Malice

CONTRACT

HIRING COST : $10,000
EQUIPMENT COSTS : $4,315
TOTAL COSTS : $14,315

STARTING GEAR

GEAR	IMAGE
Beretta 93R pistol
9mm Parabellum x15
Knife
Light flak jacket
T-shirt
Kevlar pants
Coreplayer

ATTRIBUTES

SKILLS

TRAITS

Melee mastery : Expert at using melee weapons

Unfit : Faster decrease in stamina when running

Death wish : Morale increases when health is low

Strengths/Weaknesses

Malice is a solid fighter both at range and up close thanks to his high dexterity and strength. He gets a big boost to CQC thanks to his melee expertise, but the unfit trait makes him a poor choice for rushing headlong into the fray.

Save his up-close combat abilities for enemy incursions into your ranks and stealth actions. Beware of the death wish trait, however.

Although that morale boost is always tempting, remember that death in Jagged Alliance: Back in Action is permanent.

Just make healing Malice a lower priority than healing anyone else in your squad; the morale boost means that he'll be providing more effective covering fire as your medic performs his or her duties.

Tactics

Keep Malice on your front lines and switch him from firearm to melee when the enemy sends their close-quarters fighters into your ranks. Also be sure to take advantage of his high stealth rating.

Malice is a great shooter, but have him depend more on his knife (or whatever you replace it with) for any covert ops.

He's very useful for eliminating any enemy stragglers. His high starting agility offsets the unfit trait, should the need arise for him to run away.

Malice can be hired from the start, and none of the mercs dislike him.

He's on the more expensive side in terms of mercs you can hire for your initial squad, so just be mindful of your budget and remember that Malice is effective both as a front-line merc and a stealth operator from the moment he hits the battlefield.

Long-Term Play

Developing Malice is largely a matter of boosting his already considerable strengths as he levels up.

Stealth could probably use the most help in the early going because it's the only skill that isn't also informed by an attribute.

That stealth rating can never really be high enough, so the best bet is to dump your first level-up helping of seven points into it and then start spreading the wealth around as Malice levels up more.

The question then becomes where to spread those points around. Favor marksmanship over dexterity because that's a lower-rated skill to start with.

You also won't be making any explosives/mechanical checks with Malice, so his starting dexterity of 92 only influences his ability to shoot.

Also consider boosting strength and, perhaps more importantly, agility. More health and stamina never hurt, and the latter is especially useful for Malice because of his unfit trait.

If you're feeling comfortable with Malice's performance, you could also put the occasional couple of points into intelligence.

You won't be making any medical checks with this merc, but higher intelligence also means faster experience gains.

Malice's starting intelligence of 55 is low enough that it's worth putting at least a little bit of effort into improving.