I played many time against the Matriarchy but I don't found the strategy to win... can you help me?? Zor'ka is unbeatable and iriska has the stamina pack and I can't hurt her.

I've tried to think up a theoretical all-or-nothing list for Reich vs. Matriarchy, which is kinda-sorta better than their usual odds. It hasn't been tested out yet, though.

Also, if Irishka is unkillable, I'm guessing that you are using the old rules. My ideas here are for the revised edition.

Heizinger w/ combat+ 2 shocktruppen w/ command. If you stuck all your models on the same path, you have two overwatch guys who roll an INSANE amount of dice and who are RARELY going to miss- give one a shotgun and that's ALOT of automatic wounds. Anything, even Zorka, who sets foot on the path is GONE. Take eva, w/ heizeingers bonus, should be able to bust up some loose ends and give even more CP with combat pack. And then Karl and Heizinger can harrass enemies off-path.

Often, grouping your models together is a terrible idea (specially against Zorka) but I did it as Union against Matriarchy. I waited until Zorka used awakening and then put every one of my models on the same path, there wasn't much the Matriarchy could do against that much firepower in one place. Gorgei had a grenade that would've hit all of them, but Macneal's overwatch= dead gorgei (and macneal's isn't NEARLY as powerful as said shocktruppen)

Watch out for voivodes. There is 4 of them, and only 2 overwatch attacks+ another model's next activation on your side. My guess is to spread out your characters at first and discourage awakening while trying to take down afew voivodes, there's alot of tactics to that- but I don't feel like going in to them.

Biggest problem with the grouping is that Zorka can hurt you as bad as you can hurt her, BUT only as long as she has those voivodes....

Here's a few things to keep in mind (may or may not be coherent with above tactics):

1. Zorka sucks by her lonesome. She gets the base HtH combat dice while 2/3 of the strosstruppen packs give them +2 dice and they have only 1 less CV.

2. Zorka is the same as any big baddie supported by little guys in any game ever conceived, kill her little buddies first. All Irishka does is bring the matriarchy back to full strength, all Irina does is make the matriarchy stronger, and Gorgei is just pathetic (not for a matriarchy character, but considering he is supposed to be a mercenary as well?...PATHETIC).

3. UTILIZE BONUS TOKENS. Reich gets quite a few, matriarchy gets none other than the 3 available to any faction.

4. Tannhauser is just complicated chess, always think ahead. If that single voivode is going to mess you up, don't be hesitant to grenade that crawly-majigy like an unwanted fetus!

5. Know when to utilize stamina packs. Zorka is going to use awakening on you, period. You'll never be ready for it, but if you survive it- you'll have the advantage next turn.

6. 1 on 1, Zorka will beat any one of your characters by means of sheer stamina, don't let it come down to that.

GrandClam seems to be veeery experienced fighting the Matriarchy. Can not anything useful, but you could try to use Yula to destroy Magnifier with Krueger, that greatly hampers Zor´ka´s damage output (can´t even replace it with another weapon).

What I´d like to know: which mode do you play? Deathmatch is very difficult against the Matriarchy, mabye try out objective, dominion or the like. That´s easier.

Dominion and the other modes including the flags aren't so easy to play against the matriarchy. The voivodes are too fast and the only way to win, for me, is destroy the voivodes away from Iriska.

when we play in the castle the objective mode isn't too difficult but in the novgorod map, when the matriarchy forces place in the monastery, entry is impossible.

thanks for the tips.

I think that Yula cannot destroy Magnifier with Krueger

Why not? Krueger can destroy weapons and gears, and the Magnifier is a gear, so... ?

I think the magnifier isn't a discard objet it's like for the apocalypse

Jedi86 said:

True, the magnifier isn't a discard object, but it's still a HtH weapon so it can be destroyed by (Freddy) Krueger, though it shouldn't stop Zor'ka that much since she has at least one token which is discarde upon use, so it frees up a space to pick something up

...and then irishka, the loyal weapon bearer and healer, passes her the electric truncheon. OUCH!

MeisterH said:

Why is the space free to pick something up? The rules say that the destroyed token is flipped over, not removed. As it is still in the inventory, and it cannot be changed or disposed (as it is a non disposable item), it blocks the slot until the end of the game, right. Or did I misinterprete the rules here?

Katsuyori said:

About that, I have no idea. BUT! what i do know is that in all of Zor'kas equipment packs she has at least one token wich is discarded upon use. The awekening is discarded after its been used, the ones where you bring all the voivodes back to life/bringe them to Zor'ka is discarded upon use. It's only the command pack wich only has one token which can be discarded which is the awekening. Though, if you destroy the magnifier you kinde of make the matrichy lame... :/

Right, I agree, Meister H, in most points. But most characters turn lame as soon as you destroy their most important item/weapon. Take Barry´s Big gun, and what remains? A big tough guy with a lousy HTH roll with two dice (although there might be players handing out packs with additional weapons...).

I daresay: If Yula manages to fight her way through all the voivods and minions crawling around the map, and by wonder gets a first strike an almighty Zor´ka who has such ridiciously high attributes that she is almost rendered invincible, and has some luck on her side and destroys a weapon that can kill multiple targets with one strike over incredible ranges, then she rightfully deserves this victory.

Well, last night I found a new way to accomplish this in death match.

My opponent was Matriarchy, I was Reich. I dropped one of my Reich heros, and a trooper. I turned my CP token down buy one, and brought in our new minotaur friend. I slapped on the Stam pack to the minotaur, then used all the other reich folk to simply pen in the matriarchy. I think, in total, the minotaur took one damage to a grenade that was pulled from a crate.

Maybe the problem is with our new Minotaur buddy.

Stabinoff said:

Lucky you; I was teaching some new players the game, and they played as the Matriachy along with Asteros (Zor'ka, Vioviode, Vioviode, and Asteros against Reich). I lost horribly.

Katsuyori said:

I agree with Katsuyori, the rules don't say nothing about disposable equipment, but they're very clear to say "...target W eapon or H ardware equipment tokens..".

The upper cases just allude to traits of object: so there's no matter if this object is disosable or not.

Katsuyori said:

Perhaps I'm wrong, but I do not see the point why this should be such a big efford to destroy the magnifier of Zorka. As far as I understand, is Zorkas magnifier a HtH-weapons, which means, the attacker Zorka herself, or a vovoide, has to stand adjacent to the tarket to attack. In the case that Yula has her combat pack with the close combat bar she always should have first strike (an overwatch attack) to Zorka or the vovoides, which means 5 dices with a good chance for a natural 10. In our games, a vovoide has hardly a chance to survive such an attack and for Yula herself it is to risky losing her only weapon.

Or would it be possible to attack with the magnifier not adjacent to Yula?