Codex Catachan Review

Codex Catachan - Warhammer 40,000 Supplement
Games Workshops Warhammer 40,000 Rulebook
Published by Games Workshop

4UK pounds - 9.99 US Dollars

"Those fern forests cover eight million square leagues and they're rife with blood worms, horn ticks, forest wolves and enough terminal poxes and plagues to rot a man from the inside out in days. If we want to rid ourselves of the greenskin Ork scum occupying the forest highlands there is only one force in the galaxy that can assure us of victory. We need the best jungle fighters in the Imperium, we need the jungle fighters of Catachan."
Lord General Krivonor - Trojan Crusade

Think Predator or Tour of Duty or any TV program or movie that has elite squad or platoon of hard bitten Troops able to get out any situation or out fight any opponent and you about get the general feel of the Catachan Jungle fighters. In the right circumstances these are an hard army to beat, I would go as far as say that Codex Catachan is an elite army list for the Imperial Guard. They are in short tough SOB's well for humans anyway.

This Codex is a smaller plug-in for Codex Imperial Guard - the idea being you can incorporate the Catachans into a more regular Imperial Guard army. Unlike the other Plug-in Codexes this one also acts as a very good stand alone army list. Inside the Codex you will find a 24 page Jungle fighting supplement - with a complete army list for the Catachan Jungle fighters giving you a pure Jungle fighter army. New Squads are available for your Catachan army in the form Catachan Devil Squads (elite Catachans!) Assault teams with flamers a go go (burn baby burn) and Snipers..he,he,he (Remember the Hand of God in the Navy Seal movie). Also the only vehicle available to a pure Catachan army is the Sentinel with heavy flamers and chainsaw arms (3 attacks when charging! instead of the normal 2!)- thinking about it in the confined spaces that the Catachans fight in a Sentinel has got to be a deadly as a Dreadnought. And finally in the heavy support section you can get Booby traps - so you can lay your own nasty surprises for your opponent. In all its a nice little army and is on my list for a must have... sigh... as soon as I find time...

You will find full rules in this Codex for fighting in the dense terrian that makes up the jungle, from a full random terrian chart to how line of sight works. You will find a couple examples of jungle battlefields to give you an idea on how to make your battlefields. I've tried the jungle fighting rules against a Catachan army and they gave my Dark Eldar a very hard time. In the jungle it does not matter how fast you are - everybody hits at the sametime. I had a little more success against an Alaitoc Craftworld army. Accept for those damnable Pathfinders

The colour section is an improvement over past sections, there is a nice section for painting and converting your Catachans and for making your own Jungle terrian. GW even recommend that you get your hands on Tropical fish tank plants to make up your flora. Plus there is rather brief but useful page on making your own Jungle trees out of wire, bandages, polyfiller and masking tape?

In summing up its a nice little mini-Codex its biggest let down is there is hardly any background of the Catachans themselves. There are a couple of nice side bars and little about the fauna and flora of Catachan (not recommended as a holiday destination - although I have no doubt you would find some Aussie backpackers there working in a bar). But as with a lot of the new GW Codexes if you didn't already know what the Catachans are you are left a little puzzeled.

Nice Codex, fun army, great rules - more background!

Flaming Skulls