I don’t see GW bringing back the old world stuff in a “mass battle” style game (their plastic minis are so expensive that they can only sell them for a warband level of game). Long gone are the days of buying 20 figures for £20 (it’s more like £30 for 10 figures these days). So perhaps we might see a old world version of Warcry style of game? Ideally I’d like to see them redo Mordhiem again (just keep the rules to one book however and not do what they did to Necromunda (20+ Rulebooks as we speak)), however they’ve not hinted that’s on the cards (and the maps that have been shown definitely go beyond what you would need for a Mordhiem V2.0 ) 🙁

Not sure we will see it this year mainly because we have not had much news about it. They like to tease these events a bit before the release. It is still possible we might get somethign towards the end of the year but the big rumours are 40K 10th edition in the Summer.

I do believe the game will return to the mass battle system what we have seen from the map and details so far does suggest that. To bring just the game from Fantasy days back as it was will not happen it died off for a reason so I expect a streamline version more akin to the AOS rules today.

I want to say we may see smaller armies but in truth back in the 80’s / 90’s most of us did not have massive armies anyway so I expect the size to be roughtly the same number in scale.

What they have showed us so far is the new designs for Cathay and Kislev so I expect them to be the poster boys for the launch the starter set will include at least one of them.

In terms of the fluff does it need to make sense ? It is a land of magic and choas when did we start enforcing logic into fantasy games above allowing the “what if” to take place. Why would the Empire not fight Cathay ? Alexander the Great end up fighting in India, the portugese and spainish had wars in South America. Why would it be so odd for the Empire or Cathay not to end up in some war ?

Personally I am quite excited by the Old World because it is going to be different. For example it is not Empire as such but they will be seperate city states and they will be fighting each other. Who knows what the Elf or Dwarfs factions will be aligned to at this point. The old history, political make up of the world is not set by what we had in the fantasy world.

I do hope people are going to be open minded to this new game because it is not just going to be a re-creation of the Fantasy Battle system.

I don’t know how long anyone else here has been playing, but I suspect many of you have been playing as long if not longer than I. Cathay was always a part of the Old World lore, as were Araby and Nippon. However they went largely ignored for the most part as the game focused primarily on The Old World – which is a very specific region of the Warhammer World which maps loosely to what we also refer to as the Old World in real life i.e. Central and Western Europe (the “New World” being the lands discovered by exploreres during the rennaisance era). I think it’s interesting that they’re bring Cathay to the table, although I likely won’t play WHtOW I am actually excited to see how they are implemented. In terms of how/why they would be in the game and potentially encountering denizens of the Old World, I don’t think you need to stick to our history. If the Empire can build ocean going vessels capable of crossing vast distances, there’s no reason why you can’t just give Cathay the same ability. Even Bretonnia had such ships, back in the day (in fact if anyone remembers Man O Way, Bretonnian Ships looked much more advanced than their Empire counterparts).

Also, I actually like the Ogre Kingdoms, I think they were one of the better designed warhammer armies.

I am fairly sure that introducing Cathay into Warhammer on tabletop will sell like hot cakes.  When they were announced for total war it caused quite a stir so I reckon people will absolutely be down for it.

As much as I absolutely love medieval Europe based fantasy like Lord of the Rings, that’s not all fantasy is nor is it all fantasy ever was.  Long before LotR Robert E Howard was publishing Conan which explores psuedo historical versions of pretty much all medieval cultures.  Back in the ’90s, the Forgotten Realms setting for D&D had Kara Tur, an Asian themed setting in the East and it had Zakhara, an Arabian themed world to the south.

So fantasy as a genre has always been more than just European in heritage to me at least.  Bringing in Cathay (and who knows, perhaps even Araby later) doesn’t really seem that strange a move, neither in the context of Warhammer specifically or fantasy in general

Why NOT go to Cathay?  Sure they could do Tilea or Estalia but are they really so different to the Empire?  Not if the Tilean Crossbowmen are anything to go by.  They could do Norsca sure but with the amount of Viking fan wankery out there, that would be quite boring really.  So they’re doing Kislev and Cathay, because they’re less often seen depicted in Fantasy games.  And when it arrives, the Old World will be as fleshed out as it needs to be for the game, because if there’s one thing GW can do right (and let’s face it, it’s not rules), it’s come up with a narrative setting.

I’m not really sure what your point is anymore.  The original question was does the new Warhammer the Old World lore make sense and the answer really is, yes it does.  What we seem to be discussing is why you specifically don’t like a specific design decision to potentially include Cathay as a playable faction, which is not really something I can have an objective opinion on – you don’t like it and there’s nothing much anyone can say about that.  But is it even confirmed that Cathay are even coming to the tabletop at launch?  They have been announced as part of Warhammer Total War 3, but I don’t think that’s any guarantee they’re coming to the tabletop as miniatures any time soon.  Most of the artwork they have teased so far, with the exception of Kislev, suggests to me that they’re repackaging old Fantasy Battle miniatures.  The Bretonnian Knights and archers look exactly like the last iteration of plastic kits.  The undead chariot looks exactly like the tomb kings chariot and so on.  So if they are reusing old kits to support this (which really would make sense as there’s very little wrong with those kits), well there are no kits for Cathay and looks as though they’re already bringing one new faction to the game with Kislev.  Maybe they’re planning Cathay but I suspect it will be at a later date, some time after the release.

Have a look out in the big wide world at the number of people who literally cream their pants at the mere hint of anything Viking.  Then you will understand what Viking Fan Wankery is.  It’s the Hordes of people who think vikings were the greatest thing evar or the seemingly endless stream of TV shows and videogames telling stories about vikings.  We don’t need any more Viking themed fiction for a while, thank you very much, it’s just dull.  An army bases on Medieval China though?  Now that’s something that we very rarely get to see and something that will probably help Warhammer stand out among its peers