Trying to decide a faction

Ariadna doesn't need to have more orders, but its pretty easy to do if you feel like it. Ariadna is one of the easier factions to get a grip on the fundamentals of the game with, you won't have to worry about hackers, there are a lot of highly survivable units, and several very effective fireteam combos.

The best place to start right now is the USAriadna army box, which will give you a great booklet on how to play the game, some terrain and around 150 points worth of units to start with, your next purchase should likely be the 112 and Dozer, since they're in every sectorial and they're never a bad use of points. From there you can add more grunts, a marauder box, the minutemen or a Blackjack to suit your tastes, or if you're set on the idea of an order spam list right out the gate(and you're maybe a little crazy...), buy another USAriadna box, only with the second one you swap some weapons around:
The Marauder's Heavy flamer goes to one of the grunts in exchange for the rifle, this doesn't change the marauder much, but it lets you use the infiltration profile of the grunt. The Foxtrot's rifle goes to the Maverick, This gives you a boarding shotgun Foxtrot, and a Forward Observer Maverick.

Putting that all together gives you this as a 300 point list:

USAriadna Ranger Force
──────────────────────────────────────────────────

GROUP 1 10
MARAUDER Paramedic (MediKit) Rifle, Heavy Flamethrower / Heavy Pistol, Knife. (0 | 23)
MARAUDER Paramedic (MediKit) Rifle, Heavy Flamethrower / Heavy Pistol, Knife. (0 | 23)
FOXTROT Boarding Shotgun, Antipersonnel Mines / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 19)
FOXTROT (Forward Observer) Rifle, Antipersonnel Mines / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 18)
GRUNT Paramedic (MediKit) Rifle / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 12)
GRUNT Paramedic (MediKit) Rifle / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 12)
GRUNT Paramedic (MediKit) Rifle / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 12)
GRUNT Paramedic (MediKit) Rifle / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 12)
GRUNT Paramedic (MediKit) Rifle / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 12)
GRUNT (Inferior Infiltration) Heavy Flamethrower, Light Shotgun / Pistol, Knife. (0.5 | 11)

GROUP 2 4 2 4
DEVIL DOG Chain Rifle, Smoke Grenades + 1 K-9 Antipode / AP Heavy Pistol, AP CCW. (0 | 30)
K-9 ANTIPODE AP CCW. (7)
DEVIL DOG Chain Rifle, Smoke Grenades + 1 K-9 Antipode / AP Heavy Pistol, AP CCW. (0 | 30)
K-9 ANTIPODE AP CCW. (7)
MAVERICK (Forward Observer) Rifle / Pistol, Knife. (0.5 | 19)
MAVERICK Boarding Shotgun / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 21)
MINUTEMAN Lieutenant Rifle, 2 Light Flamethrowers / Pistol, CCW. (0 | 22)
MINUTEMAN Rifle, 2 Light Flamethrowers / Pistol, CCW. (0 | 22)

1 SWC | 298 Points

Open in Infinity Army

 

I started Infinity with Ariadna around 18 months ago and I think it's the perfect faction to start with because :
- no hacking / not hackable : hacking is great but complicated when you start. With Ariadna you don't care about it
- no "complicated" combo : no msv/smoke combo, repeater REM, TAG... Ariadna is mostly straightforward: camo heavy weapon to kill and camo specialist to do the mission
- high number : ariadna is cheap, which allow you high number and redundancy. Loosing someone is not as hard with Ariadna as it is with other
- making a mistake often mean loosing someone : on the other side, we rarely have high armor and/or a second W and we don't have cube to have good doctoring, so when we take a wound, we die. I think it's a great trainer when you learn as it pushes you to calculate the odds (and bonus/malus to your roll) more which is a very important skill to learn

And as a last point : camo. While it's not the most easy mechanism to master, once you do it's very fun. Also, few things in infinity are as fun as deploying an army made only of camo marker and 2 or 3 chearleaders and watch your oponnent trying to guess who is who.

As a vanilla player, i would advice you to buy :
- Ariadna starter (veteran kazak, chasseur, line kazak)
- Spetsnaz (at least HMG)
- Tankhunter (HMG and/or autocanon)
- Volunteers (2 volunteers chain rifle are nearly obligatory cheearleader) either by buying the CHA starter box or volunteer box
- you will want a second chasseur (proxy of the blister ADHL, split boxing)
- you will want some foxtrot FO (proxy of a bliste foxtrot and/or buy USAriadna starter)

An example of a basic Ariadna 200 points all comer list, with heavy weapon, board control and enough infiltrated specialist to do objectives :
Ariadna
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10
SPETSNAZ (CH: Ambush Camouflage) HMG / Pistol, CCW, Knife. (1.5 | 38)
SPETSNAZ (CH: Ambush Camouflage) HMG / Pistol, CCW, Knife. (1.5 | 38)
CHASSEUR (Minelayer) Rifle, Light Flamethrower, Antipersonnel Mines / Pistol, Knife. (0.5 | 20)
CHASSEUR (Minelayer) Rifle, Light Flamethrower, Antipersonnel Mines / Pistol, Knife. (0.5 | 20)
FOXTROT (Forward Observer) Rifle, Antipersonnel Mines / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 18)
FOXTROT (Forward Observer) Rifle, Antipersonnel Mines / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 18)
FOXTROT (Forward Observer) Rifle, Antipersonnel Mines / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 18)
LINE KAZAK Lieutenant Rifle / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 9)
LINE KAZAK Rifle / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 9)
LINE KAZAK Rifle / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 9)

4 SWC | 197 Points

Open in Infinity Army

 

Go with the Caledonian Sectorial. Everyone loves painting tartan.

 

Ariadna are a really good starting faction, In points terms they're really cheap I once wrote a 400 point list starting with a wish list of what I wanted to use: spetznas, artillery, scouts tank hunters, and a shed ton of orders, having written it I went to cut the fat back down to 400 having expected to have hideously overshot, I was still 45 points under with 16ish orders.

As mentioned above they're immune to hacking and forgiving as you have camo to slow down your opponents and enough troops that losing 4 in reactive turn won't really matter. Rather than US or Caledonia I'd start with generic leaning towards kazaks and add in what you like the look of, going down a sectoral route at the start even in Ariadna can lock you out of a lot of stuff you probably want to muck about with, and stacks fireteams on top to master as well

 

I am going to agree with most of what is said here. I would also suggest just playing Vanilla right now. Sectorials are their own animal and they restrict your options in terms of tool kits so I would recommend:

1. Start with Vanilla
2. Figure out which units you enjoy using. Then start building lists using those units more and more. Slowly work in units form that sectorial and try them working together.
3. Pick a sectorial and start learning how that works.

 

Bear in mind if you want to start vanilla, the starter set is due for the scrap heap. The possibility exists that it will be replaced very shortly, and the models in it are just not up to the standard of more recent releases... Some of the vanilla units are passable, but pretty much all the Kazak minis, both line and veteran are nearly certain to be redone in short order. Of the top of my head, the new Irmandinho, the 112, Dozer, and spetznaz are fine ,and the tank hunter hmg and autocannon are passable. The Kazak Doctor squeezes by because the pose hides his scale issues.