Hail, Hydra! Immortal Hydra! We shall never be destroyed! Cut off one head, two more shall take its place! We serve none but the Master—as the world shall soon serve us! Hail Hydra!

–The Hydra Oath

Rising from the ashes of World War II, Hydra became one of the most powerful organizations ever known. Its poisonous tentacles spend across the Earth. They will stop at nothing short of global domination.

Hydra Level

Some Villain Groups also try to rise through the ranks of the Hydra organization, achieving higher Hydra Levels and ever-greater power. To do this, they help Hydra operatives achieve their missions and escape the city unharmed. They also subvert double agents to infiltrate S.H.I.E.L.D., then escape it with key intel.

Advanced Idea Mechanics or A.I.M., is the scientific branch of Hydra made up of scientists who are as brilliant as they are diabolical. They are the suppliers of technology and arms to all manner of evil organizations.

• The Hydra Level is the number of S.H.I.E.L.D. and/or HYDRA cards in the Escape Pile.
• Some Villains and Masterminds say things like “Growing Man gets + equal to the Hydra Level.”
• Like S.H.I.E.L.D Level, this includes any card with the or team icons, as well as any card with “S.H.I.E.L.D.” or “Hydra” in its card name, Villain Group name, or Mastermind name.
• Some abilities put cards directly from S.H.I.E.L.D. Officer Stack into the Escape Pile to increase the Hydra Level. This is not an “escape” unless it’s a Villain escaping from the city, so it won’t KO a Hero of cost 6 or less from the HQ.

Adapting Masterminds

The Hydra Super-Adaptoid and the Hydra High Council constantly adapt their tactics to attack the Heroes in new ways. Accordingly, each of these Masterminds is a new “Adapting Mastermind” with 4 different Master Strikes.

• A normal Mastermind has a Mastermind card and 4 Mastermind Tactic cards. An Adapting Mastermind instead has just 4 Mastermind Tactic cards. Whichever Tactic is currently on top of the stack of Tactics counts as the current Mastermind card.
• Say you are using Hydra Super-Adaptoid as your Mastermind. Keep all his Tactics in a face up stack. Use only the rules on that top card, ignoring the rest of the cards in the stack.

• Whenever an Adapting Mastermind does a Master Strike, it says “Adapt” at the end. This means “Shuffle the Mastermind Tactics and randomly put one on top, face up.” You might randomly pick the same Tactic that was previously on top, or it might be a different Tactic.
• Likewise, when you fight an Adapting Mastermind, you always fight the Tactic currently on top of the stack. You ignore all the card abilities and bonuses that are not currently on top of the stack. The “Fight” ability also says “Adapt” at the end. So you put the Tactic you just fought into your Victory Pile, do it’s Fight effect, then shuffle the remaining Tactics and randomly put one on top, face up.  

New Schemes

And finally here are two of the new schemes to give you one last taste of what is to come.

The Hail Hydra scheme forces the players to declare their allegiance. Which will it be? S.H.I.E.L.D. or Hydra, fight or recruit?

The Secret Empire of Betrayal uses five extra hero cards to form a Dark Loyalty deck. When a twist is played will you be rewarded for your loyalty with an additional hero or will you be betrayed and one step closer to defeat!

We hope you enjoyed the previews of Legendary®: S.H.I.E.L.D. It hits stores December 18!