Catachan Jungle Fighters

They're kind of like Vietnam War-esque Diet Space Marines that bench trees and sweat hammers.

This man's knife is as big as his thigh, and his arms are the size of your thigh. Clearly not a knife to be screwed with.

The Catachan Jungle Fighters are a Regiment of the Imperial Guard from the Death World of Catachan. They are mainly noted for having what are quite possibly the largest balls in the entire Imperium, as Catachan is basically Hell where pretty much everything can kill, including the goddamn flowers. Every animal is either carnivorous and/or poisonous, with all carnivores hunting and devouring their smaller counterparts. Basically the Imperial Guard's version of Rambo/Schwarzenegger hybrids, super-survivalists based on both the US Army Commandos/Marines and the Vietcong guerillas of the Vietnam War. They are the toughest motherfuckers in town who are so ripped some believe they are a race of abhumans; they are in fact so muscled they can wear flimsy tanktops to show off their muscle and still get the same grade of protection as a Cadian Shock Trooper in full armor, and the most RIPPED of them can get the same degree of protection as Carapace armor from their ROCK HARD ABS. Keep in mind that flak armor can stop lasers and carapace armor can block bolter shells from Space Marines. Wonder why the Emprah didn't create a Space Marine chapter out of these badasses... Oh yes, because they don't need it. What a Space Marine can do with his chainsword, a Catachan can do more with just a knife.

A Catachan's favorite weapon is his trusty, simple, utilitarian and old-fashioned knife. They have created a ridiculous amount of clearly bullshit myths around their knives, as stupid backworlders generally tend to. If you listen to a Catachan then you'd start to wonder why the Imperium bothers with power swords and nemesis force halberds if steel sharpened on a stone is so good. Some of the various lies told by Catachans include: These knives, which every man and woman and child on the planet has made themselves, are prized throughout the galaxy even more so than the "fancy" and overrated chainswords that take too much maintenance, break often, would probably jam in Catachan flora, and can't be used for hunting because the lubricant would soil the meat. Orks absolutely love these guys - any respectable Ork would trade a chainsword or chop off his own arm to trade for their knives. Especially so for their biggest, more a sword really than a knife - its renown among da Orks is known as "Da Cutta". In return, a Catachan would rather give up his knife arm than his knife. Other favoured weapons amongst Catachans are the Flamer/Heavy Flamer, Sniper Rifle, and Demolition Charge. Using a Heavy Flamer in dense foliage is regarded as both safe and manly by the Catachans, who are balls-out rock hard.

Catachans don't like commissars that much. Usually most commissars end up "accidentally" walking into a Catachan trap (aka their knives and lasbolts) or "disappear" in different ways. The one individual to escape from this is Colonel Greiss, by merit of being such a balls-out hardcore motherfucker that the Catachans could not help to respect him. The planet is also noted to be one of the few worlds in the Imperium where there are non-white people.

Catachan: A very, very, very, very, very shitty place to live

If you think it sucks where you live... well, you know absolutely nothing. Here are just a few reasons why Catachan is the last place in the entire galaxy outside the Warp or certain parts of the Webway you would (or should) visit:

• Humanity is near the BOTTOM of the food chain.
• Half of the babies are eaten violently before they are three.
• Half of those survivors are then eaten before they are ten. (A 1 in 4 chance of survival).
• Every living thing on the planet is poisonous, carnivorous, or both. (Even the plants.)
• Most predators on Catachan aren't just giant monsters like you'd find on Fenris or Cretacia. That would just be too easy. Many of Catachan's most lethal killers are small and seemingly harmless, so they will almost certainly kill you before you even see them. An example of this are the Heretic Ants, (named because they start by eating away at men's soles; the soles of his feet for the literal-minded), along with the Catachan Barking Toad, which spontaneously combusts when startled, typically killing everything within a five meter radius, including the toad itself.
• You live at several times Earth's gravity.
• You have to burn the jungle away from your village with a Flamethrower at least once a day.
• The planet's major export is soldiers. No, wait. The planet's only export is soldiers (and dead commissars).
• Or in other words: Living on Catachan is like living perpetually in the first stages of a Tyranid invasion. In fact, some Magos Biologis have theorized that some of the wildlife (such as the Catachan Devil) may have actually been Tyranid bio-forms that were separated from the Hive Mind and went feral in the distant past. In an issue of White Dwarf, Games Workshop even had the Catachan Devil as a Tyranid unit.

tl;dr: It's basically Australia IN SPESS!!

Positive side

There are, however, some positives that balance out all of the bad, bad things about being a guardsman from Catachan. Assuming you live long enough to enjoy them.

• Your muscles will be so thick that you count as having flak armor, even without a shirt on. If you wax your chest and liberally apply oil, it acts similarly to Space Marine armour. Only Catachan veterans know why this works.
• Commissars seem about as intimidating as a grot compared to the horrors you've grown up with.
• You're able to kill Orks with your bare hands. If that doesn't work, you can use the FUCKHUEG knife you get build growing up.
• You might be led by Colonel "I ate a Miral landshark for breakfast" Straken.
• You might also be led by Gunnery Sergeant "I headlock Tyranid Raveners to death" Harker.
• You have superhuman strength (at least as compared to other Guardsmen; you're still not exactly a Space Marine).

• Unless you are Gunnery Sergeant Harker, in which case you are actually stronger than most Space Marines.

• After all you went through growing up on your homeworld, most of the hardships of being in the Imperial Guard won't be a problem for you.
• You can make Hollywood Action Heroes look like Justin Bieber.