Riflemen (Rivals)

"Riflemen lead the way!"

- Riflemen rolling out of the Barracks.

The Riflemen are a common GDI infantry squad unit in Command & Conquer: Rivals.

Background
The rifleman squad is GDI's standard infantry formation. Equipped with GD-2 automatic rifles and composite body armor, GDI riflemen are an inexpensive and effective way of destroying enemy infantry units.

Abilities

 * Provides vision up to 3 tiles away.
 * Reveals adjacent stealthed units.
 * Reveals adjacent stealthed units.

Game unit
Rifleman squad is a cheap, fast infantry unit with sight range of 3, which allows them to quickly establish the opponent's game strategy. This makes them suitable for reconnaissance in the early game.

It is cost-effective against all Hand of Nod units except for Chemical warriors. Two riflemen squads can even take down Flame troopers. It's the most effective Barracks counter to the Scarabs.

Being fast and cheap, Riflemen can be used to establish map control in the early game, but will become less useful in the late game, when population cap is at a premium and more effective anti-infantry units are available to the opponent. That being said, even in late game they can be useful since they can hold the pads behind the main fighting zone and can be used to come back from a disastrous skirmish, when the population cap is not a limiting factor.

Being a large squad, Riflemen can hold against slow firing, large damage units like Obelisk of Light, since it can only kill one squad member per shot. Riflemen tend to survive well against anti-armor attacks, allowing them to hold position and block vehicles until appropriate counters arrive.

The ability to see three tiles away allows Riflemen to explore further than non-scout units, allowing to adjust the battle plans sooner. This is especially true against blind double harvester opening. They can lift the cloaking on the Stealth tanks, although they can only do little damage to it.

Works well with Missile squad, since both units together are effective against infantry, vehicles and aircraft. Although Riflemen are not effective against vehicles, a pair of Missile Squads and Riflemen will take out War dogs twice as quickly than Missile Squad alone.

It shares the same stats and abilities as the Militant squad.

Decks
Riflemen are found in decks of all sorts, but they are especially useful in :


 * Aggro decks: Riflemen are fast, which allows them to charge pads quickly. The long sight range allows to react faster to the developments on the battlefield.
 * Tech decks: the cheapness of the Riflemen allows to stall the missile cost effectively and not to waste Tiberium on the more expensive units. Until the big guns come out at lest.

Changelog

 * 2018-07-03: Damage vs Vehicles reduced to 15 (was 30)
 * 2018-10-04:
 * Squad size reduced to 5 (was 6)
 * Health increased to 120 (was 100)
 * 2019-12-18: Damage increased to 38 (was 30)
 * 2019-06-27: Health increased to 130 (was 120)

When created

 * Ready for action!
 * Riflemen ready to move out!
 * Riflemen lead the way!

When selected

 * Reporting
 * Unit ready
 * Infantry ready
 * Riflemen ready
 * Riflemen awaiting orders
 * Riflemen ready to move out
 * Ready for action

When moving

 * Moving out
 * Move Out!
 * I'm on it!
 * You got it!
 * Move! Move! Move!
 * Marching orders received

When move to attack favorably

 * Let's gun them down!
 * Hoo-rah!
 * We got this!
 * They don't stand a chance!

When move to attack neutral

 * Move to engage
 * We'll secure the area
 * Lock and load
 * Yes, sir!

When move to attack unfavorably

 * This is gonna be bad!
 * Gotta die sometime
 * No pain no gain!

When unable to attack target

 * Can't shoot that
 * Negative, commander

When attacking

 * Charge!
 * Open fire!
 * Leading the way!

When under attack

 * We're under fire!
 * Riflemen outgunned!
 * I'm hit!
 * We should fall back!
 * Riflemen under heavy fire!

Trivia

 * Riflemen seem to be modeled after the Riflemen squad in Tiberium Wars.
 * When idle, riflemen do jumping jacks.
 * Demonstrates can-do attitude and high morale. Male.

Behind the scenes
In the early game version Riflemen squad contained 6 members, but it was reduced to 5 before the global launch.

Videos
Idling