‘Warhammer: The Old World’: The Razing of Westerland Might Be The Best Arcane Journal Yet
Take a look at the new Arcane Journal for Warhammer: The Old World, The Razing of Westerland. GW knocked it out of the park!
Friends, it’s been an insanely packed year for Warhammer: The Old World. We’ve had nine books come out for the game this year. That’s almost a book a month. Indeed things have been so good that GW has sneaked in a last book, and some brand new models, at the end of the year. And this just might be their best book yet, as the Razing of Westerland is packed full of great things. Now like some of the non-army focused AJs, Westerland does feel like a bit of a grab bag of things. However it does feel a bit more focused and unlike others I think just about everything in this book has a place and a use. So lets dig in and take a look at why this book is great.
The Razing of Westerland – The Narrative Side
Like the other AJs this book has a section that deals with the “narrative side” of the game. For Westerland what they’ve given us are the Path to Glory rules. These are rules for running what is basically an escalation league/campaign. Players start with small armies and build them up over time. This is a great way to get new players in the game. The Path to Glory rules also have a bit of leveling up/experience where units and characters can get some minor improvements over the course of a run. I think these rules do a good job of having enough in them to be more than just “play games of increasing size”, but also aren’t overly complex and crunchy.
Where Battle March felt a bit like it was just “play smaller games” with some minor tweaks, Path To Glory seems much more complete and thought out. It also comes with a set of missions for smaller games. I think this is pretty nice as most of the other historical missions deal with bigger armies. This ties in very well with the Battle March and Path to Glory rules and gives you a lot of tools for playing small games to get people in the hobby. A nice touch.
Hello New Marauders!
Next up we have new rules for Marauders, both foot and mounted. Now I’m not sure these were really needed, Marauder’s were fine before, but it does make them feel a bit more flavorful and unique. The changes are overall pretty mostly minor. The biggest ones are changes to base sizes and losing access to marks (aside from Undivided) in favor of getting the new Chaotic Cults. There are a few other minor changes, but I think most of them are either lateral changes or minor upgrades.
The Cults are an interesting idea, and I like that they are trying new things. Basically for a point per model you can dedicate a unit to a god, giving them a once per-game buff. To use the buff they have to pass a LD test. The buffs are +1T, +1WS, Poisoned Attacks or a 6+ ward vs non-magical attacks. And look, +1 T is clearly the stand out here and GW is crazy to price that the same as the others.
While these are flavorful and not bad… they do feel a little complex and random for what they actually do. But overall the rules are cool, though it leaves some odd things like Marauders being on bigger bases then the tougher Berserkers. Hopefully this will get fixed.
Chaotic Traits
Next up we have the section of Chaotic Traits. These are upgrades you can buy for characters and units. They are available to most characters and infantry and cav units. Most of these can take a single trait but some more elite units can take two.
There are seven traits you can buy and they can add a lot of flavor to an army. There are also some very powerful ones here. I think the one you will see a lot is Unnatural Fortitude, which for +2 points gives you +1T, which is an insane deal (consider 1 point to maybe get +1T for a turn, vs 2 pts to just always get it). Now you can’t wear Heavy or Full plate with this so Warriors of Chaos and most characters are locked out of it. But its easy to through on Marauders and other Wolves of the Sea units and can give you solid blocks of T5 infantry, which is cool.
I also think Enhance Reflexes, which gives you +2I when using a hand weapon (or Ensorcelled Weapon) is pretty nice, while Prophetic Foresight which prevents scouts and ambushers from being near you is useful. Overall these are great and thematic, but I can’t help feel like at least for characters we are just adding so many buffs, better magic items, marks, gifts and now traits (not to mention Gaze of the Gods), its a lot!
Magic!
The book also comes with a new Lore for Chaos, the Lore of the Shadowlands. Unlike other new army lores (such as those gained by Beastmen, Wood Elves and Orcs) Chaos Wizards just get access to this lore without having to jump through hoops to unlock it.
It does allow for some cool things, but I’m not sure it will see a ton of player. It doesn’t really have a crazy stand out spell to me or do anything super different. Shadowlands is one of the more offensive lores out there, with two magic missiles and a damage dealing Vortex so it is a bit useful if you just want to deal damage. Crawling mists gives you the chance to give one or more units reserve move. This is the most unique spell they get and isn’t bad, but reserve move is not as useful in a WoC army as it might be in others. We will see how much play it gets.
The Razing of Westerland – Magic Items and Final thoughts
Lastly we have a whole section on new magic items. Unlike other AJs these aren’t locked to an army. Rather these are added to the common items that all factions can take (aside for Daemons and Dwarves). This is really amazing and the items are impactful enough that I’m going to do a whole article looking at them, so more on them later. But this is the kind of thing the game needs. Adding to common items really opens things out. I suspect the vast majority of lists will see at least a small change as a result of this. It’s also the first, if unintentional, buff that Legacy factions have gotten. It’s cool to see them finally getting something new they can use. This is just overall great.
And overall that is how I feel about the book. Razing of Westerland is a homerun. A slam dunk. Whatever they call a score in Blood Bowl (A murder?). It really is a book that has something for just about every player. Obviously Chaos gets the most and WoC players will want to grab this book. But between the cool Path to Glory rules and the new magic missions pretty much every other player in the game also has a reason to be excited for this book. It’s a great blend of updating one army, while also opening up the game with new ways to play and new things to build lists for. While I might have some quibbles about how they wrote or priced a few things, overall this book is an A+ with nothing wasted.
Let us know if you are excited for the new book, down in the comments!
