[S17+] The Mercenary Guilds

Mercenaries :

1/ Definition :

The Mercenary Guilds are formed by all the Players who want to participate to the Gilgamesh Campaign without joining a specific Faction. Therefore they are the only Players who can paint units for the five Factions during a particular session.

The Guilds are not, so to speak, a Faction per se: they have no Captain, cannot conquer sectors and do not have a specific score. They do instead add their points to the Factions which are recruiting them.

The Guilds have their own sub-forum (the Guild). The Captains may visit this sub-forum to recruit Mercenary Players.

2/ Joining the Guilds :

By the end of each session any player who wishes to leave its current Faction to join the Guilds for the next session has to report its request in the topic entitled "The Traitors' Corner".

The admin will proceed with his transfer. Oppositedly, a Mercenary Player may decide to leave the Guilds and join a specific Faction by using the very same process.

3/ Recruting Mercenaries:

Recruiting Mercenaries remains under the Captains' sole responsibility. Recruiting process and discussions may be achieved within the Guild.

In order to make things easier for the Captains each Mercenary Player is requested to create a personal topic within the Guild. This topic will establish the lists of units which are accessible to each Faction.

A Mercenary Player may only propose to any given Faction the units that are authorized for this Faction: no Eldars fighting for Chaos or Necrons fighting for Loyalists.
In order to enforce equal treatment for all the factions, a Mercenary Player cannot pledge more than a single at a time and shall support a different faction for each new topic following the first one.
4/ Mercenaries and topics :

Topics for mercenaries are created and follow the same rules as standard units.
Yet the topic's title shall mention the mercenary status of the deployed unit: [Pseudo / Mercenary / Faction] Name of the unit.

Example : [Celtic_Cauldron / Mercenary / Chaos] Gladiator 123 Combat Group

5/ How to value Mercenaries:

In order to represent both the tremendous costs and the doubtful reliability of mercenaries, mercenary units will only grant half their "Codex" value to the Faction which recruited them. This "mercenary" value is to be mentionned in the topic.
Because of this tax, failed pledges won’t be penalized as regular topics are.
Example : Celtic_Cauldron accepts to paint a squad of Berserkers for the Chaos Faction and deploy it in Hive Enmerkar.The « Codex » value for this squad is 200 points. Yet, due to its "mercenary" status, it will actually only grant the Chaos Faction with 100 points. When creating his topic Celtic_Cauldron will indicate this "mercenary" value of 100 points.

6/ Mercenaries and deployments for HQs

As Mercenaries are generally not as reliable as regular troops, most Generals are unlikely to deploy them alone. Therefore, Mercenary Players have no HQs but can deploy units on the whole map. Yet, Mercenary Players can only deploy units for a given Faction in a given sector provided this Faction has already deployed a unit in the same sector during the current or a past session.