‘Warhammer: The Old World’- Grand Cathay Is Strong But Limited, And Not OP
Lets take a first look at the new Grand Cathay army for Warhammer: The Old World – both strong, and limited.
Well folks, its a big day, one decades in the making. For the first time in twenty years a new army is coming to the Old World of Warhammer Fantasy. Grand Cathay is hitting the shelves and tabletops. This is an army that has been teased and hinted at longer than many players have been alive. It’s one that we dreamed about, and we feared that dream died with Warhammer Fantasy Battles. But the Old World has brought that dream back to life and made it reality, and now we have it in our grubby hands.
So today lets take a first look at the Grand Cathay book (I’ll do some more in-depth breakdowns later), the good, the bad and the ugly of it. What’s Grand Cathay’s whole deal and are they really as broken as people reading leaks say? Lets go.
Grand Cathay: The Good – A Strong Army In Shooting And Magic
Grand Cathay is without a doubt a pretty strong army. In particular the current list does really well in shooting and magic. But it also has limited accesses to it. It has what is, really without a doubt, the best cannon in the game.
The ability to slow the enemy down and shutdown swiftstride, on top of being a strong cannon, is really good. Being able to first twice once a game with an Ogre loader is also good. No doubt about that. On the flip side it doesn’t have a lot of massed fire power. The army doesn’t have a normal ranged unit, so its relying on the couple of warmachines and the Lantern. These are good, but can struggle to kill a large number of models.
Magic is also a strong suit of the army. They get decent wizards, good bound items and some really good army spells. They can also get a once a turn +1 cast for a wizard, if they have another wizard nearby. Again this is strong, though their wizards might not quite be as good as some of the strongest in the game. You can build a strong magic/shooting army with Cathay and I think we will see those.
Grand Cathay: The Good – Tricks!
Cathay is also an army that has a lot of tricks and counters. In Magic: The Gathering terms Cathay feels like a blue army/deck. It’s got ways or turning off enemy moves or preventing them from doing stuff. It can lock down armies and flyers etc.. It’s got some movement tricks and isn’t really a straightforward “just punch them” list. Many of these tricks are new to the game and will take some skill to properly use, but I think can be very fun and interesting. They are also a cool way to expand on what armies can do overall in the game, and makes Grand Cathay feel different.
Grand Cathay: The Bad – A Limited Army (For Now)
One of the big downsides of the Cathay release, at least currently, is that it is very thin. I’ve talked about this before, but the army really lacks the depth of the others in the game. Outside of characters each army category (Core, etc.) basically has two options, with a few being able to be in multiple categories. There are only six non-character units. Only two of these are traditional ranked up units, and they don’t have a ton of options.
Compared to other armies the list building is very restrictive and I don’t know that we will see a ton of variety in lists. For example in Core I think most armies will either have two units of Jade Lancers, or one unit of Lancers and one of Warriors. You’ll likely only really see this in a Miao Ying list. Yes you could do some smaller MSU combos – but I think this is what will shake out in most lists, and it’s always just going to be some configuration of those two units.
Likewise your special options are going to be… Cannons. Cannons and maybe 1 Lantern or Sentinel depending on your general. It’s an army that feels like it’s missing bits and isn’t full here yet. We will have to see what the 2nd Arcane Journal brings us, but that could be a bit.
Grand Cathay: The Bad – Weaknesses
I’ve seen a lot people online worrying that the army is OP and crazy powered, and I just don’t think that is true. It’s got some good parts for sure, and I don’t think its bad. But I also don’t think its the best in the game or OP. The army has real weaknesses. It has several units that are pretty mid-tier for instance. Both its core units, the Jade Lancers and Warriors are pretty normal and mid. In fact since the Lancers don’t get real lancers, and are stuck, on the charge, at S4 Ap-1 I think they are far worse then most other armies heavy cav. The Warriors are… infantry. The Gate Masters are mid, the Magistrates don’t have a ton of purpose unless in a Lantern. The Sentinel is pretty fragile for a big unit, with 6 Wounds and T6, but only a 5+ save. The rocket launcher isn’t anything special and I doubt you’ll see them. Not every unit is amazing.
The army doesn’t really have great close combat options, I think will really struggle when the enemy gets there. They don’t have a top tier combat character either. While they do have good wizards, their generic wizards are stuck on a monster mount. This means they can’t join units or get Look Out, Sir!. This limits them a fair amount and lets you target them. In fact of their wizards, only Miao Ying in her human form can join a unit and get 360 sight arc for casting. This is a real drawback. Their cheapest level 2 is also 175 pts with no upgrades. And while its got a cool mount and more wounds- that’s about twice what other armies pay for a base lvl 2.
Grand Cathay: The Ugly – What I Don’t Like
There are a few things, just kind of conceptually that I don’t really like about the army. I dislike that it’s another army that basically doesn’t care about Leadership. The whole army has super easy access to LD 9 that can be bumped up to 10 with buffs or Miao Ying. On top of that its got a lot of Unbreakable things (why IS the Lantern Unbreakable?) and a the option to get a lot of re-rolls on LD tests. Panic is basically a joke in the game and I’m not really sold on why Cathay should have better LD than Dwarves and Elves.
I also think the army has a little too many one use and even once a turn things. For example, the Sentinel alone has two separate things it can do once a game. It’s a lot to keep track off. Couple that with the Yin/Yang mechanic and the army does have a lot of moving parts and things to track. I can see this being a pain and hard for newer players. It’s not that these effects (or the high LD) are bad for the army, I just think they are kind of bad for the game. And of course the worst part is, as mentioned, how limited the army feels right now.
Grand Cathay: Final Thoughts/Hot Take
Alright, here is my hot take on Grand Cathay at this point. I think GW has done a good job with the army and limitations of the release. The army feels pretty strong with some good units, but not OP. It has clear weaknesses and is lacking in areas, this becomes even more clear as you start to build armies. Power-wise I’d put it below Tomb Kings and Brets and alongside say High Elves, Warriors of Chaos and Beastmen, among the core armies. It obviously outshines most of the Legacy lists. That… puts its in a pretty good spot I think as a playable and solid list. I’ve seen a lot of knee jerk reactions calling it OP and broken and I just don’t think that is the case. People are not looking at its flaws and haven’t tried to build a lot of armies. It honestly feels like it’s right about where a brand new army should be.
Obviously I could be misreading this. It’s early days and we haven’t seen it played a bunch and people haven’t tired to push it. We also don’t know what changes are coming to the game that might have ripple effects. But having sat with the book for a while, this is where I feel it’s at. It’s lack or real flexibility also holds it back. But that’s my hot take for now. I’ll be back later on with some more in-depth deep dives and even hopefully some battle reports to see just how it plays.
Let us know what you think of Grand Cathay, down in the comments!
