One of the most exciting revelations in the recent Total War: Warhammer 3 announcement trailer was that Grand Cathay, the Warhammer world’s analogue of China, would be a launch race in the upcoming strategy game.
This is a big deal. Cathay has existed in Warhammer since at least 1984, when it was mentioned in the lore book for the tabletop game’s second edition, and in the almost 30 years since a steady trickle of further details has accumulated to give a decent sense of its armies and its culture, as we’ll discover. But despite this, Grand Cathay – canonically the largest human nation in the world – has never had an official army book. Even official depictions of the nation or its troops have been amazingly rare.
This means that Cathay’s appearance in Warhammer 3 is, for all intents and purposes, its debut as a fully realised army. It’s amazing that that’s happening in a third party’s game, and speaks to the trust that Warhammer creator Games Workshop has placed in Total War developer Creative Assembly.
Yes, Cathay will be a launch race for Total War: Warhammer III. This is confirmed in the announcement accompanying the reveal trailer, which also teases Cathay’s appearance at the very end, when the series’ mysterious adviser leans over a map of the eastern empire.
What do we know about Cathay now?
The Warhammer world is an analogue of our own – in lore, the godlike aliens who created our planet also made Warhammer’s, and had a pattern they favoured. Hence you get archaic names for real places, like Albion for Britain or Nippon for Japan, cropping up from time to time. Grand Cathay, Warhammer’s equivalent of China, has been mentioned in its various books of lore and rules since at least 1984 and fleshed out over the years since.
While there’s been plenty of speculation fuel over the years for Cathay’s troops and monsters, we’re at a bit of a loss when it comes to special characters who could become its Legendary Lords. A few of the nation’s Dragon Emperors have been named, including one Pu-Yi, who is said to have been in power when Hobgobla Khan attacked.
Total War: Warhammer 3 Cathay units and army roster
As Warhammer 3 is yet to release, we’re not sure exactly what Cathay’s army will look like. However, Cathay has been a presence in Warhammer Fantasy lore for many years now, with little mentions here and there of the mysterious land in the east and the mighty armies of its Dragon Emperor, all revealing more than you might suppose at this stage of development about what the eventual roster will look like. Let’s run through them.
As you might guess from ‘celestial’ being one of Cathay’s favourite adjectives, Astromancy is among its most important schools of magic. Some even suspect an ancient coven of especially powerful astromancers of summoning the massive warpstone asteroid that crashed into the ogres’ homeland, leaving a toothed, living crater known as the Great Maw.
The human armies of Grand Cathay are said to be populous and highly disciplined. Occasional mentions of specific troops include the Bannermen who comprise the bulk of Cathay’s armies – expect them to be your core troops and come with the usual range of equipment options, such as long curved swords, polearms, and crossbows (perhaps repeating ones). Elites may include the Dragon Emperor’s bodyguard, the Palace Guard. Expect lots of lovely lacquered armour.
