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No, they are not immune, by the simple expedient that they can and are harmed by poison in game. There are very few units that aren't; Lamias perhaps. Poison is just a cleaner that is dangerous to humans as well. So Nurgle can't make his followers magically immune to bleach or fire.

Nurgle doesn't grant his followers immunity to disease, it just doesn't kill them. Their skin still rots, their body corrodes etc, but zombie like it doesn't cause them to die. They don't feel pain, and it takes more damage to disable them, but they can still be disabled by conventional attacks like lasers, bolters and flamers. Poison and conventional animal attacks are similar, and just as effective.

Durandal wrote:
No, they are not immune, by the simple expedient that they can and are harmed by poison in game. There are very few units that aren't; Lamias perhaps. Poison is just a cleaner that is dangerous to humans as well. So Nurgle can't make his followers magically immune to bleach or fire.

Nurgle doesn't grant his followers immunity to disease, it just doesn't kill them. Their skin still rots, their body corrodes etc, but zombie like it doesn't cause them to die. They don't feel pain, and it takes more damage to disable them, but they can still be disabled by conventional attacks like lasers, bolters and flamers. Poison and conventional animal attacks are similar, and just as effective.

If Nurgle doesn't grant immunity to disease/poison then the maladies they are inflicted with would kill them outright and I don't think we are talking in game I believe we are talking more fluff based.

Durandal wrote:
No, they are not immune, by the simple expedient that they can and are harmed by poison in game. There are very few units that aren't; Lamias perhaps. Poison is just a cleaner that is dangerous to humans as well. So Nurgle can't make his followers magically immune to bleach or fire.

Nurgle doesn't grant his followers immunity to disease, it just doesn't kill them. Their skin still rots, their body corrodes etc, but zombie like it doesn't cause them to die. They don't feel pain, and it takes more damage to disable them, but they can still be disabled by conventional attacks like lasers, bolters and flamers. Poison and conventional animal attacks are similar, and just as effective.

Im fairly sure thats just a gain mechanic. (I could be wrong, the Imperial Hellhound that fires poison and the Dark Eldar weapons are the example you are using correct?) The Death Guard when they were loyalist had the ability to handle many types of poisons and Death Guard would have just made them that much better if not simply immune. I never said they were immune to something like fire.

Nurgle doesn't grant his followers immunity to disease, it just doesn't kill them. Their skin still rots, their body corrodes etc, but zombie like it doesn't cause them to die.

Sorry about this, I PERSONALLY call that immune. I guess techinally they are not immune but if it isnt hurting them in anyway (beyond what they are already going through) and its not killing them than its not really a factor.


No one is saying that lasers, bolters, flamers, tank shells, falling trees, vaccums, preditors, etc... can not kill Plague Marines. We are saying that anything in terms of poison or disease that the forest is going to throw it them, they are going to be able to handle because they are Plague Marines. Had they been anything else, even Tyranids (up until they adapt to it) I would have given it to the forest. The problem is, them being Plague Marines means they arnt going to get yellow fevor or something and die which is what the most common form of death in the forest is. Plague Marines rob the forest of its greatest advantage while the Catachans STILL have to deal with it. Anything that IS able to kill a Plague Marine is going to instant kill a Catachan pretty much.

"Their bodies became bloated and swollen with the corruption festering within, but they no longer felt the agony of the warp-pox and did not die from its horrific symptoms"

"Their rotting brains are inured to the agony of bodily corruption, making them all but immune to the pain or debilitation caused by battle wounds."

-Codex Chaos Marines

The are not immune. The fluff in the book is just that they don't feel the pain caused by the decay of their bodies and they don't die from the various diseases that riddle their bodies.

The Dusk Raiders, pre-heresey, had exceptional resilience to toxins and disease, but were not totally immune either.

Nor does it make them immune to the creatures of the jungle.
"200 foot Catachan Devils, mantrap plants, giant lizards, bloodwasps, vein worms, heretic ants, death flies, catachan vipers, flying swamp mamba, greater barking toads, brain leafs, spikers etc.

So while plague marines are tough, due to not feeling pain or injury, they would also not feel it as their flesh is stripped bare by ants in the night, nor the small pinpricks as veinworms lay eggs in their feet.

In addition, they have to contend with the Catachans, who will lay their infamous booby traps all around the Plague Marines, slowing them down even further while hidden snipers take them down one by one and ambush squads spring out of nowhere to drop a demo charge on their faces.

Game mechanics aside, the fluff shows that on their home turf, the sons of Catachan would be hard to shift, even by Plague Marines. The marines, slowed down by their bulk and the constant booby traps would be easy prey for snipers and artillery barrages. The only time they would even see the Catachans is when the squads erupted from the undergrowth to hit them with flamers and demo charges.

washout77 wrote:Also, im not too sure about how many have tried to take Catachan in general.

The Night Lords CSMs have tried to invade Catachan once.
They pulled out again after Colonel Straken strangled their leader with a friggin' root.

Galdos wrote:Predators, we are talking about Space Marines here, if the people of Catachan can handle (note they just BARELY handle it) than the Space Marines can handle it.

That's a pretty big assumption. I for one would think that the Catachans' resistance against the local fauna and flora has even more to do with experience (personal and transmitted) than physiology. It is highly unlikely that a Space Marine who has no knowledge about this planet whatsoever would know what to watch out for, which animals are dangerous, where they roam and when/how they attack or what their weakness is.

Take that aforementioned toad, for example. Nobody in their sane mind would expect such a harmless looking creature to act like a WMD if you step on it. Nobody but a Catachan. The entire invasion force could be eradicated just because it lands at the wrong spot. That planet is just crazy.

"Their bodies became bloated and swollen with the corruption festering within, but they no longer felt the agony of the warp-pox and did not die from its horrific symptoms"

"Their rotting brains are inured to the agony of bodily corruption, making them all but immune to the pain or debilitation caused by battle wounds."

-Codex Chaos Marines

The are not immune. The fluff in the book is just that they don't feel the pain caused by the decay of their bodies and they don't die from the various diseases that riddle their bodies.

As I said, I made a mistake in the wording. You guys are right, they are NOT immune. I said I PERSONALLY would call it being immune because it does not kill them and it does not cause them major problems.

My wording was poor but my point still stands.

Nor does it make them immune to the creatures of the jungle.

Jesus people please read the post you reply too and understand it. NO ONE EVER SAID THEY ARE IMMUNE TO THE CREATURES OF THE JUNGLE.

We said that being Plague Marines, with that extra toughness, a predator is less likely to kill them than a basic human.

In addition, they have to contend with the Catachans, who will lay their infamous booby traps all around the Plague Marines, slowing them down even further while hidden snipers take them down one by one and ambush squads spring out of nowhere to drop a demo charge on their faces.

Well of course they have to fight that Catachans, what do you think we thought the Catachans were just chilling in their bases playing cards. You litterally just told me "You have to remember that fighting occurs." Ya of course we know this, thats what the Catachans specilize in, ambushes and guerrrilla warfare.

Do remember that Space Marines have better reflexes and sense of a human so this doesnt meant that Catachans auto win with guerrrilla warfare because, while many ambushes will work, many of them would fail because the Catachans will be detected or fail to mass enough firepower to bring these guys down.


guerrrilla warfare isnt actually all that great of a military strategy if you guys didnt realize. You do it to help even the odds or win a morale victory but thats it, you dont win wars through it. Perfect example is Vietnam, The US Army defeated the NVA in every major engagement of the war, some of those were pretty massive victories. (North Vietnam wasnt trying to defeat the US Army, it knew it couldnt, it focused on making the American public hate the war)

Game mechanics aside, the fluff shows that on their home turf, the sons of Catachan would be hard to shift, even by Plague Marines. The marines, slowed down by their bulk and the constant booby traps would be easy prey for snipers and artillery barrages. The only time they would even see the Catachans is when the squads erupted from the undergrowth to hit them with flamers and demo charges.

Yes the Catachans have a homefield advantage and would be hard to shift them out of it. I was joking when I said it would be a cake walk. Apperently I wasnt allowed to make jokes in my post because people were thinking I was being serious and not taking the enemy seriously. You do not defeat an ARMY with booby traps and small squad sizes ambushes. A squad of 10 Plague Marines are marching in the woods, how many Catachans will you need to kill them? Quite a few, lasguns arnt going to cut this after all, you need special weapons. However Catachans dont have regiments of special weapons, they have companies that may have a few special weapons in it.

So you have a huge force of guardsmen chilling in the forest, hoping the enemy doesnt detect them, praying the forest doesnt kill them first. This makes ambushing pretty hard.

The Night Lords CSMs have tried to invade Catachan once

Ive never heard of that. Where is that found? I find that interesting.

I for one would think that the Catachans' resistance against the local fauna and flora has even more to do with experience (personal and transmitted) than physiology. It is highly unlikely that a Space Marine who has no knowledge about this planet whatsoever would know what to watch out for, which animals are dangerous, where they roam and when/how they attack or what their weakness is.

Those who survive have good survival instincts and a strong immune system. Thats why Catachans are such good soldiers. These Catachan warriors arnt invincible to the forest though, they simply have already survived before. A Space Marine who has more combat experience, better survival instincts, and better reflexes, is going to do very well in a death world because of these features. Thats not to say that they are invincible either, both sides will suffer casulties. However I am going to bet that a force of Plague Marines will perform far better on a death world then an Imperial Guardsman. Now yes this is an assumption but I can say the same about your opinion.

Oh and "which animals are dangerous", these are Chaos Marines, if they can not corrupt it, they will kill it.




I feel like you guys are over inflating the abilites of Catachans. The way you guys are writing it makes it sound like Catachans are some super human warriors that know everything about their death world the second they are born and have mastered their death world to make it work for them and no other force in the entire galaxy good ever learn what they know.


These are basic humans who grew up on a world that was extremely hard to live on meaning that the survivors have better survival instincts and immune system than many other humans in the world. They are fighting Space Marines with hundreds / thousands of years of war experience on more worlds than most Catachans have been too while being some of the toughest warriors in the entire galaxy. This is not factoring in things like Nurgle's rot which would EVENTUALLY infest the forest making the forest more deadly (than it already is) to the Catachans.

Its not that Catachans are gak out of luck but you would have a lot of trouble making the match up more unfair for them because the things that will boost chaos forces is so helpful it almost cancels out a lot of what makes the Catachans good on this planet.

Galdos wrote:A squad of 10 Plague Marines are marching in the woods, how many Catachans will you need to kill them? Quite a few, lasguns arnt going to cut this after all, you need special weapons.

Why won't lasguns suffice? The chance to injure a Marine with one of those isn't so bad (depending on whose material you operate on), and each injury decreases their combat performance for the duration of the engagement. Just gotta hit them hard enough. An ambush might provide this opportunity.

Galdos wrote:Ive never heard of that. Where is that found? I find that interesting.

Codex Planetstrike - it is one of the engagements listed in the historical section. There are a couple dozen more, so it's a pretty interesting read for fluff alone. Given the book's limited use, I'm not surprised that its contents are not common knowledge tho, especially when it comes to details such as these.

Galdos wrote:Oh and "which animals are dangerous", these are Chaos Marines, if they can not corrupt it, they will kill it.

As an invading force, I just think they'd bother with the enemy they intend to fight first before turning their attention to the local fauna and flora. Hell knows how many different species of animals actually live on a single square meter of Catachan jungle - I really don't think they'd bother with burning everything in their path, simply because they won't expect Catachan to be that deadly (Space Marine hubris is a tried and proven weakness, even moreso for corrupted CSMs). And by the time they figure it out, it could well be too late.

But yeah, opinions.

And personally, I'm not inflating the abilities of Catachans, but I tend to believe that many people are inflating the abilities of Astartes. "Just" being a Space Marine does not seem to be enough for this job; the Night Lords have shown as much.

What I won't give my two cents on is anything that has to do with Nurgle and how this could influence the outcome, though. I've read too little Chaos fluff to feel competent for that.

On the poison note, Nurgle infects them with every disease known to man. Any sickness born of Catachan is probably already inside of them, if not i imagine Nurgle would get right on the task of sharing the new gift.

So, likely already having the poisons and diseases unique to catachan already in them, we can assume they would survive the mosquitoes, snakes, and poison grass, etc. Because they already have it and because they are already dealing with it; we can effectively mark off the poison & disease as weapons against Plague Marines. Ultimately this means nay wildlife wanting to kill a CSM needs to do a lot of damage fast. I have no idea how Plague Marine resistance would work on acid but i figure that's the best shot any wildlife has at killing them. This is of course assuming the acid eats them fast enough for them to leave the acid. This is assuming the wildlife that might want a hummie for a snack is dumb enough to go after the clearly diseased & deadly(as in health) plague marines. I don't claim to be a doctor or a biologist, but i would assume that if something reeks of death, looks spoiled as thousand year old milk, and has flies buzzing around it in a thick cloud; i would assume most animals would go look for something less toxic. Bit off topic but animals that mimic the appearance of toxic animals even without being toxic, usually enough to ward off a predator. So i don't imagine things that want to eat them doing anything other than avoiding them. Doesn't matter how poisonous the wildlife of Catachan are, being poisonous doesn't translate to immunity to what a Plague Marine might be carrying. Not by a long shot.

So Lets assume wildlife did go after Plague Marines because they looked oh so delectable and tasty, its downright stupid to assume the wildlife is immune to every disease infesting a Plague Marine, let alone Nurgles rot. Which might have an interesting effect if it didn't outright kill them, we could see the comical & horrific event of an army of demonic plague ants swarming the planet. Tyranid hive Mine aint got nothin on that. Know that ant colony spanning multiple European countries? Crank that up to 11 and make them Nurgle play things.
As awesome and terrifying as that is, its more likely that upon getting some flesh from a Plague Marine, the insect hive would eat it & die or recognize its toxic as all hell and move as far away from it as they could. For the larger animals we could expect the same. They either take a bite out of it and start becoming horrifically sick with every disease known to mankind, or they ignore it, abandon the pack members that touched it, and MOVE. Find a new hive/cave to live in, preferably one that's not a future site for a hazardous waste disposal site.

Barking toad would do damage, Catachan devil(the giant bug) would do damage, Grox would likely recognize the toxic nature of it, man traps would probably spit them out just before withering and dying, and i doubt a spiker could do anything to them.

 Varrick wrote:
On the poison note, Nurgle infects them with every disease known to man. Any sickness born of Catachan is probably already inside of them, if not i imagine Nurgle would get right on the task of sharing the new gift

Poison is an interesting one, because the definition is so vague. Generally, I guess you could define it as anything that injures a person with the use of kinetic force. I mean, if I make someone drink a whole bunch of high strength acid, have I poisoned them? If I make them drink a glue which clogs their airways and they suffocate, have they been poisoned? If I inject air into their bloodstream causing their heart to fail, is that poisoning them? I've sometimes heard getting shot referred to as 'a bad case of lead poisoning' so there's that too.