My blog is over at TheDiceAbide.com, I'm also TheDiceAbide on Twitch and YouTube. I also write the USARF guide that is stickied on this forum. My gaming has slowed down a bit over the holidays and new years, but now that things are back to normal I'm going to devote some more time to really dig deeper into USARF, then I'll be updating my unit tactic articles.
Except no. You having a blog does not magically make you some authority on USAR and their balance. It just makes your opinion more visible. You know what the actual numbers say? as backed by literally every single ITS game played last season? We need more than 15 orders. The top 33% of USAR players, those with a 72% winrate, were running 16 and a half orders on average. You know know was running with just 15 orders? The bottom 33%. So no, you don't actually know what you're talking about. You're just a loud voice.
@iyaerP While I agree with your opinion on USA & Ariadna having better chances of wining with 15+ order lists I think you could have brought your disagreement with Dice's opinion with better chosen words. Especially the last line of dialogue & the second line could be edited to be less hostile.
It also does not help when one uses N3 numbers to justify that USAF is bad in N4. There have been significant changes in N4 to the entire game. In addition, units like Mavericks, Devil Dogs, Desperadoes, and the unknown ranger have gotten significantly better. We also don't have any real N4 data and will not have some for awhile. So all we will have for awhile will be speculation, anecdotes, and battle reports. For better discussion, it would be best to talk about why or why not you believe that USAF doesn't work in N4 and details about one's struggles or successes.
When we have actual N4 data, it would be interesting to see if top USAR players can retain that win rate with 15 orders. My gut tells me yes - as Brokenwolf pointed out aspects of the game and units have changed. If you truly play at the level of top tournament players, you will find a strategy to win. If you're not playing at that level, what does it really matter?
So this is my take on a modern USARF. The 5-man Maruader Link (including Rosie) allows them to start someways up the field, which can help them get out of terrible deployment zones into the mid-range fights to which they are suited. The UKR can start in the 5-man link or as a solo piece, giving the USARF player some flexibility. Bikes go in the first group since they're the more greedy pieces if they can find a spree, though they're really just there to force the opponent to put up AROs and have at least some pieces facing forwards, opening up some spaces for VZ. Grunts being Infiltration instead of inf. infiltration is not insignificant, but in the 15-order meta you really have to deploy them with much more care so they're like stubborn ticks that have to be dug out, rather than flat out trading pieces. This list can definitely play, however, nothing about USARF makes me feel like they can do something incredibly valuable that you cannot do with other Ariadnan factions. USARF still has the weakest camo game out of the various Ariadnan factions, so they don't utilize that sniffer absence as much as vanilla, or even MRRF with their Chasseur/Metro PF spam. Instead, their specialization is throwing a bunch of ARM3 infantry at the opponent, which with the crit and paramedics in fireteam change means that these teams are tougher than they might have been in N3. But are these level-ups enough to have USARF compete against the power spikes of other factions? When COVID abates and allows some sense of normality to resume, I guess we will see.
Woah there buddy, chill out. I don't need to qualify myself to you, you clearly don't know who I am, or how well I do with USARF. What the blog does mean is not only have I played USARF a lot, but I've also spent a lot of time thinking about them, forming my thoughts into articles, and presented the work for discussion. Before calling me out, learn to interpret your own data (fortunately I literally design data interpretation tools for a living, so I'm here to help). The top 33% of USARF players had just over 16 orders on average. That means while a fair amount were more, many were less, having a distribution for order count would be more helpful here, but we just have the raw average in that data. What it doesn't mean every list in the top 33% was 16+. The people in the mid 33% actually averaged a slightly higher order count than in the top 33%. That would indicate that more orders doesn't mean more wins, if anything it supports what I suggested about there being an optimal balance between quantity and quality. While the lower 33% of results have lower model counts, there are a TON of external factors you need to consider, like the likelihood of newer or lower ELO players appearing in the bottom 33%, and their lower availability of miniatures. There is a lot of data not presented in this set, which is why these kinds of datasets are not incredibly reliable for making strong, actionable insights. Furthermore, USARF is by far not the only army which averaged over 15 in the top 33% of results, 21 of 37 armies played with over 15 in the top 33%. Over half of the armies in the game are in the same boat, meaning over half the armies in the game are at a similar disadvantage compared to previous editions. That isn't a nerf to USARF, that's a rebalancing of most armies in the game, and actually works to level out the disadvantage by spreading it across all armies. To know the impact of the unit cap, we need to know the effects in context with all the other armies in the game, especially since most were similarly affected. What I do know is anecdotal to my own experience, where I found >16 troops to be unwieldy, and usually meant I was sacrificing quality for quantity. Generally I've always played 14-16, so a cap of 15 doesn't affect me as much as someone who got used to playing with 18. Hear hear! This is a hugely relevant bit that people tend to ignore, because it's easier to ignore it and make strong assumptions, than to figure out what it all means in context. I try not to make blanket statements or large claims, but instead speak from only my own experience, and my own experience says going down to 15 orders isn't that big of a deal. I don't think it will make USARF worse in the N4 in comparison to the other armies out there, but I do think many people's go-to lists will have to change a bit.
Anyhow, that's a huge aside from the intention of this thread. If you want to discuss more about USARF in particular, I'm happy to do so in an appropriate thread. I've already suggested that I don't think USARF is a great army to start as a new player, despite them being my first army, though this is mostly because they don't segue into vanilla well, not because they're a bad army in N4.
I’m curious about your thoughts on USARF as a starter army for a new player. Is that simply because they don’t fold well into eventually playing Vanilla? You did say “mostly.” So if that’s all you meant I can 100% agree with that. That said, and speaking from my own experience, I found them to be fantastic to learn the game with. From the hobby collecting side, I moved from one sectorial to the next, with the end result (someday) to play Vanilla. So that wasn’t a major concern for me. But for learning the game, they were awesome. I could pretty much ignore the chapter on hacking. Most units only had a couple special abilities each, so I could really get to know them. They don’t really have any super fancy skills, equipment, or abilities, so I had to learn how to creatively problem solve. As I moved on to MRRF and now TAK, I’ve been able to really leverage the new abilities and nuances of those factions. And it was easier to scale up to TAK’s camo spam as I’d already had some practice using some camo in USARF. I think I would have felt overwhelmed with TAK cano had I not started slow with a couple Foxtrots and a hardcase in USARF. Anyway, just my two bits.
It kinda depends on your learning philosophy. USARF offers a very narrow view of the rules, I think as a new player exposing yourself to more of the game is important. Some people prefer the focus to make it quicker to pick up, but I think as a new player you could get bored with USARF quickly and want to try the things that Infinity is known for (hacking, TAGs, heavy infantry, etc.). You do get to play quite a bit more with vanilla, TAK, or CHA. The camo shell game is a huge part of camo that USARF misses out on, which is a bummer for learning about camouflage. Desperados going OOP is also problematic, as well as the Devil Dog shotgun, if I was new coming into a game, I'd be very annoyed to find parts of my army missing and just being told it's okay to proxy. That said, I started the game with USARF, but shortly after picked up Combined Army as my vanilla faction, because it was able to participate in more of the game.
That’s pretty fair. I think I just got into the game, and specifically USARF, at exactly the right time. It was right after the army box had dropped and new models were coming out regularly for them. At that phase of life I also had very little time to learn a bunch of rules so being limited in why the army brought was more helpful to me than not. But I totally see how that would be different for other people. And it is unfortunate to have OOP models.
I think you’re right. I remember reading all your USARF content as it got published. The hype was real.
