How do you counter Hydras?
 

Quick question: How do you counter Hydras?

Re: How do you counter Hydras?
 

Any combinations of the following will help:

Curse
Mass casting of Raise Skeletons
Archers (*bonus with flaming arrows)
Mechanical Men
Living Statues
BaneLord Thugs (equip appropiately)
Summer Lions (expensive yet they work)
Living Air (Air Elementals work for preventing retreating too)
Wolven Winter for the province they enter... thus they receive massive increase for encumberance. (Endo's correct... changed to Wolven Winter.)

Re: How do you counter Hydras?
 

Quick answer, archers, but you need some blockers of some kind.

Re: How do you counter Hydras?
 

I think the last one would be Wolven Winter, not Murdering Winter.

Having anything that is immune to poison and enough protection or numbers to keep the hydras in place will help a lot; almost all undead and many constructs fit the bill nicely.

Re: How do you counter Hydras?
 

Speaking from extended use of Hydras, the most dangerous thing for them, believe it or not, is Slingers. I know that sounds silly but its the truth. The trick there is that you can mass SO many of them and they just slaughter all the hydras heads without getting poisoned.

After that, you just need one block of decently strong infantry since the hydra's defense/prot is quite low. They will make relatively short work of them with slingers/archers to back them up. Tho you will likely lose all those infantry, btw.

NOTE: Do not use crossbows. You dont need damage power, just damage rate.

Re: How do you counter Hydras?
 

Rage or paralize spaming + arrows

Re: How do you counter Hydras?
 

fog warriors + rain of stones/earthquake.
problem solved.

Otherwise, archers, lots of archers.

Re: How do you counter Hydras?
 

Spamming undead + archers works pretty well too.

Re: How do you counter Hydras?
 

Just curious, which race can build or summon hydras? I can't remember seeing them in the spell list for any summonings.

Re: How do you counter Hydras?
 

EA Sauromatia, MA Pythium and LA Pythium (sacred hydras). There's also a magic site that allows recruiting them

Re: How do you counter Hydras?
 

The site only allows recruitment of hydra hatchlings, which are quite useless.

Re: How do you counter Hydras?
 

The sacred Hydras of LA Pythium are quite nice. Put a little extra regen on them with your bless (N), maybe W9 too for defense and quickness, and they are awesome.

Also, the afore mentioned tactics still work against them though. Skelly spam will eventually kill them, and a ton of slingers does a nice job on them too.

Re: How do you counter Hydras?
 

How many slingers do you need per hydra? Slingers don't do much good in my tests. The main head has more protection than the lesser ones, so they seem to regenerate too fast for the slingers to do much damage.

Also, why are hatchlings even in the game? They seem to serve no purpose whatsoever. Aside from looking cute and venomous.

Re: How do you counter Hydras?
 

Well, they are only size three so they can blend in with cavalry. Hydras often get targeted by nasty spells first because of their size (6). And yes, even hatchlings can be effective with body ethereal and similar.

Re: How do you counter Hydras?
 

despite of the rate of fire problem, xbow worked well in my previous games against hydra. Slingers don't work too well unless you have loads of them. Anyways I can't help but think hydras were designed to be countered by rain of stones spell, 14damage-8protection=6(HP of hydra).

Casting body ethereal on hatchlings? just which astral mage is going to stand next to a dozen hydra and cast ethereal on them?

Re: How do you counter Hydras?
 

I was reading an old thread on Hydras and they decided that baby hydras are for cuddling.

I think it would be really neat if baby hydras started with "old age" but if they got diseased as a result they would instead turn into adult hydras. Pythium with a death scale. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Re: How do you counter Hydras?
 

An astral mage with one of those cheap snake rings perhaps...

Re: How do you counter Hydras?
 

yes, but then you'd better equip them with Robe of missile protection as well, since the hatchlings will be targeted by the archers (and other nasty spells)...IMHO it's not really worth the trouble.

Re: How do you counter Hydras?
 

Lol, I'm not telling you to use only hydra hatchlings. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Re: How do you counter Hydras?
 

LA Pythium gets poison-immune mages who get astral some of the time.

Re: How do you counter Hydras?
 

seriously though, the idea of standing next to a multi-headed Lernaean Hydra makes me skin crawl http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/laugh.gif

Re: How do you counter Hydras?
 

I use the cute little ones for bodyguards for my Serpent Priests. Not so much for effectiveness... though they are effective bodyguards. Mostly cause they look cute on the battle field.