Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

Greetings,

I have spent some time thinking about those old favorites, Squats.  Taking a cue from Hollywood, I realize that a direct port from 2nd edition/Epic would not be adequate for 4th edition 40K.  As a result, I decided to Re-imagine them.  I have attached a link to another site with the background information.  I would post the attachements here, but I do not see how? 

http://www.warseer.com/forums/showthread.php?t=17957

Your feedback is appreciated.  I have also posted a thread regarding the army lists on Dakka.  Feel free to take a look there as well. 

http://www.dakkadakka.com/Forums/tabid/93/forumid/16/postid/16617/view/topic/Default.aspx

Thanks for the comments and criticism. 

 

Purely Fluffwise (GW style)
-The Squat Homeworlds were overrun by the Tyranids, so it's not so much they're OOP
as ,well,dead.

-I think they've already been reimagined as the Demiurg (sp?) from BFG, which will (eventually) make the leap to 40K

You know, Tanith, Caliban and most of the treasonous marine chapter homeworlds were blow'd up, doesn't mean there aren't large groups of those repective troops still terrorizing the 41st century.

Go Squats.

Somebody else wrote up a 'Codex' for the Squats in which their worlds had been completely destroyed by the 'Nids.
It was meant to work as an add-on to an IG army, but could be used as an army in itself (like the Catachan Codex.) That was really good.

Like someone on warseer said, you should scale it down a little. Maybe make them a little more mercenary, like they fight for others but are loyal to their clans.

Posted By jlmb_123 on 12/21/2005 1:28 PM
Like someone on warseer said, you should scale it down a little. Maybe make them a little more mercenary, like they fight for others but are loyal to their clans.

I really like this idea. Space Dogs of War.

With all of the potential profit drifting through space, there really should be more mercenaries in 40k.

 

P.S. Nice job with the "Cheapest Amry Ever". You're probably already a member, but here is the link to SFCMA if not.

Fluffwise there are s**t loads of mercs runing around in the 41st millenium. However, with the amazing amount of diversity found in mercenary forces, be it wargear, weapons, even the races of the mercs themselves, the army would be nigh on impossible to make a workable codex for.

If they bothered to try it would be the coolest army ever made though!

As for squats, they're dead, they suck, who cares.

Darkchild

I agree that Mercenaries are a great opportunity in the 40K universe. It is a part of fluff that is hinted at, but never drawn on.

As far as purely Fluffwise they are dead. I dealt with that in my document. Most of them were wiped out, probably 90%. However, due to the large scale devastation the Imperium only believes them to be wiped out. They still exist in isolated pockets and are attempting to claw themselves back from the brink (unlike the Eldar who seem to have resigned themselves to oblivion) and re-establish their Homeworlds. Why would they bother re-contacting the Imperium. Their is no help to be givben from humans, Eldar, or anyone else for that matter.

Maybe IG with slave levies (equivalent to fantasy "we like armour and don't get slowed down" rule) and allied DH to represent exo-armour (termies - give'em a huge drill bit on one arm to justify deep strike) and war trains etc. (land raider=one car/locomotive) Maybe a short Eversor/Culexus (don't they hate psykers?) with a pint in hand.

Actually that gives me a pretty good idea for my DH armoured company I'll probably be doing in about a year, after my Tyranids and Marines are done...I've got lots of disused (eng?) plastic second edition fantasy dwarves...who knows what warp wrecked wretches might streak down through the shrouded skies of Noria?

Warmachine is more or less the way I would go with Squats. steam punk, victorian stuff with lots of valves and clockwork. Squats should ahve almost no infantry, everything should be about the machines.

I see where you are coming from Kid. I was actually thinking of using the Thousand Sons List to represent a Demiurge army. The Sorcerors would represnt the Demiurge with their high tech weapons. Then Rubrics would represent various automatons created by the Demiurge.

However, in this piece I had a slightly different goal. I did not want to re-invent the "squats", I wanted to use what was all ready there and make it usable. I wanted to reimagine what existed so it would fit better into 4th edition. I did not want to re-invent the entire dwarves in space archetype, just tweak so it was less Hell's Angels in Space. Anyway, it sounds like I have failed. Oh well.

I justified the infantry I had to take in the list I settled on by calling the (3) Land Raiders a "trade caravan" and the infantry "merchants" or "rangers" for the mandatory IST for whom I could squeeze in no vehicle and will "range" ahead of the army in escalation, along with my big mutant scouts. (inducted improved comms sentinels probably being paid in beer and flamer fuel) DH is actually vaguely fluffy towards it since when purchasing Land Raiders without Grey Knights, you're forced to take minimum sized retinues for Inquisitors so they can buy them as a transport. Naked Elites Inquisitor (20) + minimum sized retinue (0) is the smallest scoring unit you will ever see...he's accompanied by a retinue so he's not an independent character, he can't join other squads, and no-one else can ride in his land raider...but if he gets out of it he can contest an objective just by mooning the enemy, though more likely he'd be in there enjoying the amenities that fit into those last nine passenger slots...(insert link to lost in space)
As far as the modelling goes, definitely 4th edition plastics with lasguns and some thunderer knockoffs. The vehicles would be vaguely corrupted versions of Epic squat things rendered into 28 mm - I want to do the Raiders and Russ as a Land Train broken down into segments but with little hitches so they could sit together on the shelf, maybe have the chimeras as "flat-bed cars." Probably make them out of WWI stuff with small fortifications, tile-roofed huts, towers, etc. built on top of them as well as platforms for the Inquisitor/armoured fist -equivalent squats to stand to represent that they're inside. Basically early 20th century armour meets early 14th century architecture. If anyone questions why it doesn't count as open topped I'll tell them they have a force feild They're fluffed as refugees from the Tyranid attack who get lost in a warp storm and end up hundreds of years back in the past on a feudal world "controlled" by my Chapter. By "present-day" their fledgling feifdom is fairly well established and they mostly fight with their primitive neighbours, do freelance tech work and provide the occasional armoured platoon for the 'rines as rent, drink, smoke, and female dog about how life was better back on the asteroids.

I say that Squats would be a "no frills" force right now since most of the Holds are gone resources are now limited since most was used in fighting off Nids and Orkz. So complex icons and tons of personal decorations are out for they take up resources and time that could be used to make more arms and amours to protect the Hold.
I see the Squats becoming a people that focused on two things survival and Revenge. If it is not needed to survive then they don't use it. They feel wronged and forgotten by the Imperium that helped them for so long then left them. They would most likely see the Imperium as much as an enemy as the Nids and Orkz.
Squats live to rebuild and take revenge for what has happen to their people. A people that has been reforged by the endless fires of war to survive.

Don't forget Eldar. They probably hate them a lot too, and are likely vaguely suspicious, considering Eldrad Ulthran has a track record of diverting Tyranid hive fleets without much thought to non-Eldar worlds. (see the fluff for Kashrak the Slayer, the nocturnal chameleon xenos assasin for Inquisitor)

Posted By spacewolflord on 01/17/2006 1:28 PM
I say that Squats would be a "no frills" force right now since most of the Holds are gone resources are now limited since most was used in fighting off Nids and Orkz. So complex icons and tons of personal decorations are out for they take up resources and time that could be used to make more arms and amours to protect the Hold.
I see the Squats becoming a people that focused on two things survival and Revenge. If it is not needed to survive then they don't use it. They feel wronged and forgotten by the Imperium that helped them for so long then left them. They would most likely see the Imperium as much as an enemy as the Nids and Orkz.
Squats live to rebuild and take revenge for what has happen to their people. A people that has been reforged by the endless fires of war to survive.

 

Yes.  I agree completely with what you said.  I will probably have to go back and try and carve more of that determined, revenge minded mentality into the mix. 

Don't forget Chaos Squats. Since they they live in the Eye of Terror they wouldn't have gotten wiped out by the Tyranids. So GW - what's your explaination for all of them being dead? Hmmm? "Uh... they got killed by Abaddon. Or something. Yeah, that's the ticket!"

I know its "their Story" but I NEVER liked the fact that they have changed fluff when ever it tickles their fancy. You know what they could have done to fix the Squats? Mix the Tau ideas with them. Advanced tech and lots of robots and walkers. You had to get rid of the grav craft but other then that it would have worked.
And it is a load of bull when they say that they want to make the two different games different. Have you looked at Necrons lately? They look a hell of a lot like skeletons to me, Tome Kings anyone?

Well, to be fair, they've got races with no fantasy equivalents in the starter boxes nowadays. And with new Codexes no time soon, Orks and Eldar have each been dealt a blow. Maybe they could make Necrons - and Ctan more robot/big chunk of rock
-looking. Then the only real fantasy cross-over race would be Chaos, and if they used the possession rules even for lesser Daemons - so every Black Crusade would have a couple of slaves to offer up their flesh to the essence of its masters - that would be weakened somewhat as well. More so if they brought out a separate range of 40k daemons that looked more like Linda Blair. But that's another thread...

 

edit - and if they did terminate Orks/Eldar, people could still use the same models only with Tau/IG rules...

What I am getting at is that at the heart of 40K IS Fantacy and GW can't get away from that unless they scrap everything and start fresh. Which if they did start a new Sci-fi game from scrach well then that would be interesting and could be fun.
(On Topic) I think that someone uptop in GW didn't like Dwarves at all and since he could not get rid of them in WF he went after the weaker and well not as well made 40k little brother. I would admit the 40k Squats did look goofy and I did not like the biker thing they had but they made a brand new army from scrach and just forgot about them is the thing that made me mad. Look at Dwarves now.. are they cool? Do they have a kick donkey history and culture? I think they do. Take that add advanted tech and boom Cool Demiurge. Rant over for now.

Easy E I almost can't wait to see the list your working on but take your time and dont rush.

wasn't there a rumour about bringing the squats/demigurgomething back as tau mercenaries?
but when I look at, what I know about them, they seem very, very orcy to me

Jervis Johnson actually published an article on why the Squat don't exist. He mentioned that Demirug were in BFG, but also pointed out that it was extremely unlikely anything else would be done with them. He seemed sad.............

He must have thought that the Squats had a good chance of becoming much better in 3rd or to have them dropped.
I read that article and if I remember he said that the Squats WERE selling good if was just some Minor Chaos God (management) didn't like them and they were dropped.