Being the newbie that I am, I took his word for it that he could afford the hydra. He and his dad have been some of my favorite opponents in the league. I will also say, he skipped his magic 2 or 3 times and went straight to shooting. I let him go back and do his magic phase cause this is a learning league, not a super competitive tournament, ya know? And that was REALLY not in my favor, but it was the right thing to do.
Yeah, my rolling on the salamander was horrible. No snack breaks, but only 1 of 3 shots landed on a target. He earned his points in close combat actually this game. I have played 3 games with him now and I am still getting a feel for distance. So far he has been spectacular once (killing more than double his points) and okay twice. One thing to note on him, I have only used him against these 2 DE players who only took one medium size block and kept it far away from the salamander. He's only been able to really attack minimum size units of elves so far...
If that hex hadn't hit my Scar Vet, the hydra probably would have only takes 2 turns. The hex with all those negative modifiers basically turned my Scar Vet into a Saurus champion with an amazing save.