Throughout the scriptures, specifically in the New Testament, our Christian life is compared to that of a soldier.

In 2 Timothy 2:3 Paul tells Timothy, “Suffer hardship with me, as a good soldier of Christ Jesus.”

In Philippians 2:25 Paul says, “But I thought it necessary to send to you Epaphroditus, my brother and fellow worker and fellow soldier, who is also your messenger and minister to my need;”

And again he refers to Archippus as a soldier in Philemon 1:2.

Nowhere is the idea of the spiritual warrior more explicit than in Ephesians chapter 6. “Put on the full armor of God, so that you will be able to stand firm against the schemes of the devil. For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the powers, against the world forces of this darkness, against the spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenly places.”

Paul goes on to discuss the spiritual gifts that God has given us act as armor. We will talk more about the armor later. Right now our focus is on the spiritual warriors.

This morning, my wife shared this passage with me from 2 Corinthians 10:3-5:

“For though we walk in the flesh, we do not war according to the flesh, for the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh, but divinely powerful for the destruction of fortresses. We are destroying speculations and every lofty thing raised up against the knowledge of God, and we are taking every thought captive to the obedience of Christ,”

Redemption has cards that represent spiritual warriors. If you’ve been playing for a while you’ve probably seen this guy.

The Christian Soldier is a very cool concept but not all that useful in game play. In fact, most of the spiritual warriors we’ve printed in the past aren’t very exciting. That is about to change!

The red brigade is known for it’s warrior class Heroes. Traditionally those Heroes are people who fought in an earthly battle, like David’s Mighty Men and Centurions. Now we can add spiritual warriors to that list, starting with a new and improved Christian Soldier!

A good soldier doesn’t go into battle without armor. This spiritual warrior prepares himself, and his fellow warriors, for battle by picking up those pieces of armor for you!

Isn’t it a little biased to think that all spiritual warriors are male? We thought so. Some of the best prayer warriors I know are women! It’s only fitting that we have a female spiritual warrior as well.

Like her male counterpart, this generic female picks up a piece of armor from your deck to prepare for battle.

These two soldiers can get you a Belt of Truth, Breastplate of Righteousness, Helmet of Salvation, Shield of Faith, Shoes of Piece or Sword of the Spirit.

It’s also noteworthy that she is the first warrior class female human character in the game!

Once those are used in battle, the piece of armor is gone, right? Not if you’re playing with their comrade in arms!

In addition to being a counter to cards like Abom and evil weapons, this soldier will bring back that useful Armor of God Enhancements after you’ve played it.

You can even band to these spiritual warriors with the original warrior class spiritual warrior, Soldier of God. Unfortunately that card is a hard-to-get promo that isn’t readily available to most players.

To make sure this theme is accessible to all players, we gave Soldier of God a reprint to match him up with the rest of his platoon in clay and red.

He’s also sporting the full Armor of God in this shiny new artwork with a new matching verse.

As the “leader” of these spiritual warriors, he calls his friends into play and into battle. This opens up a number of banding combinations for your spiritual warriors when they make a rescue!

After seeing Soldier of God’s ability it’s safe to assume that Paladin will get a reprint with clay/red and the warrior class icon.

You may band the characters into battle in any order you choose, however, we’ve listed them in the order that will often benefit players the most. First, Saint of Virtue will topdeck a piece of armor from your discard pile. Then Christian Soldier will search it out. Finally, Paladin will allow you to play that armor on one of your Heroes.

Some of the special ability didn’t harkens back to the original version of Paladin. The the demon he discards increased from 3 toughness on the previous version to 4 toughness on this version. It allows him to target commonly used demons like Wandering Spirit and Spirit of Temptation.

Like his fellow spiritual warriors, he continues the theme of working with the Armor of God. This time by allowing you to play a piece of the armor from hand.

That’s all we have for the spiritual warrior preview today, but it’s not all for this set. If you’ve enjoyed the multi-card preview this week, you won’t want to miss next week when we follow Paul from his capture in Jerusalem through his journey to Rome. There will be multiple previews that will reveal more fun cards!

To buy singles, sealed product, and other gaming supplies, please visit Three Lions Gaming!

By Gabe

Gabe has been playing Redemption since early in 2006. While life has changed a lot since that time, his love for Redemption has not. He hosts a playgroup and assists with the design and development of upcoming set releases and even plays competitively on occasion.