Little hairy and mean dude named Heracles. Rename your commander after him before sending him to battle Hydras, and watch Hydras rout instantly. It's a little easter egg left in the game by developers.

Re: Dealing with Hydras
 

Like K said, if you're a turn away from Thau-4, then Terror is great, especially if your skelly spam is holding the Hydras.

Each hydra can kill one square of skellies a turn, but the hydras are unlikely to all be in a line. Don't be skimpy with your mages, you need a lot of spam.

If you have to choose between Evok-4 and Thau-4, I'd go for the blade winds. Summon Lammashtas is also an option. They are PR 100%, and may decide to fly over to attack the commanders. If the hydras chased the Lammashtas to the read, it could be pretty much a disaster for Pythium. So if you've got Conj-3 already, then you've got to decide between Conj-4, Evok-4, and Thau-4.

Plague is Thau-7. And I'd be leery of using that with non-undead on my own side.

Bring some blindfighters to the battle on Guard Commander, enough to make sure you don't auto-route when all your PD gets killed.

Re: Dealing with Hydras
 

In CBM, plague is Thau-4. I think it may be useful, but only as a little bit of constant tick damage.

I've already got the Lammashtas, and was considering using them. Bladewind is probably ideal for this situation too, but is so fatiguing.

Re: Dealing with Hydras
 

I meant Bladewind for the Cyclops only, not for your Necros. An E9 Cyclops can cast 3 or 4 before worrying about wiping out your own skelly spam, if everyone's at the back.