As you said he is never gonna be as effective as a regular MM but it should be doable, i tried doing a few mish with only my Grave knights out and it went fine.
would be pretty cool, i would like to have one, just dont see myself leveling one 
Actually I have tried the excact same thing, I even got to lvl 12 and had my pet, but after a while I felt gimped in both my primary and secondary. I wish we could just select that rifle allready. What's up with all these out of date weaponry. Is it so hard to make every weapon counterpart selectable at the tailor?
Well All Just hit level 12
Thank god for IO's makes it a little easier, ill be honest ive died quite a few times but i guess it all adds up to badges in the end
Heres another pic :
http://i228.photobucket.com/albums/e...terLevel12.jpg
I'll keep you all updated..
Greetings Fellow Evildoers
Having to put up with the horrible Frankengun for 20 levels on my AR/Traps corruptor, this morning I deleted him.
I could not take the horrible sight of it anymore im sure my computer screen feels the same way, anyway enough rambling.
I wanted a Rifle, I wanted the Merc MM rifle. This morning I created a concept character, his background is simply that he is the leader of a trio of Spec ops agents.
Being a very active player (almost 15 hrs in a row when im working) i decided to create a Merc MM with only Tier two pets enabling me to take the Rifle attacks and other concept powers such as stealth/invis.
I understand this build will be no were near as good as a full MM but im going to enjoy myself so what the hell.
I'll post updates to let you all know of my progress (hopefully someone will be interested) and probably also tell you the number of times I get kicked off a team when they ask me why I havent I summoned my soldiers.
Level 2 Starting Pic
http://i228.photobucket.com/albums/e...erstarting.jpg
Any comments or queries appreciated