Just read the text for Irina's new pack from the Mizu rulebook. Irina finally has a second pack that does not have any Tesla Coils! Some thoughts on her packs:

Liturgy of Discord: You may initiate a Mental Duel against another character on the same path. For every success you have, the enemy takes a wound. The enemy may not make a shock roll against these wounds.

Really powerful as written since there is no defense against her Liturgy... it does not even say she has to win the duel to cause any wounds! Based on similar attacks, I think FFG meant to say "For every uncancelled success you have, the enemy takes a wound." Even if that's the case, Irina's high Mental value makes this a better item than her pistol against most characters. Its a nice offensive boost for her.

Liturgy of Judgement: If Irina is on the same path as an enemy character who is the target of an attack by a character other than Irina, the target rolls 1 less die on their shock rolls.

A nice support ability which looks fairly powerful, though limited somewhat by the need to be on the same path as the attacker - its never really all that fun to be too close to Zor'ka! Then again, if several enemies and allies are near Zor'ka when she attacks, this Liturgy could put the odds in your favor since your characters will still roll 4 dice. Also of note, it does not say the attacker has to be allied with Irina. That could make things interesting for games with more than 2 sides. On the downside, I am a little sad that the Liturgy only applies to targetted attacks - it would have been nice if it also triggered from the Tesla Coil successes and made them more useful.

Liturgy of Hope: All characters on the game board who do not have the Matriarchy affiliation symbol receive -1 to their Movement value.

Basically the opposite of her Liturgy of Faith. Nice for the way it hampers your enemies across the board, but possibly a detriment if you field any Union figures or Mercenaries.

We are loving these too =)

My two thoughts on it-

1) This validates my ideas of using more than one hermetica / liturgy. The way we play I may end up with 4 Liturgies for Irina =)

2) We're coming up with a way to make Sha-na-rah get more play, since her aggressive Liturgy plays the same way, with arguably better stats, unlimited use and the only drawback of a smaller range.

-My latest thought is that Sha-na-rah can be used an unlimited number of times, but has a backlash if Herman fails- If your enemy has more successes in the mental duel than you, you suffer automatic wounds equal to the difference.

(Nobi's probably gonna comment since we talked about something else last night lol)

really can't wait to get these new characters now~ I was just thinking Irina needed a bonus pack with something more interesting and BAM! All Liturgies! wasn't expecting that

@dA: LOVE that idea on Sha-na-nah i must say! We see Heizinger as this annoying old man with a Napolean Complex...So I personally would love to see the crystal skull consume Heizinger himself after he's been doing his fancy magic tricks behind front lines

Wow! The Liturgy of Judgement really seems to be powerful, even if you don't think of Zor'ka. It's also great for supporting Irishka, who rolls 6 dice with her melee weapon, or to make Voivode attacks more effective. A combination with Oksana, who beefs up Voivodes, could be interesting too.

If irina could choose the eye of horus then the new attack liturgy would be really powerful... a pity.

I'd really like to play Irina's bonus pack because the Liturgies of judgement and discord seem to be quite cool, but the problem is that Irina has to be on the same path as the opposing characters for the liturgies to work, especially the Liturgy of judgement. Irina is quite fragile, and she would be a prime target for opposing characters. Do you have any good ideas how to keep her alive as long as possible?

well, als long as there are no bonus token for the matriarchat, there will be no good way to keep her alive - other than to keep a voivode near her to block enemies wanting to enter her path ;-)

Hi

I do not own all expansions, and I dont have some of the bonus tokens. I have the card expansion and several bonus tokens appear there. On the back of these cards I see either one character or troop picture or a neutral tannhauser picture. I always assumed that these "neutral tokens" (most of them) could be picked by any faction, reading your comment I see that this is not the case.

Could you make a quick list of who can pick which tokens? It would really help me!

All characters can introduce a bonus token in their inventory if it has "Tannhauser" wrote on the back side, so all characters can introduce in their inventory: "Elizabeth Bathory", "Brute Force", "Call in the Troops", "X-5NR Stabilizer", "Masque of Samhain", "Shame of Minos".

Then, there are some bonus tokens that are insertable only for members of a faction or only for characters that have a certain affiliation symbol and they are: "AAA" only for Union members; "Presidential Unit Citation", only for 42nd Marine Special Forces members; "Wolftrap", only for Mercenaries; "Obscura Corps Band", only for Obscura Corps members; "Helm of Diomedes", only for Obscura Corps members.

Then, there are some bonus token that are insertable only for a particular charater, and they are: "Boxing", only for McNeal; "IIKAAH", only for Tala; "Pin-Up", only for Tala; "M5 Special", only for Commando Alpha, "Eye of Horus", only for Von Heizinger; "Section Kaos", only for the Schocktruppen. Of course there are these bonus tokens for Irina. I don't know bonus tokens in Itami box, Iroh Minamoto box, and Shogunate Troop Pack box. I apologize if I forgot some tokens.

I hope I've helped you although my English isn't very good

You helped a lot thx! I dont understand then what prevents matriarchy from choosing some of these tokens as, for example, Mask of Shamhain? It would be great for Irina given her high mental stat. I would use her bonus pack with the masque instead of her special ability (Martyr)

This prompts another question, If a Character uses a bonus pack, does it count towards the team or the character bonus token limit?

I don't think the bonus packs count towards the bonus token limit of either character or team because they are equipment packs not individual tokens. And you're absolutely right, the Mask of Samhain would be great for Irina to make her difficult to attack. Thanks a lot, I didn't even think about using the Mask!

I don't think you can replace Masque of Samhain with Irina's special ability, because at page 83, revised rules say: "Each bonus token replaces one item of equipment provided by a character’s chosen pack" ; so, I think you can only replace the Masque with any equipment of the packs, but not with a character's special ability.

You can replace the special object with a bonus token, it's in the topic "Rules questions and answers from FFG":

Q: "Can a Bonus Token replace a Special Object?"

Official answer: Yes, there is nothing in the rules preventing this.

Another question is if you really should replace the Martyr. It basically gives you a free reinforcement if Irina dies. It's a rather weak reinforcement, I admit that, but it's better than nothing.

Sorry, I didn't know.

But, in my opinion, replace Martyr with the Masque is a very good choice, because even if Irina can re-enter, she is really weak and useless without her liturgies. In my opinion, try to keep Irina alive as long as possible is better than a woman who dies twice and cannot do anything. In addition, she has the same Mental value of Von Heizinger! The only things that can hurt her are grenades and (probably) Hoss.

I´m sorry for irritating you - of course may the Matriarchat take the general Bonus Tokens. I by myself forget them (as I still have to play the M yet)

??! said:

The whole idea with the maske is not to let her die the first time, if she cannot be easily attacked compared with all the other tokens (using the bonus pack) it is by far (IMO) the least useful of them.

Thx for the clarifications!

I thought about replacing the Liturgy of hope ( -1 MV for all non-Matriarchy characters) with the Mask, but you really have a point there. I'll test Irina with the Mask instead of the Martyr first. Thanks!