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I know, I know, "Oh look, this thread again". I can't seem to find the others, that i'm sure exist. But at my FLGS, the only answer I get is "Because they're Squats". From what I can gather, it's because of the biker motif, but I don't think that's a reason to dispise them as much as they are...

Squats? Never heard of them.

It's not that the players hate them, it is more the fact GW themselves erased the race of space dwarfs to make the game more grimdark...

Nobody hates squats, in fact there coming back as an auxilary army under the tau banner. If you take a demurge leader (new name for squats) you can use units of them as troops. One of the rumored new squat units is basically a unit of terminators with TH/SS equivilents. Tau with a kickass counter charge unit? yes please!

Because squats taste so goood!
People get all sentimental because GW cut them, but really they were just dwarves in space. They had their upsides, but they just didn't fit in with the whole "grimdark" thing.

Squats?



In all seriousness I haven't really ever seen Squats hated, just "Squats should be brought back" being spammed to the point that might actually make some people hate them.

Orock wrote:Nobody hates squats, in fact there coming back as an auxilary army under the tau banner. If you take a demurge leader (new name for squats) you can use units of them as troops. One of the rumored new squat units is basically a unit of terminators with TH/SS equivilents. Tau with a kickass counter charge unit? yes please!

The Demiurg are not Squats.

Orock wrote:Nobody hates squats, in fact there coming back as an auxilary army under the tau banner. If you take a demurge leader (new name for squats) you can use units of them as troops. One of the rumored new squat units is basically a unit of terminators with TH/SS equivilents. Tau with a kickass counter charge unit? yes please!

Source?

n0t_u wrote:Squats?



In all seriousness I haven't really ever seen Squats hated, just "Squats should be brought back" being spammed to the point that might actually make some people hate them.

I wouldn't even say that it makes people hate the Squats themselves.

Just the majority of Squat players.

I sure do miss the "Squats..."

if they can have big green gorilla Orks in space, and sissy poncey Elves in space, why not bearded biker Dwarves in space?

purplefood wrote:Source?

It's a not-so-old rumor. Seen it on Warseer, BOLS and a couple spanish forums as well. This is the only link I could get, though.

http://www.bolterandchainsword.com/index.php?showtopic=224792

Orock wrote:Nobody hates squats, in fact there coming back as an auxilary army under the tau banner. If you take a demurge leader (new name for squats) you can use units of them as troops. One of the rumored new squat units is basically a unit of terminators with TH/SS equivilents. Tau with a kickass counter charge unit? yes please!

Just to clarify, even if the rumor is true (wich I doubt), these won't be Squats, but Demiurg. Not abhuman miners-turned-dwarves, but xenos who may or may not look like dwarves.

Agent_Tremolo wrote:

purplefood wrote:Source?

It's a not-so-old rumor. Seen it on Warseer, BOLS and a couple spanish forums as well. This is the only link I could get, though.

http://www.bolterandchainsword.com/index.php?showtopic=224792

Orock wrote:Nobody hates squats, in fact there coming back as an auxilary army under the tau banner. If you take a demurge leader (new name for squats) you can use units of them as troops. One of the rumored new squat units is basically a unit of terminators with TH/SS equivilents. Tau with a kickass counter charge unit? yes please!

Just to clarify, even if the rumor is true (wich I doubt), these won't be Squats, but Demiurg. Not abhuman miners-turned-dwarves, but xenos who may or may not look like dwarves.

So they're real Dwarves in space?

Kanluwen wrote:

n0t_u wrote:Squats?



In all seriousness I haven't really ever seen Squats hated, just "Squats should be brought back" being spammed to the point that might actually make some people hate them.

I wouldn't even say that it makes people hate the Squats themselves.

Just the majority of Squat players.

to both the above points

Not everyone hates them.

This thread, and all who have participated in it, are unclean.

you shall soon be visited by your friendly local Inquisitor for immediate purging


in seriousness,

the squats were destroyed because they didn't fit into where 40k was going.

and they weren't the most popular of armies.

Grey Templar wrote:the squats were destroyed because they didn't fit into where 40k was going.

and they weren't the most popular of armies.

The 'not selling well' thing always comes up in these discussions, but from the comments I've seen over the years from actual studio members, they didn't sell any worse than any of the other RT armies.

The decision to drop them was (supposedly) purely based on the studio not being able to come up with a clear niche for them in the setting.

insaniak wrote:

Grey Templar wrote:the squats were destroyed because they didn't fit into where 40k was going.

and they weren't the most popular of armies.

The 'not selling well' thing always comes up in these discussions, but from the comments I've seen over the years from actual studio members, they didn't sell any worse than any of the other RT armies.

The decision to drop them was (supposedly) purely based on the studio not being able to come up with a clear niche for them in the setting.

Really? I feel that they displayed the niche of Space Dwarves, quite well.

the main thing you do with things like this is archtypes.


you have fast, but fragile armies(Eldar, Dark Eldar)

Technologically advanced weaponry, but fairly fragile(Tau)

Super resiliant, powerful elite troops, good weaponry(Space Marines)

massed numbers, powerful weaponry(IG)

massed numbers of expendable troops(Nids, Greentide orks)




everything Dwarves are known for, other races were already doing. they really didn't have any unique mechanics.


and it seemed too much like Fantesy in space.

I was hoping this would be a spoof of the numerous "why does everyone hate ____" threads, but sadly no...

I also miss the squats since GW brutally and without due process, wrote them out of the game.
They made a lot of sense and were are pretty cool army to field as well. I do see they are still mentioned in the famous quotes of Leman Russ.

"Do not underestimate the Squats. They survived for millennia cut off from the Imperium and assailed from all sides. Their determination and resilience is an example to all." (Meditations on Imperial Command, Book XVI)4

Zakiriel wrote:I also miss the squats since GW brutally and without due process, wrote them out of the game.
They made a lot of sense and were are pretty cool army to field as well.

If by "made a lot of sense" you mean "made no sense", then yes.

Miners and techys from high gravity colonies that over time made them more compact. How does that not make sense or is this just another version of gnome hatred from WoW from you?

they were too much like short stubby space marines.


GW could either cut Marines, or Squats.


we know which one they picked.

I really need to get my stuff out of storage..... I actually still have the original info on Squats buried in there.... But the storage is in NC and I am currently in OK.

The official "reasons" and the rumoured ones asside.... Squats fulfilled a role in the (now defunct) Epic game that could not be translated into the normal game, Which is how the studio saw it.
The problem was that the Epic version didn't realy fit with the original 40k Squats, not the other way around. They had two different forces with the same name and could not find a way to link them.

It wouldn't have been hard to fit squats in at all, in fact they already had a niche. They were a crossover/hybrid army between IG and Space Marines. They have IG style equipped basic troops but hardier and braver (and less numerous than IG) and Space Marine type elites but not quite as wtfsuperawesome in every way and thus a little more numerous than SM's, all combined with slow but extremely heavily armed and armored battle engines and some Trikes. So basically you end up with an army that's larger than most SM armies, but smaller than most IG armies, with some of the advantages and disadvantages of both and really slow aside from Trikes. It wouldn't be hard to do, but literally the reason they were dropped was that nobody in the design studio wanted to work on them and bridge the gap between their Rogue Trader and Epic incarnations, so they got dropped.

The game is already Fantasy is Space...rather hardcore. It's already got Elves/Bad Elves and Orcs and Demons and Undead and Monsters, the inclusion/exclusion of Dwarves really doesn't do anything for or against that.

Squats are cool. Who cares if they are not completely different from some other race. Universe is a big place and there should be room for them too.



Well, has to be said that I like Rogue Trader era above all and everything after it sucks.

Dawi-Marine'Va wrote:Really? I feel that they displayed the niche of Space Dwarves, quite well.

The point was (again, according to the studio... I'm not the guy who decided to drop them from the game) that as Space Dwarves, they were doomed to be either short Imperial Guard, or short Space Wolves.

The only other angle that the studio could see for them was short space bikers, which the studio guys felt made them a bit of a joke army. And they didn't want Space Dwarves to be a joke army.

insaniak wrote:

Dawi-Marine'Va wrote:Really? I feel that they displayed the niche of Space Dwarves, quite well.

The point was (again, according to the studio... I'm not the guy who decided to drop them from the game) that as Space Dwarves, they were doomed to be either short Imperial Guard, or short Space Wolves.

Had they not started off the boat with a variant SM list the latter wouldn't have been an issue. In the long run it's not hard to see where an actually truly different faction likely would have been more popular than a simple "SM's +1" Variant.

As it was laid out, I forget where, WD maybe, the studio didn't like the name in a 'what were we thinking?' way, were not fond of the trikes or the other 28mm design choices they'd made with them, and wanting to make 40k more than straight 'fantasy in space!' didn't have a clear idea of where to go with the squats, since as the grudge-bearing and the above models show, squats were closer to their fantasy kin then anything else.

The killing blow was not only was the studio unhappy with them, but nobody had the fire in their belly to be 'the squats guy' and tackle all their problems and rebuild them.

I'm pretty sure the GW had to drop Squats due to a copyright issue when they fired the guy that held the copyright to the "Squat" intellectual property, back when GW let their individual employees hold copyrights to their own work. So, the Squats had to die.

To bring them back, GW would need to adjust the look and background of the differently named units to at least 10% different to avoid legal issues. This from the guys to sue everybody over even remotely thinking about modeling your product close enough to their product to be competition.

Go GW!

SJ