Well, I think we can officially close this thread now. Top 8 in popularity seems to end this discussion pretty unambiguously.
Just got back from a two-day tournament where I was running O12. I was the only player doing so, and I had three players comment on the fact that they'd never seen space cops at a tournament before. The Warcor was chuffed to see an O12 player when I registered and said as much. Other than one other local player I've never seen them played at a tournament or league either. That's all anecdotal I know, but interesting none the less to me. A lot of us in my chat group were scratching our heads at that popularity/efficiency infographic, and how it didn't seem to match what we see. It could be the advent of TTS I suppose, as I suspect that way more TTS games are logged on ITS that real-life ones, sadly.
Another anecdote: I was listening to a German Infinity podcast the other day where the hosts reported about a recent tournament and at some point they made a snide remark along the lines of "uh, might as well play O-12 then" as in nobody in their right minds would bring them to a tournament. They didn't elaborate, but apparently that's a thing in their community. Considering I'm in the middle of building my O-12 force, that was quite disheartening :P
Yeah I really think that there's something up with this methodology. Imperial Service being ranked so highly too has left me scratching my head.
We've had about two people play them. Mostly new people who then go on to something else. I've heard them being referred to as PanO but slightly better or PanO with smoke. I'm not sure why so few. I think they look cool. I think if Starmada had Omega and Gamma units it might be different.
Thinking of writing up a tournament report with them - now I have a bit of a handle on how I like to play them I think they're lots of fun. They're so flexible that your opponent really doesn't know what to expect, which list to use, and hopefully what to prioritise.
I know with me it's the complex uniforms. As a complete novice painter O12 frightens me. If I could track down an Alpha Pack I might start a force though; the cloaked infiltrators are a bit less intimidating and match the playstyles of the Hexas I'm used to from PanO.
Removed contemporary political discussion. I think the dissonance between local and global popularity is a typical case of local closed ecosystems creating perceptions that are not true on a wider scale.
I'm trying to find *any* place where O-12 is popular, and not finding it. It's the least played faction in basically every tournament scene I've seen, and every online discussion venue had it as the least talked about faction. Where are all these O-12 players hiding?!
You can find them on the discord server My local area has 3 or 4 O-12 owners excluding me, but I think only one would say it's the main faction. It's like JSA I think, a lot of people own them but not a lot would call themself O-12 players. Even I play RTF mainly, with O-12 on the side because I won the action pack at a tournament.
O-12 is pretty much entirely a side army in our meta. We have easily a dozen folks who have at least some and play them in something like every third or fourth tourney, but maybe only one or two folks who play them as a primary faction.
For what it is worth, I have started collecting O-12 vanilla as my second army. I like the models and the riotstoppers. Compared to RTF, the O-12 troops look more one dimensional and the faction lacks quiet some skills (markmanship outside of wild bill, regeneration, baggage edit: they have baggage, only epsilon with bioimmunity). The riotstopper has to make up for that: you get an unique weapon but it will cost you other aspects of the game.
I heard the reason for that is because O-12 is a faction designed to be precise but easy to learn for newbies. There are few Swiss Army Knife units with an odd combination of skills like a Khawarij or Namurr. Everything is designed for a specific purpose, and has their weapons, skills, and points costs tailored for efficiency. Examples; you can think of a Kappa Hacker given an SMG for point reduction because you don't use them for shooting anyway, or the Cyberghost designed to be a cheap and strong Hacker with below O-12 average other stats. Or there is an Epsilon with MSV/Mimetism/Climbing Plus and good guns for gunfighting and sniping, but no spurious points wasted on CC18+, decent PH, or weird skills. Many of their models which you rather not shoot with like the Lambda have BS11 to save points, while longer range shooters have meh PH, CC, and basic CC weapons to save points. Units feel more tailored to game the system, but you get less interesting all-rounders. Maybe this is hog wash, but it's what a veteran told me, and I can kinda see it. Units seem more focused, but less versatile.
Yep. When it was released, it was definitely pushed as a Beginner faction. It definitely feels like it was designed to teach Infinity Fundamentals.
In my meta we are 4 or 5 O-12 players, with some very dedicated to the faction, and it keeps growing since the original release... Meanwhile, there is almost no Pano players anymore around, compared to before (only 2-3 by now). ^^'
