I just finished watching Miahs video review (great by the way)! and started wondering about the comments. Miah says that the troops wont probably go together and 2 voivodes and 1 trooper would be the approach. I want to challenge that thought.

I would try a setup with zorka and no voivodes. Setup could be Zorka (stamina), Gorgei(combat), Irina (Bonus)and probably 1 Lighter troop with command and 1 Ammo troop with combat.

Then Zorka replaces the "call the bots" token with "Elizabet Bathory insta heal", Gorgei the Special item (mini second shot) with the "X5NReroll" and Irina the Martyr with "Mask of be Ashamed of shooting at me". (Names may be an approximation).

I think that having a guy like the lighter troop that is able to throw a fire grenade and then walk freely into the lighted room is just too good a tactical advantage to pass on. One example: Lock the Dungeon central room with fire and then have 3 turns to freely go in there and pick or place flags in CTF or Domination, or attempt objectives or whatever.

Within a pure matriarchy team, with this setup the ammo trop has then 2 characters to refill (the other trooper and gorgei once he expends the grenade), normal matriarchy setups just dont have characters that can benefit from his ammo. Either no weapon to use it effectively with or no free equipment slots to use it. Of using mercenaries, I would Drop Irina for Wolf with Combat pack so he can be refilled as well.

A second approach would be 2 lighter troopers with command to deny the enemy a part of the board (and using them aggresively to be able to recall the grenades as reinforcements)...

Also I would drop zorka's weapon for a 5 or 6 dice weapon as soon as there is an opening for that during the game (with the ammo troop automatic she would be getting consistent 5 successes rolls) and with awakening used up she could get extra ammo as well.

The ammo troop is good but gets way better if working on UMTOMA within a union team,. Think about giving extra ammo to Barry, Mcneal or the Alpha with the good gun... My Union UMTOMA proposal:

Option A (ammo guy): Mcneal wit combat, (drop the medal for any bonus token that can free the slot, like call in the troops so he has room for extra ammo), Barry with Combat and Hoax or Ramirez depending on the game mode.

Option B (my personal favourite) Ill call it BBB (Burn baby Burn):

MCNeal with combat (drop medal for Sten, he will trade the sten to delta or Zorka on turn 1), Ramirez with Bonus pack (Fire grenade, fire retardant grenade), Delta with Command and Lighter trooper with Command (thats the third fire grenade). To complement it Zorka with stamina (she walks into fire by default, no special coat needed), on average she has 3-4 successes per shock roll, dropping her voivode token for a "call the troopers for free" or "Elizabeth insta heal"

We have 3 Fire grenades, 2 Characters not affected by then and a third character that can put off fire. Plus a 4th fire grenade that may come as a reinforcement even in 2cp games.

Those are all very good ideas, using Bonus Tokens to lighten the Matriarchy's dependence on Voids was a thought I had for my next game.

Here how our first Deathmatch with the new troopers went: http://miah000.blogspot.com/2012/01/matriarch-civil-war-battle-report.html

Zor'ka, Irishka and Irina plus two troopers could form a good team too. Irishka supports and repairs Zor'ka (nothing new here), and Irina now increases everybody's AV, SV or MoV depending on her equipment pack. I'd probably like her Stamina pack best, every trooper would have SV 6. You could also replace Zor'ka with Natalya and take only the one trooper that fits your needs better.

??! said:

IMO spending 1 action for just 1 row healing for Zorka is underusing a character. The best thing about irishka is her truncheon (6 dice h2h weapon) as her main ranged weapon is a bit laking (again IMHO). I thought about Irina as well, finally some more people that can leverage her liturgies, but her bonus pack is just too good to pass on...

Sometimes even a single wound can be critical for the survival ure usefulness of an important character, so I think it's quite cool to have someone around that can repair Zor'ka if she needs to be repaired. I usually play Zor'ka with her Stamina pack so it is difficult to wound her. If Zor'ka is not wounded, Irishka just moves in after her and stabs enemies with her truncheon which is indeed great and the reason I always play Irishka's Stamina pack. If an enemy manages to wound Zor'ka, Irishka can move in an quickly repair her to keep her in top condition. So Irishka with her Stamina pack can repair but also fight.

Speaking of possible Matriarchy setups, I was wondering whether you can play a team without Zor'ka or Oksana right now - that is, without the troopers. You see, the Revised rulebook stated you could only use Voivodes if your team included Zor'ka. Later, Oksana who could use Voivodes too was introduced. But what about the other Matriarchy characters? Can they use Voivodes if neither Zor'ka nor Osana are present? What about an UMTOMA team? What do you think?

Yep a Zor'ka/Oksana/Voivode free team is possiable with the new Matriyarch troopers, and because Natalya can be repaired Irishka isn't completly useless.

Possiable teams:

Natalya, Irishka, Irina, and one Trooper (I'd uses the Zazigag)

Natalya, Irishka, Gorgei, and one Trooper (the Beopripacy goes really well with Gorgei)

Gorgei, Irina, Irishka w/ a bonus token to replace RUR, and both Troopers

As for the UNTOMA

John, Barry, Gorgei, the Beopripacy, and a Commando Alpha, could throw a lot of lead.

Just some ideas.

You are right about the teams you suggested, but I was thinking about something different. Those of us who don't have the trooper pack, can we play for example a team consisting of Natalya, Irina, Irishka and 2 Voivodes? Is this even legal? The rules seem to say that only Zor'ka and Oksana can use Voivodes.

That´s right. RB page 34 states that voivods can only be employed when using Zor´ka (or Oksana looking it up at her booklet).

Now that the troopers are actually available, I'm pushing this topic so everyone who has tried a new team with them can tell us about it.

We played the "Enemy from the East" scenario, included with Hinansho this weekend, and my wife fielded Zor'ka, Irina, Gorgei, Boepripacy, and one set of Voids. She won, but the Voids were taken out by a Volatile circle, and then reborn, only to be cut down by the Ashigaru on the covert circle. To add insult to injury Iroh was able to take out Zor'ka with a single combo.

But in the end the Beopripacy and Gorgei were able to throw enough lead to slow and then stop the the Shogunate’s advance, by the time it was over only a severely wounded Mizu was able to escape.

Finally! I got the Matriarchy troopers! Now I just have to find the time to actually play them ...

Got them too! I played several games already, some of them with my Tannhauser Online by the way ;-)

My first impressions:

1- They are dumb, dumb as Barry. I would not use them against Reich.

2- If playing for flags or domination they are not as good as an oksana voivod team (best setup in the game for these IMHO).

Then some pros and cons on each one:

Boepripacy: The "reroll whatever" ability sounded very powerful at first, and it is. But having a first bad roll makes it very possible to roll a 1 on the second. I liked a lot the command pack (extra attack dice!) but if chosen he can't use the supplier on himself. And each turn he uses it is a turn he is not firing (so you are trading 1 shot for 1 shot, no net gain). Something interesting is he can give supplier to someone else that might make better use of it like irina as she is usually a bad shoot anyway).

Combat pack sounds great, but In my games never got to use the dont move and fire twice ability, it takes some extra thinking on the opponent but he can be avoided easily.

Never played Stamina.

On Zazizag: Command all the way. Flamethower weapon is not that good, I change it for an automatic first chance I get, pistols are good candidates for bonus token exchanges. So why? Because fire grenade + fireproof coat = tactical advantage.

I have tried several setups, never mixing with voivodes. I like to use them with Zorka (stamina, exchanging his voivode token for a bonus token) and Irina (stamina pack +1 to sta to everybody, thus giving zorka Sta8, (and 5 Dice on shock rolls) and having the troopers with Stamina 6.

In my next setup (not against reich) I will try using 2 Zazizags with command, thats 2 fire grenades which can deny a portion of the board to the opponent while letting me walk freely with my troops, this is a great setup in maps like dungeon, you can block the whole center and take objectives and flags (remember that these guys have weaponry skill).

That's so unfair - I neither have time to play nor to deal with Tannhäuser Online. I really need some holidays soon!

However, interesting analysis on the troopers. I also thought the shooting instead of moving ability sounded good but was of little use in actual game play. I never thought about giving away the supplier, but it's a great idea and you could do several good combos with it. On the Flamethrower I'm a bit surprised because I thought it sounded quite cool in the rule book.

??! said:

On the flamer: I never wounded anybody with the "catch flames" token, I think it should be 3 successes instead 2 (as with the fire grenades). But as it is right now that part is useless. It has a nice thing, area effect, but its not usual to find characters crowded together, they are usually afraiz of zorka zapping several people in one shot, or afraid of grenades. Also the range limitation hurts as its makes it way easier to predict where he will be able to shoot in the next turn and where is safe.

On TO: An online game takes 2 hours of uninterrupted gameplay (I have benchmarked it ;-). The first game takes and extra half an hour to get the hang of it. Artemus maximus can confirm (or deny) I tried it with him.

Assuming your lack of time is Kids (as it is in my case) In my experience 2 hours is doable after kids are in bed, worst case scenario, Harry potter saga films last 2,5 hours, thats a LOT of peaceful time!

Second good thing of TO (if you get a fantasy grounds licence) is that you can save games halfway through...