Editing Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Grand Cathay (section)

==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 [[Games Workshop|evil British overlords]] nonetheless) after years and you want to see what they come up with.

*You're into chinese history and mythology.

*You want to play a defensive gunline but don't want to play as the Totally Not Holy Roman Empire, short vengeful alcoholics, short vengeful alcoholics with funny hats or the bad guys from Pirates of the Caribbean.

*You think it's extremely funny to watch Flamers of Tzeentch, Jezzails, and Artillery pieces nuke themselves when you use Mirror Missile on them.
===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''': Cathay has the largest population of all the human nations, so they have bodies to spare. This is mainly reflected by Cathay's numerous and cost efficient peasant spearmen + archers. Cathay's rank and file infantry more closely resembles the empire in cost and model count.

*'''Range''': As the oldest Human nation to have gotten [[Gunpowder (Warhammer Fantasy)|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 crossbows to play around with. The harmony system ensures that your ranged units have some of the higest reload skill in the entire game, which means... Well, [[Dakka|you shoot a lot.]]

*'''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 ranged and melee units that work together well in concert. Similarly, units can either be Yin or Yang aligned and having the two working together provides you with a bonus.

*'''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.

*'''Magic:''' Cathay is actually able to keep up with the best of them when it comes to magic. Sure, you don't have the variety that High Elves or Empire have but with 4 lores you do have the most of the game 3 factions. Plus, with Mastery of the Elemental Winds, your spells do more damage the more mages you have in your army. Especially in campaign, Miao and Zhao can carry the army with their spells alone.
===Cons===
*'''Synergy''': Due to the way Harmony works, you will 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, your units actually have ''lower'' stats than their equivalent in other armies, only getting better when properly buffed.

*'''Slow''': Cathay won't be winning many foot races compared to other factions. Though not as plodding as nurgle or dwarfs, you don't have much in the way of cavalry and your war balloons are pretty susceptible to air cav and missile fire.

*'''Subpar Cavalry''': With Nurgle getting Chaos Knights and Marauder Horsemen in the Champions of Chaos DLC, you now have the worst cavalry of all the Warhammer 3 factions. Jade Lancers are on equal footing with Empire Knights, which doesn't seem bad until you realizes that your second best cavalry option is roughly on par with another faction's weakest heavy cav that tend to get flattened by more elite options. Peasant Horsemen are similar to Mounted Yeomen and while Longma aren't bad they are expensive while not having AP or anti large. Could be worse, you at least ''have'' cavalry, but most factions will out match you with their riders.

*'''Limited Skirmishers''': No vanguard deployment, stalk, or cheap fast movers other than peasant horsemen and ROR archers. Cathay sucks at harrying broken units off the map and hunting enemy skirmishers + war machines.

*'''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.

*'''No Melee Expert Non-Legendary Lords or Heroes''': None of your non-LL and Heroes are really that good in melee combat or can serve as a tank. I know what you're thinking "But the Dragon Siblings!" but they won't be leading all your armies in campaign and they are expensive in multiplayer. 3 out of 4 of your Lords and Heroes are Mages and the one that isn't, the Lord Magistrate, is a support buffing character rather than a melee duelist or a tank. Shugengan lords are stated to be decent in melee but trust me, that's only by Mage Lord standards. You won't have many characters that can be safely thrown into melee combat. Concept art was found for a "Gate Master" hero, which will likely serve as the Cathayan equivalent of the Empire Captain or High Elf Noble, so this issue will probably be fixed with DLC.

*'''Empty Campaign''': Cathay is MASSIVE in Immortal Empires with the addition of the Grand Canal and southern provinces that didn't exist in the Realm of Chaos campaign. While CA tried to spice the place up by moving Lokhir, Sniktch, and Nakai and adding NPC skaven/greenskin/vampire factions to the area, both Miao Ying and Zhao Ming face little resistance to expansion and can quickly snowball into economic juggernauts. Hopefully we get DLC for the Monkey King or Jade blooded vampires or Snakemen of Khuresh to give them more of a challenge.

*'''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.")
**Note that we can generally predict 2-3 lord packs for Cathay. In Mythology china gave each of the 4 cardinal direction's there own set of associations, beast, element, god so on, and with two lords already claiming two of those directions, 2 more for the other two compass points and a possible 5th for the center seems likely.