Experimental rule: Heroic Henchmen experience bonus

I'm looking for any input on this experimental rule -- maybe somebody already has come up with something like this, I'm not sure (there are a lot of Mordheim house rules out there).

Heroes of course gain +1 experience for every enemy they take out of action, which is good, as they are heroes after all. And leaders gain an extra +1 experience for winning. But henchmen just gain +1 experience for surviving -- there's just a couple of scenarios where they can gain 1 more point for doing something, but for the most part that's it.

So my idea is to give henchmen groups an opportunity to gain one more experience point per battle (and only one more -- heroes should advance faster). This encourages more aggressive play, and it also would encourage using actual groups, as opposed to five one-man "groups" in an attempt to max out the "lad's got talent" rolls.

Here it is:

experience

+1 Heroic Henchmen. If a Henchman group takes an enemy Hero out of action, they gain +1 Experience. The Henchman group cannot gain a further bonus for taking additional Heroes out of action in the same battle.

Let me know what you think.

Well, I think that it sounds interresting, if you decide to test some games with it I would much like to hear how it played out.

When I first started playing Mordheim, we accidentally gave henchmen extra XP for taking enemy out of action and that made henchmen INSANELY good - I would be reluctant to give henchmen even just one more experience point for a few reasons:

1. They can only advance so much and gaining 1 point per battle seems to be about right.

2. Henchman groups can consist of 5 models! That's basically 5 XP for taking one hero out of action.

3. There are some BIG henchmen that can earn experience (Ogres, Minotaurs, etc.) that would be getting this bonus pretty much every game.

I think allowing the henchman to automatically get "The Lad's Got Talent" if he "levels-up" after a battle in which he took a hero OOA may be a better way to proceed.

Do what you like, though, because it is YOUR game - and let us know how it goes!

I think it's a good idea, and personally I dont' see it breaking the game or henchmen or anything. Even if they advance to max XP very quickly (which, of all henchmen in the game, the minotaur probably will) then what happens? he has 4 advancements. it will take him 7 games to get there, minimum. Compare that with the xp that most heroes will have gained in 7 games - I'm not worried about henchmen growing too strong too fast.

CygnusMaximus wrote:

2. Henchman groups can consist of 5 models! That's basically 5 XP for taking one hero out of action.

This one in particular really doesn't seem like a problem. If anything, it's a downside for the person gaining all the xp, because it inflates their rating.

Thanks, Myntokk, I don't see a chance at one bonus point per battle for Henchmen as breaking the game either, especially if we switch the +1 Attack to +1 Toughness on the Henchman advance table, as recommended in the other thread.

Some good points, Cygnus, those are valid concerns.

My main goals with this would be:

1) Give some slight reward to Henchmen for actually accomplishing something in a battle, beyond the one point they always get for doing nothing more than getting clubbed over the head and then avoiding a roll of 11-15 afterwards.

2) Give a bonus to larger Henchman groups, which don't have the advantage of taking multiple cracks at "Lad's got Talent" that a bunch of one-man "groups" will get.

To mitigate your point #3, perhaps I could edit the rule as follows:

experience

+1 Heroic Henchmen. If a Henchman group takes an enemy Hero out of action, they gain +1 Experience, so long as at least one member of the group avoids going out of action during the battle. The Henchman group cannot gain a further bonus for taking additional Heroes out of action in the same battle.

This way, a Rat Ogre or Minotaur could get the bonus experience point for taking out a Hero only if they avoid getting knocked out themselves, and they do make inviting targets ...

Fair enough, MeanBone - let me know how it works out!

Will do! About half-way done painting four warbands (and a handful of hired swords), then starting a campaign with my daughter

I like this idea as well. We used to play something similar. It was USUALLY not a problem. If you want a tamer idea, try implementing the BloodBowl MVP rule:

If one or more of your henchmen groups takes an enemy hero out of action and the model which accomplished the deed does not go OOA himself, ONE of those groups gains 1xp. Should this generate an advance, that group may add +1 to the advance roll if they wish.

This is similar to what we will be using in our next campaign. Basically we are going to give +1xp to ANY model (Henchman or Hero) that takes an enemy Hero OOA. However, this is tied to voluntary routing so if a warband voluntarily routs they lose this 'bonus' xp. In this way we hope to give a bonus to taking enemy Heroes OOA (especially useful for Henchmen) and at the same time make voluntary routing less attractive.

Also, I don't have a problem with large henchmen types (e.g. ogres, minotaurs, etc) getting this bonus experience even if they do go OOA. This is because they are generally expensive and have a 33% chance of dying when they go OOA. At least if they do go OOA and survive they get some additional benefit to being sent into the thick of combat.

I would add the no xp bonus if you voluntarily rout, as well. Thank you, I missed that.

That's a great point about penalizing voluntary routing by taking away bonus experience. That should encourage people to only give up if they're really getting pounded (or about to get pounded), not quitting while they're ahead.

RationalLemming wrote:

This is similar to what we will be using in our next campaign. Basically we are going to give +1xp to ANY model (Henchman or Hero) that takes an enemy Hero OOA. However, this is tied to voluntary routing so if a warband voluntarily routs they lose this 'bonus' xp. In this way we hope to give a bonus to taking enemy Heroes OOA (especially useful for Henchmen) and at the same time make voluntary routing less attractive.

Also, I don't have a problem with large henchmen types (e.g. ogres, minotaurs, etc) getting this bonus experience even if they do go OOA. This is because they are generally expensive and have a 33% chance of dying when they go OOA. At least if they do go OOA and survive they get some additional benefit to being sent into the thick of combat.

I have been trying to brainstorm a way to penalize the preemptive rout, and i think you solved my problem! Thanks Lemming, you are indeed quite rational!

This will almost definitely end up in my Mordheim campaign. There are only a few scenarios that grant Henchmen XP apart from surviving and this really helps.

I have played in the past where all models capable of gaining XP were treated the same and it worked out well most of the time but it was manipulated by some more technical players who would kamikaze their henchmen knowing they just needed to roll a 3+ IF it was taken OOA. After a few games from these players, one or two of the henchmen groups were as good as heroes, if not better.

A limit of 1 MVP per game combined with no bonus XP for any auto-rout means there will be way less underhandedness, but will still encourage heroic play. Like I said, I love the way it works in Blood Bowl and it is easy to adopt here.

An addition worthy of mention would be that large models should count towards heroic deeds regardless of whether they are heroes or henchmen and obviously all hired swords & dramatis personnae count as well. Thoughts?

SiliconSicilian wrote:

An addition worthy of mention would be that large models should count towards heroic deeds regardless of whether they are heroes or henchmen and obviously all hired swords & dramatis personnae count as well. Thoughts?

Yeah large models sound good and definitely DPs. Not as sure about hired swords though... I guess they sit somewhere in the middle between Heroes and Henchmen so it would work.

The reason I say Hired Swords is that a lot of them gain skills that make them way tougher than henchmen.

Excellent point about including large models, dramatis personae and hired swords.

There is of course a way for Henchmen to gain HUGE amounts of experience that has come up time and time again in our campaigns: The Underdog Bonus! A couple of +5 games and they are not for from being maxed out!

Having said that I quite like the idea of giving a 1 XP (per game) MVP bonus to a Henchman group if you don't choose to run for it.

WarbossKurgan wrote:

There is of course a way for Henchmen to gain HUGE amounts of experience that has come up time and time again in our campaigns: The Underdog Bonus! A couple of +5 games and they are not for from being maxed out!

Having said that I quite like the idea of giving a 1 XP (per game) MVP bonus to a Henchman group if you don't choose to run for it.

I hear what you are saying...I am sitting at 210 and my next scheduled opponent has not played a game yet so he'll probably get a bounce. Rapid experience, overall, doesn't bother me unless it is abused on a regular basis. The idea formulated above promotes fairer play and more spirited play, rather than whining that nothing ever goes right and just voluntarily routing every game as soon as possible.