There was a thread last week debating the Grunt Perk and I'd always thought that the NCR Fiend quests seemed a bit easy when I got to them in the mid teens so I decided to create a character from scratch based on the idea of a reserve soldier that's been called up and ordered to report to Camp McCarran at level 1. The rules I went by were he could only use weapons affected by the Grunt perk (even before he got it), had to dress in somewhat military looking clothes/armor and would stick to quests given by NCR military ncp`s. I also chose not to use the Honest Hearts .45 weapons as those are pretty overpowered in my opinion.

It turned out to be a pretty tough row to hoe so if you're looking for a switch from your comfort zone/God mode you could give it a try;).

McCarran at Level 1
(Before you leave Goodsprings you can get http://fallout.wikia.com/wiki/Chance%27s_knife but it sort of defeats the purpose of making this a challenge.)

If you're on the PC, you can use the console command "player.moveto 000f5712" (with the spaces but without the quotation marks) and be teleported directly to Major Dahtri outside the McCarran Terminal. If you want to do it the old fashioned way you can also run it. From Goodsprings head east keeping to the right/south of the Yangtze Memorial until you hit the highway running north. If you haven't killed any Powder Gangers yet none of the ones you'll meet along the road will be hostile but they can be a good source of loot and 9mm Pistols to repair your starting gun. Head north on the road until you get to Sloan. From Sloan head East through the canyons.

There are a lot of Bark Scorpions but these are fairly easy to kill with a melee weapon as they have a strong but slow attack so duck in close, take a couple of swings then back away quickly before they can land a hit (you may have to relax the rule about only using Grunt weapons at this point as you won't have a Combat Knife yet or enough 9mm ammo for your pistol). Alternatively you can usually just outrun them. Keep going east through the canyons skirting the north edge of Hidden Valley until you get to Neil's Shack. You can stop to talk with Neil and now would be a good time to save if you haven't already.

Start sneaking and head north east along the ridge line to bypass the first sentry post of Super Mutants then head south down to the road where it starts to curve back to the west. You'll see a dead NCR trooper there with a .357 Revolver laying nearby. Directly to his east there's a foot path leading up to the east. It's lined with bear traps which you can disarm with a Repair skill of 23 and getting close will trigger two land slides, the first when you get close to the foot of the path and the second half way up (when you trigger the one half way up there's a ledge to your left you can jump up on to avoid the rocks which also has some good loot).

Once you're through the foot path keep heading east through the hills until you get to the 188 trading post. If you've picked up enough loot along the way Alexander, the Gun Runner merchant there, will sell a fully repaired Service Rifle and the female Arms Merchant will often, but not always, have Grenade Rifles in poor condition.

From 188 head north west towards the Lucky 38 tower in New Vegas. When you get to the NCR Sharecropper farms head west through the road between McCarran and New Vegas and you'll come out just north of the entrance to McCarran. Alternatively (if you already know the area) you can turn off early and head along the south side of McCaaran and help some of the troopers there fight the Fiends along the way.

Character Creation
I went with Skilled and Fast Shot for Traits and Guns, Repair and Survival for Tag Skills. Based on my experience I`d say go with Skilled and Trigger Discipline (or even no second Trait at all) and Guns, Explosives and Repair for Tag Skills. I usually play a sniper style character and the accuracy penalty isn`t that big of a deal with Varmint or Hunting Rifles but it became a serious liability with trying to use the Service Rifle at long range. Also, as Grunt doesn`t really have any high damage Guns you don`t really get a good anti-armor weapon until you get to the Assault Carbine. As a result I found myself relying a lot more on Explosives than with my other characters.

Weapons
Starting out you have the option of the 9mm Pistol, 9mm SMG, the Service Rifle, Frag Genades or Mines and the Grenade Rifle. I decided to go with the Service Rifle as it seemed the most ``Grunt-Like``. It turned out pretty decent but, as I mentioned above, I found I had to rely a lot more on Frag Mines and Grenades than with my sniper style characters. Not being able to make all those x8 damage sneak attack head shots took a lot of getting used to.

If you didn't pick up a Service Rifle at 188 Sgt. Contreras at McCarran will usually have one or two in poor condition. He has never had any 5.56 ammo when I've been there at Level 1 but, under his Misc tab he has a large number of bulk .223 ammo boxes.

Chosing between Frag Grenades and a Grenade Rifle can be an apple or orange debate. Frag Grenades can be bounced around corners and through doorways as they don`t explode on impact but are on a timer. Downside is, because of that timer they will sometimes skip past your target and not damage him and in Vats you can`t target specific parts of the body. Also they count as weapons so, even in Casual Mode they`ll add weight to your inventory. Grenade Rifles have the advantage that they explode on impact and can target specific body parts in VATS (aim for the legs then, even if it misses, they`ll still explode close enough for the target to be in the blast radius). The Rifle itself has weight but, in Casual Mode the 40 mm grenades count at ammo so they don`t add weight.

Armor
The first option is to go with NCR trooper armor. There`s a set on the dead trooper at Black Mountain and Sgt Contreras usually has a couple of sets in poor repair. The problem is, aside from a very few Legion types, the only npc`s that wear medium armor are NCR so, even with the Jury Rigging perk, you`ll have to rely on npc vendors to keep it in good repair and that will get expensive after a while. It also slows your running speed considerably and the effectts it has on factions can also be pretty tricky. People that would normally be quite happy to see you will try and kill you for wearing it.

The combat armor sold by the Vendortron is decent but it still slows you down and is expensive to maintain. The Mercenary Grunt and Wasteland Doctor outfits look fairly military, albeit with a t-shirt instead of jacket, but don`t really offer much protection.

What I finally settled on was the Raider Badlands armor. It wasn`t perfect but it offered at least 4 DT, looked like something a troop might cobble together if he`d been away from the supply depot long enough and, while you`re hunting Fiends, it`s dead easy to keep repaired. For the head gear I went with a Combat Helmet but it was expesnive to keep repaired.

Housing
Just outside the front gate of McCarran is the El Rey Motel. On the east end of the second floor is a room with a Very Easy lock. Inside is a Crazed Junkie. Let him chase you outside before you kill him and you`ll have a reasonably clean room wth a bed, several storage containers and 5 rad water from the toilet tank if you`re in too much of a hurrry to walk over to the McCarran terminal. Downside is there`s no cooking fire nearby and the closest work and reloading benches are several loading screens away in Contreras`s building.

Quests
Major Dahtri and Colonel Tsu have the most high profile quests but Lt Gorobets in the front yard, Christina Morles and the cook William Farber all have good ones as well. If you decide to bend the rule about no quests except from military npc`s then There Stands the Grass can be good experience.