Just getting around to playing this one…who are the best mercenaries to hire for starters?
Been a few years since I played this one, but as I recall the problem in the early game is lack of quality equipment is a bigger problem than a lack of skills on mercs. So pick the starting mercs based on what equipment they start with. The guy with the rifle or somebody with a SMG are good choices.
I think it’s a matter of preference. The ‘cheat’ to get better equipment at the start as Nick hinted at is to hire the really expensive guys with great equipment for one day and take their stuff before sending them packing.
Raven and Lynx are good day one purchases. There’s another guy with sweet equipment, but he seems to be unavailable most of the time, and then he generally ends up dead.
But I’d recommend Raven and/or Lynx. “Perpetrators!”
Ivan and Scope were always two of my favorites. Fidel is a bit too temperamental. Grunty is a good low-level starter. I agree about Raven, but I was never really fond of Lynx for some reason. Snake makes a great scout.
I vaguely recall Raven and Lynx too. Was it Raven that had automatic weapon talent, and would occasionally lose her cool and fire auto when you wanted single shot? That was brutal, because if you aimed for a head shot the full auto seemed to stay aimed at the head. I also had good luck with the dirt cheap mercenaries, mostly using them to train militia.
I wouldn’t sweat the initial weapon selection too much, or at least I don’t recall any trouble with the early opponents. If you’re looking to make life easy for yourself, get night vision for your main character. Makes night missions just target practice.
No, that was Meltdown (aka Linda Currie).
Ambidextrous + night ops is the way to go, if you’re willing to min/max your way through the game.
Also, I found the harder difficulty levels actually a bit easier with regards to getting decent weapons at the start, simply because the enemies are always carrying better weapons. :D
The beauty of JA2 is you can take ANY group of mercs and make them viable. I once played a game using only the folks from MERC and folks found in the field. It was slow going at first, but eventually, my primary squad with Razor, Haywire and Numb absolutely destroyed every group of enemies they encountered.
Fidel & Tex. What a great combo. Grunt is a very good shooter.
Not everyone is your best choice, remember that some Mercs don’t like each other, some leave because they’ve been on the same team too long… others just “disappear.”
— Alan
I’m partial to hiring Grunty and Wolf for my starting group, particularly because they both have night ops.
- Alan
Fidel and Ivan HATE each other, IIRC. Oh, and Hitman was a good shooter, but man did his comments get annoying - “There’s something here, Ace”, “I aced up on someone”, “Aces!”, “I aced him!”. Ugh.
A combo I always used, until they got too expensive, was Snake, Ice and Ivan.
Larry the stoner guy actually makes a pretty good medic.
Or, if you have the money Fox I think is her name is good too.
“Time to stroll through the valley of death”
It’s more or less crucial to either have autoweps(so you get the free MP5K) or hire at least one of the 4 or 5 well equipped mercs for at least one day. I believe Tex has the best starting gun(a G3?), Raven has the Colt Commando which is pretty good, and then there’s a few guys with mini14s and MP5s and such.
The first couple of battles are extremely difficult if you don’t have any long guns, but even one decent gun with one decent merc allows you to take Dressen on day one with no casualities, and at that point you can slow down, let your expensive merc go home and restaff.
“Yeah, that could’ve been bad, but I’ve got me some kickass karma”.
I think Tom should allow sigs if they are random JA2 merc quotes.
No, that was Meltdown (aka Linda Currie).
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For the record, Meltdown, Buzz, Fidel, and maybe a few others had the “psycho” attribute (randomly burst fire when ordered to single-shot). Custom merc could also be made psycho by answering right questions on personality test. Buzz and Lynx were the recently separated couple if memory serves…don’t get along together. Raven & Raider are still an item in the game.
Been a while, but IIRC, Buns is a solid & cheap investment. Well-rounded mercs like Grunty and Igor are also good for cheap. Decent mid-price guys to start with were Fidel and Wolf, can’t remember any others.
For beginners, would also not recommend choosing a close combat merc and sticking mainly with guns.
Is it just me or does E5 almost never posts again in the threads he starts? Just trying to confirm an observation.
Actually, starting with a high marksmanship skill (80+, I think) will also give you an MP5K at the beginning. With Night Ops, this will give you enough of an advantage to take out those first few guys and seize their rifles.
- Alan
Self
Meltdown
Igor
Grizzly
Bull
Malice
Blood and Steroid, if one of the others isn’t available, although Steroid isn’t too fond of anny Russians. Dirt cheap but reliable troop, and the characters and the voice acting are still unmatched in my opinion. Never ever have I hung so dearly on characters in any game.
I did this, created a guy that used auto weapons and hired Lynx. That’s it. The two of them could clean up any maps you needed to until you started making money (at the first place) and then you could higher more crew. If you cleaned out fast enough, you could keep Lynx for good. He was my favorite in terms of bang for the buck.
What about Barry “horrible accent” Unger? I always took him in my initial squad to blow stuff up and pick locks. His lockpicking was mediocre to start but went up over time. I even came to be able to ignore his constant refrain of “Is Terrible!” and “Is no Use!”.
I also usually took Fox as an early hire. She ambidextrous and gains skill fast. A useful medic at first, she becomes a good fighter later if you keep her alive.
Of course late in the game when money was rolling in I hired Gus and Magic. I never really appreciated the uber mercs until I put Magic online. That guy is badass.
Oooh, I love this game! I’ve played through a few times, and tried a few different themes with my squads for the fun of it. Some of the memorable ones–
John Woo Squad: I took only ambidextrous mercs and equiped them with several pairs of pistols each. The trick was to get close to the opposition as quickly as possible. Smoke and stun grenades help a lot, and .45’s were definitely the best gun. This was a lot of fun, and not as hard as I expected.
Lone Wolf: My character was the only merc I used for combat, but I brough Magic along to unlock stuff, and had a few chumps around to train militia. My guy quickly became a badass since he was getting xp for killing everything. Oh yeah, I did this on easy, fwiw.
Ninja Fighting Squad: I started with martial arts skills and hired mercs with other ninja skills–knife throwing, martial arts, bladed weapons. This was a total, unmitigated disaster, I dont’ think I even completed the first mission.