The practice of hiring mercenaries by European powers had largely disappeared following the Thirty Years’ War. As my imagi-nations setting spans a multitude of centuries, I must allow for nations or leaders to hire mercenary units, to realize the additional combat potential beyond what their populations could sustain.

An interesting aspect of this campaign element is that it provides a means for me to devise other characters and stories, outside the major combatant nations, giving impetus to further creative outputs.

Mercenary units of the past were varied in their composition, skill sets, and loyalties, which is also true for modern-day mercenaries. I wish to provide for a similar variety of my own.

The types of mercenaries will change depending upon the age of the conflict due to advances in technology and so forth. As the “current” timeline of my campaign is somewhere in the mid-to-late 18th Century, I intend to allow for mercenary infantry, cavalry, artillery, siege artillery, and military commanders.

The reader might question why the latter, but one only needs to examine the history of the Thirty Years’ War to realize that Count Albrecht von Wallenstein started off as a mercenary in 1617. So, with that thread of evidence, I will allow for others to fictionally exist in my campaign. Besides, I expect a few of the nations in my world to need some good leaders.

The types of mercenaries will change depending upon the age of the conflict due to advances in technology and so forth. As the “current” timeline of my campaign is somewhere in the mid-to-late 18th Century, I intend to allow for mercenary infantry, cavalry, artillery, siege artillery, and military commanders.

Where nations recruit raw troops, mercenary units are already established. This is not exactly true, as they would need to get their start, too, but to make the mechanic work more smoothly, I am will assume that the available mercenaries are already established. As the hiring of mercenaries occurs during the winter phase of each campaign year, the composition of mercenary forces will be known before combat for that year begins.

The process of mercenary recruitment is straightforward, each major combatant will have up to d6 mercenary units available to hire; minor powers d3. This only applies to those nations at already at war or who intend to go to war in the coming campaign year (also determined during the winter phase).

While I will create cards for each of the mercenary units, and therefore for my campaign, I will draw d6 cards from a deck to establish these, for those not using a deck of mercenary cards, I have devised the following:

Find the number of mercenary units available by rolling a d6/d3
Roll another d6 for each mercenary unit: 1-4 Infantry, 5 Cavalry, 6 Artillery.

The SPs for infantry battalions depend on the die roll above, but Cavalry and Artillery units have 2 SPs.
Mercenary infantry unit SP are
Die Roll: SPs
1: 2
2: 3
3: 4
4: 5

Mercenary unit ratings require an additional die roll.
1: +0
2-4: +1
5: +2
6: +3

I will record each mercenary unit created in the above manner on their own roster card. This way, I can re-use mercenary units that were previously available for hire, saving some future die rolls. Additionally, I may choose to re-roll the SPs and ratings, just to add some change over time variance.

In this mercenary deck, I will include “failed negotiations” cards, which would replace a mercenary unit, if drawn. This means that while I would draw 5 cards, having rolled a “5” to see how many merc units are available, I may end up with less than five mercenary units to hire for that nation that winter.

Also, each unit of mercenaries will have at least one trait, further increasing their combat potential, and cost to hire. These traits will apply to the Brigade Combat Value, or in combat resolution, where appropriate.

Lastly, mercenaries must be placed at the bottom of any march order, as they will never lead from the front. That would be foolish. However, if an entire brigade is comprised of mercenary units, then the order of march for that brigade is up to the player’s choosing. This brings an added element of risk, should those mercenaries switch sides in a battle or refuse to follow orders.