Please Explain Experience

Hero units begin with a particular amount of experience, and the rule book says that this initial experience does not count towards advancements. it also says that advancements are determined by the boxes on the roster sheet...what i'm having a hard time understanding is that if your leader starts with 20 exp, he misses out on the first 8 advancements, and then only qualifies for the ones that are spaced further out. It just seems that this causes your heroes to be underpowered, unless i'm reading this wrong... if that's the case, could somone please explain to me how it works?

They get a ton more per game than henchmen which is why they miss out on the first few.

Wildeyedjester wrote:

They get a ton more per game than henchmen which is why they miss out on the first few.

so does this mean that a youngblood or a bondsmen that starts with 0 exp would in the end have the potential to have much higher stats than your leader, if each both happened to survive long enough to fill up their experience boxes?

It seems that way but your leader will get more xp per game. Look at svenarios at how xp is gained.

i'd been reading those, and it seems that everyone automatically get's one exp for surviving, then all of your heroes get exp for each model they take out, so up to this point, everyone's got the same chances. unless it's written somewhere that i missed, the leader only gets extra exp if you win. again, i may be reading this wrong, or it may be that i'm used to OP 40k heroes. it just seems odd when i read the rules, as it comes across as underpowered leaders and such. i think after seeing some actual games played and seeing the post-game phase a few times will show me how it actually works

The winning leader gets one experience free per game. Additionally you get one xp for every enemy put out of action for the model that did it. Your leader is your best model at putting down enemies so gets more that way too. Additionally he will have better equipment making him more survivable.