So I know there's been a couple threads on this in the old forums about this, but wanted to see if I could get some thoughts on the new forum. What gap in Infinity do you think a playable 0-12 army could fill if any? What would make you want to pick up an 0-12 army and how do you make it not tread on the toes of factions like PanO (smoke joke) or Aleph? credit @SmaggTheSmug Do you think they'd end up in NA2 or be their own mainline faction? I'd have to hope it's a new mainline faction. I looked back and I think they released Aleph in 2009 as a mainline faction, then they released Tohaa in 2012. Now they've released NA2 which was stated to be "paper" armies and a bunch of new sectorials will be coming out. 0-12 will almost surely come no time in the reasonable future, but I was just wondering what a new hypothetical mainline human army would be, and how they could differentiate it so it's not just another elite human army. We have 3 elite (or can be easily) factions in PanO, ALEPH and Combined. We have 3 more LI focused factions with more model counts in Haqq, Ariadna and Tohaa, and we have 2 more toolbox-y factions in Nomads and Yu Jing with focuses on MI and HI respectively. We have a couple artworks done a long time ago that are almost definitely not relevant anymore, but hey whatevs. It's an idea the company had. ///**MASSIVE GENERALIZATION INCOMING**/// PanO has +1 BS, high-tech equipment, HI and TAGs Yu Jing has +1 CC, lots of variety in equipment, HI Ariadna has +1 PH, LI, SK and WB aplenty Haqqislam has +1 WIP, Great LI with awesome elite LI Nomads have great hackers and engineers Combined Army is all over the place, but have several hyper-elite units ALEPH is also very elite with a focus on REMs ///**END MASSIVE GENERALIZATION, SPECULATION ENGAGE**/// Would you like to see the most elite-of-the-elite human faction with high BS AND high WIP as standard, just being very expensive? ALEPH seems to fit that bill already, but maybe too much of a focus on REMs and the weird Homeric heroes thing. High BTS? Would that be a useful thing? Ariadna has high ARM so maybe? What do you think would make an 0-12 Army that would stand out? Here's the first idea I had: A very elite police-force riot-squad type human army whose advantage is on tactical deployment superiority with lots of mechanized deployment, forward deployment and strategos. Troops will have generally high stats with an emphasis on WIP and BTS. There will be a focus on non-lethal and technical weapons like flash grenades, stun grenades, jammers, maybe new template grenades like tear gas that causes immobilization to W units. We know that the "Zeta" TAG belongs to 0-12 and is the pinnacle of TAGs, so I don't know what exactly that entails when we already have quite a selection from PanO that seem pretty powerful. To quote @Yasbir: The Psy units ( no, no psionic troop, just the ancient greek letter) are mentioned in the background since the first book too. For an old campaing in France, Corvus send to the organizers this profile: Psy troop: MOV:4-4, CC: 14, BS: 12, PH: 11, WIP: 14, ARM:2, BTS: -3, W: 1, AVA: 1 Skills: mimetism, strategos L2. combi rifle + e/mitter. Cost: 25 pts. When this appeared, Corvus said two things: Yes, this troop uses a forbidden weapon, wait for their background. No, is not the final profile, it has another skill not public yet." TL;DR: What would make you interested in picking up an 0-12 Sectorial instead of an existing faction?
O-12 in my mind would primarily use non-lethal tactics to achieve missions. They would have great specialists, and a lot of stun/flash ammo. now I'm not saying they have NO lethal weapons - that would be borderline unplayable. But a focus on non-lethal tactics would be really cool, lots of smoke and eclipse and multi-burst stun/ flash would be very flavorful. oh and adhesive. But how would they accomplish missions like annihilation or decapitation? I don't know. I haven't figured that one out yet.
In my mind, the O-12 troops you are seeing on the field are the O-12 combat troops, and they are a small but elite and highly automated force. I'd probably say that you're looking at some ALEPH REMs, including Dakinis, and Devas as strategic advisors/tactical analysts, and then a LI, an AD troop, a HI team, the Zeta TAG, a psy-op officer, a Bureau Noir tactical team type unit, access to several Recreation characters as well as some native O-12 characters too. Your basic O-12 Section Spatha soldier would be an elite trooper in any other faction, something like this; 4-4, 14, 12, 10, 14, 2, 3, 1, 2 CH: Mimetism, V: Courage Knife, Pistol, Combi-Rifle And then you'd have a few more very elite choices along those lines. The real markers would be the prevalence of superior WIP and BS, these are highly trained and motivated troopers, as well as top level ARM and BTS stats to show their top level protective gear. A focus would be on infowar, CQB and such, less massive battlefield tactics and more smaller security operations. No Irregular or impetuous troops either, they are super-professional and elite.
Naah mate. It'll be fine. PanO keeps all their restrictions, O-12 has NONE of those restrictions. They'll be totally different.
O-12 should have units that are hard counters to the most elite units in the human sphere. Anti-Aleph unit, Anti- Nomad unit, Anti-PanO, etc. O-12's mandate is effectively: Keep EVERYONE in line. I would see them focused on hyper-elite single combat group lists. Lots of command and control skills to manipulate things into their favor and, as we have been seeing in NA2, mixed crazy fireteams featuring AVA 1 or 2 poster-child units from each faction. Also, gadgets galore including toys no one else has.
Does anyone remember how the Medusan lords were treated in the Warlord CCG? It'd be sick if O-12 was like that.
Remember that we're police. Stick with the prod. It will stun your opponents or knock them unconscious. A nonlethal takedown is always the most silent way to eliminate resistance. O-12, in terms of what they might field in Infinity proper, should probably cover three sorts of roles IMO: Peacekeepers with a slant towards crowd control and less-lethal weaponry (think Riot Police gendarmes or Russian OMON units), elite Counter-Terrorist units (Think GIGN, FBI HRT, or even true military like DEVGRU/DeltaForce) and your sneaky undercover spy type shenangians and black ops more in line with what everyone else gets up to, but might also include the Cowboy Cop detectives, the ones Da Chief calls a damn good cop but a loose cannon. Each of those roles might be backed up by ALEPH, Pan-O, or Yu-Jing tech seconded in emergencies. Their lethal weapons, including some that may violate the Concilium Convention, would IMO be justified as deterrent factors for the first two. The peacekeeper types would likely have fewer, but the CTU part would not only go loud, but also carry cube-disabling weaponry in some cases (justifying that e/mitter above): To make it clear that you can either give up, or risk true death. Part of this might be introducing some more stun-based weapons. MULTI has the stun mode now, but apart from that, the Stun weaponry are Pistols and Grenades. Maybe some stun weapons could be introduced with higher bursts, a stun CCW, and so on. The Peacekeepers could have a sort of stun-rifle that's burst 2, with a B1 lethal option. The CTU types would carry MULTI weapons galore, or have Combi+Stun Whatevers as standard. The shady spy specops would carry anything: they're running somewhat deniable ops after all. They might also have gas grenades, that could have an effect of making an area of low/poor visibility as well as affecting anything that should enter it while active that lacks any immunity or BTS (making them viable ARO pain-in-the-butt weapons and a poor man's smoke in the bargain). Being O-12 tech it might also include nanites to disrupt MSVs: Maybe they have a new level of MSV that lets them shoot through this.
As a recent user of true vanillia spice (in various forms) I must say that missusing word "vanilla" and "tastless" should be punishable. Bland is so better word to use in the contex :)
I guess the real question is what O12s role is in the fluff. If their role is to keep the different powers in the Sphere from killing each other, then I'd expect them to start their organization at GIGN/GSG9/SWAT/FBI HRT, and go up from there. Because that means their mission remit is to get between two factions killing each other and make them stop. If that means killing everyone on both sides of the fight, so be it.
While it`s tempting to see Zeta TAGs in action I think I`ll pass. I already had my share of Dominion Tank Police in Bakunin as Moderators Corps and if I want to play patchwork faction there are two Mercenary companies for it.
The reason there's been so little info on O12 is absolutely because they can't figure out how to not just end up with Better PanOceania.
Pretty much, and the alternative becomes better ALEPH. By the by, what are the actual details on this "Zeta" TAG? It's such a vague term Google's not bringing up anything.
There are only scattered references to the Zeta TAGs. We know they exist, and are manufactured by PanOceania, and that's it. Maintaining supply for their construction without losing the contract is what kicked off the Helicon riots.
