Top Tier Mercenaries

[The Jason Order]

After several play through I've noticed some real standout mercenaries.

Matriarch Rosalie. A Templar with Soldier Captain, possible the best combination possible, since your heavy infantry squads will want a healer or two anyway. Starts with high leadership, usually the highest in your army when recruited. If you make her light affinity, she can lead a squad of 7-8 in chapter 7, when most squads are 6 or less.

Warlord Tatar. A Centurion with Solider Captain. While Centurions are not great classes, and depending on his starting class you may be stuck with it, high leadership and solider captain means you will instantly get one of your largest squads.

General Bizen. Samurai with Archer Captain. Very strong for 2nd bow unit after Jules. I usually turn him into a Raider.

Sir Rolante. Knight Captain is arguably worse than Solider, but cavalry units may get their place when Lunatic difficulty is released, as units may no longer die in one attack.

Any random mercenary who rolls Solider Captain can become a top unit leader with Light Affinity and a few levels or arenas worth of capturing. However, the above leaders start out as your best squads and only get better.

Finally some non LDR units:

Kafti the Curious. With Arcane Speed she will actually stun almost every time, making her the best damage mitigation possible.

The Outcast. High SKL and MAG with Smite passive.

[Lampros]

I generally agree with your LDR character list.

Kafti I didn't rate highly - mostly because the combat animation is too fast for me to see the stuns. So would you say any debuffing Mage or Sorceress with high Skill is desirable then?

[The Jason Order]

Potentially, but she has, in my last file, 180 SKL. That's a massive chunk more than anyone other than General Ragavi. I had to slow down the animation to the slowest to notice the Stun, after realising my unit with her wasn't taking any damage.

[Raptor Jesus]

I disagree on Centurion's not being great. Their combo of reasonably tanky, resisting/extra cav damage, solid damage, and most importantly backline pierce makes for units I put at least one of in most groups. Great with Dragons and Mages, as they can finish off the mid-or back-lane targets that are low HP but still behind the tanky guys. Their just tanky Blademasters in my eyes, and while I think BMs are overall better you can't just make an army of BMs or you're a little too squish.

[pmackles]

ah man i didn't realize they weren't randomly generated. finishing up my first playthrough and was lookign forward to another run to see new mercs

[Ectar]

I have bad luck with Legendary Mercenaries. I've played through two and a half times and somehow keep getting the exact same ones.

[Steelfleece]

Originally posted by pmackles:

ah man i didn't realize they weren't randomly generated. finishing up my first playthrough and was lookign forward to another run to see new mercs

The unique mercs aren't randomly generated, but most of the other mercs are. It's just random if/when you'll see the unique ones available.

On a side note, I've stated before that I really appreciate the unique mercs with leader traits. Matriarch Rosalie is pretty ho hum in her stats and has little special going for her besides Soldier Captain, but the mere fact you have that trait on a fully promoted healer that can actually be affordable by chapter 4 or 5 is amazing. Load her with acolytes/spearmen/soldiers and you have an instant top tier unit that'll work about as well as Diana's for the early game and still be very useful for the late game.

General Bizen's another one that's pretty affordable early on if you want a second archer squad (Narima's better put to use in a light infantry squad, I feel). Samurai are pretty average but he can be immediately bumped to an archer and still lead (or can he go horsebowman immediately too? Can't recall.)

I like those two in particular just because they're very useful early game when you need new squad leaders badly. There are better uniques for the late game, but those are up for a lot more debate. If any, I'd give honorable mention to Archibald, for making a second firing squad once you have the techs and materials in the mid to late game.

[meiam]

Does the tech that give bonus to unit next to polearm user apply to bow attack? I assumed so, so I kept Bizen as samurai but made his team raider and sticked him in between two raider, but maybe that doesn't work.

I don't remember her name, but there's a swordmaster that start with precision and lithic assault I think, I'm pretty sure she's never failed to kill an enemy with every attack she did.

[Caedwyn]

I have Captain Rolante leading nearly a full squad of cavalry. It wrecks.

Just avoid pikes and you're golden-- unless you can drop them in the first round, then you're still golden.