Games Workshop have unleashed the new FAQ on the Old World and I'm here to break it down for you. Here's the top line summary for you in 6 bullet points:
- Cathay nerfs: Good for everyone who plays the game.
- Clarifications on "weird" interactions: Good for everyone who plays the game.
- Promised Updates for those without the Westerlands Arcane Journal: Great.
- Slight Wood Elf Points Changes: Welcome changes in my opinion.
- Empire Leadership Changes: Means some options are now actually viable to take with a Lv3/4 wizards, which they weren't before.
- An effort to shift Beastmen into melee not just magic: Fun, considering they have two Armies of Infamy for what appears to be this very reason.
Let's just get this little bit out of the way - this is an FAQ with lots of change, more than I expected - but there isn't much here which I feel negatively effects the game. Anyway, lets try and break this down a little bit. Falcon: Unfortunately, while the majority of the changes are positive, I think many hardcore fans of the game were expecting much more to be done and outside of Lanterns and Doomseekers (which weren't that insane a problem except in weird comps) it feels very light.
Grand Cathay
Let's start with the headline acts, shall we? I really enjoyed playing Cathay on release, but it very quickly became apparent that they were too good and as a result I haven't had them on the table, outside of players requesting to specifically play against them, since early September. I've already arranged a game for tomorrow evening with them to try these out so these are my initial takes and what it means for Cathay. Falcon: I have been in the same boat. I loved the models but after the last big FAQ Cathay was just way too strong without significant comping. While I do believe the Lantern changes here were too light, it at least makes them less of a game-changer and I hope comps will consider letting folks take 3 (or even 4 but that might be crazy) of them going forward.
Cathay has had a fair few changes!
First up, the Cathayan Warhorse has lost First Charge, which is big. The regular Jade Lancer warhorses do not come with First Charge, so the option of taking a cheap character to slip into the unit to provide this buff, while not a dominant strategy, was a nice to have. I’d been taking characters in Lancer units to get this benefit, which is a shame. It now means you’re going to have to look to the Jade Fleet’s mercenary Empire characters selection to gain this bonus. I’m not against this change long term, just means I now have to take one and I’m locked to Jade Fleet if I want to run the Bus List.
Second, and most importantly, the Sky Lanterns got so much stripped from them it’s effectively a different unit. Now, this isn’t a throwing the toys out of the pram situation; I don't believe GW went that far (Falcon: Honestly, they probably didn't go far enough). T4 is the big change; it means a lot of things like small arms fire are now going to get through an additional 50% of the time which is more than reasonable given its insane wound value and points. This is a good change and it still comes out as one of, if not the, most survivable chariots in the game. In addition, its champion option is now gone so players will no longer be able to abuse the challenge rule to negate incoming damage in combat. In addition, the Disengage rule has neem amended and the Unbreakable rule being removed. In effect, you now can always try and run down the lantern, and it's easier to keep in combat. Disengage now reads that the Lantern must roll Give Ground for it's break test in order for you to use the rule, as it's previously insane unbreakable feature just made it automatic.
The other three changes to the Lantern are that the bombing run is now once per game (not once per normal move); they have become Flammable, much to the chagrin of Regen-sword wielding Magistrates; and the Dragon Fire Bombs are now S3 instead of S4. This removes an absolute ton of offensive output as the Sky Lantern bomb table was so potent it often wiped out entire units in a single roll, let alone being able to repeat it throughout the game and sometimes multiple times a turn with Battle Magic. It’s weird, but I think lanterns are now some kind of hybrid light cavalry/chariot unit where you just deny combat to your opponents and that’s fun to play with, as a mental challenge when playing as Cathay. Falcon: It's wild to think that the Sky Lantern sees seven different nerfs in this FAQ and is still the best chariot in the game hands down. Depending on how TOs react to the FAQ I think Lanterns are now more suited to evasion playstyles, abusing reserve move and probably running the cheaper crane guns more often than not. There is still a place for them to act as roadblocks for the rest of your list given their massive wound profile but the ease of aggression they once had is gone, holding up dragons and dedicated combat units is now a late game play instead of whenever you choose.
Ogre Loaders are next and the changes are more than welcome. While its functionality doesn’t change, it’s now clear how to play it. It still does all it did before from a shooting perspective but it’s now just another member of the unit, bought as an upgrade, and isn’t a character/champion. When combined with the other FAQ update on how extra crew upgrades impact war machines it means the ogre now can’t hold up enemy characters in combat and they lose the weird interactions when the cannon is targeted in the shooting phase (no more splitting wounds, or having single Ogre Loaders wandering around the board holding up points) which is great for everyone who’s ever been annoyed by that.
Cathay also sees a host of changes to magic items. All of the Cathayan Bound Items have been reduced to Power Level 1, overall I’m very supportive of this but do wish the Alchemist's Mask was Power Level 2, just because it now requires a hard 8 to cast on 2 dice and that feels a little harsh. It’s also worth noting that the Ring of Jet has lost its extremely common status in a change every single person who’s ever played against them has been dying for. Falcon: The Alchemist's Mask change is probably a bit overkill but the rest are welcome. The Ring of Jet is still eminently usable at power level 1. Interesting that the Jade Sentinel is still able to cast their Bound Spell at a level 3, but honestly it is a pretty hefty unused model so whatever.
The Icon of Heavenly Fury has seen a points increase (to 45) and now works like all the other anti-fly tech out there, requiring a successful leadership test to function, which is great and brings it into line. You’ve still got a really good Leadership and it’ll still go off more than not (Falcon: I honestly am unsure this will ever see play any longer without a unit with veterans that can wield it). The Standard of Wei-Jin has been increased in points, which is wild as I haven’t seen it used on the table once in the last 6 months, so god knows who at GWHQ was ruining hobbies with it but here we are. The Maw Shard went up, which is OK, but I’m still not sold on it being amazing given how weak magic is these days, but if you’re in a magic heavy meta (Falcon: Like if Beastmen and VC are your primary baddies which they definitely are now) you’re still taking it either way, no matter the cost. The Seal of Xing Po has also increase in points, which again, is another item I’ve ever seen on the table, but whatever, doesn’t effect anyone if that’s the case. Falcon: It feels like they are only half paying attention to what is going on in the game when they hit magic items like the Seal of Xing Po and Standard of Wei-Jin, or that they meant to hit a different item and got confused as neither of these pieces could or should impact the game.
We’ve also had clarifications for how Ambush Modifier stacking works in regard to Sky Lanterns, i.e. it doesn’t anymore. I think having lots of bonuses was a little bit of a pain in the neck and made things too reliable compared to everyone else's ambushing. What it does mean is that you can’t be 96% sure your unit is turning up on Turn 2 now. Along with that clarification, we’ve found out that the Grand Cannon's -1M doesn’t stack (Falcon: which is how everyone played it unless your TO was a sociopath) and that the Mastery of the Elemental Winds is once per army per turn rather than wizard. With the newly previewed box set expected in Q3, it might be a good thing if the Astromancers have this rule once that’s released.
Cathay are still going to be a good army with these changes but they aren’t going to require you to just turn up, roll dice and turn off your brain anymore, which is what it sometimes felt like. I can’t wait to get them on the table and really try them out and see how it all works now and plays together. Falcon: Competitively this is a pretty big shift for Cathay in the short term. If comps continue to limit you to running 2 lanterns after these changes I believe this will firmly bump the faction below the best Vampire Counts and perhaps even Beastmen lists after all is said and done, though those games will be competitive. The much needed nerfs to dragonfire and bombing runs really hinders Cathay's ability to manage hordes. That said cannons, Miao Ying, and Shugengans are all still incredibly powerful pieces in their own right and lanterns are still a menace.
Rulebook FAQ/Errata
GW chose to make a large number of minor changes here, though they still haven't addressed the elephants in the room at the core game level.
Firstly, Frenzy doesn’t transfer to a mount. We knew that already but clarification was apparently needed. Falcon: That they didn't walk back the Frenzy changes entirely is definitely a choice. I don't know anyone that liked the last FAQ adjustment. Poisoned Attacks has also had its wording amended because some people somehow read it as, weirdly, stacking, but it’s on that specific hit so there we go. Additionally, Stupidity has been slightly amended to mean they aren’t stupid enough to know not to flee and it’s been cleared up that Regeneration can’t be used to prevent unstable wounds being lost which had become an argument that was a bane to competitive play.
Ballistic Skill shooting gets a small buff, with Woodland boundaries being amended so that you no longer get -1 to be hit for the entire unit just by touch a forest, that least 50% of your unit needs to be inside, which as sorry as I am to see go, is probably better for the game as whole.
The change to make Baggage Trains impassible for movement now prevents anyone's Dragon from dying by landing on top of it (it can’t), but it does mean that you can now block yourself in easier when trying to prevent yourself being locked in the following turn by the enemy when killing their baggage train. Also, anyone with a gunline army is going to be able to deploy it in a position where it just protects their core big shooting unit a lot, though, and we'll all need backup plan to prevent that from being a giant pain in the neck for the next 6 months. We’ve also gotten clarifications to map sizes in the Battle March section of the War of Settra’s Fury Arcane Journal.
Press of Battle has been toned down slightly, in that the nearest models are always killed first which wasn’t the case when the change initially went into effect. In its original iteration models killed in combat were just removed from the 'fighting rank', which happened to be 2 models deep, meaning multiple attack models could still get all of their attacks in if the 2nd rank died first. This only effects models with more than 1 attack when charged, but it’s a slight downgrade for those (Falcon: Here's looking at you Gors). In addition we now know (again) to count the ranks of the majority of models when mixing types of models in a unit. This is helpful for Light Chariots joining an infantry unit for example.
Elsewhere we’ve also leant that a model has to make all it’s attacks, you can't choose to hold back so that your dragon gets to participate in a challenge, which I felt was pretty clear but yeah, I guess it wasn't for someone.
One big clarification that will shake up some comps is that impact hits and stomps can’t pick out unit champions. It was always a little 50:50 if they could, due to them being attacks, but then not being attacks but still working like attacks and the wording of champions versus actual characters. Either way, that debate is now gone and it’s 100% clear they can’t be targeted by these, in the same way characters can’t so long as the unit contains more than 5 rank and file duders. Timmm-berrr! now effects combat resolution as well, so if you lose your big lad, really hope it falls on the enemy and not your own troops (Falcon: Maybe I should bring the Manglers back out of retirement).
We’ve had some big changes to the way the Press of Battle works with characters and not being able to fit them into the fighting rank, in effect if they can’t fit into the first rank of the unit (not the first two post press of battle change) they’re pushed to the back and can’t join a none-front fighting rank. This means you can no longer hide characters in the 2nd “fighting rank” and gain benefits of them or theoretically use movement shenanigans to push them into the second rank anyway, though I'm sure someone will figure out yet another way to abuse the Icon of Rakaph to do it anyway. I’ll be putting my Renegade Crowns army back in the box for the foreseeable, with this in mind I expect.
As previously mentioned, we now know what happens to additional models added to a Warmachine when the machine is destroyed, they all just go up a puff of smoke, and I’m OK with that. It’s my pet peeve when I don’t know what to do with something, I’m OK with something being too good or too bad, as long as I know how it works, when I don’t though, just annoying. We’ve also had a little clarification that army special rules don’t work for allies (clearly) and around how army selection and objective holdings work in specific circumstances.
Falcon: Possibly the biggest change to competitive list design abuse comes in adjustments to the Matched Play Guide. Units that a listed as a 1+ entry for their respective factions are no longer limited by their army composition type, meaning they can be spammed as much as you like. I cannot wait to play against 9 Paladins in a list or a billion individual chariots.
Ravening Hordes
There isn’t loads here, but we have a few things which are worth reading over and looking at. First off, we have a Black Orc change out of left field where they’ve made it so their effect isn’t automatic when quelling impetuosity. Falcon: This change feels phoned in given how many other far more pressing issues there are in the game. Nerfing Quell to be just a reroll seems kind of dumb to be honest, especially when many Orc lists have dropped Black Orcs completely anyway. Chaos Spawns (the little ones) have gained a whole 6” of movement over the course of a 2.5-3h game of Warhammer (their movement characteristic has been bumped to 2d6 + 1), which is yay I guess? Minotaurs and Centigors have both come down slightly in points, but neither makes a massive difference to their playability, while in exchange for that Viletide went up to a 9+ to cast which is one of most impactful changes I expect we’ll see. This means you need to now use your WildHerd rules in conjunction with the Herdstone to cast it on slightly below average dice (Falcon: This is a welcome change, but honestly Viletide's power in conjunction with Beastmen magic item access should equate to it being a base 10 to cast, still I'll take 9 over nothing).
For Tomb Kings, Skeleton Chariots got an additional pip of armour save (yay) while the Armour of the Ages can no longer be taken by a dragon riding King, which is something everyone not playing Tomb Kings will be happy about. Tomb Guard Chariots joined their less fancy brothers in getting a small points reduction as well and I expect that to increase the amount of them I see on the table by zero.
I’ve got a bunch more rebasing to do with my Marauder Tribe Chieftains and Marauder Beserkers both going up to 30x30 bases, totally expected given the recent updates in the Razing of the Westerlands, but just annoying that it’s more to do.
In the FAQ section, we have an update about Hostile Terrain from units like Dwarven Sappers and how they interact with fanatics. Essentially, Fanatics do not treat hostile terrain as regular terrain (so they don't just die by being near a sapper), and instead roll for dangerous terrain like a normal unit. Additionally, our pal Ogdruz from the Orc Arcane Journal gets to mix and match his spells from both of his lores using his lore familiar, which is a great buff. Troll Hags with magic weapons do not get to apply magical attacks to their hugs, which makes sense and Beastmen aren’t allowed to have multiple Herdstones if you ally them with themselves. We’ve also got answers to the Plague Chalice/Dark Coven interaction and unsurprisingly, you take lots of damage everywhere. Finally we have an answer about resurrecting skirmishers as it doesn’t easily fit in the standard rules for them (resurrected skirmishers simply must be placed in coherency with other skirmishers) and I can’t wait to see someone abuse this within a few weeks and have skeletons teleport miles across the board on a resurrection of 10+ models to make charges they couldn’t before (Falcon: We've seen this before with 40k and Necrons and I think the bigger case use here will be for these shitty skeletons or ghouls to hop onto objectives they have no right to be near).
Forces of Fantasy
Similar to the Ravening Hordes, we haven’t got lots of changes but still some worth looking over. Rangers are now capped at 5-20 models not 5+. Good. They’re a scouting force, not an army. We’ve had a load of Leadership values increase across Empire Characters, better allowing Sigmar's and Ulric’s emissaries to be your army general AND to more accurately beseech their gods in prayer. We’ve also got a welcome change to Flagellants, making them T4 and able to hold an enemy in place for longer than they previously could, meaning they’re getting close to actually working as intended (but not there yet).
Over in Bretonnia, Polearms have had a slight upgrade so that they can fight in extra ranks when using the single handed version. Battle Pilgrims have gone down in points as well but also now have a unit size cap. The biggest change here is the Royal Pegasus is now considered a Monstrous Creature and not Monstrous Cavalry, meaning it loses a lot of its previous value (though it is far from unplayable, just different). It's not a Light Griffon rather than the all powerful, do everything beast it was which could join units, hide near units, have a 2+ save, benefit from effects of units, be a 360 missile of doom, and so on.
Within the borders of Bretonnia, but now deep into the woods we have the elves that time forgot with a host of minor points changes. These might give your average list another 40-60 points over a 2000pt spread and still have the same models. Definitely not enough to make a major difference to them and their performance, but it’s better than a poke in the eyes with a sharp stick, that’s for sure. In addition, Glade Riders can now be taken in 4+ strong units meaning slightly less investment has to be made for small redirecting units and Dryads and their Nymph get a bump to Movement 6 and Armour Bane (1) as boosts to their profile which starts to move them into the playable objective holder range.
If we've learned anything from past FAQs it is that no one on the Old World team likes Dwarves to have nice things. Massive changes see Doomseekers lose the character keyword and gain skirmishing, meaning I can’t hide them near units anymore so I full expect a lot of their usefulness to go away overnight. Falcon: This change is absolutely insane. While the Slayer Host list was cute and potentially deadly in the right comps it had MASSIVE holes. If GW wished to tone it down there were probably a hundred other ways they could have adjusted it without effectively deleting a datasheet out of existence.
In Empire land, General Hans von Lowenhacke joins the rest of the Empire characters with a timely Ld boost to 10. In addition, Von Trickschotte’s Wondrous Arquebus now fires magical bullets at your foes which was clearly an oversight in the arcane journal. The Outcast Wizard has also gained a base size which can flex, meaning it doesn’t look weird when taking them in Renegade Crown lists where the base size didn’t match up and it occasionally looked weird on the table.
Credit - @gastos_rhor on instagram
Travelling back over to Athel Loren, the FAQ sees changes to the Wood Elf Arcane Journal with Orion losing Fear (he already causes Terror) and the Spectral Hounds once again helping to protect Orion from enemy fire. Now, so long as at least 1 Hound is alive, Orion cannot be hit with shooting attacks, effectively making our favorite Avatar of the Wild immune to everything that isn't a magic missile. Araloth has also had his points reduced to 150 for those who want a pretty average Wood Elf Lord with no flexibility and shitty boring rules.
The Master Rune of Hesitation gets a few questions answered here, where we’re just making sure that the Dwarfs, who have paid for the banner, get the most benefit from it, nothing else really. We’ve also had a couple of questions about ‘Dug In’ answered in terms of what causes it to go away (apparently nothing) without the most pressing one being done (like when can it be used as it is currently just all the time with no downside, and how LLO’s actually work which currently stands as insanely well) and clarifications on questions about the Slayer Hosts with Doomseekers (linking to the earlier question) and the Goblin Hewer being answered. Falcon: Most notably, the Goblin Hewer does nothing as they have errata'ed an ability it does not technically have (it is mislabeled in the FAQ) to simply be worse than] what the rules say it does (only 1d3 wounds regardless of the size of the unit being targeted). I sincerely believe someone got shot with a Goblin Hewer 20 years ago during the first Storm of Chaos and their mom died so we have to deal with it never being seen on the table again.
The Laurels of Victory don’t work on a Stand & Shoot reaction (which I find odd) and we’ve had a little more clarification on how the Lance formation works, changing a previous answer to a question. In addition, to expand on what we’ve been told previously elsewhere, additional dice aren’t part of the charge roll and therefore don’t benefit from rules which affect the charge roll. Apparently a Wood Elf Wild Rider Kindred Noble doesn’t count magical helmets as armour so go wild and use the models you’ve brought with thematic equipment and finally, you’re now allowed to take your Renegades Crown army to doubles events at WHW, which is just positive news all around.
Final Thoughts
So where do we go from here? The January FAQ has hit and I’m really excited. With a few odd exceptions like the casualty removal from an infantry unit I think we’re in a really good place after this FAQ. Cathay have been toned down and fair few instances of me being confused have been cleared up. I’ve been a little down on the Old World over the last 6-8 weeks knowing this was coming and not really wanting to spend time on the game knowing this was coming, but after reading this and taking a little time to digest it I’m really excited to try out this new iteration of Cathay on the table. At the point of writing all this I’ve arranged a game to play against some Wood Elves who’ve also have big points changes, hopefully they all add up to something and we’re all enjoying our hobby a little more over the next 6 months until we get the next one of these in the Summer. I just hope that when they come to do the next one they really look at Low Linear obstacles as they're still causing confusion and maybe look to roll back a couple of changes (Frenzy/Poison?) they've made now the main offenders around those area's aren't causing issues.
Falcon: As for me, I see the FAQ as mostly a let down. There are some really good changes here that I am more than happy to see, but the overall sum of them feel like a real miss. We have been begging for Sky Lantern fixes for months now and this is a really good start, though it shows how insane they were that just about everyone I speak to don't think this was enough. Most of the rest of the changes are very minor and don't address some of the more frustrating elements in the game right now (lackluster Magic phases, skirmishers, and low linear obstacles being the tip of an iceberg). That said, I am still really enjoying my Old World games and of course I'll be diving deep into list design mode now that we know where things stand. I am heartened by the commentary made on Warhammer Community that seemed to indicate we can expect another FAQ in a few months as well (hopefully at least in the summer). I hope to see some of you across the table in the near future.
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