Getting to know your protectors; The Hydra Trooper

[johndramey]

Host = Hello there folks and welcome to the first in our series of introductory pieces introducing you, the unwashed masses, to our quadrant's stalwart defenders. We here at Templar Talk Television, trademark pending, feel it is our duty to sing the praises of our beloved templar forces.

This episode will focus on Specialist first class Charles "Crispy" Fueglius. Welcome Specialist Fueglius for us, everyone!

What appears to be a 3.5 meter tall fully-armored Hydra clomps onto the stage to a smattering of applause

Host = Hey there Charlie. I can call you Charlie, right?

The host holds up the microphone expectantly to the Hydra armor while it stands inert.

Host = All right..... Well, um, Specialist Fueglius it is, then! Can you please introduce yourself and briefly explain what you do in the field?

The Hydra trooper continues to stand completely inert, the only movement a slight heat shimmer escaping from the barrel of its incinerator.

Host = By the law, why does this shi.... Ok folks, we here at T.T.T.V. are always prepared. Sometimes our guests get a little bashful and we have to be ready to keep you entertained, please direct your eyes to the screen behind us on the stage and watch the official Templar Naval brief on the Hydra trooper and his feared Hydra incinerator.

The stage lights dim and a large, ultra high definition screen flicks to life.
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The Hydra Trooper

Greetings brother, you have been selected for service in the Hydra Corps. Your bravery, dedication and fervor will serve you well. Few Templars can stand the awesome heat of the ultra high energy incinerators that the Hydra Corps employ. While the use of the weapon system is relatively simple, there are some things that you must master before being able to effectively employ this most devastating of weapon systems.

Your weapons system may seem rather archaic at first glance. After all, why should one coat a target in flames and let it slowly burn to death when a simple bullet will dispatch said target much more quickly and cleanly? The answer is simple, rifles are for the untrained simpletons in the Soldiering and Scouting Corps. We don't lump our brothers in the Neptune Corps in with those simpletons, so they are excepted from our ire. Put simply, Hydra incinerators do not simply shoot fire, they fire incredibly high energy plasma matter that can burn through all but the strongest of alloys in seconds.

With all that in mind, the weapon system should be employed in the role of an area-denier. How can the enemies of a squad get to that squad when there is a lake of molten plasma between them and the squad? The answer is simple, they can't. When used properly the Hydra trooper can be an amazingly strong defensive or offensive asset, trailing the squad and torching strategic junctions when necessary. The plasma that is ejected from the incinerator generally maintains its lethality for 10 to 15 minutes, which gives your squad mates more than ample time to continue with the mission.

All of this comes at a price, however. As a Hydra trooper your suit's carrying capacity is maxed out simply carrying your incinerator and it's required ammunition. You will not be issued any sidearm and will instead have to rely upon your suit and its augmented strength as a fallback. There is one extra perk to your Hydra's bulk and that is accuracy. Namely, you don't need it! The nature of your weapon is such that even a total miss will still envelope a target. As a Hydra trooper you can spend your time honing your more physical skills, evasion would always be helpful to avoid your enemies' attacks and strength will help you to rend them with your gauntlets.

Welcome to the Hydra Corps trooper, we here at command are sure that you'll serve the quadrant to the best of your abilities. 

[johndramey]

And for those of you that don't want to read through all of my bull up there, I'll make it short(er) and sweet(er) here.

What you want to do with the Hydra Troopers is this, use them as area deniers. Their plasma will kill lower level enemies outright as well as severely injure higher level enemies for quite a long time. Some things you want to keep in mind.

-The Hydra's special requires 0 AP, as a result you can use it after using all of your AP getting into position or fire it at anytime.
-The blast doesn't have to be target directly at an enemy, you can target it anywhere using the "special" button.
-The incinerator doesn't need accuracy at all! Sure, a direct hit deals a huge amount of damage, but an enemy will take damage from the plasma regardless of a hit or miss.
-Because ranged accuracy isn't needed at all, pump your Hydra trooper's evasion and/or melee attack rating. Evasion is what I recommend starting with as it helps your trooper survive longer.
-Tactically as a general rule I try to position the Hydra blocking any exit. This will funnel all enemies into closing and attacking the Hydra trooper. You can then position the hydra blast to cover the entire area starting just in front of the Hydra trooper. Instant lethal roadblock.

I hope this guide helps people to learn to love the Hydra as much as I do! Please use this thread to discuss the Hydra, suggest new strategies or plans for them, or comment about the guide! If you have another class that you'd like me to write up, or if you'd like to write up your own guide, let us know! I would be more than happy to write more up!

[Cory Trese]

A Hydra Leviathan Armor suit stands somewhere between 3.0 and 3.8 meters.

Templars are regular human sized peoples.

[johndramey]

Cory Trese - thank you for the correction on the size of the armor, I'll amend the post

[Cory Trese]

Jun 26, 2013 15:14:34 GMT -5 johndramey said:

Cory Trese - thank you for the correction on the size of the armor, I'll amend the post

No problem -- just trying to share the fun to Templars.

If you imaging that Leviathan as a 3m humanoid armor suit, the pilot contained within the torso in a half sitting position.

The Leviathan Suit's lower section is driven entirely by suit's internal activator, which is why the suit is so mobile in extreme gravity and also why it is slower to turn and move.

[johndramey]

Ah, so sort of like the light class of mechs from the Mechwarrior series. That's pretty cool, I always pictured the suits as an actual suit, meaning worn by a person. Now I can picture them as something similar to the Spider class of mechs instead of the general idea of a knight-in-armor.

[johndramey]

A small update!

Just wanted to post some visual examples of my strategy in use.

Figure 1: Obstructed open area defense

Here you can see my squad, this is during the second campaign in the Vestmarch series of campaigns. They were simply supposed to survive for 16 rounds. This may seem easy, but it's not. You'll generally start to run really low on ammo around the 12th round and have to fall back on melee attacks when possible.

With the Hydra you can set up kill zones. Normally my Hydra would be sitting back one square, creating a wall of Leviathan suits. Now, however, he has stepped forward one square and shot off his incinerator three times. You can see the three fields of plasma around my strongpoint. These fields of plasma will more than likely kill any xenos passing through them. Any xenos that survive will be weak enough that a Templar would be able to melee them to death with just one or two attacks with an unupgraded gauntlet.

Figure 2: Setting up a kill zone in hallways

This figure is pretty much showing the same thing, but in a hallway setting. The incinerator blasts thin out any incoming xenos.

If you follow these two examples for setting up kill zones in obstructed or tight quarters you can inflict huge losses on the xeno. The stupid buggers will charge right into your flames where they will most likely roast to death. As an abject lesson in this, here is the final kill sheet after the mission figure 2 was taken from. The objective was to kill 60 xenos. When you look at the sheet you'll probably wonder "I thought you said 60 kills?" Well, the game cannot keep track of plasma kills and credit them to the Hydra trooper. So, add up Marcus, Xavier, and Dexters' kills then subtract that figure from 60. What do you get?? 45 kills. That's how many my Hydra got. Pretty gnarly, eh?

9+1+5 = 15 (non-hydra kills) 60-15 = 45 (hydra kills)

[Cyrus]

I've started testing with a Hydra now and the Berserkers are already grumbling about how boring their job has become. But I do have some questions that I hope you might be able to answer.

First off, how long does the fire last? It seems that when bugs burn up they explode in a purple mess that obscures the flames, so it's hard to know whether the square is still on fire.

Second, when does the fire do it's damage? I've seen xenos stand in the fire, move out of it and then explode, so it seems to either apply damage at the start of the move or when moving into a new fire, but only check for death at the end of the move/turn? Does the Hydra get burned if he fills his own square with fire then immediately moves backwards?

Finally, how well do your Templars stand the fire? Can a Hydra with Shielding at 9 ignore the fire? Can a Templar with Shielding 4, or one with Shields 0 but Wards installed?

[Cyrus]

My conclusions after some suicidal experiments:

- Fire has (at least) two intensities, 1 being shown by a flame in the center of the square and 2(+) by a full square of fire.
- Fire has a random chance to diminish each turn, from 2 to 1 or 1 to 0 (out). Alternatively, it might get 2-5 turns, generated at the start for each square, and always diminish each turn.
- Aliens dying on a square seem to diminish the fire by 1
- If you hit an alien with gun or melee, the splash of blood *behind* it will overwrite the fire completely! (Tested by a very brave Templar stepping on it and staying there)
- Full squares of fire are NOT safe with shielding 4 and wards.

Have you seen the same, johndramey?

[johndramey]

Hey there Cyrus, sorry about the wait there. I tend to check the TB forums from my phone, but when I want to write a longer reply I wait until I get back to the office so I can use a proper keyboard.

First off, welcome to the Hydra corps brother! Glad that you are finding them helpful, I tend to love the little buggers (as you can see from my thread).

You've pretty much answered all of your own questions, but I can toss in my two cents as well. As far as how long does the plasma fire last, well it seems to be pretty random. You're 2 -> 1 -> 0 system is pretty much what I've figured as well. In my experience the fires are usually good for 1-2 xenos each square, but due to the way xenos move in the game you'll have to be a little tactical in your placement of the blast.

As for damage, well I've always calculated damage as dealt when the xeno moves into a square containing plasma fire. You can see this when multiple xenos are moving in the same area, one will take a jump forward, the game will cycle to the next xeno in the line and, when it does that, more often then not the leading xeno will be just a little dusty pile of xeno barbecue. Your hydra can (and probably will in the beginning) damage himself and his teammates. A hydra troopers armor gives him extra protection from incinerator flames, but is by no means perfect. You can take massive damage, so my recommendation is to only deploy the weapon when you are sure that everyone is clear of the blast area. Of course, there are situations where you have to deploy the incinerator NOW in order to prevent more critical damage to your templars. In those kinds of situation you should always try to make it so your templar (whoever the unlucky sod that gets stuck in the plasma storm) can escape the plasma flames in one turn. I've noticed that each turn in the flames re-checks for damage, so if you turn your trooper twice and take a single step back there is a potential for 3 separate damage checks. It's always better to escape as fast as possible even if it leaves you open to xeno attack, remember that your templar is going to be acting like a plug and keeping the xenos in the plasma flames. Better to sacrifice one templar for the team than allow a single xeno free reign in your squad.

And, blood will cancel out the flames. As such, always let the buggers burn!

Any other questions, observations, or just general "Man these guys rule" then please post it here!

[Cyrus]

I've actually found it very easy to not burn my own troops. It may help that I'm still using an incinerator with a splash of 2. But I think what makes the most difference is that I'm very proactive about it. 90% of the time I burn empty hallways in anticipation of the xenos' arrival. If a xeno does make it to the Hydra, it's somebody else's target, or the Hydra puts his fist in.

[johndramey]

Cyrus - Bingo! If you are a bit proactive about your incinerator usage and aren't afraid to get your fists a little dirty then you can easily manage your plasma droppings. I tend to try to get bigger splash incinerators because they allow more bang for your ammo buck, but smaller splash incinerators definitely have their place with a more mobile team.

I mostly use my Hydra as a rear guard unit, so big splash = big damage.

[slayernz]

Oh oh ... I have a question for the Hydra expert on stage. Is it true that hydra's very seldom actually hit things with their flame - it being suppressing cover-fire and all? Does that mean the build for the hydra squad member goes about differently? Instead of pumping points into "Range" (because you're not actually hitting anything), do you pump your XP into Evade?

In other words, would you get more benefit having a Hydra specialist with 20 Ranged points and 5 Evade, or 5 Ranged and 20 Evade?

[johndramey]

I can only speak from my experience, but I typically don't put any points into ranged at all. I generally will stick XP in skills in this order;

1. Tactics until I can get the full 6 AP (remember that Hydra armor minuses 1, so your max is actually 5)
2. Strength until it's maxed out.
3. Evasion till the total score of Strength + Evasion = 10
4. After that, alternate Warrior or Evasion.

This gives me an unstoppable, hulking, yet slightly retarded Hydra that can flash fry any xeno that is a safe distance away and pummel those that get too close into pulp.

[slayernz]

Cool my rookie Hydra has gone through his first two campaigns. I pumped points into the Quickness box rather than tactics ... even with no need to actually open your eyes when you pull the trigger, old habits die hard. I need to up his armor though - the first thing I gave him was one of those Plasma Incinerators, and his first response was "ooo, Shiny". The Major was smart enough to paint the trigger button with a florescent spray so ole Pyro knew what button to press.