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Wow, the Forgeworld scum pack is 20 pounds? That's only a bit over $25 USD, or between 8-9 bucks a model for resin models. That's actually pretty darn reasonable. I'll actually be picking them up. While I don't think Squats really fit as a whole faction in 40k, I think Necromunda bringing in a Squat bounty hunter as a nod to the past is pretty cool. The art for the model looks nice as well.
Squats eaten by nids.... i wish this wasnt so widely believed, it was a throw away comment by the writer of the Inq wars books (now mostly retconned anyway) about why there is a squat in his books, they were not eaten by nids, they were just written out pure and simple.
The bulk of the core worlds have been eaten by the Tyranids, the remainder of the worlds that survived have aggressively been annexed by the Imperium not long afterwards.
BrookM wrote: The bulk of the core worlds have been eaten by the Tyranids, the remainder of the worlds that survived have aggressively been annexed by the Imperium not long afterwards.
Yep, which is why I really doubt the Imperium would allow Squats to freely deploy their own armies and have an industry again, because they did steal a bunch of squat worlds.
What I have
~4100
~1660
Westwood lives in death!
Peace through power!
A longbeard when it comes to Necrons and WHFB. Grumble Grumble
BrookM wrote: The bulk of the core worlds have been eaten by the Tyranids, the remainder of the worlds that survived have aggressively been annexed by the Imperium not long afterwards.
What book was that in, where is it stated in the fluff, thats my point, its not canon and not even in the fluff, just a throw away comment that the fans have gone with, not that this is a bad thing, look what happened to Dark Angels, relic keepers, holders of old tech, that translated into a plasma cannon for tactical squads, the fans then took this further and said "dark angels=plasma" and now thats true lol
Jervis Johnson wrote:I know I shouldn't get drawn on this... but... can't... resist
Seriously, a couple of points just so you can have an informed debate based on the real reasons that Squats are no longer available. Be warned, it is going to be hard reading for people that like the Squat background.
First of all, Squats were *not* dropped because they were not selling well. There were then, and are now, plenty of other figure ranges that sell in the sort of % quantaties that the Squats pulled down, especially when you look across all of the ranges produced by GW rather than just those for 40K.
No, the reason that the Squats were dropped was because the creatives in the Studio (people like me, Rick, Andy C, Gav etc) felt that we had failed to do the Dwarf 'archetype' justice in its 40K incarnation. From the name of the race (Squats - what *were* we thinking?!?!) through to the short bikers motif, we had managed to turn what was a proud and noble race in Warhammer and the other literary forms where the archetype exists, into a joke race in 40K. We only fully realised what we had done when we were working on the 2nd edition of 40K. Try as we might, we just couldn't work up much enthusiasm for the Squats. The mistake we made then (deeply regreted since) was to leave them in the background and the 'get you by' army list book that appeared. With hindsight, we should have dropped the Squats back then, and saved ourselves a lot of grief later on.
Anyway, the Squats made it into 2nd edition, and since we were doing army books for each of the races, we started to try and figure out what to do with them. Unfortunately we just couldn't figure out a way to update them and get them to work that we felt was good enough. The 'art' of working on an army as a designer is to find the thing that you think is cool and exciting about an army, and work it up into a strong theme. This 'muse' didn't strike any of us, and so, rather than bring out a second-rate product simply re-hashing the old background, we kept doing other army books instead, with stuff we did feel inspired by.
Now, while this was all going on for 40K, we were actually doing some rather good stuff for the Squats in Epic. On this scale there was a natural tendancy to focus on the big 'hand-made' war machines the Squat artisans produced, and this created an army with a feel that was very different to the biker hordes in 40K. However, this tended to reinforce the problems we saw in the Squat background rather than alleviate them, underlining what we *should* have done with the Squats in 40K.
In the end (and it took years to really get to the roots of the problem) this led to a realisation that we were going to have to drop the Squats in their 'Squat' form from the 40K background. There was little point having a major race that we weren't willing to make an army book for, and their inclusion in the background meant that people kept asking us when we'd do a Squat Codex. Instead we decided that we'd write the Squats out of the background by saying that their Homworlds had been devoured by a Tyranid Hivefleet. This would give us the option in the future to return to making a race based ont he Squat archetype for 40K. This race was given the name of Demiurg, and a certain amount of preliminary work was done to get a 'feel' for what the race would be like. At present the only hint of the Demiurg in 40K is the Demiurg spaceship for BFG. However, we do have this race 'in our back pocket' as a possible new race for 40K, or an interesting character model in Inquisitor, or whatever. So far the Demiurg have lost out to other projects, and it may be that their time never actually comes, as they will have to win through on their merits, not simply because we once made some Squat models in the past. At present, I have to say that it is more lilely that they *don't* make the cut than do, as there is a certain predudice these days to simply taking races from Warhammer and cross them over to 40K like we did in the early days, so it may be that the Squats/Demiurg end up remaining a footnote in the history of the 40K galaxy. Only time will tell...
The second point I'd like to make is about 'old moulds'. In the past, Mail Order in the UK and US used to be the place that we kept all of the retired moulds for Citadel Miniatures, and we used to offer a service where you could order any Citadel Mniature ever made from MO. However, there are now so many of these 'back catalogue' miniatures that it is simply impossible to keep all of the old moulds in Mail Order and offer this service. Instead, we pick and choose which back catalogue miniatures are kept available. At present we're still struggling to produce special catalogues for these ranges (in the US there is the 'Phone Book' catalogue with everything in it, while the UK has special 'collectors guides' that are themed round a race). Once we've ironed out the kinks in the way we deal with the range of collectors models we want to keep permenantly available, the plan is to offer up other parts of the back catalogue for limited periods of time. In effect this will divide the back catalogue into three parts: a range of classic models that are permenantly available, a range of classic models we dip into and bring out for a limited release, and a range of retired models that will no longer be sold either because we've decided that they are embarrassingly bad, or because we are no longer allowed to sell them due to licencing agreement changes. So far we're still slowly working on deciding which classic models we want to keep permenantly available, and its going to take several years to work through just those. The old Squat range is most likely to end up as retired models, I have to say, though there is a good chance that the Squat war engines they could simply into the limited release classic range. Once again, only time will tell...
I'll finish off by saying that whatever we decide to do 'officially', there is nothing stopping players with Squat armies from using them, either in Epic or 40k for that matter. There is no GW 'rule' against using old Citadel Miniatures, as long as you use them with exisiting army lists and in a way that won't cause confusion for other players. I recommend taking a positive stand by saying "Have you seen these cool old models? They're called the Squats and GW used to make them back in the late eighties/early nineties. I love 'em, so I count them as Imperial Guard and use them with the current rules..." Put like this I can't imagine that anyone would stop you from using your army.
Best regards,
Jervis Johnson Head Fanatic
This message was edited 2 times. Last update was at 2018/02/02 19:51:25
Jervis Johnson wrote:I know I shouldn't get drawn on this... but... can't... resist
Seriously, a couple of points just so you can have an informed debate based on the real reasons that Squats are no longer available. Be warned, it is going to be hard reading for people that like the Squat background.
First of all, Squats were *not* dropped because they were not selling well. There were then, and are now, plenty of other figure ranges that sell in the sort of % quantaties that the Squats pulled down, especially when you look across all of the ranges produced by GW rather than just those for 40K.
No, the reason that the Squats were dropped was because the creatives in the Studio (people like me, Rick, Andy C, Gav etc) felt that we had failed to do the Dwarf 'archetype' justice in its 40K incarnation. From the name of the race (Squats - what *were* we thinking?!?!) through to the short bikers motif, we had managed to turn what was a proud and noble race in Warhammer and the other literary forms where the archetype exists, into a joke race in 40K. We only fully realised what we had done when we were working on the 2nd edition of 40K. Try as we might, we just couldn't work up much enthusiasm for the Squats. The mistake we made then (deeply regreted since) was to leave them in the background and the 'get you by' army list book that appeared. With hindsight, we should have dropped the Squats back then, and saved ourselves a lot of grief later on.
Anyway, the Squats made it into 2nd edition, and since we were doing army books for each of the races, we started to try and figure out what to do with them. Unfortunately we just couldn't figure out a way to update them and get them to work that we felt was good enough. The 'art' of working on an army as a designer is to find the thing that you think is cool and exciting about an army, and work it up into a strong theme. This 'muse' didn't strike any of us, and so, rather than bring out a second-rate product simply re-hashing the old background, we kept doing other army books instead, with stuff we did feel inspired by.
Now, while this was all going on for 40K, we were actually doing some rather good stuff for the Squats in Epic. On this scale there was a natural tendancy to focus on the big 'hand-made' war machines the Squat artisans produced, and this created an army with a feel that was very different to the biker hordes in 40K. However, this tended to reinforce the problems we saw in the Squat background rather than alleviate them, underlining what we *should* have done with the Squats in 40K.
In the end (and it took years to really get to the roots of the problem) this led to a realisation that we were going to have to drop the Squats in their 'Squat' form from the 40K background. There was little point having a major race that we weren't willing to make an army book for, and their inclusion in the background meant that people kept asking us when we'd do a Squat Codex. Instead we decided that we'd write the Squats out of the background by saying that their Homworlds had been devoured by a Tyranid Hivefleet. This would give us the option in the future to return to making a race based ont he Squat archetype for 40K. This race was given the name of Demiurg, and a certain amount of preliminary work was done to get a 'feel' for what the race would be like. At present the only hint of the Demiurg in 40K is the Demiurg spaceship for BFG. However, we do have this race 'in our back pocket' as a possible new race for 40K, or an interesting character model in Inquisitor, or whatever. So far the Demiurg have lost out to other projects, and it may be that their time never actually comes, as they will have to win through on their merits, not simply because we once made some Squat models in the past. At present, I have to say that it is more lilely that they *don't* make the cut than do, as there is a certain predudice these days to simply taking races from Warhammer and cross them over to 40K like we did in the early days, so it may be that the Squats/Demiurg end up remaining a footnote in the history of the 40K galaxy. Only time will tell...
The second point I'd like to make is about 'old moulds'. In the past, Mail Order in the UK and US used to be the place that we kept all of the retired moulds for Citadel Miniatures, and we used to offer a service where you could order any Citadel Mniature ever made from MO. However, there are now so many of these 'back catalogue' miniatures that it is simply impossible to keep all of the old moulds in Mail Order and offer this service. Instead, we pick and choose which back catalogue miniatures are kept available. At present we're still struggling to produce special catalogues for these ranges (in the US there is the 'Phone Book' catalogue with everything in it, while the UK has special 'collectors guides' that are themed round a race). Once we've ironed out the kinks in the way we deal with the range of collectors models we want to keep permenantly available, the plan is to offer up other parts of the back catalogue for limited periods of time. In effect this will divide the back catalogue into three parts: a range of classic models that are permenantly available, a range of classic models we dip into and bring out for a limited release, and a range of retired models that will no longer be sold either because we've decided that they are embarrassingly bad, or because we are no longer allowed to sell them due to licencing agreement changes. So far we're still slowly working on deciding which classic models we want to keep permenantly available, and its going to take several years to work through just those. The old Squat range is most likely to end up as retired models, I have to say, though there is a good chance that the Squat war engines they could simply into the limited release classic range. Once again, only time will tell...
I'll finish off by saying that whatever we decide to do 'officially', there is nothing stopping players with Squat armies from using them, either in Epic or 40k for that matter. There is no GW 'rule' against using old Citadel Miniatures, as long as you use them with exisiting army lists and in a way that won't cause confusion for other players. I recommend taking a positive stand by saying "Have you seen these cool old models? They're called the Squats and GW used to make them back in the late eighties/early nineties. I love 'em, so I count them as Imperial Guard and use them with the current rules..." Put like this I can't imagine that anyone would stop you from using your army.
Best regards,
Jervis Johnson
Head Fanatic
Thanks, didnt happen though did it, no writing out, no "devoured" just one day they are there, the next they are gone, its sad really as I personally would have loved a series of novels of HOW they got wiped out, as it stands there is no fluff, no canon reason they are gone, just throw away comments and what you just posted.
Also bare in mind they also did the same with Tzaangors, they were around in 2nd, never mentioned after that, even in the fluff, then bam, we got Tzaangors back, so its entirely possible whole armies can come back from the depths of the fluff.
Jervis Johnson wrote:I know I shouldn't get drawn on this... but... can't... resist
Seriously, a couple of points just so you can have an informed debate based on the real reasons that Squats are no longer available. Be warned, it is going to be hard reading for people that like the Squat background.
First of all, Squats were *not* dropped because they were not selling well. There were then, and are now, plenty of other figure ranges that sell in the sort of % quantaties that the Squats pulled down, especially when you look across all of the ranges produced by GW rather than just those for 40K.
No, the reason that the Squats were dropped was because the creatives in the Studio (people like me, Rick, Andy C, Gav etc) felt that we had failed to do the Dwarf 'archetype' justice in its 40K incarnation. From the name of the race (Squats - what *were* we thinking?!?!) through to the short bikers motif, we had managed to turn what was a proud and noble race in Warhammer and the other literary forms where the archetype exists, into a joke race in 40K. We only fully realised what we had done when we were working on the 2nd edition of 40K. Try as we might, we just couldn't work up much enthusiasm for the Squats. The mistake we made then (deeply regreted since) was to leave them in the background and the 'get you by' army list book that appeared. With hindsight, we should have dropped the Squats back then, and saved ourselves a lot of grief later on.
Anyway, the Squats made it into 2nd edition, and since we were doing army books for each of the races, we started to try and figure out what to do with them. Unfortunately we just couldn't figure out a way to update them and get them to work that we felt was good enough. The 'art' of working on an army as a designer is to find the thing that you think is cool and exciting about an army, and work it up into a strong theme. This 'muse' didn't strike any of us, and so, rather than bring out a second-rate product simply re-hashing the old background, we kept doing other army books instead, with stuff we did feel inspired by.
Now, while this was all going on for 40K, we were actually doing some rather good stuff for the Squats in Epic. On this scale there was a natural tendancy to focus on the big 'hand-made' war machines the Squat artisans produced, and this created an army with a feel that was very different to the biker hordes in 40K. However, this tended to reinforce the problems we saw in the Squat background rather than alleviate them, underlining what we *should* have done with the Squats in 40K.
In the end (and it took years to really get to the roots of the problem) this led to a realisation that we were going to have to drop the Squats in their 'Squat' form from the 40K background. There was little point having a major race that we weren't willing to make an army book for, and their inclusion in the background meant that people kept asking us when we'd do a Squat Codex. Instead we decided that we'd write the Squats out of the background by saying that their Homworlds had been devoured by a Tyranid Hivefleet. This would give us the option in the future to return to making a race based ont he Squat archetype for 40K. This race was given the name of Demiurg, and a certain amount of preliminary work was done to get a 'feel' for what the race would be like. At present the only hint of the Demiurg in 40K is the Demiurg spaceship for BFG. However, we do have this race 'in our back pocket' as a possible new race for 40K, or an interesting character model in Inquisitor, or whatever. So far the Demiurg have lost out to other projects, and it may be that their time never actually comes, as they will have to win through on their merits, not simply because we once made some Squat models in the past. At present, I have to say that it is more lilely that they *don't* make the cut than do, as there is a certain predudice these days to simply taking races from Warhammer and cross them over to 40K like we did in the early days, so it may be that the Squats/Demiurg end up remaining a footnote in the history of the 40K galaxy. Only time will tell...
The second point I'd like to make is about 'old moulds'. In the past, Mail Order in the UK and US used to be the place that we kept all of the retired moulds for Citadel Miniatures, and we used to offer a service where you could order any Citadel Mniature ever made from MO. However, there are now so many of these 'back catalogue' miniatures that it is simply impossible to keep all of the old moulds in Mail Order and offer this service. Instead, we pick and choose which back catalogue miniatures are kept available. At present we're still struggling to produce special catalogues for these ranges (in the US there is the 'Phone Book' catalogue with everything in it, while the UK has special 'collectors guides' that are themed round a race). Once we've ironed out the kinks in the way we deal with the range of collectors models we want to keep permenantly available, the plan is to offer up other parts of the back catalogue for limited periods of time. In effect this will divide the back catalogue into three parts: a range of classic models that are permenantly available, a range of classic models we dip into and bring out for a limited release, and a range of retired models that will no longer be sold either because we've decided that they are embarrassingly bad, or because we are no longer allowed to sell them due to licencing agreement changes. So far we're still slowly working on deciding which classic models we want to keep permenantly available, and its going to take several years to work through just those. The old Squat range is most likely to end up as retired models, I have to say, though there is a good chance that the Squat war engines they could simply into the limited release classic range. Once again, only time will tell...
I'll finish off by saying that whatever we decide to do 'officially', there is nothing stopping players with Squat armies from using them, either in Epic or 40k for that matter. There is no GW 'rule' against using old Citadel Miniatures, as long as you use them with exisiting army lists and in a way that won't cause confusion for other players. I recommend taking a positive stand by saying "Have you seen these cool old models? They're called the Squats and GW used to make them back in the late eighties/early nineties. I love 'em, so I count them as Imperial Guard and use them with the current rules..." Put like this I can't imagine that anyone would stop you from using your army.
Best regards,
Jervis Johnson
Head Fanatic
Some years before he said basically the same in the Citadel Journal (issue 33) - but there the Squat worlds were incorporated in the Imperium (so use your old models as Imperial Guard) with only some renegades left (use the... Ork Codex). So the decision to discontinue them is actually older than the Hive fleet story.
Jervis Johnson wrote:I know I shouldn't get drawn on this... but... can't... resist
Seriously, a couple of points just so you can have an informed debate based on the real reasons that Squats are no longer available. Be warned, it is going to be hard reading for people that like the Squat background.
First of all, Squats were *not* dropped because they were not selling well. There were then, and are now, plenty of other figure ranges that sell in the sort of % quantaties that the Squats pulled down, especially when you look across all of the ranges produced by GW rather than just those for 40K.
No, the reason that the Squats were dropped was because the creatives in the Studio (people like me, Rick, Andy C, Gav etc) felt that we had failed to do the Dwarf 'archetype' justice in its 40K incarnation. From the name of the race (Squats - what *were* we thinking?!?!) through to the short bikers motif, we had managed to turn what was a proud and noble race in Warhammer and the other literary forms where the archetype exists, into a joke race in 40K. We only fully realised what we had done when we were working on the 2nd edition of 40K. Try as we might, we just couldn't work up much enthusiasm for the Squats. The mistake we made then (deeply regreted since) was to leave them in the background and the 'get you by' army list book that appeared. With hindsight, we should have dropped the Squats back then, and saved ourselves a lot of grief later on.
Anyway, the Squats made it into 2nd edition, and since we were doing army books for each of the races, we started to try and figure out what to do with them. Unfortunately we just couldn't figure out a way to update them and get them to work that we felt was good enough. The 'art' of working on an army as a designer is to find the thing that you think is cool and exciting about an army, and work it up into a strong theme. This 'muse' didn't strike any of us, and so, rather than bring out a second-rate product simply re-hashing the old background, we kept doing other army books instead, with stuff we did feel inspired by.
Now, while this was all going on for 40K, we were actually doing some rather good stuff for the Squats in Epic. On this scale there was a natural tendancy to focus on the big 'hand-made' war machines the Squat artisans produced, and this created an army with a feel that was very different to the biker hordes in 40K. However, this tended to reinforce the problems we saw in the Squat background rather than alleviate them, underlining what we *should* have done with the Squats in 40K.
In the end (and it took years to really get to the roots of the problem) this led to a realisation that we were going to have to drop the Squats in their 'Squat' form from the 40K background. There was little point having a major race that we weren't willing to make an army book for, and their inclusion in the background meant that people kept asking us when we'd do a Squat Codex. Instead we decided that we'd write the Squats out of the background by saying that their Homworlds had been devoured by a Tyranid Hivefleet. This would give us the option in the future to return to making a race based ont he Squat archetype for 40K. This race was given the name of Demiurg, and a certain amount of preliminary work was done to get a 'feel' for what the race would be like. At present the only hint of the Demiurg in 40K is the Demiurg spaceship for BFG. However, we do have this race 'in our back pocket' as a possible new race for 40K, or an interesting character model in Inquisitor, or whatever. So far the Demiurg have lost out to other projects, and it may be that their time never actually comes, as they will have to win through on their merits, not simply because we once made some Squat models in the past. At present, I have to say that it is more lilely that they *don't* make the cut than do, as there is a certain predudice these days to simply taking races from Warhammer and cross them over to 40K like we did in the early days, so it may be that the Squats/Demiurg end up remaining a footnote in the history of the 40K galaxy. Only time will tell...
The second point I'd like to make is about 'old moulds'. In the past, Mail Order in the UK and US used to be the place that we kept all of the retired moulds for Citadel Miniatures, and we used to offer a service where you could order any Citadel Mniature ever made from MO. However, there are now so many of these 'back catalogue' miniatures that it is simply impossible to keep all of the old moulds in Mail Order and offer this service. Instead, we pick and choose which back catalogue miniatures are kept available. At present we're still struggling to produce special catalogues for these ranges (in the US there is the 'Phone Book' catalogue with everything in it, while the UK has special 'collectors guides' that are themed round a race). Once we've ironed out the kinks in the way we deal with the range of collectors models we want to keep permenantly available, the plan is to offer up other parts of the back catalogue for limited periods of time. In effect this will divide the back catalogue into three parts: a range of classic models that are permenantly available, a range of classic models we dip into and bring out for a limited release, and a range of retired models that will no longer be sold either because we've decided that they are embarrassingly bad, or because we are no longer allowed to sell them due to licencing agreement changes. So far we're still slowly working on deciding which classic models we want to keep permenantly available, and its going to take several years to work through just those. The old Squat range is most likely to end up as retired models, I have to say, though there is a good chance that the Squat war engines they could simply into the limited release classic range. Once again, only time will tell...
I'll finish off by saying that whatever we decide to do 'officially', there is nothing stopping players with Squat armies from using them, either in Epic or 40k for that matter. There is no GW 'rule' against using old Citadel Miniatures, as long as you use them with exisiting army lists and in a way that won't cause confusion for other players. I recommend taking a positive stand by saying "Have you seen these cool old models? They're called the Squats and GW used to make them back in the late eighties/early nineties. I love 'em, so I count them as Imperial Guard and use them with the current rules..." Put like this I can't imagine that anyone would stop you from using your army.
Best regards,
Jervis Johnson
Head Fanatic
Some years before he said basically the same in the Citadel Journal (issue 33) - but there the Squat worlds were incorporated in the Imperium (so use your old models as Imperial Guard) with only some renegades left (use the... Ork Codex). So the decision to discontinue them is actually older than the Hive fleet story.
I just figure that the old stunties were too fermented and nasty that the clogged up the Tyranids (which is why they have been constipated for centuries) and this one finally got out by part of the fleet. Pretty soon trikes and bikes will come out.
LOL, Theo your mind is an amazing place, never change.-camkierhi 9/19/13
I cant believe theo is right.. damn. -comradepanda 9/26/13
None of the strange ideas we had about you involved your sexual orientation..........-Monkeytroll 12/10/13
I'd put you on ignore for that comment, if I could...Alpharius 2/11/14
Wouldn't that undermine the overall theme of the imperium being constantly on the decline and in peril, and run the risk of squats being mary sues? I mean, if they had tech and a military that could outstrip the imperium's, what's the point of having an imperium? What's the point of having marines, who play a big part in the lore, being figurative grandsons of the emperor? Its actually in the best interest of the setting that squats be kept weak.
I mean, people bitch about marines having plot armor all the time, but suddenly its ok for squats to have it? What?
Well there were only billions and such of the Squats. They had lots of mineral resources, but needed to trade for food and other goods.
The Imperium numbers in the trillions. Squats could never compete with the resources of the Imperium...chief of that would be sheer manpower.
So what is the point in the Imperial Guard....you have Space Marines. What is the point of insert blank, .....you have Custodes, Grey Knights, Ad Mech, etc. Same with the Squats. Squats could never take over the galaxy as they had a minimal survivalist culture abeit with a lot of advanced ancient tech but still small in numbers.
This message was edited 2 times. Last update was at 2018/02/02 21:04:04
koooaei wrote: We are rolling so many dice to have less time to realise that there is not much else to the game other than rolling so many dice.
Wouldn't that undermine the overall theme of the imperium being constantly on the decline and in peril, and run the risk of squats being mary sues? I mean, if they had tech and a military that could outstrip the imperium's, what's the point of having an imperium? What's the point of having marines, who play a big part in the lore, being figurative grandsons of the emperor? Its actually in the best interest of the setting that squats be kept weak.
I mean, people bitch about marines having plot armor all the time, but suddenly its ok for squats to have it? What?
Well there were only billions and such of the Squats. They had lots of mineral resources, but needed to trade for food and other goods.
The Imperium numbers in the trillions. Squats could never compete with the resources of the Imperium...chief of that would be sheer manpower.
So what is the point in the Imperial Guard....you have Space Marines. What is the point of insert blank, .....you have Custodes, Grey Knights, Ad Mech, etc. Same with the Squats. Squats could never take over the galaxy as they had a minimal survivalist culture abeit with a lot of advanced ancient tech but still small in numbers.
So a bit like Tau in theme, advanced tech, small (relatively) numbers and surviving as best they can?
Dear GW. Please bring back Squats. I will literally throw money in your face if you do. 40k desperately needs more epic beards.
You successfully brought back Genestealer Cults, so surely you can bring back Squats as well.
Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote: Thinking Squats, 40k, remaining niches and Kharadron Overlords, I think there’s definitely room for an army predominantly comprised of Light Vehciles
Walkers, Buggies, Crawlers, Moles etc.
And with 8th Ed more-or-less sorting out the previous issues with light vehicles, such an army could work quite nicely I feel?
It’d also reflect the artisan, hand made vibe of Epic Squats. And just like Hipsters, they’ve got beards!
Automatically Appended Next Post: It also sort-of riffs on the Short Biker thing for sake of nostalgia. Which is always a nice thing.
I don't know.. Hrud sound like a race, which has predominately light tech/monsters. And they sound and look
More interesting(IMHO). Another power armored, anthropomorphic, imperial race sounds like an overkill. And are there actually any people, who want squats, who weren't around, when the were sold officially (20 replies in 10..9.. )
There is just so much to do in a 40k universe, and a new race (which come out rarely) as Squats sounds like a waste.
Now squats in Necromunda- that I like. Gangs consisting of very different personae is awesome. And the artwork looks cool, so I hope the mini is a close representation.
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Formosa wrote: they were just written out pure and simple.
The really weren't ever even written out. They were just kind of... ignored for a while. With a living canon like 40K, it's hard to ever really wipe something out. Anything that appeared in the Codex Imperialis with 2nd Edition and onward is pretty much canon unless it has been specifically overwritten. Jervis said they had decided to write them out, then never actually published anything with that story in it.
That, and almost all the guys who would have "gotten tired of hearing about Squats" have long since moved on from the company. With the resurrection of stuff like the Genestealer Cult in the last couple years, it's clear the company has a new mindset about everything, and the Squats thing, in the phrasing of Skwisgaar Squigelf, "is grandspas jokes" that they now find amusing to play along with. I mean, the last models in the metal Sisters of Battle line came out almost 15 years ago. Nobody on the Warhammer Community team worked for the company back then.
Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote: I think there’s definitely room for an army predominantly comprised of Light Vehciles
Walkers, Buggies, Crawlers, Moles etc.
Unlike, say, Dark Eldar or Tau?
Doesn't the very existence of two options you can come up with suggest that there's always room in 40K for something?
Honestly though, Squats would make excellent troop options for the Imperial Guard. The traditional Squats from Rogue Trader and the 2nd Edition Black Book were lasguns and flak armor. You can literally use the original models in an Imperial Guard army and be WYSIWYG.
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Marneus Calgar is referred to as "one of the Imperium's greatest tacticians" and he treats the Codex like it's the War Bible. If the Codex is garbage, then how bad is everyone else?
CthuluIsSpy wrote: Meanwhile, you have squats who have no homeworld, don't have numbers, no longer have access to all the equipment they had or their industrial capabilities, aren't space marine level strong or tough, aren't eldar level agile, don't really any support from the imperium (who are known to treat abhumans like gak. Do you really think they would give abhumans rare power armor if they had the choice?), are on the brink of extinction and aren't overall ubermensch.
And as we all know, GW never changes the fluff or retcons anything.
To my knowledge, they technically never even actually wrote anything about the destruction of the Squats. The closest we got was Jervis's comment on a forum about that being the decision, and the picture of some arrows suggesting some random Tyranid fleet got lost and wandered through the galactic plane from the bottom. Then the map later changed because I think at some point somebody realized just how drastically a hive fleet at the galactic core blew up the 40K map's landscape just to play a joke on the Internet's Squats aficionados, lol.
zedmeister wrote: Except for the fact that they did sell and quite well. As has been said by Jervis in his infamous "What happened to the Squats" posting.
I'm not trying to be a jerk here, but things that sell well don't get discontinued.
That's sort of an entry-level marketing/supply chain analysis, lol.
The reality is that Games Workshop spent decades working against their own opportunity costs. Codexes took years to come out because of the time and resources it took to make them. Now we seem to get a codex reboot every 2 years, lol. What changed? Opportunity costs. GW has the creative personnel and the market has the affordable manufacturing/distribution methods to make releasing codex books significantly easier.
The other half of it is prioritization and wanting to avoid cannibalizing sales from other model lines. If the guys at GW didn't feel they had any fresh ideas for the Squats, then using their Creative resources (writers, sculptors) and manufacturing resources and finite inventory limits on what would be perceived as a "duplicate" model line doesn't make sense. Remember, Squats went away in a period of time where there were 3-6 years between Space Marine Codex books. We've had 3 Space Marine Codex books in the last 5 now. Clearly at some point, Games Workshop realized that while their business was expanding, it didn't make sense to just throw all the ideas out there at the customer. Remember Codex Imperial Guard, 2nd Edition? Pepperidge Farms does. Accompanying it was a staggering five different model ranges. Cadians, Catachan, Mordian, Tallarn, Valhallan. By the time they went to plastic, the range had been trimmed down to two. Again, prioritization. Why sell seven different competing lines of product (including the later Steel Legion and Vostroyans)?
That's really what Jervis was saying about Squats back in 2004. They'd not figured out a way to make Squats their own thing, in a way that made marketing them as an army make sense. And the company's business model was shifting away from being a fun little niche model-company that could mold and cast a wide variety of eclectic science-fantasy miniatures and send them off to market. For reference, GW went public in 2004. 19 days before Jervis made that now-famous post. Which means Jervis was saying that at a time when they'd spent the last few years prepping the company for its public offering and creating a business model that investors would actually get behind. By 2004, Games Workshop was not the same company it had been even five years earlier.
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Marneus Calgar is referred to as "one of the Imperium's greatest tacticians" and he treats the Codex like it's the War Bible. If the Codex is garbage, then how bad is everyone else?
Honestly though, Squats would make excellent troop options for the Imperial Guard. The traditional Squats from Rogue Trader and the 2nd Edition Black Book were lasguns and flak armor. You can literally use the original models in an Imperial Guard army and be WYSIWYG.
Jervis Johnson posted his thoughts on Squats years ago in the Journal, I think just after 3rd Ed landed.
He suggested using Squats with IG rules (as I still do) or using Ork stat lines to reflect a more rough and ready marauder type Squat.
In the case of the latter the lower BS would indicate a weapon failing to fire (poor maintenance, lack of ammo) when rolling a miss rather than the shot going wide.
I'm all for bringing squats back... Grimm still sticks with me, after reading space marine a lifetime ago when I was a kid. I don't think they painted themselves into a corner though as the Jervis article states, I disagree with the logic used. Why can't they be both roving biker style dudes like Grimm AND more dwarfy style as in Epic? They are abhumans, not alien, they can have their own worlds and traditionalist, well cultured squats, and they can have immigrant/refugee/born as new mutations squats as a big minority on other mainline human imperial worlds. The mentality he mentions, to me, falls into a trap that they have to be a mono-flavor culture or people. I would be perfectly happy with my biker exiles or nomads in necromunda/inquisition style settings, and even mixed into IG, and also a 'hearth world' version of squats too as an army in 40k.
Embrace the beauty of 'and' throw off the tyranny of 'or'. Anyways, a necromundan squat will be purchased and will be called Grimm
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~4100
~1660
out by part of the fleet. Pretty soon trikes and bikes will come out.
)
-- $k 
-- 9k 
-- 6k 
-- 4k 
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