[solved] BTB Merchant Caravan Question

Hey there,

as our new BTB campaign starts soon, I impulsively switched to a Merchant Caravan warband and will be running my own little economy simulation during the campaign.

As the objective and final scenario suggest, buying additional coaches, wagons etc. is highly recommended.
But while I can buy a simple wagon for 100gc, it goes up to 180gc with two draft horses - the same price as a regular trade wagon, but without its benefits and with three rare items instead of a single common one. So I switched to buying additional Trade Wagons and therefore re-read its rules.

Unfortunately the rules don't really cover the possibility of having multiple Trade Wagons.  

Storage: All my equipment is stashed in the Trade Wagon, but which one? According to RAW probably in all of them at the same time. And if I lose one wagon, all my stashed goods are gone, no matter how many Trade Wagons I own.

My first idea would be to simply distribute my equipment and treasures among the various Trade Wagons and thus only lose the affected wagon's cargo. What do you think about that solution?

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but without its benefits

What are the benefits of a Trade Wagon?

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Storage: All my equipment is stashed in the Trade Wagon, but which one? According to RAW probably in all of them at the same time. And if I lose one wagon, all my stashed goods are gone, no matter how many Trade Wagons I own.

It would seem reasonable that you merely wrote down what was in which wagon before a game.

I see two main benefits. One is simply the Reputation rule: stashing low cost Rare items in it gives the warband a nice bonus to all Rarity rolls.
The other one is linked to the Priest of Handrich, whose "Bargain Hunter" prayer grants me a 33% discount on all common items, hence a 60gc discount on the Trade Wagon.

In this case I'll write down an inventory list for all the Trade Wagons my warband will acquire in the campaign. And at least the first two wagons are already ordered from Sarissa Precision.

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And at least the first two wagons are already ordered from Sarissa Precision.

Does that mean that you are starting the campaign with 360gc worth of wagon?

I would expect cianty to stop by to give a more knowledgeable answer at some point...

No, just the one necessary wagon but together with 160gc invested in 4 warhorses and another 50gc for 2 Sellswords which allow me a voluntary rout.

A warhorse easily sells for 80-120gc with the Merchant's skill, thus I just need a single 5+ on his chart to buy a second wagon right after the first game.

With two wagons my whole warband fits on wagons and I can start to stack marksmen with crossbows on them.

You could always put some of your stash in a chest and take that on to the battle and put it in a normal cart/waggon if you wish

Ok, dumb thread opener is dumb.  

The issue is already addressed in the BTB Appendix' Q&A:

Q: Normally all the caravan’s stored equipment is lost when the Trade Wagon is destroyed. But what happens if my warband has more than one Trade Wagon?
A: The Trade Wagon’s Storage special rule applies only if the last Trade Wagon is destroyed.. It is thus advisable to have one (or more!) additional wagon with draft horses in case the original Trade Cart is destroyed in order to prevent the accumulated stored equipment, treasures and wyrdstone shards from being lost.

Hey, only saw this thread just now.

Yeah, the trade wagon is not supposed to grant bonuses really. The idea is more to define the character of the warband, including its vulnerability. That's why the merchant HAS to keep their stash in this physical location (instead of the safe imaginary stash like other warbands) which others will try to raid. Additional trade wagons can mitigate this disadvantage.