O12 has always been advertised as having their own standing army. Zeta TAG, line troops that carry multipistols. Maybe some borrowed personalities but not to the extent that you're describing.
Having a "core" trooper, like a more high tech Brawler or less evil Druze, that works as the foundation and glue for Fireteams which can be joined by specialised troopers from other factions (Yadu, ORCs, Hai Dao, Zhayedan, etc) would be an interesting design, backed up by some other unique O-12 troopers like a Bureau Toth agent and the Zeta.
Maybe Necromunda-style ruleset to be used with existing miniatures and modified spec-ops rules to ascend your team?
Well, I haven't seen campaign-style games beyond Necromunda / Mordheim / Frostgrave (and didn't actually played that last one) but the problem with them, as far as I can see, is the advance. We had it in my meta when we tried the Campaign: Paradiso, too: the successful army soon became much more powerful than the rest, making it an uphill struggle for them. While they actually needed a hand due to less luck or less skill in the player running them. I mean, in standard Infinity the armies are, by default, equally strong (CB making sure that point-for-point balance is there). And each player has the same amount of points. But add ascending to that, and suddenyl one army / team has a lot of headstart, making it not really fun for the other player to play against them. If that was only the SpecOp getting stronger, it would be way more limited in effect (it is just a single model, and on a basic core trooper frame). Which is similar to Frostgrave's take on things (only the warband's leader & his assistant grow stornger, if memory serves me. The rest of mooks just remain same mooks). However, then there comes the issue of spending your gains to strenghten your force with more troops, or buying better equipment for your troops, or exchanging them for stronger troops. And we're back in the same problem... I hope CB can pull that and make it right. But I have no idea how right should look like in this case. I can't claim I'm right in my feelings toward Necromunda-type games, but that's what I do think (feel free to correct me here!)...
It's possible (and desirable for the reasons you mentioned) to add some rubberbanding to the campaign system. * First, as you said, is to limit the gains, either to a single, vulnerable model, or model(s) * Second, limit how those gains can be used. While it's true that the more advanced team might have access to more stuff, you can still limit the missions to just X amount of resources. So while you can take your uber upgraded super star model, you're still going to be paying more points for him. * Allow for spoilers in other ways. The team with fewer resources could be given a bonus to their go first, panopoly rolls, guaranteed deployment, more command tokens, etc. * Access to special tactics for the team with fewer resources. Maybe a combined order that doesn't reduce burst, link teams in Vanilla factions, access to mercenaries etc. * Restrictions on the team with more resources. Force them to use LI, reduce their combat groups, disallow certain equipment or tactics.
Progression based on previous success almost always has the snowballing problem, I managed to dominate our Paradiso campaign after some early successes left me entering each battle with more points, a higher chance to win initiative, and a fairly potent Spec-Op, compared to the Haqq player who'd lost all his characters and the Spec-Op he'd invested his (meagre) XP into thanks to some unlucky Cubevac rolls. The ways to mitigate it I've seen are randomisation of advances, which is a great way to make things even worse, or Underdog bonuses, which are very tricky to balance as you end up either neutering the advantage which means you might as well not have a progression system, or making it too desirable encouraging you not to win games, which is also not good. The only "fair" way I can see to do campaigns is for everyone to advance in XP at the same rate (same way I do RPGs), this allows players to choose the direction of the advancement, keeps things more balanced, and doesn't punish terrible rolling any more than normal. This does requires you to have a win condition for the campaign (territory control, narrative structure, etc) and lends itself less to open ended campaigns like in Necromunda where "winning" the campaign is essentially having the most credits/power/value.
Old Necromunda (and Mordheim) had an XP->points conversion in it, I think I still have a paper copy of the ~2005 rules around somewhere. Part of the problem with CB doing that is that it's a direct reveal of the points system, which CB has been keeping proprietary for the entire life of the game. That would be pretty cool!
Snowballing is a problem to consider, but the effects can be mitigated simply by making sure the snowballing itself really only manifests by the end of the campaign. I mean, you want to reward good play somehow, don't you? Infinity is a fatal game where you often have at least one tool to deal with a threat. Spend all your points into an ubertrooper and it goes down to a crit making all that progress moot. I just have the complaints about Focus' Bloodbowl adaptation in mind, where things got out of whack, not because the tier 1 teams weren't balanced, but because the tier 1 teams weren't balanced around a perpetual league (random matchups on the internet).
In terms of an O-12 Sectorial, it all starts with a Line Trooper. If you get that right, I think you could nail the feel of the rest easily. So, what would a great O-12 Line Trooper look like? In a word: Elite. I'd start with the Fusilier, and work up from there. +1 WIP = 1 pt +1 ARM = 2 pts +3 BTS = 1 pts Combi Rifle -> Multi Rifle = 4 pts Now I wouldn't bother with the Multi Pistol here, or maybe they handwave the cost because it totally overlaps with the Multi Rifle, whatever. This gives us: O-12 TROOPER Multi Rifle / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 18) With a 22 pt HMG and Sniper (maybe one point more for a Multi Pistol on these guys), maybe a 13 pt Boarding Shotgun (to cheap out your Fireteam, and because a breaching unit makes sense). You start with that and I think you're going to cook up an interesting force, unique and fun to play with.
Bostria's said that there'll be no Taqeul in 2019 despite it being the Year of the Aliens. So not the Taquel or anything worthwhile Tohaa wise apparently.
Or maybe something between a Grunt and a Druze. BS12, WIP 13, ARM3, 4-2 Move, combi rifle, maybe a nanopulser, and multi pistol as standard (the DA ARO from the pistol alone is pretty terrifying) works out about 14 points which is elite line trooper level (Securitate, Unidron) Options could include Breaker rifle, Feueueurbach, AP Spitfire, weapons a little different from the standard line trooper.
Bolts aren't advanced? :P Kidding aside, I was thinking more "heavy security force" archetype with some nice equipment, and something different to the generic LI that most sectorials have as a foundation (though I admit we have a number of sectorials with MI as a core now)
I suppose you could make a case for MI as the base, but with Druze and US Ariadna as the current examples I feel like they would end up missing some elements of the tone if built this way.
O-12 could have a small enough standing military that they can afford that Wayne Industries armor suit (that was $200k a unit but would stop anything short of .50BMG dead in it's tracks) on all troops. Probably lots of Teseum in it, these days.
I wonder why do you suppose O-12 grunts elite at all :) Their own forces are just a police of their planet and everything else is borrowed from real nations.
Would the O-12 even have a line trooper? In the sense of "profile reflecting generic infantryman" rather than the game role. I think it's more like you'd base their line trooper on a paramilitary civil guard type troop that performs law enforcement, security operations and low intensity urban combat engagements. Hoplons, Bureau Aegis Immediate Security Team 4-4, 13, 12, 11, 13, 1, 3, 1, 2 Shock Immunity Knife, Pistol, Combi-Rifle - 14pts Knife, Pistol, Boarding Shotgun - 13pts Knife, Pistol, MULTI Marksman Rifle (MSV2) - 25pts Knife, Pistol, MULTI Sniper Rifle (CH: Mimetism) - 24pts 1.5 SWC Knife, Pistol, E/Maulers, SMG, Assault Hacking Device - 16pts 0.5 SWC Knife, Pistol, Combi-Rifle (Paramedic) - 16pts Knife, Pistol, E/Maulers, SMG (Forward Observer, Counterintelligence) - 16pts Knife, Pistol, Combi-Rifle (Lieutenant L2) - 14pts Something like that. Elite, not necessarily battlefield but CT in urban/civilian areas and fast response etc. More based on your Met Police AFOs, Carabinieri and such.
Because technically, one of the jobs of the UN/O12 is to break up fights between opposing armies. Though I wouldn't be opposed to the idea of running Dakini as that line trooper. Don't have to pay anywhere near as much as a live person to keep them operating, after all. Maybe bumped up to be actual LI-with-STR instead of REMs (like how Karakuri are HI-with-STR instead of REMs), so can go prone, dodge more easily, etc. Riffing on that core design idea, I'd want to add some urban-optimized HI, more or less Wu Ming.
Neat profiles. The loadouts are very similar to what I'd have liked to see for Celestial Guards (whom are more along the lines of gendarme veterans than military) and then I'm not thinking about the LT2 profile (which I'm a bit... eh... on, I do think this skill should be kept rare like Inspiring Leadership) nor how SMG is used to points-optimise the AHD, but more along the lines of that SMG as base for a police force makes sense and Marksman Rifle makes sense to provide reach.
