Journeyman or more men?

Myth's only been out for a few days but almost everyone's caught onto at least one strategy: dump the journeyman. It's very tempting to lose the portly fellow, and go for, say 6 more thrall, or 3 warriors, or max out your archers. After all, without roots from other dead journeymen (and those are scarce) the most a journeyman can do is heal 6 units. And even then he can't heal any of the undead. He requires guards if you plan to keep him, and using him efficiently takes time and is very hard to do when on the move. Besides, 6 extra thrall is about the same as 6 healed warriors. Why not ditch him and increase your army that much more?

There are quite a few reasons actually. Like any units, the journeyman has his place in Myth, and he's not appropriate for some situations. But I think people are shunning him without thinking. There are a lot of advantages to having a journeyman.

"Journeyman Strong!"

He may be out of shape, but this guy can take more hits than the Godfather. A wight exploding at nearly point blank range barely tickles him! Add to this the fact that he can heal himself up to six times and he's probably the heftiest unit in Myth. Now I'm not suggesting you trade in all your units for an elite squad of journeymen; they still can't attack even remotely well with their... shovels... *cough cough* However, they're not the weaklings everyone seems to think. They can hold their own in a battle and don't need a force of baby sitters. You could even use a journeyman who's out of roots to go distract enemy ghouls or archers while you attack them with other men. 

The Great Wight Hunter

If you see a wight heading your way and have no sacrificial men to spare, send the journeyman. He's faster than a wight, and chances are when your enemy sees him near it, he'll mistakenly think he can kill the journeyman by detonating the wight (that would be a 3 for 6 points if it worked, not bad...). But the joke's on him, if the journeyman's in fair health to begin with he'll easily survive, and he can heal himself right away. If the enemy is too smart for this trick just unheal the wight and load your ghouls up on his puss packets.

Journeyman-Archer machine

A journeyman can effectively double your archer force. Simply keep him behind your archer line. Because of the way archers "think", an archer battle usually consists of every archer on one side firing at a single archer on the other, until he dies, then moving to the next. Just find the archer in your lines that's being picked on and put the journeyman next to him. When he's about to check out, heal him. By this time your archers have probably killed their target, so (assuming you started with an equal number of units) you've now got a one man advantage over the Other Guys. Keep up the healing, and you'll soon decimate the enemy archer line without losing any of your own. Send in the wight! (This may sound too perfect to ever work, but it does. In one of the first games that I used a Journeyman, I was able to destroy an enemyÕs entire archer force, and enire thrall force without losing one of my own men. Granted he wasnÕt a very good enemy...)

Instant Death

In addition to healing, the journeyman can kill any undead instantly with his roots. I haven't checked this out myself, but I hear he can even wipe out a Trow with his "unhealing". Try sneaking him around to the enemy's backside when you're attacking and have him bump off thrall while they're otherwise engaged. Chances are your enemy won't even pay attention to him until too late. Even if he does, he'll likely only send a couple thrall to attack the journeyman, and assuming you've got roots left, they won't last long.

Monsters Welcome.

Just because his roots means bad bad things to an undead monster like a Thrall or Wight, doesn't mean the journeyman has an exclusively no-monster policy. The ghouls aren't undead, and can be healed. I'm not sure about the Fetch and others, since I don't have the full game yet.

Experience Wanted

Experience is a part of Myth a lot of people ignore, mostly because so little is known about it.  I talk about it extensivley in another document called ÒMelee Combat and ExperienceÓ. When a unit gets a kill it receives one experience point (denoted by a shield or skull in the info bar), as experience rises, the unit attacks more frequently and more accurately. So by not having a journeyman you are wasting a lot of potentially kick-ass men. What I mean is this: You send in 6 of your warriors against a group of 6 thrall. They'll win of course, and each will receive an average of one experience point for their kill. Unfortunately, they're all in very poor health. If the enemy attacks with his green warriors (meaning they've never fought before, so lack experience but have full health) your warriors won't last long, even with the experience. But if you healed them after the first battle, you'd have 6 full or near-full health men who attack more frequently than the enemy's. They would now win against 6 of his green warriors. He's down 12, you 0.

Other Miscellenia

-You can unheal a wight with a journeyman, which let's him die a noble death, and leave his explosive "puss packets" behind. I think there are usually 4 of them. Arm your ghouls with these puss packets and turn them into makeshift dwarves, with the bonus of delivering Purple Fever with every packet.

-A grenade, or wight blast (which, you will see in in a document I haven't yet written are much the same) at point blank range will leave the journeyman with about 60% health left. This means it takes 3 direct grenades to kill a journeyman, that's a lot to deliver. Most grenades detonate a ways away from from the target, so a journeyman can hold his own against a dwarf. He's also faster.