Guide to USAriadna brand Freedom™

In fact that is only one side of the story. Imo lots of USARF lists rely on low to medium armor 1.5-1.9 wound models like Marauders, Van Zant, Rosie, Wild Bill or the Unknown Ranger. No longer being able to shake of a lucky crit because it can potentially do two wounds is significant, especially out of cover.

 

So I am a little confused (and this may not be the right section for this question) At the end of the article you mentioned that if you're in cover you get a hefty arm 6 against shots. But in the rules it says that partial cover reduces the DAM of the attack. Are you just attaching the -3 to the ARM because its essentially the same dice roll? Or am I missing something?

 

Pretty much, Cover changed from +3 ARM (not affected by AP/K1) in N3, to -3 DAM in N4. The N4 wording tidies up the interaction with AP/K1 but is essentially the same effect.

 

Just had my first N4 USA game, and thought I'd share some impressions. This was my list:



I was up against a limited insertion Shasvastii Sphinx list. It was fairly camo-heavy, and while there weren't any exposed cheerleaders to pick off easily, it also meant that his DZ was fairly sparse, with only a handful of REMs and a HMG TR bot providing AROs. We played Domination.

• Grunt Sniper is great. She didn't actually kill anything but she sunk orders, and B2 DAM 16 AP/Shock is enough to give anything pause, especially at long range. For her price, she was really costly and stressful for my opponent to deal with, overlooking some key firelanes while core-linked.
• On that note, I no longer feel bad about Grunts having 4-2 mov. ARM3 matters, especially in cover, and I'm fine with Grunts keeping their defensive niche. I can use the infiltration profiles if I want them to go aggressive, after all.
• It now feels like USA (and Ariadna in general) have a legit healing option with the changes to Paramedic. A linked B2 medikit offers good odds, especially if the target is a Minuteman with PH13. My opponent climbed a building with his Sphinx and took down the Minuteman, but I was able to smoke him and get him back up in my turn with my paramedic. Shock immune on Grunts and Minutemen feels like it actually matters now.
• The Airborne Ranger with AP Spitfire feels really nice to have in the pocket, thanks to the free gun upgrade, changes to Parachutist, and TAGs being more prevalent in N4. She was able to secure a very good threat vector and shoot the Sphinx in the back; from there, I simply bounced the Sphinx between her and my core (the ol' Van Zant shuffle), and it went down in a few orders. The TO was annoying, and I'm still a bit bummed that fire-sensitive is no longer a thing, but high burst AP will get through eventually.
• UKR didn't get to do too much, but the game was heavily in my favor as soon as I flanked and killed the Sphinx. That said, that tac aware and his high movement make him so ridiculously efficient; I only pumped a few orders into his haris each turn, but he managed to navigate some mines, pressed 2 buttons, killed the TR bot that had been smoked by the Devil Dog (yay MSV1 changes), and then smashed a Speculo's face in when she hail-mary charged him near the end of the game to try and claim a quadrant. NBW + MA is no joke in N4.
• Desperados are too damn good for their price. One didn't do much (but no complaints, cuz... 6 points, man) - but the other one threw a bunch of useful smoke, then blazed up a flank to discover-shoot a Caliban, taking it out with the B5 assault pistol in one order, basically only using his own impetuous and irregular orders to do so. Now that's an up-trade. Having expendable, fast, and deadly biker warbands feels very, very nice, especially since they have sixth sense, decent CC, templates, and good dodge now.
• Devil Dogs are still just as good, and obviously, they're way cheaper. It felt so much better to be risking 23 points instead of 32. They ran up to coup de grace the Sphinx, and then rushed into the enemy DZ under smoke. My opponent smartly shot at the Antipode instead of trying to contest the Devil Dog since he was running a mentor as his LT and didn't want a sensor near his DZ. Regardless, the Devil Dog jumped in and caused plenty of mayhem by himself, discovering the lieutenant, smoking up the TR bot, then jumping up to take out the LT. It was basically game over from there.
• Only having a single chain rifle and no grenades means Devil Dogs are more big game hunters than cheerleader killers - since their strength is in the CC burst bonus and sensor that the Antipode K-9 offers. I imagine I'll continue doing well with them as long as I apply them slightly differently compared to Dog Warriors/Cameronians/McMurrough; I feel it's mostly about being slightly more discerning and picky when it comes to target selection.
• I'm still mixed on the Mavericks since they didn't have much to do this game except pop some smoke and press a button. I still don't know if I prefer a fast specialist with their own smoke, or a mobile gun platform with MSV1/smoke. I'll keep running them though, I like their models too much.

My opponent is still learning how to use TAGs properly, and he probably overextended a little bit in his first turn since he felt pressure to deal damage to gain an early advantage. I'm also still very much learning USA - this was my 3rd game with them - but they performed almost exactly as I'd hoped, and look damn awesome on the table, to boot. I still think a few of our profiles need bumps - Minutemen, Blackjacks, and Traktor Muls - but it was really nice to play and feel the many small upgrades from N3.

 

Haha of course, don't worry - I have the HSG Devil Dog locked and loaded in my next list. Now that I've run him I can definitely see how it can be worth it; that B2 is a huge deal, not to mention the ranged FTF option since the Devil Dog lacks grenades. PH16+3 is real nice, but BS10+6 on 2 dice is more consistent - not to mention the DAM15, the AP slugs, and of course, the 2x templates. I'm really enjoying that moment when I super jump into b2b, and taking my pick between template and ftf depending on what's most likely to kill the opponent, while letting my 2W and TI tank a hit with zero concerns.

(By the way, I'm the guy that's been posting photos of his teal-blue USA on the WGC Facebook page - just FYI. The Devil Dog is near the top of the list in terms of what I'm painting next)

 

The way shotguns work really help the HSG profile of the DD. But I must admit 10 P for a HSG instead of Chain rifle + AP Heavy Pistol screams "you should not be allowed a real weapon" tax to me and is just too much. Of course I will use it sometimes but will also feel penalized while doing.

 

The Heavy shotgun is definitely expensive, but those points are a lot more palatable in USA than otherwise, since outside of the Unknown Ranger we don't really have too many expensive options that are crying out to be used. We still have our really cheap options, and downgrading 1-2 things usually doesn't feel that bad - like switching a Foxtrot BSG for a Hardcase, or a Maverick for a Desperado. Certainly helps that +1B ASP Desperados are 6 points apiece now.

 

That's fair, and granted I don't play the faction, but from watching battle reports and reading the discussion thread on Ariadna they don't seem to be in an awful place.

Moving the thread here to avoid de-railing the original thread.

 

Those of you who've been around here since Uprising may remember how salty I was about the state of Vanilla Yu Jing immediately after that.

For perspective's sake I honestly find USARF currently in a worse condition than that. No jokes there.

 

I just found that Grunt with a grenade launcher is a decent and jack of all trade choice. I put him in the middle of the battlefield but got all most total covered. - 6 MOD (speculative attack) might look bad but as long as in 24" that is okay. Each time you roll a dice, you got 25% to blow enemies who cannot ARO your Grunt.

Here was my situation, I put him on a rescue and kill mission, against Tartary. The objective was to kill the enemy's soldiers and 2 hostages while bringing our hostages back to our area. I could move my army because I could not take Vassilly out of the game. He took most of my big gun out. I got Grunt with a grenade launcher left. So I gave him a try and turned out well. I almost flipped the game by taking the enemy's hostages out. Unfortunately, Vassily found a way to take my Grunt out so I Lost the game.

 

I'm interested in what you said about the UKR - do you specifically mean being tempted to core-link him? I almost never run offensive core links since I find them to be way too exposed and clunky to move around. It often feels like you're mostly presenting the opponent with a very juicy target that's now easier to flank and pick apart. I've been running UKR in a haris, and he's been doing pretty damn well, as you might expect.

Thing is, I'm actually kind of bummed out about how the UKR messes up internal balance so much in USA (though he arguably does this just as badly in Kosmoflot). I appreciate that he's a crazy good profile now, and we finally get to run Cap and feel cool doing it, but the combination of him being so much better than other comparable profiles and how expensive he is makes list building feel somewhat restrictive a lot of the time. Thankfully USA have a lot of ridiculously cheap things to fill things out, but again, those then become auto-includes as a result to counterbalance the UKR's cost.

It just feels like once I throw in the UKR (which I kind of feel like I have to do, unless I'm doing a joke list), most of the list builds itself by chaining from one no-brainer decision to another, and the only real choices I'm making tend to be the loadouts and flavors of 2-3 profiles/roles, and not much else. Just feels like the UKR gets way too much over the other pointmen options in USA - which would be the Minuteman AP HMG, and the Marauder AP Spitfire. Tac aware alone makes him way too good to pass up, especially with tac window in place.

Thoughts?

 

I support the optimism and all but I agree @Ecthelion, last year USARF had like 36% victories in tactical window, and the only substantial changes for the faction have been the ranger and some needed price drops for the ddog and maverick molotok. The thing is, in N3 without tactical window I could pick and play 90% of the profiles and make a ton of decent lists with significant variation in gameplay, almost everything could fit together and the profiles created interesting synergies. Additionally, it worked because moving a marauder a grunt and a foxtrot to make what a single enemy troop can do by itself costs plenty of orders, but now those orders are gone. After several matches with N4 that variety has been completely lost, and the unknown ranger feels mandatory to even be able to play against proper competitive lists played by decent players.

USARF is going to become the new MRRF unless it gets more changes with a proper well made design behind. Just with a couple of random bufs here and there is not going to be enough, because the faction is in dire need of internal redesign/rebalance, and lacks competitiveness against other factions.

 

Totally agree with you.

I also think another huge problem in N4 for USARF players (for me) is the limitation of the miniature. I mean 15 units as maximum put USARF is a huge change. Instead of Spam Grunt, I have to put more consideration in Marauders and Minutemen as core troops.