Guide to USAriadna brand Freedom™

God dammit @anubis. That made me laugh. Nice meme there, well done!

Oh, absolutely, more games mean more experience and I in no way intended to disparage the TTS community (some very nice people and players on there). The TTS community also has many players from the real world who play this way due to not being able to travel. I only meant that from one particular standpoint they’d provide data for their metas and not necessarily for others (though I concede the data set here could be larger than I anticipated). That’s all I meant, no offence intended to anyone.

 

You are right, but every time I check the ITS missions out, anything more complicated than "kill stuff, earn points" sails right over my head for now. It does not mean that I do not try to learn new missions, but they are overly complex, and Classifieds deck adds another layer of complexity that I am ill equipped to handle, let alone understand.

Also, adapting to the mission requires you to understand the mission and what each of your miniatures can do - which I ultimately struggle with. The last time I used Paratroopers, It went belly up extremely quickly, and I thought I used them correctly - dropped them behind enemy lines, and then walked them right into the ARO and died, wasting orders. Lessons learned, kind of. But if you do not drop behind enemy, what is the use of Paratroopers then?

All these questions and much more leave me quite perplexed about the pieces I use, and adding another layer of missions and adapting to that, while I have nearly zero idea of what thing does what apart that "guns go boom, melee goes stabby" for now is beyond my capacity to process complex tasks.

Infinity is not a Warhammer 40.000 game. There you clearly have "this unit shoots well and nothing more". And then "this unit melee's well and is fast and nothing more". Easy to understand, easy to process. Easy to use. Walk up, point at the enemy, shoot, do damage. Also, you rarely can die on the approach to your target. Not the case in Infinity.

Adapting takes time, and I am still in the process of "what the heck are skills?" and "I have different types of ammo?" stage of Infinity. I will get there, but from my perch, asking from me to adapt my lists to missions and to opponent's list/faction is like asking a newborn to run a hundred meters dash. You need to walk before you run, you need to crawl before you walk, and I need to at least open my eyes and see a finish line, before I can even crawl.

You are still doing great work, thank you so, so much for your write ups. Cheers!

 

What I usually do to less experienced opponents before a game is run the mission rules with them outline how to get maximum points and highlight what models are important or get advantage for the mission.

Something else I like to remind on turn 2 and 3 is "remember the mission".

 

This is a surprisingly elegant solution, I will ask my local players to help me with that. Thank you for a suggestion.

 

Feel free to link me to data from ones that support what you're claiming.

 

I was pretty excited to open this thread for 3 whole new pages of USA strategy discussion lol

How about some hypothetical reinforcements discussion? Lets say the new rule ends up being: Up to 100 points of your army can come from MRRF, but all locked to its own combat group. No command token swapping, and no french fireteams.

What would your lists look like? Would it be worth taking ~4 Metro's just to power margot and duroc? We'd get our first TAG in the Anaconda as well, and a second hacker for missions where that's important - though both would be severely limited by orders if this speculative rule is anything like the real thing. 4 Chasseurs on top of 4 Foxtrots could make most of your army into midfield points scoring models.

 

Does USARF need any more modfield presence though? Between Grunts, Hardcases and Foxtrots, you can saturate your midfield pretty hard, while Mavericks and Desperadoes can move up the board extremely fast.

Opening up more mercs would be awesome though. Not even the overpowered ones, just some Brawlers or Kaplan. So many options, Mimetism -3 troops or MSV L2, mmmmhmm! Hannibal and Laxmee looks mighty tasty as well. CoC would be awesome. Also, Strategos L1? So, just general mercs, nothing fancy. Anacondas, also maybe? Would blow the door wide open. My extremely naive take.

 

What USARF needs are elite units that fill multiroles or stack synergy skills. As good as units like the hardcase, grunts, or foxtrots are, they are only really good at one job. We lack some powerful special abilities like minelayer, chain of command, or veteran. When we do have them, they are usually locked behind a character or a single model option, which makes the army very predictable.

Its the same with our LT options, most of the time its going to be a rifle or grenade grunt LT which is very obvious, yet we have no CoC options. I think TheDiceAbides said just get use to Loss of LT in US, but other factions don't have that problem quite like the US does while usually having advantages around to off set.

This is one of the reasons folks complain about MM so often because they really could do more for the faction, but they are kind of trash. With 4-4 Marauders there is mostly no reason to every take MM and if you do its the 1 NCO AP HMG (who also competes with UKR) or the 1 LT plus 1 token. They have always been in a race for the bottom with the longarms for worst unit in infinity. Really if they were a go between between a Marauder and a Vet Kazak it would go a long way in helping the Sectorial out.

 

Some sectorials are just like that. MO have the same problem. You either have a Holomasked regular LT in Knight Commander, or you pay throuth the gritted teeth for one of the premium HI LT options. If you want LT on the cheap, the only LT that costs 19 is a Teutonic Knight with Light shotgun and Panzerfaust, and when he hangs back, it is super obvious, who the LT is, because they want to push up the board as fast as possible.

I generally do agree with your points, yes. Minutemen should be more distinct. Giving them special skills like CoC can be great, and it will note them as most professional. Also, for crying out loud, give them Veteran. You can slap minelayer, engineer, paramedic, CoC on them and make them the multitool of USARF, for a price. But then again, will you take them, or will you simply take other options?

Honestly, I don't know what I want out of reinforcements from the MRRF. Veterans will be fine. Mimetism will be fine. FD will be fine.

I really want one, just one mid-range mimetism core piece, who's name is not Unknown Ranger. Because I kinda over the listbuilding, where I just go... So! The list, huh? What's the theme? Oh, before anything, UKR, get in there. He is just too good.

 

MO have 7 LT options two of which are characters and one which has Inspiring Leadership vs USARFs 4. There are a lot of options in MO. USARF is just kinda out of date like Shock Army or MRRF.

I don't really think there is much in the current MRRF list that will help us. Zouaves, Moblots, and Biscards are just sidegrades. The Viral Rifle Loup-Garuo aren't really special without a link. The most notable option right now is the minelayer Chassuer. Hopefully, there are some solid profile changes to give MRRF some good unique options to make them interesting.

 

So... Now we know that Reinforcements will be an optional gameplay mode. So, unless they will do a balance pass of all the factions with regards to this new optional mode (which will be like N 4.5), we are looking at zero actual changes to USARF itself. Which is a bummer.

Oh well, at least I found a box of Desperadoes, maybe. If they arrive eventually in the mail, I will have enough bikers... Maybe. Pardon the uncertainty, but when you find an old site of a local gaming store which was not updated in three years, you contact them, place an order and they ship... You just hope and pray untill the goods are in your hands.

 

I think if you go back into this thread you will see use both complaining about it for years. Though you have always been the sectorial champion so its probably more you . I always liked your regen idea at least. It will always be a hard sell for them having only 1W with Marauders having dogged and blackjacks having AP HMG and 2 functional wounds. Slightly higher CC and poor mans Martial Arts will NEVER beat out extra durability.

Though the way factions have gone now, I don't know if its even enough. I think no longer are sectorials having multiple types of the same option the are just different to give vanilla a few flavors is the way the game works. Moblot, Mormars, Greys, Vet Kazaks, MM, and now Kosmo/Volkolak shouldn't have to compete with each other for table space. MM got to where they are because the rolled the dice on what ever is left in the N3 skill bag after everything else had been given out. Total Immune, NWI, Marksmanship, exotic weapons like Feuerbachs, or even just extra burst..those are all kind of common now. When USARF really needs more than just a few mods so hopefully we eventually get a proper rewrite in a few years.

And there better be linkable devil dogs in it. Maybe with tails this time.

 

Okay, USARF... they are fine. A little dust of would be cool but i do enjoy my current most-corners list i fleshed out over nearly an year. Going wide into threat saturation is fun and does put the preassure on your opponent.

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Raunchy Boars
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GROUP 1 8 2 1
112 FTO Light Shotgun / Pistol, CC Weapon. (0 | 12)
MARAUDER (Multispectral Visor L1) Heavy Rocket Launcher ( ) / Assault Pistol, CC Weapon. (1.5 | 23)
ROSIE Light Rocket Launcher, Light Shotgun, D-Charges / Pistol, CC Weapon. (0 | 22)
UNKNOWN RANGER AP Spitfire, Chain-colt / Heavy Pistol, T2 CC Weapon. (1 | 47)
BEASTHUNTER FTO (Minelayer) Heavy Flamethrower, Panzerfaust, AP Mines / Pistol, DA CC Weapon. (0 | 9)
FOXTROT (Forward Observer) Rifle, Flash Pulse, Shock Mines / Pistol, CC Weapon. (0 | 18)
GRUNT (Infiltration) Heavy Flamethrower, Light Shotgun / Pistol, CC Weapon. (0.5 | 11)
GRUNT (Infiltration) Heavy Flamethrower, Light Shotgun / Pistol, CC Weapon. (0.5 | 11)
MAVERICK AP Spitfire / Pistol, AP CC Weapon. (1 | 28)

GROUP 2 5 1 2
112 FTO Light Shotgun / Pistol, CC Weapon. (0 | 12)
MARAUDER (Lieutenant) Rifle, Heavy Flamethrower / Heavy Pistol, CC Weapon. (0 | 22)
MARAUDER (Multispectral Visor L1) Sniper Rifle(+1B) ( ) / Heavy Pistol, CC Weapon. (0.5 | 32)
DESPERADO Chain Rifle, Smoke Grenades / Assault Pistol(+1B), Shock CC Weapon. (0 | 7)
FOXTROT (Forward Observer) Rifle, Flash Pulse, Shock Mines / Pistol, CC Weapon. (0 | 18)
MAVERICK AP Spitfire / Pistol, AP CC Weapon. (1 | 28)

6 SWC | 300 Points

Open in Infinity Army

 

So, before I can start talking about my current USARF most-corners list, let’s dive into its history. The original version was made back in December 2022 for Vauls TSC. The mission was “Recovery Mission” on an openish Table with three poor-vis terrain zones. My Muricaflot was not up to the task because the tools I had in it didn’t like the table and the challenges it provided… so an new list had to be build. I wanted mobility, more spread out threats and at least solid MSV access to utilize the poor-vis zones. At the core of the list was an 4man UKR team, an USARF Haris with the Marauder Sniper and a Maverick duo…. It felt good to play and I decided to continue looking into that direction. Over time and a few games I made a few tweaks and the current list took its form a few weeks before IGL11 started… and now let’s take a closer look at its units, thoughts behind and other tidbits.

(current list see above)


The rangers best friends… his guns:

I’ve got three AP Spitfires. One of them is the Unknown Ranger himself and the other two are wielded by Mavericks. Unknown Ranger is known by everyone so I will not dive into him but who or what are Mavericks? Mavericks are, at their core an MI bike unit with various profile for different jobs. The AP Spitfire I use is a mobile gunfighter. BS12, mimetism (-3) and his AP Spitfire makes him good enough to even engage higher skilled/armored targets with an reliable f2f odds, MSV1 gives him the edge vs midfield units and high class attackers/defenders who love to have mimetism as part of their package while arm3 may feel as bloat as first, but it gives you decent chances to survive the bad dice roll as long as no special ammo is involved. 1W and 55mm base are the trade off, but with a cost of 28p and 1swc they are a steal. I decided to take two and never looked back. One Maverick can be pinned down by an ARO get, stunned or dies. Taking two let me counter the fragility of them by simply having an back up.

Complementing the short range Spitfires is my offensive Sniper. The humble Marauder Sniper is, like the Maverick, an profile you don’t see often. He lacks damage in comparison to the other offensive snipers in the game, like Knauf or the Yaogat but he does it’s job to engage AROs your opponent put’s in the way of your main attack units. He can work as solo unit, but I like him in an Haris for the extra burst.

Honorable mention to the Desperado, an motorized warband with decent CC and B5 assault pistol to hunt his prey down and Foxtrots… guess what, but rifles can kill people when paired with cover, mimetism (-3) and surprise attack. And who would forget the inflitrating HSG/LSG Grunt? Embrace the 8!

Oh, and MSV1. All three AP Spitfires, the HRL of the core and the Sniper have MSV1 which means that all my main offensive guns don’t care about the smoke ammo f2f and can engage the opponents main pieces that often have mimetism themselfes on better f2f odds then most.


What about defense, I hear you say.

Well, defense is a bit more iffy in USAriadna. I think they serviceable but you are near helpless against your prime alpha striker. The Beasthunter is the most obvious ARO unit in the list. The second one is Rosie with her LRL/LSG, dogged, immunity (shock) and courage. She’s cored up which grants her sixth sense and +B and besides the 112 the least important core member which gives her the thankless duty of sacrifical ARO. The Marauder HRL in the same team is also an okay option, but there are reasons why he is more “important” then Rosie. As example: He lacks immunity (shock) which means that he will straight out die to shock ammo which many attackers have and he is the foundation of the core you can’t just reform it if it breaks and the Marauder is dead. The Marauder Sniper can also watch a lane but he is much more usefull in active which is why i’m against putting him on dz-dz duty. Last line horizontal AROs to cover your Grunt mines or core is fine though. The Grunts are great living HFT mines but you have to remember that you loose an order if they die which can hamper your retaliation strike.

Fireteams!

I have two fixed fireteams in my list. The 4man USARF core with a 112 FTO, Marauder HRL, Rosie and Unknown Ranger and an USARF haris with the 112 FTO, Marauder Rifle/HFT and Marauder Sniper.

The Core needs a little explanation. The first version of the 4man offensive core started as Grunt core with an 112 FTO, Grunt HFT, UKR and Wild Bill. The idea was that of a mobile attack core with a back-up gunfighter for when the UKR dies. I played it a few times and while it performed okay I didn’t like the 4-2 movement of the mandatory Grunt, the lacking defense for when it reached the midfield and had to stay there and the limited range band coverage. I saw a few ways to fix these problems but none of them felt good, so back to the army builder. And there I ran into the swc problem. Up unit now I did play an Foxtrot lt who costs 2swc and I was okay with that but my new core idea needed the swc… so I needed an new lt, i’ll go over the details later. Fact is, with the swc freed up, I was able to include a heavy weapon into the team. My choice fell onto the Marauder HRL who took the spot Grunt as mandatory fire team glue. That alone instantly fixed some of the problems I had with the original core. No more 4-2 unit, the HRL and Assault Pistols did cover the range bands UKR lacked. The HRL was also a solid ARO choice but not exactly what I looked for so I looked further and decided put Rosie with her LRL+LSG in for that job… and lo and behold! The core has a nice synergy.

As 4man core without composition bonus I don’t really care about the fifth member but getting 6s and retaining the important 3man “+1B for all BS attacks” even if I loose a member is so nice because that means I’m able to not really care about Rosie when she gets the thankless job of midfield ARO which was one of the bigger gripes I had with the old core because I now felt more confident to let it stay in the midfield because of that as opposed as before where my only real defense was keeping my heads down. The Haris straight forward. It provides fire support for my units and houses my obvious lt with the 112 FTO to drive the cost down, be a back-up specialist/doctor and an extra lsg for defense.


A question of leadership.

Okay, elephant in the room time. Foxtrot lt was nice and save but too expensive in swc for my new list. In the end I went for a controversial solution: The open lt without decoy. But I can explain this. The lt question came up very late in my list building and at that point I had already filled out 12 of the 15 slots with units I wanted to play. 7 for the fire teams, 2 Maverick attack bikes, 2 infiltrating Grunts with HFT/LSG and one Foxtrot FO for missions and opportunity shots. The tree slots that where still free had strong contenders. I wanted an reliable smoke option, so Desperado or Devil Dogs, an expendable ARO unit like Warcor or Beasthunter and maybe a second Foxtrot FO. Wasting two slots for the Grunt lt + Decoy was out of question. I could forgo one slot but that would mean an open lt… and then why not make the one unit in my list the lt that has the right profile and is already planned in? And that’s why I went with the Marauder lt, who is tucked away in the USARF Haris. I wanted all the cake and eat it as well.


And how did it perform? Quite well i would say. It's no "play this and win tourneys" list but the wide apporach with the spread of threats made it more resilient then it is on paper. (Bearbeitet)The open lt did also not came around to bite me. The few times i was in lol with this list it was either my mistake or the opponent broke through which was the bigger problem tbh

 

What i pers like about that list is that it uses the sectorial units. It's not "vanilla faction with fireteams". Yes, i would have not said no to some better (more acclaimed/known) units, but managing to build a list with these sectorial choices that performs and plays nice as this list does feels really good.

 

Since we didn't get any changes in the update, how about I drag up the tired old discussion of Minutemen changes again? Even though I like the 6-4 MOV + regen idea and think it should've made it in years ago, I think of changes for them every time I write a USA list - and there are so many ways they could be made less bad.

MOV 4-4/CC 14/BS 13/PH 13/WIP 12/ARM 3/BTS 0/W 1/S 2/AVA 5
Immunity (Shock)/Terrain (Total)/BS Attack (Continuous Damage)

7
MINUTEMAN Rifle, Light Flamethrower(+1B) / Heavy Pistol, CC Weapon. (0 | 19)
MINUTEMAN Boarding Shotgun, Grenades / Heavy Pistol, CC Weapon. (0 | 22)
MINUTEMAN Missile Launcher, Light Flamethrower / Heavy Pistol, CC Weapon. (1.5 | 30)
MINUTEMAN (Forward Observer) AP Rifle, Light Flamethrower(+1B), Flash Pulse / Heavy Pistol, CC Weapon. (0 | 22)
MINUTEMAN (NCO) AP Heavy Machine Gun / AP Rifle / Heavy Pistol, CC Weapon. (1.5 | 32)
MINUTEMAN (Lieutenant [+1 Command Token])(Number 2) Rifle, Light Flamethrower(+1B) / Heavy Pistol, CC Weapon. (0 | 24)
MINUTEMAN (Paramedic)(Hacker:Zero Pain)(Engineer)(Dodge +3)(Dodge -3) Medikit, Gizmokit, D-Charges / AP Heavy Pistol, CC Weapon. (0 | 30)

So I'd make them cheaper across the board because they're massively overcosted. Cut the bloated CC stats they're paying for for no reason, and dodge +1 inch because it's fine, but they don't really have any synergy with it, it's just another thing they pay for that they don't need.

Then give them BS attack continuous damage (lore-wise having access to fancy tracer rounds) and put the points back up a little to make them a tactically interesting glass cannon to consider. Yes they're still relatively costly ARM3 W1 models that can die very easily, but now if you use them well they could be worth the risk, able to put out some scary damage.

I've thematically combined the HMG profile, which is a really boring active turn shooter to pick, and X visor into something a bit more unique just by giving him an AP rifle. Again, it's an expensive active shooter to have no fallbacks against your first lost F2F, but at least now you get the trade-off of having access to a good gun at all the important range bands. Fits the lore of being prepared for anything, and loaded with the best weapons available.

The missile launcher without changing doesn't get the points discount, becoming a really fun unique weapon with huge damage potential combining EXP + continuous damage. I feel like it's possibly still weak given the lack of survivability. A normal missile launcher will kill 90% of the stuff it hits, so boosting that to 95-99% with continuous damage might not be as crazy of a buff as it seems.

I gave the lieutenant number 2, which is probably too goofy. It's the only half decent minuteman profile without it already, but I dislike having a known Lt be obfuscated by other players lack of knowledge of your faction, and this makes him more clearly open information. It's also a skill I think USA should have, they're thematically all about well organised fireteams.

Lastly to represent access to better training, there's the omni-specialist. I also reckon it's pretty weak, 8 points more than Dr worm for zero pain hacker, but only WIP12 and no access to peripherals in USA. He'd be paying a huge tax for being an interesting specialist in a faction that's normally bad at that. Since bringing him gives you the potential to do most of the objective cards, and he's already overloaded with kits and explosives, he couldn't afford to bring a gun, only having the AP Heavy pistol, leaving him hugely vulnerable at range. Maybe he'd be more balanced with FO as well, which also gives him a ranged ARO as well. Could lead to some interesting gameplay, he'll be easy to assassinate, but you can really bait your opponent into wanting to try as he represents a clear way for you to score lots of objective points.