How to find Mercenaries and complete the Minelayer mission in MW3 Zombies

There are plenty of missions to work through in MW3’s Zombies mode, but some tasks can be particularly challenging, including finding Mercenaries for the Minelayer mission.

While Zombies are readily available across the map, Mercenaries are not as easy to locate and, considering they also have weapons and are not afraid to use them, they can put up quite a fight if you’re not prepared.

You don’t need to slave away trying to find the best approach, though, as I’ve done the legwork and am about to share some great tips.

How to complete the Minelayer mission in MW3 Zombies

The Minelayer mission in MW3 is fairly easy to complete but will require you to locate specific enemies and kill them in specific ways which, due to the cooldowns of your Field Upgrade, may take you some time.

The first part of the Minelayer mission is the easiest to complete, as you only need to defeat 25 Zombies using your Energy Mine Field Upgrade. To do this, you need to charge your Field Upgrade and, once available, trigger it.

Zombies can be drawn together in groups to make it easier to kill several at one time, and one of the best ways to get kills with your Energy Mine is to deploy them after calling in for Extraction, as this results in a vast number of Zombies spawning.

For the second part of the mission, you need to kill 15 Mercenaries using your Energy Mine Field Upgrade which, on the face of it, may seem as simple as the first part. However, this takes significantly longer to do.

While you can find Zombies in pretty much every location on the map, Mercenaries only spawn in specific areas or when specific Contracts are underway, so finding them is trickier. On top of this, they cannot be lured like Zombies, which makes it harder to land multiple kills with one use of the Energy Mine.

Where to find Mercenaries in MW3 Zombies

Mercenaries are found at specific areas of the map in MW3 Zombies that are marked by icons, including Mercenary Camps and Mercenary Strongholds—though you will need a keycard to access the latter.

Unfortunately, Mercenary Camps have few enemies and are often too spread out to get multiple kills with one use of the Energy Mine. I found that Aether Extractor contracts and Defend Ground Stations are great ways to encounter larger numbers of Mercenaries.

Defend Ground Stations contracts are particularly useful as, after getting the data from the three marked POIs, you’ll then have to defend an area from waves of Mercenaries, and you can deploy your Energy Mine in their spawn points or right next to the final objective.

Alternatively, you can buy a keycard for a Mercenary Stronghold from a Buy Station for 200 Essence, and as they are inside buildings, it’s easy to get multiple kills at the same time. If you’re feeling really brave, head to the Fortress to find a wealth of Mercenaries—though this is in the Medium Threat Zone and they are harder to defeat.