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Why GW banned them?

I always liked the Dwarfs...

So what was the reason? Selling? Storyline? Popularity?

As usual, your post doesn't belong in 40k Background.

Anyways.
GW hasn't 'banned' them. They killed them off.

There's a list of reasons why, with the biggest being "they sold poorly and the design studio didn't like the options they had in continuing the theme".

Actually, this thread is appropriate to the 40k Background sub-forum.

Thanks!

It's not asking for the background of Squats. It's asking why GW don't sell them.

That seems more business related than story related.

But eh. I answered the question. There's not much to tell one way or the other.

GW made their decision, there's no real plans to revive Squats 'as they were'.

We'll see Demiurg most likely, but that's about it.

What is the official end for the squats?

I can't remember how GW explained their disappearance from the fluff.

We'll see Demiurg most likely, but that's about it.

Yeah, but even the demiurg will never really be a big race. Very few people outside of BFG players actually ever heard about them.

There were also some notes about golgothans in a few short stories. Some kind of long extinct race related someway or another to the squats.

Laodamia wrote:What is the official end for the squats?

I can't remember how GW explained their disappearance from the fluff.

Tyranids ate them.

We'll see Demiurg most likely, but that's about it.

Yeah, but even the demiurg will never really be a big race. Very few people outside of BFG players actually ever heard about them.

Yeah, but that's not GW's fault. Demiurg have appeared in multiple RPG material, there's mention of them in at least one or two Codices("A pair of Demiurg ships" for example joined an Imperial fleet that was fighting a Tyranid hive fleet).

There were also some notes about golgothans in a few short stories. Some kind of long extinct race related someway or another to the squats.

Well...there's also the opening part of Gav Thorpe's "Purging of Kadillus" which has Orks boarding and looting/pillaging a Demiurg mining facility.

It's actually adorably hilarious to read.

Laodamia wrote:What is the official end for the squats?

I can't remember how GW explained their disappearance from the fluff.

We'll see Demiurg most likely, but that's about it.

Yeah, but even the demiurg will never really be a big race. Very few people outside of BFG players actually ever heard about them.

There were also some notes about golgothans in a few short stories. Some kind of long extinct race related someway or another to the squats.

From the Background FAQ here on Dakka...

Jervis Johnson wrote:
I know I shouldn't get drawn on this... but... can't... resist

Seriously, a couple of points just so you can have an informed debate based on the real reasons that Squats are no longer available. Be warned, it is going to be hard reading for people that like the Squat background.

First of all, Squats were *not* dropped because they were not selling well. There were then, and are now, plenty of other figure ranges that sell in the sort of % quantaties that the Squats pulled down, especially when you look across all of the ranges produced by GW rather than just those for 40K.

No, the reason that the Squats were dropped was because the creatives in the Studio (people like me, Rick, Andy C, Gav etc) felt that we had failed to do the Dwarf 'archetype' justice in its 40K incarnation. From the name of the race (Squats - what *were* we thinking?!?!) through to the short bikers motif, we had managed to turn what was a proud and noble race in Warhammer and the other literary forms where the archetype exists, into a joke race in 40K. We only fully realised what we had done when we were working on the 2nd edition of 40K. Try as we might, we just couldn't work up much enthusiasm for the Squats. The mistake we made then (deeply regreted since) was to leave them in the background and the 'get you by' army list book that appeared. With hindsight, we should have dropped the Squats back then, and saved ourselves a lot of grief later on.

Anyway, the Squats made it into 2nd edition, and since we were doing army books for each of the races, we started to try and figure out what to do with them. Unfortunately we just couldn't figure out a way to update them and get them to work that we felt was good enough. The 'art' of working on an army as a designer is to find the thing that you think is cool and exciting about an army, and work it up into a strong theme. This 'muse' didn't strike any of us, and so, rather than bring out a second-rate product simply re-hashing the old background, we kept doing other army books instead, with stuff we did feel inspired by.

Now, while this was all going on for 40K, we were actually doing some rather good stuff for the Squats in Epic. On this scale there was a natural tendancy to focus on the big 'hand-made' war machines the Squat artisans produced, and this created an army with a feel that was very different to the biker hordes in 40K. However, this tended to reinforce the problems we saw in the Squat background rather than alleviate them, underlining what we *should* have done with the Squats in 40K.

In the end (and it took years to really get to the roots of the problem) this led to a realisation that we were going to have to drop the Squats in their 'Squat' form from the 40K background. There was little point having a major race that we weren't willing to make an army book for, and their inclusion in the background meant that people kept asking us when we'd do a Squat Codex. Instead we decided that we'd write the Squats out of the background by saying that their Homworlds had been devoured by a Tyranid Hivefleet. This would give us the option in the future to return to making a race based on the Squat archetype for 40K. This race was given the name of Demiurg, and a certain amount of preliminary work was done to get a 'feel' for what the race would be like. At present the only hint of the Demiurg in 40K is the Demiurg spaceship for BFG. However, we do have this race 'in our back pocket' as a possible new race for 40K, or an interesting character model in Inquisitor, or whatever. So far the Demiurg have lost out to other projects, and it may be that their time never actually comes, as they will have to win through on their merits, not simply because we once made some Squat models in the past. At present, I have to say that it is more lilely that they *don't* make the cut than do, as there is a certain predudice these days to simply taking races from Warhammer and cross them over to 40K like we did in the early days, so it may be that the Squats/Demiurg end up remaining a footnote in the history of the 40K galaxy. Only time will tell...

I'll finish off by saying that whatever we decide to do 'officially', there is nothing stopping players with Squat armies from using them, either in Epic or 40k for that matter. There is no GW 'rule' against using old Citadel Miniatures, as long as you use them with exisiting army lists and in a way that won't cause confusion for other players. I recommend taking a positive stand by saying "Have you seen these cool old models? They're called the Squats and GW used to make them back in the late eighties/early nineties. I love 'em, so I count them as Imperial Guard and use them with the current rules..." Put like this I can't imagine that anyone would stop you from using your army.

Best regards,

Jervis Johnson
Head Fanatic

That last bit is the most important.

We've got a few local 'Squat' players(who bought their armies within the past four years, mind you) who won't shut up about the "grave injustice" done to them.

Attitude when presenting to others is key. Saying "I GOT SCREWED!" won't make people look favorably upon you but "These just kinda faded away because of creative differences" will get you sympathy.

FEAR NOT!

The rumors floating around are saying the demiurg are joining the Greater Good for their next release.

Kanluwen wrote:It's not asking for the background of Squats. It's asking why GW don't sell them.

That seems more business related than story related.

But eh. I answered the question. There's not much to tell one way or the other.

GW made their decision, there's no real plans to revive Squats 'as they were'.

We'll see Demiurg most likely, but that's about it.

I am sorry for wrong posting question: Why are Squats no longer part of 40k?

P.S. I will try in future to post in more appropriate forums, thank you very much.

And thanks Uhlan, I understand now. it was still sad the end of the Squats. They could simply do one more codex and stop producing ( like SoB and DE ).
And the whole story about their end was a little strange to me when I first read it ( never heard about Tyranid fleet near the center of our galaxy, nor what's happened to it.. ). Still, I am glad that they are not completely forgotten, and that some players still play with them.

Sothas wrote:FEAR NOT!

The rumors floating around are saying the demiurg are joining the Greater Good for their next release.

The demiurg are already more or less fighting for the greater good.

According to their fluff, they are often hired as mercenaries by the tau, who appreciate the qualities of their space-ships.
In addition, both races hate the orks (I mean, more than other races), which often brings them to fight as allies.

So the squats got nom-nommed by the nids. Wait a minute... the nids appeared in 745.M41. How is it possible that the imperium forgot about the squats (a major race with numerous colonies in the center of the galaxy) only two and a half centuries after their extinction?

That doesn't make any sense!

Abnett includes a Squat Rogue Trader in the Ravenor series... I cannot recall the character's name atm but I remember it being this absolutely preposterous thing.

Psienesis wrote:Abnett includes a Squat Rogue Trader in the Ravenor series... I cannot recall the character's name atm but I remember it being this absolutely preposterous thing.

False.

The Rogue Trader, whose name is Unwerth, you're thinking of claims that in his family tree there is a member of the Squat race.

At least their legacy of Leviatan command centers exist

Laodamia wrote:

Sothas wrote:FEAR NOT!

The rumors floating around are saying the demiurg are joining the Greater Good for their next release.

The demiurg are already more or less fighting for the greater good.

According to their fluff, they are often hired as mercenaries by the tau, who appreciate the qualities of their space-ships.
In addition, both races hate the orks (I mean, more than other races), which often brings them to fight as allies.

So the squats got nom-nommed by the nids. Wait a minute... the nids appeared in 745.M41. How is it possible that the imperium forgot about the squats (a major race with numerous colonies in the center of the galaxy) only two and a half centuries after their extinction?

That doesn't make any sense!

Yeah I know that, but what I mean is that the rumors say they're acutally going to be a playable unit in the dex, along with a single demiurg HQ choice which allows you to take the demiurg squad as troops. Same with shaper for kroot, ethereal for fire warriors, and crisis suit for crisis suits. Sounds prett interesting to me. Also it should be noted that currently the demiurg are not the squats. Squats "never existed" in current fluff.

Jervis's little explanation was just a cop out. There are plenty of good ideas for Squats, they just didn't want to persue them.

The Squats aren't completely gone if you know where to look. A Lot of their stuff is still available to the Imperium in one form or another, wether it is just a name of one of their vehicles or wether it is a psychic power brought back as belonging to Space Marines. I find it interesting that they gave all the Squats had to other armies as new things in this edition of the game.

The story I always heard was that Games Workshop just didn't know what to do with them. They never really transitioned the dwarf archetype from Fantasy to 40k really well. Elves turned into fast but hard hitting Eldar, knights turned into heavily armored, honor and glory based Space Marines, and the vast peasant armies got turned into the Imperial Guard, but they never got a way to get Squats in.

I mean in a fantasy setting, dwarves are reknowned for being great miners and craftsmen, which is hard to transfer over into 40k. If you ask me, they should have done to the Squats what they do to the Ad Mech, the various Imperial Armies could have been able to buy a Squat engineer who could give them access to squat vehicles (which would be slightly better than the standard Imperial equivalent, to showcase how Squats are great engineers).

IIRC from an article or interview with Jervis, it wasn't that squats weren't selling anymore than any other miniatures at the time (they were selling fine), it's just that they thought the idea was a little bland or they couldn't work with the concept properly in the studio.

There are still Chaos Squats

WD:111 SQUATS AND CHAOS
To the shame of the Squat race, there are many strongholds and Brotherhoods who have sided with Chaos. During the wars of the Horus Heresy, Squat forces fought on both sides, and inevitably some fell prey to the corruption of Chaos. Like the other followers of Horus, these have now largely been banished to the Eye of Terror, but there are always rumours of isolated groups of Chaos Squat raiders in various parts of the Imperium.

It has even been rumoured that some of the strongholds which were lost to the warpstorms in the Age of Isolation may have survived, their horribly-mutated inhabitants raiding into the Imperium from time to time.

Uhlan wrote:

From the Background FAQ here on Dakka...

Indeed. This is all up there.