Mercenaries

Mercenaries are an optional play component introduced in the Shards of the Throne expansion for Twilight Imperium Third Edition

Players may hire Mercenaries when executing the Primary Ability of the Trade III Strategy Card. When Trade III is activated:

The player who resolved the Primary Ability draws 2 Mercenary Cards from the Mercenary deck, chooses 1 to keep and places the other on the bottom of the deck. The player then finds the corresponding Mercenary token and places it facing up on any planet they control
Each player who controls Mercenaries must pay 1 Trade Good for each Mercenary they control. If a player does not pay for a Mercenary, they immediately remove the Mercenary token from play and place that Mercenary Card on the bottom of the deck

A Mercenary may move from a planet to space and vice versa, during the Planetary Landings Step of a Tactical/Transfer Action.

Mercenaries are considered units but not Ground Forces and so cannot control planets

If a mercenary is the only unit on a planet, that planet immediately becomes neutral

Mercenary tokens are double-sided to mark whether the Mercenary is in space or on a planet.

While in space, a Mercenary counts towards a player's Fleet Supply and cannot be carried by other ships

Mercenaries cannot transport Leaders

There are 16 different mercenaries with differing abilities. All are shown in the Gallery below

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Combat[]

Mercenaries have the Ability Evasion X, the value of which varies depending on the Mercenary

Whenever a player assigns a hit to a Mercenary, 1 die is rolled. On a value ≥ X, that mercenary is not destroyed.

Each Mercenary can only be assigned 1 hit per combat round unless the player controlling the Mercenary has no other units participating in the battle.