while i know its not necessarily something you do often, do you have any ideas to make sky lanterns actually not suck? my thoughts are either make it have meaningful ground buffs for infantry, or, maybe even range/accuracy for missile units in range like a spotter, or add more entities maybe?
I believe cathay cannon shots have much larger hitboxes than Empire/Dwarf/Vampirate ones have. Hence why they are the only ones that consistently get value in multiplayer whereas the other ones feel like a gamble.
I feel that they are super accurate as well, late game I like having 3 in my army and if im against a big fucker like a Shaggoth or a dragon I sick them on to it and I just know its going to die.
The other thing is they can't be counterfired their is something wrong with them where they wont take missoe damage (bugged hitbox). CA is unfuriating with how many of these issues exist on their newer units.
What's missing from the construct/elemental units is anything that synergises with that status across the roster. If Cathay got some kind of Necrotect-type hero that could heal constructs that would immediately make them a lot more useful. Right now though yeah there's really not a lot of point to the lions, the jade one in particular dies super easily for very little return.
@@nanonano2595 they're probably still better than the other equivalent massive units so not fully RIP, you can still make use of them. That said it really does feel like they weren't paying attention when they added the negative with no supporting positive. Its possible they just figured that sentinels, as the strongest massive unit, needed a negative. Giving another hero a buff or heal for constructs would mean you need to take 2 units to make the most of one of them which is still an effort cost over the pre-construct variant.
I thought Saytang was supposed to be the "Necrotect" of Cathay? But still even if he was, the Constructs attribute being more of a nerf than anything really sucks. Here's hoping they get some sort of support in the future.
What I really like to use Wu Xing War compasses for, are defenses. Like minor or major siege battles. I love having like 2 of them in those battles and not having to rely on my winds of magic. They saved me quite a lot of times(when the enemy slowly form a blob in a street) when I had to quickly recruit something and I was in a region with shit mana. Being able to cast 4 comets and 4 lightning bolts can easily turn the tides of any battle.
The curious thing about the Construct ability is, that it is appearently exactly the same as the Tomb King ones which means that they count as Undead for the purposes of healing magic like Invocation of Nehek or the Lore of Nehekara passive "Restless Dead". So if you steal those heroes, you could theoretically heal them pretty efficiently or repair them with Necrotects.
@@indrickboreale7381 lmao no it doesn't , it's not the same technology, the same culture or the same magic. Terracotta Sentinels were created by the Dragon Emperor using his innate draconnic magic, while Nehekharan magic was purely mortal
very informative list; thank you Legend. Just to add a few things I've noticed during my campaign: - artillery has quite a low firing arc; it's very easy to hit your own troops, sky junk mitigates that problem a little bit. You basically trade flexibility in firing arc and positioning for raw firepower - sky junks don't count as siege attacker for some wired reason - crane gunners can actually man walls. when sieging you can establish a perimeter at a gate or kill all enemy stuff that can climb walls, put your crane gunners on their walls and snipe them from there - the jet lion or the crowmen can be used to activate the ying/yan bonuses of your cavalry; if it's really worth it, is up to you. - the only thing I would slightly disagree with is that I would put the compass one tier down and the crowmen one tier up; they are pretty solid early game artillery hunters, but I play without stat modifiers so that might not work if the a.i. gets its buffs.
This is a good point, I find on Empire the Hellstorm rockets often would delete my range units in front of them when they try to hit something around 120-150 range.
the mere fact you can get jade warriors at rank 9 relatively easily alone makes them very powerful That rank one they compete with longbeards is pretty fucked
For cathay constructs, perhaps when leadership is broken, they "crumble" into the terracotta/jade they are made of, with their current health. When leadership is restored, they "reanimate" to their normal form and continue to fight. Have the crumble and reanimate animations take like 10 seconds or something, and add a temporary leadership buff that decays over time after reanimating to avoid rapid cycling between crumbling and reanimating. Also, only lords and heroes leadership aura can reanimate them, and they have to stay for the full 10 seconds until reanimated.
I will add that the sky junk can keep shooting it's little guns even after running out of rockets if you reenable fire at will (unless this has been patched since I used them last)
Their guns are most definitely on a different ammo counter than their rockets are. My sky junk rifles always continue shooting even when the ammo bar shows empty because that bar is for rockets only.
I really enjoy how quickly you get into the sponsorship. Since most of the time, I put on these videos while I'm working on my minis. And since I already have a manscaped kit (since I'm a hairy guy lol) I can skip forward and enjoy the content with no breaks. Thanks Legend, and you truly live up to that name. Rock on !
I once came across the AIs war compass doomstack and it was IMPOSSIBLE to beat with my ~60% infantry army. They were able to simultaneously spam the spells from every war compass all over the map in a way a player never could without pausing. Truly terrifying
Have you ever thought about doing a Sword of Khaine tier list? As in: listing factions that should never pick it up, or when it's situationally useful, or when it's viable, or when it can really boost the campaign?
It's almost always bad, so I don't see how I can be a tierlist) If you want to do it it's OK, but you get so much global penalties that any single lord strength cannot overcome it There is 2 exeptions: beastmen and Changeling. Both of them don't care about any downsides of SoC Other then that it's too bad and just a meme weapon
@@Costin_Gaming "A lot of handmaidens" is a late game thing Also you just nullify only publi order issue. Not higher upkeep, nor relations negatives. Yeah you could use your influence to but good relations with other fractions, but you should have much better use for (like hiring good heroes) Well I agree with statement that Allarielle COULD pick it up with not that much negatives, but it's still fat from optimal especially on higher difficulty On normal and easy it's not that big of a deal
As someone who just started WH3 and have watched your 2 year old guides for advice you have no idea how happy I am to see this new list. I haven't been able to get past turn 20 yet in about 6 campaigns, the battling is hard but this helped a lot thank you again!
Jade Lancers can get quite insane. Every Gatemaster in the army gives them +6MD and -10% upkeep. The tech tree gives them: +10% Charge, -10% upkeep, +3 recruitment rank, +20% speed, +4 MA, +4 MA when attacking and +4MD when defending, +5% Replenishment, gives them Devastating Flanker, +15 Charge, +20 armor, +20% weapon strength and +10 leadership when fighting against chaos. The Celestial General gives either +10 armor, +10% weapon strength or +25% charge bonus. The red line of the skill tree gives them +8% weapon strength +18% charge bonus, 10% speed, +5MA, +10% physical resistance . Then give the Celestial General the Gryphon Legion Lance you get from the caravan system once one reaches Erengrad for further +20 and +15% charge bonus. That is a lot.
I feel like legend just doesnt like cav tbh, he seems to much prefer heavy missiles/magic and rely on good positioning and unit zoning. I think its also why he doesn't enjoy multiplayer as much; its much harder to cheese a human :D
@@GCOSBenbowyeah legend prefer missile and magic more. But these calvary mostly is just really bad, they underperform for their cost most of the time and require more attention to it. Legend doesnt dislike calvary, just dislike bad calvary like these, no AP, no anti large cav is just trash even if you can boost them in the campaign, even if they are free its still better to field jade warrior, maybe just a couple of them in the army is enough so A tier is reasonable, 26 MA without armor piercing and anti large is so trash, they would take forever to kill even a tier 1 2 unit with some armor
The War Compass is really at its best as a Hero Mount, and is really just a replacement for a wizard if you can't actually get one (since the wizard is just better in pretty much every way)
25:30 Been a hot minute since I played Cathay, but I vaguely remember the cannonballs bouncing so you can hit a lot of units in a formation as well as the unit behind it. I know that the Little Groms do this.
I can see a monk-like hero that'd fix the construct change and give replenishment rate for armies it's embedded to. Hopefully we won't have to wait too long
I wanted to mention that if the army was under mommy Miao, then the constructs and crows would actually have healing so probably bumps them up situationally there but I agree a recruitable life astromancer mounted on a moonbird would be game changing.
I really enjoy these little tier lists as it makes getting into the game more accessible. Would you ever consider doing composition videos on what you ideally would aim for or you very much in the, "just use what I can when I can" camp?
Onyx Crowmen make the peasant horsemen completely pointless and they are on the infantry barracks, the onyx crowmen are perfect for chasing off missile infantry and routing units and can even be used to snipe units that are wavering and on the edge of routing their only downside atm is that they can get stuck in other melee units due to their low mass despite being flying units because CA has never fixed that issue 2 years post launch of WH3
Just playing my first Cathay campaign now, and I very much agree with this list. "Jade checkers" can handle everything I've been up against, with some arty/mage to initialize combat.
Just in time, I started my Jade Court campaign yesterday and played nearly whole day, they're really powerful. Managed to confederate all Cathayan LL's by turn 60 something and we're rolling now.
@@animewarrior3that would be a super niche buff, it would be better if it had something like the dragon breath attacks, since its already pretty much a sentry type unit so standing still wouldnt hurt it, the biggest issue this has it doesnt pull its weight and dies to quick
What's to continue? You tried this campaign yourself? You are done after 30-40 turns and early there are not that many big hurdles beside Snikch. If you level up Yuan Bo properly - Morathi gets quick pounding. It's just stomping after that. From economy, armies, Yuan Bo just crushing every possible character with few attacks and 2 executions or slaying every character on the battle map with 1 execution and medium duel - anything problematic or sudden is solved with tokens. Reaching over 200-300% bonus to research. You get global bonuses from those military(gates are insane) and economic districts. Big nerfs with adding constructs and elementals, but for everyone owning DLC, those are balanced changes. It only hurts those who don't own it and Cathay feels even more lobotomized without it. (I didn't have it for a long time)
13:20 I feel like they initially were T5 cause they were the only melee flying unit before the DLC, which means it was the only option as a unit to intercept enemy flying cav/monsters to protect your sky junks if you were to recruit some of them. But since we now have the crowmen at T2 and they are quite good for a T2 unit, and also the 2 flying monster units, longma riders lost their purpose imo
I always assumed it's not the trait that it was talking about but the fact that it's a charge cavalry that makes it "anti- infantry" I think there were some other units like that but it's been a min.
Hey Legend! I'd love to see you take another pass over of the Warhammer 1/2 factions rosters in Warhammer 3, given all of the changes introduced over time.
I actually kinda like sky laterns. Their range is crazy, and combined with fire whilst moving, they can kite and annoy large entities pretty well. Shieldbreaker too
Cathay units certainly need a little more love still even after the DLC. Maybe once they add two more lords we might have a unit roster which isn't as so buttered toast level flavor.
a use for ironhail gunners is as very effective anti flying, the straight flying and quick bullets just decimate all types of flying infantry and even monsters if you use a couple of units on it, whenever i go to fight chaos i bring a few ironhails and they never let me down in these roles
8:45 also good thing to consider is how Celestial Dragon Crosbowmen have insane scaling since technology that incerase flat dmg (in this case +3 armor piercing damage) is technically better for this unit since they have 2 shots per volley so we end up with additional +6 damage. Edit: 25:40 As for Grand Cannon whenever I use other couterparts I feel like they are missing too many shots vs Horse/Monster Inf. size enemies while Cathayan version seems to have better accuracy/larger hitboxes with cannon balls. Norscans, Orcs, Greenskins and even Chaos Dwarfs are getting slaughtered by those artillery pieces while if I was about to use Imperial Cannon... well maybe it will hit 1/3 of it's shots? Honestly Grand Cannon is like combination of damage from Empire Cannons and (almost) accuracy from HE Eagle Bolt Throwers and it makes them very practical to use whenever it is field battle or siedge.
I LOVE THE SKY LANTERNS. The Chaos Enemy Faction who constantly attacks you has almost zero way to kill them. Ranged cavalry and that's like it. They're really good at sniping lords too. Don't get me wrong the damage is ass. But if you rock 19 + a stalk/hidden unit you can hide and kill everything no problem. Its honestly so good at the Chaos guys man.
For some reason the Cathay Cannons are much more effective than other Cannon types. They are very accurate and seem to have a bigger splash vs infantry, so they are great vs single elite units or mass infantry.
In my opinion the sky junk is s tier because it's flying hellstorm rocket battery Cathay armies usually have tons of ranged units so it's not that hard to deal with enemy fliers and it being a flier gives you the advantage of better line of sight plus enemy cav and other ground flankers don't threaten it And the few free crane gunners on the junk are a nice bonus
Crane Gunners are a really good one-of for every army with ranged units due to their shieldbreaker effect. You could get a lantern to do the same job, but the dps output of lanterns is usually pretty pathetic by comparison. As for peasant horsemen, they do have their uses in the early game as essentially a hound unit to chew up routing enemies to prevent them from coming back. But that said I would never invest heavily in them. They're nice to get if a settlement you take happens to have a cavalry building though.
I quite like the Wardrum and Jet Lions and that all comes down to buffing that Jade Warrior frontline. At base level, the Wardrum's +8 melee attack boost gives Jades a 30% boost and the Jet Lion is a source of Yin Harmony that can fight on the frontline, meaning they'll always be in Harmony range for further Jade Warrior buffing. I've also found quite an important early game niche for Crowmen which is that they are very good at dealing with Clan Eshin. Due to Eshin's reliance on stealth and ranged damage, the Crowmen's mobility, good dps and enhanced spotting means that they pretty much hard counter most of Eshin's strengths and makes them alot easier to deal with.
There is one item that bootst logma riders. I made one logna stack with a balloon general. (And a wizard for the ground unit) Worked pretty well on normal difficulty
I don't really get why logically a construct would crumble from morale. It's not a corpse propped up by dark magic, or a daemon attempting to remain manifested in a foreign realm, it's an animated hunk of stone or metal. If anything, they should all be unbreakable and have some kind of battle damage related debuff (like the wounds passive) that stacks over time.
Your analysis of the jet/ jade lions, longma riders and war compass screamed C tier units to me, but otherwise love to see the return of the tier lists!
I played a Miao Ying campaign since the SoC additions, but having not purchased SoC, and the Logma Riders were amazing end game archer killers. They had something like 122 charge bonus. Units would be shattered within 5 seconds of the charge. Maybe not since SoC and maybe not cost efficient but certainly powerful and more deserving of A tier. I kept 2-4 in each army. Fire Rain Rockets and Crane Gunners ended most armies before they could reach my celestial dragon crossbowmen and the Logma Riders would finish off and ranged in the back.
I think the horsemen and crowmen are best used in tandem to complement each other as your cheap long range squadron. Cathays greatest weakness is a lack of mobility but the crowmen are yin melee units. Used in combination they can keep their bonus while fighting away from the main host.
The sky lantern should really buff the units around it more. Maybe it could improve the reload speed, melee defense, and crane-gunner fire of nearby lanterns or something. That way, you can have a proper flying “fleet” just like they mention in Cathay’s lore.
my endgame stacks had 5 crane gunners and 4 fire rain rockets, plus a front line of jade warrior and heroes and the Lord, camp in the back corner of the map and basically everything got obliterated before it could even reach my front line
shadows of change made cathay so much more fun, and I already liked them before. Their crossbows and artillery are insane, but I've been using dragon guard frontline... The jade units are boosted super hard but I didn't even consider that they can outperform the dragon guard due to being able to stack gate masters. The jade halberdiers don't have shields but honestly idek how important that is. My endgame crisis is wood elves, but their archer units are actually helpless against the combination of fire rain rockets and crossbowmen. Point being, archers can't shoot your frontline without getting turned to dust by artillery. The most interesting thing in this video is definitely the jade lancers though... I have like 30-40 armies and I don't think I have a single jade lancer in any of them. It didn't even register that the gate master boosts them too, plus the cav building is super low priority, I basically only starting building them at T5 when I didn't have anything else to stick in my capitals.
Cathay rocket battery shoots way more rockets per volley, that’s why they do more dmg. In compensation they have less ammo instead. I think this is a good trade though.
Jade lions are there to let you fully stack elemental winds to 200% with an actual combat unit instead of alchemists or the war compass. Jet lions are there to give them a harmony buff. Basically if you want to do a magic focused army stack, these are your standard units. Is it the best army comp? prob not but its good to have variety and options for the sake of fun. Also you criminally underrate crowmen, they are a fantastic way for early game cathay to harass enemy archers and artillery. Easy include until you have time to replace them with lions or moonbirds. Being a small unit they can also distract enemy spears for your cav or monsters.
Oh shit I'm early. Came here because me and my bud are running legendary co-op campaigns and wanted to give him some pointers on his roster. Thanks Legend and congrats to you and your wife as well!
Iron hails are interesting as they only need a T2 building one may want to recruit anyway, but yeah, they can be a bit tricky to manage between their short range and poor armor.
It's weird that the Jade Standard stacks. I was under the impression that Skills from the same type of hero don't normally stack. I wonder if this is intended
The construct debacle really highlight the need for Astromancer and Alchemists to get an update to their skill lines to support various units. At the moment, you have the golden (jaden?) boys getting a lot of love, and the rest of the roster is just eeeeeeeeeeh.
I completed my playthrough of cathay for immortal empires with purely using jade units. other higher tier units while they are good but have a ridicoulus amount of recruitment turns with abysmal recruitment pool essentialy waiting 3 - 4 turns for ever 2 unit is absolutely the worst. therefore i completely agree with your assesment of jade units but other higher tier units i dont even think they deserve A tier. i was expecting D tier at most tbh with the exception of maybe flying cavalry they have extremely high dps they wipe out units so fast.
Only use for peasant horseman is hunting routed units and cheesing an unwinnable large settlement siege by kiting and holding the victory point. But for the latter reason I always have them on vh/vh
I have to disagree on the sky lantern, I was attacking a WoC fort with it, and even once it had shot all its ammunition away the total damage was unimpressive. Also, I love that it's so easy to destroy the Ogres with basically just peasant spam anytime in the game.
The only rating I disagree with is the Crowmen. I found they are amazing for taking out archers, flying over walls, etc. They're easy to recruit and strong when it comes to protecting your troops from bats, carrion etc. I would easily put them at A. I found that a single iron hail gunner is a great addition for specific situations like sieges or gunning down big units like giants.
I'm surprised to see zero mention of the Jet Lion's "Silence" contact ability. Surely completely shutting down any wizard by just touching it in melee has some value worth mentioning? Especially if you might want to blob up against an enemy that has some scary damage spells, for example.
The warcompass has less value than you would think. There are limited situations in a battle where the comet is useful, and so if you have a wizard and a warcompass, one of them is automatically getting less value, but if you only have a warcompass and no wizard, you aren't benefiting from elemental winds, also getting less value.
I always found that the Longma Riders were absolutely terrible, and needed to be AP. Super squishy, aerial charges aren't great for knockback, low damage. Generally just a balance of power liability causing earlier army losses, if you don't baby sit them. Worse fell bats.
I’m kinda new at the game and really struggling with the longma riders, they land in the middle of enemies and even if you flank wolves they get stuck. The micro of landing them and remembering to make em fly again kinda works but it’s still really tough
I wish Legend had waited with this tierlist until the gatemaster stacking is removed, it kinda invalidates the tierlist as that will defo get removed soon
This lists just reminded me how much better at everything except with cavalry Cathay is when compared to the Empire and even then it’s only monstrous cavalry that gives empire the edge. Jade Cavalry is better than regular Empire cavalry. The only real edge empire has is having access to Lore of life. Everything else: Lords, heroes, infantry, missile units, melee units, artillery, monsters… Cathay is better at it. Not to mention harmony bonuses. Their units would be better even eithout harmony but with it they are High Elves 2.0 with no downsides. High Elves at least lose their bonuses when below certainly HP threshold and have less hp overall.
Forgot to mention, that both version of lions are always targeted in auto resolve, so they are not viable for someone doing AR here and there. Hell, it dies against 2 weak garrisons if i wish to storm a province.
