Catachan Jungle Fighters

"War is in your blood. Don't fight it. You didn't kill for your country. You killed for yourself. The gods are never gonna make that go away. When you're pushed, killing's as easy as breathing."

– Rambo, Rambo IV

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. (Worth Noting that the two figures in the background appear to be Colonel Greiss and Nork Deddog)

The Catachan Jungle Fighters (also known in the bodybuilding industry as the ABhumans) are a Regiment of the Imperial Guard from the Death World of Catachan (Pronounced Cata-Can). 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 the US and Australian Army Commandos/Marines 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 (well, pretend lasers that make noise and obey ballistic physics rather than photonic physics) 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 Marines are forbidden to command armies of mortals, Chapter Worlds are freed from Imperial Tithe - and Munitorium is sane enough not to lose the source of guys like Sly Marbo.

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, Shotgun, 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. Along with the Cadians they're the last kind of Guardsmen who you can buy GW made plastic models for from the source; for everyone else you either go third party or buy from Forgeworld (if they're the Death Korps or Elysians anyway. Though it's not too hard to use the Death Korps to stand in for the Steel Legion), and while this may sound great; it's worth remembering that Catachan's models are...pretty infamously ugly (although this has more to do with GW's atrocious studio painting back in 1989, compared to other models from that time they're actually quite detailed and dynamic). With Chenkov and Al'rahem's removal for the sin of not having models (wrong, both had models) they're also the only source of non-Cadian or Commissariat special characters in the codex.

And, to top it all off, while everyone else was shitting their Munitorum-issued breeches when the Cicatrix Maledictum was expanding, the Catachans were busy kicking Chaos ass off their planet. Upon reaching Catachan, the Indomitus Crusade simply made a pitstop to gain even more fuel units of awesome than they had when they left Terra to retake all the overrun precious space.

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

"Out there beyond that fence every living thing that crawls, flies, or squats in the mud wants to kill you and eat your eyes for jujubes."- Colonel Miles Quaritch

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 1/4 chance of survival to adulthood).
• Every living thing on the planet is poisonous, carnivorous, or both. Even the plants, like the Brainleaf that takes over the minds of anyone that comes into contact with its leaves (which it can shoot several yards away), and the Spiker, which turns anyone who is pricked by one of its spines into another Spiker.
• Agriculture is impossible on Catachan's soil and literally all the native plants are poisonous, carnivorous, or both. As a result all your food either comes off-world or from whatever animals the hunting party managed to subdue. Do note that because every animal on Catachan is designed to kill, any non-venomous creature you meet will either be a powerful warrior hunter beyond reason or cunningly brutal predator, so dinner is more likely to be the diner when bringing them down.
• 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) and the Catachan Barking Toad, which explodes into a cloud of absurdly lethal poison when startled that kills everything within a five hundred meter radius- including the toad itself.
• There is so much dense jungle and so many deadly animals that Catachan does not need a planetary defense system, as the wildlife scares off the Tyranids and the Orks(who actually live there, bu try to escape this hellhole as fast as possible). Only Chaos Space Marines were brave enough to attack Catachan some time after Great Rift opening, and if you asked them why, they would have said: Why not? Easy prey, isolated planet. Needless to say, all of them feed Catachan's analogue of worms now. The effectiveness of Catachan's ecosystem is so good that it and the Catachan Jungle Fighters on the planet managed to repel a full-fledged daemon invasion when they were caught directly in the middle of the Great Rift. Yes, not even the reality-bending bullshit of the Warp can stop Catachan and the Devils.
• You live at several times (well, ok, not THAT many times, or the Catachan people would be a good deal shorter, yet for some reason they are taller than most humans despite having no biological modifications or mechanical modifications) 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.
• Or in other words: Living on Catachan is like living perpetually in the first stages of a Tyranid invasion. In fact, some Magos Biologi have theorized that some of the wildlife (such as the Catachan Devils- monstrous half-scorpion half-centipede horrors that are capable of tearing apart tanks on their own) 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.

There are women with the Catachan Jungle Fighters, and they're just as tough as their male counterparts, tougher even since they have to raise the Bastards!

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. (it's because almost everything will slide off your abs up to and including battlecannon shells)
• 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 make 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 can arm-wrestle a goddamn ork.
• After all you went through growing up on your homeworld, most of the hardships of being in the Imperial Guard will be a joke to you.
• You can make Hollywood Action Heroes look like Justin Bieber by comparison.
• Sly Marbo

Also see

• [1]-Catachan Guardsmen dealing with pesky Eldar