I was looking over the Russian Faction and I had a few questions...

1. Can Zor'ka target an adjacent empty circle with the Magnifier? If attacking through one of the following, what about the circle a Smiljan Module or a Voivode is currently on? Can he target that particular circle and hit everybody within 3 spaces?

2. Zor'ka's Presence? Does the - Mental Stat mean that Awakening is an automatic success? Or, do you still need the three successes and Presence merely makes you immune to Mental Duels? I wouldn't think that it would null and void Zor'ka's Special Object.

3. Irishka Voronin's Summoning Module? How exactly does this work? What does it mean by, " Voivodes must follow all normal movement restrictions"?

Thanks for any thoughts and comments on these questions.

P.S...Love the new rules! They make the game fun, instead of a chore!

1. Can Zor'ka target an adjacent empty circle with the Magnifier? If attacking through one of the following, what about the circle a Smiljan Module or a Voivode is currently on? Can he target that particular circle and hit everybody within 3 spaces?

Magnifier is a hand to hand weapon, so it attacks an adjacent unit plus anything within 3 circles of target except Zorka and voivodes.

Not sure if I fully understand the second part of your question, but any unit adjacent or on a circle that contains a smiljan module or a voivode is also attacked.

2. Zor'ka's Presence? Does the - Mental Stat mean that Awakening is an automatic success? Or, do you still need the three successes and Presence merely makes you immune to Mental Duels? I wouldn't think that it would null and void Zor'ka's Special Object.

You can NOT be a target of a mental duel, that is how I am reading it.

3. Irishka Voronin's Summoning Module? How exactly does this work? What does it mean by, " Voivodes must follow all normal movement restrictions"?

During a Voivode's activation and as an action, place a voivode next to the token. By legal path that means you would follow normal movement path as if you were moving the voivode regularly, ie you can not pass through an enemy unit or a wall/debris token.

Hope this has all been clear.

I played my first games against the Matriachy last night and repeated rules problems came out, mostly around Zor'ka. It all boils down to these:

1. Is Zor'ka herself susceptible to the secondary attack from her magnifier? She is always within three circles of her target, she is not a Voïvode and the rules don't really prohibit you from attacking yourself.

2. If Irishka Voronin is equipped with the Similjan Module does her circle contain a Similjan Module and therefore make him susceptible to the Magnifier seconday attacks?

3. Does Zor'ka's Triglaf mean that in order to move a Voïvode with it the Voïvode needs to be next to an anemy model ie. the attack will be relayed by the Voïvode, or does every Voïvode always relay the attack even if there are so available enemies?

4. Related to the above, does the Triglaf permit you to move only one Voïvode per attack or all Voïvodes that will relay the attack one at a time? (The latter is based on the idea that "this Voïvode relays the attack so I move it, then this Voïvode relays the attack too, so I'll move it too")

1. Is Zor'ka herself susceptible to the secondary attack from her magnifier? She is always within three circles of her target, she is not a Voïvode and the rules don't really prohibit you from attacking yourself.

Though it does not say specifically that it does not attacker herself, I am going to say no since it targets other units that are friendly or foe.

2. If Irishka Voronin is equipped with the Similjan Module does her circle contain a Similjan Module and therefore make him susceptible to the Magnifier seconday attacks?

If the coil is still on her, she is not affected by the attack. From the rule book

" Circles anywhere on the game board that
contain or are adjacent to a Smiljan Module that
has been placed on the map or a Voïvode with a
Smiljan Coil in its inventory are considered to
be adjacent to you for the purpose of Magnifier
attacks. "

A circle must contain the coil, in other words, it has been placed.

3. Does Zor'ka's Triglaf mean that in order to move a Voïvode with it the Voïvode needs to be next to an anemy model ie. the attack will be relayed by the Voïvode, or does every Voïvode always relay the attack even if there are so available enemies?

Not too sure what you mean here. I'll answer it the best I can.

Basically, when you attack, before you do, you may pick a single voivode and move it 5 spaces, more than likely next to an enemy unit since Zor'kas relay travels to adjacent spaces of the voivode which would insure you getting an extra attack that turn.

4. Related to the above, does the Triglaf permit you to move only one Voïvode per attack or all Voïvodes that will relay the attack one at a time? (The latter is based on the idea that "this Voïvode relays the attack so I move it, then this Voïvode relays the attack too, so I'll move it too")

The relay occurs with all voivodes, but the equipment Triglaf allows you to pick on 1 voivode to move 5 spaces per activation.

Thanks for the answers, Sundance! I really hope those were the intended interpretations.

Even in the threat of looking silly I must ask: is my rulebook simply missing the item description or are there rules for deploying the Similjan Module somewhere else in the rulebook?

LO f***N L!

Did not notice that, it is missing in my hard copy as well, but it is in the PDF?

WTF?

In all seriousness FFG really needs to address these errors in the next print run of the book, stuff like this can piss people off and kill a game. =(

Best bet is to print my image (from the PDF) and grab a glue stick

"any unit adjacent or on a circle that contains a smiljan module or a voivode is also attacked"...

When Zor'ka uses the Magnifier to attack a target in an adjacent space next to voivodes, do you pick one, and only one, voivode to attack through?...or does Zor'ka use EVERY voivode on the map all at once to attack through when she activates the Magnifier?

The Sundance Kid said:

But with a "-" Stat in all Mental, meaning a Null characteristic like the vovoides, what does this the Difficulty of the awakening roll make? Normaly it would be 10-stat, but with stat "-" I assume it would be 10, making awakening pretty useless with the Mental packs.

Or does presence only make you Untargetable with mental duels, but not affecting the Mental stat, at least for the awakeing?

My guess would be that it only makes you untargetable. Otherwise, no one in their right mind would ever pick the Mental pack.

I have to admit I am really upset about the matriarchy in the revised rules... this used to be my team you know...

now, Irina's Martyr ends up resurrecting her, how is that supposed to be any Martyr-ish? Even the flavor text goes against the idea of Irina coming back: " When one of their number falls in battle, the loss transforms the fallen into a martyr, galvanizing those who remain. "

Presence and Awakening do not combine, how mental is that pack if you can't Awaken, and how is the idea of being mental-less any compatible with the idea of an imposing Presence.

Worse is the tesla coils. They are the most useless piece of equipment ever. How is a free retaliation of 1 automatic attack success to a melee attack suppose to do anything, since you get a shock roll against it? I mean, in the new rules, it's not rare to prevent 2 or 3 attack successes with a standard shock roll. 1 single attack success is in no manner a threat. Why not bring the old "cancel an attack success from an opponent's attack" thing? Too powerful? Maybe, but at least it's not totally useless.

Tell me if I'm wrong...

There are some interesting new things to the matriachy though, just do not get fixed to much on the coils, I wouldnt pick packs with them anyway. Presence doesnt negate the awakening and the triglaf makes you able simply to move a voivood 5 spaces without attacking, Volkovs multible target ability doesnt say that the 2. target has to be a different one, even in Overwatchand. With the commisar, all your units have at least movement 8, and last time I checked, Tannhäuser was a game of positioning before everything else. The helmet of diomedes can be used by every faction now. There are still a lot of ways for competetive gaming with the matriachy

The now near useless coils are good tokens to be replaced by bonus tokens.

With the Classic Rules, Matriachy was to powerful and needed to be rebalanced(Zor'Ka was, right equipped, almost unkillable), now they may weaker then other factions, but are nearer to them as before.

But I found the Ultimate answer, now that I have my copy of the Rules, to the question of "awakening" with "Presence":

On Page 12, the "Null characteristics" are explained:

"Some characters have null values for some characteristics, shown by a dash.[...]

A character with a null characteristic cannot make tests or participate in duels based on that characteristic and is not affected by effects that would cause such a duel.[...]"

And since Awakening needs Zor'Ka to pass a mental test with 3 successes, you CAN'T use Awakening while having presence, making the mental pack/Presence ... very situational. Since triglaf is still very strong, Mental pack can still be chosen and presence wapped out for a Bonus token.

If you feel like needing the presence (like agains von Heinziger), Presence could and should be swapped out, since with the new rules it would be useless.

Can tokens with the black border be swapped out? I thought only disposable equipment, with the yellow and black borders, could be swapped for a bonus token?

page 9 Point 6 (Choose Bonus Tokens) states "[...]Each Bonus Token replaces one item of equipment,[...]", according to page 13, Every Token in an equipment slot is an equipment. The ones with the Black/Yellow Borders are a Special kind of equipment "disposable equipment", meanng it cann be given to other cars, and is dropped on death, but the Black Borderd are also Equipment.

If Non-Disposable Equipment wouldn't be able to be swapped out, Zor'ka wouldnt be able to get ay bonus tokens at all, since she has only Black Borderd equipment.