‘Warhammer: The Old World’- Is Grand Cathay Ruining The Game?

Grand Cathay is doing some not nice things to Warhammer: the Old World – here’s what GW needs to do to keep it from ruining the game.

It’s been a few months since Grand Cathay released, and the faction is already changing the game. While a new faction is always a great thing for the game, not everything is rosy in Old World land. Cathay, and it’s Army of Infamy the Jade Fleet have proved to be very powerful list. In large part this is driven by the problematic Sky Lanterns. As it stands this is starting to have a real negative effect on the game, so lets look at what is happening and how it can be fixed.

Cathay Is Winning, A Lot

Grand Cathay is now, statically at least, the best army in the game. They have a crazy winning record at events. According to oldworldrankings.com the Grand Army is hovering right around a 60% win rate. Meanwhile the Jade Fleet AoI is sitting at around a 70% win rate, which is, to put it bluntly, insane.

Now the Jade Fleet has only shown up in 11 events so don’t have a whole ton of data there and this number could change. But the Grand Army results come from almost 200 events with over 700 games played. So those feel a lot more grounded. These two lists represent the absolute top of the rankings as well. The only one that comes even close it Wild Herd which sits around 56% win rate, still well below Cathay. Old boogiemen like Exiles and Mortuary Cult are around 49%, 11 percentage points below Cathay and 21 below Jade Fleet.

Those numbers are pretty clear. Cathay is a winning list. But more than that, its far too good for a list. And this is very bad for both the game, and Grand Cathay.

Why Is This So Bad?

The current situation is just not good. An army becoming so good and so dominant is bad for the game and especially events. Now look, Cathay being this good isn’t “ruining” the game. You can play without Cathay, or limit them, but it does have very bad effects. For events, it can turn people away. I’ve spoken to people who have gotten turned off from events that aren’t doing something about the lists, because they don’t see much point in going to them as things stand. It’s not so much as fear of losing, its that Cathay is so good, and some of its units are so oppressive, that losing to them isn’t any fun, and you have almost no chance of winning. No one wants to pay hundreds of dollars/pounds/euros/etc. to go and have a bad time.

On top of this is the fact that Cathay lists in competitive play don’t have a ton of variation. It’s basically the same couple of important units (cannons, lanterns, Shugengun, maybe Miao Ying) with minimal Jade Warriors/Lancer support, in a few combinations. So playing this army multiple times doesn’t really offer a lot new. The only thing worse than having an unfun game and losing to an OP army, is doing that to the same army over, and over, and over.

It’s Bad For Casual Play As Well

This has a pretty negative effect for casual play as well. There are people who are genuinely excited about just playing Cathay and are not competitive players. However an army being this good and having the reputation that Cathay is getting, is bad for them as well. Cathay is getting a lot of hate rate now, and it can rebound on to people who just want to play it for fun. It’s the “try hard” army, and if you are a casual player you may not want to play it because of that. Trying to just build a fun list with Cathay can be hard, you might accidently build a really OP list. I know some players who bought Sky Lanterns because they are a cool model and then found out with horror that using them would get them labeled a certain way. That sucks for everyone.

I myself started a Cathay army when they came out, but I haven’t really played them much. I just don’t feel its suitable for casual fun play in its current state. In order to build a version of the army that is, I’d basically have to build a purposefully bad and boring version of the army. I’ve got other armies I can play instead that are a lot more fun (like the new Renegade Crowns!). All this is to say that an army being this good isn’t just having an effect on the event scene, but does affect casual players.

What Can Be Done?

So how can we fix this situation? Well it’s a bit sticky. For events they can turn to army composition (comp) rules to try to limit this. Many have, in particular they’ve made sure that cannon -1 to movement rule doesn’t stack and have limited how many Sky Lanterns you can take. That has some effect, though it has returned us to the war over who has control of the game. But this effect is a bit limited. And it’s neither equally applied, nor does it address the root issues or casual play.

Ultimately this is a fix that needs to come from GW, and the sooner the better. Comp can patch things up a bit, but the army has some real issues that are bleeding over into the game as a whole. The biggest thing is obviously that Lanterns need to be changed, and I’ve talked about how that might be done. But the army likely needs a few more fixes that that to really bring it in line. And if we are being honest, it likely won’t really get there until it gets another wave to bring it more units and help balance it out. Even if you nerf the strong stuff now, there just aren’t enough other units to really make it a super balanced and varied list.

Is There Hope?

Now there might be one good sign on this front. GW has not yet released an FAQ for either of the Cathay books. Now sure these are relatively new books, but the War of the Settra’s Fury, which is not even out yet, did get a quick errata rushed out. Meanwhile Cathay has been out for around 3 months, which would be plenty of time to put out a normal FAQ for that book. It’s possible that FAQ has been delayed to allow GW to see how the army is doing and make more serious changes.

This is of course just some speculation. There could be plenty of reasons they haven’t put out an FAQ for either Cathay book yet. Still it’s strange that Cathay remains the only un-FAQ’d book, especially given the need to adjust spell casting values after the 1.5 update. So maybe this is what happening. Either way this is an issue GW needs to address, and sooner rather than later.  We all just want to have a fun fair game!

Let us know how you think Grand Cathay has effected the game, 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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