Take a look a look at why I think the new Grand Cathay Sky Lanterns are going to be an issue for Warhammer: The Old World.
Every now and then we get a unit that, either on it’s own or in some kind of combo, comes to dominate the game. These units are normally broken in some kind of way, OP or over-powered, and are also often very cost effective (in points, not really money, never that). The Old World has luckily only had a few of these kind of units that not just become prevalent in the meta but came to dominate the game.
Bretonnian Pegasus Knights and mounted characters are probably the Ur-example who have had a major reign of terror. Other units like Dwarf Gryos and lone Dragon Ogres might have if not for the introduction of the Rule of Three of its variants. However with the recent release of Grand Cathay I think we may have seen a new such unit arrive. And it might be the worst one yet. The Grand Cathay Sky Lantern might just be the most broken unit in the game and it threatens to twist the meta, and the whole game, if nothing is done about it. Lets take a look at why.
Sky Lantern Basics
The Sky Lanterns are a flying, unbreakable, heavy chariot/ With T5 and 7 wounds and a 4+ save they are already a steal at 135 pts. At that base price you can get 5 Crane Guns, which are S6 Ap2. These fire at BS 4/5 for the champion. They also have some upgrade options we will talk about.
This is a super flexible unit. It gives you a number of nice buffs for you army and can fight in combat a little, but also fly away from it if desired. A Sky Lantern can be a cheap unit that sit backs with some strong ranged attacks. Or it can be an up close harasser with a ton of lighter attacks that get up and mess with the enemy. It buffs ambushers and indirect fire, which are nice bonuses but not crazy. It can Scout, it has Fire and Flee, it has Feigned Fight and Reserve Move. It’s a very fast model. As a heavy chariot the Sky Lantern also has Lumbering for pivots and has 360 sight arc for shooting.
It’s unbreakable, but can also with an LD test, on base 8, but often 9, escape from combat, making them very hard to pin down. This thing is crazy. Again The Sky Lantern is base 135 pts and even with upgrades you will at most get them for 170 pts. Did I mention they can be used as mounts?
Sky Lantern Options
The Sky Lantern also has several options for how you take it. These are worth looking at. The first option is just plain, with the Crane Guns. This option isn’t bad at all and gives you very strong shots that are hard to hide from. You can also replace the Crane Guns with a combo of Iron hail guns and either Gunpowder Bombs (free) or Dragon Fire Bombs (20 pts). These give you some bonkers close in options.
The two bomb types are both range 9, Move and Shoot and Quick Shoot and Quick Shot. This means they can March and Shoot, not take a -1 to shoot from moving and can always stand and shoot (remember Feigned Flight). They do either d3 or d3+1 hits per hit and the Dragon ones are S4 Ap-1 AB (1). This isn’t a joke weapon, as you can get 20 S4 Ap -1 hits from it.
The Iron Hail guns are blunderbusses with move and shoot. They are weaker than the bombs, but have better range and don’t take long range or stand and shoot penalties. You’ll use them at times.
Lastly you can add Sky Lantern Bombs (15 pts) to any other load out you have. These drop S5 Ap -2 templets on the enemy and are NOT a shooting attack so can split fire. This is a strong attack that is brutal.
Sky Lanterns As A Mount
On top of all that they can be taken as a mount. This is very important for a couple of reason. First off it add wounds to the unit- 2 or 3 depending on the character. With +3 wounds the Sky Lantern is US 10 and can score objectives and gets Close Order bonus in combat (oh yeah, with 1+ d3 impact hits and 6 attacks, they aren’t horrible in cc vs some light troops). This also means you can add some magic items into a Sky Lantern. Want to give it a Ward save? Regen? Anti-magic? All things are possible through the Will of the Dragons.
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The characters can also take extra dragon fire or gunpowder bombs (not crane guns) for a little extra punch. But perhaps most importantly they help you skirt unit limitations . With the Matched Play rules in effect you can still cram in 8 Sky Lanterns into a list!
Why Sky Lanterns Are So Dang Good
So lets put that all together into why they are just so good. They are cheap and tough, and anything short of the best combat characters will have in issue killing one alone. Even great cannons are taking like 4-5 shots to kill one on average. They are also fast, with Scout, Fly (8) and the option to either March and Shoot or Reserve move. They go all over the place. And the kill stuff.
Mass crane guns can rip armies to shred. Close in they can put out a ton of shots (24 dragon fire bombs hits and a 5 inch template!) In a test game a single bombing/firebombing run wiped out 10 Knights of the Realm. Combat is also a bad answer, especially with the bomb armed ones. Since they can always stand and shoot, if you charge them you will get shot – then the Sky Lantern will flee, making it hard to catch them. But assuming you do and they survive, it’s likely they will just leave combat with you and then shoot you again on their turn and then possible fly behind you. A lot of times charging them just gives them more attacks.
And they have just a ton of tricks. For instance because they have a champion they can always issue challenges in combat. This can help mitigate the number of attacks coming their way. Again these have 7 wounds! Incidental damage won’t kill them quickly. And unlike a lot of other units, they don’t degrade in damage output at all until you kill one.
How Many Can You Take?
Of course a single Lantern is good, but it won’t break the game. But how many can you take? Well in a 2000 pt list using the Matched Play restrictions you can get in 8 of them. That two as Rare, one as Special, and five as mounts for two types of characters. That’s still leaving room for 500 pts of course and some upgrades, though it’s a little bare bones. Running 6-7 of them is more reasonable and allow for more upgrades and items. Either of these lists honestly scares me. Even bare bones that’s 40 S6 AP -2 shots a turn and 68 T5 4+ save wounds to chew through. That will decimate armies. That build also still leaves you with 4-5 units that can score objectives!
Why It’s Such An Issue
I think this unit is going to be a major skew on the game. While most armies won’t run 6-8 of them, I think a ton are going to have 2-3 of them, at least in competitive play. And that might be enough to wreck a lot of armies. Armies like Wood Elves just don’t seem to have an answer to them. For many armies the counters to them are so out of line from what they’d normally want to take that they just won’t run them. I foresee it being a real issue. As we will likely see, this over-tuned and frankly OP unit will show up in a lot of armies. It’s also not great for Grand Cathay, as I think it’s really going to limit how they can build lists if you have to take some.
Can Anything Be Done?
I really think something is going to have to be done to address this unit and I don’t say that lightly. But I’m not 100% sure what. The most obvious answer is making the Matched Play unit limits counts mounts towards them (which is not in the rule but some events have done). You could also add in limits on the number of flyers you can take. That would prevent us from seeing lists of 7-8. But won’t impact the lists taking 2-3 which are going to be pretty bad. Aside from that, we’ll really need some sort of nerf from GW, a point bump at the very least. I think without this we might be in some trouble.
Of course players can and will also come up with their own counters. Some armies have OK options, though chasing 135 pt models with a 500 pt dragon isn’t great. Others don’t have good options that I can see. I’m very interested to see what people come up with. At the end of the day the Sky Lantern is a unit like Pegasus Knights that just breaks a lot of the rules of the game. I think if GW are not aware of this and don’t do something to fix it, we will end up with a rank and flank game dominated by an armada of ballons that fly over the table and blow everything up. These things are just playing a whole different game.
Let us know what you think of Sky Lanterns and how you plan to deal with them, down in the comments!
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Abe is that rare thing, an Austin local born and raised here. Though he keeps on moving around, DC, Japan, ETC., he always seems to find his way back eventually. Abe has decades of experience with a wide range of tabletop and RPG games, from historicals, to Star Wars to D&D and 40K. He has been contributing to BOLS since almost the start, back when he worked at and then owned a local gaming store. He used to be big into the competitive Warhammer tournament scene but age has mellowed him and he now appreciates a good casual match. He currently covers Warhammer: The Old World, as well as all things Star Wars, with occasional dabbling in other topics. Abe mourned over loss of WFB for its entire hiatus, but has been reborn like a gaming phoenix with Warhammer: The Old World.
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