Rules for mercenaries in Mighty Empires and Warmaster

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I'm currently still tinkering with the idea of a Mighty Empires campaign for Warmaster, and have been flicking through the 1990 rules. These are written very much with Warhammer Fantasy Battle in mind, so will require some tweaking when it comes to Warmaster. 

One of these areas is mercenaries, which were a big part of the 3rd edition of WFB, especially in the Warhammer Armies book. I quite like the idea of players being able to recruit troops from outside their core lists, hence am fiddling with some ideas for using mercenaries.

Mighty Empires stipulates (page 45) that players can recruit mercenaries using the rules given in Warhammer Armies, but says that normal points restrictions do not apply. Mercenaries are hired from a kingdom's revenue. The below idea applies only to recruting mercenaries, not allies, which may be covered in a separate post. Or not.

Mercenaries may be hired at the start of the campaign turn, as per the 1990 rules. A player can choose to recruit mercenaries from specific tiles on the map. These are rated accordingly:

  • Barren map regions that are not controlled by other empires (1 roll only)
  • Neutral settled regions - villages  (2 rolls)
  • Neutral fortresses or cities  (3 rolls)
Mercenaries can be recruited at the start of the campaign turn, with one gold crown of revenue buying 100 points of troops (rounded up). Players roll a D6 for each tile they are recruiting from. Tiles must be adjacent to their imperial territory. 1-2 = no mercenaries. 3-4 = one standard mercenary unit available (basically pikes or crossbows). 5-6 = two units or one elite unit (e.g. swordsmen, light cavalry, dwarves). Note that you may not recruit more than one mercenary unit per 1000 points of army size per turn.

Mercenaries are typically recruited from the Dogs of War army list. The player must also note down the contract for the mercenaries when they join his army.
  • One battle only - normal cost
  • Entire campaigning season - +25% cost
  • Permament hire - +50% cost
Players must hire a mercenary commander for any army if they are recruiting more than 300 points of mercenary troops for that army. This can be a Hero or a Paymaster. Players must pay upkeep costs for mercenaries in the winter phase. If these are not paid, roll a d6 - 1-2 = the unpaid unit(s) deserts. 3-4 = the unit remains with an army but will not take the field in the campaign season until paid. 5-6 = the unit deserts.

Command and loyalty on the battlefield


Mercenary units suffer a -1 penalty on Command rolls when issued orders. This applies to any brigade in which at least 50% of the units are mercenaries. This penalty can be ignored if they are within 20cm of a general. If they fail two command rolls, or are part of a brigade that fails two command rolls, consult the following -

  • 1-3: ignores orders next turn
  • 4-5: falls back one move towards own table edge
  • 6: holds, but refuses to charge
Note that mercenaries cannout be used to hold strategic objectives on their own. 

Draft mercenary campaign events


  1. Rival offer: one random mercenary unit leaves your command unless you spend a resource to keep it
  2. Camp brawl: one random mercenary unit will not be available for your next battle
  3. No event
  4. Mercenaries go on a raid: Add D3 resources to your treasury
  5. Veteran reinforcements: receive one free, non-standard (e.g. knights) mercenary unit to an army of your choice for rest of the campaign season. You may choose to hire them for the next season.
  6. Legendary captain: one of your mercenary units receives a free Banner upgrade of your choice
These rules may/may not be too restrictive in terms of the relative value of mercenary units. The intention is to provide players with scope to hire more troops to flesh out existing armies, especially to meet the short term requirements for a given campaign season.

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