Powerful Women Rule The New Rainbow Six DLC

New, powerful women characters are at the heart of the latest update to Rainbow Six Siege.

Ying.

The new “Operation Blood Orchid” DLC released on September 6 makes a ton of tweaks to improve Ubisoft’s tactical shooter, but the main draw is the three new Operators. All three characters are currently available for Year 2 Season Pass owners, and other players will be able to purchase them as early as September 12.

However you choose to obtain the Operators, you’ll definitely want to try them all out, especially the two female characters.

Ela is introduced as the first member of the Polish Counter-Terrorism Unit, or CTU. She’s a defender who packs a huge punch, and definitely feels like the fan favourite and most overall OP addition to Siege. She’s equipped with four Grzmot mines, which are powerful sticky mines used to greatly stun attackers. Her speed also makes it easy to rush over to a stunned enemy and earn a kill. You can choose either a shotgun or submachine gun for Ela’s primary weapon. Either gun slays the opposition, but her Scorpion Evo submachine gun absolutely melts, and feels like one of the best guns in the game.

The only attacker who arrived with Operation Blood Orchid is Ying, with the Hong Kong CTU. Her special gadget is the Candelas, which are extremely versatile flashbang clusters. She also wears special glasses to be immune from her own device, so you can literally flashbang and dart into the room unaffected. You just have to be quick with your timing because the flash effect doesn’t last long. Her speed and armour stats are balanced, and she moves around pretty well with the option of either a light machine gun or a semi-auto shotgun as a primary weapon. Personally, I choose her light machine gun because it handles really well with more of an assault rifle feel.

I don’t want to seem like I’m discrediting Blood Orchid’s new male Operator, but Lesion just doesn’t feel quite as OP as the ladies. His gadget is invisible Gu mines that stick enemies with poison and slow them down while doing damage. Despite being invisible, the mines require really thought-out placement in order to be useful. You also only start with one Gu mine, and you really have to play smart and stay alive to earn more mines. His primary weapon options include a suppressed shotgun and a submachine gun. The shotgun has terrible range, but it packs enough punch to still work if close-quarters combat fits your playstyle.

Like his fellow Hong Kong CTU Operator, Lesion is balanced with his speed and armour, but he simply isn’t as sought-after as Ela and Ying. Of course, this also means your odds are better at getting to select him as your chosen Operator.

Since you can’t have duplicates of Operators in any match, you really have to decide on your character choice quickly, before another player picks them. Ela is the cool kid on the playground, who always gets picked first for dodgeball. Seriously, she gets picked so fast that it’s really hard to get the opportunity to play as her at all unless you’re in a full party of friends who agree to alternate turns. If you don’t have the season pass, get ready to shell out an absurd 25,000 Renown credits for each player, and be prepared to fight to use one of Siege‘s newcomers.