Author: Khuzdul
{oOo}
Okay, trying to search Catachans in the jungle proved to be an exercise in futility... not to mention frustration. It was impossible to smoke them out without burning half of the planet, and trying to fight them in their own terms was just inviting trouble.
They just used every dirty trick in the book, some not in the book, and even some Roboute was just sure they invented on the spot.
Worse, they didn't even use their own weapons for it. He lost three whole companies to the jungle rats. Three hundred Marines, dead. And only ten percent of them were killed by lasguns, heavy weapons, and other things issued to Imperial Guard regiments usually.
He has not even seen a tank the entire time.
The rest, well the rest was the embarrassing part. Pit traps. Pit traps lined with Power weapons and chainswords stolen from the very Space Marines they were fighting. Rope traps. IEDs. IEDs constructed out of bolter ammunition, stolen from the Space Marines again. Forest animals (few things can make a tactical Marine scream like a little girl. Dropping a pissed off jungle viper down the neck of their armor did. Thankfully the venom glands of the animals were removed by the considerate Catachans, but getting bitten in the butt wasn't any less painful.). And a thousand and one other off the wall, completely unpredictable, utterly insane methods they used.
So Roboute conceded defeat. He wasn't going to defeat them in the jungle. So he decided to draw them back to familiar ground.
He pulled back to the cities and settlements and fortified them. He decided that he would deny them the support and supplies they needed and make them desperate, so they would have to risk open warfare.
That was his second mistake.
{oOo}
