How much talent Lads?

Greetings again all!

So, I've noticed a trend across most bands where Henchmen who have gained talent are many times greater than starting heroes.

The standard mercenary band is a classic example of this with swordsmen having the same stats as a champion but an additional ability and starting with 0 xp. Even a basic warrior with 1 upgrade will be on-par with starting champions.

So, the only potential advantages I can find to starting heroes is that they are heroes from the start (so early exploration) and they're broader range of skill tables? Though 2 skilltables of choice VS 3 that are pre-determined for you is a tough choice.

So, just sort of wondering what peoples takes on it all is? Is keeping a Hero slot open for promotions and replacing heroes until you've got a full repetoire of promoted henchmen a viable option? or have I missed something?

If you are lucky enough to have all Lads Got Talent Heroes your warband will be very tough indeed! But as an Orc player I can only start with 4 Heroes, so 2 slots are always kept free for LGT promotions.

Having said that if I loose a Hero and I can afford it I always replace them with another Hero. I just don't want to take the chance - exploration income is so vital to the ongoing success of a warband!

I'd always take up as many slots as possible with base Heroes units. The only exception is if my warband was going VERY well and could afford the loss of income. This has never happened for me though!

In my current campaign I was lucky enough to have two Henchmen promoted the turn that a Hero died so I have two promoted Henchmen which will hopefully become my best units.

Something very important to remember is that a henchmen can only be promoted if you already have the hero slots available. In other words, if you already have 6 heroes you have to decide to fire one before you roll for the henchman's advance. It's a bit of a gamble getting rid of a hero, only for the henchman not to get promoted.

I've really only seen promoted heroes excel when they are ghouls or flagellants and then in limited numbers. In our last campaign I lost 3 of my 5 starting heroes in the last 5 weeks of the campaign. I was lucky every week to promote a henchman but I wouldn't have chosen that path unless forced.

As catferret says above the rules prohibit the experiment unless you house rule to circumvent them. For example we allow players to fire a hero before exploration to create slots, but we use it mainly to replace lost starting heroes that were temporarily not available because of income. Several weeks ago I lost my 2nd orc shaman of the campaign in a disastrous defeat for the warband. I got lucky and rolled LGT but I later fired that hero in order to hire the shaman when I could afford it.

We decided to ignore that rule a looooong time ago. If you are at capacity and roll THGT, you have the option to sack someone. It really doesn't happen all that often, though. You do sometimes see the occasional youngblood booted.

I think the most promoted heroes I have ever had is three in my current Free Brotherhood warband, and it only started with four heroes so the first two promotions did fill available slots. But then I lost a cabin boy (poor Buckle) and replaced him with another, and then booted the replacement two games later when a dark elf crewman rolled a promotion.

Yes. We have decided in our most recent campaign to allow heroes to be fired (except for the leader which cannot be fired) at any point even after TLGT has been rolled with six heroes. This is our first campaign to try it and it hasn't really come up though.

In my experience it doesn't come up very often. And if a henchman isn't promoted at 2 or 5 experience, by 9 any hero they might replace is going to be advanced enough that the replacement isn't going to be a good idea (unless the hero is himself a replacement, as with the cabinboy I mentioned in my previous post).

The LGT Heroes are better than Young Bloods, and they can become better than your Champions, but usually you are better off keeping your starting heroes, and letting them level-up as normal.

I have played Ocrs, Lizardmen, Marauders and Reiklanders.

With Orcs you have 4 heroes so Getting 2 LGT early is so important, and by the time you get a 3rd or 4th LGT your Big'Uns are pretty advanced and it is not worth giving them up.

Lizardmen you want to get as many Hero Saurus as you can so it can be worth it giving-up skink Heroes for them. A Saurus with Strongman and a two handed weapon are wrecking machines, so getting as many as you can is worth it.

Marauder Champions are the same as Marauders but they have a +1 to strength. So if you get LGT at 2,5 or 9 they are going to be better, if it is at 14 then the Champion is better. Ofcourse if you have horrible stat bumps then the Champion gets a +1 to strength which I beleive is one of the best stat bumps.

Reiklanders or any Mercs really the Young Bloods are pretty weak, cheap but weak, so getting a good LGT is almost always better than them.

Youngbloods can develop nicely over time, though. But if I am fortunate enough to have two henchmen promoted early on, I will sack a youngblood.

One of my tricks with YBs is to take Weapons Expert as their first skill and then hand them a blunderbuss...

Rudeboy wrote:

The LGT Heroes are better than Young Bloods

Yoghurt is better than Young Bloods!

Heh, sorry. Mine are struggling to do anything useful at the moment and I just needed to vent!