The Catachan regiment is, of course, the latest army released by Games Workshop based on the Imperial Guard.  As well as some cracking new miniatures, the Codex introduces a whole new style of fighting to Warhammer 40,000 – jungle warfare!

Now, it is true that the Deathworld Veterans army is a little more limited than most.  You can only really use it in a jungle, for a start but a full army is quick and easy to put together, as I will show you here.  This, combined with the fact that a lot of Catachan units can be used in regular Guard armies, or can even be used as the basis of a completely new army, make the Catachans a choice well worthy of consideration to anyone looking to build a new force.

When putting together a new army from scratch, no one wants to spend months painting models before they can start fielding a decent force, but at the same time, you want as many of the new and unique models from the army list as possible.  We will put together a Catachan force here that fulfils both of these requirements.  It will be cheap and quick to put together, exciting to play on the tabletop and utterly lethal to the enemies of the Emperor!

Compulsory Choices
Every army really needs 1 HQ and 2 Troops slots filled on the force organisation chart before any other units are bought so that the army is ‘legal’ for all the standard missions in the main rulebook, so this is as good a place to start as any.

The Deathworld Veteran Command HQ, like its regular Guard equivalent, is comprised of a high ranking officer and a number of Guardsmen.  With my Cadian Imperial Guard, I never splash out the extra points for a Colonel.  After all, why waste points on cannon fodder?  But we are building a Deathworld Veterans army here, so our commander should be suitably heroic!  We will make him a Colonel (another Wound and Leadership are certainly the extra points in jungle warfare) and seriously tool him up with a Power Fist, Plasma Pistol and a Refractor Field.  We will have 3 veterans form his Command Squad and arm them with 2 Flamers and a Meltagun, enabling the squad to deal with large hordes of aliens or heavy vehicles with equal ease.  Everyone is equipped with Frag Grenades.

A quick note here – everyone who can take Frag Grenades in this army is equipped with them, something I would never do with a regular Guard force.  Why?  Well, jungle warfare, lots of cover and terrain. . . think about it. . .

With a suitably strong HQ, it is now time to have a look at the Troops slots.  Again, as with regular Guard armies, a Deathworld Infantry Platoon takes up one Troop slot for 1 Platoon Commander and 2-5 Infantry Squads.  Codex: Catachans also allows you to take up to 1 Fire Support Heavy Weapons Squad as part of the platoon as well, but seeing as I have my doubts about heavy weapons in the jungle, we will ignore them for this starting army.

If I was planning to take this army to a tournament, or if I knew I was facing a particularly tough opponent, I would take two large Platoons automatically.  But if we do that here, we will have far too many models to paint before we can start fighting and we will also not have any points left for the ‘cool’ units later on.  So we will content ourselves with just one Platoon for now – you can always add another later on.

In a Deathworld Veterans army, the Platoon Commander is an Independent Character, rather than being part of a squad and we get the choice of using a Lieutenant or a Captain.  In keeping with the grizzled veteran feel of this force, we’ll take a Captain and arm him with a Bolter, Power Weapon and a Refractor Field.

He’ll lead four ten-man Infantry Squads into battle (Deathworld Veteran Infantry Squads are of variable size), all including a Veteran Sergeant.  All four squads also have one Heavy Flamer, a beautiful weapon to use in the close confines of the jungle – for special weapons, two squads will have a regular Flamer, whereas the other two have Meltaguns, giving these core units a good chance of dealing with infantry and armour alike – if any vehicles are foolish enough to enter a jungle!  The Veteran Sergeants are hard enough just armed with their free Laspistols and close combat weapons, but we will give one a Bolt Pistol and another Bionics, just for some variation.

We still have one Troops slot to fill, but if we don’t want to go to the trouble of immediately painting another entire Platoon, there is only one choice left to us – Ogryns!

Now, my Cadians wouldn’t fight alongside such loutish abhumans for all the worlds in the Gothic Sector, but I feel their brutish nature fits in well with the Catachans.  I have chosen to give them Ogryn close combat weapons, using Fantasy Battle Ogres as models, as this makes them eminently suitable for fighting at close quarters in the jungle, but you could give them Ripper Guns if you prefer.

The Big Guns
In breaking with tradition from most Imperial Guard armies, the Catachans do not usually have a lot of heavy weapons, but every army needs a little support.

First we will pick three Sentinels and put them into one squadron.  Their Heavy Flamers will toast most enemies and the combination of their armour and chainsaws make them deadly to most enemy infantry squads when the inevitable close combat begins.

The only heavy weapons squads we will consider for now are the Mortar Teams.  Whilst most heavy weapons suffer greatly from a lack of visibility in the jungle, Mortars, being guess range weapons, are a superb choice.  We’ll take a squad of three to rain death on opponent’s armies from a distance.  The 48” range of these weapons is a huge distance in the jungle.

Sneaky Units
Catachans are the undisputed masters of jungle warfare and every squad may infiltrate when fighting in their natural terrain.  However, there are a few units in the army list that demonstrate even more skill in this area – these are the units that can ambush enemies!

When you use an ambushing unit, you do not place it on the table initially but rather you note down a general position of where they are lying in wait for the enemy.  When an suitable enemy unit comes close enough, you can place them on the table and launch a devastating attack.

The first of these ambushing units are the are the Snipers.  They have great models to represent them on the table which, to my mind, is reason enough to include them!  With their deadly toxin sniper rifles and camouflage, a Sniper is likely to hold up an enemy squad for quite some time, so three of them will be included in our army.

The Deathworld Veterans Patrol Squads may also use the ambush rules but, used properly, they can be far more devastating than Snipers.  Imagine a Flamer or Meltagun popping up in the middle of your opponent’s force without warning, closely followed by a devastating assault!  We will choose two five-man squads of these, both led by Veteran Sergeants.  One squad has a Flamer, the other a Meltagun which will allow the army to tackle most enemies.

The Best Squad of All
Last, we come to my favourite squad of all – the Deathworld Veteran Assault Team.  Almost completely fearless, this small squad has a wide range of weapons options.  We’ll give all but two of these men Shotguns – a Strength 3, Assault 2 weapons can cause a lot of grief to enemy infantry when used in numbers.  Just in case this squad comes across anything that it cannot immediately deal with, the two remaining men will be given a Demolition Charge each.  Just think of these as the equivalent of a Battle Cannon round.  The only major drawback to these great weapons is that they are limited to a 6” range, so if you roll badly for scatter. . .

Red Platoon, Company IV, 26th Catachan
HQ
Command HQ
Colonel w/Frag Grenades, Power Fist, Plasma Pistol, Refractor Field.  3 Veterans w/Meltagun, 2 Flamers, Frag Grenades

Elites
Veteran Assault Team
5 men, Veteran Sergeant, Shotguns, 2 Demolition Charges

Snipers
3 Snipers

Troops
Platoon Commander
Captain w/Bolter, Power Weapon, Frag Grenades, Refractor Field

Infantry Squad
Veteran Sergeant, 10 men, Heavy Flamer, Flamer, Frag Grenades

Infantry Squad
Veteran Sergeant w/Bolt Pistol, 10 men, Heavy Flamer, Flamer, Frag Grenades

Infantry Squad
Veteran Sergeant, 10 men, Heavy Flamer, Meltagun, Frag Grenades

Infantry Squad
Veteran Sergeant w/Bionics, 10 men, Heavy Flamer, Meltagun, Frag Grenades

Ogryns Squad
5 Ogryns, Ogryn close combat weapons

Fast Attack
Sentinel Squadron
3 Deathworld Sentinels

Veterans Patrol
5 men, Veteran Sergeant, Meltagun, Frag Grenades

Veterans Patrol
5 men, Veteran Sergeant, Flamer, Frag Grenades

Heavy Support
Mortar Heavy Weapons Squad
3 Mortar Teams
  Total Cost: 1499 points

Expanding the Army
So, that is an entire Deathworld Veterans army, ready to take to the battlefield and fight some very unusual battles in a jungle setting.  This way of fighting really is the whole attraction of this force and I urge all of you to try fighting with these rules at least once.  I promise you won’t regret any extra effort!

If you are looking to expand this army then certainly the first place to look is at a second Platoon – 80 Deathworld Veterans, plus some support units, would be utterly lethal.  I would personally also add another Assault Team (you have to love Demolition Charges!) or maybe a Catachan Devils Squad, the Deathworld version of the Hardened Veterans.  In either case, it is worth dropping a unit or two from the army as it stands and try out a few of the Booby Traps found in the Heavy Support section of the army list.  Some of these can be just plain nasty to unwary opponents and you will enjoy the look on other players faces when they are wondering where your Patrol squads are, only to be hit in the face by a Plasma Charge!

You could also go the other way completely and start using this army as a regular Guard regiment.  All you really need to add is a few heavy weapons teams and one or two tanks and you effectively have two armies for little more than the cost of one.

Jungle Sweeps
The Catachans with their plastic box set and unique style of fighting are an excellent introduction to the Imperial Guard.  Their wide range of new units set them apart from other armies of the Imperium but, at the same time, they can readily be used as a generic Guard army for those times when you hear the grinding of tracks ringing in your head. . .

Matthew Sprange
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