It's an idea I have been toying with for a while on other characters, but now I started a new nord warrior, this time I ain't going it alone though, I want to build the ultimate crew.

Using UFO I can have 15 followers, I am just looking for your opinions on who I should recruit to my crew and who is useless or annoying.

So far it consists of Faendal and Lydia. I plan on marrying Lydia once I get a few more companions.

I'm early into this playthrough, so I'm building my team as early as I can so I can enjoy this style of play for longer.

I plan on getting Marcurio when I get to Riften as my mage.

Anyone know a good archer follower? Would like to have 2 archers with me. Only one I know of is Faendal.

They are all going to be kitted out with custom gear, so we should look badass as we mow down everything in our path!

I'll post up some pictures of my little group so far shortly, still need to collect some bits to make Lydia some armor to replace her steel.

Anything I have overlooked? Any lesser known followers that are good?

Jenassa, she is an archer.

Aela the Huntress is a great archer, ANY Orcs are good allies

Drunken Huntsman girl? Awesome, always overlooked her in the past :/
I'm on my way back to Whiterun to turn in a few quests and bounties at the moment, so I'll grab her as I pass by.

I'm thinking, 2 archers, 2 warriors and a mage? As well as me and Lydia. We don't count towards those numbers as we will sorta be the leaders.
So that's 7 total, might be a bit cramped in the tighter areas, but odds are I'll leave some people behind depending on what is ahead of us.

Still some quirks to work out, and I'm sure I'll come across some other quirks that I haven't yet foreseen.


Edit: Ah, poor Aela, I always thought she was a sword and board. It's what I noticed her using most back on my werewolf, will have to check into that.

Also you just opened my eyes to guild companions, I had totally forgotten about all the possible followers from Companions and Winterhold.

Hmm, well I'm going to pick up Jenassa, get her and Lydz some gear and get a few pics for you to see.

For some reason Jenassa didn't have a bow nor arrows, lol. Got her now though and one step closer.

I'd add Jenassa, Marcurio and (if you've done her quest) Mjoll the Lioness. A nice mixture!

Just a quick question regarding Jenassa, she cost me 500 to hire (I know, big whoop), never ever used a paid for mercenary before, so will she act the same as Lydia (for example)?

As in, that 500 covers me for a lifetime of service? Or do I have to repay her every so often?

I guess I'll find out as I go along with her though, just nice to know that a shocker is up ahead or not. ;p
Still no picture sorry, still gathering the materials to make all their armour haha, decided I didn't like Faendal's armour, looks too much like mine and not "archery enough", if that makes sense. He looked like he shoulda been crushing skulls with his bare hands. xD

My question is, are you going to let them all fight with you at the same time, and if so how are you going to prevent friendly fire from causing problems? Does the UFO mod fix that problem? Is there another mod that will do away with the issue of friendly fire between followers?

I'm using UFO as well but was mainly attracted by all the other awesome features, I have not tried multiple followers yet except for a quick test to see if it worked properly. Haven't taken a "crew" on any adventures. I expect it would be okay depending on the type of follower, melee/archers are one thing, however with a mage I would be very wary unless the friendly fire AI issue has been taken care of. Marcurio is one of my favorite followers but any time I had him and then also got temporary additional quest followers I would have to leave him behind somewhere. He uses chain lighting. A lot. He aims it at a legitimate enemy and then it bounces off and hits another "target" which would usually end up being one of our allies who would then turn and attack him or sometimes end up dead if they weren't essential (Marcurio + stray dog = bad idea).

I would love to play around with his mod and create a personal entourage of my favorite followers at some point later on with this PC, even if it's just for lulz, but I don't want fights breaking out between mages and everybody else.

When you hire a mercenary, they act just like Lydia - they'll follow you, follow your commands, trade items with you, wait where you want them to etc.

The 500 gold is a once-off payment UNLESS you dismiss them and then want to hire them again. Some followers will let you hire then again for free, but once you've 'used up' your freebie you'll have to pay again. So, in short, you'll only have to pay again if you dismiss them and decided to hire them again.

Hmm, maybe I'll leave out mages til I see a viable way to do that.

Faendal has shot Lydia in the back of the head several times so far, she didn't seem to care much. Never really had a mage follower before haha, didn't really think about chain lightning and such. Hmm.

@Solitudian: Okay good, works for me as I doubt I'll be dismissing them, although I will be asking them to wait at some points I am sure.

I am going to try and do the MQ as the Dovahkiin, [his wife], and his entourage.

If anything, the combat is more hectic now, which I love, always makes me grin when I am toe to toe with someone and an arrow flies over my shoulder from behind and kills them dead.

Feels more like an action movie when it's not just me doing the killing.

Yeah, it sounds like it would be a hoot to have a whole posse of warriors going out with you on a mission... I always think it would be fun to clear out larger encampments that way, like some of the Forsworn camps or those pesky enemy camps that still dot the landscape after you finish the CW quests.

But I'd hate to create a crew of fave followers and leave Marcurio out. Honestly if I knew how to take Chain Lightning away from him, it would probably be fine. Is there a console command that will let you see and remove spells from a mage's repertoire? Because with that spell, it's not like he tosses out one fireball and it hits someone and they shrug it off, like you accidentally putting an arrow into a follower once in a while or swiping them with a weapon when they run into the middle of your melee attack. The Chain Lightning just keeps bouncing around until it runs out of targets and if he keeps casting it, sooner or later it causes problems, especially if the other friendlies are melee fighters who are in close to the enemy he's casting it at.

I'd hate to leave him out too, especially as everyone here seems to love him for something, mostly his dialog.
Will look into removing his chain lightning spell, might replace it with sparks, can't take away all his electricity!

I just remembered that I can take Meeko too! Another Skyrim legend IMO.
Might see if I can take Vigilance with me too, 2 dogs isn't overkill for a big group.

I'm trying to set myself up a campsite in the wilderness and getting a few mods (followers relax, spouses live everywhere (for Lydia, unless she falls into the followers relax category? Maybe she won't after marriage though)) to try and simulate myself setting up a protected camp. Much like the current camps Bandit Chiefs have control of.
Already got the camping mod. I am burning myself out though cos I haven't even completed my first objective for todays play, and that is kitting out Lydia properly, now I need to kit out her, Faendal and Jenassa haha. Gonna have to slow down and realise that the ultimate crew isn't a 5 minute job.

If you use the Followers Can Relax mod, it works the same for housecarls as it does for other followers. (Edit: if you have them following you - if not they're "relaxing" in your house anyway.)

However if you marry Lydia I assume you will have to keep her in follower mode in order to get the "relax" dialogue. If you want to be able to switch her from follower to spouse mode and have her live and behave as your spouse at some unusual location, then you'll probably still need the mod for spouses to live anywhere. Just a guess but it seems logical.

Marcurio's snappy attitude and pvssyr is one reason I love him, but even if he never opened his mouth I would still want him around. HE IS A BEAST in combat. At least he always has been for me. Particularly if you have UFO, where you can keep having him "train" to level up and increase all his stats accordingly? I can only imagine what he'd be like late game.

Edit: Speaking of interesting follower stuff, it wasn't until this week that I got UFO and other stuff all set up and got the chance to test out the multiple followers bit. I already had Stenvar as a hireling and got Calder as a housecarl. Both based in Windhelm, so convenient for testing. Released Stenvar, asked Calder to follow, then went back to the inn to see if I could do a successful hire of Stenvar. Was able to do that, then started back to the house only to realize that Stenvar had followed me out the door but not Calder (who was definitely with me when I left the house and went to the inn). He eventually came running around to catch up a couple minutes later.

Since I'm gonna reload a save to "undo" paying Stenvar another 500 for the rehire, I figure I'll try it again to see what exactly happened to Calder at the inn. Left Hjerim with him in tow, went to the inn, as soon as I went in the door I turned and he's not there behind me. I think okay, WTF,,, but then I notice something. He is not behind me because as soon as we went into the inn, he walked over to where the bard was singing, picked up a tankard and started chugging down the mead. ROFL.

Dialogue showed he was still in follower mode, still "following" and I haven't told him to relax -- but apparently if we go into the inn, he doesn't just stand there waiting on me to take care of my business, he immediately heads off to wherever the fun is. I don't know if he does that in vanilla or it's something a mod added, but it's awesome. Just a small detail that really made my day.

Ahh, I see what you mean regarding the spouse thing, dunno why my brain misunderstood that.
Spouses live anywhere won't be needed for me cos she ain't gonna be a stay at home wife, she'll be by my side 100% of the time (or atleast as close to 100% as is feasible, can't take her Sovngarde after all. Can i? ), so no need to have her living anywhere. For some reason it only clicked in my head when I read it the way you wrote it. Thanks for saving me a slot in my load order.

I'm going to remove his chain lightning and give him sparks (maybe weaker, but won't matter much when my entire group will probably be able to put out over 1,000 damage within a second).

Another slight issue I have just run head long into, horses. I would prefer if my crew was mounted on longer treks, but I won't be able to source that many horses, will I?

I think I may be able to get the horses I need thanks to a mod called Horse Branding.
Also, for a more elite crew I am going for the "Like a Boss" series of mounts.

If I used followers, and could make a team of them instead of just one at a time, this would be my team:

Erandur
Cicero
Karliah
Illia
Khjaro
Derkeethus
Aela

Seems like a good mixture of conflicting personalities and battle tactics. Oh, what wonderful times we'd have. I can just imagine Erandur trying to endure traveling with Cicero.

Karliah can be a follower?! As in, Gallus' old girlfriend Karliah? (unspoilerish as possible)

Never knew she could be a follower! Damn, I have missed out so much from just rushing through the guilds on separate characters.

I hate followers getting in the way between my sword and my enemy (and them getting angried by that), so I've found that ranged magic types are just my perfect companions. I've only 3 of them, though...I wouldn't like more (hard to manage):

- J'Zargo
- Onmund
- Marcurio

...and another tip. If you want an even better management of them I recommend you http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/downloads/file.php?id=14933, which is a nice Mark/Recall mod with multiple followers support (they teleport with you when Recalling, and you're able to summon them anytime to your position as well).

I don't think she can, but if she could I definitely would have her on my team. I'm not sure where she's gone though. Seems to have disappeared. It's troubling.

But seeing as how you're on the PC, you can probably find a mod for her to be a follower.

Horse Branding is great. Have it load before UFO in your mod order. Also IIRC it comes with two files, one for Branding and one for Riding AI (for followers). You will not need the Riding AI file from Horse Branders as UFO will give you what you need for followers to ride when it loads up.

What I am doing based on a comment at Nexus on the UFO thread, is when I want a horse for a follower I first brand it as mine then brand it as a follower horse. If I already have a horse of my own and I'm taking another horse for a follower to ride, I brand my horse as the follower horse and then brand the new horse as mine and ride the new one myself. I don't know if it's necessary but it works so far.

The issue I'm having with horses is that some of them will stay and fight if you get into a combat situation, and some of them will run off and then you have to go looking for them again. I don't think that has anything to do with the mods, I think it probably has to do with some horses being coded to do one thing and some coded to do another. If that happens and I really need everyone to be riding, we just have to go find the other horse. If it's a follower horse that ran off, it's possible that if I mounted up and rode away the follower horse would come back or the follower would go find it and get on and catch up, but I don't know for sure and if I'm going to be waiting anyway I might as well spend that time looking for the other horse so I know we've still got it.

The other solution is to fast travel, if you do that any follower horses will turn up where you are but sometimes you have to wait an hour before they arrive. Seems to happen also if you and your follower are riding and you fast travel, you may have to wait for both the follower and the horse to catch up. I don't normally fast travel except to "fix" issues like losing track of followers and stuff, so it's not that big a deal. If I'm really close to a known location I'll just fast travel there and it's not like I teleported all the way across the map. But right now I'm on a fairly new character and I don't have that many places yet that I can fast travel to, so I usually just end up looking for any scared horses that ran off from a fight. I know there is a mod (Better Horses?) that gives you a way to "call" a wayward horse back to your location but IIRC it said it wasn't compatible with Horse Branding so I haven't tried it.

Edit: how are you going to take Chain Lightning away from Marcurio? Because I would like to try that if it's possible. I hate not being able to take him everywhere once I've got him.

As for giving him something to work with in the Shock category, eventually I always find a staff for some kind of lightning attack. There are ones more powerful than just the Sparks spell that do not ricochet onto additional NPCs like Chain Lightning does. There's also a more powerful Shock spell than Sparks, I think... Lightning Bolt maybe?