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But all the arguments against these keep comparing them to a certain image of wfb that is epitomised by the empire and there is real indignation that the cathayans seem 'better' than the empire. They are cleaner, better trained etc and that really rubs people the wrong way.

I definitely feel like there's a bit of that. Could be racism, I don't know. But it could also just be that the Empire are the "protagonists" and people do not want them to be outshone.

This is the Tau from 40k all over again, and the reactions to the notion of them potentially being less evil than the Imperium. Some people really do not like that, because the Imperium being the lesser evil was central to letting them feel justified in rooting for them, so disrupting that makes them very uncomfortable.

Cathay, as you say, is very clean. They are almost halfway between Empire and High Elves. That's not really a problem in and of themselves but it presents a disruption to the order that some really do not like.

I don't think its racism in the least. It's the "GRIM DARK" extreme.


It's the same reason people never want to see a Imperial victory; or who expect every serf/peasant/underling in Old World to be literally rolling in mud, dirt poor and whipped.

They interpret grim dark as being only the most extreme forms of darkness.

Thing is the setting does have that; it has loads of that; but it also has lots and lots of other things too.



I put it down to people who have read summaries of the setting and battletomes/codex and used that in an echochamber of other fans to craft their own headspace for the game that hyper fixates on the dark parts.
I don't think many read the BL novels or get into the darker bits of the setting that are more themes and psychological dark aspects. They are at that extreme surface level of overt dark.





Also lets face it even GW's paintjob of Bretonnian serfs are pretty clean paintjobs. Even Nurgle stuff is pretty "clean" as a style. Nothing stops people painting their peasants in drab colours with mudsplatter on the uniform

I'm not claiming it is or isn't bigotry, only that it seems to be driving discourse. There have also been arguments gw was pandering to China by making cathay 'good', which again implies a standard measured from the empire and that cathay would be grimy and intolerant were this pandering not taking place.


We know that the background for Cathay has said in the past that the high elves were to them in some way what the dwarfs were to the empire..as the high elves did a lot of sailing and discovering.

They are less clean than high elves but moreso than the empire.

I don't see an issue. They are still a mediaeval force with peasants and Nobles, their armour is brigandine and plate. Having peasants ALONE shows the inequality rife in their system and a peasant levy further reinforcing this.

So if that's not good enough what is?

Tigermen depending on their size are either like imperial dwarfs or ogres, an outside group that has populations inside Cathay. Their equipment is going to be cathayan inspired at least, just as an imperial ogres would be.


Until Cathay shows up looking like it just stepped out of WoW with giant shoulder pads and tiger tauran types, I'm really not seeing what the issue is.

 Hellebore wrote:
But all the arguments against these keep comparing them to a certain image of wfb that is epitomised by the empire and there is real indignation that the cathayans seem 'better' than the empire. They are cleaner, better trained etc and that really rubs people the wrong way.

On the other hand, they can't be that great if they get kicked out of the 'classic' Old World both in terms of area and timeline.

My personal problem with Cathay is that in a setting where everybody is the worst version of their own fantasy trope (Dwarfs, Elves, even the bad guys are particularly awful), Cathay comes across as very noble, clean and honorable, with not many shadows...

You can read any fantastic reinterpretation of the Three Kingdoms period (or play any Dynasty Warriors game or clone) and you'll find much more nuance and evilness than in Cathay. Wheres some Lu Bu or Dong Zhuo or Cao Cao in Cathay? Or any mention of the Mandate of Heaven, technically the Will of the Dragons in Cathay, or any reference to the multitude of peasant/religious rebellions China faced? Cathay is not written like other human factions in the Old World, but in a very sanitized way.

And that doesn't feel Warhammer. (And I play Tau in 40K).

About the tigermen: It's just furry art and execution. Lizardmen are technically furries (scalies), and you can see how their new AoS miniatures are designed with that modern interpretation of anthropomorphic animals. They are muscular, they have properly human anatomy, they are cleanly presented.

They are simply put, attractive.

Look at all old Lizardmen art, or all Beastmen art: They have brutal forms, they have brutal animal faces with emphasis on looking like real (and particularly ugly and filthy) animals with their goat heads or minotaur heads. This is something you can compare not only in Warhammer but in general art on the internet.

It's very clear when a minotaur, for example, was designed by a furry to appeal to furries, or it was designed as a monster by a non-furry artist.

EDIT: And I actually like Cathay miniatures and have a Cathay force for ToW. And I love my Storm Dragon Regent. But they need work from the lore department. Not to make them grimderp, I actually like Fantasy its not as all dark all the time as 40k. But still. Cathay is lacking the warhammer edge.

The Empire comes across as pretty noble and clean. Both have the politik and inequality issues.

I would not say the HE are the 'worst version' of their fantasy trope. There are some extremely noble actions from them and have largely been a force for good in their world. If you look at classic Tolkien elves, Faenor's actions led to a huge amount of tragedy and although not comically evil like Dark Elf characters, has probably caused more grief in the history of Middle Earth than the worst elf in Warhammer. Aenarion arguably walks the line between Faenor and Elric for importance in setting, but actually seems more noble than either of them in deed.

And the Warhammer version of Columbus is less grimdark than the real deal.

Yeah in general the Empire is not "THAT" evil that people are dreading life within the Empire. A lot of the grim dark parts are often small settlements or micro kingdoms or the threat of demons and ratmen and so forth from outside.

Cathay is very new and GW has hardly published any material on them so far. Give it time; let the sinister dark parts seep into the background as the story for them deepens. Whilst the setting is 40 years old, Cathay are functionally only a few years old.

Warhammer TW didn't flesh them out beyond an army and basic structure; the battletome only skims a factions details. Getting into the meat of them; their politics; the dark parts; the challenges etc... Will take a bit more time. Esp since Black Library doesn't seem as active with anything outside of 40K novels these days. Old World and AoS publications come much slower.

 Daba wrote:
Faenor's actions led to a huge amount of tragedy and although not comically evil like Dark Elf characters, has probably caused more grief in the history of Middle Earth than the worst elf in Warhammer.

That's... yeah, that's not true.

This is probably not the place to discuss the nature of elves in Tolkien's work, but they're very different to elves in Warhammer, who are in turn essentially elevated humans.

 Overread wrote:
Yeah in general the Empire is not "THAT" evil that people are dreading life within the Empire. A lot of the grim dark parts are often small settlements or micro kingdoms or the threat of demons and ratmen and so forth from outside.

No one's claiming the Empire is evil, come on now.

The grim and dark in the Empire is primarily contained in it's apparently hopeless internal division and constant subversion by ontologically evil forces hellbent on the destruction of the world. The village raided by Beastmen is a minor (in context of the scale of the nation) symptom of the disease caused by those higher level issues, not the disease itself.

Such a story won't read the same for the Empire and Cathay, because as of now, Cathay lacks an explicit high level root cause of that otherwise equally tragic event.

And yes, I get that the Empire had decades of material published to flesh out the tone, much of which isn't directly contained in first order canonicity. But people can't exactly insert blank spaces into their view of new content in expectation of them being filled at some future date. Cathay's lore may and likely will change in the future, but it is what it is today, and it should be assessed as such.

I don't have an issue with Cathay being noblebright (and it *does* have some sinister undertone/implications already, the crowmen etc) even if it's mainly an excuse to do well in IRL Cathay and stay on the right side of the cultural censors. (see that fantasy Great Wall film where the decadent profit driven european traders eventually see the light of the great co-operative spirit of the chinese defenders who fight for their fellow countrymen etc etc) It's fun to have a faction who seems on the surface at least to be a united and prospering front akin to the HElves.

Edit - Hahahah wow pgmason and I posting very similar sentiments at the exact same minute!

I definitely get a "There is no war in Ba Sing Se" vibe from the way the Cathay stuff is written. Lots of stuff about how the society is perfectly ordered and everyone knows their place (and is assumed to be content).

It's a lot like how Bretonnia was depicted in the 5th edition army book and then later depictions showed a less rosy view. You can sort of see the 5th edition book as how the nobility see Bretonnia, and the 6th edition book as how the peasantry see it.

The Tau have undergone a similar evolution - in their third edition book they came across as pretty unambiguous good guys, while later codexes have fleshed them out more and exposed some of their hypocrisy.

I expect we'll see something similar with Cathay as the amount of material on them expands.

Tau lore evolved, but I don't think anyone can claim to know that it was inevitable. People complained about Tau in 3rd, a lot. For all we know, it was those complaints that drove the gradual tonal shift.