The last time a brand new army was released for Warhammer was 2005 with the release of the Ogre Kingdom in the halcyon days of Warhammer 6th Edition. As long as I have been playing Warhammer fans have been asking for the Armies of Cathay, Nippon, Kislev, and even Chaos Dwarfs so there was quite a bit of head scratching at the release of the Ogres. Well, twenty years later Games Workshop has released the armies of Cathay in the newest Arcane Journal, Armies of Grand Cathay!
Like the other Arcane Journals this one is a soft cover book with 48 pages. It is our first official look at the background of the Armies of Grand Cathay, so unlike the other reviews I’ve done I can’t say it provides “additional” background! There is also only one army list, the Grand Army for the Armies of Grand Cathay. This book does not have a scenario and only has one special character, however the Special Character is a shape shifting dragon with three pages of rules! The book also contains two half lore’s of magic (more on that later) and 18 magic items. There is also a page on Grand Cathay Special Rules and the Armoury (and here I thought I ordered the American version of the book) of Grand Cathay.
Normally I’d start with the new units but absolutely everything in this book is new so let’s get to the army list!
One of the interesting things to me is the first selection in the Characters section. For every 1,000 points you can purchase a Cathayan Dragon. However, looking through the list there are no generic Cathayan Dragon’s, however, the Special Character Miao Ying is a Cathayan Dragon. This leaves me wondering if there will be a generic Cathayan Dragon in a future release, or if all Cathayan Dragons are going to be special characters. Miao Ying comes in at 485 points so you know she’s a beast. This is also a convenient point total as the new Matched Play rules that just came out only allow units to cost up to 500 points to be playable in Matched Play events for 2,000 points. It’s like Games Workshop was paying attention to their own product or something! In her human form Miao Ying is a level 4 Wizard, in her Dragon form she is a level 2 Wizard. She can use Battle Magic, Elementalism, or High Magic. She can swap out not one, but two of her spells for the Signature spell of either her spell deck, the Lore of Yin, the Lore of Yang, or her own unique Signature Spell, a really powerful magic missile. Enemy models within her command range need to pass a modified leadership test to issue a challenge, but they can not refuse her challenge! If she is in the army she must be the general and 0-1 units of Jade Warriors and 0-1 units of Jade Lancers may be upgrades to have +1 WS and +1 LD for only 1 point a model! There are rules for swapping forms during the Command Sub Phase of the game. Really scary is if Miao Ying is killed while in Dragon form she comes back in human form with D3 wounds! If she dies in Human Form she is just dead! She looks to be very powerful and fun to play!
The next character are the Shugengan Lords of the Celestial Host. These are your fighting Wizard Lords and Wizard Heroes mounted on a Monstrous creature, the Great Spirit Longma. The Lord is a level 2 Wizard which may be upgraded all the way to level 4, and the Hero is a level 1 which may be upgraded to a level 2. Despite being wizards they have decent fighting stat lines on their own, and once you add in their ability to wear what is essentially good guy Chaos armor (armor with a 5+ ward) and the automatic mount of the Great Spirit Longma with is Armored Hide and Impact Hits you have a very good fighter as well as mage.
The Gate Masters are your more standard Lords (Gate Master) and Heroes (Gate Keeper) with one Gate Keeper being able to be upgraded to a Battle Standard Bearer. They also have a special ability which allows the unit they are leading to re-roll a failed leadership test to attempt a reform after running down a fleeting foe, redirect a charge, or making a restraint test. Pretty handy stuff! The Magistrates of Grand Cathay are low level heroes but they can give their Leadership 9 to all friendly troops within their command range. They can carry bombs and be mounted on a Sky Lantern. This allows you to increase the amount of Sky Lanterns in your army and lose friends all at the same time!
Jade Warriors are the infantry of the army and come with hand weapons and heavy armor and can be upgraded to have halberds and shields. Additionally one unit per 1,000 points can be drilled, stubborn, and purchase a magic standard. Finally, unless it charged, or counts as having charged they may re-roll a natural roll of a 1 on their armor saves!
Jade Lancers are the heavy cavalry of the army and have a really dangerous rule called Cathayan Cataphracts. If the majority of the unit has this rule they count as charging when making a follow up move! This means they can follow up and still get their lance bonus which is going to be a scary proposition as even if it’s the enemies turn next they can follow up and get their lance bonus!
The big thing everyone is talking about are the Sky Lanterns. These heavy chariots can fly and can be loaded up with a variety of bombs and guns. They have D3+1 impact hits and a bunch of special rules. Troops with bombardment can use the Sky Lantern to determine Line of Sight instead of their own. It can Disengage so if it loses a combat it can Fall Back in Good Order automatically if it passes a Leadership test rather than Give Ground. it’s opponent can Follow Up 2″ but can not pursue! Additionally if it does win a round of combat it can Fall Back in Good Order rather than following up or pursuing! Its Heavenly Beacon rule allows friendly Ambushers to +1 or -1 on the Ambusher table, friendly units within 12″ may re-roll panic and a Magistrate mounted on a balloon has a 12″ command range for it’s Grand Strategist rule! The balloon comes with either a short range multiple shot move and shoot gun for each of it’s five crew or with short range and AP -1 or a long range guns for the crew with S6, AP -2, Armor Bane (2) and Cumbersome. Considering it is base 5 points cheaper than a War Wagon flies, has better guns, and a litany of special rules it is an absolute steal and should be the envy of all Empire players. I would not be surprised to see a points increase on these monsters in the future.
The Cathayan Sentinel is a Behemoth that can take one of five different aspects when being purchased, Terracotta, Jade, Obsidian, Granite, and Warpstone. While it only has 3 Attacks it has two fighting styles with its great blade, one of which adds 2D3 attacks, and is armor bane 1 at Strength 6, and the other is Strength 7, AP-4, Killing Blow, Monster Slayer, Multiple Wounds D3. Each of the different aspects has a different effect from good, to decent, to really good. I think this beast is going to cause a lot of problems across the Old World!
Finally the army is backed up by two artillery pieces, the Fire Rain Rocket Battery, and the Cathayan Grand Cannon. The Fire Rain Rocket Battery can fire Bastion Rockets or Rocket Battery, both using the Bombardment rules. The Bastion Rockets have higher strength and AP and cause D6 wounds, while the Rocket Battery has flaming attacks and causes panic tests on enemies it hits. I’m thinking the Bastion Rockets will be fired way more often than the Rocket Battery, but I guess if you are fighting low Leadership troops you might see the Rocket Battery Fired. The Cathayan Grand Cannon is a Great Cannon with what I liken to the old Chaos Dwarf Earthshaker. After it is fired until the next Cathay Start of Turn phase all troops within 2D6″ of the impact point suffer -1 to their movement. Not only is this deadly it can be really annoying too! I know those of us who played the Big Hats in the past are going to be really jealous! Finally these war machines can be crewed by an Ogre Artillery Crew. If he is equped with gunpowder bombs he can share them with the crew as he is just that kind of guy! He can also allow a war machine to either fire twice in one turn or re-roll a misfire once per game!
The Army has a few special rules. As mentioned above some characters have Celestial Forged Armor, which provides both an armor save and a 5+ ward. Wizards can wear this armor and still cast spells. Somewhere there is a Chaos Warrior wondering who left the armory door open!
Master of the Elemental Winds allows Wizards to add +1 to their casting roll once a turn if close to another friendly mage. Will of the Dragons allows a unit to re-roll a panic test when a friendly unit is destroyed within 6″ of it. You can tell this army is designed to not worry about leadership tests with its easy access to Ld 9 and multiple rules that allow re-rolls of panic and other Ld tests. Finally the Elemental Winds will randomly determiend of the Winds of Ying or the Winds of Yang are in ascendant giving different army wide bonuses as well as helping the casting of the Lore of Ying or the Lore of Yang depending on which one is in the ascendant.
Speaking of the Lore of Yang and the Lore of Ying both are 3 spell lists that Wizards from the Grand Army of Cathay can chose to swap out instead of their Lore’s Signature Spell. The Lore of Yang has a Magic Missile and two Enchantments while the Lore of Yin has two Hex’s and an Assailment.
Overall this army appears to be a top contender for most powerful Arcane Journal we have seen. In many ways it can do a lot of the things the Empire can do but way better on a one on one basis. However, an army is not built on a unit by unit comparison but as how the whole thing synergizes. Despite having really good war machines and the awesome Sky Lantern it doesn’t have much else in the way of shooting so can’t form a true gunline. Their cavalry are really good though and will probably be the envy of most cavalry commanders in the game. I do think this is going to end up being a very powerful army, especially if Games Workshop doesn’t do anything about the Sky Lanterns. If Games Workshop doesn’t I’m sure the local tournament organizers will. While the book isn’t perfect I am glad to see the system expanding and hope the army is really succesful for Games Workshop so we can see other additions in the future. At the very least I wouldn’t be surprised to see another Grand Cathay Arcane Journal to flesh out the options!
-Wachtmeister
The Wachtmeister's Patrol 