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.
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