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Skaven are my favorite WHFB race, but I understand GW's conception of the Hrud has migrated away from the original "Skaven in SPAAAACE" to... kind of weird creepy bendy things, so any Skaven equivalent probably be some kind of abhuman. But GW is gloriously inconsistent, and honestly I like Space Skaven.... so what exactly are the Hrud now? Or does anybody really know?

[EDIT: jump to this post and open the spoiler box for THE HRUD SONG]

To quote the greatest "alien on Earth" movie:

"I don't know what the hell's in there, but it's weird and pissed off, whatever it is!"

Hhrud are imperialistic scavengers, according to Xenology - which is the source for the bendy-bug Umber Hulk variant we have now.

Don't forget, Xenology also had tau with feet! However, it does have a fair bit of background in it for the Hrud and those tubey stink monsters are the Hrud according to that source.

If you want to convert skaven models to work in 40K and call them Hrud then I say go for it! Space Skaven is pretty much how people think of the Hrud anyway although, Hrud, the name is kinda crap, I might be tempted to just have them as literally Space Skaven and be done with it.

I like the idea of the Hrud as a new race rather than "Space Rats". I don't like the entropic field thing that makes people age very quickly when exposed to them It should be changed to something like radiation or a space born plague that they are infested with.

 Medium of Death wrote:
or a space born plague that they are infested with.

So, space rats then?

Space Rats would be best.

Their ships should be like flying wedges

They don't really share much in common with Skaven despite the concept of being nigh impossible to get rid of. Their most unique trait is probably how they decompose, so nobody has a good idea of what they really are or act. When they're killed, they near instantly begin to melt into a goopy mess of carbon.

Hrud exist so that, one day, Imperial Guardsman Sergeant Arnulls Schvartzeneer can meet one and say, "You are one ugly mother-fether" before blasting it with a melta.

 Platuan4th wrote:

 Medium of Death wrote:
or a space born plague that they are infested with.

So, space rats then?

Well, if we're gonna go all pop cultural, I'm gonna post the "Hrud Rap" I've had in my head since this morning:



Okay, having gotten that out of my system, do we know anything about how the Hrud would function as an army in-game (other than ripping off Skaven stuff)? Night Vision, lots of Infiltrate. Shrouded (even Blind), and Poisoned, I imagine, plus plasma/melta "fusils" and some weird warp stuff -- maybe even Warp Spider-style movement -- based on reading their Lexicanum entry. Based on 1d4chan's artwork file the should also have Fear aaaaaaaah. Some nastily powerful archeotech salvaged from the deep dark below the underhive would seem appropriate as well, given that they're not under under-dwellers but also smart.

But I can't find anything about what would serve as heavy support or fast attack, whether they would have monstrous creatures or vehicles or both, whether they'd have psykers, etc. Anyone have any ideas?

Seems more likely for them to have vehicles and tamed beasts than anything else. Perhaps beasts of burden or mutie steeds with heavy weapons strapped to them?

Whatever they got has to fit through narrow tunnels....

 SisterSydney wrote:
Well, if we're gonna go all pop cultural, I'm gonna post the "Hrud Rap" I've had in my head since this morning:

Spoiler:

We are the Hrud
We don't take no crud
We'll make ya choke
on your human blood
You call us vermin?
You'd best be learnin'
You're only human
That's tasty chewin'

Call the exterminators? We're the exterminators!
Send down the Terminators? We are the Terminators!

Send PDF? Please.
We eat Arbites
Imperial Guard are
appetizers at our parties
Sisters taste tarty
Marines are hearty
We like to fart on
the corpses of Astartes

Call the exterminators? We're the exterminators!
Send down the Terminators? We are Terminators!

We're under your cities
We're stealing your pretties
If we're being honest
your security is sh*tty
We're in your walls
We're under your bed
We're right behind you
We're all in your head.

Call the exterminators? We're the exterminators!
Send down the Terminators? We are Terminators!
Call the exterminators? We're the exterminators!
Send down the Terminators? We are Terminators!

Hrud, REPRESENT!
HAH!

Okay, having gotten that out of my system, do we know anything about how the Hrud would function as an army in-game (other than ripping off Skaven stuff)? Night Vision, lots of Infiltrate. Shrouded (even Blind), and Poisoned, I imagine, plus plasma/melta "fusils" and some weird warp stuff -- maybe even Warp Spider-style movement -- based on reading their Lexicanum entry. Based on 1d4chan's artwork file the should also have Fear aaaaaaaah. Some nastily powerful archeotech salvaged from the deep dark below the underhive would seem appropriate as well, given that they're not under under-dwellers but also smart.

But I can't find anything about what would serve as heavy support or fast attack, whether they would have monstrous creatures or vehicles or both, whether they'd have psykers, etc. Anyone have any ideas?

They really wouldn't function well as an army. More of a Space Hulk type enemy that kills you in your sleep. Maybe make some out of general clay or putty and use something like genestealer rules and field them against Guardsmen or Space Marines on a map with terrain similar to tight CQC of a ship/space hulk.

 SisterSydney wrote:
Whatever they got has to fit through narrow tunnels....

And in the bowels of Imperial ships.

Except I just realized two things:

1) If they have crazy warp technology, they can drive a freaking Titan out of the shadows in the corners of your bedroom. Creed, eat your heart out.

2) If they are smart scavengers of powerful archeotech, a single Hrud warrior-scientist may have more firepower and shielding than a fething Leman Russ.

Hrud have warp-based technology, scavenge a bunch, are intelligent, are regarded as vermin... how are they NOT Skaven in space? Okay, they aren't rats anymore... but they have all of the cultural markers of the Skaven. Just because they don't have tails anymore doesn't mean that they aren't still Skaven translated into 40K.

If it's not ratty, it's not Skaven.




... set up some rules to make that scavenged Power Armor, and Skaven are in business!

 Psienesis wrote:
If it's not ratty, it's not Skaven.




... set up some rules to make that scavenged Power Armor, and Skaven are in business!

If the group has all of the cultural and social traits of the Skaven, except for being rats, they can still totally be Skaven in space. Kind of like how the Demiurge are totally dwarves in space, despite totally NOT being the Squats.

squidhills wrote:


If the group has all of the cultural and social traits of the Skaven, except for being rats, they can still totally be Skaven in space. Kind of like how the Demiurge are totally dwarves in space, despite totally NOT being the Squats.

Demiurge are MORE Dwarves in Space than the Squats ever were purely by dint of being a species and not just a genetic offshoot of Humanity.

If the group has all of the cultural and social traits of the Skaven, except for being rats, they can still totally be Skaven in space

No, they can't.

Skaven are Rats. In Space.

I will brook no disagreement on this point.

I always figured the Demiurg were more like gnomes than dwarves.

One potentially significant difference between the Skaven and the Hrud is age: according to Lexicanum entry, they predate humanity, once held their own worlds, and even lived in the light before they were driven underground by some threat -- and only with the Emperor's Great Crusade were they driven into the dark corners of what became the Imperium. The Skaven, by contrast, arise after humanity and living in garbage is their natural state, since they're rats.

So Hrud have the potential for a history as rich and tragic as the Eldar. "Once we walked in the light of our own worlds, but now we live in the cold and filthy dark amidst the accumulated filth of humans...."

 SisterSydney wrote:
Skaven are my favorite WHFB race, but I understand GW's conception of the Hrud has migrated away from the original "Skaven in SPAAAACE" to... kind of weird creepy bendy things, so any Skaven equivalent probably be some kind of abhuman. But GW is gloriously inconsistent, and honestly I like Space Skaven.... so what exactly are the Hrud now? Or does anybody really know?

[EDIT: jump to this post and open the spoiler box for THE HRUD SONG]

You like skaven in warhammer fantasy?! Wow you should totally talk about them in the warhammer fantasy section. It'd always be nice to have another skaven player to talk skaven with. Oddly enough I was just building some clanrats/slaves and about to head off later for a game of warhammer fantasy (possibly against a friend's lizardmen).

Skaven in space would be an interesting idea but yeah last I heard 40k moved away from that like you said.

To my knowledge skaven have some of the best snipers in the game (jezzails at least as sheer firepower goes) for fantasy so if this was a direct lift from fantasy I'd figure wacky machines esp. weapons teams and some nice snipers. Most skaven in fantasy are foot-sloggers currently so I figure they'd go for horde tactics like orks but they'd have some tunneling devices for sneaky infiltration (sort of like a trygon or mawloc coming from underground rather than from space).

Anyway last I heard of Hrud they were poisonous to the touch I think and totally not like skaven. They also had a migration which I think Creed violently put down. I don't really know much as GW hasn't really talked a lot about them and I haven't seen more than a couple rulebooks and a few codexes of which they were only really mentioned in the guard codex to my knowledge. It figures though that one of the guard's only victories against xenos other than fighting orks and eldar is against some minor race that isn't too big of a threat. Still waiting for a decent guard victory against the tau btw.