Alliances2

Catachan does not so much ally as get lent out. Its deadliest export is knowledge of the ground, and a hard-pressed Imperial force — an Inquisitorial retinue, a Rogue Trader's expedition, another Regiment out of its depth in the green — will pay in favours to borrow it. While the pact stands, Catachan seconds a Jungle Fighter or a Tracker to the ally between battles as a terrain specialist, granting that force one hidden-setup slot of its own; in return the Regiment banks a favour to call on later. The two observe map-level non-aggression while it holds. It is a specialist attachment lent to a campaign's hardest ground, phase-gated and never a fixed pairing — the jungle-fighters go where the terrain is worst, and leave when the work is done.

Some deals are struck over a cleared trap-line rather than a treaty. A scavenger-baron or Rogue Trader factor who needs a stretch of death-world made safe — a xenos nest burned out, a ruin swept, a trap-line pulled — will bargain with Catachan, who can do the work no one else survives. While the bargain holds, the two observe map-level non-aggression: the Regiment clears and holds a contested piece of ground for the factor, and in return may draw on his black-market stores, adding one of its flagged signature items to its gang at the fixed campaign rate he sets. The factor keeps the yield of the cleared territory. It is phase-gated and conditional, and it lasts exactly as long as both sides still need it.