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Feels a bit weird to have pre-orders when we don’t know much about playstyle.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Have I been inattentive, or have we not had rules previews for Cathay?

There have been video reviews of the full Arcane Journal posted on YouTube by:

Square Based
Close Order
Miniature Realms
Mountain Miniatures
Guerilla Miniature Games
Sprues & Brews
The Great Book of Grudges
Bearfoot Miniatures
... and a few others

Mountain Miniatures already has a battle report up using the new Cathay minis and rules that got posted less than a day ago.

The Cathay content has been flooding YouTube, and it is great to see.

 Dysartes wrote:

 warboss wrote:
How long does it typically take for units in the battalion to be available separately or even just previewed individually (i.e. showing the sprues) on the website?

If you're just wanting sprue pics of the units in the Battalion, can I direct you to stahly's post that I've quoted below?

 stahly wrote:
I made a scale comparison of the new Jade Warriors… they‘re quite chonky boys and girls! I also have the high-res sprue images and all build options for the kits in the Cathay Battalion: https://taleofpainters.com/2025/06/review-grand-cathay-battalion/

Thanks. Yeah, I was looking for details on specifically the artillery ogre bits and how they might go together so thanks. In the time since, I watched some youtube videos that were posted detailing the sprues and included showing the assembly instruction manual pages which were the most helpful in that regard.

Why isn't the Arcane Journal up for pre-order on Warhammer Digital? I almost never buy physical books these days.

Also no Competitive Play Guide.

These have to be coming digitally, surely it was an oversight.

Do they do preorders for the digital books? Or will they just go up on release?

 Eldarain wrote:
Do they do preorders for the digital books? Or will they just go up on release?

What purpose would there be for a pre-order of a digital book?

ccs wrote:

 Eldarain wrote:
Do they do preorders for the digital books? Or will they just go up on release?

What purpose would there be for a pre-order of a digital book?

The purpose in offering it is that money now is better than money later.

Preordering it? I guess so you don't forget?

So... power creep like in the old days??, or just an OP army to make sure the new release is a success?

SU-152 wrote:
So... power creep like in the old days??, or just an OP army to make sure the new release is a success?

Based on?
It’s an elite human army with zero missile troops and elf-expensive characters.

It's a new army - everyone who doesn't play them will cry that they are overpowered whilst you'll likely find those who pick the army up new will argue the entire opposite.

Or that they are broken but only if you build one specific build.


And it does happen - Slaanesh at one time were dominating the game in AoS because of their method of generating summoning points and if you basically just took all Keeprs of Secrets (which were brand new at the time) you could just keep summoning more and be broken powerful

But when it comes to rules the only consistent thing with GW is that they are highly inconsistent. New armies have just as much chance of being OP as they have of being underpowered

Chitter chat chin wag on Cathay unit rules.

https://www.warhammer-community.com/en-gb/articles/rrielj4b/old-world-almanack-grand-cathay-on-the-tabletop/

It’s more tell than show I’m afraid, but I’ve got a better idea of how the army might play right now.

From the sounds of it, once the Peasant type infantry arrive they’ll be Foot Bretonnians?

New article is up: https://www.warhammer-community.com/en-gb/articles/rrielj4b/old-world-almanack-grand-cathay-on-the-tabletop/

Second AJ is a narrative one. Additional rules, no new minis:

Rules for occupying buildings doesn't seem like such a Cathay-centric idea to me that it belongs in an Arcane Journal... is it Cathay Arcane Journal 2 or is it a Matched Play Guide Companion?

 Mr_Rose wrote:

SU-152 wrote:
So... power creep like in the old days??, or just an OP army to make sure the new release is a success?

Based on?
It’s an elite human army with zero missile troops and elf-expensive characters.

The Shugengan Lord on Longma is an incredible value for his points, coming in at 7 wounds and a 3+/5+ save, Counter Charge, Fear, Fly (9), Impact Hits (D3+1), Swiftstride, Gives Stubborn to any unit he joins, gets the free random stat buff per turn, and is base Movement 8 so all but immune to things that turn off flying, is a Level 2 wizard, and comes with a weapon built in to the package that grants Strike First... for only 224 points with heavy armor.

For the generic Shugengan General on Longma that is only slightly weaker and not a wizard, it comes in base at 154 points for all of the other rules above.

The cheap Magistrate generic characters allow your army to use their leadership of 9 while in their command range, and is immune to things that turn off your army's ability to use their general's Inspiring Presence... since it is not Inspiring Presence. They also allow your units to Fall Back In Good Order instead of following up after combat while in their command range, get the free random stat buff every turn, and allows any unit they join to reroll the leadership test to reform after running down an enemy unit, redirecting a charge, or making a test to restrain for only 65 points for the Lord Magistrate and 40 points for the Strategist.

The two Core units are the weakest part of the army (but nowhere near weak at all), and when you think of the infantry as 8 point troops that come base with Veteran State Troop stats, free heavy armor, and a free shield and spear or free halberd... that also gets the free stat rolled for stat buff every turn, they are an absolute value. The cavalry are pretty solid, and can base swing in two ranks, making them have the same combat output as 40+ point single wound Chosen Knights when attacking in two ranks for only 20 points per model. Their lances are slightly weaker, but they are well geared to shred the upcoming block of infantry we will be seeing.

The Lanterns are artillery are where a lot of people are losing their minds though, I have no idea how GW priced out the Lantern but 135 points for heavy chariot toughness, about the same wounds as two chariots, a bucket of special rules, and throwing 5D3 shots per Lantern at 12" or taking the long range guns (both options free) makes them feel wildly under costed.

The cannons are wild, and before people say that Cathay doesn't have an engineer type character, the cannons get a 35 point one that doesn't come out of your character points that allow a gun that is; Strength 10, AP -3, Armourbane (3), applies a -1 modifier to all enemy unit's Movement stat and turns off Swiftstride within 2d6" of the impact... to shoot again or reroll the artillery dice. The cannon is 130 points, 165 with the Ogre crew. The cannon wins games by itself because of the negative movement modifiers and turning off Swiftstride, getting to do it twice per cannon in a single turn gives Cathay a massive advantage in maneuvering around the battlefield with their sometimes Movement 5 infantry.

I am going to stop rambling there but the army is incredible, and while I was firmly in the "book is wildly broken" camp initially, I really do think that the book is mostly fine if not a bit over tuned and a hair under costed (Lanterns excluded, those things are busted). But it is really hard to make a proper opinion of the army without knowing what is in the FAQ/Errata that is coming out, and not playing against them yet.

Kid_Kyoto wrote:

ccs wrote:

 Eldarain wrote:
Do they do preorders for the digital books? Or will they just go up on release?

What purpose would there be for a pre-order of a digital book?

The purpose in offering it is that money now is better than money later.

Preordering it? I guess so you don't forget?

Yes, normally the digital books go up for preorder at the same time the physical books do.

Sathrut wrote:
New article is up: https://www.warhammer-community.com/en-gb/articles/rrielj4b/old-world-almanack-grand-cathay-on-the-tabletop/
Second AJ is a narrative one. Additional rules, no new minis:

no new minis but rules that do not belong in an army book
so TOW is following the Necromunda release model, which might kill the hopes of some people that GW is changing from a 3 year cycle to a 4 year one

Is one release enough to say they are pivoting from one method cycle to another?

I feel like when April 1 rolls around, GW will get around to announcing a Classic Cathay MTO

 MajorWesJanson wrote:
I feel like when April 1 rolls around, GW will get around to announcing a Classic Cathay MTO

Life-size tactical rock on a square base.

 nathan2004 wrote:
Is one release enough to say they are pivoting from one method cycle to another?

they haven't pivoted,more like planned that from the beginning.
The question has always been on which release model they settle with TOW after the initial index armies are released, and releases are planned out long in advance and not changing on the fly so whatever they do now was planned early on if not before the original release.

With 3 main games on a 3 year cycle, TOW following that one was out anyway (except some believe that everything is changing to 4 years now with TOW) and other options were to see full army book releases (to combine index and journal again) again.
TOW now get a matched play book adding additional rules and an army book adding additional rules for everyone which indicates that the release model planned for it is similar to Necromunda/LI rather than following a regular cycle.

Open question now is if they ever go back to the index armies or focus on new ones with new model releases. From Cathay we know what number of SKUs to expect and all new stuff sells better to new people so a follow up ignoring the existing players would be the option for stable sales (and if there is any balance or gaming problem with it the community takes care anyway)

Of course it could also be that it still is full atmy book releases and the 2nd Cathay AJ is just an exception, but for now it doesn't look like it but we should know more after the next army release (be it Kislev, Norse, Vampire Coast or Chaos Dwarfs)

 MajorWesJanson wrote:
I feel like when April 1 rolls around, GW will get around to announcing a Classic Cathay MTO

I know you're joking, but they had some Cathay and Nippon figures back around the mid 80s, which I believe was just 10 years ago.

Some classic Samurai, Ninjas and Monks would be cool.

Temple Dogs would be nice to finally have a full unit of.

 Kid_Kyoto wrote:

 MajorWesJanson wrote:
I feel like when April 1 rolls around, GW will get around to announcing a Classic Cathay MTO

I know you're joking, but they had some Cathay and Nippon figures back around the mid 80s, which I believe was just 10 years ago.

Some classic Samurai, Ninjas and Monks would be cool.

They could do a MTO with old Skaven Gutter runners as they were trained in the ways of the Cathay.

I mean, Cathay is great and all. But my Bretonnians are still short one hippogryph. It wasn't even available on an mto basis. :( Thorgrim and Kiknik also haven't gotten their models. I've always disliked GW's penchant for not completing ranges that they make rules for.

JWh85 wrote:
I mean, Cathay is great and all. But my Bretonnians are still short one hippogryph. It wasn't even available on an mto basis. :( Thorgrim and Kiknik also haven't gotten their models. I've always disliked GW's penchant for not completing ranges that they make rules for.

I'll keep banging the drum that Brets need a proper MTO with all their 5th ed range (noting the squires and yeomen are actually still from that era). Sneak in the 5th Ed version of Louen and everyone is happy.

Seeing as how the next Cathay release is just the dragon and journal maybe Kislev will be closer to release than I had thought. A reveal by christmas might not be too far fetched. Better to release them sooner anyhow, while TW3 is still somewhat fresh in peoples minds. They can loop back around later and flesh these factions out with more journals.

SU-152 wrote:
So... power creep like in the old days??, or just an OP army to make sure the new release is a success?

Luckily it’s going to be a rough army to build and paint so doubt I’ll be seeing one across the table in my group.

JWh85 wrote:
I've always disliked GW's penchant for not completing ranges that they make rules for.

They have pretty much reduced that problem to zero in the main games, but Necromunda and TOW are a slip back into bad habits!

Chapterhouse had one bonus which was GW moving a lot of their ranges away from "we have rules but no model". Necromunda is about the only one that really stands out as lagging behind a bit; but its also a game where many of those lagging items are "hangers on" that might honestly only be used once if your home-base is attacked. Otherwise they almost entirely work in the background of your games.

Nice to have a model but not essential for the game to work.