Tzarina Katarin
Tzarina Katarin Bokha, The Ice Queen of Kislev, is the ruler of Kislev and the most powerful Ice Witch. And for the record... Yes, she is basically Russian Elsa, The Snow Queen, whom Elsa is based off of and whom had existed in literature for centuries before Disney and Warhammer, and Catherine the Great, a real life ruler whom she roughly takes her name from. Fun fact, "Katarin" is unlikely to be used as a name for a girl in actual slavic countries, because due to their gendered language, feminine name tend to nearly always (it's not an obligation, so there's some leeway here and there) end with an "a" (Alexander -> Alexandra, Borislav ->Borislava, etc...). In fact, some translations actually call her "Katarina".
Katarin was born as the only child to Tzar Boris Bokha, and was almost raised to the throne as an infant as everyone assumed that daddy had died undergoing a ceremony to become the new High Patriarch of Ursun before coming back with a new bear friend, Urskin. Growing up, Katarin proved to be very adept when it came to Ice magic, so strong in fact that many believed her to be the reincarnation of Kislev's first Tzarina, the Khan Queen Miska. When she became fully grown her father died for real battling against the Kurgan and she was elevated to the throne as the newest Tzarina of Kislev.
Her rule started with her essentially making a whole new wing of her palace roughly half a mile long completely with ice magic, likely just to show who is the new top bitch in Kislev. As opposed to her more hands on father, Katarin preferred to rule through agents and other generals as she manages the Homefront. Not to say that she hasn't had her fair share of military victories, as under dire circumstances she will and has lead her army to victory against numerous forces of Chaos, and had done much to strengthen Kislev's bond with The Empire.
A large part of her rule is dedicated to managing the divided subgroups and ethnicities within Kislev, particularly the Ungols and Gospodars and the various smaller religions in Kislev. This has caused her to put down some radical, dare I say controversial reforms in order to build a bigger sense of unity in Kislev. These down right controversial things include things like: promoting people and giving out titles and land based off merit as opposed to bloodline, and giving more rights and recognition to the under appreciated Ungol population. This SEVERELY pissed off many Gospodar rulers and looked as though it may cause Kislev to boil over into civil war. Well, it did until Katarin and Kislev unceremoniously died offscreen.
Tabletop[edit]
Katarin debuted as a playable character all the way back in 4th Edition, specifically in the 4e army book for the Empire. If this sounds weird, the 4e version of the Empire had kind of absorbed the rules for the mercenaries from the past three editions, allowing it to field allied ogre, halfling and Kislev troops. She was the first and only Kislev special character in this edition.
| M | WS | BS | S | T | W | I | A | Ld | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Tzarina Katarin: | 4 | 4 | 3 | 3 | 3 | 3 | 3 | 1 | 10 |
| War Horse: | 8 | 3 | 0 | 3 | 3 | 3 | 1 | 1 | 5 |
Katarin got her rules updated in Kislevs mini-armybook in 6th edition, where she could lead the allied contingent of Kislev forces. She's a level 4 wizard who can only use the lore of ice and is a whopping 495 smackaroos, which is expensive even in an edition when named characters were over priced. She's equipped with Fearforst, a killing blow, no armour saves ice sword that would be fantastic in any combat lords hands but in Katarins it is just good, and The Crystal Cloak which gives her a 4+ Ward save and causes attacks thrown her way to suffer -1 to hit and wound. The special rule Protectors of the Khan-Queens means that if Katarin is the leader of the Kislevite allied contingent then you can ignore the limit on how many Gryphon Legion you can bring and finally, she has Beloved of Kislev which gives any unit she joins Stubborn and lets all units with 12" of her re-roll failed psychology tests.
Over all she's a good wizard and force buffer, but you'll want to keep her out of the fight as even though Fearfrost is a good weapon, her low WS and attack (singular) means that you won't get a lot of mileage out of her in combat (unless you roll Form of the Frostfiend for one of her spells, in which case throw her at some infantry units). She's also too expensive by around 100 points as comparing her to other named wizards such as Gelts 6th edition incarnation, she is a little lacking. But she does have access to a unique lore of magic that only she can use so there are upsides.
Total Warhammer[edit]
She's the faction leader for Kislev in TWW3, and seems to be a pretty potent caster lord with decent melee stats. She has access to the Lore of Ice (duh) and a unique bound spell. She has access to a Warhorse and a Bear for mount options (because GW has really been pushing the Ruski side of Kislev recently).
Also, CA renamed Fearfrost into Frostfang (which is the frost sword Ragnar Blackmane has) for some reason. It seems that either they or GW wanted to make the swords name more generic and/or they got the two mixed up.
Gallery[edit]
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This is from a fake painting that places her centuries before her birth, though it would seem Total Warhammer 3's design with her hair covered took after it.
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Prime example of jokes about Frozen
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Katarin about to make a battlefield a lot colder.
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The Tzarina thinks that even the veins of a Bloodthirster can run cold, and she means to prove it.
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Because of course her reveal in Total Warhammer 3 led to more Frozen jokes
