Agreed. I’d say, able to make one re-roll of a doctor skill without spending a Command token. Or how about BTS 9 vs. Sepsitor. Very specialized thing that wouldn’t add cost.
Cubes are also backed up, so even if it is destroyed the person can still be resurrected, albeit missing their most recent memories. There are other memory storage technologies available too, though they are slower and more expensive, such as those used by Al D'Jabel
... or Prowlers. I kinda like the OPs idea for O-12, but looking at the minis and how standard they look I am not sure we see many characters here. I guess Steel Phalanx already is also the Character High Tech Faction and to a degree we even have the Foreign Company now, who have the same concept but execute it pretty terrible. Being a IS without CC sounds very plausible, but I guess they will miss something like Khuang Shi, so they will certainly play rather different. I am really curious how CB will make them unique, I have no idea how to properly do it and not cross over to much with Sectorial we already have. And to be honest I don't have much trust in CB actually succeeding with it either. Probably gonna end up with a Varuna, Tunguska, OSS mix that will be super cost effective and raise the power play bar slightly.
Honestly I doubt they'll be very unique, they're only getting a starter box and are being discussed as a "faction" not a sectoral. For them to be payable as a 300 point force from the get-go they're gonna need a stack of loaner troops from other forces. I think there's a good possibility of them being a greatest hits tour of the human sphere, probably with a high aleph density given what they do
Maybe special fire teams like Phalanx and Tohaa have would be a good way to make them unique. Heck, maybe they´ll get Plasma weapons all over the place just to make Hector jealous (I can imagine O12 would be one of the first to get new prototype-weapons in the HS). I´m also curious if they get some troops recuted from Ariadna? (Fluffwise enhanced cyber-werewolfs might be pretty effective in seek-and-destroy-Shasvastii missions)
Plasma and special fireteams sounds very good. I believe in plasma, but i can't imagine one more fireteam variant.
My hopes are in a high tech army (mind a mix between Nomads and Pano). I think that may have some features based on other armies, such as high BS, some BTS and high tech not based on NWI. Imagine an army with ultra-tech equipment (MSV, ODD,Sensor, a potential option for H+ Device...) Keep in mind a SuperStar-based army with few very good characters (Sun Tze, Saladino, Voronin, Joan, Hippolyta...) who has a great loadout of troopers to do combo with. I also think that O-12 will have fireteam options (based in a game that tends to kill vainilla armies to make a sectorial-based game) End of my speculation haha
I‘d agree with the general notion that not being able to bring comfortable high order counts would make the faction a lot less interesting. I’m hoping for e.g. Ava 3 Flashbots, maybe Ava 3 CSUs with some cool link options and for the Kappa unit to be less elite than securitates
I'd be happy to trade guys whose cost is mostly their regular order if the base grunts make the jump to being actually reliable for gunfights and objective work. Nox are 14pts for Stealth, Bioimmunity and an E/M DTW, maybe Kappa Unit will surprise us all and cart about Marksmanship L2 or something similar to sit at parity with their opposite numbers in the Wildfire box.
All the previous "Operation:X" starter boxes have followed the model of 3 line troops and a mix of 4 other troops. I don't think the contents of the box alone will completely dictate their play-style. I highly doubt that they will have other factions units in the Vanilla O-12 army. If they were going to do a amalgamation like that, then they would have made them an N/A2 sectorial not their own faction. Now what I could see is an O-12 sectorial like Imperial service where they have some limited availability of certain Aleph (or other faction troops). As for having enough troops to make a full army of O-12 when it comes out, CB could release an armypack shortly after the release of wildfire, or even just a beyond box and a few boxes/blisters to get a core amount of models. And people will just have to proxy what isn't available like with all the other sectorials that have been release recently that don't have a full selection of models yet. That said my oppinion is no more speculation than yours so we will have to wait and see what happens.
Saladin's fluff explicitly calls him out as not just an O-12 liason, but also as a member of Bureau Aegis. While that could be a one off like sectorial specific mercs there's also this excerpt: "Due to the conflict with alien forces on Paradiso, the usage of mixed formations comprised of units from different powers is more frequent every day. [...] Therefore, little by little, the need for officers who know how to coordinate the different allied forces has become necessary." To me it makes sense that O-12 would have it's own line and special troops while also borrowing some characteristic but not necesarily elite troops from the other factions. This will likely be done with the Defiance characters at a minimum.
ooh, what if the various sectorials were liaisons with the planets/powers? So we'd see something like "Dawn Branch" with access to Ariadnan troops, "Svalarheim Branch" would have PanO/Yu Jing (and maybe one OR the other), "Negotiable-Brutality Commission" with merc units. (it'd keep the SKU numbers down^^)
