Mafia Wars: Increase your mafia size (and strength) for free with help from friends

As any dedicated Mafia Wars player knows, the best way to outgun and outrun your opponents is by having as large a mafia as possible, so that each member of that mafia can bring in its own defensive and offensive items, animals, and even vehicles into any fight you may find yourself placed in (of course, you need to have enough items in your inventory to outfit them, but that's another story altogether).

As it stands, the normal methods of adding members to your mafia are either simply asking your friends who play the game to join you (similar to other "add neighbor") mechanics in most Facebook games, or by purchasing "Hired Guns" for premium currency. These hired guns act the same as those real-world players that you've recruited, but help fill in the gap created between how many real-world friends you have, and the 501 mafia member limit (500 members aside from yourself).

That all being the case, if you don't want to pay Reward Points to add Hired Guns to your account, Zynga has now (mercifully) added the Hired Gun to the game's free gifts page in bundles of 2. That is, if you head over to the free gifts page, you'll be able to send your friends +2 Mafia Members, in an effort to help them get closer to that elusive 501 member goal. This is a pretty big deal, considering the fact that each mafia member makes you a stronger player overall, so it's definitely worth spreading a few of these around between friends in order to boost your mafia was much as you can before they are removed from the page.

Do you already have a 501 member mafia? How many of these free gifts will you need to receive before getting there? Let us know what you think of this free gift in the comments.