Does anyone still have the special Hydra rules?

[Saintofm]

This will probably be showing my age, but when I first got into the hobby there were three special hydras GW allowed in friendly games they had on their website.

I figure it was to promote the hobbying side, but they looked fun.

So does anyone still have a copy of those rules for:

The Royal Hydra: Tougher armor, acid blood that does damage to enemy if its wounded but because of how traumatized it is from its transformation, it could go stupid if it takes too many wounds.

Back story I remember: If a hydra does something amazing, the Witch King has the two beastmasters and the hydra brought to him and they have a wild party where the witch king showers them with food, gifts, and enchantment spells. Then after a weak, he feeds the beastmasters to their beast. The hydra beguines a painful transformation, its blood and breath attack becoming acid ala the Xenomorphes from Alien and it grows extra hard bony plates (at the time they model they showed was kitbashed with hydra and a Carnefex). The new royal hydra rarly sees the light of day as they are that precious to the witch king, but if a general prooves their worth they may be gifted one.

Forget the name, but the Sorceress only one: Basicly slightly weaker build but had magic resistance, and had to have a sorceress to field it.

Back story: In a battle so feirce that 10 hydras were brought along (probably a 10000 point game back then) Rakarth went to invade Ulthuane, but 3 archmages wiped out his army. Only one of his hydras stayed their ground and lived, adn that one he gave over to the Covenants to enchant it. This new hydra was retired and became a stud, producing a rare 1 in 10 hydra with its abilities. Though weaker, this 1/10 chance hydra is highly magic resistant, and a prize to the covenant.

Veteran Hydra (I think): Basicly a hydra with a trick it randomly picks at the start of every game.

After a while, a hydra has been to war so long its learned a few tricks or had certain enchantments, ranging from "fetching" an important enemy (basically it can challenge characters) to having enchantments to better camouflage it.

[triouto]

I have those rules somewhere..If memory serves they were in the Warhammer Annual 2002, gotta check when I get back home.

[triouto]

Yeah Annual 2002. There's rules and fluff for a Royal Hydra "Malekiths Chosen", The Spellthirster "Rakarths Vendetta" and Veteran War Hydra "The Claws of Khaine". Was there something specific you wanted to know?

[Archamedius]

Considering the out of print, long out dated and no longer tournament legal nature of the rules being sought here, I wonder if it would be acceptable to reprint them? I for one would like to see them again too.

[Kurze]

I shall have a look through my dusty old books. 2002 annual you say? Will start there!

[Amboadine]

Thank you for the reminder that those rules existed. Was also taking a look at the Dark elf city army.

[Saintofm]

As for what I want, generally everything.

More specifically about the extra points you're spending on the upgrades for all three.

Its more for a fluffy story thing then anything game wise, but I always wanted to try a royal hydra.

[Amboadine]

Give me an hour or so and I will post a few highlights for you.

[triouto]

I guess its ok to post point costs and rules about something this old then..a mod feel free to delete this post if not.

The royal one is +35pts, 3+ scaly skin, S2 breath wpn that ignores armor..when at 3 or below wounds, subject to stupidity

Spellthirster is +20pts, MR2, units within 6" get MR1, high magic spells that are dispelled with the help of this aura get destroyed on 4+ (ooold MR rules). It's also -1WS/-1A/-1S on the statline (physically weakened by morathi's rituals), sorc of at least lvl2 must be present in army

Veteran is +25pts, and there's the D6 roll at the start of battle. The D6 roll result table is 1,5 pages long, cba to write it in whole atm. It's basically

1-fetch: nominate enemy char as target, get +D6"/+1S+1A boosts when charging/fighting him, hydra can challenge the character in question
2-escort: nominate friendly unit to escort, if the unit is charged hydra can make a free move before moving the chargers (not a countercharge, just a free move)
3-battle lover: 2D6" extra move after deplo, before any other movement
4-chameleon skinned: -1 to BS shooting, on arti shooting DE player gets to roll his own arti dice and pick one of the 2 to use
5-bloothirsty: must always move towards the closest enemy as fast as possible, must always charge closest chargeable unit friend or foe, D6 extra attacks
6-khaine smiles upon you: pick one of the above

Interesting rules all..and easily adaptable to current edition for friendly games =) You got a mammoths memory btw, the fluff part was pretty much as you wrote =) I only remembered this at all because I recently leafed through a boatload of my old GW material.

[Amboadine]

There you go in brief based on current Hydra
Royal Hydra
+35 pts.
+4 BS
+1 W
A=5
3+ save
S2 breath weapon ignores armour saves
Splashback - any unsaved wounds it suffers cause a S2 hit on the attacker with no armour save
Mentally scarred - Once below 3 wounds it has stupidity tested on handlers Ld

Ah beaten to it.

[Underway]

@Saintofm: You read my mind. I'm going to go through old Druchii Rules and reprint them here with updated stats - just for fun. Here is the first of the series Mengil Manhyde's Manflayers. The hydra was next on my list of redo's then the city guard rules, which are really old as well. Should be entertaining.

[Dangerous Beans]

We should put these in the Ideas Forum under a sticky so they don't disappear down through the pages of the ever popular Druchii Discussion topics - can easily refer to them that way!

Might be able to hunt down my White Dwarf copy when they first arrived - will photo them if I find them so you have a permanent record...

[Underway]

Found the city guard list, its in WD 263. Still looking for the Watchtower list and the hydras in my WD collection. Standby for updates!

** first edit, found Watchtower patrol list, WD 258**

[Saintofm]

Thanks for the help and the compliments.

I figure to be fair, if I use them in friendly games these guys will go into the rare slot. Or would special still work?

City guard, and maybe some city and the watch towers would be great as well!

And yes, sticky this, that would be awsome!