Jagged Alliance 3: Ironman + Lone Wolf + Time Is Money Walkthrough

Hello,

After getting encouraged and inspired by 2 other Ironman and Lone Wolf guides that I read (guide1; guide2), I decided to have a try myself.

I have had 2 attempts so far:
1. First Blood difficulty + Forgiving Mode to get Lone Wolf and Time Is Money.
2. Mission Impossible difficulty + NO Forgiving Mode + Dead Is Dead + To The Bitter End + Lethal Weapons to get Ironman. In this attempt I also managed to complete Lone Wolf (as Ivan) and Time Is Money (finished before 1 May)

This post is about the second playthrough, however, I used screenshots from both. Since I could not save manually on Ironman and I did not take any screenshots on the go I only have some from Corazon fight. Screens from Major and Faucheux fights come from the first playthrough, but they are only to illustrate certain things. Just wanted to mention that before somebody finds this suspicious.

The path I took (Campaign finished on 22 April)

Ernie Island

• Get Confidante rifle for saving Herman and keeping his secret
• Finish as many quests as possible for extra XP (get a machine gun for Basil, kill Deedee, deal with Bastien, conquer Fort L’eu Bleu and deal with Pierre)

Fleatown

• Exchange 10 Tiny Diamonds for lootboxes
• Buy Agi+ magazines from both vendors
• Buy combat knives (I totally forgot to do it on my Ironman run, so I only had 2 knives that I looted from enemies)

G11 Sector

• Check the box outside the house. It should contain some kind of weapon. With a little bit of luck it can be something really good, like a Winchester 1894 (amazing gun!). I had no luck on my Ironman playthough and there was nothing of interest there. Since I could not scum save (the game auto saves when I enter the sector) I was not able to reroll the drop. But if you are not on Ironman and can save manually, do so before hitting that “M” key to load the tactical view. With a little bit of patience the container is bound to have something good in it eventually.

Ille Morat

• Get Plasma Gun Crowbar from Vlad

Eagle’s Nest

• Kill the Major and his men

Fort Brigand

• Kill Colonel Faucheux and his men

Fort L’eau Bleu

• Kill Corazon and her men

Endgame Inventory (I never got to use that RPG and the Minimi)

Weapons in order of appearance:

• Ivan’s AK47 – good for early game. No screenshot as I scrapped it mid game
• Gewehr 98 – superb for early game, but wears out very quickly. Again, no screenshot as it broke down even before leaving Ernie Island. But it did hell of a job in Fort L’eu Bleu. I modded it with a silencer and quick prism.
• Combat Knife – a must for me. The more the better. They always pierce armor and only cost 3 AP to attack or to throw. Since Ivan has got very high Dex, combat knives are a very safe and reliable weapon. Their relatively low dmg is boosted by Rage perk.
• Confidante – insanely durable. It comes modded with a silencer and lower AP cost and shorter than usual range. I used it throughout the whole playthrough.
  
• RPK – I was very surprised and pleased to find this gun worked perfectly. Not so durable, but it lasted till the end. Same as before, modded with a silencer and quick prism.
  
• M82 – I am not very fond of cumbersome weapons, but this gun was a godsend. I found it modded with a bipod, so it only needed the silencer and quick prism. It delivers massive damage and it always 1 shot enemies for me, be it a regular or overwatch shot. At first I did not have the ammo for it, but kept it just in case and it was one of the best choices I made in this playthrough.
  
• FN-FAL – I think I found it after dealing with Faucheux. I took it since it had 100% durability. Modded with a silencer, quick prism and extended gain-twist barrel for extra range, it really kicked ass. I used hollow point and armor piercing ammo interchangeably to secure 1 shot kills whenever possible.
  

Statistics

Perks

I botched up my perks tree on this run. On my low difficulty playthrough I used combat knife a lot and decided I would focus more on melee on Ironman. It was not a massive mistake, because the extra HP from Full Body Contact and the extra movement from Hit And Run did come in handy during some fights. Still, I felt like I did not utilise those perks enough to compensate. Also, with the permanent death and no game save options I was too afraid of Ivan dying to keep sending him into melee.

The must have perks to suit my playstyle are:
Untraceable – for better sneaking + extra damage
Frogleaping – for the extra movement
Hit The Deck – for a free fall to prone
Rage – for the extra damage when wounded

Ivan comes with Beefed Up, Recoil Management and Flanker. The first two are pretty good, the last one not so much. This leaves 2 perks to allocate according to anyone’s preference. I know some people like shotguns and grenades combo, so they recommend Breach and Clear. I tried it and can confirm it is viable, but it is not my preferred playstyle, so I am not a big fan.

A20 – fighting the Major

On my first playthrough I stealth-killed as many enemies as I could around the camp without triggering the alarm. Then I moved to the machine gun nest in the south-west, lured enemies in and shot everyone as they came in range, including Spike.
On Ironman, I failed to stealth-kill even a single enemy. I took an attempt on a sleeping sniper near the main gate in the centre of the map, but got spotted by another guy. After trying a couple of things I took the path south, around the massive rock and rushed to the MG nest killing one guy on the way.

There were around 5 enemies who chased me using the same path I took. To my surprise, despite having a clear shot on me from the side, they kept running towards a trench right in front of the MG, thus enabling me to rain fire on them.
There were only two exceptions from that rule – one enemy circled me and went into melee and another one refused to go into the trench and kept shooting from the side. I managed to kill both without bigger issues. The combat ended with a handful of soldiers still alive. I found them close to the Major’s tent and managed to stealth kill all of them.
I think the best tactic here is to ignore all enemies except the one guarding the MG nest. Stealth-kill him, then lure enemies in. Mount the MG and keep shooting until everyone is dead.

K16 – fighting Colonel Faucheux

I discovered an exploit that worked on both of my runs. When I enter the fort using the underground entrance I can keep using it to retreat at any time to restart combat. I stayed close to this entrance so I could easily escape if something went wrong. I also discovered that if you kill some enemies in the main building, then retreat underground and come back again, the game re-spawns another enemy in the same exact spot using a soldier that would have spawned elsewhere.
For example, there are 28 enemies in the sector. In the building where the Colonel is, there is “always” a guy leaning against the wall in the toilet on the bottom floor. I stealth kill him, retreat underground, come back up again. There are now 27 enemies in the sector, but there is another enemy in the toilet again. I kill him again, retreat underground and come back up. The total number is now 26, but another enemy spawned in the said room again. The game keeps spawning that guy in the toilet each time I re-enter the location until the total number of enemies is low enough that it can no longer “borrow” an npc from another location.

So when the game no longer spawns enemies in the toilet, I finish off the ones in the room with stolen art pieces. I shoot one down, retreat and come back again. Those do not respawn, so now there is only one more left here. I shoot him, retreat, come back up. Now, there are 1 or 2 enemies in the Colonel’s HQ (+ Faucheux himself). They come down the stairs when they hear gunshots. I position myself close to the underground exit and lure them to the stairs (by free-shooting a non-silenced weapon) and shoot them before retreating. Rinse and repeat. I come back up and search for more enemies outside the middle floor. I climb the ladder to the right from the underground entrance and find a single trooper overwatching the yard. I stealth-shoot him, go down to retreat and come back up. This unit is also respawned, so I utilise the same tactic until the game no longer spawns enemies there.

Now, there are only a handful of enemies scattered around the camp, so I can take down Faucheux uninterrupted. I managed to lure him down the stairs once and landed a single hit on him before he stopped reacting to gunshots anymore. So he is weakened a little, but I was still a little stressed out because Ivan had around 7 wounds by then, so I was afraid he might one shot him. I grabbed a shotgun I had with me as I thought it would deal the highest damage. I could not have been more wrong. I fired 2 shots that barely scratched him. Luckily since he was surprised by my stealth attack he hid behind his desk without attacking. In my next round I finished him off with a combat knife, which I should have used from the start.
All that is left to do is clear the remaining force. I shot some using the MG nest and stealth killed the rest.

H4 – reaching her and fighting Corazon Santiago

When I got to H4 I managed to skip all enemies in the outer fort and went straight underground. I took the path down the minefield, then up the ladder, then up the ladder again to the mid level. Then I risked it and entered the building to go downstairs despite 2 enemies nearby in the mid-floor and 2 more downstairs. I managed to sneak by all of them while very carefully watching the visibility gauge in case it gets dangerously close to Ivan getting detected (in which case I would load the quick save and try other paths). As soon as I reached the underground entrance I went right in.

The combat here starts as soon as you enter. I again used the same tactic as with Faucheux. I stayed in the retreat range of the sector in a prone stance with a sniper rifle on overwatch. Whenever there was an enemy within range in my round I took the shot, then switched to overwatch again. I used an M82 which is a cumbersome weapon and costs a hefty 9 AP to shoot, so I could only land 1 shot in my round but another 2 in overwatch. I managed to down around 8 enemies this way before they started storming the entrance and overwhelming me. At some point there were 4 enemies right in front of me in the beginning of the round, so there was no way I could take them all down. Since I can retreat with no AP cost I shot 1 (or 2) dead, then retreated to the upper fort. Tricky part here is, I land in plain sight of enemies, so immediately after deploying I pause the game and go stealth just in case. Then I go back down underground. To my surprise all the enemies remained in their places – unlike the Faucheux fight, where they moved back to their original positions. Still, this was perfect, because again, after deploying I hit pause, then sneak, then pick a stealth kill target, shoot and let the combat start. If I still have AP to gun one more enemy down, I do it, then retreat back upstairs. Rinse and repeat until there are no more enemies left nearby.
Next, I found a few soldiers just around the corner to the right. I carefully gunned them down one by one, all the while staying close to the exit area.
After clearing those guys I started moving forward very carefully. I took another handful of enemies using M82 and overwatch from behind the nearby sandbags. I tried to be flexible with weapons, so if I felt I was getting overwhelmed, I swapped from the cumbersome M82 to FN-FAL to retain my free movement in case I needed to retreat.
After that I searched all the rooms slowly and carefully and managed to find 2 more enemies to the left of the MG nest. After killing them, there was only Corazon left in the last room. I gunned her down using RPK and keeping my distance.

• I avoided most of the fights when I moved through the map as a way to conserve ammo and weapon durability
• Quick Prism Scope helped me a lot in this playthrough. Not only does it suit the playstyle of camping and shooting enemies as they come in range, but it also helps with stealth kills outside of combat
• I used save-scumming when modding weapons. Even when it says “impossible” it will work at some point if the option is there and is not greyed out
• I used save-scumming to get Parkour magazines in Fleatown
• Durability loss on weapons is a problem on Ironman, so I tried adapting and kept using whatever I managed to find on my way
• If I had to fight during rain, I tried to switch to the secondary weapon set to stop my main weapon from losing durability. I found out that merely holding the weapon in the rain causes durability decay. It is a problem especially on Ironman, when I often had to wait out the enemies. My second weapon set was always grenades and a combat knife. The latter never breaks down (always has 100% durability)
• Confidante is in my opinion one of the best weapons in the game for a Lone Wolf/Ironman playthrough. Especially since it is a guaranteed quest reward
• When stealth killing enemies with a knife, I always aim for the legs. If I do not make the kill, the enemy has its movement reduced and cannot escape. They never open fire in cases like that. Instead, they move away 2 tiles trying to find cover