Originally Posted by
scadugenga
For casual play, you can do mercs one of two ways:
1). Make a normal army (IE Nomads, or Pan O, or Yu Jing,etc) and the you can take mercs with their given Availability. (EG 2 Druze, Señor Massacre, etc.)
Or
2) Make an all merc army. Choose up to three factions to select models from. The Availability is halved (rounding down) and you cannot take non-merc character models. (EG you can't take Joan of Arc) You may choose one Availability 1 option per 200 points of your force. (EG you want to add an Aquila Guard) This does not allow you to "add" 1 to the Availability of an already accessible choice. This is meant to allow you to add special options to your list.
CB has disallowed use of mercs in their tournament play as they have stated the armies are balanced with each other, and mercs would skew that. There some sectorial armies that allow mercs, but the argument swings back and forth about their ability to be used in a tourney.
Hope that helps, and welcome to Infinity!