Jagged Alliance 3 Free Mercs: How to Get Them -

Paying the rates for all those top mercs in Jagged Alliance 3 is not cheap. But did you know that there are three mercs that you can recruit for free?

Well, you can and I am here today to share a full guide to the JA3 free mercs and how to recruit them. It should go without saying that there are some massive spoilers ahead, so read only if you want to know them.

The three mercs that you can eventually hire for free in Jagged Alliance 3 are Flay, Larry and Smiley.

While you won’t be able to get any of them extremely early in the game (except for Flay, maybe), they are still really useful and can become a valuable part of your team. In the end, there are few things better than free ones!

In some cases, you will have to make the right decisions in the game (such as with the Bastien decision), but the full guide below will tell you all the steps you need to follow to get them.

Jagged Alliance 3 Free Mercs – Recruiting Guide

With all of the above in mind, let’s jump right in and see how to recruit each of the three free mercs in Jagged Alliance 3.

How to recruit Flay in JA3

Flay is probably the first free merc you will recruit in the game. And as if that is not enough, that’s when you will find the Winchester, one of the best weapons in Jagged Alliance 3.

In order to recruit Flay, you will need to first travel to the C4 region on the map and do a clean swipe of the enemies. Then, talk to the camp leader, Hyena, and he will give you a mission called The Dead Poachers.

These can be found in the C7 and B4 sectors, and I personally found Flay in the latter. He might spawn in C7 too, depending on how you complete the mission – I am not sure about that.

Either way, when Flay appears, you will start a dialog with him. Tell him that you’re hunting poachers, then tell him to stop and invite him to hunt with you. Important: you need to pass a Wisdom check of 90 in order to be able to recruit him.

How to recruit Larry in JA3

You can find Larry after cleaning up the F7 sector, where the enemy outpost is located. He’s a bit crazy – but probably that can be said about any fighter than joins you for free.

At least he’s not going to influence much the merc affinities and relationships in JA3… make sure to read that article when you’re done here.

Back to Larry, in order to recruit him, you need to talk to him after cleaning the F7 sector and give him a Metaviron. He’s not an amazing marksman, but expert in explosives and can be really useful as a secondary squad member / trainer.

How to recruit Smiley in JA3

The last free mercenary you can recruit in Jagged Alliance 3 is Smiley. You will get access to him after completing a difficult fight, but first you need to talk to Maman Lilliane in sector D7, which starts a quest investigating the disappearance of a girl who ran away with Smiley.

You will need to first talk to the priest in Fleatown, then get to sector I9 and complete the fight before you’ll be able to recruit Smiley who is, as you’ve guessed already probably, in Fleatown.

Unlike Larry, Smiley is actually a good marksman and can become a really solid merc overall.

Finally, another mercenary that you can recruit based on how you play the game is Pierre, but he’s unfortunately not a free one. Still good, though.

Final words

While these three mercs you can get in Jagged Alliance are not among the best in the game, they can prove really useful in the long run, especially if you rush to unlock them as soon as possible.

In my opinion, both Flay and Smiley can be members of a main squad for quite some time, while Larry is good as a trainer or an explosives expert if money is short. Either way, you do have to get them all because they’re free.

Common Sense Gamer’s founder and current Editor in Chief. Having a bachelor’s degree in journalism since 2007, Calin’s entire career revolves around writing about video games – something he’s been doing since 2008.