Dave's Wintery War Hydra (225 pts)

To warm up for this challenge, I decided to start with just a single model, which left me with two choices—do I kick things off by painting the general right away (the dreaded Vakath alone is worth nearly 200 points, and I could easily throw in a scout to round it up), or should I get underway with the War Hydra (worth 225 points)? I'm a firm believer that the general should be the nicest looking model in your army, and knowing full well that I am a bit rusty in the painting department after years of neglect, I decided to go for the War Hydra instead. Besides, that would be simple, right? It's all scales and claws, after all. Well, it was quite a learning process nevertheless!

The fearsome War Hydra

This little guy took a lot longer than I had anticipated. For starters, there was a great deal of analysis paralysis when it came to choosing his colours. I ultimately decided for a "sea" theme to the army, allowing the force to play the role of commandos and marines, fighting on any terrain as necessary. With this in mind, I finally settled on blue and green for the army colours. At the same time, I also didn't want to do something that I had seen everywhere else, particularly with this hydra. Then I had the brilliant (so I thought!) idea... no matter what the model, you always see the raised areas painted more lightly (that is, "highlighted") and the recesses painted more darkly (that is, "shaded")... why not reverse this trend?

So I "hatched" (excuse the pun) the clever plan to do the opposite with my scaly little monster. His scales would be coal black, as if burnt to a crisp in the frigid winds of Naggaroth, while his underbelly would be bright and brilliant, showing through the cracks in the scales. Well, it took many tries to get this to look even close to what I was imagining. I hope you find this modest first attempt to be interesting!

Before I leave you, let's take a quick peek at the War Hydra's stats in Warhammer Fantasy Battle 4th Edition.

The Hydra is a many headed monster with a scaly, reptilian body. Its serpentine heads belch out smoky flame, but they can also attack by biting enemies with their sharp teeth, and crushing them in the coils of their necks. Their bodies are low and squat, heavily muscled and covered with thick scales which are as hard as iron.

Hydra scales are said to be even harder than dragon scales, and are much sought after to make suits of armour. Few men are foolhardy enough to ride such a creature yet there are tales of Chaos Champions riding Hydras into battle and of Chaos Sorcerers who cast their dark spells from the back of a multi-headed beast.

	M	WS	BS	S	T	W	I	A	Ld
Hydra	6	3	0	5	6	7	3	5	6

Hydras are tough customers indeed. Toughness 6 is no joke (needing a 6 to be wounded by most attackers) and 7 Wounds is phenomenal. The 5 Strength 5 Attacks means he is no slouch in combat either, something which is helped out by his fiery breathe and his ability to cause terror. Hydras strike me as a great substitute when you want something close to a Dragon in power but you don't want to spend the points. Admittedly, the scaly skin rule (which just gives them a 5+ armour save) is a bit of a letdown, given the description of the beast's scales in the background fluff. In 5th Edition, this got upgraded to an unmodified save, which made it much better (although the bound monster rules meant that the Hydra's poor Leadership was more of a liability in that edition).