Mercenaries in taverns are real deal now. Mettenheim troops can be upgraded into heavy crossbowmen with arbalests, maces and war spears, Melitine troops can be upgraded into archers with shields and spears or polearms, Barclay Sappers are expensive but have claymores for extra reach. All these troops are strong as ranged units and good as all purpose infantry who can mess up even heavy knights in melee. Very nice ranged core without faction morale penalties for heavy defensive battles when party size in range 150-250 and you cannot win just by masses of troops. Also you can get Highlanders this way which are not elite but still strong infantry. When you can train level 20 troops these mercenaries are almost out of the box strong elite soldiers, good all around unlike factions troops.