First thoughts on USAriadna

Recently I played my first game with USAriadna. It went well for me (I won) and I quite enjoyed playing them but I can see straight away they will play very different to my usual Caledonia. Gameplay-wise, I am used to having minimum of three camo tokens, lots of smoke grenades and fast moving units. USA is almost the opposite of that. They have only two units that have smoke grenades, also only two units that have some level of camo and they mode medium-slow speed (at least that is the impression I have for now). I am going to write about this sectorial lot more in the future in more details as I plan to play them on tournaments next year but for now I'll break it down by the units I have used and my first thoughts on them.

In the list I had: Van Zant, Grunts, Foxtrot, Hardcase, Maverick and a Marauder. I also had a Dozer and a WarCor but I'll talk about those some other time as they aren't USA specific.

Van Zant - This guy worked pretty much as expected. Walked him up to the board in my opponent's Deployment Zone (DZ) out of sight of his troops and then proceeded to shoot them in the back. With BS 13 he can be very devastating since it is so easy for him to jump on people outside of cover and do unopposed attack, three shots at BS 16 is deadly. AP rounds with his rifle is just a cherry on top. If you get too close, you can use the Heavy Pistol instead and it is awesome, Damage 14 with Shock? Yes please! Great thing about Van Zant is also that he is 4-4 Move, can Dodge or Engage an extra 1 Inch and is very good in Close Combat. He has Martial Lv2, CC value of 22 and AP Close Combat Weapon. Basically you are going to wreck things in CC. His drawbacks are Dodged and no Silent weapon, plus quite high cost, 38 or 39 pts. But I think the points are worth all the things he can do and Dodged is better than nothing, keeps him alive until end of the turn if you need it. Lack of Silent weapon, like a knife, is likely because it would just make him broken. I am sure I'll write a full article about him later, he is awesome and I love him.

Grunts - These guys are different to every other line infantry by being Medium Infantry (MI). They are your cheerleaders, but they are lot more useful than just generating orders. 10 pts is the cheapest option and it gives you Armour 3, Shock Immunity and BS 11. They downside is Movement of 4-2 because they are MI. But! The weapon options are so cool. From Caledonia I am used to having very limited options but these guys can take HMG, Sniper Rifle, Heavy Flamethrower, Forward Observer (FO) and Paramedic. Plus the best line troop option ever, Inferior Infiltration and Heavy Flamethrower! If you land even one of those near your opponent's deployment, they are in hella trouble. I run my guys in a link team of Sniper, HMG, two Rifles (Paramedic and FO) and Heavy Flamethrower. In my game they dominated the part of the board they were on. These guys are tough to kill because most of the time, they will have Armour 6 in cover, which is really high for line troops. I also loved the Shock Ammo for the Sniper, that really made it lot more deadly in a five-man link team. I did end up spending lots of orders to move them across the board because of their slower speed but they were well worth it. 

Foxtrot - Pretty much your standard Camo Infiltrator, every army has them. To me what makes him different is that he is relatively cheap, 17pts basic or 18pts for a specialist, and he has Antipersonnel Mines, something that I don't have access to in Caledonia. I use FO S.A.S. all the time so this unit is auto-include for me.

Hardcase - Personally I really like this unit but its hard to say if they better than Foxtrots. They don't have specialist option so they can't compete over that spot but they do have Camo and Infiltration. Their camo is Ambush though, which I think is lots of fun (it allows you to place down a fake camo marker). They have standard BS 11 and Rifle or Light Shotgun option, but also they come with a Tactical Bow which definitely shouldn't be dismissed. Its Damage 13 (because of his Physical) so same as the other weapons, but it is Double Action (DA) and Silent. They are best at close range, or at least only up to 16" but with DA, a decent ARO weapon if you need to use it. Though I think he will be best suited for attacking from camo, or destroying objectives with his bow. In my game I haven't really used him so just theorizing for now. Points wise these guys are cheap so for me they will find a place in most of my army lists.

Maverick - Same as for the Hardcase, I only have theories for this unit. In my game she got glued down in the first turn and haven't done anything else. But in short, they are fast and have specialist option, plus cheap on Points so I think I will run her in all my lists.

Marauder - Another Medium Infantry unit, which is double the points of a Grunt but has some fun options. I really like they have Forward Deployment so they can deploy outside of your 12" Deployment Zone, Stealth and specialist option, and most options come with a Heavy Flamethrower. Plus he is BS 12. Downside is that he is only Movement 4-2 and currently, as with many other units, there is only one model. I hope they will release a box set of four soon because these guys can be either a regular link or a second link team Haris. In my game he also didn't do much because Grunts ate all the Orders but I foresee he will see lot more action in the future. Overall I think this unit is well worth the points.

In conclusion, for me USAriadna is very different to what I usually play and so far I am very happy with the troop options they have. I do look forward to playing them more and try the other units (Minutemen and Devil Dog Team).

The other thing I like about USAriadna is their look, they are these almost 21st century looking troops but they still fit with the Infinity universe well; its what I love about Ariadna in general.

The USAriadna army box.