True, but tachyon's redirection ability is a direct result of her powers.
Not the result of a piece of kevlar/composite inserts she keeps in her van. That doesn't protect her head, legs, or arms.
Just pointing out that it isn’t better than everyone else combined.
EDIT: This was to directly follow on from Braithwhite's comment before I was ninja'ed
Let us assume (for the moment) you are wrong about your speculation on her particular power.
Let us assume that >G games comes to the realisation that a Flak Jacket providing infinte protection is not real-world enough for them but that they want to keep the card and just rename it, keeping the same text.
Given Expat's theme, what would you have called the card instead? What fits better with her theme than a Flak Jacket, even if unrealistic?
I suspect it has that effect because Expat needed/wanted a damage reduction effect that was new and semi-realistic and that name because it fits in with the theme, no underlying super secret power because it happens to protect from "infinite" damage.
I reluctantly concede that you are correct. I may have exaggerated slightly with my theoretical stack of armor made of heroes.
Well, the simple answer is that I'm wrong.
The slightly less simple answer is that they have several damage reduction cards that duplicate each other (Fortitude/Otherworldy resilience), and several cards that reduce massive damage (shielding winds, undaunted, superhuman durabilty)- each of them with the same trigger condition- something that hits for more than 5 gets reduced, and anything below that is unaffected. they could have gone that route. they could have combined them into a body armor card which granted both sets (kind of like undaunted), but destroyed itself afterwards. That would have been more realistic, and filled any sort of need to give her damage reduction.
But they didn't. They chose to give her a piece of equipment that does something NO other armor/shield of faith/alien skin/or powers honed through a lineage of heroism can do. It protects her (totally and completely) from hits that would leave Legacy broken and battered.
Given the existence of Prison Break, it's rare for Hired Guns not to come out after The Chairman has flipped. Chairman on Advanced is +4 damage in 4 player. Chairman at regular difficulty is +3 damage in 5 player. The Contract is another +1 damage. So even in basic level, you only need 1 damage booster in the Environment to get up to 7 damage, and there are plenty of Environments that will supply it (Megalopolis, Insula Primalis, Wagner Mars Base, Ruins of Atlantis, Rook City, Pike Industrial Complex, Realm of Discord, Silver Gulch). So yes, frequent.
I don't think Expat is powerless either, and I wonder if her power isn't something that can be looked off as luck, or skill.
Kind of the Han Solo of the Sentinels verse. Some kind of intuition and increased reflexes would work.
Flak Jacket is similar to Tactical Shotgun, how in the world is it more powerful than Atomic Gaze or even a Flak Cannon. I mean a Flak Cannon is kind of a super powered shotgun, yet it does less damage than Expat with her gun.
I think Expat has something that let's her get so much more out of these things than others could. That is her power, she is more accurate, harder to hit, she just rocks.
I don't remember who it was, but someone made a thread about Expatriette and her doves and how it might indicate a hidden power, and Christopher in that thread said the poster was on to something. So there definitely is something going on with Expat, but what specifically is still a mystery. If she has a power, it could be superhuman accuracy and reflexes, something normal people might notice, but would be low on the radar of a commune who regularly hover and shoot lasers.
I think Arenson mentioned this elsewhere, but Christopher confirmed yesterday that the Norse gods are not active in the Multiverse, and that Huginn and Muninn are not the Huginn and Muninn. Just thought I'd let you know.
I never thought they were actually Odins birds. Just that their name could shed some insight into the greater narrative. The connection I tried to make is far less literal, I'm not sure how successful I was presenting that.
Sure. I was pretty sure you weren't being literal, but I thought you'd want to know anyway. ;)
I'm glad it was something you all talked about! That's pretty cool.
I was present when Arenson did his fire-hose stream of a million questions, and I asked quite a few myself. The Matriarch was someone I definitely wanted to know more about.
I hope someone is taking minutes to share later 
I totally wish I had done that.
Brathwaite, I really like your Expat theory. Though ultimately I suspect that she has the power to watch too many John Woo movies and then break the fourth wall in reverse. Nobody would ever notice, of course; Hollywood has programmed us to believe such things are totally possible IRL.
Aw poot, I was fond of the idea of Odin being a cosmic baddie who inserted himself into Earth's mythology. I suppose it might have gotten >G in trouble with Marvel since they're getting serious with movie-Thor. Not sure what the copyright issues are on a particular fictionalization of traditional mythology, but just as well for >G to steer wide of them (well, except with Egypt, which I don't think anyone else has done a straight superhero riff on).
Sorry about the ambiguity – I was asking about the "emergence of Matriarch's relevancy to the larger story arch." I don't happen to own any of the expansions right now, and I'm relatively new to the fora here.
Read the OP. In particular, I believe that's a reference to the comment from Christopher linked therein.
Unrelated: I keep reading the title of this thread as Footenotes: The Musical...
Matriarch was introduced in the first expansion, Rook City. Honestly since then, she has been little more than an afterthought when discussing the larger story arch being told (the SotM card game is comprised of one major comic arch with a bunch of smaller stories thrown in). The major arch being told, by the way, is about the collision of the multiple timelines in the multiverse and how that is affecting our heros in the core timeline. Honestly, Matriarch just has not seemingly fit in. She is just a whiney spoiled teen who is jealous of her speedy cousin Tachyon.
At the top of my original post here, I linked to a thread where Christopher gave an off the cuff comment about Matriarch wielding a TON more power than she might even realize and that we might not have her whole story. It basically was a confirmation to me that we have missed something with Matriarch, that she is more interesting and involved than we all once assumed. My goal was to spark disscussion about her to try and unpack some of her character influences and bio to draw possible conclusions about her involvment in the greater narrative.
For example, even though we know Huggin and Muggin are not "Odin's" ravens in this game, the fact that those proper names were used instead of loose derivatives tells me there is a solid connection to be drawn. Those were the eyes and ears of a mighty Pegan God. Maybe they are also the eyes and ears of a similarly powerfull being as well? Could she be connected with the Cosmic Entity that has been alluded to for quite some time? Thats what I want to know.
I hope that kinda helped.
This can be arranged.
Little musician humor right there.