Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Grand Cathay
This is the general tactics page on how to play Cathay in Total War: WARHAMMER.
Why Play Cathay
- Because Total War: Three Kingdoms didn't go hard enough into fantasy for you.
- These guys are finally being fleshed out (with the full blessings of our evil British overlords nonetheless) after years and you want to see what they come up with.
- You're into oriental history and mythology.
Pros
- Designed for Total War: One thing we can say as an advantage for Cathay is unlike the other factions they will be designed from the ground up to be in a Total War game rather than trying to transition from a tabletop game into total war. This gives them the potential to be one of the best-designed races and balanced since they're not trying to fit a square Warhammer peg into a round Total War hole.
- Numbers: In lore, Cathay has the largest population of all the human nations, so they have bodies to spare. Don't expect Skaven numbers, but you'll likely have large armies compared to other good guy races.
- Range: As the oldest Human nation to have gotten gunpowder, it makes sense it plays a big role in your army. You have access to a ton of gunpowder units and artillery to blast the enemy apart. You also got some elite crossbow to play around with.
- Air Power: With your Longma, War Balloons and your Dragons you will be decently scary in the air. You won't be fast, and any opposing faction with decent air cavalry will likely threaten you, but you have some potent options.
- Harmony: Cathay has a solid combination of units that work together well in concert.
- Defensive: Cathay is built to last. Between your faction mechanics and selection of magical lores, Grand Cathay is built to hold the line. If you crave a faction with a strong, staunch line of spears to keep your enemies at bay, Cathay's going to be the faction for you.
Cons
- Synergy: Due to the way Harmony works, so will most likely NEED to keep units close to each other, otherwise individual units will underperform. As such, you will likely be locked into turtling in order to get your units close enough to get the buffs they might need in order to perform efficiently. On their own, most units will likely suffer against similar units of other factions.
- Slow: From what is known and has been shown, Cathay won't be winning many foot races compared to other factions. Though seemingly not as plodding as the dwarfs or lizardmen, you don't seem to have much in the way of cavalry and your war balloons will be pretty susceptible to air cav and missile fire.
- Limited Cavalry: Seems like you will be the worst Cav faction of all the non Chaos human factions. The Jade Warrior Cav will probably be on the same level as Empire Knights and flying cavalry like Longma Riders generally don't do well in this game, so you will likely struggle to outmatch other cav heavy factions in that regard.
- AoE Susceptible: A core mechanic of Cathay units is that they gain bonuses when in close proximity with each other. While this can be great for holding the line, it also makes your forces more vulnerable to vortex or wind spells. You'll have to keep an eye out for enemy wizards.
- DLC: There are three guarantees in life. Death, Taxes, and Core Races getting units withheld for DLC. There is already a notable lack of monkey in the Cathay roster. Sorry Cathay, don't expect to be different. (Though in this case, I guess it's less "units being held back" and more "CA and GW making up more shit later.")
Faction traits
- Harmony: A trait all non-character Cathay units share. Melee units are marked as "Yang", while ranged units are marked as "Yin"; these units gain bonuses when near a unit of the opposite type: melee Yang units gain melee defence and leadership, while ranged Yin units gain faster reload speed. Characters increase these bonuses for nearby units.
- Master of the Elemental Winds: A trait shared by all Cathayan spellcasters, which enhances their spells for each spellcaster present in the army. This encourages taking multiple spellcasters, something not usually done in other factions.
Lords
We finally got the names of the two legendary lords, and they turn out to be new characters. The children of the Dragon Emperor and the Moon Empress, they rule in his stead over the various provinces of Cathay.
Legendary Lords
- Zhao Ming, the Iron Dragon, ruler of the Western Provinces and Lord of Shang-Yang: Son of the Dragon Emperor, and a mama's boy. His faction is stated to focus on and specialize in Alchemists and Astronomers. Can transform between human form where he can use spells and a big dragon to melee it up in battle.
He will be able to use a hybrid of Metal and Yang magic. He also has the Ward of Iron ability, a bound buff he can use to make a unit much harder to kill.
- Miao Ying, the Storm Dragon, ruler of the Northern Provinces and Commander of the Great Bastion.: Daughter of the Dragon Emperor. Miss Cold and Aloof. She is in the north and is daddies favourite. Can transform between human form where she can use spells and a big dragon to melee it up in battle.
She will be able to use a hybrid of Life and Yin Magic. She also has the Disdain of Dragons ability, although what that is has yet has not been revealed.
Lords
- Dragon Blooded Shugengan Lord: Descended from when a human pulled a Donkey from Shrek with Cathay's rulers. Your Mage lord, they come with the lores of Yang or Yin and their mounts are Warhorse or Jade Longma for extra mobility.
- Lord Magistrate: Your cheap normal frontline general. His lone gimmick is being able to further improve the harmony mechanic of his army, so extra incentive to form up in a sexy turtle. His mounts are Warhorse or Sky Lantern.
Legendary Heroes
Generic Heroes
- Alchemist: Mages who fight with vials and magic that looks like Chinese calligraphy. Lore of Metal user with some extra (probably bound) buffs to armour or attack. Can mount a warhorse.
- Astronomer: Your lore of heavens caster. His mounts are a Warhorse for mobility or a Wu Xing War Compass which seems as though it will boost his magic output considerably.
Units
Infantry
- Peasant Long Spearmen: Your early chaff unit. Literally expected to run away. Treat them as human skavenslaves. Considering that your army core is meant to stand still and hold ground (getting better the longer they stand still without moving), you're probably meant to send the spearmen forward first to take missile fire while you position your Jade and Dragon Guard behind them.
- Jade Warriors: Your mid-tier unit and your bread and butter until you can afford Celestial Dragon Guard. Have a unique mechanic where the longer they sit still and brace, the more bonuses they get. Make the Dragon Empire into the Turtle Empire with these guys. Come in sword and board and halberd variants.
- Celestial Dragon Guard: Jade Warriors on steroids. Everything you can do I can do better. The only difference presumably being price tag and tier, so your end game army stack.
Missiles
- Peasant Archers: Like your peasant infantry, but with a bow and arrow. Cheap and expendable, potentially valuable if you need a relatively disposable unit to help provide a small amount of ranged support where needed. Said to not have any AP at all, so probably only good against the undead or other unarmored chaff.
- Jade Warrior Crossbowmen: Jade Warriors with crossbows (in case you couldn't have told from their name). Armoured and with a shielded variant, they will most likely sit in-between Empire Crossbowmen and Dwarf Quarrelers in terms of durability and power; if they still have the same "hunker-down" ability as regular JW, you'll probably want to move them in position behind Long Spears and refrain from moving them to keep those bonuses.
- Celestial Warrior Crossbowmen: Jade Warriors on steroids, once again. Shielded, heavily armoured and with armour-piercing bolts, they look poised to be one of the top-tier missile infantry units in the game, although probably quite expensive.
- Iron Hail Gunners: A living version of the Zombie Handcannons from the Pirate coast. Use them mainly for flanking, although with the Harmony system, being able to keep them closer to your melee troops whilst flanking will apparently make them into machinegunning shotgunners. Evidently, massacre armoured infantry with their high-AP shots.
- Crane Gunners: Human Skaven Jezzails. Much like their rat counterparts, these gunners excel at long-ranged sniping with their second-only-to-artillery range and will likely form a core part of your backline while you make the enemy come to you. They come with shields, which should give them some missile resistance to weather counter-fire and kill those jezzails.
Cavalry
- Peasant Horseman: The fastest thing in your army that can't fly. Also a complete oxymoron as horses were very expensive back in the day and peasants would absolutely not be able to afford one, and Brettonia has the excuse of being more horse crazy than a Brony from 2012 but whatever. Probably not worth getting unless you are desperate for cavalry. Low leadership and low attack. Use them to screen for low tier enemy missile units or artillery.
- Jade Lancers: Jade warriors on horseback. More defensive than other factions cavalry. More suited defending your flank than running in to attack the enemy.
- Great Jade Longma Riders: Your versions of pegasus knights, except instead of a rich noble who sneers at peasants, you get a rich noble whose great-great-great-grandad got busy with a dragon. Also possibly comes with Fear, possibly making them an expensive option to spook away and chase routing units.
Chariots
- Wu-Xing War Compass: A big ol' magical battery with a bunch of bound spells. How useful those spells are will have to be seen at release. Apparently also ok in melee as a chariot.
Monsters
- Terracotta Sentinel: Take the standard Terracotta soldier from China, make it really big and teach it kung fu and you have this thing. Possible doomstack material.
Artillery & Air Units
- Grand Cannon: Pulled by oxen apparently making it more mobile, your normal cannon unit.
- Fire Rain Rocket: Imagine a hellstorm rocket battery that fires even faster due to the Harmony mechanic. Terrifying. Aim for big blobs of enemies and watch as they become chunky salsa.
- Kongming Sky Lantern: The smaller of the two airship units with Crane Gunners. It provides a morale boost to your infantry and grants vision on units that are hiding in foliage, which can help thwart ambushes. It can also fire while moving and line of sight isn't much of a problem, so use them like you would flying War Wagons. It's slow as balls though, so any decent flying unit that gets its hands on it will be able to tear it to pieces.
- Kongming Sky-junks: The heavier of the two airship units with some form of rocket launcher or cannon. Can also drop bombs gyrocoptor style, and has high armour against missile units. It is slow as fuck and will be pretty much useless once it runs out of ammo, but it will hopefully do some devastating damage before that happens.
Multiplayer Strategies
You are what happens when the Empire, Dwarfs, Tomb Kings and Skaven all have the world's weirdest foursome and have a baby. Your themes revolve around plentiful, expendable infantry and strong missiles working in unison to bunker down an area and blast anything that comes at you straight to hell. Harmony is a double edge sword, as while it encourages you to pair units together and builds buffs, it also means units on their own aren't reaching their full potential. This is a quantity over quality faction with limited offensive options, as the closest thing you have to offensive infantry is sword and board Jade Warriors, and while they have cavalry, they're slow and limited compared to other factions. Of course, we need to wait for the game to come out to see how you play in multiplayer, but you seem well equipped to win glory for the Dragon Emperor.
- Dwarfs: Ok, I know the game isn't out yet but I don't think we need to wait until release to know that this matchup is going to SUUUUUUCK! This will likely be for the same reason the Vampirates are bad in this matchup, they do your main tactic better than you do. They have a wider assortment of guns and artillery and great ways to kill your cav. Meaning you will need to play offence against the Dwarfs which isn't great as you have no armour-piercing infantry that isn't bonus versus large. A decent theory tactic is to invest in Crane Gunners, as they will likely do great for the same reason Jezzails do, sniping. Use them to shoot down Gyrocopters to clear the skies and give your lanterns the ability to shoot from afar without being shot down. Jade Warriors with shields will likely by your best infantry bet as they might be able to survive salvos as they hold against the dwarven line. In terms of how to break the line, try spamming Fire Rain Rockets, as they can clear infantry well as the Helstorm can. Don't bother with either dragon siblings, they will get shot to pieces as dragons and their magic won't be to effective against the Grudge Gnomes.
- Grand Cathay:
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