So there has been a lot of talk about the Squats coming back (which, honestly, is nothing new to this hobby! I think they were probably first speculated to be returning around the time they first disappeared...)

I came up with my own version of how I think that could be accomplished in regards to lore/theme, and you can read the little short-story I wrote about it in the fiction forum (hint: it's DARK), but this post isn't about ME:

How would YOU re-introduce everyone's favorite space-dwarves back into the 40k lore? What happened to them? Where are they now? How have they changed? What is their "theme"?

Obviously this is just for fun, but I'd love to hear everyone's ideas!

As skeletons on bases.

I'd rather see the Demiurg get brought into the fore for Tau than Squats for Imperium.

Eh, to me they are really the same. The actual "squats" of lore are probably going to be very different when/if they come back, so to me the Demiurg are pretty much just another version of that.

What themes/ect would you like to see the Demiurg use?

I don't necessarily think we need any more factions, but I would do it via "Codex Rogue Trader". It would be a sort of "mercenary" codex where you would have some Squats, Zoats, any other popular-at-the-time but long forgotten units out of the original RT book and maybe some units out of other sources. You would give them 40k rules and each unit could have rules for what armies they can be hired out to. You could even use it to encapsulate units like the Gellerpox, and Tau auxilliaries.

Aquatic themed armor and vehicles that operate on land but regardless have a distinctly water-to-land/amphibious aesthetic. They have been dwelling under the ocean of a large planet with essentially zero land mass. This Atlantis-esc underwater lifestyle has allowed them to avoid the eyes of Tyranid fleets, as the planet appears to be nothing more than a decrepit waterworld.
Enough time has passed and enough progress has been established that they may at last emerge from their salty reefs and benthic dwellings.

Yeah, first. Change the name. Demiurg are a functional return of the "squats".

Asthetically i would like to see almost (but not really) steam tech. By that i mean masssive thick sheets of metal with rivets. Huge girders and beams. Glowing red reactor cores billowing smoke, steam, or venting coolants. Radiation weaponry coupled with oversized slug throwers.

But maybe save the rad weapons for rakgul who totally should be in the game.

I'd just make a Demiurg codex and include a section that talks about how Demiurg are the same species as Squats but squat is an insulting name given to them by humans. At some point in history a large amount of demiurg split from the "core empire" to go their own way. The core empire was subsequently folded into the Imperium but later abandoned to the Nids.

Learning of this the Demiurg are very anti-Imperium but they're an independant race now with some being full allies of the Tau, some are mercenaries, some are Chaos and some are independent in a small region of space with a lot of spatial anomalies.

Fluff wise I'd give them a focus on mining and using technology to force the enemy into attrition warfare and outlasting them with superior technology/specialised armies. Gamewise it would be a lot of deployable terrain as part of units like energy walls and barricades and the army overall would focus on artillery, shooting and charge resistant melee units. Make it different to Tau castles by giving units that can basically ride bikes/vehicles to various parts of the board and spend a turn setting up firepower and some artillery that doesn't do damage but applies debuffs.

I think that AdMech occupy the thematic ground where 'space dwarves' would otherwise be. I'm pretty much against them coming back as a faction while so many others need attention.

I hope they will get a look thats completely different from https://www.forgeworld.co.uk/en-BE/Grendl-Grendlsen-Squat-Bounty-Hunter-2018.

Don't get me wrong, the miniature itself is great, but it feels too much like a generic fantasy dwarf to me. Not enough Grim Dark.

I'm not a big Dwarf fan in particular, but I would like them to be released for all the people who are really into them.

Look into the new video game Age of Wonders Planetfall.

In a nutshell: Russian space dwarves.

 harlokin wrote:
I think that AdMech occupy the thematic ground where 'space dwarves' would otherwise be. I'm pretty much against them coming back as a faction while so many others need attention.

We could have more xenos love but it's so much more important that we have more primaris.

leerm02 wrote:

So there has been a lot of talk about the Squats coming back (which, honestly, is nothing new to this hobby! I think they were probably first speculated to be returning around the time they first disappeared...)

I came up with my own version of how I think that could be accomplished in regards to lore/theme, and you can read the little short-story I wrote about it in the fiction forum (hint: it's DARK), but this post isn't about ME:

How would YOU re-introduce everyone's favorite space-dwarves back into the 40k lore? What happened to them? Where are they now? How have they changed? What is their "theme"?

Obviously this is just for fun, but I'd love to hear everyone's ideas!

As a Tau Client race. Not as Demigurg either - I just like this idea of Tau as being a merc faction with a couple swappable units from minor races like squats and hrud

 harlokin wrote:
I think that AdMech occupy the thematic ground where 'space dwarves' would otherwise be. I'm pretty much against them coming back as a faction while so many others need attention.

Yeah. While Squats would be cool, it's more important to make existing factions better in terms of feel, lore, and completeness, than to add yet another faction.

A few units as Tau Auxiliaries, though, would be cool.

I'd just include rules for using the steam dorfs from AOS in 40k. I don't think they need a whole second technodwarf model range.

pm713 wrote:

 harlokin wrote:
I think that AdMech occupy the thematic ground where 'space dwarves' would otherwise be. I'm pretty much against them coming back as a faction while so many others need attention.

We could have more xenos love but it's so much more important that we have more primaris.

Correction:

We could have more xenos love but it's so much more important that we have more primaris lieutenants.

I'd basically want Squats to play like the awkward love child of Guard, Orks, and AdMech (though the AdMech also covers much of what the Squats used to). Horde troops, goofy and weird vehicles like attack gyrocopters and bomber zeppelins, 2+sv shooty exo-armor biker units, lots of conventional fixed artillery, and some humongous lords of war.

That said, it'd be neat to get both Imperial and Chaos squats. I'd basically treat them like Knights, where they can be an integral part of Imperial or Chaos armies with some distinct differences.

As for what happened to them and where they are now? Easy, take the "Tyranids ate 'em" story and run with that, they've been largely under siege and been mostly killed off, a few various forces scattered through the galaxy survived along with a couple small world enclaves mean there's enough for them to be relevant, with enough variation such that people can kit them out in a number of different themes. We've seen them have strong fantasy/tolkien/D&D, norse, russian, cyberpunk, judge dredd, steampunk etc visual themes, and these could all be explored further in different ways as the "survivors" of the Tyranid invasions figure out their new places in the galaxy.

SoB already fill the niche of heavily armoured "normals". Squats should stay dead on the tabletop. It's nice to have a reference here and there, but that is all it should be. At most, add one as an Inquisitorial Henchmen like the Jokaero.

Kind of disappointing that people come into this thread with no actual contribution for the original posters question.
The thread is literally asking how you would bring them back - not whether or not they should be brought back to begin with.

If you don't think they should make a comeback, this thread really isn't for you in the first place.

I'd have to consider their tabletop role before lore. What role would they have on the table. Melee? Obviously not. Resilience has always been the theme for Dwarves, so I would build around that. High reliance on gravity based weaponry. Mole mortars, termite transports, etc. Their strength vs opponents would be ways to slow them down (like tremor shells but not as obnoxious), including melee (reduce enemy attacks, strike last etc). They themselves would be slow moving on foot, but possessing high T and good saves. Armoured suits that are close ranged firepower and melee focused, almost like golems.

 bullyboy wrote:
I'd have to consider their tabletop role before lore. What role would they have on the table. Melee? Obviously not. Resilience has always been the theme for Dwarves, so I would build around that. High reliance on gravity based weaponry. Mole mortars, termite transports, etc. Their strength vs opponents would be ways to slow them down (like tremor shells but not as obnoxious), including melee (reduce enemy attacks, strike last etc). They themselves would be slow moving on foot, but possessing high T and good saves. Armoured suits that are close ranged firepower and melee focused, almost like golems.

The problem is, they're imperium.

What role is not filled in an imperium army between the profiles for

Guardsmen
Scions
Sisters
Marines
Primaris marines
Terminators
Ogryns
Gravis
Centurions
Custodes

"No, I'm stuffed"

"But zir, eet ees only a wafer-thin faction!"

If they come in as a Tau ally, instantly, instantly you know what role they fill that a normal tau army does not have. Every complaint that everyone has ever fielded vs Tau can be resolved (especially if they have some psykers)

 BaconCatBug wrote:
SoB already fill the niche of heavily armoured "normals".

I don't think that was ever the Squats niche either, their basic troops were much more Guard equivalents.

Accounting error. No seriously lost by the administratum and presumed eaten by Nids as the wrong piece of paperwork got crossed off....

They are no longer allied to the Imperium - in fact they now very much hate the Imperium. Because the treaties of mutual protection that they had as a result of their tithe of troops were ignored when their home world(s) were nommed by the Tyranids; they waited for help to arrive and it never did - the Squats hold long grudges. Now an entirely space faring race, previously mostly equipped for mining operations, now retro fitted as pirates, raiders and mercenaries. They work for the highest bidder - they will take scrap and the spoils of war as payment, or they just turn up after the main part of a war is over, to loot the detritus of the battlefield for supplies, or just to pick the fringes for easy targets.

As for in the game, standard troops, with middling armor, hard hitting but short ranged weaponry on basic infantry. Supported by few but very heavily armored vehicles.
They would be allowed to work with Tau, Orks, Chaos as an allied detachment (maybe others).

The "how" - plenty of uninhabited and uninhabitable systems/entire regions that are now in the midst of massive chaos storms. They might have happily existed on rogue planets, or in solar systems devoid of all other life, slowly building their forges and living their mine-centric lifestyle. The loss of even a few roving fleets would be devastating, and might force them out into the larger galaxy.

The theme... that's trickier. There are a lot of specialized armies in 40k already, so it's hard to come up with a new style that would be fun. My initial thought is a sort of anti-Tau; technologically sophisticated, but with a focus on melee and manipulating the other army as opposed to being a shooty castle and manipulating yourself. For example, their "tanks" might function more as shields with battering rams, soaking mortal wounds meant for the infantry that march alongside in a slow advance. You might be able to impair enemy vehicles by making them suffer wounds for moving/shooting, forcing your opponent to decide between suffering damage to cause damage or waiting for one more turn. Maybe some tools to move enemy troops in a random direction.

So pulls, traps, stuns, cover manipulation, that sort of thing. Battlefield control fitting for a group of technologically-advanced miners. GW seems intent on making the game run faster, so I doubt we'd see the sort of slow, methodical gameplay this would require, but I think it would be thematic and pretty different from other playstyles. An army that controls the battleground, occupies objectives, and punishes mistakes more than loading up on firepower and trying to blow everyone off the board turn 1.

 Llamahead wrote:
Accounting error. No seriously lost by the administratum and presumed eaten by Nids as the wrong piece of paperwork got crossed off....

Best idea so far - first step in bringing them back is to squat (heh) that fething stupid bit about the 'Nids attacking their Homeworlds, as that has never made sense (which given I seem to recall it was an off-the-cuff answer in a seminar when someone got annoyed, explains why it doesn't make sense). Going by the 2nd ed map of the galaxy, they *will* have lost worlds to the Giant Tear in Space-Time, which does open up the possibility of Chaos Squats. Still, the main area marked as being the Squat Homeworlds falls south-east of the Maelstrom, so I'd say ~80% of their space is out of the rift.

As per the fan-made "gold" codex for 2nd edition, I'd have had them as moderately tough fixers, technologists and robot masters with a "diggy diggy hole" theme. High-tech armoured multifunction suits too.

They never quite felt right as Guard proxies, which is why they were dumped in 2nd. Although many of the models had simple padded armour, there was no single theme. They were a mix of high-tech suits, IG troops, space Vikings and biker gangs. I'd expect them to have better kit, even if it's hastily converted mining gear. In that respect, Mantic's Forge Fathers or Macrocosm's (now owned by Sandstorm Miniatures) Digger Corps have a better look as a complete line.

AdMech (and Tau) have kind of filled that design space; Genestealer Cults pinched the theme. It does mean that there are some nice vehicles and bits (spacesuit torsos, lights, weapons) to do my own thing.

As for where were they? Even hundreds of missing years is nothing in a galaxy of 400 billion stars with uncountable planets and chunks of rock/ice that you can call home. After their planets were eaten, the squat diaspora lives on in a million enclaves, colonies, ships and mining expeditions in the darkest, coldest reaches of space.

I'd like to see a mercenary codex with units of various races included. Most would be unaligned like the spindle drones. Each entry would have a little blurb that states "may be included in armies X, Y, and Z, but do not get any army bonuses, but also do not make that army lose faction bonuses. They also do not count towards mandatory slots".

This would allow a book of rules for all the oddball units floating out there in White Dwarf, GW webpage, and box-only rules. It would also allow for things like Kroot Mercs, or even 2-3 units of Squats.

It would be neat if at least a couple of these factions like kroot and Squats could technically make a limited army list of pure Kroot or Squats.

 Dysartes wrote:
that fething stupid bit about the 'Nids attacking their Homeworlds, as that has never made sense

What about it exactly does not make sense?
Even if it was an off-the-top response/idea. What about it would be illogical or unreasonable?

I'd make them the remnants of asteroid miners. Feeling anti Imperium due to having been left to the Tyranids, just trying to carve out a new little piece of the galaxy for themselves.

Both super fast attack and slow infantry with seige artillery.

Troops are bikers, extra zooty on flat terrain, useless in anything more treacherous. Air droppable bikes too.

Heavy almost Obliterator/Devastator gun lines but almost unable to move like IG HW teams.

Maybe a super heavy of some sort to keep them competitive with current armies but having lost the ability to make land trains and the like due to being almost entirely space based.

Infantry gets good saves for not having moved (going to ground style rule).

Artillery almost impervious to LOS restrictions to represent mole mortars.

Like a cross between the Cult of Speed and Bad Moons of yore.

I’d leave them dead...

DeathKorp_Rider wrote:
I’d leave them dead...

That's an odd way of reintroducing something.

If you bring them back they have to
A) Feel like squats
B) play different than current armies
So what were the feeling of squats?
They were split in clans that were very different
1. The bikers
2. The infantry
3. Massive repurposed vehicles.

1 is a problem, the dev's have often mentioned how ridiculous they were, hell angel in space doesn't feel right for a mining culture either. Imho they have to be ditched.
2. The squat infantry made no bleeping sense, this is a culture of miners and metal worker with really advanced tech. Why the hell are they using flak vest and lasgun? So need redesign: they should use heavy armor made for mining in dangerous environments. And one of the demiurg idea is great, they lost so much population that they use heavily automation. So few heavily armored infantry or engineer like characters with lots and lots of automated defense point.
3. Is where they were unique. They should have a rule that they can include a superheavy in any core detachment.
Should have a smaller version of the leviathan and its variants (colossus, cyclops). Baneblade sized dirigeable would work too.
With gyro to drop their few vital infantry to capture objectives.

It would play as several pocket fortresses of automated defenses across most of the battle fields to defend objectives placed and a mobile fortress and gyro trying to go where the automated defenses are going to be overwhelmed.

By having the automated defenses dropped in turn 0 both in and outside your deployment zone would be very different from standard gunline and require a LOT of planning.

I like the direction for the army Mantic went with Forgefathers.

For lore, I'd have them backwards engineer the Eldar's Webway and retreated to their own pocket dimension for a while. The appearance of the Chaos maelstrom has caused issues with their tethers to this universe, and have now returned to re-establish a presence again in this galaxy and unscrew what the humans have obviously effed up. They're no longer buddy-buddy with the imperium, and can ally with any faction - except maybe poor old 'Nids (who can't ally with anyone!).

If I absolutely, 100% had to actually bring Squats in?

I wouldn't bring them into main 40k. Necromunda is as good as it realistically can be bringing them in.

I wouldint

This is because the History of the Necrons article is the first time GW has admitted that Squats used to exist in 25 years isn't it.

the_scotsman wrote:

 bullyboy wrote:
I'd have to consider their tabletop role before lore. What role would they have on the table. Melee? Obviously not. Resilience has always been the theme for Dwarves, so I would build around that. High reliance on gravity based weaponry. Mole mortars, termite transports, etc. Their strength vs opponents would be ways to slow them down (like tremor shells but not as obnoxious), including melee (reduce enemy attacks, strike last etc). They themselves would be slow moving on foot, but possessing high T and good saves. Armoured suits that are close ranged firepower and melee focused, almost like golems.

The problem is, they're imperium.

What role is not filled in an imperium army between the profiles for

Guardsmen
Scions
Sisters
Marines
Primaris marines
Terminators
Ogryns
Gravis
Centurions
Custodes

"No, I'm stuffed"

"But zir, eet ees only a wafer-thin faction!"

If they come in as a Tau ally, instantly, instantly you know what role they fill that a normal tau army does not have. Every complaint that everyone has ever fielded vs Tau can be resolved (especially if they have some psykers)

yeah, no, lol. As others have said, make them anti-Imperium. There is so much lore you could explore (cool little rhyme) about how they were left for dead by the Imperium, banished, etc. i mean, the have basically been banished by GW, it would be perfect. have them absolutely despise the Imperium, but not be chaotic either. They could be more like a Xenos race.

The Newman wrote:This is because the History of the Necrons article is the first time GW has admitted that Squats used to exist in 25 years isn't it.

nope, last page of the 8th rulebook mentions them

I mean, they were mentioned elsewhere too before that.
And Necromunda literally brought them back as two models at the moment.

Nomadic mercenary survivors living off their stronghold spaceships bearing a grudge against the Imperium for abandoning them in their hour of need when their homeworlds were attacked by the Tyranids. A few mining enclaves mostly on inhospitable worlds.

Game-wise, some funky artillery and slow moving but heavily armored infantry. Additional damage resistance abilities, maybe in auras representing shields, with things like lowering S and D of incoming attacks, giving cover, FNP saves, etc... Strategems again boosting resilience in various ways. Weaponry short to medium ranged and melee, except for the artillery. Artillery type attacks can have funky additional effects like messing with the enemy's ranged to-hit rolls, slowing them down, destroying cover, or doing additional damage to enemies in cover (so as to force them out of cover). Can also have cutting beams like the BFG Demiurg or the old Squats Cyclops, so like a laser with exploding dice against a single target.

 FragTheCommissar wrote:

 Dysartes wrote:
that fething stupid bit about the 'Nids attacking their Homeworlds, as that has never made sense

What about it exactly does not make sense?
Even if it was an off-the-top response/idea. What about it would be illogical or unreasonable?

The squat home worlds were completely barren, no atmosphere, no biome, no nothing. The squats were also not a huge population. So we are expected to believe that the Tyranids successfully munched their way through barren rocks without starving themselves? The squats were the worst faction to sick the Tyranids on.


As to the OP, I reinvented the squats 15 years ago, do id just go with that. They were a high tech force, like a cross between guard and tau, treating exo suits more like battle suits than terminator armour. But slower.

Dwarfs using cool heavy mech suits was a nice image.

However, they've created an opportunity with the background to go a bit different.


I think they could hybridise then with genestealer cults. Squats are virtually blanks and the control of the cult didn't work. So they were able to push the Tyranids out due to lack of biomass and resistance to the hive Mind.

This results in the tech of the squats with an army that's now truly alien with tyranid DNA running though them. But not mutant, it equilibrated quickly as the squats have a tough metabolism. So some hardened armour plates in their skin, different skin pigmentation but nothing else.

They're now considered xenos and can no longer be part of the imperium. But they carry advanced weapons from before the age of strife. I think volkite rifles forward standard infantry and works from there.

Maybe their berserker units are the few mutants that appear - random mutations that activate at any time so any squat can turn into one. The curse they must live with as a result of their survival and one of the reasons they hate the imperium for abandoning them.

Living ancestors are super powerful as they now have hive Mind genes so psychic powers greater. But run the risk of attracting the hive minds attention and either spontaneously mutating or suffering burn out as the hive Mind attacks the intruder.

So there you go:

Tyranid genes now in their genomes permanently
Hi tech exo suits, grav (gyrocopters are grav)
Volkites
Berserker mutant units
Hate everyone
Living ancestors now waking weapons if mass destruction that can go nuts or explode

Alternatively maybe the Squats were eaten by the Tyranids because they were the little scraps of biomass available among the masses of barren worlds the Tyranid fleets were traversing? The Squat worlds might have been the oasis or pitstop in the middle of the desert. Not great but better than starving.

Iracundus wrote:
Alternatively maybe the Squats were eaten by the Tyranids because they were the little scraps of biomass available among the masses of barren worlds the Tyranid fleets were traversing? The Squat worlds might have been the oasis or pitstop in the middle of the desert. Not great but better than starving.

You can estimate the amount of biomass pretty easily based on squat populations and it wouldn't have been much
If you compared the total.biomass of earth to that of humanity, we make up a tiny percentage, miniscule.

So it wouldn't have been an oasis but rather the last drops of water in the canteen of a dying man.

It's not really an argument to say that systems of nothing but barren planets are going to be terrible vs an array of maiden worlds. Add to this that the squats built their homeworlds like fortress worlds as the cost of getting such crappy biomass would have been astronomical.

So there would be no reason for them to continue pushing into the homeworlds when they realised how bad they were, or they would have starved in the attempt.

For a conceptual space the one that comes to mind as not being completely covered by others is one that uses biotech but in less of a body-horror/augmentation/xeonomorph sort of way.

Like, they grow a genetically engineered trees to make armor. Turtley/Snaily things are turned into tanks, anti-grav skywhales.
They're piloted still though - it's not like something they unleash or they're simply riding critters or strapping a platform to the back of an elephant. It's been engineered so there's like a place to fit in a cockpit.

For rules I'd see them as not being super tough, or having high saves but they'd have extra wounds. Maybe in conjunction with an army wide healing rule.
Their long range weapons wouldn't be particularly special - cannons, lasers, missiles. But they'd have some weirder biological short range guns like electric-eel discharge, sticky stuff who knows.

Necromunda gang

 Hellebore wrote:

Iracundus wrote:
Alternatively maybe the Squats were eaten by the Tyranids because they were the little scraps of biomass available among the masses of barren worlds the Tyranid fleets were traversing? The Squat worlds might have been the oasis or pitstop in the middle of the desert. Not great but better than starving.

You can estimate the amount of biomass pretty easily based on squat populations and it wouldn't have been much
If you compared the total.biomass of earth to that of humanity, we make up a tiny percentage, miniscule.

So it wouldn't have been an oasis but rather the last drops of water in the canteen of a dying man.

It's not really an argument to say that systems of nothing but barren planets are going to be terrible vs an array of maiden worlds. Add to this that the squats built their homeworlds like fortress worlds as the cost of getting such crappy biomass would have been astronomical.

So there would be no reason for them to continue pushing into the homeworlds when they realised how bad they were, or they would have starved in the attempt.

I'm willing to bet that despite the barren descriptions, there would still be at the very least a mild presence of foliage and animal life, probably more frequently in some parts of the planet than others.

Additionally, we are talking about more than one planet as you say.
Surely not every Squat planet could be a carbon copy of itself.

Finally, whos to say that Squats didn't taste particularly delicious?
Sometimes the small candy bars taste better than the big ones.

I haven't ever read on the origins of the Squats. I don't know anything about their planetary background aside from what I hear by word of mouth.. but I am willing to bet that whatever lore is available can and will be reasonably stretched, as is much of the fluff in 40K.

And I still think it would be pretty wicked if Squats went underwater on a massive ocean planet to avoid further attack by the Tyranid fleets.

 FragTheCommissar wrote:

 Hellebore wrote:

Iracundus wrote:
Alternatively maybe the Squats were eaten by the Tyranids because they were the little scraps of biomass available among the masses of barren worlds the Tyranid fleets were traversing? The Squat worlds might have been the oasis or pitstop in the middle of the desert. Not great but better than starving.

You can estimate the amount of biomass pretty easily based on squat populations and it wouldn't have been much
If you compared the total.biomass of earth to that of humanity, we make up a tiny percentage, miniscule.

So it wouldn't have been an oasis but rather the last drops of water in the canteen of a dying man.

It's not really an argument to say that systems of nothing but barren planets are going to be terrible vs an array of maiden worlds. Add to this that the squats built their homeworlds like fortress worlds as the cost of getting such crappy biomass would have been astronomical.

So there would be no reason for them to continue pushing into the homeworlds when they realised how bad they were, or they would have starved in the attempt.

I'm willing to bet that despite the barren descriptions, there would still be at the very least a mild presence of foliage and animal life, probably more frequently in some parts of the planet than others.

Additionally, we are talking about more than one planet as you say.
Surely not every Squat planet could be a carbon copy of itself.

Finally, whos to say that Squats didn't taste particularly delicious?
Sometimes the small candy bars taste better than the big ones.

I haven't ever read on the origins of the Squats. I don't know anything about their planetary background aside from what I hear by word of mouth.. but I am willing to bet that whatever lore is available can and will be reasonably stretched, as is much of the fluff in 40K.

And I still think it would be pretty wicked if Squats went underwater on a massive ocean planet to avoid further attack by the Tyranid fleets.

The homeworlds are described without exception as being dead balls of rock without atmosphere. The squats lived in pressurised tunnels and grew nutrients to eat. The closest thing to an ocean was massive dust seas, or rust.


As for stretching the background to fit, well that's true the other way around as well. They can easily stretch it so they survived intact, that the Tyranids didn't attack, where killed, starved or the imperium just lost contact and presumed them all dead.

There are a million ways to bring them back if changing the background is in the table

How would I do it?

You need to shoehorn them into the setting from a narrative perspective. There starts to be so many different armies it can be a bit hard to do.

They would need a visual esthetich. I would imagine a lot of wild hair or braided hair depending on the model. With a lot of colours. Besides that, it would need some sort of dorection. Digging tools have been taken by GSC. Armoured warriors are SM. Heavy Metal looking machines are very orky, so not that. Perhaps do a visual esthetic of hot rod cars. High end heavy metal 80s. The sort of high end model the mad max villail could afford. (As opposed to scrap builds like orks.) Imagine big engines sticking out of the hood.

They would need to carve out their own piece of rules that make them unique. I do not know what design space that is left. Many times dwarfes are very slow. I feel this is a trap as it takes options away from you once the game starts (see necrons.) If you do a gunline, how is it different then other gunlines? I would think focusing on good transports and elite units would be great. Have great equipment, but very short range. Sort of that sweetspot that the SW are in.

Let Wargames Atlantic make them first for $35 per box.

https://wargamesatlantic.com/blogs/news/einherjar-move-to-tooling

I'd roll them into AM almost like a regiment. Bikers could take the place rough riders had. A new squat tank maybe too? Not too inspired.

OMG I had no idea Wargames Atlantic is doing a space-dwarf box! Dang it. I'm going to end up getting a few of those boxes. Their stuff is just too dang good.

Also: keep them ideas coming folks! I'm hearing some really cool thoughts that I never would have come up with. Some of my faves so far have been the underwater aesthetic, the idea of lots of fortifications, the "board control" idea, and the bio-tech angle.

Primarisquats?
Resquates?
Nusquats?



Automatically Appended Next Post:

 privateer4hire wrote:
Let Wargames Atlantic make them first for $35 per box.

https://wargamesatlantic.com/blogs/news/einherjar-move-to-tooling

Wow. Those are some killer minis! And at that price...
Yup. GW will have to do something really special to beat this company in value that is certain.

Tbh the AOS Kharadron Overlords look almost like something out of 40k already. I love those. They look tough and techy. I'd want squats to be like them with a few steampunk style vehicles with seriously oversized bore guns.

Those floaty metal balloons are awesome. I'd also envision them as a society with "squats of iron" - like, truly sentient automatons that kind of resemble the squats themselves which live among them and are treated like real people.

Also space slayers. Gotta have space slayers.

I'd love to see the squats make a comeback. I even spent a week or so writing up a fandex for them based on the Kharadron Overlords.

I'd like to see them come back as a transport-vehicle-based army. Like having each of the overlords vessels have a high transport capacity with mounted guns that can be fired by passengers (like the chimera's lasguns). I think I had the HQ's all designed around buffing, repairing, or somehow modifying the vehicles.

Of course, the hearthguard made an appearance, essentially midget terminators. And the balloon-slash-assault troops from the Kharadron Overlords were assault troops that could assault from any of the vessels.

So, yeah. Vehicle-centric, technology based, primarily. With a bit of very tightly focused psychic power. Some uncommon melee tricks, but not really overpowered in melee. Using the Kharadron Overlords models mostly, but borrowing some from the old squats line. That's how I would bring them back.

EDIT: I agree with Doctor Boom and Morkphoiz. I just realized I'm repeating a lot of what they said.

EDIT2: I just found the Squats Fandex I wrote. I had them go with a lot of short-ranged, low-strength, high volume firepower, on the principle that they usually do their fighting in tunnels where you don't need to be able to shoot 300m, just around the next bend, but you absolutely, positively need that thing to die when you shoot it.

Lets see, special rules... They get +1 to their save in all area terrain (even if it's not ruins or doesn't provide LOS-blocking) and can't be overwatched by enemy units in RUINS (because they get in via tunnels instead of charging through the front doors like Space Marines).
Due to all the years of fighting and being abandoned by the Eldar, fighting hopeless battles against the Orks and all that, their leadership cannot be modified. They have a very stoic outlook on things. (not a huge deal in 8th edition, but I figured it might lead to some interesting edge cases)

Some of the cool stuff was infantry models on vehicles could act like Tau drones and absorb incoming shots ("Death Before Disassembly!"). Or they could be assigned to repair the vehicle instead of shooting ("Cunning Gadgetry"). Also, when reduced to 0 wounds, the vehicles explode on a 6, but on a 1 a model being transported could be sacrificed to bring the vehicle back up to 1 wound (I called that rule "Crisis Averted!").

But to reflect their plodding nature, the squats move characteristic was only 4", and the vehicles can't advance (well, they can, but they take D3 mortal wounds if they do). I called that rule "Ah Cannae Push Her Any Faster, Cap'n!"

I had a lot of fun writing up the rules.

Well they managed to make Dwarves non gunline in AoS. This would be a harder trap not to fall into in a shooting game as well as the fact that most of the design space is taken up in 40k at this point.

It'd be an incredibly interesting project to work on all round!

I would have them return as a mercenary race, as many others have suggested. I wouldn't tie them directly to the T'au, but I would allow them to ally with mostly anyone except GSC and nids - which they would have an utter hatred of - and the imperium - also hated, and they don't need any more soup!

from what I've read about squats (alas, they predate my participation in the game) they had 3 playstyles - infantry, bikes, and artillery.

I would repurpose this divide into heavyish horde, mobility and defending.

So Infantry-wise, I would be looking at them having slow, high-tech equipment. heavy guns for their basic infantry, maybe with pistols as a backup. 4+ saves as a minimum. heavy mining-automata to fill the CC gaps.
The long range gunline is filled by tau, and the mid-range gunline is filled by marines. short range gunline doesn't work so well, really, so they will need transports - open topped ones - and short range, powerful guns.

Mobility wise, I would include fairly liberal transport sizes (they are only small, they could have 2 floors in a transport!), mining machines to deepstrike in, and a variety of cool bikes, copters and fast, tough small-squad units.

Defensive wise, I would give them vehicles which can change into fortifications. seriously, heavily armoured vehicles with little to no offense, which can instead not move for the turn, become a fortress, and everyone inside can shoot. deployable fortifications. Also heavy artillery, probably a set of fortifications unique to the squats (perhaps a set of 2-4 little bunkers, which a unit can spend their movement phase transferring from one to another via tunnels - and reinforcements can deploy from - mitigating their slow movement, presumably 4"!)

I would be very interested in squats (or demiurg) being introduced, provided that they weren't just "short marines" or "short guard" or some other equally bland approach.


one strong contender in my mind is a sort of anti-tau. we have chaos vs imperium, orks vs tyranids, so demiurg vs tau. not in a "they are trying to destroy the tau" sense, but a "the tau stand for the greater good, the demiurg stand for revenge and survival". The Demiurg would be able to include a variety of new races who all have a vendetta against the rest of the galaxy, lost their home worlds to specific races, and banded together lest the galaxy eat them alive. so you end up with a selfish but not evil band of misfits and renegades, not corrupted by chaos and not out to conquer the galaxy, but looking to put the hurt on the rest of the galaxy in petty revenge for their own losses.

It would allow for a set of mercenary-type units in with the squats to give variety and bring these interesting units into the game without adding entire armies. Specific units can include caveats like "may not be included in an army which contains IMPERIUM units", or "TAU units", etc, so you can bring a big variety in a mono-squat build, or a restricted variety for soup.

The ones which dislike a faction would have to fulfill a similar roles to the faction they dislike - the ones who hate tau would need to have decent ranged firepower, the ones who hate marines would have to have good saves and toughness, the ones who hate orks would need to be somewhat horde-y.

rbstr wrote:
For a conceptual space the one that comes to mind as not being completely covered by others is one that uses biotech but in less of a body-horror/augmentation/xeonomorph sort of way.

Like, they grow a genetically engineered trees to make armor. Turtley/Snaily things are turned into tanks, anti-grav skywhales.
They're piloted still though - it's not like something they unleash or they're simply riding critters or strapping a platform to the back of an elephant. It's been engineered so there's like a place to fit in a cockpit.

For rules I'd see them as not being super tough, or having high saves but they'd have extra wounds. Maybe in conjunction with an army wide healing rule.
Their long range weapons wouldn't be particularly special - cannons, lasers, missiles. But they'd have some weirder biological short range guns like electric-eel discharge, sticky stuff who knows.

It's a cool sounding idea, but not for squats. That sounds about as unlike space dwarfs as you could get. Now, for an exodite army...

I’d like to see all the cliches dropped and something new presented. Not cyber punks, space miners, steampunks.

For me they should be mega angry for being left to be nids fodder. They have discovered, or were secretly in possession of, some pre heresy tech that they have leveraged to their advantage. Maybe the squats are small in number but command armies of men of iron. Or they ride megarachnids into battle haha

I got a morbid one for you!

The technologically advanced Squats find a series of offline Men of Iron installations, and reactivate them - BUT! They tamper with their programming, installing an enmity to all sentient species outside of the Squats, who are now basically the only mutual species to work with the Men of Iron. This makes the Squats the only race to really develop and field Artificial Intelligence (Abominable Intelligence) as their army. Squats would be the Men of Iron HQ equivalents, providing an intellect outside of machine efficiency - this means that the subterfuge and underhanded tactics which worked aeons ago won't work nearly quite so well now.

M41 845 (100 years after the loss of the Squat Homeworlds), the Squats and the Men of Iron make their reappearance on the fringes of the Gothic sector. They quickly carve up the both the Imperial and Chaos fleets, and leave the remainder scrambling to regroup. Several star systems go silent, as well as gravity field shifts as some stars are snuffed out. During this time, the Squats seed the Men of Iron on countless worlds - even a single automaton sent on a far travelling Rogue Trader, is capable of building and installing a Men of Iron installation in the mantle of a planet.

M41 898 (153 years after the loss of the Squat Homeworlds), the Squats and Men of Iron have finally established an area of space within the Gothic sector, where all contact is lost.

M41 944 (199 years after the loss of the Squat Homeworlds), the Men of Iron begin a systematic cleanse of neighboring star systems. Unlike the Necrons who destroy all life, and the Tyranids who devour all life, the Men of Iron utilize mass nuclear ionization, and EMPs to bring planetary populations to their knees - sterility and the complete deactivation of any technology (defences, infrastructure, etc), the populace is then rounded up and forced into mass concentration camp style ships, where they are used as slave labor.

M41 979 (235 years after the loss of the Squat Homeworlds), an Inquisitorial venture into Squat space (along with company level Adeptus Astartes support from 2 chapters), results in not a single survivor. The rest of those chapters make a foray into the area, and suffer supreme losses, they reveal the existence of the Men of Iron to the galaxy as a whole.

M41 (999 (254 years after the loss of the Squat Homeworlds), a new Squat offensive is brewing...

The Squats would comprise Command and Auxiliary units - the Men of Iron would provide the bulk of their forces.

Squats:
HQ - with some form of armywide buff - maybe a doctrine switch capable unit, that changes the Men of Iron from doctrine A to doctrine B mid battle
Elite - a Lite version of the HQ, maybe rather than changing the doctrine, they can enhance doctrines

Men of Iron:
Troops - Low accuracy and movement 5+ (range/CC), 5", high toughness, saves and squad size, as well as medium ranged Assault 1 weapons. Such as Assault 1 18" S5 AP-1; T5, 3+ Sv, 5-15 models in a unit, immune to morale.
Elites - Stronger versions of the Troops; T6, 2+ save, 4+ to hit, 6" movement, Weapons are Assault 2, same profile, +1Str/AP.
Fast Attack - Small AI spider walkers with lots of sharp stabby claws - fast, average in CC, low T.
Heavy Support - large slow bipedal walkers - lots of wounds, T9, long range fire support options, very long range flame attacks, etc.

Doctrines:
These are activated at the start of the turn, before the Movement Phase.

Basic Protocols: Base stats.
Assault Protocols: +1" Movement, +1 to CC hit, +1 to A in CC (not on charge), -1 to ranged hit, -6" to weapon range, -1 Ld aura 6"
Support Protocols: -1" Movement, +1 to ranged hit, +9" to weapon range, -1 to CC hit, 1 attack maximum per model in CC, attack last in CC.

Maybe make squats a slave race of the necron, fully translated in to automatons, but looking like those steam punk dwarfs from AoS. This way there would three things achived. Lore progress , intreducing a new army and giving necrons someone to ally with.

Could be realy interesting lore wise too. Maybe squats were given an offer by the necrons and "saved", but the saving ment under going a change like the necron themselfs went through. Maybe there small pockets of fleshy squats still wondering the empire, ever distrusted as their brethern turn to the xeno side.

There would be the whole ad mecha angle, even the now less robotic necron would have a second to ponder their hate of all living things, maybe some overlords would decide that they want more race to under go the same process and serv the necron goals.

Tycho wrote:I don't necessarily think we need any more factions, but I would do it via "Codex Rogue Trader". It would be a sort of "mercenary" codex where you would have some Squats, Zoats, any other popular-at-the-time but long forgotten units out of the original RT book and maybe some units out of other sources. You would give them 40k rules and each unit could have rules for what armies they can be hired out to. You could even use it to encapsulate units like the Gellerpox, and Tau auxilliaries.

Yeah, that's not a bad idea. I was thinking of them as some kind of Auxillary to add to Imperial armies who really want them.

From a Lore perspective, they could be the diaspora from when Tyrannids ate their homeworlds, fighting to reclaim some part of their lost heritage.

Vaktathi wrote:That said, it'd be neat to get both Imperial and Chaos squats. I'd basically treat them like Knights, where they can be an integral part of Imperial or Chaos armies with some distinct differences.

Yep.

the_scotsman wrote:The problem is, they're imperium.

What role is not filled in an imperium army between the profiles for

Guardsmen
Scions
Sisters
Marines
Primaris marines
Terminators
Ogryns
Gravis
Centurions
Custodes

Initially, I'd just make them PA heavy infantry for filling roles in more specialized lists without having to take another full detachment. Maybe like Devastators but slightly more durable.

You're right that most Imperial factions already have this covered, but Guard could certainly use a not-Ogryn option, NuMarines could use a not-Primaris option, etc.

I'd not re-introduce them.
Look, unpalatable statement here - they weren't popular. A lot of people only know them from the 'grudge' community members have held with GW for near 30yrs for removing an unpopular army form the game (and an army that in the 90's they weren't comfortable producing/designing which should say a lot).

Leave them to be in Blackstone/Necromunda style games. They don't need to be a fully fledged faction

It might seem like a cliché but I would basically use the Kharadron Overlords as the underpinnings of the new Squats (which would be a pejorative term from imperials). They’re an abhuman race of space faring miners who were driven to the brink of extinction and are out for revenge. A combination of space miners and space trawler men.

But I would also empathise that, abhumans aside, they are what mankind would look like had the age of strife never happened. They have tec far beyond anything the imperium has and they fully understand it too. What hinders them is their tiny numbers and lack of resources. So in a subversion of usual dwarf tropes, their equipment should have a rough and recycled look to it.

They also don’t suffer from all the religious superstition that imperials have, being more like cynical realists. But they do have their own version of the Kharadron Code, which is adhered to at all times. And they should unequivocally have robots. Everything from little hover drones right up to automated mining machines.

Their basic troops are like a combination of the Arkanauts and Endrinriggers; armed workers press ganged into combat out of necessity who mostly carry mining and repairing tools as weapons with only ‘side arms’ as actual guns. They come in infantry, jet pack and hover bike variants. They also have a lot of automated help. Then there’s the Grunstok equivalents, mercenary security who do carry proper weaponary.

In another complete subversion of usual dwarf tropes, they do have pyskers. Their own version of navigators. But they’re treated in as scientific manner as possible.

Weaponary? Gravity guns, plasma weaponry, more advanced versions of the mining type gear the genestealer cults use etc. Some artillery manned by the private security types.

 BroodSpawn wrote:
I'd not re-introduce them.
Look, unpalatable statement here - they weren't popular. A lot of people only know them from the 'grudge' community members have held with GW for near 30yrs for removing an unpopular army form the game (and an army that in the 90's they weren't comfortable producing/designing which should say a lot).

Leave them to be in Blackstone/Necromunda style games. They don't need to be a fully fledged faction

So, by that logic, GSC, Harelquins and AdMech should never have been re-introduced?

Yeah, feth that noise.

Eldar are very unpopular among non eldar players. And a lot of xeno players hate marines, specialy when the marines have good rules. I guess we should remove those too.

We would practicaly be left with factions no one cares about. Like those rogue trader guys from black stone fortress etc.

 Dysartes wrote:

 BroodSpawn wrote:
I'd not re-introduce them.
Look, unpalatable statement here - they weren't popular. A lot of people only know them from the 'grudge' community members have held with GW for near 30yrs for removing an unpopular army form the game (and an army that in the 90's they weren't comfortable producing/designing which should say a lot).

Leave them to be in Blackstone/Necromunda style games. They don't need to be a fully fledged faction

So, by that logic, GSC, Harelquins and AdMech should never have been re-introduced?

Yeah, feth that noise.

AdMech weren't created then removed from the game. Harlequins may not have had an army list but had unit entries for multiple editions between having a full army list (I don't even remember if they did have that in 2nd ed) and getting it back. GSC is the *only* example that rings broadly similar, but GSC were popular enough to bring back in a meaningful way.
Squats? Honestly it's just angry noise from near 30yrs of frustration by people. Most current 40k'ers know them as 'the army that was removed' and that's it.

They're a footnote. Honestly the idea that Squats should come back means that GW would have to stop working on, or kick further down the road, things like T'Au Aux. expansions just so the Imperium players could get another stunty-er power armour faction.

So no, feth Squats.

I would love for a Demiurg Faction that can ally with the Tau Empire.


To make then distinct and with clues from fantasy dworfs (And because they are basically like stone-like dwarfs) their basic profile would be something like

M 4" WS +3 BS +4 S3 T4 W1 A1 L7 SV+4

I believe thats and interesting profile that can be expanded upon to make all thing of industrialised stuff, an aesthetic that has really no replication on 40k. No steampunk (Thats something Admech is capitalizing with cyber horses and davinchi designs), no world war designs (thats imperial guard). Dieselpunk and hard industrial machinery with some sci-fi bits , at the end of the day they would be part of the tau empire faction-block.

 BroodSpawn wrote:

 Dysartes wrote:

 BroodSpawn wrote:
I'd not re-introduce them.
Look, unpalatable statement here - they weren't popular. A lot of people only know them from the 'grudge' community members have held with GW for near 30yrs for removing an unpopular army form the game (and an army that in the 90's they weren't comfortable producing/designing which should say a lot).

Leave them to be in Blackstone/Necromunda style games. They don't need to be a fully fledged faction

So, by that logic, GSC, Harelquins and AdMech should never have been re-introduced?

Yeah, feth that noise.

AdMech weren't created then removed from the game. Harlequins may not have had an army list but had unit entries for multiple editions between having a full army list (I don't even remember if they did have that in 2nd ed) and getting it back. GSC is the *only* example that rings broadly similar, but GSC were popular enough to bring back in a meaningful way.
Squats? Honestly it's just angry noise from near 30yrs of frustration by people. Most current 40k'ers know them as 'the army that was removed' and that's it.

They're a footnote. Honestly the idea that Squats should come back means that GW would have to stop working on, or kick further down the road, things like T'Au Aux. expansions just so the Imperium players could get another stunty-er power armour faction.

So no, feth Squats.

This is true but GW is also an expert of creating new armies and making instant fanbases of them. Just look at Age of Sigmar. Hate them or love them but one can't say those armies don't have their appeal to many people. The same for 40k. It doesnt matter what we the fans think, they are paying people to design interesting stuff that will appeal to a wider demographic.

Expanding on the space miner theme and their exile from the Imperium, it would be more realistic if they "discovered" something on one of their mining expeditions. Otherwise, they would barely be a force to reckon with and would die off (like they did basically). However, if they found some sentient race that enhances their capabilities, or even manipulates them, we might have something to work with.

 BroodSpawn wrote:

 Dysartes wrote:

 BroodSpawn wrote:
I'd not re-introduce them.
Look, unpalatable statement here - they weren't popular. A lot of people only know them from the 'grudge' community members have held with GW for near 30yrs for removing an unpopular army form the game (and an army that in the 90's they weren't comfortable producing/designing which should say a lot).

Leave them to be in Blackstone/Necromunda style games. They don't need to be a fully fledged faction

So, by that logic, GSC, Harelquins and AdMech should never have been re-introduced?

Yeah, feth that noise.

AdMech weren't created then removed from the game. Harlequins may not have had an army list but had unit entries for multiple editions between having a full army list (I don't even remember if they did have that in 2nd ed) and getting it back. GSC is the *only* example that rings broadly similar, but GSC were popular enough to bring back in a meaningful way.
Squats? Honestly it's just angry noise from near 30yrs of frustration by people. Most current 40k'ers know them as 'the army that was removed' and that's it.

AdMech had unit entries in Codex Imperialis, and featured in the Black Codex - I remember reading about Electro-Priests when I first got into 40k and wanting to pick some up, but not being able to. Mind you, this was also the case for a lot of the Agents of the Imperium at the time - Inquisitors were on their way to being OOP, for another example.

Harlequins had a full army list in Rogue Trader - ah, the Harlequin Land Raiders... - featured in Codex: Eldar and then got their own list in the Citadel Journal. Off the top of my head, they vanished from either Eldar 'dex in 3rd edition, before returning in, what, 5th with a new range?

Squats were popular enough in terms of support that GW banned people for mentioning them on their own forums - GSC never managed to get to that stage. The problems Squats had were a, the faction name; b, thematic elements being farmed off to other factions (thinking IG, SW and Orks here); and c, no-one in the studio willing to go to bat for them. IIRC, GSC only came back because there was someone (or a couple of people) in the studio now who are keen on them.

 BroodSpawn wrote:
They're a footnote. Honestly the idea that Squats should come back means that GW would have to stop working on, or kick further down the road, things like T'Au Aux. expansions just so the Imperium players could get another stunty-er power armour faction.

GW figured out a long time ago that there is more money in making the T'au be "Gundam in 40k" than there is having a coalition of alien auxiliaries supporting them. Why do you think we've not seen anything for that theme since the Vespids, and we've never seen a recut Kroot unit? I think they're wrong, and the faction lost something the moment the Riptide was released, but there you go - the combined arms approach espoused by the Taros FW book, where they used airpower in place of big suits because it was a more efficient use of resources, was far more interesting/different.

 BroodSpawn wrote:
So no, feth Squats.

I'll be polite, and not respond to that how it deserves.

Demiurg are not squats. Demiurg are, based on the little lore and fluff behind them, decidedly not abhuman and very much alien.

But if I was going to bring back the Squats, I would introduce them as Tau allies or basically anything other than a faction of short Imperium dudesmen. Create some fluff about how they have a longstanding feud with ratlings or something and the two are locked in a genocidal grim-dark battle for genetic short-person supremacy.

The squat home worlds were completely barren, no atmosphere, no biome, no nothing. The squats were also not a huge population. So we are expected to believe that the Tyranids successfully munched their way through barren rocks without starving themselves?

Seems like an odd hill to die on - the Tyranids codexes over the years have dozens of fluff depictions of planets devoured by the nids which are little more than barren hollowed out rocks filled with tunnels, etc. "Biomass", to the nids, is anything with organic molecules in it, which includes pretty much anything with carbon and/or hydrogen atoms in it - which includes rock.

I would probably do what GW will do.
Dig through Jes Goodwins notes, find the Demiurge artwork, ask around to see if anyone remembers where the existing prototype sprue of the Demiurge and their monster creature went, put them into production and profit.

As far as in the setting? I would make a meta joke out of it and hire Matt Ward to write the rule book.

Why can't they just show up? Also, why couldn't they have always been there?

I'd kill 2 birds with one stone and bring them back as a T'au Auxiliary force. Update the fluff to say that what few squat survivors there are decided their only chance at survival was fighting for the greater good.

leerm02 wrote:

So there has been a lot of talk about the Squats coming back (which, honestly, is nothing new to this hobby! I think they were probably first speculated to be returning around the time they first disappeared...)

I came up with my own version of how I think that could be accomplished in regards to lore/theme, and you can read the little short-story I wrote about it in the fiction forum (hint: it's DARK), but this post isn't about ME:

How would YOU re-introduce everyone's favorite space-dwarves back into the 40k lore? What happened to them? Where are they now? How have they changed? What is their "theme"?

Obviously this is just for fun, but I'd love to hear everyone's ideas!

By making them myself.

https://www.dakkadakka.com/gallery/1068635-.html?m=2

https://www.dakkadakka.com/gallery/1068634-.html

 BroodSpawn wrote:
I'd not re-introduce them.
Look, unpalatable statement here - they weren't popular. A lot of people only know them from the 'grudge' community members have held with GW for near 30yrs for removing an unpopular army form the game (and an army that in the 90's they weren't comfortable producing/designing which should say a lot).

Leave them to be in Blackstone/Necromunda style games. They don't need to be a fully fledged faction

Squats were very popular. The studio was lazy and didn't feel they could develop them any further. This is why they were dropped from the model line.

When it comes to fluff, I really want Squats to become some sort of Secessionist Empire that is taking revenge on the Imperium because of the way they've been treated.

Picture this: You are a human that evolved, after thousands of years of hard labour in hostile mining-environments, into becoming shorter and stockier. You are persecuted, discriminated and abused by the rest of humanity. They designate you as Abhuman; barely tolerated by the regime and your right of existence is constantly called into question by nobility and figures of authority. They only allow your existence because they have a use for you; mining. People start calling you and others like you names; Stunties, Dwarfs, Squats... anything to denigrate you based upon your stature and long facial hair.

Though still you and your kind endure this. You and your fellows start creating a new culture with a very strong identity and become proud of your genetic evolution. The benefits of said genetics include a knack for technological advancement and a very strong personality; one that is independent and free-thinking. Your kind begins inventing better machines, better vehicles and better equipment; all that would lead to a golden age of commerce and wealth for you and your kin. You start to trade and give these inventions to the rest of humanity; Leviathans, Power Armour, Power Drills are all shared with the wider "not-yet-Imperium". Your kind carves a small yet powerful place within the galaxy; The Squat Empire is born.

And then the Age of Strife happens and all of the Squat Empire is isolated from the rest of humanity. Because you are a Squat, you endure, as you have done so many other hardships.

Then, your kind reconnects with the new Imperium and you expect things to go back to the way things were.

But they don't...

The Imperium has become way more intolerent over the last millenia after the Age of Strife. They still see you as an Abhuman, and one that is very dangerous to the ideals of the Imperium. Why? Because you show potential that elevates you alongside humanity, not beneath it. They start scratching your name out of the books of history. Your technological achievements are now accredited as inventions of the Mechanicus of Mars. Your Empire has to become subservient to the Imperial warmachine. Your kind doesn't like this one bit and just says; " No thanks, we will be fine on our own." You are a proud race, and not one that is going to just kneel before someone just because they've told you to do so.

The Imperium doesn't like this one bit. So they decide to start a campaign to eradicate your empire from the Galaxy. Your planets are Virus Bombed, blockaded and quarantined by ships and vessels you helped create. They start ripping your families apart and spreading many of you away to labour camps or penal colonies far across the Galaxy. When people start asking what happened to you, they say that you were a tragic casualty that got eradicated by Tyrannids. Your kind, its history and its culture becomes forgotten. Your empire is considered extinct.

Yet, you endure, and you bear a very strong Grudge...

Cadia falls, and the entire Galaxy is ripped in twain by huge Warp Storms. This has made the Imperium go into disarray. They order the quarantine of your Homeworlds to cease as those resources are needed elsewhere. They underestimate you and you see this as a moment to rise up once again. You and your fellow Squats begin a major campaign in uniting the rest of your Homeworlds and recreate the once proud and noble Squat empire.

You are a stout Squat of the Squat Empire. You've endured and you will continue to do so. And now, there are grudges to settle with the galactic power that caused all those hardships for millenia. They will answer for their crimes!

I'd bring them back in a revamped Court of the Archon. Squats could be great equipment caddies, or nutritious snacks for a Sslyth, and they wouldn't take up much room in a Venom thus making them the perfect ablative wounds in case of an explosion.

chaos0xomega wrote:
Demiurg are not squats. Demiurg are, based on the little lore and fluff behind them, decidedly not abhuman and very much alien.

But if I was going to bring back the Squats, I would introduce them as Tau allies or basically anything other than a faction of short Imperium dudesmen. Create some fluff about how they have a longstanding feud with ratlings or something and the two are locked in a genocidal grim-dark battle for genetic short-person supremacy.

The squat home worlds were completely barren, no atmosphere, no biome, no nothing. The squats were also not a huge population. So we are expected to believe that the Tyranids successfully munched their way through barren rocks without starving themselves?

Seems like an odd hill to die on - the Tyranids codexes over the years have dozens of fluff depictions of planets devoured by the nids which are little more than barren hollowed out rocks filled with tunnels, etc. "Biomass", to the nids, is anything with organic molecules in it, which includes pretty much anything with carbon and/or hydrogen atoms in it - which includes rock.

It's not equivalent when every planet for thousands of light years is exactly the same. The core is dead, none of the homeworlds had anything other than the squats and their food.

I said it was dumb 20 years ago and I still say it was. It was a cheap cop-out without any real thought into how it would work, being all the more ridiculous for just how unappetizing the entire core is depicted as being. Which comes across as dismissively insulting, using an unsuited explanation to push them aside and then also to make fun of people who wanted them back by just saying nids ate them over and over.


Now they're back like "of course they are, nids can't keep a good squat down...."


And if they're back then all the jokes and flippant commentary about them being eaten will mean nothing because GW will write whatever they want to bring them back and everyone will lap it up like they didn't spend the last 2 decades making fun of people who wanted squats.


They will either have fended off the nids or be ship-based. I don't think the latter makes sense though because the squats are experts at running lifeless rocks into homes so there's be no reason for them to not return to their planets or just settle on new ones

+1 for Demiurg. Think you could do interesting fluff, models and rules. Allows for a phased release over several years as they can be built up to the point you can play them on their own.

I'm afraid I can't see the point of another imperial faction that is essentially reskinned guardsmen and tanks, plus maybe some GSC bikers.

Now "Chaos Dwarfs in Spaaaace" could perhaps be interesting. But also feels kind of dumb.

I'd rather not have them anti-Imperium. They were never part of the Imperium, but there own seperate empire, allied to the Imperium on occasion, but shared common roots. They have/had warp capable empire so they would understand somewhat the Imperiums lack of contact due to the shadow in the warp. That doesn't mean I would make them Imperium friendly, only Imperium neutral. There would be some resentment but not outright hatred.

I would make them hate Tyranids for the same reason they hate Orks. I would make it so they were heavily overrun, but not completely. The thing about their homeworlds is that they were barren rocks before the Tyranids and would be also after Tyranids. I would have them slowly but inevitably reclaim most of their worlds, with heavy Tyranid pockets.

I would modify their original troops with how I think they might develop in a long war with the Tyranids. Maybe twin lasguns for ordinary warriors etc. There vehicles I would start by using base Imperial vehicles and modifying them as well. Keeping in mind that they aren't bound by the same rules as the Mechanicus. They were never part of the Imperium and are not bound by their rules.

I would reinforce that on the table these are proper military units, not civilians weaponizing their tools. Bikers for instance would not be bikers, like "Hells Angels", but be hit and run troops using the same aesthetic as the regular troops.

The only epic vehicles I could see ported over would be the Iron Eagle Attack Gyrocopter and maybe Termites.

Also, very importantly, I would look for a better name than Squats.

Why not just say they've been there all along? Like how Genestealer Cults and the Adeptus Mechanicus always existed. Even if we go with the nommed by nids bit, there could easily be pockets of survivors on colonies, spaceships, or worlds that just by luck were left untouched.

Instead of making a whole new faction, for starters they could be reintroduced as Militarum Auxilia for the Guard. If going biker theme, maybe a fast attack biker unit that has 2 builds, a scout build built around speed and a mobile heavy weapon platform build. Or a single infantry kit that functions like regular guardsmen but have a 4+ save instead of a 5+, slightly higher leadership, and maybe their guns are slightly better in some way - like a s4 lasgun, or can use their rapid fire range at a farther distance, etc. They could even go the Tempestus model and with a combined HQ, Elite, and Troop kit have their own mini faction within Guard with their own doctrines, etc if taken as their own detachment.

For reasoning on rolling them into Guard: fewer kits needed is obvious, and they can be fluffed as units attached to Imperial armies in joint military efforts, or in their weakened state they maybe formally joined the Imperium, etc. Then if they prove popular, or at least popular enough, additional kits could be added.

I do like the idea that Squats would use Artificial Intelligence in robots. I could see that as an elite unit.

An idea I had in 6th edition, back when you bought a squad, then you could buy a transport for it (buy 10 Guardsmen, get the option to get a Chimera). Turn that on it's head. You buy a Squat vehicle, then get the option of filling it with crew.


I second the vote for Squat artillery. Something like a Basilisk sized Thunderfire cannon with half a dozen crew would be neat.

If Eldar are a dying race and can have 5+ save infantry, so can Squats. I see the "Average Joe" squad to be marginally better than a guardsmen, if not quite as good as Tempestus.

Is there a current army that is all about de-buffing the enemy? That could be their schtick. Bonus when charging? nope. Bonus to cover? Nope. +1 to Hit? Forget about it. Want to charge? do it on 3d6 using the lowest 2 dice.

In the end, the answer is: make a bunch of really lovely models and come up with some BS background and crazy rules to help sell them.

Works for everything else :-)

Properly. As tyranid xenomorph hybrids. Squatifex 2020

I think Demiurg would have been the ideal way to do this. But since Squats canonically still exist (see Necromunda) and GSC kinda nabbed the mining equipment, maybe stick to the current fluff of them as the remnants of the old homeworlds.

The squats comprise small pirate fleets, mercenary bands and guild conglomerates roaming through space. A disapora of small enterprises, the remains of the old homeworlds. The sub-factions could represent different styles of enterprise - opportunistic raiders, careful traders, traditionalist mining flotillas.

This means you could have a similar space pirate theme to Kharadron. I like the weirdness of them being a sturdy Imperial equivalent to dark eldar! Bring back powerboards, armoured airships, the iron eagle.

Two options I like;

As Specialists in other armies - possibly alongside Inquisitors and Rogue Traders only, or as Officers of X in Astra Militarum armies.

The Men of Iron angle is an interesting one. Even if it weren't Men or Iron, Abominable Intelligences would be interesting. Making up for their lack of numbers with tech.

I wouldn't and instead focus on non iom factions that have been ignored...

It turns out that Primaris Marines are just two squats in a trenchcoat.

 lord_blackfang wrote:
It turns out that Primaris Marines are just two squats in a trenchcoat.

okay, now I'll admit when something is funny....but that was fething hilarious!

 lord_blackfang wrote:
It turns out that Primaris Marines are just two squats in a trenchcoat.

Taketh mine exalt , jester.

 lord_blackfang wrote:
It turns out that Primaris Marines are just two squats in a trenchcoat.

Yeah, I think you just won the thread with that quip!

It doesn't matter, they'll likely just port over Kharadron Overlords.

 Just Tony wrote:
It doesn't matter, they'll likely just port over Kharadron Overlords.

Well thats cool as they are great - a powerful race of trader/pirates should work just fine in 40k.

 Mr Morden wrote:

 Just Tony wrote:
It doesn't matter, they'll likely just port over Kharadron Overlords.

Well thats cool as they are great - a powerful race of trader/pirates should work just fine in 40k.

The fact that any army from their flagship medieval fantasy line could effortlessly enter 40K (barring Daemons, natch) speaks volumes.

I think it stopped being "medieval fantasy" when they produced AoS, and went closer to a combination of High Fantasy and whatever-ideas-stick-to-the-wall...

There's always the option of using the time-twisting nature of the warp.

The Squats, seeing the nids coming, evacuated their homeworlds (which, as people say, were just rocks so nothing too much to get attached to) and jumped into the warp to try and evade the nids. the shadow in the warp clouded their navigation, and they ended up travelling for much longer and further than anticipated, emerging now. Some of the ships could have been corrupted by chaos in the trip, others would have come through unscathed.

I like the idea of chaos dwarves in space, but I would also want regular dwarves, who aren't part of the imperium!!!

 lord_blackfang wrote:
It turns out that Primaris Marines are just two squats in a trenchcoat.

You made me spit up my drink!

 some bloke wrote:
There's always the option of using the time-twisting nature of the warp.

The Squats, seeing the nids coming, evacuated their homeworlds (which, as people say, were just rocks so nothing too much to get attached to) and jumped into the warp to try and evade the nids. the shadow in the warp clouded their navigation, and they ended up travelling for much longer and further than anticipated, emerging now. Some of the ships could have been corrupted by chaos in the trip, others would have come through unscathed.

I like the idea of chaos dwarves in space, but I would also want regular dwarves, who aren't part of the imperium!!!

Luckily you don't need to do any changes to get them, as there were always squats and chaos squats in 40k. They just never made 2nd ed rules for chaos squats despite mentioning them.

As I mentioned elsewhere, an easy "in" would be to have them as a mini-faction, like Scions. I could see them being a sapper/ combat engineer faction that just about work in their own right but are better as Guard auxiliaries

 Skinflint Games wrote:
As I mentioned elsewhere, an easy "in" would be to have them as a mini-faction, like Scions. I could see them being a sapper/ combat engineer faction that just about work in their own right but are better as Guard auxiliaries

I think they'd be Better as a default unaligned force. They've broken with their alliance with the imperium and now just sell their services to whoever will pay in order to help rebuild their civilisation.

They could then show up in any army as a supportive element and open the door for another unaligned faction that allows for smaller armies to be added.

The Harlequins are effectively like this as well, as they would perform their dances for everyone.

I always introduce squats after some light cardio and stretching.