112, Emergency Service

In my opinion the 112 Emergency Service of Ariadna is arguably the most badass Doctor in the Human Sphere. In Caledonia he is also currently the only available unit with the Doctor Skill therefore you will very likely find him in your army at some point as part of the "standard" Doctor & Engineer support group and Specialists.

Thankfully, despite being the only Doctor option, the 112 Emergency Service is very useful in its own right and so it doesn't feel like you are wasting points on a "should have" unit.

Profile

Generally speaking, Doctors tend to have about the same stat line as Line Troops and maybe higher WIP. This is the case when you compare the 112 to Like Kazaks (Ariadna Line Troops) but in Caledonia their stats are better than Volunteers. For extra 2pts (over Volunteer Paramedic) you get +1 BS, +1 PH, +1 WIP and V: Courage; which can always come in handy.

You have AVA 3 on the 112 but I never played more than one, so don't have experience using multiple 112 but it might be worth considering if you have the models.

So, for only 12 pts you get a decent (more or less average trooper in Infinity as a whole) unit for your Caledonia army, who is also a Specialist in ITS missions and gives you a chance to heal your unconscious troops. In a quick summary, in my opinion the 112 is worth the points.

The 112 also comes with a Light Shotgun, CCW and Pistol. Gives you few options when it comes to defense or attack. If you are wondering why would you ever use Pistol over Shotgun, remember the Light Shotgun always uses the Impact Template and in some situations you could find yourself unable to shoot it as it would affect Friendly units.

And lets not forget the MedKit. I think people, beginners especially, might not realize that you can shoot the MedKit. It has the same Range Bands as a Pistol, and if you hit, the unconscious (Null) target has to pass -3 PH check to heal. Which is lot riskier than normal Doctor check, but sometime it can save you Orders or gives you a chance to heal where you can't get into base contact.

On the battlefield

You of course take a Doctor for the chance to heal your Unconscious troops but its not always simple as that or even worth doing. In my games I found the 112 used in these roles generally speaking:

ITS Objectives and Classified Objectives are arguably the main reason to include a Doctor, who is a Specialist. The 112 is actually well equipped for this. With Light Shotgun you can defend objectives from close range, or even attack, and because of V: Courage you can always count on your 112 to stay on the objective and not run away or hide (or you can decide to hide if you really want to). Guts Checks should not be underestimated.

It might be bit of repeating but I would like to stress out the use of Light Shotgun for defense and attack. Within 8" your 112 is shooting at BS17, which is excellent. Against most troops you can hold off with even one dice (unless you just roll really bad), though it obviously won't work as well against Camo, TO or ODD. Same goes for your active turn. If you can catch someone out of cove, the 112 should be able to deal with them. I think your opponents might be surprised by it, I am guilty of underestimating 112 too; not many people expect a Doctor to charge out and be good at taking out units.

I don't recommend CC with the 112, but if you do find yourself Engaged, at least you are dealing Damage at full PH thanks to the Close Combat Weapon, which is a sweet looking axe.

One scenario where I use the 112 specifically for Healing is "Sniper-Healing". By this I mean using the 112 to sit back near my Snipers and heal them back up if they go down, which you expect them to do so. The most important thing about this is to deploy your 112 over 2.5" away because you don't want him to be caught by a blast that might hit the Sniper, or Sniper caught in a blast because of the 112. If you have more than one Sniper, its worth deploying in such a way where you can reach one Sniper base to base and at least see the second one for some ranged healing with the MedKit.

The downside of the above role is that your 112 is usually far from everyone else and probably on a roof somewhere, so he might not be able to get to Objectives reasonably fast. Because of this, consider what is more important to win the mission, healing your Snipers or getting Objectives. Hint; in an objective mission the objectives are more important.

My miniature

I wasn't quite sure what I wanted to do with my first 112 so I took lots of inspiration from the Corvus Belli studio miniature. The main difference being I went with grey jacket over blue-grey and with less yellow stripes. I am happy how it came out, it fits into the military setting with green overalls but stands out.

My favourite thing about the 112 are all the little details, like the gas mask, the flash light and the shotgun shells on the chest.

I find it hard to take pictures of this but I did do bit of dirt on the bottom of the jacket, though I might make it bit darker later on as you can only really see it in person.

Last but not least, this was my first mini where I played around with blood paint. I wanted to use it for a long time but so far never finished anything to such a level where I could do the final detailing so when I finished the 112 I took the opportunity to add blood to his axe and a blood splatter on the base. More blood will definitely follow for my other minis later on.

Most photos in this article by James from Gribbley Gaming.

Just Play Games - At the edge of victory

Only week after the last tournament, I have attended another one. This one was in Liverpool in a brand new venue of "Just Play Games". They have really cool set up of being just a gaming venue instead of a store with some space to play. Drive to Liverpool was fun and we only got lost like once in the city looking for a car-park. The turnout on the event wasn't as big as expected but it was their first Infinity event and they said most of their local players couldn't make it, so next time it should be bigger. I had good fun and looking forward to play there next time.

For more info, check out Just Play Games website.

In brief overview of the games, I won the first two rounds and was in the Finals but just like last week, got smashed and lost the chance of victory. But I did win myself a shiny new Camo Token.

Liverpool docks. We got lost on the way to Tesco.

My Just Play Games List 1
My Just Play Games List 2

About my lists, it was all very killing missions so I wanted my Wulvers List for sure. The Mormaers were bit of a wild card because I played them only once before but I was happy with them, though I feel two are bit too much and the list does need tweaking. I think the T2 Rifle version is lot letter and might be good in a List with Isobel and Volunteers Link.

Game 1: Front Line - Caledonia vs Nomads
Won 6 to 3 (2 TPs)

I got to play Luke for the first time in this round. I met him bunch of times on previous events but we haven't faced each another. It was a tough game but I was lucky that I could draw long file lines from my DZ, well I say lucky, but I did chose the side with the highest vantage point for that reason. Luke has four remotes, two of which were Total Reaction HMGs so I was concerned about how I'll advance to the section of the board near his Deployment Zone (DZ).

Playing in the first turn, Luke is not in the picture. I am wearing the 111 cap.

In Turn 1 tried to kill a Jaguar on roof because I knew he was going to give smoke to the camo marker next to him (which was undoubtedly Intruder with MSV L2) but I didn't try enough which was a mistake that I paid for dearly in Luke's turn. From what was on the board I figured Luke's Lt was Interventor Hacker so I tried to kill him with Grenades but didn't work out. I would have prefer to get close but couldn't without too many Orders and AROs. I also killed as many Remotes as I could from distance with Guided Missiles and Snipers but didn't have enough Orders to keep shooting them so one Remote was only unconscious. Ended my turn with setting up Mormaer and SAS in Supressive Fire. As expected in Luke's turn, the Intruder with HMG in smoke was big problem and he killed a lot: Uxia, SAS, one sniper (maybe both) but couldn't get rid off my T2 Mormaer in cover and Suppresive Fire. Almost killed my second SAS but I managed to keep him alive.

End of Turn 1.

The Intruder ended up prone after failing Guts Check and I couldn't deal with it in my turn as there was no easy access to the roof, so I healed one sniper and then advanced my army forward. Wallace with Highlanders run on one flank to the middle and but stupidly, I run too far into a mine which killed at least one of them. Though after that I split the Highlanders out and one run out to chain rifle Remote and Engineer, killing both, another one killed Total Reaction Remote also with Chain Rifle. My HMG Mormaer also advanced and went back to Supressive Fire. In Luke's turn the Intruder caused more trouble and another one showed up as well, with a rifle but he didn't have enough Orders to do major damage.

The pesky roof with my Intruder nemesis, currently in camo.

In my last turn I advanced with more things to try assure my victory. I was counting on Baggage Mul and Cateran to hold my back line. From what was on the table I knew Luke could only threaten that zone with two camo markers but they were on roofs and would take long to get down. I did not think he had any AD troops. T2 Mormaer was holding the middle zone, and Wallace with a Highlander to get the enemy zone. I wasn't sure how far I got my HMG Mormaer but either way he would boost middle or enemy zone significantly. And then I had my Classified Card to add points to a zone. I managed to take out the second Intruder with a Highlander which left only three things that could take off my points. Two camo markers in the middle and the HMG Intruders on the roof. I set up Mormaers in Supressive Fire again and hoped I covered myself enough.

End of Turn 2.

Luke still could have won or at least draw if he managed to kill Wallace and the HMG Mormaer, but he had few Orders left and needed to do it all with one round of shooting, two at most. One Zero shot Wallace but I won that roll off. Then another Zero was shooting my HMG Mormaer, but couldn't kill straight away though and I failed my free shots at it with Cateran and T2 Mormaer. The last two rounds of shooting I am not sure who was it, but I think once we both rolled crit and in the end I believe it was the HMG Intruder who managed to kill my HMG Mormaer and this basically cost me the middle zone so I couldn't score total victory.

Game 2: Supremacy - Caledonia vs ALEPH
Won 7 to 3 (2 TPs)

I played Mark in the second round, also someone new I haven't played before. He had a scary list as he had two HMG Total Reactions, Missile Launcher with MSV Lv2 and few ODD troops. I chose sides again and Mark decided to go first, which gave me the second turn I wanted. I deployed very hidden which seemed to surprise my opponent but allowed his ODD Spitfire to run into my DZ and cause lots of trouble, he ended up being trouble for the rest of the game as I couldn't kill it. I also failed to realize I had long range Sniper AROs against it few times.

In my first turn it was fairly easy to take out the Remotes with Snipers from over 32" range but I didn't have enough orders to kill them fully, only disabled them. I also managed to kill the missile launcher which freed the board for Wulvers to advance and take two quadrants. They dominated those for the rest of the game as Mark didn't have anything to deal with them on that side of the board after his Chain Rifle suicides itself against them. In retrospect I tried to do too much that turn and burn myself out of Command Tokens too quick. Mark manage to heal back both of his Remotes but I killed them both again, but also the Engineer bots and the Engineer itself. 

End of Turn 1.

I was happy with the Wulvers, once more they proved themselves to be worth the points. After they got into position Mark had to burn Orders getting to them but couldn't do enough damage. Only time I was at disadvantage with them was at over 16" range against ODD trooper in Cover, I was only 4-man Link so was at -12 to hit. Admittedly I also got too lucky with Crits, there was a point where I got one too many so it was little frustrating game for Mark.

I did made few mistakes with the Wulvers though. I left them sometime too exposed for no good reason and Mark managed to kill two of them and put the last two on 1W each, which I think is the most damage someone did to them this far.

Though my biggest and dumbest mistake cost me the Total Victory. In the last turn of the game it came down to me needing to take one of my quadrants back as Mark had 1pts more there than me. He had 31pts OOD trooper with Spitfire and Netrod for 4pts, 35pts in total. I had 24pts SAS and 10pts Paramedic for 34pts in total. 

Wulvers going strong.

What I should have done was to put my Classified Card worth 19pts there and then spend all my Orders on the SAS activating one objective. BUT I forgot about the Card so I tried to take a different quadrant with Wallace because Mark had only 13 or 14pts there, or basically less than 35pts. But there was a mine and two AROs I needed to Survive. Which I didn't and got Wallace killed. I think I had only three Orders left at this point and realized I only needed to kill the Netrod, which I managed to do with a T2 Rifle Wulver. With last Order my SAS took the objective.

The worst part of that, however, was that Mark managed to get Secure HVT Classified Objective as my Wulvers moved out of his HVT's ZoC and Wallace was dead. Which put changed my victory from 5 Points difference to only 4 Points.

Game 3: Safe Area - Caledonia vs Ariadna
Lost 0 to 8 (0 TPs)

Getting ready for the finals on the middle table.

Despite my mistakes I was at this point on 2nd place and everyone was 1 TP behind (I think), so basically if I managed to get 3 TPs I would have won the tournament. Unfortunately I faced James who also managed to win his previous two games. I knew it was gonna be tough but expected it to go better than it did. Usually we are on equal footing until the last turn but I felt the game was pretty much lost right after deployment unless I got lucky. It happened just like last week, I faced an army with lots of Orders, somewhat "open" table, did not chose the side with highest vantage point but took second turn instead and my opponent deployed in my DZ and took out too many Orders with his Alpha Strike in the first turn. 

My deployment.

Instead of going throught it turn by turn, lets break down what went wrong (and try to learn from it): 

- Facing an army as big as mine is not a problem in itself, I play against James' Ariadna all the time, but it does reduce the numbers advantage.

- I admit complaining about a table is bit silly, and it was a good table for the most part but the deployment zone was way too open. The buildings were set up on an angle which meant many LoF could be drawn across it very easy from flanks by getting over the middle line. Because of this I didn't feel comfortable deploying my Mormaers in most places, they would be out of cover in most places and too experience to risk that way. 

My left flank...

... and after enemy Uxia.

- The highest vantage point does become a problem when going second and you can't fully hide on the roofs. Sniper battles are often 50/50 (or close) but in favour of the Active Player as they tend to have highest Burst. This becomes even more in their favour if they can deny you the Partial Cover  Modifier. It simply makes things harder, I rely on my Snipers and its just "funny" that I won the games where I chose the side with the highest point.

- I still think going second is a big plus in this kind of mission if you can hold off the Alpha Strike, which is why I chose it but I couldn't hold off. This is not something that went wrong, just makes it even more like last week.

My right flank...

... and after Heavy Flamer.

- This is something I seem to be unable to prevent or even prepare for, especially on tables with open DZ. James managed to land his Heavy Flamer grunt near my Link Team and this forced me to deploy Uxia trying to stop it. And he also got his own Uxia on my other flank, which admittedly was my mistake of deploying "weak" troops there. I could have fortify it better for sure but I didn't see how. James took out way too may Orders for me to do much the whole game.

Second turn holding ground.

In the end I was simply bunkering down in one corner, barely able to take off any Orders from James as I couldn't see most of his army. Which left him just too many Orders for me to hold off for long and he had the whole table free to get everyone into position for objectives. I couldn't even kill his Uxia, she did amazing, which is how I want mine to work but she never does. I kinda had hope to take off quadrants because I had the last turn and my most expensive units were still in play but after James killed the Mormaers in his second and last turn, it was game over. In the end I had only Wallace alive.

Last turn, last stand.

All the complaining aside, James had the upper hand and played well. I could have risk few rolls and deploy my Infiltrators near his Lines which might have force him to focus on those rather than my deployment zone but I didn't feel I had enough Infiltrators to do that as I needed them for objectives. Infiltrating Grunts with Heavy Flamer (or any kind of template weapon really) are too deadly when they manage to land.

My only Crit of the game, Mormaer vs Briscard.

Spring Slaughter Debriefing

Second time in Birmingham was fun as expected and overall was a very fun day, even though I did not do as well as I hoped to do. The new ranking system made it feel very different in the sense that after each round the ranks felt very close as everyone was like 1-2 Tournament Points difference. Which is a lot technically, but saying it doesn't feel that way. Just something to get used to.

I did well at first two games but the last game sent me down in ranks. Funnily, it didn't occur to me until now that I faced three vanilla armies (never mind that Tohaa don't have Sectorial). In the end I came 9th out of 24 players so I am happy. The last time I played here I was 8th out of 18, so I think I did better this time but next time I gotta rank higher!

There was four of us coming from Leeds and we all did well I'd say. James came 1st, Matt 2nd, me 9th and Oliver 11th, so we all ended up above the middle line. 

Don't know yet if I qualified for the Masters as I am not sure what the ranking requirements are, will find out later.

My Warzone List 1
My Warzone List 2

Game 1: Supremacy - Caledonia vs Tohaa
Won 7 to 4 (2 TPs)

My deployment zone.

In this game I used my Wulver Link Team, which kept up its winning streak and smashed through everything it faced (makes me worry of the day they will get obliterated). I had the second turn in this and my opponent had three Triads in one combat group and second group was a Triad with two MSV Lv2 Snipers, which worried me. My first roll, which was my sniper vs his sniper was a Critical Hit which kind of set the tone of the game, I managed to roll 11 Crits in that game. Even I felt bad and bought my opponent a drink after the game.

The full table from my side.

Wulver flank.

"Cheap" units flank.

The game was more in my favour after the first turn. He left two of his Triads on the edge of the zones but kind of in the open, or at least it felt that way to me. On my flank I had my Wulvers two killed everyone, plus a TO Infiltrator who put down a mine, which I then proceeded to Dodge with everyone in the Link. On the other side, I had most of my cheap units as the table didn't let me deploy much in the middle and while I would like to have my snipers in the same quadrant, I needed to oppose his snipers. At any case, on the other flank it was Highlanders who did all the damage with Chair Rifles. I think I killed all but one.

The fist Crit of the game, green dice on 12.

Second turn I lost both my snipers and I believe two Highlanders but there wasn't much my opponent had left so he couldn't push on. He was close to Retreat so I rushed my SAS across the board to get two Consoles, and at that time I was winning by 5 Points as he only had one console. He started his last turn in Retreat which screwed me a little as he managed, by accident, deny me Secure HVT, he also took another Console and because I couldn't get my turn we also had same number of quadrants as I had only 9pts hold one. This bumped him enough to stop me getting a Total Victory.

I still had 2 TPs, 7 Objective Points and around 230pts alive so I felt good about my chances still, even though some people did get 3 TPs.

The survivors.

Game 2: Antenna Field - Caledonia vs Combined Army
Won 7 to 1 (3 TPs)

I was bit worried going into this mission because CA have lots of sneaky troops and I am not a fan of missions where you have to hold objectives base-to-base each round. It was a very open board, especially around the objectives was lots of empty spaces. There was only one hidden behind a building so when I won the Lt Roll, I picked deployment and my opponent chose to go second. The table really was to his disadvantage as it turned out he had more of an aggressive force where I was more defensive.

My left flank.

In my first turn what I found quite amusing situation, my opponent deployed lots of Hungries and one Witch Doctor in a square behind a building so I run my SAS with Grenades to the building and did Speculative Shot into middle of them. It landed and managed to hit all of them, most Dodged though but three still died and everyone else spread out because there were exploding Hungries. After that I couldn't get more than one. In the turn I also I took out his sniper and managed to deal with Impersonator that was close to my Deployment Zone. He deployed it next to one of my Camo Markers (who was FO SAS) and it took several Orders of moving about a little and trying to do stuff before he took the bait and revealed eventually. This allowed my Wulver to run up and upload T2 Rifle into the Speculio, who did kill my SAS when it revealed previously. With last Orders I put a second FO SAS and 112 into contact with objectives and put the Wulver into Suppressive Fire, watching over objectives I couldn't get to.

My right flank.

My opponent started his turn with the Hungries running over the building towards my SAS who killed I think two of them in CC with Knife, some were killed on the way by long range Pistol shots from my Link Team. He spent the rest of the turn trying to get to his objectives but my Snipers and Wulver had his half of the board locked down and everything that moved out got killed. This lasted for the rest of the game. I moved up my 112 to the middle objective to secure more Objective Points, but otherwise I haven't moved around that much as everything was in place.

They're coming outta the goddamn walls!

I did put my opponent into Retreat in the end but I didn't mind this time as I already had Total Victory for 3 Tournament Points. I would have totally understand my opponent's frustration because it was an unfortunate match up and a board for him, but he was really cool about it so it was fun game. 

Game 3: Comms Centre - Caledonia vs Haqqislam
Lost 0 to 10 (0 TPs)

I would want to say that this was was an unfortunate match up for me but that is kind of just trying to justify my terrible decisions during the game. Hands down I'd say its the worst game I played on my part in a long time. Everything from choosing sides, deployment and in-game decisions. Might have been nerves too, I was among the top and really wanted to win. Though in the end even if I scored 3 TPs, I'd come second as James would have had more and still win the tournament. Looking back I could have done a lot better. Also would like to take a second and appreciate Wallace's WIP 15, I won all the Lt Rolls today.

The table from my side.

So to start with this table was very open in the middle. The Deployment Zones were decently filled but the middle was just empty, full of crates and had an extremely high tower. I was concerned about Infiltrating Snipers that could deploy there, yet I let my opponent have the side with the tower, and he decided to go first. Going second is usually better in these kind of missions but his list was suited for Alpha Strike. And he did lots of damage in his first turn, taking out my Engineer, WarCor, 112 and Uxia just with one Impersonator. He did deploy a marker on the tower and I managed to Infiltrate on top of it too with one of my SAS but I fluffed te face to face rolls and SAS died. Funnily enough the sniper did nothing for the rest of the game.

Another look at the table.

 
I tried to run Wallace with Highlanders down a flank to get into enemy DZ to start taking out Orders but I miscalculated how far I could get and used too many Command Tokens just to get them into safe enough position but they were all out of the Link. Which sucked for me as the Highlanders started going crazy afterwards. Looking back I should have put them on the flank with more cover, I had to cross lots of open space which just left me too exposed and needed too many Orders for Smoke to cross.

Isolated Wulver =(

In the end, I just made too many mistakes to even bring the game back to a Draw. I even positioned my FO SAS wrong for my last turn and didn't have enough Orders to get enough Objectives.

Hopefully I will remember these painful lessons and not do them again!

Wallace and Highlanders by the tower.

Caledonian Volunteers Corps

The Volunteers Corpare arguably the backbone of almost every Caledonian army. They are the our Line Troops; our cheerleaders, but on top of their generic duty of proving Orders they do have some interesting options to add to your army.

These guys are one of the most, if not the most, versatile units in Caledonia when it comes to the profile options alone and as such can be played in many different ways. Therefore please keep in mind I am only covering the ways I play them in and my own thoughts, but there could be more uses for them I am not aware of!

Profile

The Volunteers profile is below average for a line trooper, but this is reflected by their cheaper cost. Going as low as 6pts I believe they are the cheapest Regular Troops in the game. Everything about their profile is really basic, though I often found ARM 1 very handy. Their Special Skill Multiterrain (Jungle or Mountain), I have never used thus far but it is these if you ever play on a board with terrain rules. They are also Linkable if you play then in Caledonia, they can't link in vanilla Ariadna.

Standard Weapons

In total we have four "standard" weapon options. First lets look at the 0 SWC options, a Rifle at 8pts and Chain Rifle + Light Shotgun for 6pts. If you take the Rifle, your best bet is often using them as Deployment Zone (DZ) protection in Suppressive Fire. In cover they get up to ARM 4 and it gives you Burst 3 ARO with -3 Modifier to the enemy. It does make a good speed bump if nothing else.

Even better option in my opinion for that role is the Chain Rifle option. It is super cheap for a Regular Trooper and gives you a large template. This is a great deterrent for groups of enemies, like Link Team and can cause some serious damage if people are not careful. It also makes people think twice with 1 Wound models, no matter how good they are, Chain Rifle is a guaranteed hit at DMG 13. The Light Shotgun is good when you face someone up close and want Face to Face roll, with up to +6 BS, even BS 10 Volunteers is now hitting on whooping 16!

For an extra 0.5 SWC you can get a HMG for 19pts or a Light Shotgun with Light Grenade Launcher for 10pts. Now lets just take a second to appreciate the fact you can have, if you really to, TWELVE HMGs! That is just insane amount of firepower and you still have 72pts left in 300pts army. In all seriousness, the HMG is a decent long range weapon if you can't afford pay Points (or dont want to) for the Heavy Infantry options. Even if you don't take twelve, they are cheap enough to easily have two or more. With Burst 4, even if you are at BS 10, you can usually out-roll people but you do have to pick your targets. Elite Snipers will take you down more often than not but other Line Troops will likely try to dodge, especially if they don't have a long range weapon.

The last weapon I have not used often but I feel like I should. Light Grenade Launcher gives you the option to Speculative Fire, which is a great way to take down pesky Infiltrators and other units in hard to get places. The best use is combined with Forward Observer so you can remove the -6 Modifier to Hit but even if you can't, just get to the good range band (over 8" but within 16") and you'll be hitting on 7. Its not great but its probably still better than anyone else going against OOD or TO Camo (without Multi Spectral Visor Lv2, which we dont have in Caledonia anyway). If people get too close, you have a shotgun to use.

Inferior Infiltration

This is something you don't see on Line Troops outside of Ariadna (as far as I know). For some additional points, you have option to take Volunteers with Inferior Infiltration and Limited Camouflage. This means that you have to try deploy on the enemy side of the table and you do so as a Camo Marker, which gives you one Surprise Attack (you can't go back to Camouflage). It is a risky business though because they are deploying on -3 PH, which means you have to roll 8 or less for them to get there. So its not something you can rely on.

The two options you have is a Rifle with D-Charges for 0 SWC and 11pts, and Light Shotgun with Light Grenade Launcher for 1 SWC and 13pts. Personally so far I have only used the first option. I like to take it sometime in case I draw Sabotage for Classified Objective. Which is basically plant a D-Charge in the enemy half of the table, so if you land, you can just get it done with a cheap trooper. Something I haven't done yet but think would be great to do is to run this Volunteer into CC and plant the D-Charge on some enemy trooper. With Limited Camo you also get Surprise Attack (if you don't do Surprise Shot) which gives -6 MOD to enemy instead so you have a good chance to win CC unless they are really good at it. If you succeed, you can then use your Engineer to blast them to hell with the explosive.

The other option in theory would allow you to do good range Speculative Fire shots on the enemy Deployment Zone, something that could do decent amount of damage if you target a group of troopers. All they can do is Dodge at -3 PH if they can't see you. Downside is, you could waste lots of Orders and do nothing, so don't get too trigger happy. Also remember you have a shotgun, so its better than Rifle getting up close.

Paramedic

This is the only Specialist option Volunteers have. Unfortunately we don't get a Forward Observer like most other Line Troops. It only costs 2pts more than a regular Rifle option, which makes the Paramedic the cheapest Specialists in Caledonia. It is a good option if you want to add extra Specialist to your army and they do give you the MedKit option during the game.

Best use I found for these guys is healing Cameronians and McMurrough. Chances are those guys, if Unconscious, are somewhere in the open and you don't want to risk your 112 Doctor to go there. The Volunteer on other hand is more expendable, so send them in and you have the same chance to bring back the Dog-Warriors as you'd have with 112 Doctor. Cameronians and McMurrough have PH 16 so with -3 they are coming back at 13 or less, which is the same for 112 as their WIP is 13 and you can't re-roll anyway because Dog-Warriors do not have Cubes.

Also keep in mind you can shoot the MedKit, so you don't have to go base to base. Only downside is that you have to Hit before you have a change to Heal someone.

Lieutenant

Last but not least, the Lieutenant (Lt) option. The Lt comes with the same weapons as a regular Rifle option and costs exactly the same as well. Which is very useful if you want to hide your Lt. You can easily have two or three Volunteers with Rifles hiding somewhere in your DZ and make the enemy guess which one is the Lt.

This is the cheapest Lt option in Caledonia, so when you don't want to use any other Lt this is a great option. Myself I do sometime use this option as the next cheapest Lt options cost almost triple (23pts).

On the battlefield - Fireteams (Link Teams)

Overall the Volunteers have some useful and potentially fun options but personally I think where they really come into their best is in a Link Team (also called Fireteam in rules). In a full Link of five, the HMG especially becomes much more aggressive in the Active turn. Usually you'll be shooting someone in cover in your good range which means you'll be on BS13 in general, and with Burst 5 those are pretty good odds. Now if you catch someone out of cover you can do it on BS16, or best on BS19 if they were Targeted by a Forward Observer.
 
But again, I can't stress it enough, pick your target. Even in a full Link, a HMG might fail you against an elite model and even against a basic HMG Remote, you are both almost on same odds. Best is to target single shot AROs, like snipers and other Line Troops. 

In a Link the Volunters also become much more effective in the Reactive Turn, everything from Chain Rifle to Light Grenade Launcher becomes Burst 2 which is a lot of templates. This is how I prefer to play them, defensive Specialist escort. One set up I like is two HMGs, Chain Rifle and Paramedics, or one Paramedic and one Light Grenade Launcher. As a Link they can usually hold their own around an objective.

In conclusion, it is very likely you will have some Volunteers in your army to give you Orders but despite their cheap cost and below average profile, they can help you toward victory and you'll be better off if you try to make the most of them.

My miniatures

I wanted all my Volunteers to look like they are from a single unit. The two main inspirations were Scottish Black Watch Regiment (to paint the tartan and hats) and Browncoats from Firefly (for their brown coats). Currently I have seven painted (with three more to do), six of which have the same colours with minor differences to differentiate between them, and one in camouflage jacket to be my Infiltrator Volunteer.

Sometime I think they are all quite dark comparing to other Infinity models, but considering they wear cloth and maybe leather instead of shiny armour, I think it looks good.

And something I found out only when writing this article, the motto "Bydand" that appears on the Volunteer Corps logo means "abiding, steadfast" which is a motto of a real Scottish Clan Gordon. Their tartan seems to be blue and green with yellow lines so I am considering to add those yellow lines onto my Volunteers kilts to give them more colour and make them a Clan instead of a unit.

 
Most photos in this article by James from Gribbley Gaming.