Best starting mercs in Jagged Alliance 3

Want to know the best starting mercs in Jagged Alliance 3? Mercenaries are, of course, the cornerstone of the Jagged Alliance series. Haemimont Games’ third instalment of the game is no different. But mercs are expensive, and with limited cash in the early game, you’ll need to limit yourself to more starter friendly mercs who strike an ideal balance between skill and cost effectiveness.

Here then are our picks for the best starting mercs in Jagged Alliance 3. We’ve looked at their Jagged Alliance 3 talents, traits and perks, as well as other stats to determine their worth in the early game. If you want to start recruiting more expensive mercs as soon as possible though, make sure to brush up on how to make money in Jagged Alliance 3.

Best starting mercs for Jagged Alliance 3

A full team of mercs consists of six characters of your choice. This doesn’t mean that you need to hire all six, however. With money tight at the start of the game, it might prove smarter to hire one or two fewer mercenaries. Six is just about manageable as long as you’re smart with your money, though.

Our six picks for the best starting mercs in Jagged Alliance 3 are:

• Livewire
• Steroid
• Fox
• Mouse
• Grunty
• Your custom merc

Let’s break each of them and their capabilities down one-by-one.

Leili “Livewire” Idrisi

Livewire is as lively as her name suggests, and easily one of the best recruit level mercs you can get. She’s not got much in the way of health or strength, but makes up for it with good agility, great dexterity, and a fantastic 94 wisdom. That wisdom in particular means she can serve as your go-to merc for passing wisdom checks in interactions or dialogue. She’s also just passable as a medic, with a 50 in the medical attribute. Primarily though, Livewire is a mechanic. Her 85 mechanic stat will make her the perfect candidate for repairing gear and passing mechanical skill checks.

Her Mr Fixit perk means she’s got an edge in trap-disarmament and hacking. Optimist and Scoundrel are also nice perks to have, slightly improving her potential combat effectiveness. Best of all by an order of magnitude though is her talent: Inside Dope. If you collect any intel at all on a sector before entering it – something easy to do with so many hacking opportunities – Livewire’s presence will reveal the positions of all enemies in the sector as soon as you enter. This is phenomenally useful for stealth kills, and setting up ambushes and flanking moves. To top all of this off, she’s pretty cheap to hire, at only $4600 for 7 days.

Bobby “Steroid” Gontarski

A bluntly amusing merc, Steroid is a two-for-one deal when it comes to mercs. He’s got a brutal 98 strength which is great, but 49 dexterity reduces the versatility of that strength. No, where Steroid actually shines is in his secondary attributes. He has an excellent 91 marksmanship, making him a fantastic choice for a sniper. He’s also got a 79 in mechanics, so he’s very capable when it comes to repair and maintenance, too.

While he’s not the most accurate, his survivability and long-range capability, combined with his useful engineering know-how make him a valuable asset. He is slightly more expensive at $5,100 for 7 days, but we reckon he’s still just about worth it.

Cynthia “Fox” Guzzman

Fox is a (perhaps too) charismatic mercenary with a great deal of versatility. She’s a solid medic, with a 70 in that stat. While this isn’t as good as her fellow recruit MD, she has a lot of other stats that put her ahead in the running. A 78 in health, 86 in agility and whopping 100 in dexterity, combined with her Ambidextrous and Scoundrel perks mean that Fox is well-suited to wielding a huge variety of different weapons reliably. We also really can’t overstate how useful it is to have a medic on your team. She’s $5040 for 7 days of hire, so reasonably priced for her flexibility as an operator.

Anita “Mouse” Backman

Mouse can seem like an unassuming choice at the start of the game, but she’s your best bet for a strong, cost-effective early stealth character. Her talent, Light-Footed, allows her to move through Overwatch zones without triggering them. With a 100 in agility and a 97 in dexterity, she’s also able to move vast distances and hit shots more accurately with fewer AP. A 71 in marksmanship makes for some decent damage as well.

The cherry on top is her Stealthy perk though, making it harder for enemies to spot her and improving the odds of a stealth kill. With this in hand, Mouse is easily your best early-game choice for landing stealth kills to thin out the enemy ranks before an attack. Combined with Livewire, this is an even easier job. Mouse costs $5010 for 7 days hire at the start of the game.

Helmut “Grunty” Grunther

Grunty is the only veteran-rank merc on this list, and also the cheapest of that group. It’s that price, combined with his good all-round nature that make him an excellent starting choice though.

Grunty has no attributes he excels in, but few that he lags behind in either. With 82 health, and dexterity, agility, strength and wisdom all in the 70s, he’s capable of performing across a range of fronts. He’s also got a 78 in marksmanship, and is nearly passable as a mechanic too.

Grunty also begins the game with the Vanguard and Beefed up perks – two of the best. The former will give him Grit (effectively an overshield) when he ends a turn next to an enemy or out of cover. The latter gives him a substantial 20% extra health. His Talent, Uberraschung, allows him to take a free shot at someone when combat starts. Grunty is $4690 to hire at the start of the game – a bargain price for a veteran-rank merc.

Your custom merc

Our final pick of merc is not one you can hire off the AIM menu, but your own, personally designed one. By heading to the IMP page on the browser, you can take the PET test, answering a series of questions that allows you to tailor-make your own mercenary. This is expensive, costing $6999, but arguably worth it.

With a number of traits and perks to assign, control over their attributes, and no hiring, re-hiring or weekly wage upkeep cost, your personal merc gives you the tools to fill in any gaps left in your team loadout, at no long-term cost.

That covers all our choices for the best starting mercs in Jagged Alliance 3. Though Jagged Alliance 3 mods might inevitably bring in more mercs, these are our picks for what’s on offer in the base game. If you want to pick up some more free mercenaries though, have a look at how to recruit Flay in Jagged Alliance 3 instead.

How do I hire mercs in Jagged Alliance 3?

To hire mercs, click on ‘Command’ on the strategic menu, and select ‘Browser’. This will take you to the AIM website where you can hire mercenaries.

How many mercs are there in Jagged Alliance 3?

There are over 40 mercenaries to hire in the game, with a few more you can obtain for free through quests.