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Pretty much, although I would personally say 1915-1943. Lawrence of Arabia meets the Long Range Desert Group & the 7th Armoured Brigade.

As to the others...
The Mordian Iron Guard are based upon French & Prussian uniforms from the Franco-Prussian War (1870s) with a general European Imperial power vibe (close order drill and smart uniforms, iron discipline etc).

The Death Korp of Krieg are not solely based on WW1 Germans. Much of their uniform actually comes from French, German, British & Belgian uniforms - the greatcoats, which make up a large amount of their visual appearance, are copies of the ones worn by the French forces.

The current Cadians are visually similar to the Starship Trooper movie soldiers with adapted 'American Football' helmets.

SerQuintus wrote:
I don't think its got anything to do with Canada at all.

Cadians are the successor of the RT era plastic Imperial Guard.
Regiment on the front of the box? Necromundan 9th.
Regiment on the uniform guide on the side of the box? Arcadian 5th.

GW likely started with Arcadian, decided to drop the first syllable then come up with a good name to stick on the end.

This is probably the best explanation I think, or at least the most likely in my eyes.

cadian
canadian
arcadian is kind of like the name marbo,basically its an anagram for canadian
arcadian=carcadian=canadian

btw
canada is in fact a temperate climate... not some frozen wasteland where the snow never melts...

 Brother Captain Alexander wrote:
The most common answer is WW2 allies with modern ascetics, but mostly Canadian solders ( probably because Canada and Cadia are not far in names... also the fact that Creed is based on Canadian general ).

But I do not think that this is true, to me at least they look like US army ( with all the regulations, professionalism, even their speech inside military is similar to US army corps ). I watched "We were solders" yesterday, and when I saw how Americans took the hill, form the line and defended themselves with concentrated fire the first thing that came to my mind while watching that was: Cadians!

And I think that they are actually not based on real but rather on fictional military: United States Colonial Marines from Aliens.

What are your thought on this, and is there any official note on who are they based of?

canadains use proper military tactics as well.... and are kitted out the same as us/uk counter parts...

I know a few members of the canadian forces with cadianarmies done up to look like the canadian forces, takes no time at all since they already look the same for the most part

the veitnam movie you bring up makes me think of catachans more then cadians,

aesthetics wise modern infantry look fairly similar, body armour + kit + carbine/rifle, the germans dont look like death corps anymore, russians dont look like vostroyans, and dessert infantry dont look like tallarn anymore.

fluff wize, like you said creed is based of a canadian general, if you actually know canadian military history you see allusions to it in the fluff more often then you would think

none of them are 100% based off of real world armies though, there is always some mix and match and some fluff that is all 40k

 FinalAnswer wrote:

DAaddict wrote:

Tallarn - Taliban (pre-dates)

Pretty sure the Tallarn Desert Raiders are based on T.E. Lawrence and his Arab Guerrilla fighters more then the Taliban.

True since Tallarn pre-existed the common reference to Taliban... It just seems more fitting to have a Taliban with an RPG-7/Missile Launcher.

easysauce wrote:
cadian
canadian
arcadian is kind of like the name marbo,basically its an anagram for canadian
arcadian=carcadian=canadian

I really don't think so. Arcadia, in Greek mythology, was a pastoral utopia, as well as being the domain of the God Pan (there is also an actual Greek province called Arcadia), named after the character Arcas. In 40k the planet Arcadia is a Hive world - GW have always enjoyed displays of bitter irony in the background of 40k. A lot of the original GW names for characters, worlds & so on are based off of mythological or legendary people or places.

They're Canadian because I'm Canadian and I am biased.

The look of Cadians is based on the soldiers from the movies Aliens and Starship Troopers. As for what else they are based on I don't know. Canadians can't help but think there's some relation because Canadians who have a bit of historical knowledge (which people who play wargames often do) are all familiar with the term "Canadian Shock Troops". You can see why, that's only two letters off. Probably just a coincidence but just trying to explain to non-Canadians out there why we can't help but notice that and wonder.

The Cadian figure line pre-dates the Starship Troopers movie by a decade or so. If any army is based on Starship Troopers, it's the Space Marines, since Starship Troopers (the book) is the first incarnation of "power armor" as a sci-fi thing.

The plastic Cadian line released with the 3rd Edition Imperial Guard Codex (2nd Codex) are blatantly inspired by the Starship Troopers soldiers (of the movie) & the Colonial Marines from Aliens. That's what was being referred to when talking about 'Starship Troopers', the visual appearance of the current range of Cadians.

The original white metal range of Cadians look utterly different and have been suggested in the past as having a NATO-meets sci-fi appearance. Not sure how true or not that may be.

For reference, the original Cadians:



Current Cadians:



A massive change, even though each individual part might appear similar when compared on its own, when put in proportion on a complete figure along with the colour change you can tell the difference.

And as for those Starship Troopers...! Granted, it's mostly in the helmet, the addition of sleeves makes a hell of a difference:

easysauce wrote:

the veitnam movie you bring up makes me think of catachans more then cadians,

This is music video made from clips from "We were solders" movie:


And these are Catachan Jungle fighters:

Now tell me how in the name of God Emperor those two look alike? U.S. 7th Cavalry Regimen solders in their full battle gear look more like Cadians then Catachans.

Prussia had shock troops as well (Shusstrupp I think?) so it's hard to really say...

But I can definitely see them as being a mix of 1:1:1:1 Canadian military, marines from Aliens, and Prussian military, and WWII allies... maybe with a drop of flow improver, to... just to, you know, make it flow better.

EDIT: Catachans remind me of the Aliens vs. Predator arcade game by Capcom... and Contra. Yep, definitely Contra. And Ikari Warriors.

i think they look very nice - and i miss the old twenty in a box sets :(

When it comes to Catachan's, do not think 'literally' US in Vietnam, more inspired by (jungle deathworld) with a huge dosage of 1970s/1980s action movies/heroes. Like Arnold & his team in Predator;

And Rambo. Every Catachan is Rambo!

Starship Troopers, the movie, was released in 1997. 3rd Ed 40K came out in 1998. GW did not slap these models together, move them to mass production, and then ship them to stores in that short amount of time.

The original Cadian line was, what, five years previously? Eight?I think it more likely that Verhoeven was inspired by 40K than the other way around.

You're misunderstanding chap.

The plastic Cadian line was released in 2003 with the 2nd '3rd Edition' Guard Codex. That is the line of models we're discussing as having similarities/some resemblence to the armour/uniforms in the Starship Troopers movie.

Bingo. The new Guard models didn't come out immediately with 3rd ed, they had a good few years to redesign them.

 Psienesis wrote:
Starship Troopers, the movie, was released in 1997. 3rd Ed 40K came out in 1998. GW did not slap these models together, move them to mass production, and then ship them to stores in that short amount of time.

The original Cadian line was, what, five years previously? Eight?I think it more likely that Verhoeven was inspired by 40K than the other way around.

The plastic Cadians didn't come out until 2003 however.


When I think Catachan, I don't think literal US troops in Vietnam, I think more of the stereotype 70's/80's movie action hero (which, just so happened to fit in with the Vietnam/Jungle theme).

EDIT: Im kinda surprised GW hasn't added in fluff talking about a genestealer infestation on Catachan, the whole Predator theme would be interesting (although, Genestealers scream Alien more than Predator, but I can't think of another stealthy alien like creature that is famous enough to talk about)

DAaddict wrote:

Mordians - US Marines in dress blues.
Voystrians - Russian Cossacks
Tallarn - Taliban (pre-dates)
DKOK - WW I german
Vallhallans - WW II Soviet
Praetorians - British Colonial
Steel Legion - WW II German
Cadian - ??? British / US Modern

I think it is the look of the weapon the webbing pattern and the helmet that define it. The helmet suggests a modern US/British Kevlar helmet. The weapon looks more like an M16 than a britsh bullpup. The webbing though is not US and not sure of what else it could be.

The webbing... is kinda, sort of like the Wehrmacht. It's leather with a metal belt buckle that is used to hang ammo pouches, bayonets and canteens. On the back, it looks like there is webbing underneath the armor sort of like Y straps, yet it doesn't it connect to the front. The soviets had a similar system to the germans, though, so... again, hard to really pin down.

DAaddict wrote:

Mordians - US Marines in dress blues.

Just plain wrong

Tallarn - Taliban (pre-dates

Also not really correct

 Galdos wrote:

DAaddict wrote:

Mordians - US Marines in dress blues.

Just plain wrong

Tallarn - Taliban (pre-dates

Also not really correct

You sir, are right on both counts about that previous wrongness.

aliens colonial marines mixed with us military

I want some new Cadian figures. It's been ten years since they were updated.

 KamikazeCanuck wrote:
And Rambo. Every Catachan is Rambo!

No. Marbo is Rambo.

 TheCustomLime wrote:
The webbing... is kinda, sort of like the Wehrmacht. It's leather with a metal belt buckle that is used to hang ammo pouches, bayonets and canteens. On the back, it looks like there is webbing underneath the armor sort of like Y straps, yet it doesn't it connect to the front. The soviets had a similar system to the germans, though, so... again, hard to really pin down.

The webbing consists, essentially, of just a belt, a bit like the British PLCE, without the yoke over the shoulders. The strap at the back perhaps stops the armour from riding up, anchoring it to the belt?

-Loki-: Whilst Sly Marbo is drawn directly from Rambo & Stallone, the Catachan's predate the character (Marbo) by a long old while and are based pretty much on most of the action films/heroes/actors of the 70s/80s. Hence why they all have massive muscles (van Damme, Schwarzenegger, Stallone etc) and are considered to be the strongest & toughest of all the Imperial Guardsmen.

Rambo hits the scene (1982, based on a previously-released book):

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0083944/

and then gets really famous (1985):

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0089880/

40K hits the scene: 1987.

... Catachans do not pre-date Rambo in any way.

I meant the character Marbo, not Rambo. I'm well aware of which came first and in past posts when mentioning whom the Catachan's are based off of I normally cite Rambo as one of the main inspirations among many.

I've edited my previous post to make it a bit clearer.

Oh, yes, indeed. Marbo is simply the Ramboest of Rambos in an army of nothing but Rambos.

 Psienesis wrote:
Oh, yes, indeed. Marbo is simply the Ramboest of Rambos in an army of nothing but Rambos.

Exactly!

Aside from being a real place Arcadia was also firmly established as a plane in the Dungeons & Dragons cosmology by the Manual of the Planes in 1987, when GW was still selling D&D.