I’d like to see another couple Marine Corps units. I’m not sure what they could do that wouldn’t just overshadow another unit, but CB is great at pulling things out of left field. It is a little odd that they have a Marine Corps with only one model in the “covert operations” scenario, while the Army has half-a-dozen.
USARF is primarily based around Army units rather than Marines. Read the fluff for them. The original expedition consisted of a NASA science team and Army security units. They made the ridiculous decision to racially break down the groups as well(spoiler: it shouldn't look anywhere near as Caucasian as the Sectorial currently does, and we most definitely shouldn't have gotten rednecks or hillbillies like the Desperadoes and Hardcases). NASA was primarily Caucasian and Asian-American while Army was primarily Latino and African-American.
There already was no reason to ever take a devil dog in Vanilla. Anitpode pack is better for sensor, dog warriors are way better for impetuous assault pieces. Really the devil dog was a good idea, but a non-camo antipode paired with a single chain rifle dog is just lame. I really want to like them more, but for whatever reason the best things about both units were stripped away when they got paired up.
They do exist as part of US Ariadnan forces, but the nature of the US Marines, having been historically wary of the idea of "elite forces within an elite force" that led to the disbandment of the original Marine Raiders and a nearly two decade long wait to form the current MARSOC contribution to SOCOM, does kinda make it tricky to integrate them into Infinity. Much like battle tanks, heavier TAGs, aircraft, and spacecraft, it may be that the scale of the game currently just can't fit the USAMC. And if they could, they'd likely not add too much different from existing USARF stuff. Maybe Veteran L1 "Jarheads" to represent mildly better training than the average Grunt plus aquatic terrain, but likely not too functionally different from the Rangers to justify even seperate units.
I know quite a few Marines. Hell, I almost was one, myself. If you told a bunch of current US Marines that werewolves exist and are sane enough to mix into a combat unit, they would be all over the idea and probably insist that the werewolves get called Devil Dogs even if the entire rest of the Corps had to stop using the name. Yeah, and that's nowhere near current US Army demographics. Current US Army demographics are closer to 70% Caucasian, 15% African-American, maybe 10% Hispanic and less than 5% Asian. USMC you can reverse the Hispanic and African-American %s, probably drop the Caucasians down to 65% and add that to the Asian %. About right for NASA, though. Fewer-than-proportionally-representative numbers African-Americans and Hispanics in the heavy sciences (people like Neil Degrasse Tyson stand out due to relative rarity, in addition to brilliance and ability to explain something without actually talking down to someone)
I am fully aware of this. I just wrote this from fluff perspective. There was enough time on Dawn to get some. They not just arrived five years ago. Althoug i don't recal the exact number of years.
Ariadna was completely out of contact with the rest of humanity for over 100 years. And you really don't want to know the number of redneck/hillbilly types in the US military. FFS, my boss in the Navy was an old bootlegger (liquor smuggler, for those that don't speak 'Murrican) from West Virginia! Yes, really, pretty much straight off the set of Dukes of Hazzard. When he showed up on the boat, his first words to me after his name was: "Where's the porn stash, and where's the Playstation," because he had to be able to play his NASCAR game...
This is the same in the Bundeswehr. More guys that want to live in 1940 (German typ of Hillbillys) then everybody likes. Did he get everything he requested? :)
My response was that I was planning on using *that locker* for our stash of stuff (old boss used it for candy and other bribables, anyway), but I wasn't going to load a Playstation until I sourced a computer monitor with Red/White/Yellow TV inputs. Plus, I was still using mine to play games, so he'd have to bring his own NASCAR games!
As a former Marine, and As a former Marine, if we had werewolves, you can be most certain they'd have been called devil dogs. You'd have had guys lining up to get to become Devil Dogs, it would have been it's own MOS.
Idk, “not too functionally different enough to justify even separate units” sounds pretty USARF to me. It works for Minutemen. :P But I agree that Devildogs seem...unfocused. It appears the development cycle was “what if a Dog Warrior and an Antipode teamed up?” but then they weren’t sure what they were supposed to do together so we ended up with the current DD. I run them often, because I like the models and the idea of them, but I know it’s not optimal. Still, they’re so cool and their background/fluff are pretty sweet.
Devil Dogs work fine in USARF. And compared to a dog warrior or Cameronian, they can use that aux-dog to get the equivalent of MA lvl 4, more or less, which can help ccing vs. tougher troops. I like the implication that Dogfaces, properly trained, can communicate on the Antipode hypersonic/pheromonic "net", forming a sort of bridge between Antipodes and humanity.
