mercenaries/men at arms

[Pancho]

Mitchie, I use the same rules for searching and you are correct that Heroes will not be accumulating enough gold to splurge on men-at-arms all the time. There will probably not be enough money to get everything that a player would want/need, considering that they should really be stocking up on potions and equipment as well. I like your Inn rules and damaged weapons rules too. I find that stuff like this keeps the game interesting, quest pack after quest pack. Heroes should never be "maxing out". They should always be looking for plunder. Heroquest is all about greed LOL.

[The Admiral]

I've got to say my brother and I love henchmen, but they are not unlimited. With a large questpack each Hero has a finite pool to last the entire pack; normally 3 or 4 henchmen each. I love creating all different types and these are the ones we have used so far or are planned for future use:
Usual 4 men-at-arms, Ranger, Elf Archer/Spearman/Swordsman, High Elf Archer/Spearman, Peasant, Kossar Archer, Halfling Archer, Dwarf Warrior/Thunderer/Quarreller/Slayer/Miner, Wolf, Bear, Half Orc Archer, Bretonnian Spearman/Yeoman, and Norscan Warrior.

My brother likes to take as many henchmen as possible. I'm happy with this, as it drains his money, the more he has on the board the more Evil Wizard Cards I get, and most of the time if he takes too many, they just trail along at the back doing nothing. More that 6 Henchmen just can't get into the action in my opinion.

[Anderas]

That's one point, they easily get stuck in the crowd in the original board layout and quest layouts. Also they cost so much that it is just a pleasure to kill them. Each time a huge grin on my face.

They also add variety. While I adopted Sotiris' rule that the players have to choose a new hero once the old buddy died, it just happens rarely. So I add other Play styles for testing via mercenaries. Once I thought to write up rules for that but it easily works freehand: in a harbour city you can meet pirates and exotic types. In the mountains you can get a dwarven mercenary. Each time I just add models and improvise rules that seem fitting and then I can see if they play good, are not too strong and are fun to play.

It doesn't happen so often nowadays so no need to keep track.