Can Warhounds take Witch Hunters above 12 models?

Reading Town Cryer #3 and on page seven they talk about the Warrior Priest seeking to "...add more Warhounds to his pack (which effectively increase the number of members in the warband beyond 12)."

O rly?

Seriously, I was wondering if I can do this.

no idea actually, i could check my TC, will try to get back on this, this weekend,

Mordheim Rulebook wrote:

Wardogs count towards the maximum number of warriors allowed in your warband.

Page 38.

I think witch hunters would be rather too good if dogs didn't count towards the maximum!

Now, that really is strange. I am sure that the warhounds which you can buy as warband members count towards the maximum number of models in your warband. I am not quite sure if the dogs you can buy as equipment do, but I they even they count.

The equipment dogs MUST count towards the maximum. Otherwise you could be running around with a 100 model Mercenary warband against all those warbands with no access to the dogs. Sounds unfair?

I'm getting the impression that Town Cryer is kind of unreliable for rules. I guess the rules were a little up in the air back then.

Yeah, sounds reasonable, cianty. And perhaps this guy in the TC did not really read the rules closely himself. After all, this quote is just from a background story.

Witch hunter warband is capped at 12 models with dogs included. This has been the understanding and ruling for 10 years. You can get hired swords that may increase the warband size (halfing cook and halfing cookbook) if needed and or hire a hired sword or DP.

So I can hire hired swords and they don't count towards my cap and if I hired a halfling cook I can get another henchman beyond that?

Correct, Hired Swords do not count against you for the maximum number of warriors in your warband (p. 105 of the rulebook), so essentially every warbands' maximum size is maximum size + however many hired swords are available to them.

You'd have to be really darn rich to really fill them out though.