So I've been having a couple of doubts regarding henchmen.

Henchmen are interesting because they have multiple "figures" per unit. They act as one unit, rolling only once and having only one action. However, this change in mechanics does bring up some interesting points.

Strength In Numbers

Henchmen gain one Fortune die to their rolls for each extra member past the first. So a group of 2 henchmen gets one Fortune die. A group of 6 gets 5 fortune die. That's pretty clear. However, do these bonuses translate to defensive actions, can they add additional misfortune die to active defense actions?

Damage Reduction?

Henchmen only use their Toughness for wounds, however, there's no mention if soak is reduced as well. Additionally, the application of damage across various figures is left a bit unclear. For example, do henchmen use their toughness bonus to reduce incoming damage? Does each "figure" have its own Toughness + Soak bonus that deducts from the incoming damage? Or is only one of the figures considered to be armored and all remaining damage is applied to the remaining figures?

15 damage applied to 5 henchmen with Toughness 4, Soak 1, for a total Soak of 5.

Case A: Single Soak
That would leave 10 damage to be applied to the henchmen, meaning 2 die and one is left with only 2 hitpoints.

Case B: Multiple Soak
That would leave 10 damage to be applied to the first henchmen, who dies from 4 wounds. Leaving 6 wounds. The second henchmen takes away 5 soak, leaving 1 wound that penetrates.

Case C: No Soak
The whole 15 damage goes straight towards killing off henchmen, leaving 4 dead and one with only 1 wound left limping along.

How many enemies in a henchmen unit?

Henchmen seem to count as one unit for the application of most rules. They are targeted by Melee and Range attacks as one unit, and that also seems to hold for most Action cards. So for example, in the case of the the Bright Wizard spell Great Fires of U’Zhul you're supposed to add one misfortune die for each enemy in the engagement. So take for example the case of a Bright Wizard lobbing the spell at an engagement with one Gor and 5 ungor henchmen.

Case A: If each henchmen figure is an enemy, then the wizard is rolling 5 misfortune dice.

Case B: each henchmen unit is an enemy, then the wizard is rolling one misfortune die.

So which is it? I'm sure there are other abilities or spells where this might come into play but so far I've only had it happen with this Bright Wizard spell. I'm presently siding with henchmen units count as only one enemy, as this would make this spell really weak in large PC groups.

I interpret the rules to mean: a group of X henchmen counts as a single figure. You could think of them as a single figure that starts with bonus dice that go away as that single figure takes wounds.

The rules are a little vague, as you point out, but are definitely intended to do two things:

1. simplify book-keeping
2. make the henchmen weaker and more easily slain by PCs

So, I would always choose the interpretation that best satisfies those two goals.

Therefore, they get bonus fortune dice on actions, but not reactions or active defenses. If they added the bonus dice to their dodge or parry, they'd actually be harder to hit than non-henchmen.

They have a single soak value, the default for individuals of their race/type, which is applied once to any attack. This makes them easier to injure / slay, and also involves the least book-keeping and math.

(So in your example where 10 damage is done to a group of Toughness 4 (Soak 1) henchmen, they would soak 5 damage, one would die, and the "next in line" would take 1 damage. I think this is fairly clearly stated on page 42 of the Tome of Adventure in the "Henchmen Share Health" section, where it says "Against henchmen, there is no wasted damge. Inflicting 6 wounds with a single attack would kill three snotling henchmen." If you applied soak more than once, or in stages, that sentence and the one that follows it would read differently.)

In the case of the spell you mentioned, the "squad" of henchmen counts as a single target, and thus adds only a single misfortune die, not four or five. As with the active defense situation, I rule this way so that the henchmen gain no benefit from being henchmen. Otherwise, a group of five henchmen is harder to attack with that spell than a single non-henchman of the same species/type would be, and that's definitely not the intent behind the rule.

I suspect what's confusing you is that the henchmen group gets bonus attack dice, which feels like being henchmen somehow makes them more powerful, or is at least a balanced trade-off. It's not, that's an illusion. A group of 5 goblin henchmen rolling an attack of 4 characteristic dice and 4 fortune dice will almost always do less damage than 5 goblins in succession each rolling 4 characterstics dice. The four extra fortune dice are only adding, on average, 1.33 successes. Against a Defence 0 target, the henchmen goblins will have a 92% chance of hiting, and average about 7 damage total. Which sounds good until you realize that 5 non-henchmen goblins attacking in succession will get at least one hit 98% of the time, and on average as a group will score 3 or 4 hits for a total of over 20 damage on average. Being a henchman sucks.

All very good points and that's been pretty much the way I've been leaning to, but it's nice hearing others take.

However, I'm still unsure about the Toughness & Soak issue. I've been siding with your interpretation of the rules, but I'm not so sure that's per the RAW.

The problem I found with the example on p. 42 of the ToA is that snotlings don't have an armor Soak value. But the example doesn't take into account their 2 toughness either. That implies that henchmen do not subtract their Toughness or Armor Soak from the incoming Damage. Otherwise the 6 damage would result in only 1 dead snotling, not 3.

That's one of the things that really bothered me, because I'm fine with creatures dying off easier, but I'd at least like some variety in the sense that armored henchmen would be a bit more durable than naked henchmen. But per the RAW it seems that henchmen don't benefit at all from toughness or armor. It also robs some abilities and spells their punch, since they give you the ability to skip armor / soak (in effect negating the extra damage).

I appreciate wanting to make the bookkeeping easier, but I'd like for henchmen to at least resemble a threat. I dunno, henchmen are supposed to suck, but I'm not thrilled with them being like papier-mâché dolls.

Just house-rule it. As you pointed out, it could be interpreted multiple ways. Pick one for your game, and roll with it. Being "right" is less important than having fun.

I agree that the henchmen rules are in need of some clarifications. The rules for soak and defenses for henchmen are completely missing from the book and should be added in the clarifications.

Lexicanum said:

I also interpret the rules as your case A, soak is deducted from the total number of wounds once and the remaining wounds dealt to the common henchman health pool. Depending on the the individual toughness of the henchmen this can result in a number of kills.

The snotling example in the book very probably describes the damage after soak and how to assign the resulting wounds. But I agree that it is quite unclear.

r_b_bergstrom said:

Definitely true, but part of my "fun" is getting the rules right, even if I house rule them. So I like hearing what others have to say as they often have thought about other repercussions or side-effects to rules that initially seem like a good idea to start with. Or maybe they're clear to everyone and I just didn't understand or missed some relevant point.

Plus, it would be beneficial to have these things clarified in the errata for newcomers to the game.

There are no additional rules regarding soak for Henchmen. Since they have a shared Wound pool, you do not apply Toughness or Soak multiple times to the same damage. This means that if you hit a Henchman group for 12 damage, and that Henchman group has T 3 (1), you reduce the damage by 4, resulting in a 8 wound hit .

Looking at Goblins, for instance, per RAW:

A group of 4 Goblin Henchmen are hit for 12 damage. The damage is reduced by the Toughness of Goblins (3), and the Soak of Goblins (1). This results in 8 damage, which is enough to kill two Goblins and heavily wound a third, dealing 2 wounds to it.

The rules for Henchmen are very similar to WHFB's rules for Swarms, which do not apply toughness or saves multiple times. Though I agree that a clarification would be handy for newer players, the fact that wound pools are shared would indicate you do not apply incoming damage to multiple seperate models with their own Toughness and Soak ratings.

Regarding the Snotling Henchman example on p42 of ToA, they state that inflicting 7 Wounds kills 3 Snotlings, which is accurate, because you have "Damage" (Exists prior to Toughness/Soak mitigation) and "Wounds" (Exists after Toughness/Soak mitigation). In order to call it a Wound, it means that Toughness and Soak have already been calculated and damage has been reduced appropriately.

Edit- Forgot your last bit: I'd say Case B is accurate. Wound Pools are a good way to keep track of multiple units. They share a Wound Pool, so they count as only one individual target. This also has a bit of similarity with the "Vulnerable to Blasts/Templates" rule that Swarms suffer from... though WHFRP isn't directly taken from the Tabletop version, there are a few crossovers that work well.

Thanks Darett, the distinction between Damage and Wounds helped. I hadn't placed much weight on it, but it definitely makes a world of difference in terms of rules.

I thought the issue important enough to warrant an email to FFG rules questions. I got this reply:

One of the important things to keep clear with this topic is the difference between damage and wounds. Damage is the potential to inflict wounds.

Incoming damage inflicted against henchmen is reduced by the henchmen Toughness and any applicable Soak Value, just like with normal creatures. However, in this case, you treat the entire group of henchmen as a single entity (applying Toughness/Soak only once against the incoming damage). After accounting for Toughness and Soak, any remaining damage is converted into actual wounds.

In your example, a group of three snotlings has a shared health pool of 6 wounds. If six damage is inflicted, after subtracting their Toughness 2 and Soak 0, four wounds are inflicted. Four wounds are enough to kill 2 of the 3 snotlings in the group.

Cheers,
Jay

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So yes, Darret is perfectly correct.

While not exactly in direct response to the OP. One rule we sometimes imply is for tougher henchmen. The rule works like this.

Unless the attack is an AoE attack (fireball for example) you can only injure one henchmen at a time. Which is to say if you do a normal attack (sword, arrow etc..) even if you do more then enough damage to kill more then 1 henchmen only 1 can die from a specific attack. This creates a group of henchmen slightly in between normal henchmen and a singular unit. Think of them as elite henchmen if you will.

Kryyst, that's an interesting house rule, and I was contemplating ways of making henchmen a bit tougher, but not incredibly so.

I might adopt it but instead change it so that it only limits melee or ranged attacks. As I'm not entirely sold on it applying to AoE effects. So I'd make it so that only melee or ranged attacks cannot kill more than one Elite Henchmen unit. At least ranged damage will be limited to one figure dying per attack, regardless of damage. I think this will reflect that there's only one bullet/arrow being fired per attack unless dictated otherwise by the weapon type.

Left over damage could be leveraged into fortune dice for the next attack against the Elite Henchmen group.

Lexicanum said:

I think you perhaps misread my post. AoE's can kill multiple henchmen, same with any attack that can target more then 1 person could kill more then 1 henchmen. Rapid fire being an example of that since it's multiple back to back attacks each attack could kill another henchmen. Which we find is one great place for that talent.

Kryyst said:

I think you perhaps misread my post. AoE's can kill multiple henchmen, same with any attack that can target more then 1 person could kill more then 1 henchmen. Rapid fire being an example of that since it's multiple back to back attacks each attack could kill another henchmen. Which we find is one great place for that talent.

Sorry, you're right, I misread it, I do that sometimes. Anyways, we're in agreement then it seems! Thanks for the good idea.

Awesome information here. We tackled the henchmen issue yesterday when my group met the cannon fodder the first time. By instinct we played the "toughness+soak once then wounds to the whole group" the intended way, but one more question arises.

Henchmen are treated as one figure, but is this also when calculating who's outnumbering who? Are the henchmen so weak that they don't outnumber opponents easily? Or what?

If the henchmen are treated as one figure, then we could have a situation where in our group of 4 players, the two PCs are engaged with two full groups of henchmen, 8 in total. So it is 2 vs 8, but still no-one outnumbers anyone?

In terms of outnumbering, we count the number of henchmen to make that difference. This usually gives fortune dice to the henchmen for outnumbering attackers.

Now that I think about it I'm not even sure what is says in the RAW. It's just something we've done.

The rules say that Henchmen share wounds and collectively make a single attack. It doesn't say they are treated as one figure.