The gathering Storm - How many Goblins exactly.

By Glorian Underhill, in WFRP Gamemasters

Hi I'm running the german version soon and have a question on how many goblins there are in total.

Code is:

He - Henchmen

NPC - for normal stats

Nem - for nemesis.

So far I have counted the following

Raid on Farmstead:

2 NPC Tower

3 NPC Longfield

3 NPC Farfield

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*Several* Search Teams around the Farm:

1 NPC Officer

1 NPC Squig

4 He

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On Bauer Farm:

Watchtower 4 He

Gate 4 He

Cellar 2 NPC

Child Room 2 NPC Throne bearers

7 NPC Scimitar armed.

On the open place in the middle 48 He in Groups of 4

In the barn sleeping 48 He, mabe they are the same 48 who are at night at the open place

Goblin shaman Nem

Bulg the Troll.

The Problem I have is that 4 Goblins have 12 Wounds, one real NPC Goblin 10. So in the beginning they fight against 7 goblins with each 10 Wounds. Later they kill 4 Goblins if they deal 12 wounds. So how is it clear for the players that this is a squishy goblin, or a real one.

Maybe I change the NPC gobs to 8 Wounds and the henchmen stay on 3 each.

My counsel is, this is warhammer not a hack&slash game! Or at least this is my perception biased from playing 1st and 2nd editions. Therefore, don't use henchmen!!!

Let your players fight first against a Goblin patrol. In that way they can test how tough Goblins are and they can gauge their possibilities against them. This will force them to find cleaver ideas to assault the farm e.g. lure the goblins away, free the Troll, burn the farm down, ask for help in Stromdorf (a great oportunity for social characters to shine) etc.

Otherwise, if you put Henchmen in your game, they won't need to think too much. They just need to draw weapons and start using Double strike, Rapid Fire…

I never never use henchmen in my games. If there are 48 goblins in the farm, so be it! Ambush them, poison the water they drink, sneak in and kill the shaman while he sleeps…I want players to be creative.

Said that, it is only a matter of taste.

Cheers,

Yepes

Actually I'm not a fan of the henchmen myself.

Good is about henchmen that they have only one attack. 4 parallel Attacks kill any player in two turns. But the organisation overhead to make moves for 12 NPCs a turn kills my table.

But henchmen with 3 wounds each are just a laugh. 6 or 8 wounds per goblin are more appropiate. So I would still use them as one group, but a 4 goblin group with 24 or 32 wounds and one attack. Plus the extra whites per goblin alive.