If you have been involved with Warhammer: The Old World’s online discussion for the past few months this article may not surprise you. Sky Lanterns (particularly in numbers) are oppressive. Playing a game with or against them makes this eminently clear. Tournaments where people have access to them are filled to the brim, and having played a few Cathay mirror matches ourselves, it is a miserable experience for all involved. Many tournaments, including the WTC, UKTC, Square Based (Canada), and LVO are already heavily restricting them, and we know of at least a few TOs considering banning them outright. Things are not okay.Â
How Did This Happen?
In testing the Sky Lanterns prior to their official release, they seemed extraordinarily good in some match-ups but really suffered because of the existence of the Falcon Horn of Fredemund and similar magic items that could potentially shut down the FLY keyword for entire games. Additionally, a huge swath of competitive lists had moved to running large blocks of poisoned shooting attacks due to how they interacted with units with the LARGE TARGET keyword which meant that most armies we played against had the tools to reliably take down multiple Lanterns. If you didn’t have these things, the unit could be problematic but those things were so prevalent it was difficult to see balloon spam as more than a meme.
Unfortunately, FAQ 1.5.1 dropped alongside the Grand Cathay release and completely upended the game. Poisoned attacks no longer auto-wounded enemy units, Large Targets could now only be targeted by the first two ranks of a squad when shooting and not the whole block, and all items that interacted with the FLY keyword moved to once per game. On top of all of that, the Ogre Blade a core magic item designed for killing multi-wound models, went up in points greatly reducing the units that could safely run it. In a pre-Cathay bubble, these changes were generally great things that really shook apart some builds that had become problematic in their own right in the game. While it was felt that perhaps some of the changes were a bit too heavy-handed (hitting poison the way they did for example, on top of how large targets could be targeted more than made up for the slight nerfs ridden monsters had taken) most people were quite excited for where the game would go. Too bad all these changes also made Sky Lanterns, particularly ones ridden by characters, practically unkillable in numbers as they were now free to use their swath of movement rules and massive wound pools to take over the board.
But Why Should We Fear a Balloon?
Globophobia is a real thing my friends. For some people, just the sight of a blob of floating latex or canvas that could pop at any time is legitimate nightmare fuel. Now imagine if those terrors were also practically unkillable chariots that open-carried multiple sniper rifles. In case you haven’t had a chance to have a game with them or are unfamiliar with exactly what these flying menaces can do on the battlefield, here’s a summary of what makes them so brutal:
1. They are unreasonably difficult to kill relative to their points cost. A basic Sky Lantern is a Heavy Chariot that costs 135 points and is Toughness 5 with 7 Wounds and a 4+ Armour Save. It has a Fly movement value of 8 and has the Reserve Move special rule allowing it to move twice in a turn, which when combined with the Lumbering special rule all heavy chariots have means it is extremely mobile. Compare this to the Black Orc Chariot which is only 5 points less but is only movement 7, does not have Reserve Move, has 3 fewer wounds, and rocks a 3+ armour save, or the Lion Chariot of Chrace, which is 10 less points with the same 4+ armour save, movement 8 (but no Fly or Reserve Move) and is once again only 4 wounds.
To put this into another perspective, it takes an average of 5-6 cannon shots (accounting for misses/misfires) to reliably take down a vanilla Sky Lantern, versus 3 on any of our other examples. A great cannon only reduces that number slightly. This is exacerbated further by the fact it can be taken as a character mount thus increasing their wound profiles by 2-3, increasing their Weapon skill to 4/5 without accounting for Will of the Dragons, and giving them Ward Saves and Regeneration saves if their owner so desires. With Strategists and Lord Magistrates being only 40 and 65 points at their base cost, this is an extraordinarily cheap upgrade for the defensive value alone.
While normally having the Large Target rule would be a defensive problem, because of the previously mentioned changes to shooting in 1.5.1 it is actually just a bonus, as unlike the counterpart chariots we’ve mentioned, this chariot comes with highly reliable guns on it that now get to ignore multiple forms of cover.
2. Which brings us to our second point. The amount of firepower Sky Lanterns have can devolve the game into a shootout in a way that most other armies cannot compete with. The base weapon on a Sky Lantern, the Sky Crane Gun, is free and the unit comes with four of them at Ballistic Skill 4 and 1 at BS 5. These have a range of 36″ and are Str 6, AP 2 with Armourbane (2). Four (or more) Sky Lanterns with Sky Crane Guns have enough unreasonably long ranged shooting to eliminate artillery and kill monsters with impunity. The Dragon Fire Bomb upgrade (bumping the Lanterns firepower to 5d3+5 shots at Str 4, AP 1 with Quick Shot and Move and Shoot but at a shorter 9″ range) is an expensive 20 points, but allows lanterns to do enough small arms damage to outright eliminate enemy infantry and cavalry units far above their cost, with almost no risk to the Lantern itself because of Fly and Reserve Move. Two vanilla lanterns floating into short range of a toughness 4 unit will put an average of 12-13 wounds on it before having the option to just vacate the area. (This is not even taking into consideration their option to also do a bombing run for further wounds.) Most units in the game with similar output have to leave themselves in a vulnerable position to put out close to that much damage.
3. The Disengage rule combined with Unbreakable severely limits what steps can be taken to actually engage and kill an enemy Sky Lantern. Disengage is a special rule that allows Sky Lanterns to ‘Fall Back in Good Order’ on a successful leadership test whenever they lose a round of combat, rather than ‘Give Ground’ like they would normally have to do due to Unbreakable. Not only that, when a Sky Lantern successfully disengages from an enemy unit, the enemy can only choose to follow-up 2″ as if the Lantern had actually Given Ground leaving them completely out in the open. This is an insanely frustrating rule for combat-oriented armies with very little counterplay, especially when you take into consideration that Strategists and Magistrates give out their high leadership value to friendly units in range regardless of if they are your army’s general. Unless enemy models or units are capable of wiping out the Sky Lantern in one round of combat (which we have established is no small task), it’s highly likely that the Sky Lantern will be able to disengage and then escape.
4. The vanilla Sky Lantern comes with a built in Unit Champion. This in and of itself is problematic as it can abuse challenge mechanics to either limit the number of attacks it can suffer in close combat, or force enemy characters or champions to retire to the back and disable whatever bonuses they may provide to their unit. Now if you catch the balloon with a particularly punchy unit that includes a character you’ll be losing a good deal of your combat output.
5. Their mobility in concert with the above factors means it’s unlikely that enemy armies can engage them in a meaningful way without specifically tailoring their army list to fight them. We’ve already talked about the fact that Sky Lanterns have a stellar 8 inch move with Fly, Reserve Move, and Lumbering, but they can also choose to Scout and have access to both Fire and Flee and Feigned Flight meaning even when electing to flee from a fight they suffer no consequences. Luckily, the Sky Crane Guns are Cumbersome and thus cannot perform the Stand and Shoot reaction, but Dragonfire Bombs and Ironhail Guns are not and it is only 5/10 points to take one of those upgrades on your Magistrate or Strategist while keeping the long range utility of the Sky Cranes and fully taking advantage of a potent combo that is otherwise reserved for the most elite (and fragile) shooting units in the game.
6. The ability to (even in the Matched Play Guide’s Combined Arms rules) take six or more of these units is wild. You can field up to three mounted Magistrates, three mounted Strategists, two in your Rare slot and one in your Special Slot meaning you can technically take up to nine, though points and upgrades generally keep you in the 5-6 range. Once you get into the 3+ range, all of the above problems compound dramatically. When the majority of a Cathay player’s points are tied up in these units the opponent has few options to score victory points (particularly given that chariots don’t give up any points until they’re fully dead). While the Matched Play Guide did a wonderful job of adding Secondary ways to score in your games, they are only a small percentage of what is still a Kill Point based scoring system. When 1000-1500 points of a list are locked into these extraordinarily efficient vehicles the game devolves into a frustrating attrition battle with minimal engagement. The firepower of these machines has a multiplicative effect as well as we’ve already noted, as a critical mass of either the Crane Guns or the Dragon Fire Bombs leads to very reliable outcomes against any archetype the game is currently seeing.
So How Can You Compete?
If you’re concerned about the looming threat from the skies all hope is not necessarily lost. While we’ve broken down all the reasons these units are a pain to deal with in the current meta and many reasons why they should see some kind of adjustment, some armies do have methods of at least making a game against these lists.
Cover, ways to manipulate terrain, and stacking penalties to hit are the first order of business when dealing with Sky Lanterns. Armies like Wood Elves that get to add an additional forest to the board with Woodland Ambush and Tree Singing can rely on these pieces to dramatically reduce the firepower of a Sky Lantern list and force Lanterns to play more aggressively in the early game if they wish to begin scoring points. This can allow a canny player to position kitted out Glade Lords and Wild Rider units opportunities to strike that wouldn’t otherwise be possible.
One the bigger weaknesses that Sky Lanterns have is to Terror. With Leadership 9 and no way in-faction to gain re-rolls on Terror checks, one failed roll can be the end of a Sky Lantern. Feigned Flight only allows an automatic rally when the unit chooses to flee, so the Sky Lantern can be run down. So consider bringing out your scary monsters and Leadership debuffs.
A standard Cathay list also has very few answers to Ethereal units making Walk Between Worlds a very valuable spell for armies like High Elves that can cast it with a decent chance of success due to their built-in rerolls. Throwing Ethereal on a unit of Dragon Princes or White Lions can keep them safe long enough to engage the army while units of Sisters of Avelorn or Chracian Woodsmen can potentially stack hit penalties on themselves and strip wounds from units while also capturing objectives.
Perhaps surprisingly, the Empire of Man has a decent game into Cathay Lantern lists, particularly the City State of Nuln. While these match-ups get to be a bit of a coin-flip quickly, large units of Outriders combined with massed artillery like Great Cannons and Hellblasters have the chance to lay down an equivalent amount of firepower though on much squishier bodies.
While a Sky Lantern (especially a character one) is incredibly difficult to kill, there still are some speedy units that can accomplish the task in a single round of combat. Warriors of Chaos can kit out a pretty powerful flying Daemon Prince with an Ogre Blade, extra attacks and a handful of caster levels that will drop a balloon quickly if they can catch them. Wolves of the Sea have a number of tools to make for an interesting game into Cathay as they can take this Prince and also abuse the Ambushers rule with plenty of small skirmishing Marauder Berserker units that punch well above their weight class.
If you suspect you will be dealing with Sky Crane equipped Lanterns (as they are generally the most popular due to their low cost) horde armies like Tomb Kings or Vampire Counts can simply attempt to soak the damage with giant bricks of Skeleton Warriors or Grave Guard and then use bow-wielding Ushabti with their multiple wound 2 weapons hidden behind hills and trees or Ethereal Banshees with their screams as a threat should Dragon Fire equipped lanterns move forward to engage. Hexwraiths as well are a typical Cathay army’s worst nightmare, dishing out a ton of Strength 4 hits with no armour saves allowed while rocking that coveted Ethereal rule. This is very much a patient player’s game though if you play it. Positioning mistakes can prove costly for both players and the Cathay player has the benefit of a longer range. Your Mortis Engines and Hierophants can be easy pickings for a Cathayan gunline so you need to play them very efficiently.
Cathay is also an army that tends to run relatively magic light due to the nerfs to casting that came with 1.5.1. Shugengan Lords are quite expensive due to the changes and there are no really solid items that boost dispelling for the army that aren’t single use. Cathay also has very little access to Magic Resist. So, armies employing spells that change the terrain landscape with Vortexes gain some advantage here and if you are capable of creating a decent delivery system for them Beastmen can still do a number on an enemy list in the Wild Herd with some well-placed Viletides.
All that said, many of these strategies require a Cathay opponent to make mistakes and play more aggressively than they need to, or require you to put important pieces of your list into danger to pull them off. Against lists running 2-3 Sky Lanterns they are relatively effective, but once those numbers climb into the 5-6 range they become infinitely less reliable.
What Are Events Doing?
The most common attempt we are seeing to rein in Sky Lanterns is limiting players to a maximum of two throughout their entire list. The WTC implemented this rule for their upcoming event after seeing what the army was doing in teams’ test games and the SB Toronto Major has gone a step further and limited the model to one character mount and one ‘regular’ entry per list. We have seen some comps apply point systems to armies to limit their use as well, effectively making you choose between running Sky Lanterns and Cathayan Grand Cannons (and further limiting their use if you take either), while still others have gone so far as to comp away the Disengage rule from their data sheets entirely or disallowing them from being equipped with Ward or Regeneration saves. While comps are commonplace in the Old World (a throwback to the wild West of Warhammer Fantasy Battle) that tournaments have so quickly come together on this is telling.
Final Thoughts
All of these factors make it clear that even under the restricted systems that tournament circuits are bringing, these models are over-tuned and un-fun to play against. We’re unsure stopping folks at running two of them is enough to make the problem go away, and this is why we hope Games Workshop and the SDS team can step back and make some kind of change in the immediate future. If they could address a few of the issues raised above via errata or points adjustments like we’ve seen they’re willing to do with units like Sisters of the Thorn, Dragon Ogres, or Ridden Monsters as a whole, we’d no longer need to have these discussions about restrictions and bannings every time we open our group chats or social media. We believe starting off by adjusting the Disengage rule to allow enemy units the opportunity to follow-up and potentially remain in combat with Lanterns trying to escape, removing the ‘champion’ entry from the base datasheet, and a decent points increase would be a good starting point to making these models something healthier to see across the table without making changes to how the game as a whole is being played so we can avoid knock-on effects.
Honestly, it is really a shame that Sky Lanterns are such an outlier and that much of that has been caused by legitimate attempts to improve the greater health of the game as a whole. The remainder of the Cathay book (with the possible exception of stacking Thunderous Impacts from the Cathayan Grand Cannons which we also assume will see some form of FAQ) is very well balanced and was a master-class in how to introduce a brand new faction to a very well-established game.Â
The last thing we want is for players who would otherwise be excited to play with their new Cathay models to see the backlash that is mounting and have a negative reaction to it. As a brand new faction with such a gorgeous release, more and more players are gravitating towards Old World because of it. People who would consider starting a Cathay army might look elsewhere, or not get into the Old World at all when confronted with the stigma. People who have already bought into Cathay (and sunk the considerable cost that Sky Lanterns demand, these big fellas are pricey) will find out that in casual games opponents may not want to play with them, and in tournaments they’ll be severely limited or outright unable to play with their brilliant centerpiece models. We all just want to be able to play with our toys and right now, encountering multiple Lanterns at best feels like you are playing a completely different game than your opponent, at worst that the game you are in is also a single-player one. So let’s make some official changes please so the community can go back to arguing about how the Skirmish rule actually works.
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