Injuries for Big Guys (Rat ogres, Minotaurs etc)

Hi guys, did i read somewhere in the rules that big guys such as the rat ogre or the minotaur roll for injuries as if they were Heroes rather than henchmen or am i getting this confused with something else...

I can't find it written anywhere but my group is considering houseruling it this way to make the investment a little less risky, of course it may mean that they get a bit OP but i'm not sure... What do you guys think?

We play that a Rat Ogre (and Minotaur, I suppose) only dies on a roll of 1, not a 1 or 2, if it goes out of action. That gives it closer to a hero's odds of surviving, and for the 200 gold cost (or so), it seems more fair.

That seems reasonable, might see if the guys go for that

We allowed Big Guys to become Heroes, this was pretty unbalanced, it made for some bad ass hero zombies and Hero Big Guy vs Dragon fights. Its really gutting to lose a big guy after spending so much on them especially early on in the campaign, My beastmen became pretty op because its leader is a 90xp minotaur hero with magic artifacts in hindsight i would of just kept it normal dieing on 1-2 because when he finally was taken OOA they was a too gooder chance he would live.

I can follow the idea, since it's a big investment, but for me it's the same with the Leader of the warband - you play carefully with him, since he's a big investment and not easily replaceable, at least in the beginning. I tend to play very careful with both my leader and these big guys, since they're a big loss. For instance, I played a game with my Kroxigor, where it lost 2 Wounds in one round. I simply just put him in the forest and kept him close, but out of sight. For me it would make me play more careless with a big guy, and I wouldn't want that to happen. I like to think about what I'm doing and how much I'm risking.

Also, it would take the joy away from killing the big guys (at least for my friends, who likes killing Kroxigors whenever they can).

Had a game with some friends 2v2, where one of my opponents had a Minotaur. We just pounded shooting on it, and eventually got him to rout, because he didn't want to lose it when it was knocked down. That wouldn't be the same situation, if it had half the chance of dying.

A 1-in-6 chance of dying for a 210 gc Rat Ogre is still nothing to sneeze at. It takes a lot of battles to save up that much gold to replace him. Also, not too sure why a big guy would have twice the chance of dying when knocked out as a youngblood or night runner would have. I've found the 1-in-3 chance discourages aggressive tactics, and players will rout at the first sign of trouble, which is not that much fun. Just depends on your taste and preference for style of play.

It does - but a Rat Ogre is scary as f*ck!
When you have a Large creature, you use this scaryness and you charge them forward. This comes with a risk, which should be real. Having the capablity to punish my opponent, if he plays recklessly, is an option I'd like to have
I'd rather make a Serious Injury table for Large creatures. That would be more interesting!

Edit: And yes, it's weird that the big guy is 'easier to kill', but he's probably been chopped more to pieces than the youngblood, who went down with the first blow.
Our Heroes tend to die permanently from über-crits somehow anyway, so it all resolves in the end

NO NO NO !

We play it RAW. They die on 1-2/D6.

They are already tough enough to put down so making them survive more often is giving them another BIG advantage they really don't need.

In order to put down those monsters the opponent need to ''sacrifice'' a few henchmen or heroes that will roll for injuries as normal. A rat ogre against three or four basic henchmen (that should cost around the same price) have his chance to put 2-3 down before falling (or even win) and those henchmen will have to roll their injuries as normal so...

Unless you want everyone to invest into getting their monster I'd never allow this. Yes they are strong but its also a risk you take. Making them die 1/D6 would make me run away from them and try to put other warriors out instead. Warriors that will take injuries or die fairly.

Its pretty unbalancing the game ...

Goglutin wrote:

In order to put down those monsters the opponent need to ''sacrifice'' a few henchmen or heroes that will roll for injuries as normal.  A rat ogre against three or four basic henchmen (that should cost around the same price) have his chance to put 2-3 down before falling (or even win) and those henchmen will have to roll their injuries as normal so...

Or just shoot it down that's usually how we take a few wounds from them, and keep them from fighting. When they've lost 2 wounds to Crossbow bolts, they're not likely to enter close combat in my experience.

But yes, I agree that you have to sacrifice something. Be it Crossbow shots, henchmen, Hero attacks or whatever. It's mostly from a balance standpoint, not a logical standpoint. I can easily get my henchmen to cost around 100gc, which is also quite an investment. Let me give some examples:

2 Saurus
Experience: 9
M4 WS4 BS0 S5 T4 W1 I1 A2 Ld7
Equipment: Halberd, Shield, Light Armour & Helmet
Save: 3+ (shooting)/4+ (close combat)
Cost: 198gc

1 Kroxigor
Experience: -
M6 WS3 BS0 S5 T4 W3 I1 A3 Ld8
Equipment: Halberd
Save: 4+
Cost: 200gc

Balancewise, I'd say this is approximately the same. The Henchmen have more attacks, hits better, has a better save vs. shooting and a helmet save, the monster will probably get the charge, has more wounds, is easier to hit with shooting and causes fear (which they'd probably not fail due to cold-blooded, but they might, eliminating their WS advantage). But this is also 'the perfect henchman' at 9 experience.
In a battle these would of course not be facing each other alone, but I think it gives a pretty good picture of how it's balanced still. Giving the monster twice the chance to survive would be unfair, since these henchmen take quite some time to build up, while you could *just* buy a new monster.

I still find "big guys" troubling. Most warbands that have acces to them are hordes (20 models max) or normal max sized (15). It is a bit unfair that these huge killng machines count as only 1 damn model for warband size limit purposes. I think they should count for 3 or 2 depending on how many starting wounds they have. (a littleofftop)
As for "1,2 dead" thing i think it's fair. I also found that players who start their warbands with big monster, poorly equipped heroes and some meat-shield henchman are the only whiners about how easily they die (especially when they loose him in the first/second/third battle).  No one said that 7 henchies = One rat ogre/minotaur/ troll when it comes to combat effectivnes or survivability. Same with h

Remember too that 1-2 does not necessarily mean dead. If you like you can say that 1 means dead and 2 means 'gets fed up with being hit all the time and leaves the warband'. Actually, perhaps half of 2 means 'gets blinded' or 'goes lame' or some other injury that means they have to leave the warband.

If you like perhaps you could make an academic skill that allows you to reroll a '1' or '2' result. Something like Charismatic could allow you to reroll a '2' result on humanoid henchmen and something like 'Vetinarian' could allow you to reroll a '1' result on animal henchmen.

Rat Ogres aren't that hard to put down, especially with critical hits, and they tend to draw a TON of enemy attacks. When you have a 33% chance to lose a 210 gc guy after about half your battles (unless you voluntarily rout at the first chance), that discourages people from buying him and from using him. If you're playing against people who can't figure out how to take down a toughness 5, wound 3 large target, maybe he'll be worth the cost, but most players will prioritize it and get him at least half the time.

Not sure why anyone would buy one when he's more often than not going to be dead after three or four battles. Rolling at least one 1 or 2 on two dice is 5 chances out of 9, so a majority of the time you will lose him by the time he has gone out of action twice. You're just losing money. Buying nine Verminkin with clubs and daggers costs 207 and gives you 18 attacks vs. the Rat Ogre's 3 -- admittedly not as strong, but that's SIX times the number of attacks (a lot more chances to roll that critical 6). And after three or four battles, odds are you'll still have about half of the Verminkin -- say four go out of action per battle on average, and you're losing 1.3 each time, odds are you're losing about five (115 gc) every four battles. You're coming out almost 100 gc ahead by leaving the Rat Ogre at home in Skutterspike or wherever Clan Moulder breeds the big ugly things.

Maybe a compromise for the Rat Ogre would be 1 = dead and 2 = permanent injury -- Roll a D6: 1-2 = -1 movement, 3-4 = -1 strength, 5-6 = -1 toughness. Then, if you roll a second permanent injury -- another 2 after he gets knocked out in a future battle -- he's dead.

Lord 0 wrote:

Remember too that 1-2 does not necessarily mean dead. If you like you can say that 1 means dead and 2 means 'gets fed up with being hit all the time and leaves the warband'. Actually, perhaps half of 2 means 'gets blinded' or 'goes lame' or some other injury that means they have to leave the warband.

Good point. An argument for the logical standpoint.

Lord 0 wrote:

If you like perhaps you could make an academic skill that allows you to reroll a '1' or '2' result. Something like Charismatic could allow you to reroll a '2' result on humanoid henchmen and something like 'Vetinarian' could allow you to reroll a '1' result on animal henchmen.

Interesting idea. However, I think that skill would be way too good. It would increase henchmen survival chances from 66,7% to 88,8%! What a skill!