This was the army that I have used in Norther Open 8. I ended up 9th out of 22 people with this army but as you can read in my NO8 report, I think it was mostly due to not using the army correctly. There is room for improvement (as always) but I am happy with this army overall.
To open this list in Infinity Army, click here.
To open this list in Infinity Army, click here.
Overview
As the name would imply the biggest focus of this list are good old Grunts. They stand out above all other Line (Garrison) Troops of Availability Total (unlimited) because of their Armour 3 and Shock Immunity which makes them one of the most, if not the most, survivable units in the game in terms of value for points. The basic Grunt with Rifle is only 10 points! With that in mind, and because I ended up with lots of Grunt models, I wanted to make a list based around them.
This list has total of nine Grunts, six of which can form a Fireteam and three are Inferior Infiltrators with Heavy Flamers. The overall idea behind the list is to maximize the number of Orders with cheap yet effective units, and use Specialist troops to accomplish objectives. I did made this list for Objective based ITS missions and have no experience yet using it in killing missions. There are eight Specialists in total, though in effect only five of them I think of as units go for the objectives
Units
The Unknown Ranger - Personally I really like the Ranger for his versatility and Chain of Command (CoC). I think of him as one of the main attack units and Specialists but if I am perfectly honest I have not come across many situations where his extra skills were needed to justify the high cost, which could be my fault for not using him correctly. CoC is the main reason I like taking him.
Grunts - As I already mentioned, these guys are the backbone of the list. I went with three special weapons, two Lt options and a Paramedic. The main idea behind them is to be a strong defensive Fireteam. With two Sniper Rifles and a HMG you have enough long range weapons to cover large parts of the boards. I went for two Lt options because I didn't want to make it easy for my opponent to guess who the Lt is, the Light Grenade Launcher was mainly chosen because I had the points. The Paramedic is there to give me a backup Specialist and to try heal unconscious units if the 112 Doctor can't. I also went with six Grunts so I can make Fireteam of five if one dies. I liked the idea of two Snipers because I thought sometime I could deploy the second one separately and make use of the Marksmanship X which is not as useful in a Fireteam because it makes your Sniper Rifle Burst 1.
Grunt Infiltrators -These guys are one of the main reasons why I love playing USARF. They are not very reliable to pass their Inferior Infiltration roll (you need 8 or less) but that is why I have three, on average at least one does make it. For only 11pts and 0.5 SWC these guys are really good at harassing enemy units close to their deployment zone, or just lie in waiting somewhere near objectives. Heavy Flamers can be quite deadly, Damage 14 and large template, not even Heavy Infantry wants to be hit by those because they can burn to death with one hit.
Marauders - This is another unit I find really good value for points. As a Specialist with WIP 13 and Forward Deployment they can start closer to objectives and are good at taking them. Then you have a Rifle to put them on Suppressive Fire and with ARM 3 and Courage (thanks to Dogged) they do have good survivability to hold the line. On top of that you get Stealth and Heavy Flamer. Which allows you to sneak up on enemy units. Dogged is also good option to have if you need them to stay alive until end of a turn. Their downside is being slow so not the best option to advance across the board.
WarCor - I firmly believe a WarCor should be every possible list and it is the best 3pts you can spend. He is amazing at harassing the enemy units with Flash Pulse and with Aerocam (gives him 360 line of sight) he does make a good ARO piece against enemy AD troops and flankers to warn your other units. The only downside is that he is Irregular and USARF does not have a way of making him Regular.
Foxtrots - These guys are very standard Infiltrating Specialists with Camouflage. None of their skills or equipment sets them apart much but for 18 points they are cheap and do exactly what you need them to do. One thing I tend to forget is that they do come with mines so they can help with defending objectives or just make it harder for your opponent to move around the board. I like to combo them with another unit (like the Ranger or Marauders) to protect objectives as the Foxtrots can also go on Suppressive Fire.
Dozer and Traktor Muls - As my mate James likes to put it, for 24pts you get three Regular Orders and a Specialist. That makes it 8pts per Order which is a very good value for points. The downside of the Muls is their large base, it can make them hard to hide and without weapons they are only good for Orders and Alert! reaction. Though do keep in mind they have Minesweeper if your opponent gets cheeky with deployable weapons; you can try take them over. The Dozer himself is a decent unit (in Ariadna) with Courage and BS 11 so worth not discarding him either, which is a mistake that I make.
112 - I use the Doctor mostly to revive unconscious Snipers, which does sometime feel as a waste as he spends my games Prone on roofs. He can be surprisingly deadly with his Light Shotgun and Courage if you use him to take Objectives. For me it is almost always auto-include. He is only 12pts for a useful Specialist.
Hardcase - This is another unit that I consider another auto-include and great value for points. They are Irregular, which is their only downside. However, unlike the WarCor, these guys will be always using their Irregular Order so it is not a problem. For as cheap as 12pts you get an Infiltrator with Ambush Camouflage (you get two markers instead of one) and a Light Shotgun. This allows you to deploy half way up the board (or even further if you want to take risk of rolling 10 or less), get close to the enemy as a camo marker and then Surprise Shot them with a shotgun. Do not underestimate how deadly this is. You can go as high as BS 17, and your opponent will have up to -9 modifier (-3 camo, -3 surprise, -3 cover) so you can easily stack the advantage in your favour. If your opponent makes the mistake of leaving (or deploying) his units in a group, Hardcase is your way of punishing that. The bow might not be something you will use often but it is good to keep in mind it has the Silent trait and Double Action ammunition.
Grunt Infiltrators -These guys are one of the main reasons why I love playing USARF. They are not very reliable to pass their Inferior Infiltration roll (you need 8 or less) but that is why I have three, on average at least one does make it. For only 11pts and 0.5 SWC these guys are really good at harassing enemy units close to their deployment zone, or just lie in waiting somewhere near objectives. Heavy Flamers can be quite deadly, Damage 14 and large template, not even Heavy Infantry wants to be hit by those because they can burn to death with one hit.
Marauders - This is another unit I find really good value for points. As a Specialist with WIP 13 and Forward Deployment they can start closer to objectives and are good at taking them. Then you have a Rifle to put them on Suppressive Fire and with ARM 3 and Courage (thanks to Dogged) they do have good survivability to hold the line. On top of that you get Stealth and Heavy Flamer. Which allows you to sneak up on enemy units. Dogged is also good option to have if you need them to stay alive until end of a turn. Their downside is being slow so not the best option to advance across the board.
WarCor - I firmly believe a WarCor should be every possible list and it is the best 3pts you can spend. He is amazing at harassing the enemy units with Flash Pulse and with Aerocam (gives him 360 line of sight) he does make a good ARO piece against enemy AD troops and flankers to warn your other units. The only downside is that he is Irregular and USARF does not have a way of making him Regular.
Foxtrots - These guys are very standard Infiltrating Specialists with Camouflage. None of their skills or equipment sets them apart much but for 18 points they are cheap and do exactly what you need them to do. One thing I tend to forget is that they do come with mines so they can help with defending objectives or just make it harder for your opponent to move around the board. I like to combo them with another unit (like the Ranger or Marauders) to protect objectives as the Foxtrots can also go on Suppressive Fire.
Dozer and Traktor Muls - As my mate James likes to put it, for 24pts you get three Regular Orders and a Specialist. That makes it 8pts per Order which is a very good value for points. The downside of the Muls is their large base, it can make them hard to hide and without weapons they are only good for Orders and Alert! reaction. Though do keep in mind they have Minesweeper if your opponent gets cheeky with deployable weapons; you can try take them over. The Dozer himself is a decent unit (in Ariadna) with Courage and BS 11 so worth not discarding him either, which is a mistake that I make.
112 - I use the Doctor mostly to revive unconscious Snipers, which does sometime feel as a waste as he spends my games Prone on roofs. He can be surprisingly deadly with his Light Shotgun and Courage if you use him to take Objectives. For me it is almost always auto-include. He is only 12pts for a useful Specialist.
Hardcase - This is another unit that I consider another auto-include and great value for points. They are Irregular, which is their only downside. However, unlike the WarCor, these guys will be always using their Irregular Order so it is not a problem. For as cheap as 12pts you get an Infiltrator with Ambush Camouflage (you get two markers instead of one) and a Light Shotgun. This allows you to deploy half way up the board (or even further if you want to take risk of rolling 10 or less), get close to the enemy as a camo marker and then Surprise Shot them with a shotgun. Do not underestimate how deadly this is. You can go as high as BS 17, and your opponent will have up to -9 modifier (-3 camo, -3 surprise, -3 cover) so you can easily stack the advantage in your favour. If your opponent makes the mistake of leaving (or deploying) his units in a group, Hardcase is your way of punishing that. The bow might not be something you will use often but it is good to keep in mind it has the Silent trait and Double Action ammunition.
What worked
I have used the phrase "good value for points" often and I do think it is one of the strengths of USARF as a whole. There are many units that are relatively cheap and good at what they suppose to do. You could say it is also a downside because they might not be good at much else but because they are cheap, you can easily have enough units for different tasks. Versatility is one of the main things I believe worked well with this lists, it gives you enough tools to be able to adapt to what is happening on the battlefield and also gives you multiple ways of attack.
You can shoot from distance with full Fireteam support bonuses, you can set up defenses in the middle with good armoured units or get aggressive with infiltrators. Whatever your opponent has on the board, you should have an answer for it and enough Order to do it. Which might be kind of obvious considering it is a 20 man list, but I think it is worth mentioning this list doesn't really have many "useless" cheerleaders to get you those Orders. Only the Muls are there to simply give Orders, everything else has some utility. For example, even if the Infiltrator Grunts fail their roll (which is likely) you still have a Heavy Flamer and a Light Shotgun defending your back-line against Airborne Deployment troops and flankers.
What I found very useful in every game so far was having the six Grunts that can form a Fireteam. The Snipers and HMG are a big threat so they will be a high target for you opponent. You have to count on them dying at some point but having that one extra Grunt to fill the gap when one of the Snipers died helped to keep them a threat for longer. The more Orders your opponent is forced to deal with them, the less they are focusing on the mission.
What didn't work
In hindsight I think the main thing I would change is The Unknown Ranger, especially if you would use this list for Objective Missions. The CoC for me never came to play as my opponents had enough to deal with and did not even consider hunting the Lt. I do think he is a good unit but I also feel his role on the field could have been accomplished by Minutemen Specialist just as well. My mate James suggested I should change him for Van Zant and I could definitely see the benefit of that. This list already gives you enough Specialists and with Van Zant you could cause even more problems for your opponent if they leave an opening in their back-line.
Which brings me to the next thing I found lacking. This list doesn't give you any elite units. The Ranger and Marauders are the only units with BS 12 or higher (outside of Fireteam support bonus) so if the Grunt Fireteam is not effective, you have no back up. I do not think it is a big problem because you can overwhelm your opponent with numbers and between Flamers, Mines and Shotguns you should have enough tools to kill enemy elite units. Though it definitely makes this list harder to play as you can't rely on your elites to do everything.
Most of this army is also slow, 11 models are 4-2 MOV, which can make it difficult to move on the battlefield should you need to move long distances. However, this downside can be minimized by good deployment. You can spread your forces so they don't have to walk far to help in different parts of the board, and deploy them as close to their objective as possible. The difficulty I faced in my games was that I deployed most of the Grunts on top of buildings, which did give them good lines of fire but also make it very hard for them do get anywhere else. I was just entrenched too much to make proper use of them later in the game. For example, in three games during Norther Open 8 I never used the Grenade Launcher or the Grunts with Rifles because they were always hiding and after Snipers and HMG died, they were kind of useless in those positions.
The one tool I really missed during my games was Smoke. This list has no Smoke Grenades, which can be easily solved by adding a unit that does have them. In all of the games there was always a situation where I felt Smoke would have made a massive difference in terms of moving my units into tactically better post.
Which brings me to the next thing I found lacking. This list doesn't give you any elite units. The Ranger and Marauders are the only units with BS 12 or higher (outside of Fireteam support bonus) so if the Grunt Fireteam is not effective, you have no back up. I do not think it is a big problem because you can overwhelm your opponent with numbers and between Flamers, Mines and Shotguns you should have enough tools to kill enemy elite units. Though it definitely makes this list harder to play as you can't rely on your elites to do everything.
Most of this army is also slow, 11 models are 4-2 MOV, which can make it difficult to move on the battlefield should you need to move long distances. However, this downside can be minimized by good deployment. You can spread your forces so they don't have to walk far to help in different parts of the board, and deploy them as close to their objective as possible. The difficulty I faced in my games was that I deployed most of the Grunts on top of buildings, which did give them good lines of fire but also make it very hard for them do get anywhere else. I was just entrenched too much to make proper use of them later in the game. For example, in three games during Norther Open 8 I never used the Grenade Launcher or the Grunts with Rifles because they were always hiding and after Snipers and HMG died, they were kind of useless in those positions.
The one tool I really missed during my games was Smoke. This list has no Smoke Grenades, which can be easily solved by adding a unit that does have them. In all of the games there was always a situation where I felt Smoke would have made a massive difference in terms of moving my units into tactically better post.
Suggestions for improvement
As mentioned in the segment above, I think the easiest way to improvise this list would be to switch Van Zant for The Unknown Ranger. If nothing else, just to give you the option to attack from any angle with BS 13 AP Rifle or Heavy Pistol.
However, on equal measure you can drop The Unknown Ranger / Van Zant entirely and make your army slightly bigger. I would also change the Grunt with LGL to a regular Rifle Grunt, saving you extra 4pts. This would give you enough spare Points to add Minutemen Forward Observer and a Maverick with Light Rocket Launcher. Both of these are good attack units, one of them is Specialist and Maverick gives you Smoke. The WarCor would have to go into a third combat group on his own as you'd have 21 troops. Click here to open this suggestion list in Infinity Army.
Another small change could be adding Airborne Range if you like having AD troops (instead of the Minutemen for example). Those guys can also be Specialists. After that you can always do some big changes to the main Fireteam, which I think really comes down to your preferred unit and the models you have available. You could have a very similar list based around Marauders or Minutemen as your Core Fireteam, though with those you might end up with less than 20 men as they cost more than Grunts.
I know I named this list the Grunt Horde, but what I see as the main composition of this list is the second combat group; the Infiltrators, 112 and Dozer with Muls. This group is only 117pts and 1.5 SWC (120pts if you count the WarCor) which does leave you with enough Points to form an attack group of your liking.
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