Hello Bunnies!
We have kindly been sent a digital version of the new Arcane Journal, Dawn of The Storm Dragon, for the Old World by Games Workshop. I have had a good read and below are my thought on it.
If, like me, you were surprised that no pictures of Mao Ying were in the Armies of Grand Cathay Journal then you will be pleased to know that is not the case in this one! I found it odd that her rules were in the previous journal but not one picture of her, despite her model being previewed. I suppose the second journal focusing on Grand Cathay also needed a model to go with it on release and as no further Cathay models are currently inbound GW decided to make this journal very Mao Ying focused. The front cover features Mao Ying art and the first picture is of the glorious Mao Ying dragon mini. I am very excited to get her model and I am really looking forward to painting it!! After the model picture we get some very nice art in keeping with the other Arcane Journals and features an art work of Mao Ying on a throne much like the Xen Yang one in the previous journal.
 |
| Picture from Warhammer Community |
The fluff and lore in the Grand Cathay Armies Journal very much focused on what Cathay had done and how they came to be who they are. This one focuses on what Cathay is doing in the current time setting of the Old World and how the Cathay are interacting with the forces of the Old World. There is some good fluff and story here and it explains why Mao Ying has decided to put a fleet together and set sail for the Old World. The ultimate reason being that the Empire of Man is not doing anything much about the Chaos Warriors attacking the northern Empire lands and this poses a threat that Cathay can't sit by and do nothing about. It does also build a little tension with the High Elves as Cathay believe the elves should be the ones helping to protect the Old World but are sat by doing nothing while Chaos gathers strength, so Cathay are stepping in. The story is good and I enjoyed reading it.
Where the journal does fall down a bit is in the next section where it spends a fair few pages explaining that Cathay aren't isolated away from the Old World and in fact are very regular visitors in the form of trading. It does then detail all the roads and trade routes that one can take from the Old World to Cathay. Which I suppose is important in tying Cathay into the Old World but it isn't the most exciting read.
There is art that breaks up the texts in the books and some useful Grand Cathay unit art with some more explanation around symbols used and details that can be found on the transfer sheets of the units.
After this it then details the current fighting that is going on and the reason Cathay have come all the way to the Old World. There is a great map showing where various forces are coming from and going to. Here we see the major threat of Chaos, lead by Frydaal the Chainmaker, coming from the north. The forces of Chaos here also hint a lot at the Wolves of the Sea Army of infamy for the Warriors of Chaos. Coming from the south are the Brayherds, but these are only really briefly mentioned. The forces of the Empire are mention but mostly as a small allied detachment to the forces of Cathay.
This all comes together in 3 missions intended for you to play through the story detailed in the fluff as a small linked campaign. The missions look like fun and would work well for any army. Though playing through a campaign of Cathay vs Chaos warriors does sound like a lot of fun to me! The suggested army sizes are also rather high starting at 2500 and going up to 3500. Though I am sure they would work well with any size army. Some what disappointedly they do not include any of the awesome extras that were added to the game via the Matched Play Guide, such as baggage train or objectives.
 |
| Picture from Warhammer Community |
Other details in the book include terrain generation tables to aid you in creating your battles set in the northern Wastelands and Shadowlands. They have some cool ideas but require you to have a fairly large terrain selection on hand. More likely than rolling I would imagine people might use them as inspiration for creating boards themselves.
Multiplayer battles are given a page for some very small clarifications on how to play them, but really contain nothing ground breaking at all. I would have liked to have seen some senecios here.
Several pages are giving over to model showcases, which do look really good! Some very nice terrain conversions sitting in the backgrounds of these and a big double page spread featuring Mao Ying in dragon form with some Empire state troopers mixed in.
At the back of the book we have the rules. Here we get an army of infamy for the Cathay and some more magical items for Cathay. No new profiles and only the 1 army of infamy.
The army of infamy is the Jade Fleet. Not hugely different from the Grand Army, but access to Sky Lanterns and Sentinels are restricted to the rare slot. The other major change is that you can add in Empire Mercenaries and they don't suffer the 'misbehaving mercenaries' rule. This does feel like a bit of stop gap to fill some of the gaps in the current roster for the Grand Cathay until the next model drop, which is probably over a year or more away. The army does give 4 cool rules to benefit using both together. First up is Cathayan Black Powder, which gives a list of guns and the first time they are used they get to increase range by 3". Next up Mercenary Handgun Drill gives State Missile Troops can fire in an additional rank once per game. Then we have Unity and Harmony which lets some Cathay units re roll 1s in combat if they are within 3" of a friendly mercenary unit. Lastly is War Ballons which lets Sky Lanterns gain Ambushers for +15 points and 0-1 per 1000 points.
I think all of these are great little bonuses to the army, nothing that will dramatically shift a game but also some useful additional rules that play to the fluff surrounding the story.
It does seem a bit a shame that this is the only army included but I suppose they Wolves of the Sea in the Warriors of Chaos book is the army intended to fight against it so including an additional Warriors of Chaos wouldn't make sense. Including another Cathay also wouldn't make much sense as the model range is just currently to small to be able to get much variety into armies of infamy.
Finishing up the book is another selection of magical items for Cathay. This seems close to the release of the others in the Armies of Grand Cathay, especially given some armies have waited 18 months to have access to similar amount as Cathay has gained in quick order but it ultimately brings them inline with all the other armies in terms of quantity of items. I won't break down all the items here but there is some items that look great, some that look interesting, some that look ok, some that look good but don't have an obvious way to actually be used and some that seem very specifically situational. On reading through them a couple times none of them jumped out as immediately better than what is available elsewhere. There is a couple that I do like but would require dropping other items and would need some play testing to get right.
Overall I think the book is good, though only really if you play Cathay or are a collector of journals. Otherwise this adds nothing to anyone not Cathay, I expected more from the multiplayer battles section and if that was bigger and better than it could be useful to more people. If you play Cathay, I would say buy if you don't I would say you won't be missing out on much!
And again I am very excited for Mao Ying's model!!
Happy gaming!
Andy
