"But certainly padding out the fringes around Cathay, there's plenty to come in the future there."
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"When going further afield and into the stuff that hasn't been developed by Games Workshop until now we never say never, but when it comes to Nippon and Ind, that's not on the radar at the moment," Roxburgh tells me. To the south, past the realm of the troublesome Monkey King, are the equally under-documented Kingdoms of Ind, where cat-faced beings and tiger-headed Beastmen are said to dwell amidst wealthy human cities. Just to the east across the sea is Nippon, Warhammer's axiomatic equivalent to Japan. Upon launch, the campaign will focus on the northern and western regions of Cathay, governed by Miao Ying and Zhao Ming respectively, but the empire-the biggest in Warhammer-is surrounded by intriguing unstoried territories. In adding Cathay to the game, Creative Assembly opens us up to a vast and previously unexplored part of the Warhammer map.
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The Cathay are a great faction, particularly for newer players or those familiar with the Empire roster.
ARMY OF TWO PC SERIES
They couldn't, however, confirm whether this deeper town-planning will get retrofitted to the cities of existing series factions when they all come together for the final Mortal Empires campaign. As the Pink Horrors-Tzeentch's rather cute and expendable Boglin lookalikes-scamper through streets, they're picked off from the upper tiers of the city by cannon fire, while in other parts the attackers are redirected towards ambush points by buildable barricades.Īnd while the Minas Tirith-like layers of the Grand Bastion may be unique to Cathay, the developers tell me that all the factions in the game will benefit from the new siege mechanics and city designs. This new approach makes the part of the battle after a city's walls have been breached more strategic than ever before. The Grand Bastion, a towering fortress built by Cathay to keep the forces of Chaos at bay, is a beautiful showcase of the more layered, vertical city design in Total War: Warhammer 3. Zhao Ming, meanwhile, transforms into a serpentine dragon, shooing away the Doom Knights descending on Cathay's deadly but fragile Sky Lanterns and Sky Junks. Once the Tzeentch breach the walls, I witness Miao Ying chew up a battalion of crab-clawed Forsaken using the Talons of Night-a vortex spell that summons giant scaled claws from the ground to stun enemies into oblivion.Ĭathay starts to offer some aerial resistance, too, as squads of Crane Gunners-rocket-launcher snipers, essentially-start to pick off the daemons from their distant Sky Lanterns. Not that these dragon-kin are wanting for power in human form. "You're going to lose a bit of Harmony, but you've got a big Dragon on the battlefield-there's a risk-reward strategy to it." "In human form, the Lords have massive Harmony amplifiers, but if you see a greater demon on the battlefield, then you'll probably want to attack it as a dragon," lead writer Andy Hall tells me. When my inner child asks the developers why one wouldn't keep them in dragon form all the time, it once again returns to the theme of Harmony. These two children of the Celestial Dragon Emperor can switch at will in battle between human and dragon form. The clear standouts are the two Legendary Lords, the Storm Dragon and Iron Dragons Miao Ying and Zhao Ming. They make quick work of the peasant troops manning the walls, though I rightly suspect that Cathay has more military tricks up its sleeve than these expendable farmers in sandals, rice hats and headbands. Back on the battlefield, the Tzeentch aerial forces make their move-flying purple stingrays called Screamers and Doom Knights, aerial cavalry that surfs through the skies aboard magically propelled hoverboards.