Since I chose to be a wizard I used the big half orc dude, although I forget his name. Between the hireling, summoning a familiar (black panther) and summoning an undead, I always had 3 others to go off fighting while I hung back and cast spells or fired arrows. Fun stuff.

My main gripe is that they didn't have the hirelings actually remember you from chapter to chapter. In each chapter it was like they met you for the first time... blah...