‘Warhammer: The Old World’ – Grand Cathay Magic Deep Dive

Take a deeper look at the magic Grand Cathay has access to in Warhammer: The Old World.

After a long wait (decades for some people) Grand Cathay has arrived in the Old World with a mighty new army. I’ve taken a general look at the army and how it’s strong but limited. We’ve also done a deep dive into the armies units. Today I want to take a look at the special magic the army gets, and how it’s gotten a little bit screwed. So lets dig in.

 Grand Cathay Magic

While Grand Cathay doesn’t get it own unique full on lore, it does get a total of 7 spells in the the book. These are broken down as three each for the Lore of Yin and Yang. In addition Miao Ying gets her own special spell. All of these spells are signatures spells. This does mean that you can always pick one. However it also means with a few exceptions each wizard can only know ONE of these spells. And you won’t have very many wizards. All of this can make it look like Cathay has great magic, but the truth is a little more complicated.

Take Storm Dragon’s Fury, Miao Ying’s special spell. On it’s face this is a pretty great spell. It does 2d5 S5 AP -3 hits and forces the enemy to give ground. This is a longer range and much better AP Wind Blast, even if it does less hits. And Maio Ying can pick two signatures, meaning she could have this and 1-2 other Magic Missiles. And yet the issue here is that it casts on a 10+ (It’s also locked to a 485 pt special character).

That means in human form she needs a 8+ on the dice and in Dragon form a 9+ to cast it. That’s pretty steep and makes it unreliable. It will cast less than half the time. Now it’s possible Cathay may get an errata to lower the casting cost (though I don’t think any magic missiles had theirs lowered) but as of writing its a hard spell to get off.

Lore of Yang

The Lore of Yang is the first of two signature Lores that Cathay Wizards can pick from. It contains 3 spells. Overall the Lore is a mixed bag.

First up we have Constellation of the Dragon. This is a Magic Missile, and having one as a signature is great. It also means that Cathay Wizards can easily get access to two magic missiles. However, its got issues. 18″ makes it a big short ranged, and it has varible casting of 7+/11+. At 7+ its worse than fire ball, shorter ranged and doing d6+1 S4 hits. Nothing amazing. At an 11 its better, 2d6+2 S4 Ap -1 hits. That’s a good hit, but… at 11 to cast is really, really hard now! Even a lvl 4 needs a 9+ to cast which is super unreliable. A 7+ is pretty easy, but also unimpressive.

Great Bastion is an Enhancement that gives a unit a 6+ Ward and makes the enemy take dangerous terrain tests, like Earthen Ramparts the unit can’t charge or march.  I don’t see this getting used much when you can just have Earthen Ramparts.

Might of Heaven & Earth is a powerful buff spell. On a 9+ the caster and their units gain +1 WS and S and flaming attacks. On a 12+ all units within the caster Command Range gain that. The spell lasts until the end of your turn.

This seems really great at first, WS 7 infantry! The issue is that of Cathay Casters only Miao Ying can join a unit, and she still needs a 7+ to cast it. Your Shugengan lords don’t really need it and to buff your other units with one of them you are looking at a 10 or 11+ on the dice. It’s a spell that’s basically impossible to get off in a useful way for most of your casters. It lasting only till the end of your turn is also a huge downside.  It’s just not all that amazing as a whole.

Lore Of Yin

The second signature lore that. While Yang is more enhancement focused, Ying is more Hex based. Like BattleTech you could say. It’s also a mixed bag.

First up we’ve got Spirts of Wind & Shadow. This is possibly the best spell Cathay gets. Its a Hex with a 10+ to cast and 15″ inch range. It gives the enemy Random Movement (D6). Vs basically anything in the game this is a massive slow down, absolutely crushing the movement of a fast units. This is a super powerful spell that can just shut down an enemy unit and is great for hitting death stars.

On the other hand its short ranged and hard to cast, and it’s competing with Miasmic Mirage to which it is very similar, and that spell is a little better if the enemy if very close. You can take both, though it’s rare to have two good targets, but it does get you twice the chances to cast it. It’s good but not super unique in it’s actual effect.

Accursed Mirror Is the anti-large attack spell. For any 1 the enemy rolls in shooting or combat they take a S3 -1 Ap hit of their own. Not horrible if the enemy is making a ton of attacks, but remember, vs a T3 enemy this spell is only going to get you 1 wound (pre saves) per 12 attacks the enemy makes on average. There are spells that will do a lot more damage out there.

Lastly we have Ancestral Warriors. This is an Assailment with a 7+/11+ casting. At a 7+ it does 2d3 S2 hits with armour bane 2. That’s trash and you’d be better off with Hammerhand. At an 11+ you get 2d6 S4 Ap -1 hits with AB 2. That’s much better, but at 11+ is now really hard to pull off! Versus any kind of MR, which a lot more units will have now, you’ll never get it off. If you want an assailment just take Hammerhand.

Magic Buffs

While that’s it for the spells there are a few things in the Cathay army list that help you buff casting and I thought I’d look at them as well. First off we’ve got some Cathay Special rules. The main one is Mastery of the Elemental Winds. This lets a wizard, once per turn, add a +1 to cast if they are within range of another wizard with this rule (so far all Cathay Wizards have this rule). There is some debate on if you can use this buff once per army or once per wizard. However the it’s mostly a useless buff.

Right now Cathay is locked into two types of wizards, the Expensive Monster Shugengans and the even more expensive Miao Ying. It’s very unlikely you will have more than two Wizards on the table, and unless you are spamming low levels almost impossible to get more than 3. Since all of these are monsters in one form or another its also unlikely they are going to be clustered. You want them moving around taking advantage of their maneuverability. It’s just not all that common that you will have them sitting by each other. So while you might get the occasional +1 to cast it won’t be all that often and it’s not something to really count on.

You’ve also got Elemental Wind bonuses.  If Yang is blowing all wizards with Yang get +3 to dispel range and +3 to the range of their enhancements. The dispel range is nice, but the enchantment buff is pretty meh. Meanwhile if Yin is blowing wizards with that lore get +3 range to Hexes and Magic Missiles. This more useful as it buffs your offensive magic and can help tag some enemies a bit more. However these buffs just aren’t reliable at all.

Which one you get is based on a random roll, so you have no control. In addition you have to actually have a wizard that matches the lore to get any benefit. Miao Ying I should mention does not have either lore as a rule and so gets no benefit. Then you actually have to have spells that matter. Yin buffs Magic Missiles, but doesn’t have a signature Magic Missile. Since hexes and enchantments are cast before movement you’ve likely already placed you wizards in range of targets, especially with enchantments, so the extra random range will often not matter at all. Hexes are the real benefit here since the enemy might have stopped just outside your normal range. Still it’s not a great buff.

Magic Items

Finally I want to take a look at a pair of magic items Cathay gets that can help wizards. The first is the Cloak of Po Mei. This lets you know all 3 spells from either Yin or Yang (in addition to their normal spells) for 50 pts.  Interestingly this doesn’t give you the Lore of Yin or Lore of Yang rule to get buffs from. It does mean that you could pick the Lore of Yin rule and swap one random spell for a Yin spell and then know all 3 Yang spells as well. This doesn’t let you cast any extra spells, you will know a lot of spells and be pretty flexible. If you want to go really all in on the Cathay signatures this is a solid item

The other item they get is the Learned Feng Sho Bo. This is a super common item and cost 15 pts. It lets your wizard know and extra spell. Thanks to the FAQ it doesn’t let you cast any more spells, but you can know a lot. Grab two of these and you basically don’t have to roll for spells as you’ll know all six and get to drop one, same price and better than Lore Familiar. Combo a bunch of them with Arcane Familiar and you can know up to 9 spells rolled from 2 different lores for a ton of flexibility.

Final Thoughts on Grand Cathay Magic

At first glance Cathay seems like a great magic-heavy army. They have some seemingly powerful spells. Lots of signatures and easy access to getting a ton of spells per wizard. They seem to have a ton of buffs. But when you start to dig in a little more this falls apart pretty fast. Their buffs just aren’t all that great. While they have some powerful signatures they’ve been hit really really hard by the magic debuff. Powerful as they are, their signatures often come with very high casting values making them super unreliable, at least in their good forms. With signatures removed they are really just run of the mill casters. Maybe they will get an FAQ to lower some of the casting values, but right now, while they have some tricks, it’s nothing crazy.

Let us know what you think about Cathay Magic, down in the comments! 

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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