Tactician vs Hunch

Hi,

We're in the middle of a campaign where we're allowing all of the TC content to be used. I just gained a new skill on my warband leader and figured I'd try one of the new deployment skills out. However, I'm not sure which one will work out better for me and I'd like to ask you for your experiences with them.

The two skills are these:

Tactician: In any scenario the warband leader may reposition his warriors after his opponent has set up and may even advance them up to 12 inch onto the board instead of 8 inch.

Hunch: In any scenario the warband leader may position up to 3 of his men capable of earning experience in any ruined building on the board that is at least 12 inch away from an enemy model and not in the enemy deployment zone.

I'm playing undead so hunch would only work with ghouls. My first thought is that tactician offers more advantages since it'll bring my entire warband closer but hunch could let you pull some useful disruption moves. Of course it's probably best to just get both but I can't guarantee I'll get a skill on the next advance so I need to decide on which one to go with first.

Thanks!

Normaly I would prefer Hunch, getting 3 snipers in a building from the start is great, but with undead I can see Tactician might be better, especially if you use zombies.

In your case I would choose Tactician, and see how it works out.

-Skavenslayer

If you have hired swords (like the Imperial Assassin, who is great for the undead) then Hunch will also work for them, which could really make it worthwhile. Otherwise I'd go with Tactician for the living impaired warband.

I don't think you can use hunch on your imperial assassin once they reach 14xp

By the letter of the rule I think you're probably 100% correct.

By the spirit of the rule you might get lynched if you tried to argue that point here. Most of us have been playing since the game came out and have that you're much better off doing what makes sense rather than worrying over much about exact interpretations or even "balance". Like most GW games it's not at all a good one for the overly competitive types.

Phantasmal_fiend wrote:

I don't think you can use hunch on your imperial assassin once they reach 14xp

Do you say this due to the wording "the warband leader may position up to three of his men capable of earning experience"? Surely that simply refers to warriors rather than animals/monsters that are sometimes part of warbands.

RationalLemming wrote:

Phantasmal_fiend wrote:

I don't think you can use hunch on your imperial assassin once they reach 14xp

Do you say this due to the wording "the warband leader may position up to three of his men capable of earning experience"? Surely that simply refers to warriors rather than animals/monsters that are sometimes part of warbands.

I totally agree RL

RationalLemming wrote:

Phantasmal_fiend wrote:

I don't think you can use hunch on your imperial assassin once they reach 14xp

Do you say this due to the wording "the warband leader may position up to three of his men capable of earning experience"? Surely that simply refers to warriors rather than animals/monsters that are sometimes part of warbands.

Agree, I would say he is still capable of earning experience, and STILL recive experience, but is just at his max.

Like pouring water in a cup.. Just cause its full and water is overflowing, dont change how the cup works..

-Skavenslayer

+1 for the 'he earns it, but just can't do anything with it' interpretation.

I would recommend getting Hunch because it is generally more useful in winning objectives, even if it is only your ghoul henchmen that will benefit from it e.g. putting the vamp and two ghouls deep in the map to collect wyrdstone in Wyrdstone Hunt is good for a laugh. It also facilitates exploring your enemies buildings when looking for the chest in Hidden Treasure. Then there is things like Surprise Attack, Lost Prince, Chance Encounter, etc. that can take decent advantage of the skill.

Also, if you are playing against Skaven that think it is funny to infiltrate all over the place, Hunch can be used for Infiltrate denial (Infiltrate can't set up closer than 12" to enemy).

We play rules as written(RAW), rather than rules as intended, and once a precedent has been made on one rule I'm obliged to carry on that same precedent to all rules (within reason).
I agree that when it was written it was most likely intended for brainless creatures and animals.
@friedrich I too have been playing mordheim since it came out about 16 years ago and there has been no problem with playing this rule as written.
I believe it forces players to have to choose different people to infiltrate once they max out.
fluff-wise once a warrior has maxed out on xp they are either too valuable or stubborn to go out on a leaders hunch of what MIGHT be a good idea.
I'm not saying any of you guys are wrong for your interpretation, just that the skill works well RAW.

Thanks for the input!

I'm still torn over this choice. It will depend on whether or not the two skills allows the warband leader himself to also be specially deployed. They specify "his men" which does not include himself. Do we have any clarification on this anywhere? If hunch lets you start with the vampire in a forward position it could be a pretty big thing.

Edit: In the same vein as above it does sound like tactician won't let the warband leader himself re-deploy or move further than 8'' in on the board?

My group is pretty RAW, but even so I think you would be hard-pressed to convince any of us that a leader is not his own man. Unless they were a woman. Or Skaven, or what-have-you.

In any case, we have always allowed the leader to be subject to both of these skills and it hasn't made anything unfun.

I ended up going with tactician and it has proved to be quite helpful. Now my vampire has another new skill to pick, however, and I'm considering adding hunch to the repertoire. How have you guys played the interaction between tactician and hunch? Will the hunched warriors be possible to move around with the tactician skill, even to another hunchable location? Reading the two skills tells me that it's probably possible to do that but perhaps that's been found too good to allow?

Nope. Not by me and mine, anyway.

We found that it is best not to try and streamline deployment with them either, especially if someone has Infiltrate. Just go through each of the phases exactly RAW.

My group on the other hand has banned the use of all of the 'extra' skills from that article. More poorly thought out rules are hard to find. [Well, actually probably not, but these are supposedly official which should hold them to a higher standard.]

Von Kurst wrote:

My group on the other hand has banned the use of all of the 'extra' skills from that article.  More poorly thought out rules are hard to find.  [Well, actually probably not, but these are supposedly official which should hold them to a higher standard.]

We haven't outright banned them (or much of anything else to be honest) but we tend to steer clear of most of them by mutual consent. If someone where to take them they might get dirty looks, unless the skill just "fit" with the hero in question.

Von Kurst wrote:

My group on the other hand has banned the use of all of the 'extra' skills from that article.  More poorly thought out rules are hard to find.  [Well, actually probably not, but these are supposedly official which should hold them to a higher standard.]

We did the same thing. We didn't feel they would really add anything good to the game, but others might be of a different opinion of course.