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Ok I got this out of the wiki

2.Mercenary Availability. Mercenary forces allow a player to build a unique Mercenary Company rather than a regular army from a single faction (such as PanOceania or Ariadna). Mercenary Companies allow the enrollment of troops from up to three different factions to build a customized force. Troop Availability is significantly reduced in mercenary armies: Mercenary Availability is always half of the value (Rounded down) of a units’ General Availability. Troops with Total Availability have a Mercenary Availability of 4. Troops with General Availability 1 have a Mercenary Availability of 0. When building a mercenary company, a mercenary of General Availability 1 may be enrolled for every 200 points of an army.

Example: In a 400 points army you can choose one Hac Tao (General Ava. 1) and one Swiss Guard (General Ava. 1) and no more troops with General Availability 1. Of course, you never can choose two Hac Taos or two Swiss Guards, for example.

Personalities (Uxía McNeill, Ko Dali, etc.) who do not have the Troop Classification: Mercenary cannot be enrolled as mercenaries under any circumstances

Only armies constructed expressly by the player as Mercenary Companies may take troops from different factions and they do not require the units to have the Troop Classification: Mercenary Troop. Regular armies (Like PanOceania, Yu Jing or Ariadna) can only take models outside their faction who have the Troop Classification: Mercenary Troop (Such as the Yuan Yuan, for example).

Mercenary Troops cannot be chosen from the Combined Army of the EI. Likewise, the Combined Army cannot enroll mercenary soldiers from any human army.


So I read this correctly, at half availability I can build a force using any of the o-12 units (minus named chars or AVA 1)

When the O-12 get units, then yes you could. Of course by the time O-12 get it first unit, we should have true merc companies. Do you mean ALEPH, if so yes they count as a human faction for mix merc force. Just don't plan on bring it to a ITS, as mix merc force ARE NOT a LEGAL in ITS.

By O-12 he means Human Sphere armies.

Yes, the Merc lsit for now is a list of Human Sphere units with halved Ava. Ava 1 is Ava 0.

 Alkasyn wrote:
By O-12 he means Human Sphere armies.

Yes, the Merc lsit for now is a list of Human Sphere units with halved Ava. Ava 1 is Ava 0.

Well, AVA 1 is AVA 0 until you hit 200pts, then it's AVA 1 for a single AVA 1 unit, then every 200pts after that again.

Interesting that those rules have options for over 300pt games, but officially the game caps at 300pts.

The main issue is you'll end up with a lot of generalist models, and not many specialist models, which tend to cap at AVA 1 outside of sectorials. This means the list might have some teeth when maxing out SWC for special weapons, but will lack a lot of the fun toys.

The best option for Merc companies is really Qapu Khalki. You get good access to Druze, Kaplans, Scarface and Cordelia and Yuan Yuan, plus access to Alguaciles, Mobile Brigada and the Iguana, plus a lot of Haqqislams stuff minus the Hassassin. If you want it to be more visually distinct, proxy other LI for Ghulam (for example, if you want to use some Celestial Guard, just proxy them as Ghulam). Plus you'll get Link and Haris team access.

Agree about the QP - making a force of them up at the moment, if you go for a non-standard paint scheme they don't even have to look like Haqqislam (mine are just painted up in a kind of modern-style military camo).

Although the 'Mercs' list is a great idea if you want to get loads of bits and pieces from different forces and don't initially want to be pidgeon-holed into collecting only a single force.

Half of my QK ghulams are not even ghulams.
They ARE infinity models, but they are either PanO Acontecimento regulars, or one was a yuan-yuan. All are carrying the Haqq weapons (removed panO weapons and converted), and are still LI anyway. The male Yuan-yuan (non-limited release one.) is already carrying a Haqq rifle.

That's why I'm running QK. I don't like Nomads enough to want to start them, and I get to use mercs (plural).

Yeah I figured it would just be for fun down the line, the Nomads are still my primary focus (especially after seeing the Iguana yesterday real well), but I may give the Qapu Khalki a shot, they have access to some pretty cool looking models

Honestly if you want to do a "Merc army", you're best waiting until the next book when we get dedicated Mercenary "armies" or doing Corregidor/QK with models cherrypicked from other factions.

 Kanluwen wrote:
Honestly if you want to do a "Merc army", you're best waiting until the next book when we get dedicated Mercenary "armies" or doing Corregidor/QK with models cherrypicked from other factions.

I am in no hurry to do anything I still have a lot to learn and just saw that piece in the wiki and was curious.

I wouldn't expect merc armies to be tourney legal before 2015 (when the next book is supposed to be due. When they rush things, you get stuff you weren't wanting. Like a softcover art book - people were expecting a hardcover - or the hash of badly written missions for paradiso).

The soft cover wasn't due to rushing. They saw they had an opportunity for the same cost as the hardcover book to do softcover and also include the glossy prints, which they felt offered better value to customers.

 -Loki- wrote:
The soft cover wasn't due to rushing. They saw they had an opportunity for the same cost as the hardcover book to do softcover and also include the glossy prints, which they felt offered better value to customers.

I think you posted that in the wrong thread Since I can tell you're talking about the art book.

Read the post above mine?

Sorry my error

annnnyyyywwwaaaayyyyy....

I think it's a fun way to collect a few minis from different factions. The challenge would be making them look cohesive if you are planning on fielding them - the different factions in Infinity apparently have different guys doing the design/sculpting (on purpose, so you get less repetition of themes), so they might look a bit disjointed. That being said, I can imagine some certainly working well together, and depending on painting/basing you could again minimise that problem.

Step up from this is Qapu Khalqie (which on the whole, do look cohesive together).. you can get some of the cool minis from Haqqislam, and some Nomads including the rather tasty looking new Iguana TAG. If you ever go that far, it will also be tournament legal.

Finally, as Kan says, there is apparently a whole new faction of Mercs coming at some point (2015ish?), which will no doubt be even more inclusive. Although it will be interesting to see what spin they put on it, considering the current 'merc' units, of Kaplan Tactical Services, Druze etc. are playable within the QP list.

 NuclearMessiah wrote:

 -Loki- wrote:
Read the post above mine?

Umm yeah that was me and I was not referring to any of the books. Whatever, no reason to argue.

Umm... no it was chromedog and Loki is right about why CB made it softcover.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Pacific wrote:


Finally, as Kan says, there is apparently a whole new faction of Mercs coming at some point (2015ish?), which will no doubt be even more inclusive. Although it will be interesting to see what spin they put on it, considering the current 'merc' units, of Kaplan Tactical Services, Druze etc. are playable within the QP list.

From the rumor, the merc forces are going to each be like a sectional, instead of a overall faction. But, yeah can't wait to see how they pull it off.