Cathay 4:2 Bretonnia – a tiny board, instant carnage, and a very fun Old World scrap
We had one of those games that instantly reminds us why Warhammer: The Old World is so much fun.
This time it was Cathay vs Bretonnia, played on a compact 24”x36” board, which meant there was basically no room for posturing. Both armies started almost on top of each other, and from the first turn it was clear this would be a proper close-range brawl rather than a cautious manoeuvre game.
Final score: 4:2 for Cathay on victory points, 469:250.
As Michał summed it up best: a wonderful duel.
Small table, big pressure
Bretonnia set up in a very sensible way for the terrain and the scenario. The archers took the hill, the knightly lance with a Damsel deployed behind the camp, and the centre was held by a block of peasants armed with those wonderfully weird weapons that gave us immediate rules-discussion energy.
Cathay answered with two columns of Jade Warriors in the middle, with the General Strategist joining one of them. On one flank there were Jade Lancers, and on the other the battlefield was watched from above by the balloon.
With a board this small, there was no long dance around charge ranges. The armies were in each other’s faces almost immediately.
Opening shots and the first shock
Turn one was more of a warm-up than a devastation phase. The balloon did some shooting, but nothing spectacular, and the Ring of Jet on the Strategist removed two peasants.
Then Bretonnia got properly stuck in.
The Bretonnian knights charged the larger block of Jade Warriors, while the peasants managed to drive off the balloon, which tried to fire & flee but failed to make a real impact before later taking additional fire from the archers. The knights with the Damsel broke the Jade Warriors, but Cathay got a crucial bit of breathing room because the fleeing unit fell back so far that the knights failed to catch them — including a painful double 1 on the pursuit roll with Swiftstride.
That one moment changed the shape of the game.
The flank charge that turned everything around
Because the Bretonnian lance ended up exposed, it presented its flank to the Jade Lancers. Cathay took the chance immediately.
The Lancers hit the lance in the flank, supported from the south by the previously routed-but-returning Jade Warrior unit. That was the key engagement of the battle, and it really felt like the moment when Cathay seized control.
Meanwhile, the peasants went back to bullying the balloon, chased it off the table, and then in a glorious fit of murderous enthusiasm ran off the table themselves in pursuit. At that stage they were already down to 14 models from their starting 25, so everyone involved had definitely had a busy day.
The Damsel refuses to go quietly
The cavalry fight kept grinding on for several rounds. The Bretonnian knights were repeatedly giving ground, but eventually the combination of Jade Warriors and Jade Lancers wore them down and destroyed the unit.
That said, the Damsel absolutely earned her place in the story.
At one point, fighting on after the rest of the lance had basically collapsed around her, she used Spectral Doppelganger from the Lore of Illusion and took down four Jade Lancers in a single turn. With what was described in chat as basically a rubbish weapon. Which naturally led to the very important hobby-scientific question: what happens when she gets a good weapon?
Wilini’s verdict after the game was simple: this was a mega fun battle, very enjoyable, and extremely Total War-feeling. Honestly, we get it.
Duel, overrun, and the endgame
After returning from beyond the table edge, the peasant unit lined up for a frontal attack against the western Jade Warrior column.
At the same time, in the eastern column, the unit champion challenged the Damsel to a duel. In the first round he managed to wound her once while taking no damage in return, and in the second round he finished the job. After that, the unit overran toward the Bretonnian camp.
The final charge of the game killed a single Jade Warrior, which was not exactly a cinematic last swing, but it did create the opening for the Strategist to remove two more peasants and tidy up the score.
So the game closed at 4:2 for Cathay, with 469:250 in victory points.
The real winner: The Old World on a relaxed day
What really comes through from our chat afterwards is how much fun this one was. Michał said he may actually have had more fun than at the tournament the previous Saturday, mostly because this game was just very relaxed. And honestly, that tracks. A small board, straightforward armies, immediate action, a couple of weird rules questions, one heroic Damsel, one bullied balloon, and a flank charge that decided the game — that is a very good hobby afternoon.
Wilini also dropped perhaps the most concise system ranking imaginable:
- The Old World is great
- WH40k is great
- Kill Team is great
- but The Old World is the most like 3D chess
We are not even going to argue with that.
Rules rabbit hole: the lance formation
The one real post-game sticking point was, of course, how the Bretonnian lance works when hit in the flank, because no Old World game is complete without at least one deep rules dive after the dice stop rolling.
These were the links we ended up checking afterwards:
The short version seems to be that if a lance is charged in the flank, the enemy aligns against its widest rank and the lance becomes blunted, immediately reforming into Close Order. Which, after the dust settled, sounded like it had at least some logic to it.
Still, this is exactly the kind of thing we love about the game: you finish a battle, laugh about a balloon being chased off the map by angry peasants, and then spend the next half hour researching medieval geometry.
One last hobby note
And because no game night is complete without getting distracted by miniatures, there was also a moment of appreciation for some very tasty freehand and some excellent Empire models.
Final thoughts
This one had everything we want from a casual battle report:
- a cramped battlefield
- immediate pressure
- a decisive flank charge
- peasants doing peasant things at maximum intensity
- a Damsel going full blender for one glorious moment
- and a post-game argument about how a lance actually works
So yes: 4:2 to Cathay, but really a win for everyone involved.
More games like this, please.