Henchmen Tips! Post your Henchmen Tips here!

Yes they can pick arch types (though not sure about governor never looked for it).

You can teach them spells if you find/buy the books.

They can use equipment just like a hero.

They can die but since they level up just and can be equipped just like heroes it's very easy to make them pretty much unkillable.

Someone else on this board (can't remember who off the top of my head) posted a strat where he rushed the early magical weapons and equipped the henchmen with the Lightning Hammer (9 damage +1lightning per level) and it really packs a punch as they level up.

No, there's no sharing army experience in this game.  Add as many henchmen to your party, they all get the same experience as if there was just one non-hero unit.  Experience calculations are addressed in the second paragraph of this post.

There are no limits.  Henchmen are head and shoulders better than champions with no magic paths, and if you have access to spellbooks, they are better than any champion.  In any of my quest loop games, a few henchmen surpass my sovereign in power.

They can be governors, and I strongly recommend you make two.  One for boosting your cities, and one for building roads.

The strategy is described in this thread.

The henchmen are the main part of Tuidjy's Quest Loop: probably the most OP tactics I've ever tried.

Basically, it consists in designing henchmen with Shieldwall (+3 army defense), Bard (+10% army XP) and Potential (+20% unit XP), and the lightining hammer. Then, train a bunch, join them to your sov, and then make a lot of Quests Maps to level them. The more bards in the army, the faster they level. If you give them Tutelage, they will level up even faster.

After some quests, they are so overpowered in level (many HP), in damage (because the hammer) and in defense (because the stacked shieldwall), that all AIs will start giving you peace and economic pacts. A pure stack of doom. You don't need to give them any item, but maybe spider poison sacks when you have some hundreds of them, after many quests...

Now, with 1.1, QuestMaps take 100 gildar instead of 50, so you will probably need a bit more of micro. Before 1.1, I could make 2 quests per turn.

Try it at your own risk.

By the way, making some henchmen to go Governor is a good idea, as they will give growth to cities, and helping in decrease the unrest of conquered cities.

So the obvious follow up question is, what in your mind would de-OP them significantly? I was considering switching ON the champion XP reduction? I want to play with henchmen, but without the feel I'm using an OP feature.

No, they can't.

Thanks for all the things thus far! Having a hench with road building is great for bushwacking, eventually I'm sure I'll make another and have him do civic improvements in my empire.

Since I haven't gotten far enough in my game to know yet, if you build a hench at an advanced fortress (ie, a fort that makes level 4 trained units as opposed to level 1 units), will you get to pick a path for them at creation? IE, if I made a hench there with the veteran attribute, would I be able to make it a Governor (potentially with Road Building) right out of the gate? 

Additionally, how are the wages caluclated for Henchman- is it a flat fee, or does it rise with levels somehow?

Finally, something I hadn't seen noted yet: A trained henchmen can trade his default equipment to a soverign. I found this out when I traded all the leather gear I had on my trained hench to my sov in the very early game... it saved me the gildar from having to purchase it myself. I would think this could be useful with horses and some of the more expensive magic gear as well- the monk's robe and belt of precognition? Rushing a hench in a town with a black market might even save gildar compared to buying the items outright...

As to the OP-ness, yeah, I can see that. Given the nerf bat SD used on Destiny's Gift and Curgen's Volcano in 1.1, I'd be surprised if no changes are made soon. Perhaps just limiting the number of Henchmen to 1 plus 1 more per Champion? So an army with just the sov could support two henchmen, but an army with a Sov and Champ could support 3. As to why? They are henchmen, not goons! They aren't going to follow you if you aren't going to give them that "one on one" mentoring time. Or something.

Curious if the change to heroic influence and increased cost of quest map makes it terribly cumbersome to do the quest loop.

And personally, again, not everything needs to be balanced.  Yes the quest loop was wildly overpowered, but its also pretty boring.  It was fun the first time, but then the process really lost its appeal.

Good point on the equipment though - I don't think a newly created henchmen should actually get the tradeable items if that is possible.  If I have a jacked production town it seems like i would be able to get the items possibly much cheaper than via the shop.   May still be small scale - even if you're churning out 1 per turn, how many worthwhile items are  you really going to get?  And re-sellability is a factor, but how big is it really going to be? 

When a henchman is created in this scenario, you will pick his level 2 and level 3 trait and his level 4 path. So you can have a level 4 Governor but he will not have another level at that point for you to choose a governor trait (like road building)

Re henchmen and tradeable items, horses weren't tradeable/sellable when I created henchmen with them. Chainmail armor was, as was the lightning hammer. And Henchmen who start with the impulsive ability (from the Fortress upgrade) are pretty impressive when equipped with Lightning Hammers.

Henchmen really should have a cap- maybe 1 per 200 points of population among all your cities.

Wow, henchmen get nasty.  It took me three playthroughs to realize that they existed, then I went nuts.  Had a Yithril game where I had the sov, 4 henchmen and 4 jugs in an army.  The sov was Guardian, two henchmen were Guardian, and two were Warrior.  OMFG.  I had so much stacked +initiative, +spell resistance, +xp, +dodge, +attack, +accuracy it was crazy.  Plus, they were all in the 20s, with lightning hammers.  Anything that the henchmen didn't obliterate, the jugs would finish.

You had Yithril Henchmen?  How?

He probably had Yithril scions.  If you can get the influence, scions are no worse than henchmen.  That's how I actually came to think of the quest loop.

Karavox had Lord Relias running a quest map store in the Altar reservation and was pumping scions from a level 4 fortress.  When I saw how powerful it was, I just decided to try it with Altar in the first place, and... we all know the results, I guess.

Yeah, Sions

I fucked some shit up with Scions in one game, but I don't think I had more than 5 in the game, and they can die.  And you can't give them hero equipment.  

Die? You mean that henchmen cannot?  I play Ironman, and I pick my fights very carefully, I do not think I have ever had a henchman or a scion go down.  (I've used them in only three games)

As for equipment, that is true, but the way shieldwall, trainer and tactician stack, and the way the lightning hammers go up with levels, you do not need equipment on henchmen/scions.  In the game in which I tested out the quest loop, my henchstack could (and did) kill three stacked ashwake dragons before they got a turn.  I am not 100% sure, but I believe that they actually acted before the dark sorcerer's fear effect kicked in, as well.

Some notes:

Henchmens are heroes who don't split exp (they are treated like any other champions - custom equips, gains injuries, can't die).

Scions are units who gains traits (they are treated like units - no custom equips, half exp, dies permanently). Scions also don't get access to henchmen specific traits (bard/customshieldwall).

Dark Wizard's Cloak of Fear isn't an auto cast, it's just an ability he uses on his first turn. If you have an impulsive units, you can slaughter him like a joke before his shield is ever up. Something with init higher than him works just as well.

PS: Try using a bunch of Defender Henchmens with stun. Completely rapes EVERYTHING that isn't immune to magic.

Henchmen can't die, but Sions can.  Henchmen gain injuries like Champs.