Dysfunctional Family - The Roachburns DO NOT get along with one another, only the daughter of the Roachburns can tolerate Larry while every other Roachburn hates one another.
Verbal Tic - He adds "Hell" in the beginning of every sentence.
Lesley "Smoke" Peterson
Hoist by His Own Petard: His alumni page in Jagged Alliance 2 notes that his tendency to short-fuse his explosives quite literally backfired on him, blowing him into an "unidentifiable mess."
Psychopathic Manchild: Practical jokes? Sure, why not. Short-fusing explosives and putting friendlies in mortal danger for some cheap laughs? Not the mark of an entirely sane man.
Booze-Based Buff: Inverted; depending on whether he's drunk or sober, Larry's skills in JA2 change, along with his portrait and voice, but his stats are worse when drunk. This also affect his working relationship, he gets friendly with AIM when drunk but cannot tolerate the MERC soldiers while in sobriety he gets along fine with the two worst mercenaries in the roster but the AIM Mercs hates working with a sober Larry.
Dysfunctional Family - The Roachburns DO NOT get along with one another, Larry at least is cared for by Megan. His brother and father outright hate him though.
I Need a Freaking Drink: When walking by rotting corpses being eaten by vultures, he remarks that "People wonder why I started doing drugs..."
Edward "Ears" Stockwell
Murray "Moses" Ebstern
Patrick "Screw" Phillips
Helmut "Grunty" Grunther
Bash Brothers: With Ivan and Igor. Putting the three of them together makes for a hell of a team, thanks to their complimentary abilities.
BFG: Grunty has the heavy weapons specialty, making him very effective with grenade launchers, missiles, and mortars. Now, if he had the strength to carry those and the ammo....
Fluffy the Terrible: His opinion on the Crepitus, calling them "cuddly creatures" and musing on whether they can be tamed.
Ascended Fanboy - Turns out, he left AIM because he got movie deals in Japanese-made Westerns. He returns in Unfinished Business as a mercenary for MERC, still wanting a taste of gunning down bad guys Western-style.
Psycho for Hire - A lot more muted in Jagged Alliance 2, in which AIM slapped him and sent him off for counseling. They note he hasn't been himself...
Hurl E. Cutter
Annoying Patient - ...and severely hypochondriac with the absolute highest health rating possible (100).
Biff Apscott
Dirty Coward: He quits in the first game immediately after anyone dies, friend or enemy. He'll stick around in the second, though he's still pretty much soiling himself everytime the bullets fly.
Maj. Spike Scallion
Dr. Raffito "Raffi" Leevon
Back Alley Doctor - not only his credentials, but also his skills and general sanity are all very questionable.
Cynthia "The Fox" Guzzman
Beware the Silly Ones: Fox's dialogue is laden with innuendo, and she has a whimsical, cheery personality at total odds with the violence around her. But she is absolutely deadly at close range, especially in room-to-room combat.
Guns Akimbo: High dexterity and gunsinging/ambidexterious traits make her one of the best dual-wielding mercs in the game.
Ms. Fanservice: Though not in-game, she's apparently notable for doing centerfolds for mercenary magazines, and is praised for her curves as much as for her skill with weapons and medicine.
Really Gets Around: Implied; she is apparently in a relationship with Wolf, she and Grizzly seem to have a thing, and she mentions dating Mike if she's the one to kill him in JA2.
Waif-Fu: Her high dexterity makes her utterly deadly with a knife in the first game. Less so in the sequel.
Combat Medic - One of the few who has both decent (80s in JA2) medical and marksmanship skills. He also has a perk in explosives, but it doesn't look like much (30-ish points in Explosives).
Expy: In Back in Action he sounds like a homicidal Ned Flanders.
Lance Fisher
Dr. Margaret "Stella" Trammel
Battleaxe Nurse - Has the looks and attitude of one, but is a very professional and competent doctor in her own right.
Butch Lesbian - All but stated in A.I.M.'s alumni in JA2 (she fought an uphill battle to gain spousal benefit's for same-sex partners and has retired to run a clinic with Mouse).
Dr. Eli Summers
Elroy B. Tolken
Peter "Wolf" Sanderson
The Mario — Adequate but unexceptional in every stat
This Is My Boomstick — Has Shotgun expertise and gunslinger. Turning him into Ash in essence.
Sergeant Rock - Career military man since his teens. Has an experience level of 7 (out of a potential maximum of 9) in the sequel, surpassed only by Gus (8).
Marty "Kaboom" Moffat
The Ditz - his Wisdom score of 13 is the lowest in the history of the series.
Genius Ditz - Between saying "like" in every sentence and missing every shot she ever fires, she's a master repairer- able to repair more points of gear per mission than Speck despite his higher mech score (due to a much higher dex).
Dysfunctional Family - The Roachburns DO NOT get along with one another, Megan at least cares for Larry.
Friendly Sniper: Cheerful, outgoing and articulate. Also, has maxed-out MRK and a history as an SAS sniper. She's one of the most stable possible teammates as well, only objecting to Tim "Numb" Sutton (mostly because he's just that good at pissing everyone off).
Improbable Aiming Skills: She's one of the few mercs able to manage hits on "impossible" targets (i.e. blanked out and prompting a "are you serious?" quote from the merc in question) Appropriately enough, her response is not a variation of "I can't hit that" but "Are you sure you want me to hit that target from here?" She's still not likely to hit the blanked out target, but she has a chance that others don't.
In Universe Nickname: Refers to the player as "Woody." He's also the only merc with dialogue that makes it clear that he knows you, personally.
Made of Iron: Gus is one tough bastard. Most mercenaries at his age would retire after getting a leg crushed by a falling mobile home. That just makes Gus limp a bit.
The Ace - he is probably the best merc in JA 2, except for his average agility.
We Help The Helpless: Gus makes it clear that while he sells his considerable talents, he's interested in doing good with those skills. His answering machine even mentions that he's constantly out "righting wrongs."
Obviously Evil: Hell, even AIM quotes a CO that he's too dangerous for even service in Special Forces.
Properly Paranoid: When hiring him, he makes it a point to demand that once his employment is terminated, he gets all paperwork related to the operation so he can destroy all record of working for you.
Stealth Expert - Paraphrasing his bio: "...that shrub, sand dune, snow drift or satellite dish could easily be this master of disguise. He has made it his business to blend into any kind of environment for any length of time." And it shows - he's a 100% camouflaged in all environments, regardless of what he's wearing.
Battle Couple: With Raven. Raider even suggests that he be paired up with Raven when being hired, and the A.I.M. dossier on them mentions they work extremely well as a team. They both get a major morale boost if on the same squad. The dossier also mentions that fears of nepotism aren't warranted, as they act strictly professional in the field.
Reasonable Authority Figure: In fact, he's got the best leadership in the entire game, coupled with the Squadleader skill, making him the ideal leader of any mercenary team. Being an ex-SWAT team commander, this makes sense.
Insistent Terminology: Enemy soldiers are "felons" or "suspects." Sectors are "blocks."
Charlene "Raven" Higgins
Battle Couple: With Raider. Like Raider, her morale takes a boost when she is on the same squad as him.
Insistent Terminology: Shares Raider's insistence on calling hostiles "felons" and "suspects."
Love Triangle: If Hitman's on the same squad. Oddly, she doesn't do anything - Hitman and Raider just argue and take a huge drop in morale.
Thor Kaufman
New Age Retro Hippie - His bio states he's a healer. Of course, he's good in artificial medication, too.
Poirot Speak - probably the second most prevalent one besides Ivan.
Stephen Rothman
Consummate Professional: Treats this mission as a business venture rather than fighting for a cause. Also, he hates most the duo stoners Larry and Static due to them being seen as rather "infantile" and wonder how they get their job drunk and high.
No Blood For Phlebotinum: Worked a diamond mercenary/consultant and thus worked in protecting foreign resource interests. Dimitri hates him for that since that was what allowed Diedriana to oppress the nation into a dire straight of poverty.
Dr. Daniel "Danny" Quinten
Bash Brothers: Can develop this relationship with MD.
No One Gets Left Behind: Known for jumping into combat zones to rescue injured soldiers and refusing to evacuate until the wounded were extracted first.
Mad Bomber - Inverted as it is heavily implied that his work with explosives has made him insane, rather than the opposite. He's also extremely finicky about setting up explosives.
Keith "Blood" Hanson
Berserk Button: Cliff is hated due to South Africa tensions, the only person he hates more than Cliff is Bubba.
Genius Bruiser: as the name implied, he is very strong. He is also one of the best mercs for repair, computers and lockpicking until you can afford specialists (and even then, still good). His primary weakness being speed.
You No Take Candle: "Robert Gontarski is ummm... UNAVOIDABLE right now."
Fantastic Racism: He hates Russians. Which has some real-life justifications, considering he's Polish.
The Ace: Of the low-cost starting mercs, she's one of the best all-rounders, especially with marksmanship. The decent leadership, the teaching skill, high wisdom, and solid physical stats complete her.
Defrosting Ice Queen: She's cold and professional, and curt with Grunty (who has a crush on her) but she'll warm up to Sidney with time.
Jack Of All Trades: "Before settling on A.I.M., Buns explored a number of careers: kindergarten teacher, geriatric nurse, Danish sharpshooter at the Atlanta Olympic games, and professional soldier."
Why Did It Have to Be Snakes?: Normally unflappable, but two things unnerve her: Crepitus, because they're creepy crawly bugs, and Reaper, because he's Reaper.
Steve "Grizzly" Bornell
The Big Guy - Probably the best example in the whole Jagged Alliance. However, while his strength is tremendous, he's not agile on his feet and his dexterity is poor enough that he often misses with firearms. Find him a spot to set up with the heavy weapons, though....
Disc One Nuke - He's an extremely cheap starting mercenary who also has heavy weapons proficiency. In v1.13, one of his starting kits includes the M79 grenade launcher, and you can buy 40mm grenades right at the start from Bobby Ray's. Loading Grizzly with grenades and letting him put in some work is one of the most effective ways of staving off the infamous Drassen counterattack in v1.13.
Badass Bookworm - His AIM profile specifies that unlike most mercs on the roster, he learned all of his skills with explosives and machinery in a classroom. His answering machine also indicates that his "assignments" seem to often involve him doing lab work instead of combat.
Badass Preacher - his lines show that he is rather religious.
You No Take Candle - Not as bad as some examples, but his command of English is...not perfect.
Igor Dolvich
Badass Family: Nephew of Ivan Dolvich, so you know he's a badass. Part of his motivation is to become as good as his legendary uncle.
Bash Brothers: With Ivan and Grunty. Pairing Igor, Grunty, and Ivan on the same squad not only lets them very solidly complement each other with their respective skills, but gives them all a huge morale boost.
Friendly Sniper: Altogether a good-natured guy, but the Hunter trait he possesses (in 1.13) means he is a deadly marksman with a rifle *
Note: Rifle. Not assault rifle or sniper rifle, but bolt-action or semi-automatic, medium-to-long-range marksman rifles
.
Genius Bruiser: Igor's base skills are not exceptional starting off, but his physical stats in general are great, and his high wisdom ensures that he learns very fast. In his own words, "I am from a family of quick learners!"
Pop Cultured Badass: Makes a number of references, though sometimes he mixes up his sources. One of his most notable is "Game over, man! Game over!" when a large number of enemy troops are spotted.
Stealth Expert: Highly skilled at staying out of sight. Though not a good knife thrower, he's still an excellent marksman, so he makes for a great nighttime sniper to cover your knife-throwers.
Beware the Nice Ones: Despite his cheeriness and idealistic disposition, he is deadly with a knife, and his high wisdom means he learns fast, especially when coupled with an expert teacher like Buns.
Magikarp Power: Has one of the highest wisdom stats in the game, meaning he will rapidly progress from his Wide-Eyed Idealist base to a hardened killing machine or your squad's Mr. Fixit if you train him in mechanical work. Have him regularly training people in medicine, and his leadership will shoot up like a rocket.
The Medic: Quite well versed as a doctor straight out of med school. His strong medical skills make him a good excellent medical teacher, with the added benefit that this will shoot his leadership up dramatically.
Wide-Eyed Idealist: Young, inexperienced, a little chattier than most of the others.
John "Bull" Peters
The Big Guy: Has the highest strength stat of the entire AIM roster. Coupled with his specialty at hand-to-hand combat, and Bull is your go-to guy when you need a face rearranged.
Blood Knight: known to be violent and aggressive and while he is tough as nails in combat he is also known for a lack of discipline. He's also eager to enter combat; the only times you'll get more than a short sentence out of him is when he either enters combat or after you've killed everyone.
Dumb Muscle: His marksmanship is pretty good, but otherwise the one area where he is best at it raw physical strength, and this is reflected in his fees: he's the cheapest non-MERC mercenary available. He also has only middling wisdom, so he's not going to become a master at much else unless you put a ton of work into him.
Hidden Depths: Married, with several kids. You'll only learn about this if Grizzly is on the team and Bull dies.
Meaningful Name: John Peters was actually a famous British mercenary who fought alongside Mike Hoare in the Congo in the 1960's.
The Quiet One: Played with. Bull is laconic, speaking in short, curt sentences usually, but he's still relatively loud when he does speak.
Frankie "Haywire" Gordon
Axe Crazy: He considers Vlad the Impaler to be his personal hero.
Blood Knight: Doesn't care who he kills as long as he get to kill.
More Dakka: Along with a shank, Frankie's weapon of choice involve a leadspitter.
Doug "Gasket" Milton
Red Scare, does not trust the Russians too much...actually he doesn't trust them at all.
Bill "Razor" Lamont
Ax Crazy: Practically the posterchild for it in Jagged Alliance 2. Ironically, despite his general insanity, Razor actually gets along pretty well with most of the mercs in the game.
Groin Attack: For some reason, Razor seems to have a tendency to score these more than other mercs.
Insistent Terminology: He's not psychotic, he has a passion for his job. And he'll carve his initials into the chest of anyone who disagrees.
Knife Nut: His dominant skill. v1.13 also gives him bodybuilding, making him a good mule, and coupled with some impressive strength, it makes him your go-to guy from the M.E.R.C. roster when you need to go into close combat with a couple of machetes.
Magikarp Power: One of the rare cases where this applies despite having a pitiful wisdom stat. His combat skills are poor - even marksmanship is low - but his strength, agility, and dexterity are through the roof, comparable to the top-tier A.I.M. mercs. Get him early and keep him fighting or training, and he'll become an incredibly cheap but powerful soldier.
The Scrappy: In-universe. The list of mercs who Tim pisses off with his mere presence is impressively large. You know you're an asshole when Reaper hates you.
Jim "Cougar" Wallace
Only Sane Man - before Unfinished Business came along, he was the only professional mercenary among the crowd of cowards, civilians, psychiatric patients, mental defectives and other misfits that was the M.E.R.C. roster. The most expensive, too.
Military Brat - His father ran a military institute, and he follows the regs to the letter. In fact, he wouldn't be out of place in a World War II flick.
Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking - When near death, he complains about his gaping chest wounds... and asks for some asprin afterwards.
Ax Crazy: Probably the only reason he joins you is that he always wanted to kill the queen's goons. He's the only RPC who will join you free of charge without you needing to do anything special to recruit him. All you need is a merc with good leadership to convince him, and he'll gleefully join.
Disc One Nuke: His starting gear includes a CAWS, which is a hilariously powerful shotgun. Since you can recruit him for free in Estoni, he can practically join your team before you've taken Drassen - assuming you're willing to trek that far south and evade the patrols on the roads to pick him up.
Large Ham: "I'm here! And I ate every bug on the way! There were many!"
Magikarp Power: The only problem with him is he is level 1 when you get him, if you manage to get him to level 4...
Psychopathic Manchild: Complains about tearing out his own hair, eating bugs, and will whine that he hasn't gotten his afternoon nap if exhausted.
Sociopathic Hero: His precise reasoning for hating Deidrianna isn't clear. What is clear is that he loves killing Deidrianna's men, and he joins up for free just so he can pump them full of lead.
Greg "Dynamo" Duncan
Axe Crazy: Dynamo manages to keep it under control, but surviving as long as he did in Tixa has left him a bit psychotic when it comes to dealing with Deidrianna's men.
The Engineer: Boasts solid mechanical skills and good wisdom, with the "Engineer" skill on top of that.
Heart Is An Awesome Power: His only real special ability is his Engineer skill, which is relatively rare (Technican is much more common) unless you're talking high-priced mercs like Trevor. But Engineer gives some startlingly huge bonuses to the Robot's operation....
Roaring Rampage of Revenge - Having your family executed in front of you kind of makes that happen. Refuse his initial offer to hire him for a measly $50 a day, and he'll offer to join you for free just to have a part in killing Deidranna.
Trigger Happy: The Psycho trait he bears means he has a thing for going off with anything with an automatic setting. Give him a semi-automatic and keep him out of the line of fire unless you want to waste a lot of bullets....
Devin Cornell
Arms Dealer: You'll initially encounter him selling explosives and explosive-related gear. With good leadership, he'll join up for a steadier paycheck putting explosives into your enemies.
Breeham "Shank" Druz
Heart Is An Awesome Power - He's a rather useless rebellious teenager, who happens to have practiced knife-throwing to impress his friends at parties. Guess what's the most effective way to stealthily kill somebody in this game?
Magikarp Power: Unlike most recruitable characters, Shank's stats are bottom-of-the-barrel low; even most M.E.R.C. employees have better. But his wisdom is good, and if you work on his strength, put him in some light armor, load him with throwing knives, and in v1.13, a full ghillie suit and night vision goggles, and he can be downright deadly.
Dr Vincent Beaumont
Made of Iron: Has absurdly high starting health, being a professional doctor.
Magikarp Power: Like most medics, his wisdom is sky high, so he learns fast. Get him early on and train him well, and he becomes a pretty impressive shooter.
The Medic, Non-Action Guy - Low agility, worthless marksmanship (at first) and top-shelf medical skills.
Only Sane Man: He puts it rather succinctly if you talk with him out of combat: "Two words: Mental ward."
Lt. Conrad Gillit
Awesome, but Impractical - Great in everything... if he wasn't hideously expensive. He can be hired for relatively lower (3300$ per day instead of 5500) cost if you turn him down at first, but still have a decent leadership.
Boisterous Bruiser - He likes to boast if he kills something (especially crepitus), though in a humorous way.
Insufferable Genius - A solidly competent soldier, trainer and a leader who sees himself as nothing less than a celebrity.
More Dakka - He is an automatic weapons specialist.
Mugging the Monster: Try to talk to him for too long, and he'll decide it will be more fun to just shoot you. You'll usually have a half-dozen heavily-armed badasses standing behind you who just cleared out the rest of the military academy of equally well-armed soldiers....
Igmus "Iggy" Palkov
The Atoner - He is recruited by Dedrianna, and regrets it.
Mr. Exposition: Will, snarkily, give background on locations if she is sent there after they have been liberated.
Magikarp Power - Her marksmanship is abysmal, but her wisdom is sky-high. This combined with time, patience and her expert-level Teaching specialty means she has the potential to be both a competent gunner and the absolute #1 militia trainer in the game.
Dimitri Guzzo
It Has Been an Honor: Most mercs and other recruitable characters react poorly to seeing a horde of enemy troops. Dimitri? "Good! We will all die together!"
Mr. Exposition: usually take turns doing this with Ira, even though his English is certainly not perfect. Dimitri is less snarky about it as well, and much more serious.
Mr. Fixit: Early on, he is a good source of mechanical expertise, especially because he is free once you get the food shipped to Omerta from Drassen after finding Father Walker.
