Infinity Unit Review: 5th Minutemen 'Ohio' (N4)
Given the best armour and equipment that USAriadna has to offer, the 5th Minutemen Regiment Ohio are deployed across Dawn as a secondary response unit when military assets are required. They are not trained for covert ops but their Ranger training allows them to keep up with SAS and Spetsnaz agents in the field. When required to go loud, they go loud, and whether they are wielding sniper rifles or missile launchers they fire their weapons with skill, precision, and purpose.
Profile
Starting with the basic profile we can see that Ohio are similar to Grunts, but improved across the board. They have a respectable CC 20, that becomes a bit more threatening with their inherent CC Attack (-3), which acts a bit like Martial Arts L1. MOV 4-4 isn’t anything special in most armies, but it does make them a bit more swift than Grunts, while Terrain (Total) means pesky terrain won’t be slowing you down, and in some ITS missions might even speed you up. On the survival side, they do match Grunts with ARM3, BTS0, and Immunity (Shock). Ohio do have a considerable PH13 which both helps them dodge (and further with their Dodge +1”), and get patched up by Paramedics, making a Medikit as good as a doctor in many cases. Their WIP however is the weak stat, with 12 not impressing anyone.
Profile Options
Rifle, Light Flamethrower (+1B). The base profile comes with some fairly standard kit, while a Rifle is nothing to write home about, it can also get work done when needed. The addition of a B2 Light Flamethrower can be a real pest, fireteams cranking that up to a potential 3 automatic hits with continuous damage.
Boarding Shotgun, Grenades. This profile gets the most out of that PH13, these Ohio pitch grenades as effectively as Daturazi! This profile is even more short-ranged than the previous one however, so can be a little rough on it’s own, but makes for an exceptionally deadly fighter up close in fireteams.
Missile Launcher, Light Flamethrower. While Ohio lack skills to push face to face rolls further one direction or another, a BS13 Missile Launcher still gets work done. The high BS of the platform makes the weapon a bit more worrying, and it’s not that hard to get up to +3BS from fireteam bonuses as well.
BS Attack (Shock), X-Visor, AP Rifle, Light Flamethrower (+1B). I think this is probably the most overlooked profile of the bunch, shooting a BS13 AP + Shock rifle, with potential fireteam bonuses, it’s actually a solid gun if you’re trying to save on some SWC.
Forward Observer, AP Rifle, Light Flamethrower (+1B), Flash Pulse. The sole specialist of the Ohio, the Forward Observer is easy to dismiss, but the AP Rifle does make it at least a bit more interesting than just adding a Flash Pulse.
NCO, AP HMG. I’d venture to guess that this is the most used Ohio profile. NCO is a very rare skill in USAriadna, and often the lieutenant is a model you’re not going to want to reveal or spend orders on, making this AP HMG a bit more order efficient. The AP HMG itself is a brutal weapon and will make short work of most targets.
Lieutenant (+1 Command Token), Rifle, Light Flamethrower (+1B). I’ve gushed about this profile a bit already in my article about Lieutenants. USARF only has 4 Lieutenant choices, so it’s important to think about all of them and where they fit. This is probably my favorite choice, even if I don’t always have the points to include it. I find myself using many coordinated orders in USAriadna to handle various threats that I may face (such as TR bots and mimetism ARO pieces), so the ability to have a 5th command token is pretty great. That said, it becomes just about the most obvious Lieutenant you can get in USARF, so have a plan for keeping them alive.
There you have it, the 5th Minutemen 'Ohio' regiment. They're brutal at any range band, with their diverse range of equipment, and even have a few profiles that work great just on their own. For USAriadna they can be expensive, but with how inexpensive everything else is in the sectorial, their cost is pretty easily absorbed.