How To Deal With Hydras

I like to bring 2 rock lobbas in every list. Sure, he has a 50% regeneration, but if I focus two lobbas on one hydra for 2 turns of firing, I usually am able to bring it down. Doom Divers are S5 while Hydras are T5, so they can work, too. Oh, they would have to regen each hit from the Doom Diver. So, a greater chance of getting some wounds in. Go with 2 of each war machine and you should take the hydra out pretty soon.

Question, though. The Handler rule. Would the Handlers also be considered under the hole and be take S9 hits? If not, make sure you do the splash damage against the handlers first and then do the main damage on the Hydra. You have a good chance of killing handlers with S3.

The handlers don't exist in the game beyond boosting its LD to 8 and giving extra attacks.

Stuff such as this is really my primary complaint against GW over the last 15ish years. Ever since they decided to release new editions but still keep legacy books in those editions things have been really stupid. Granted, they had some stupid stuff in the older editions as well, but you rarely had to deal with units that were not designed for the edition you were playing.

Now we regularly get a lot of units that were designed for previous editions and are either terrible in a new edition or way too good. With 8th it seems that a lot of units lean to being too good since they were made in a time where infantry attacks were reduced by casualties and not as great in numbers in the first place, where magic items were bundled in army books and the generic list was small, where thunderstomp did not exist, etc.

I like that they were willing to finally put a large revamp on the core rules system, but they really ought to get back to the practice of putting out "get you by" lists for the older armies until they redo their army books. Or just use their errata documents to actually put some modicum of balance into the older armies. Fix some of the junk stuff and tone down the stuff that ended up too good/cheap due to new rules. That would really not be overly difficult and it would go a long way to improving the game.

Oh well, I guess we are just stuck with hoping they fix the worst offender books first and actually hold to the current balance level they have put in place with 8th ed books (although to date they have not ever once been successful keeping army books roughly in line for a whole edition - in any game/edition they make).

Hell, they could even release updated FAQs for mulitple armies in a printed book format and make money off it...

Well, the Hydra was broken for the edition it was created for, too! Maybe more so.

For some reason that bothers me less than legacy books.

I know it was absurd last edition too, but that edition had a number of out of hand books which killed the edition in my opinion. Right now the only thing that I really feel hurts 8th is the legacy books. This may change as they put out more books. We may just trade busted legacy books for broken new books. That is certainly possible.

If that happens I generally attribute it to incompetence on the part of the rules designers or lack of central oversight for the design team. Historically I have a feeling that the inconsistencies in the army books for an edition come from not having a very good project manager running that games development - or the turmoil from replacing project managers. There needs to be someone concerned with the health of the whole edition/game rather than getting blinded by the brand-new shinies of the current book. GW does not seem to do that very well.

But keeping old army books in a brand new edition not written with those books in mind and then not rebalancing them FAQ is just flat-out laziness. But then again, we are talking about the company that has editors that miss things most of us find within a few minutes of cracking open a brand new book.