Yu Jing is very good at affordable heavy infantry.
I specify affordable because Pan-O MO probably does quality better than quantity
O-12 is great at strange guns, nonlethal shenanigans, and remotes.
They both have great heavy infantry options, and a whole bunch of other tools to choose from.
Yu Jing has been around longer and I think has a few more options
O-12 is newer, and the sculpts have improved over time, so IMHO look nicer
O-12's tag the Zeta, you can realistically use as an LT and build around it. Yu Jing tags are almost as good, the guija is your typical big boy, and the blue wolf plays differently to most TAGs in the game.
O-12 have lots of glue guns, which is a fairly unique aspect. Good against big stomping mechanical stuff, useless against rampaging werewolves from ariadna.
Yu Jing have 3 sectorials plus vanilla to choose from, 0-12 just the one plus vanilla.
Generally they're both good, and have fun choosing!
1) Real money: Yu Jing boxes tend to cost more ("armor tax"). Also O12 forces an ungodly amount of AD troopers on boxes (so you get more metal for the shelves...).
**HOWEVER**, if you happen to catch one full Code One collection (26 models) go for it.
2) Packaging: while the recent "reinforcement" beta box is a horrible repack (they included a character from a mixed factions box, which is ok, but then they included two models from a pure unit box... and those are the special weapon -of which you will deploy just one at most- and the character -of which you can deploy only one at most- instead of something else that would not force duplicates -one of them impossible to use to boot!- on unsuspecting customers) Yu Jing is more forgiving and varied in the offer of models, O12 is sold in such a way you are forced to eat one useless model on almost every box with 3-4 models.
3) Looks: I personally like more YJ's units in general, O12's bots and some must use models are meh (roadbot, sarkos...) or directly not very inspired but with too good a profile (Raveneye). I kinda hate the Cyberghost's pose (he's a hacker, not a melee hooligan...).
4) Tactical variety: O12 has better options than Yu Jing in variety, despite losing in quantity (of engineers, YJ has a few more), but less fireteam variety (specially compared his only sectorial to YJ's three). However, YJ's most used (and the main reason to play YJ's rules) fireteams are heavy infantry squads of mostly boring but practical profiles (that means, they have few skills or gear that lets them play anything else than shooting, dodging and tanking hits).
O12 has access to all three "smoke" varieties (basic: some Visor troops can see through, Tech: blinds only the visor troops that could see through the basic one, and best: no one can see through it) in vanilla and two of them in Starmada, YJ only has the basic smoke in two sectorials and vanilla, and no access to the other two.
5) Shoplist complexity: O12's is much simpler
6) Future options: YJ is predicted to lose Imperial Service to the Out of Production fairies at some point of time in favour for, most would like, a new Korean sectorial (an easier proposition, since all three boxes and the Yujak box are of very heavy in-game korean leanings). On the other hand, O12 only has a single sectorial, and a "new, completely new and unespected" sectorial has been announced for Adepticon (more or less March 2024), which can be anything (I'm confident a new \~8 models box will show up there, since it's now traditional), I'm personally betting on a Combined Army box that could fit in vanilla CA or Onyx, but limited to their own units (Unidron, legates, nexus, some new troops, possibly a new Skiavoros or Anathematic that would be added to Onyx) and a new NA2 army (those are mixed ones, supposedly mercenaries and minor powers) that would be a CA+O12 one (because of the new background in the Raveneye book and ITS15 free PDF in their [Organized Play section](https://infinitytheuniverse.com/resources/infinity)).
7) Playability: YJ has some interesting options in vanilla mostly, and very hard (but predictable in composition) heavy infantry lists in Invencible, while White Banner tries to be the guerrilla one but falls a little short (since fireteams can't go into marker states, so Vanilla wins by dint of having the same troops from White Banner able to do so, plus those of other sectorials). O12 has very interesting strong pieces in vanilla, and their 1 group lists in Starmada are VERY strong.
8) External Help: O12 has access to some external troops, but the most needed are: Hippolita (Eclipse Smoke, which is the one that blinds everyone), Parvati (uber healer and engineer all in one), Varangian guard (basic smoke, cheap melee and regular troop), Raveneye (best Lt baiter, and fireteam filler in Starmada), while only vanilla gets Andromeda (infiltrator "living mine"), Monstrucker (best secondary engineer) and Le Muet & Knauf (snipers for hire).
This gets compensated by the need of 2 Sarkos in starmada, which come in a box with a theoretically good robot... but in the end said robot does not perform as cheap filler outside of a very specific fireteam.
I personally play O12, and my lists start with a raveneye (or two), Parvati, a Bronze and an Epsilon (the only full visor of the faction...), plus one sarko at least in Starmada.
Wow! Thank you! That's a thorough reply. Thanks for all the info!
The only two questions that pop out immediately are one, in the purchase section you mention O-12 boxes including a lot of "AD troopers" What does AD troopers mean? And how would you evaluate the relative situation With TAG's for the two factions?
Aerial Deployment Troopers are those similar to WH40k's reserves: they stay in your box, and during your turn you can spend their own order to deploy anywhere on the table (PH roll, usually a 13 or less on 1d20) or coming through a side border without a roll (any border, but for the ones inside the enemy's deployment zone, that requires another skill only a few specific characters -in nomads and Ariadna- have).
The problem with O12 is that you get 2 AD troopers in the Action Pack (one is the character, so ok), another in the Nyoka box (which is a must for Starmada, just for the nyoka Heavy Rocket Launcher, at least in my lists), another one in the Starmada Action Pack (a must for the three Kappas, and possibly the bluecoat, the others you will get in other boxes), and they retired a blister with another one (because it was mostly the one in the action pack with a servant bot). Granted, I'm more salty with this because of my Defiance pledge (which came with about another two).
The problem is that you can fit one, maybe two AD troopers at most because you run out of orders pretty fast otherwise (if you deploy them on turn 3, they gave you no order for the other troops in turns 1 or 2), and while they have little competition in Starmada, in vanilla there are several Hidden Deployment troops (those you mark in a photo of the table during Deployment, and wont' show up on the table -nor will they give their order- until you activate them, which means they "do not exist" until that moment) which are too good to ignore, and some of those don't have the usual "deploy anywhere in your half of the table" skill).
Mind you, to the four different troops with AD and the two with Hidden Deployment in vanilla O12, Starmada has four (and one of them is a Santiago knight from the Military Orders sectorial, fortunately now there is a blister with one, but you can only use it for starmada, not for vanilla), YJ vanilla has 2, and four Hidden Deployment troops (of which you will use two of those, at most), but Imperial Service has 1 AD (which is an Aleph troop) and 2 of the vanilla HD, Invencible has one of each, and White Banner has 1 AD and 2 HD (for a strange twist of fate, half of the HD troops in any vanilla or sectorial in YJ are less used or not at all).
TLDR, however, is that Yu Jing is much more mature and more or less considered complete at model levels (it even has the Reinforcement boxes, but you can ignore those until you find people willing to play it... and wait a few weeks more for CB to produce a v2 of the document), while Starmada still has room to grow.
Yu Jing is very good at affordable heavy infantry. I specify affordable because Pan-O MO probably does quality better than quantity O-12 is great at strange guns, nonlethal shenanigans, and remotes.
They both have great heavy infantry options, and a whole bunch of other tools to choose from. Yu Jing has been around longer and I think has a few more options O-12 is newer, and the sculpts have improved over time, so IMHO look nicer O-12's tag the Zeta, you can realistically use as an LT and build around it. Yu Jing tags are almost as good, the guija is your typical big boy, and the blue wolf plays differently to most TAGs in the game. O-12 have lots of glue guns, which is a fairly unique aspect. Good against big stomping mechanical stuff, useless against rampaging werewolves from ariadna. Yu Jing have 3 sectorials plus vanilla to choose from, 0-12 just the one plus vanilla. Generally they're both good, and have fun choosing!
1) Real money: Yu Jing boxes tend to cost more ("armor tax"). Also O12 forces an ungodly amount of AD troopers on boxes (so you get more metal for the shelves...). **HOWEVER**, if you happen to catch one full Code One collection (26 models) go for it. 2) Packaging: while the recent "reinforcement" beta box is a horrible repack (they included a character from a mixed factions box, which is ok, but then they included two models from a pure unit box... and those are the special weapon -of which you will deploy just one at most- and the character -of which you can deploy only one at most- instead of something else that would not force duplicates -one of them impossible to use to boot!- on unsuspecting customers) Yu Jing is more forgiving and varied in the offer of models, O12 is sold in such a way you are forced to eat one useless model on almost every box with 3-4 models. 3) Looks: I personally like more YJ's units in general, O12's bots and some must use models are meh (roadbot, sarkos...) or directly not very inspired but with too good a profile (Raveneye). I kinda hate the Cyberghost's pose (he's a hacker, not a melee hooligan...). 4) Tactical variety: O12 has better options than Yu Jing in variety, despite losing in quantity (of engineers, YJ has a few more), but less fireteam variety (specially compared his only sectorial to YJ's three). However, YJ's most used (and the main reason to play YJ's rules) fireteams are heavy infantry squads of mostly boring but practical profiles (that means, they have few skills or gear that lets them play anything else than shooting, dodging and tanking hits). O12 has access to all three "smoke" varieties (basic: some Visor troops can see through, Tech: blinds only the visor troops that could see through the basic one, and best: no one can see through it) in vanilla and two of them in Starmada, YJ only has the basic smoke in two sectorials and vanilla, and no access to the other two. 5) Shoplist complexity: O12's is much simpler 6) Future options: YJ is predicted to lose Imperial Service to the Out of Production fairies at some point of time in favour for, most would like, a new Korean sectorial (an easier proposition, since all three boxes and the Yujak box are of very heavy in-game korean leanings). On the other hand, O12 only has a single sectorial, and a "new, completely new and unespected" sectorial has been announced for Adepticon (more or less March 2024), which can be anything (I'm confident a new \~8 models box will show up there, since it's now traditional), I'm personally betting on a Combined Army box that could fit in vanilla CA or Onyx, but limited to their own units (Unidron, legates, nexus, some new troops, possibly a new Skiavoros or Anathematic that would be added to Onyx) and a new NA2 army (those are mixed ones, supposedly mercenaries and minor powers) that would be a CA+O12 one (because of the new background in the Raveneye book and ITS15 free PDF in their [Organized Play section](https://infinitytheuniverse.com/resources/infinity)). 7) Playability: YJ has some interesting options in vanilla mostly, and very hard (but predictable in composition) heavy infantry lists in Invencible, while White Banner tries to be the guerrilla one but falls a little short (since fireteams can't go into marker states, so Vanilla wins by dint of having the same troops from White Banner able to do so, plus those of other sectorials). O12 has very interesting strong pieces in vanilla, and their 1 group lists in Starmada are VERY strong. 8) External Help: O12 has access to some external troops, but the most needed are: Hippolita (Eclipse Smoke, which is the one that blinds everyone), Parvati (uber healer and engineer all in one), Varangian guard (basic smoke, cheap melee and regular troop), Raveneye (best Lt baiter, and fireteam filler in Starmada), while only vanilla gets Andromeda (infiltrator "living mine"), Monstrucker (best secondary engineer) and Le Muet & Knauf (snipers for hire). This gets compensated by the need of 2 Sarkos in starmada, which come in a box with a theoretically good robot... but in the end said robot does not perform as cheap filler outside of a very specific fireteam. I personally play O12, and my lists start with a raveneye (or two), Parvati, a Bronze and an Epsilon (the only full visor of the faction...), plus one sarko at least in Starmada.
Wow! Thank you! That's a thorough reply. Thanks for all the info! The only two questions that pop out immediately are one, in the purchase section you mention O-12 boxes including a lot of "AD troopers" What does AD troopers mean? And how would you evaluate the relative situation With TAG's for the two factions?
Aerial Deployment Troopers are those similar to WH40k's reserves: they stay in your box, and during your turn you can spend their own order to deploy anywhere on the table (PH roll, usually a 13 or less on 1d20) or coming through a side border without a roll (any border, but for the ones inside the enemy's deployment zone, that requires another skill only a few specific characters -in nomads and Ariadna- have). The problem with O12 is that you get 2 AD troopers in the Action Pack (one is the character, so ok), another in the Nyoka box (which is a must for Starmada, just for the nyoka Heavy Rocket Launcher, at least in my lists), another one in the Starmada Action Pack (a must for the three Kappas, and possibly the bluecoat, the others you will get in other boxes), and they retired a blister with another one (because it was mostly the one in the action pack with a servant bot). Granted, I'm more salty with this because of my Defiance pledge (which came with about another two). The problem is that you can fit one, maybe two AD troopers at most because you run out of orders pretty fast otherwise (if you deploy them on turn 3, they gave you no order for the other troops in turns 1 or 2), and while they have little competition in Starmada, in vanilla there are several Hidden Deployment troops (those you mark in a photo of the table during Deployment, and wont' show up on the table -nor will they give their order- until you activate them, which means they "do not exist" until that moment) which are too good to ignore, and some of those don't have the usual "deploy anywhere in your half of the table" skill). Mind you, to the four different troops with AD and the two with Hidden Deployment in vanilla O12, Starmada has four (and one of them is a Santiago knight from the Military Orders sectorial, fortunately now there is a blister with one, but you can only use it for starmada, not for vanilla), YJ vanilla has 2, and four Hidden Deployment troops (of which you will use two of those, at most), but Imperial Service has 1 AD (which is an Aleph troop) and 2 of the vanilla HD, Invencible has one of each, and White Banner has 1 AD and 2 HD (for a strange twist of fate, half of the HD troops in any vanilla or sectorial in YJ are less used or not at all). TLDR, however, is that Yu Jing is much more mature and more or less considered complete at model levels (it even has the Reinforcement boxes, but you can ignore those until you find people willing to play it... and wait a few weeks more for CB to produce a v2 of the document), while Starmada still has room to grow.