The dragon awakens. A new power rises. Formerly cut off by great desert and embattled with forces of Chaos beyond mortal reckoning, the armies of Grand Cathay have marched west to meet with their human brethren in far off lands. Led by Miao Ying, the Storm Dragon, the Cathayans have formed an alliance with the court of Sigmar Heldenhammer and shared their wisdom with the noble leader.
Proponents of order and masters of blackpowder, the Cathayans quickly established themselves as a power in the Old World. But as their armies explored deeper into territories unknown, they stumbled across a city like no other. A city that was no more than a crater with the semblance of ruined buildings jutting out like shrapnel around a gaping wound. A city filled with reward and danger in equal measure. A city calledMordheim.
Nowhere in the official Army Book does it say that a single Grand Cathayan visited the City of the D*mned, but life’s no fun without a little improvising, is it? So, as someone who isn’t dedicated enough to build an entireOld Worldforce (seeing as I don’t play the game itself), I decided to set about creating a Mordheim warband instead.
The Problem With Painting
Have you ever met a painter who doesn’t like painting? No? Well, you clearly haven’t met me. I’ve been aWarhammerplayer for 21 years, over two-thirds of my lifetime. I love building the lil guys, customising kits and converting critters for hours upon hours. But when it comes to slapping paint on a project to finish the job and make it really pop? I’ll procrastinate the project until the very last moment.
I have a pretty clear idea of why this is. I’mquite good at converting. I can sculpt to a decent level, and I’ve got practice making plasticard armour from scratch. But I’m only okay at painting. I live for hobby shortcuts like slapchop and would rather utilise any hobby tool instead of learning to wet blend. There’s a reason Agrax Earthshade is known as liquid talent in my house. As a bit of a perfectionist, I often leave fully-built miniatures because I’m worried I’ll ruin my sculpting with a half-baked paintjob.
It’s pretty obvious, therefore, that I rarely paint a full army, let alone in one go. So, when I was sent the new Grand Cathay Battalion byGames Workshop, I did the only thing that made sense to my skirmish-addled brain. I made a Mordheim warband.
Building An Army Worthy Of Mordheim
Grand Cathay is an interesting faction in The Old World. They have no discernable ranged troops. A couple of cannons are the only ranged weapons available, unless of course you count the barrages from the Sky Lanterns – but seeing as they don’t come in the battalion, I’m discounting them for now. Plus, it’s hard to balance a giant hot air balloon in a game with 10-15 models a side.
What I could do, however, was use the crew of the aforementioned cannons as ranged troops. I quickly decided that fireworks – known as Fire Rain Rockets in the Grand Cathay Army Book – would be my warband’s spicy addition, and found a great resource for customising warbands online.
I followedStyro’s Guide to Creating Custom Mordheim Warbandsto a tee, starting with a standard human warband and tinkering as I went. Basic troops stats are fundamentally similar, but I added an army special rule to represent the balance of Grand Cathay’s lore. Fireworks are just fancy Blunderbusses, and the Heroes are all roughly analogous to similar characters in other lists.
The hardest part of balancing the warband was the custom weapon. It had to be powerful enough to be worth taking, but how much more powerful than a Blunderbuss is a Fire Rain Rocket? And how do you convert that to a points total? Still, I enjoyed coming up with points values and special rules, and I’d love for more seasoned players to look over my choices, offer advice, and potentially even playtest my warband when I’m ready to release the rules.
Converting A Grand Cathayan Mordheim Warband
As much as I enjoyed writing rules for Grand Cathay in Mordheim, this was first and foremost a modelling project for me. I started with the easiest miniatures, the Jade Warriors. I built the squad leader so that he could either be used as a Gate Master or a Jade Warrior, and then built the others with either spears or swords and shields.
Then came the fun part. The cannon crews look more like feudal underlings than the heavily armoured warriors, so they would work for my ranged troops. Easy to differentiate on the tabletop, I gave them some Cities of Sigmar pistols et voila: Marksmen. And Markswomen. Markspeople.
By far the most involved conversion was my Elder, an invention of mine that works as a kind of Cathayan wizard. Here, I took the decrepit old man from the cannon crew and crafted him a bamboo staff out of spare cannon pieces. I’m not sure if his right hand needs changing, but I’m very happy with the staff.
I also spent a full hour placing a miniature pipe between one fella’s millimetre-thick fingers then promptly lost him. Gone completely. Please applaud my dexterity and mourn my loss.
You may notice that I don’t have all my Heroes for this list. I was hoping to get my hands on a pre-release Sky Lanterns for more Regular Cathayan Dudes, but I’ll have to preorder it with everyone else this time around. The two armed with bombs will be my Magistrates and then I’ll work on a Scholar to round out my force.
The Grand Cathay range for Warhammer: The Old World has plenty of room for expression and conversion, especially once you look beyond the rank-and-file troops. The sculpts are full of personality, the perfect blend of old school design philosophy and modern technological improvements. The influence of Chinese mythology is a welcome addition to The Old World on the tabletop and, clearly, to Mordheim’s d*mned streets.
