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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.

My issue with the tiger men isn't that they're in the Cathay army; it just feels like a bait & switch.

Previous mentions set up exotic beastmen and we get "well, they had the chaos purged from them, so they're noble goodguy warriors."

All previous lore made beastmen sound like aberrant melding of man and animal, like spawns that walk upright and have something of speech & culture. To me, older snippets of the Tigermen was like a reminder that Realm of Chaos/Slaves to Darkness had beastmen miniatures that were animals other than goats.

I think it would have been better if Cathay had the chaotic Tigermen of Ind as mercenaries. But then the Tau analog would have been even stronger

 Galas wrote:
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...

Bretonnia was just as noble and heroic looking when their first army book debuted in fifth edition. They were good Arthurian knights with no downsides. It took a few years (and editions!) for them to get grimed up. I don't doubt that Cathay will follow the same trajectory.

 Daba wrote:
I would not say the HE are the 'worst version' of their fantasy trope.

The High Elven nobles and businesses literally own human slaves to avoid making Elves do menial and manual labor. Despite Slavery technically being outlawed in Ulthuan. They're pretty bad once you get past the, according to Bill King who wrote the original army book, "cleansed and epic narrative" the GW higher ups forced him to put in the book.

 Platuan4th wrote:

 Daba wrote:
I would not say the HE are the 'worst version' of their fantasy trope.

The High Elven nobles and businesses literally own human slaves to avoid making Elves do menial and manual labor. Despite Slavery technically being outlawed in Ulthuan. They're pretty bad once you get past the, according to Bill King who wrote the original army book, "cleansed and epic narrative" the GW higher ups forced him to put in the book.

You're saying they're bad despite the official text gw printed not showing that? So I can say the same about Cathay?

Seriously bill king doesn't own wfb and he could have wanted to put in child eating elf kings and it also wouldn't mean anything.


These discussions are all personal head canon about what people's per perceptions of wfb are based on it almost entirely being seen through the lens of the empire..but that's no more representative of the world than seeing earth through Kowloon walled city and assuming everyone lived like that.




Automatically Appended Next Post:

 KidCthulhu wrote:
My issue with the tiger men isn't that they're in the Cathay army; it just feels like a bait & switch.

Previous mentions set up exotic beastmen and we get "well, they had the chaos purged from them, so they're noble goodguy warriors."

All previous lore made beastmen sound like aberrant melding of man and animal, like spawns that walk upright and have something of speech & culture. To me, older snippets of the Tigermen was like a reminder that Realm of Chaos/Slaves to Darkness had beastmen miniatures that were animals other than goats.

I think it would have been better if Cathay had the chaotic Tigermen of Ind as mercenaries. But then the Tau analog would have been even stronger

I thought we went through this. Where does it say the chaos was purged from them? The warcom article says they were a product of the old ones like every other species in wfb. Chaos beastmen are mutants caused by Chaos..Lizardmen are humanoid animals created by the old ones. So it seems are tigermen.

What about that is chaos purged?

People freaking out about feline warriors, imagine if they bring in the Pandas... I would be all for it and no I dont get the furry phenomena.

Orcs and goblins were always the fun side of Warhammer but after all these years GW has been changing them to be less fun and something more serious which is totally disappointing.

For me Warhammer is about having options and not converging everything to be the exact same boring concept.

 Hellebore wrote:
I thought we went through this. Where does it say the chaos was purged from them? The warcom article says they were a product of the old ones like every other species in wfb. Chaos beastmen are mutants caused by Chaos..Lizardmen are humanoid animals created by the old ones. So it seems are tigermen.

What about that is chaos purged?

Okay, mea culpa. I was getting this confused with a conversation I had on Discord (where one of my friends mentioned a novel where some Dragon King "purged the chaos" from the Tigermen that swore allegiance). I fully cop to this mistake.

I can still grumble that we had alternate beastmen teased but they would up as a separate race that are not chaos mutants

 KidCthulhu wrote:

 Hellebore wrote:
I thought we went through this. Where does it say the chaos was purged from them? The warcom article says they were a product of the old ones like every other species in wfb. Chaos beastmen are mutants caused by Chaos..Lizardmen are humanoid animals created by the old ones. So it seems are tigermen.

What about that is chaos purged?

Okay, mea culpa. I was getting this confused with a conversation I had on Discord (where one of my friends mentioned a novel where some Dragon King "purged the chaos" from the Tigermen that swore allegiance). I fully cop to this mistake.

I can still grumble that we had alternate beastmen teased but they would up as a separate race that are not chaos mutants

I am also annoyed they went the boring and highly unchaotic route of all beastmen being goatmen. The really old metal models of snake heads and tails and random mutations were cool.

I would love to see more variety in the beastmen range as a whole. And more mutations as standard. They seem too regular to be a product of chaos rather than just a lineage of goatmen.

 NAVARRO wrote:
People freaking out about feline warriors, imagine if they bring in the Pandas... I would be all for it and no I dont get the furry phenomena.

Orcs and goblins were always the fun side of Warhammer but after all these years GW has been changing them to be less fun and something more serious which is totally disappointing.

For me Warhammer is about having options and not converging everything to be the exact same boring concept.

Well said. I think orcs and goblins are still fun in old world, I’ve played many orc players now (and a few goblins), and always have a blast in those games.

For folks who have bought these Arcane Journals, what % of the books are lore and artwork?

Don’t have it in me to play, as my hobby horse is hitched firmly to AoS, but as someone who owned/read 99% of the WHFB army books, WHFRP and novels since 5th edition to End Times, I’d love some more lore and art.

Are they worth it for that alone?

As we approach page 400 is it a good time to close this thread and open a new one?

 Kid_Kyoto wrote:
As we approach page 400 is it a good time to close this thread and open a new one?

And then move across to a round-based successor?

 Hellebore wrote:

 KidCthulhu wrote:

 Hellebore wrote:
I thought we went through this. Where does it say the chaos was purged from them? The warcom article says they were a product of the old ones like every other species in wfb. Chaos beastmen are mutants caused by Chaos..Lizardmen are humanoid animals created by the old ones. So it seems are tigermen.

What about that is chaos purged?

Okay, mea culpa. I was getting this confused with a conversation I had on Discord (where one of my friends mentioned a novel where some Dragon King "purged the chaos" from the Tigermen that swore allegiance). I fully cop to this mistake.

I can still grumble that we had alternate beastmen teased but they would up as a separate race that are not chaos mutants

I am also annoyed they went the boring and highly unchaotic route of all beastmen being goatmen. The really old metal models of snake heads and tails and random mutations were cool.

I would love to see more variety in the beastmen range as a whole. And more mutations as standard. They seem too regular to be a product of chaos rather than just a lineage of goatmen.

I found a home for the old school style multi-creature 'beastmen' as forsaken, and I prefer the old school look to the 8th edition models they somehow overlooked to reprint.

 Shakalooloo wrote:

 Kid_Kyoto wrote:
As we approach page 400 is it a good time to close this thread and open a new one?

And then move across to a round-based successor?

The new thread will absolutely be called "Warhammer the Old World to move to round bases".

No in all seriousness 400 pages is a lot, I think this thread may have the old bug where pages appear before they have posts etc. Any one want to start Warhammer the Old World 2026 News and Rumors?

 Hellebore wrote:

 Platuan4th wrote:

 Daba wrote:
I would not say the HE are the 'worst version' of their fantasy trope.

The High Elven nobles and businesses literally own human slaves to avoid making Elves do menial and manual labor. Despite Slavery technically being outlawed in Ulthuan. They're pretty bad once you get past the, according to Bill King who wrote the original army book, "cleansed and epic narrative" the GW higher ups forced him to put in the book.

You're saying they're bad despite the official text gw printed not showing that?

Except that it is in official GW text. He was allowed to put it in multiple novels, they just wouldn't let him put it in the 4th ed Army book because GW wanted a specific narrative for the army books.

That sounds like his vision contrasts with the one the company wanted for the faction.

Novels have always been a bit loose and contradictory with their own army books and each other, though I admit it's largely a bigger problem in the 40k realm than that of fantasy. What makes for a good individual story doesn't necessarily mesh with a larger setting, which is often a problem with IP works.

Even with it fully in, it sounds the actions of a handful of the elite in a society based in a fantasy history and as mentioned, it is even strictly speaking illegal in their society, so these are just your standard elites above the law present in every society ever. The fact that it actually is illegal for the time period actually says something.

Regarding beastmen, I completely agree that the old school multi-species mutated variety were much more imaginative and fun than just goatmen. (I actually really like goatmen, just not at the exclusion of everything else.) From what I've seen of the non-chaotic Tiger men so far, they're just not all that interesting yet, and don't even capitalize on what makes real tigers imposing. Their idealized hulking human bodies aren't ideal for stalking, and the concept art doesn't showcase the animal's iconic claws, roars, and fangs. You can play against type and make them serene, as the concept art seems to suggest - Disney's Shere Khan was serene and ferocious on a dime, and remains one of their most badass villains ever - but you need to really nail the design to make that work. I'm not seeing it yet.

Cathay is an interesting case for me. If I'd been in the GW offices when it was proposed, I would have said "hell yeah, go for it!" But the models, while very nice, don't really seem inspired to me, which surprises me a bit. Being a fan of older GW hand-sculpts, today's hyper-busy / hyper-ornamented style isn't totally up my alley, but I can't debate that their quality is top notch.

I've been underwhelmed by Mantic's Chinese gnolls, too. In that case, the primitive ferocity of classic fantasy gnolls is what I've always liked about them, so presenting them as serious, civilized, and measured was always going to be a hard sell for me. (Note that I'm talking specifically about classic gnolls here, not Chinese people!)

I do think thin lore is probably hurting Cathay at the moment, so the army looks like a collection of Orientalist aesthetic wouldn't-that-be-cool choices without a lot of story weight behind them. Done right, their story could actually end up being very interesting. How any human civilization managed to be less impacted / overwhelmed by Chaos could be a great tale. (It's got to be more interesting than "unlike the Empire, they're not right next door to Norsca." Even the Slann in Lustria are constantly threatened / literally undermined by Skaven infestations.)

 nels1031 wrote:
For folks who have bought these Arcane Journals, what % of the books are lore and artwork?

Don’t have it in me to play, as my hobby horse is hitched firmly to AoS, but as someone who owned/read 99% of the WHFB army books, WHFRP and novels since 5th edition to End Times, I’d love some more lore and art.

Are they worth it for that alone?

Artwork is good. Lore is sparse and sometimes contradictory - they have an aversion to dates and checking info even in the last book they released.

We do try and put the relevant lore up on the Lex

 Hellebore wrote:
I am also annoyed they went the boring and highly unchaotic route of all beastmen being goatmen.

In their defence, they also have quite a lot of bullmen.