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Recently I played a number of matches against my friend, both of us using IG armes.


I used Catachan Jungle Fighters and he used Cadian Shock Troops.


Anyhow this made me wonder which planet raises the best IG regiments.


I'll start by saying Catachan. As a death world it breeds seriously tough soldiers. They excel in jungle environments which require extreme skill, as was discovered in Vietnam.

Its boasts some of the most infamous regiments in the galaxy such as the Catachan 2nd.

It weathered the Waaaagh which attacked the Ryza system, despite the Systems sparse population and limited military.

I am admittedly biased.

Lord Palmerston wrote:Recently I played a number of matches against my friend, both of us using IG armes.


I used Catachan Jungle Fighters and he used Cadian Shock Troops.


Anyhow this made me wonder which planet raises the best IG regiments.


I'll start by saying Catachan. As a death world it breeds seriously tough soldiers. They excel in jungle environments which require extreme skill, as was discovered in Vietnam.

Its boasts some of the most infamous regiments in the galaxy such as the Catachan 2nd.

It weathered the Waaaagh which attacked the Ryza system, despite the Systems sparse population and limited military.

I am admittedly biased.

Why yes..yes you are..
It depends on the terrain and type of planet, while catachans may be better on a death world, vahallans will be much better then them on an ice world. And all around best would be Cadians, they seem to be more adaptable at the terrain they fight in(Cadian system has several diff types of planets that they train on-ref. Ork Codex)

Well, they're all pretty hardcore - I guess it's just a matter of personal preference. I agree Cadians are the perhaps the most universal - although they wouldn't be a patch on specialist regiments in their favoured terrain. It's hard to see beyond the Death Korps for me - gotta love gig guns

Death Korps hands down.

It depends on the war and the warzone. Jungles? Catachans. Ice-world? Valhallans. Attritional warfare? DKoK. Parade ground? Mordian. South Africa? Praetorians.

Cadians are the most universal, which is an advantage, mainly due to their more logical armour (see bare-chested Catachans for examples of how not to wear your flak-vest) but will never be as good as any of the above (or the other regiments) in their specific role.

Thus, Cadians are the best all-rounders.

(I play Catachans by the way)

They are all exactly as tough as whatever piece of writing you are reading requires them to be. So in practice, given how GW literature works, the regiment which is the subject of the a book or story is likely to be the hardest bunch of ":£$@£@?~#+* in the whole galaxy. Gaunt's ghosts are a case in point, they seem to be the best soldiers imaginable.

Several regiments are consistently described as being ridiculously hard. Catachans are all rambo, cadians are 'regular' soldiers but better disciplined, trained, dedicated, all super-fit, etc. Death Korps are literally fearless.

To the OP, you should look up a short book called 'Deathworld' (it is available on gutenberg.org). It is some early-20th century pulp sci-fi novel which is where GW seem to have got the premise that if you have a planet where everything is super dangerous, all the survivors will be action heroes. In my opinion it is a pretty silly idea, but the book goes into a bit more detail about how they get the inhabitants through infancy and how they survive on such a place.

Thanks for the advice, i'll look Deathworld up.

Certainly every Planet raises specialists based on its climate.

However, i don't see why the specialists (Catachans, Vahallans, DkOk) should be considered worse all-round then Cadians.

After all the specialists have all the attributes that it takes to be good soldiers (brave, super fit, disciplined) and so as well as their specialist skill they seem better than Cadians.

Slightly off-point, how do DKoK manage to specialise in attrition when their planet was exterminated and no longer raise regiments? Surely all the previsou regiments will just die off.

Krieg is still populated. The women are given hormonal pills to make them more fertile while they also have acces to some sort of cloning tech. From birth the kriegsmen are taught to venerate the Emperor and are sent of to war at the age of 15.

Dkok raise regiments using arcane iron wombs. Or is it called a vita womb. What ever they are clones basically.

They use the 'Vitae Womb' (living womb) technique to essentially clone their soldiers. It's not really approved of but Krieg has the blessing to use it because of the high number, and calibre, of regiments they constantly supply to the Imperium. Whilst some planets may raise a regiment every decade or so Krieg supply the maximum they're permitted each year.

I would imagine that while a place like Catachan may produce better warriors/fighters than Cadia, Cadia likely produces the better soldiers (ie, thinking and acting in a military fashion rather than individual combatant fashion), simply due to the nature of their upbringing.

The discipline and training of Cadia and Krieg seems to suggest planets like that would produce the best all around soldiers. But there's always going to be a place for really strong, aggressive troops like the ones from Catachan.

Steel Legion, I mean, they get slapped around by Ork Boyz the size of Warbosses everyday, lol.

Tallarn. Whoever rides into the 41st Millenium and kills the enemies of the Imperium of Man on horseback is the most badassed of them all.

'One shot Lance? Hah! I'll just stab with with the other end!'

Elysians..airborne, no tanks, just courage...

And the ability to jump out of perfectly good aircraft, trust a grav chute made by unskilled labor, land secure and Hold, until relieved or killed.

Bad ass.

Catachans.
Though they specialize in Deathworlds, they are also very tough. Commissars are unnecessary, plus you have beasts of men such as Straken and Harker.

Soo'Vah'Cha wrote:Elysians..airborne, no tanks, just courage...

And the ability to jump out of perfectly good aircraft, trust a grav chute made by unskilled labor, land secure and Hold, until relieved or killed.

Bad ass.

Don't forget to mention those perfectly good aircraft also strafe ground targets. Men on horseback don't have that luxury of a aerial strike, unlike those spoiled airborne children.

Tallarns, cause Im biased towards mobile guerilla warfare, and deserts

As for the point regarding how a specialist (like Elysian, Catachan) couldnt be a better all-rounder than regiments such as Cadians would probably come down to equipment and armour more than anything. For example, Elysians just cannot hold ground in the same way Cadians can, because their modus operandi usually means they are not equipped for it whenever they enter the battlefield.

Actually, let us not forget the First Born, there is very few more dangerous things in the universe than a man with a purpose.

Cadians are every bit as tough as Catachans....

Kasrkin are soldiers, from Cadia, that are too GOOD to be storm troopers.

Hoping that whenever the IG codex is re-released in the future they have a special unit for the Kasrkin. (Like the legion of the damned in Space Marines)

KplKeegan wrote:

Soo'Vah'Cha wrote:Elysians..airborne, no tanks, just courage...

And the ability to jump out of perfectly good aircraft, trust a grav chute made by unskilled labor, land secure and Hold, until relieved or killed.

Bad ass.

Don't forget to mention those perfectly good aircraft also strafe ground targets. Men on horseback don't have that luxury of a aerial strike, unlike those spoiled airborne children.

Yeah not like you dont have artillery, tanks , and all sorted kinds of armored vehicles supporting those men on their ponies, but Tallarn dont even ride horses, they ride those big weird space camels..so here's some cheese for your wine..or goat milk as it may be.

forruner_mercy wrote:Catachans.
Though they specialize in Deathworlds, they are also very tough. Commissars are unnecessary, plus you have beasts of men such as Straken and Harker.

They wouldn't last 5 minutes on the surface of Krieg though (which is a Deathworld soaked in lethal isotopes - if you're not covered up like a Korpsman, you're dead). On the other hand I doubt Korpsmen would have much luck on Catachan...

There is no best, there is only subjective opinion and bias. So I shall say KRIEG!

Out of all of these, seems like the only world people have a higher chance of survial IS Cadia. I know they are always under threat/attack, but so are all the armies we listed here, and they live in deathworlds.

"The Cadians are widely regarded as the best troops in the Imperium, short of the Space Marines themselves"

Imperial Guard 5'th edition codex.

Case closed.

Brother Coa wrote:"The Cadians are widely regarded as the best troops in the Imperium, short of the Space Marines themselves"

Imperial Guard 5'th edition codex.

Case closed.

Well just throw that in my face, brother.

Brother Coa wrote:"The Cadians are widely regarded as the best troops in the Imperium, short of the Space Marines themselves"

Imperial Guard 5'th edition codex.

Case closed.

That may be true, which I don't think it is, but Catachans are my fav

forruner_mercy wrote:

Brother Coa wrote:"The Cadians are widely regarded as the best troops in the Imperium, short of the Space Marines themselves"

Imperial Guard 5'th edition codex.

Case closed.

That may be true, which I don't think it is, but Catachans are my fav

Gasp, you question and doubt the codex? How dare you!

They all have roughly the same equipment, organisation and genetic stock. Their tactics change according to environment.
Debate is futile.
Reality terminated.


Have a nice day.

Definitely the Death Korps Of Krieg. Theyve got nothing to live for but war and serving the emporer, and the fact that they come from for all intensive purposes a dead planet means theyre brutal and merciless.
Not only that, but theyre trained in trench warfare; one of the harshest enviornments out there.

Cadians. You don't get to live right on the doorstep of Chaos without getting to be some badass melon-fethers.