The opulent coach and its viability

Hi all,

I'm wondering about the opulent coach and whether or not its a sensible purchase to make in a campaign. For those of you who don't know what it is it's an item from TC that gives your warband leader +3 on rolls for finding rate items, costing 250gc. I've seen that Lord 0 has written about it before, saying that he usually goes for the coach as soon as possible in a campaign. He never gave a thorough reasoning behind it which is why I'm asking you all about your experiences with this thing. Is it worth the gold? To me it seems like you're just spending a sack of money on something that makes it easier to find the expensive things that you can no longer afford.

As an aside I've also found an awesome model to use for the coach and we've decided that once you've purchased a coach for your leader you've got the right to show it off at every opportunity. I've made it a personal goal in our newly started campaign to get the coach but I'm wondering if it should be an early thing or if its best kept for later.

I'm playing as undead if that makes any differences worth considering.

Thanks in advance!

Our last campaign ran for about 700 games it came in so handy gold becomes obsolete later in the campaign so long as you don't choke yourself with hired swords, so this campaign i plan on getting the coach early.
Playing Undead you will be wanting lots of tomes of magic or at least looking for cheap ones definitely worth it

I can see it paying off in the long run, but only if the campaign goes long enough to be able afford multiple luxury items. Personally, I haven't been in a campaign long enough for it to really pay off.

I did purchase it on my very first warband, Marienburgers. My Marienburg captain had to have as much bling as possible. It didn't pay off from a practical standpoint, but the important thing was that my Captain traveled in style.

It really depends on your campaign. In our campaigns it has never featured at all unless it is acquired free, through an event or something (which I'm not sure is possible). Our group would therefore classify it as useless and worse than useless. When pursuing an income strategy, our group is likely to look for beggars, thieves, tomb robbers or rangers (or both) and the Arabian Merchant plus Haggle and Streetwise. Tarot cards and rabbit's feet are the only equipment we bother with.

Oh, unless we are using the rules for houses, shoppes and temples from Relics of the Crusades.

If your campaign is only short then no, it isn't worth it. If it goes a bit longer then it can be well worth it. If you get the coach early enough then it can mean that your warband is fully taroted up well before your opponents are taroted up and that can lead to a significant after-game advantage.

If you have a coach and they don't then the first person to get gromril armor for their melee heroes will probably be you, and you will likely have had it for a while before the first opponent gets a gromril axe to cut through it. The first person to get an elven cloak for their snipers will probably be you. Your caster will probably have all his spells long before anyone else does. You will probably have lucky charms for everyone long before anyone else does.

Things that others sent 3-4 people looking for just to find 1, you can find just by sending your leader, leaving the rest of your warband to go for the long shots such as gromril daggers or Tomes of Magic, or more common stuff like lucky charms.

In short, the coach lets you spend your rare trade rolls on the Must Get *and* the Nice To Haves.

Thanks for the replies, guys. I think I see the value of the coach but I struggle a bit to see how to balance the cost of it with the necessary things like replacing lost henchmen and heroes on the way to save up for it. If the coach would also have made things cheaper then I'd be all over it but as it stands I think I would rather try my luck at finding a gromril armour at R11 instead of first saving another +100gc for the coach and then climb back up to 150gc. If we assume that I can keep about 50gc after each game, starting at 0, it'll take me 5 games to afford the coach and then another 3 for the gromril armour. If I had gone straight for the armour I think I would have it after 3-4 games.

In the long run the coach's effect will be more noticeable and since I'm in the beginning phase of a long campaign now is probably the time to save up for it. It is pretty tempting.

@Lord 0, I tried sending you a PM about the coach about a week ago but it seems to be permanently stuck in the outbox. Perhaps your inbox is full?

I'm assuming the Lucky Charms is a bad example. Why would a player save up for a 250 gc item to make it easier to find a Rare 6, 10 gc item? I should have my lucky charms all bought by the second game with no problem and have a good start on Rabbit's Feet. And Tarot Cards are Rare 7. If nothing else I just hire a Thief to steal them, which again seems simpler because the Thief can pay for himself and is a smaller investment. (But I suppose that doesn't help an Undead player.)

And assuming I am not playing Dwarfs, why would I want to get all Taroted up until my leadership makes the dread miss a game roll less likely? I never bother with Tarot Cards for heroes with lead 7.

I often feel like others are describing a different game than the one I play, especially when strategies for acquiring rare items are discussed. I expect they are.

You don't buy the coach for easy access to lucky charms, that is just a happy side-effect. And it is not so much that you have the lucky charm, but more that when you are, say, replacing a hero that died you can send *just* the leader to replace the lucky charm and auto-find it with the leader (Cart + Streetwise) while everyone else looks for variable-priced stuff to get better prices.

As far as Tarot Cards go, at LD7 you only have a 1 in 6 chance of missing a battle. That is no worse than an Old Battle Wound and the pay-off is much better. In my group we have found that if you wait until you are LD 9 (human max) before you start using tarot cards you get out-incomed by those that do take the risk. Averaged over even a moderate amount of games the payoff is greater than the loss (aside from random runs of bad luck - the RNG gods are notoriously fickle). Having one or two in the stash makes it more fun when you do your level-ups too - "Yes! I rolled leadership! now he can use Tarot Cards!".

My rare trade rolls are obviously poorer than yours. My base chance of getting a lucky charm or tarot cards is 60%. My progression is generally 2 games to get fully Rabbit's Footed, then 4-7 games before I am fully Taroted (excluding time saving for the coach. Depending on my income sometimes I will get 1-2 Tarot cards and then the coach, sometimes even 3. Depends on the rolls for the cards and what my income has been like.

Phantasmal_fiend wrote:

Our last campaign ran for about 700 games it came in so handy gold becomes obsolete later in the campaign so long as you don't choke yourself with hired swords, so this campaign i plan on getting the coach early.
Playing Undead you will be wanting lots of tomes of magic or at least looking for cheap ones definitely worth it

I am truly envious of you 700 games! I wish I could keep people in a campaign going that long.

After 12 games into the campaign I finally got my opulent coach! Now let's see what this little puppy can do. Next on my list is a suit of gromril armour...

700 games in one campaign? Spreaded on all players I assume.

I never played a campaign nearly as long. It would get boring for me to play the same warband so long uninterupted.

I do not like these must have items like Tarot cards for all heroes, it feels unfluffy for me.

But I know that each gaming group plays the game like they want.

@opulent coach:

I never used it but our campaigns/ warband do not have so many games in an outmaxed status

SerialMoM wrote:

700 games in one campaign? Spreaded on all players I assume.

I never played a campaign nearly as long. It would get boring for me to play the same warband so long uninterupted.

I do not like these must have items like Tarot cards for all heroes, it feels unfluffy for me.

But I know that each gaming group plays the game like they want.

@opulent coach:

I never used it but our campaigns/ warband do not have so many games in an outmaxed status

about 12-15 players in total some with just one warband and the player with the most warbands had almost 20 on the go.
you end up buying everything you can possibly think of for your heroes.

Quick report from the field: first post battle sequence with the coach, accumulates enough money for a gromril armour, warband leader rolls '8' for rarity which is now enough (11 original rarity - 3 from the coach).

Hooray coach!

Good job!