AdeptiCon, Cathay, and the Old World Balance Question
We had one of those very familiar hobby chats this week: someone drops a tournament result, everyone raises an eyebrow, and five minutes later we are deep into army design, lore jokes, and fresh list ideas of our own.
This time it started with a summary of Warhammer: The Old World at AdeptiCon, specifically a piece about the championship-winning list and what made it so effective. And honestly, the bit that immediately caught our attention was not just the winning army itself, but the fact that even at a major official-scale event there were extra restrictions in play for Grand Cathay — including a cap of two balloons maximum.
That immediately led us to the obvious question: if a faction needs tournament pack restrictions at this level, even on a big event tied to GW’s ecosystem, then what does that say about the baseline rules? We are not pretending to have a full design answer here, but the instinctive reaction was pretty simple: if you need to patch something for your own marquee event, maybe the issue is not just with player behavior — maybe the rules themselves need another look in the rulebook.
And yes, the conversation got spicy quickly.
At one point the summary in our chat was basically: Cathay is the new Chaos. Not in a lore sense exactly — although that joke also came up — but in the sense of being the thing everyone suddenly has to account for. The example that really stuck with us was a 24-model army at 2000 points, which says a lot on its own about where the pressure points in the system might currently be.
Naturally, that got compared to our own lists in the most Wiatry Magii way possible. Michał immediately contrasted it with his own army-building reality: he has 24 hobgoblins in a 1250-point list, and those lads cost basically nothing by comparison. With armor they come to 96 points total; without it, they would be 72. That kind of contrast is exactly why these tournament-winning elite builds are so fascinating to look at. They expose the scale differences in the game in a way that regular casual list-building sometimes does not.
There was also a fun lore tangent in the middle of all this. Michał recalled that Rob and Val once did an episode where they suggested that, from a lore angle, maybe Cathay could turn out to be Chaos. We are not going to pretend we can reconstruct that whole argument from memory, but as a throwaway line during a balance discussion, it was perfect. It is exactly the sort of half-serious, half-hobby-brain theory that appears when people have been staring at army lists for too long.
Then, as often happens, the chat pivoted from meta talk to actual list-building.
Stas chimed in with something much closer to our table-level reality: he put together a list for Cinquecento, and it is apparently something completely different from what he has played so far. In his own words, his inner Orc woke up. So now the plan is a proper unruly mix: a horde of goblin rabble, a hot-headed big boss with a bodyguard of regular boyz, and a chariot.
And honestly? We love that energy.
Because that is the other side of these event results. Yes, big tournament outcomes can spark serious questions about balance, restrictions, and whether some armies are leaning too hard on a few standout units. But they also make us want to go back to our own collections and build something with character. Sometimes the meta conversation pushes us toward tighter optimization; sometimes it pushes us in the exact opposite direction, toward a list that just feels right.
Right now we are somewhere in the middle. We are definitely side-eyeing the Cathay situation and wondering whether “just add event restrictions” is really a satisfying long-term answer for The Old World. But at the same time, we are also very happy that this whole discussion ended with goblin rabble, a reckless boss, and a chariot rumbling toward the table.
Which, if we are honest, sounds a lot more like our kind of Warhammer.
Our takeaway
- AdeptiCon results are always interesting, but they get even more interesting when they come with visible restrictions.
- A cap like maximum two balloons raises a fair question about whether the core rules need adjusting.
- Cathay is clearly a hot topic right now.
- Also: no matter how intense the meta discussion gets, someone in the group will always answer it by building more goblins.
And really, that last point may be the healthiest response of all.