USAriadna - Lieutenant Options (N4)

When you’re writing an army list, there’s one thing that you must always have, regardless of mission or faction. That’s your Lieutenant! In some armies Lieutenants can be an inspiring fighter, equipped with the best weapons and armor in the faction, and able to kick some serious butt and withstand a beating… USAriadna is not one of those armies.

Grunt Lieutenant - Ol’ Reliable

Probably the least exciting lieutenant option, but also the most common is the Grunt. Here we are spoiled by the luxury of having not one, but two options! In either case, your lieutenant will be protected with the standard issue USAriadna ARM 3, which isn’t bad. At 10 points, you’re really taking this option for the economy of it, though if you have a spare 4 points you can upgrade them to carry a light grenade launcher. Don’t sleep on that later option, spending a Lieutenant order to drop a grenade on a pile of grouped up infantry can sometimes yield shocking results.

Marauder Lieutenant - “Flamin’ Hot”

A bit more of a spicy choice, the Marauder Lieutenant does come in at over double the cost of a Grunt. There are a few key advantages to consider, but most importantly WIP 13, and Forward Deployment (+4”). Despite not being trained in PanOceania, a half of the Lieutenant options for USAriadna are WIP12, the Marauder and Foxtrot being the exception with an unremarkable WIP13. If you’re primarily worried about going first, I don’t think that 12 points to buy +1 WIP should be a key consideration, you really need to be leveraging the other options the profile comes with to be worth the investment. Forward Deployment gives you the ability to hide a bit easier, sometimes there’s a really great building to hide on top of just outside your deployment zone. Stealth can be relevant when you need to extricate your Lieutenant from a sticky situation, as well as the slightly faster 4-4 movement (faster than a Grunt anyhow). Sadly, while Dogged is great, it’s not going to help any when it comes to keeping yourself out of Loss of Lieutenant, but the Heavy Flamethrower may make people weigh their odds.

Ohio Lieutenant - The Tactician

The Ohio Lieutenant is a bit like an upgraded Grunt, but has a few important tools as your army leader, the first and most obvious is the +1 Command Token, bringing your total up to 5. I really like this option, as it opens up a few options you may not think of normally. That extra command token can mean converting another irregular order into a regular order when trying to push the button in an ITS mission. It also means you have 4 tokens left over after holding 2 models back for reserves or denying your opponent two of their own orders, and so on. The Ohio cannot use any special deployment rules, so is in the same situation as a grunt when it comes to hiding, though compared to the other options, it is a much tougher target in melee with CC20 and CC Attack (-3). That obviously doesn’t scream “melee specialist” but it suddenly becomes a risk, negating the positive modifier of enemy CC units, and still being CC17 (after the -3 from enemy martial arts), with choice of shock (Heavy Pistol) or AP. Anyone who has followed along when Jon, Willett, and I on Late Night Wargames knows how risky melee can be, even against a slightly competent foe.

Foxtrot Lieutenant - The Thinker

Of all the lieutenants, this one probably comes with the most concessions, namely 2 SWC. USAriadna is apparently against the petty act of hiding your lieutenant somewhere safe, and so to take a camouflaged infiltrating lieutenant, we must pay dearly. The SWC cost alone is enough to send many people looking elsewhere without much thought, but I think that’s a mistake. USAriadna is the 0.5 SWC Sectorial after all. If you go this route, you’re only going to have 4 SWC left over, but that’s enough for quite a few sniper rifles (like that Marauder), light rocket launchers, and Grunt Infiltrators. If you’re playing a mission that includes killing Lieutenants, I’d still strongly consider this as an option.

Arm 3, W 1

Now that we’ve gone over the options, let’s put them in direct comparison. A lot is going to depend on the list you’re building and where you need the points… obviously if you’re strapped for points and not worried about getting anything more out of your lieutenant, the Grunt is going to be very appealing, it’s less than half the cost of most of the other options.

The Ohio and Marauder are perhaps more interesting to compare. The Marauder can be a bit easier to hide, though it can mean being a bit closer as well (which Shinobu welcomes). I personally have been leaning towards the Ohio, for 2 points more, that extra command token is pretty awesome, and you can hide in a Haris of grunts (like 2 snipers) for protection. The Marauder can only join the USARF fireteam, which generally wants to get up close and personal… a bit less than ideal for a Lieutenant. I don’t think the Marauder is a bad choice, though I don’t put much stock in the 1-in-20 game affecting WIP 13, and if I’m going to take a Lieutenant to hide on a roof, I may as well make them cheap.

Foxtrots are obviously fantastic, and would probably be my choice every game, if it weren’t for the SWC cost. N4 has given USARF a bit more incentive to maximize SWC, but if you’re taking a list with Devil Dogs, Despradoes, Van Zant, and other low-or-zero SWC cost heavy hitters, you might really want to consider a Foxtrot.

A Note on Loss of Lieutenant

As a USAriadna player, it’s important that you get comfortable being in Loss of Lieutenant, and with practice it’s really manageable. Aside from the Foxtrot, all of our Lieutenant options are single wound, Arm 3 models, with no particular abilities like NWI or Mimetism to give them any extra survival. Furthermore, they’re usually quite obvious to the opposing player, unless you buy some decoy, lieutenant capable models of the same WIP. This army has no Chain of Command (the Unknown Ranger forgot his leadership duties), so there’s no back up for someone spotting and killing your lieutenant. So don’t dismay, it’s the Price of Freedom™.