Review: Grand Cathay Battalion

Join me as we unbox the Grand Cathay Battalion — a brand-new faction for Warhammer: The Old World. I’ll walk you through the sprues with high-resolution images, unpack the details of the Jade Warriors, Jade Lancers, and artillery, and compare their scale to existing models to help you see how they fit into your existing Fantasy collection.

The Grand Cathay Battalion, along with the first wave of Cathay releases, will be available for pre-order starting Saturday, 21 June 2025. The pre-order period lasts two weeks, with the official release date set for 5 July 2025.

Included in the box are 50 models:

• 30 Jade Warrior (with hand weapons and shields or halberds)
• 10 Jade Lancers
• 2 Cathayan Grand Cannons / Fire Rain Rocket Batteries with 4 crew models each
• a transfer sheet
• an assembly guide

Grand Cathay Battalion unboxing

Against all odds – and despite the nay-sayers – it has finally happened: Warhammer: The Old World is receiving its first entirely new range of miniatures. Grand Cathay, developed in collaboration between Games Workshop’s design studio and the creators of Total War: Warhammer III, now sees the release of its first wave of plastic kits. Three of them are included in the Grand Cathay Battalion: the elite infantry of the Jade Warriors, the even more heavily armoured and mounted Jade Lancers, and the Empire’s artillery in the form of the Grand Cannons and Fire Rain Rocket Batteries. In this review, we’ll take a close look at each of these kits.

Jade Warriors review

Jade Warriors are the core of the well-equipped standing armies of Grand Cathay. The battalion contains 30 warriors on 25 mm square bases, which can be equipped with either hand weapons and shields or halberds with elegant crescent blades.

The sprue layout is a little unusual: you get 6 (identical) medium-sized sprues, each allowing you to build five Jade Warriors with hand weapons and shields, 30 models in total. In addition, there are 3 (identical) medium-sized sprues, each containing 10 halberds and all the parts needed for a full command group.

What you get on sprue 1:

• 5 Jade Warrior bodies with holstered swords (for hand weapon builds, you’ll need to cut off the hilts, as the swords are held in hand)
• 5 right arms with swords, 5 left arms with shields (the shields are separate pieces, but the hands and connectors are moulded onto them)
• 5 heads with masculine features, 5 with feminine features, plus 5 plume topknots
• 5 small extra pouches and gear items

Patreon bonus content: Ultra high-res, uncompressed versions of these sprue images (and backsides of the sprues) can be downloaded here.

Sprue 2 includes:

• For the Jade Officer Champion: 1 right arm with a two-handed sword, 1 resting left arm, 1 unique unhelmeted male head, and 1 extra pouch
• For the Standard Bearer: 1 right arm with sword, 1 left arm holding the standard
• For the Musician: 1 pair of arms with a drum
• 10 pairs of arms with halberds

In general, the heads, plumes, and arm pairs are fully interchangeable. The heads sit on ball joints, and all the arms use the same flat connection points with small triangular pegs to help with alignment. Unfortunately, there are no alternative parts for the command models, so they’ll all look the same across multiple units

As is typical for Specialist Games kits, the assembly guide is less detailed than those for 40k or AoS models (and somewhat confusing in its structure). It starts by showing how to build the three command models, followed by the five different regular poses. For some of the poses, the guide refers back to the command bodies shown earlier – which you have to realise first, considering the command parts come on a separate sprue. It would have been more straightforward to show how to build the five body types first, then present the various command and weapon options – as is the norm in other Warhammer sets. Especially since the arms and bodies are fully interchangeable anyways.

Design & scale

I think the models capture the designs from Total War: Warhammer III really well. The level of detail and sculpting style fit nicely with the later Warhammer Fantasy kits, but they are complex to paint for rank-and-file models due to the multi-layered armour and garments. There’s also a bit of scale creep compared to other human-sized Fantasy models like Empire State Troops and Elves, and even the rather recent Cities of Sigmar Steelhelms (which we reviewed here).

Jade Lancers review

The cavalry of Grand Cathay comes on 30 x 60 mm square bases, with five models spread across three medium-sized sprue halves. You get this setup twice, giving you a total of ten Jade Lancers in the Battalion.

Each three-part sprue contains:

• 5 horses
• 5 riders with lances and shields (the plumes are interchangeable, though the heads are moulded onto the torsos)
• For the Jade Lancer Officer (Champion): a special collar piece with helmet crest and a unique arm holding a lance
• For the Standard Bearer: a right arm with banner
• For the Musician: a drum and a pair of arms with drumsticks

Patreon bonus content: Ultra high-res, uncompressed versions of these sprue images (and backsides of the sprues) can be downloaded here.

As you can see in the sprue images, the mounts and riders are separate. However, since the left arms are sculpted holding reins that match specific horse poses, part swapping is rather limited. Also, just like the Jade Warriors, there are no alternative parts for the command models. Still, it’s a very nice kit.

Jade Warriors & Lancers transfer sheet

You’ll also get a single transfer sheet, roughly A5 in size, intended for use with the Jade Warriors and Lancers. It’s multicoloured with gold and silver, and printed in the usual high-quality finish with no visible dot matrix. Warhammer Community has announced additional transfer sheets for other units. So far, Games Workshop has been rather frugal with decals in individual Warhammer: The Old World boxes, typically including them only in the larger battalion sets. How things will pan out for Grand Cathay remains to be seen.

 Cathayan Grand Cannons / Fire Rain Rocket Batteries review

This dual-build kit, spread across two medium-sized sprues, can be assembled as either a Grand Cannon or Fire Rain Rocket Battery on a 60 x 100 mm square base, along with four crew members.

You get the kit twice in the Battalion, so you can build each weapon twice or mix and match.

The crew options are as follows:

• Crew member 1 is the female spotter (25 mm square base), a monopose model.
• Crew member 2 is the elderly man (25 mm square base), who can either receive a pair of arms holding a rocket and a gunpowder bucket, or be built with a wheelbarrow for the cannon (25 x 50 mm square base).
• Crew member 3 can be equipped with either a rocket-holding arm pair or a fuse-lighting pair for the cannon. You can choose between a male head with a pipe or a topknot.
• Crew member 4 is the ogre loader (40 mm square base), who can be given either a right arm with a barrel and a left hand with a mace, or a right arm with a cannonball and a left hand with a sword. There’s also an optional carrying harness for the back, and a choice between two heads.

Patreon bonus content: Ultra high-res, uncompressed versions of these sprue images (and backsides of the sprues) can be downloaded here.

This is an excellent artillery kit with a lot of characterful detail in the crew. The dragon head is actually optional and can be left off, as both the cannon and rocket launcher are fully sculpted underneath. The barrel also features a small adjustable screw to raise or lower the angle of fire. My only criticism is the lack of options for the spotter, meaning she’ll look identical across multiple kits – and the two-piece body has some rather visible seams.

Value

The RRP of the Grand Cathay Battalion is £110 / €145 / €185, in line with the other battalion boxes. For 50 completely new models (or 42 if you leave out the artillery crew), that’s very solid value. That said, the other Warhammer: The Old World battalion sets tend to include 60 to 70 models – though those are all older sculpts.

You can find the latest GW releases at our 🇬🇧/🇪🇺 partner stores Wayland Games, Element Games, and Firestorm Games, at 🇩🇪 Taschengelddieb and PK-Pro, and at 🇺🇸 Noble Knight Games with a welcome discount of up to 20% over RRP. Using our links helps to support Tale of Painters at no additional cost to you, so thank you very much for using them!

I hope you found this review helpful, feel free to leave a reaction or comment below, or post your questions here or discuss on our Discord channel.