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It's because they're silly. Silliness obviously has no place in a universe where hardgay bondage elves from Space Hell fight sentient football hooligan fungi.

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!

That just sounds completely fething stupid. I really hope thats just fans wishlisting. Seriously the Squats are silly and deep down every knows it.

-edited by insaniak. Please don't do that-

jeffersonian000 wrote: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.

No idea who made that story up, but it sounds like someone's gotten confused with the (also unconfirmed) backstory for the Chaos God Malal.

There's never been any suggestion that the ownership of the Squats was in doubt, and their continuation in Epic after being dropped from 40K would seem to prove that this story isn't true...

KingCracker wrote:


That just sounds completely fething stupid. I really hope thats just fans wishlisting. Seriously the Squats are silly and deep down every knows it.

And Space Clowns, Hooligan Fungus and Tractor Tanks aren't? Really?

If GW had opted for removing all that's silly from 40k Orks wouldn't have made it past 2nd edition... Just remember Madboyz, Squig Catapults...

Doing a bit of... uh... creative reading of Jarvis' famous letter on the Squats, it occurs to me that the main reason behind the Squats' demise was just that, beyond three-feet-tall hell's angels and units that more or less aped their WHFB dwarven counterparts, the creative minds behind GW were dry of ideas.

I'm sure it's been posted a gazillion times before, but here's a link to said letter, just in case anyone wants to check.

http://www.warseer.com/forums/showthread.php?t=40899

Oh, btw: I actually liked Squats. They might have become my first 40k army, but they were already OOP when I started gaming.

Agent_Tremolo wrote:If GW had opted for removing all that's silly from 40k Orks wouldn't have made it past 2nd edition... Just remember Madboyz, Squig Catapults...

Take a look at the 3rd edition Ork Codex. They did indeed take a crack at removing the silliness... The current codex took a stab at putting back some of the stuff that made Orks so much fun, but for most of two editions they were very, very dry.

insaniak wrote:

Agent_Tremolo wrote:If GW had opted for removing all that's silly from 40k Orks wouldn't have made it past 2nd edition... Just remember Madboyz, Squig Catapults...

Take a look at the 3rd edition Ork Codex. They did indeed take a crack at removing the silliness... The current codex took a stab at putting back some of the stuff that made Orks so much fun, but for most of two editions they were very, very dry.

True!

Still, orks "survived" GW's turn to a more serious tone in 3rd ed. What puzzles me is why Squats didn't.

Couldn't their rules and fluff be rewritten to match the darker setting?. Miniatures redesigned?. Fun and jokes expunged?. It worked for a race that, in its previous incarnation, was lobbing cans full of buzzer squigs at their foes. I'm sure it'd have worked for the leather-clad biker dwarves as well...

My only explanation is that, as said before, the creative staff ran dry of decent ideas. Or maybe the serious route for the Squats put them in direct collision course with an existant or planned race. Who knows!

On the 'removed for copyright' thing: that was Malal, another much missed part of warhammer/sort of 40k.

*DREADAXE THIRSTS FOR YOU!*

...achem, where was I? oh, yes, squats...

People who want squats back generally fall into two camps: squats fans, and people who resent the way GW treats it's customers, since nothing seems to get under a GW employee's skin faster then tshirts proclaiming 'Where's the Squat?' followed by 'got squat?' and then 'Squat' (with a picture of a dwarf in the 'Obama Hope' poster colors.) Once the next meme takes place, we'll shoehorn squats into that one too.

I've never seen a Why Does Everyone Hate The Squats thread before.

Everyone doesn't hate the Squats. A lot of people run Squat armies.

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

You're doing it again...

What I don't understand is why so many people want them back. Even people who came to the game years after they were removed.

It is like people saying "Yeah, that incredibly harmful lead paint coated asbestos you took out of my house before I moved in? Can you put it back in please?"

Grey Templar wrote: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)

I'm not sure if those are really that accurate; Eldar are rather resilient compared to anything but Space Marines (on an individual basis), but also a low model-count army (reverse this for Dark Eldar; Glass Cannon ftw); Tau more or less fill a role between Guard and Marines, being more resilient individually than Guard, but sacrificing firepower and numbers, though still having both in excess of Space Marines.

Vaktathi wrote: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.

Isn't that basically the role the Tau eventually filled? Smaller numbers and less firepower than Guard, higher numbers and more firepower than Marines? I suppose squats might have had more close combat power, but I'm not too familiar with them so I wouldn't know. Makes sense for why Tau are getting their revised version as auxiliaries, if their addition to BFG is any indication of things to come; I'll go out on a limb and guess they'll be overpriced or ill-suited to their role, if that role is close combat, because that seems to be the general trend in codices: overprice and/or otherwise gimp anything that strays from the overarching strengths of the army, like the non-force multiplying coven units in the DE codex (and the force multipliers are only good as that, being mediocre or bad in every other way).


This actually makes me wonder what role Space Marines play aside from "poster-filler". They're... moderately resilient? Ignoring exploitable variants of their extraneously codices, they're not really any good at shooting, they're generally pretty terrible in close combat, the models are absurdly expensive both monetarily and points-wise, all they've got going for them is a slightly better armor save than is typical? Perhaps I have a bit of a skewed view on what constitutes "good" shooting or assault from playing DE...

@Agent_Tremolo

After having read the letter you linked from Jervis Johnson on the subject of the squats demise, I would have to agree with the last bit and would love to see the squat figures working their way into fielded Imperial Guard armies. Higher gravity colonies making their troops a bit more, squat. >.<

The exo armor guys look cool.. I say bring em back.

Sir Pseudonymous wrote:
This actually makes me wonder what role Space Marines play aside from "poster-filler". They're... moderately resilient? Ignoring exploitable variants of their extraneously codices, they're not really any good at shooting, they're generally pretty terrible in close combat, the models are absurdly expensive both monetarily and points-wise, all they've got going for them is a slightly better armor save than is typical? Perhaps I have a bit of a skewed view on what constitutes "good" shooting or assault from playing DE...

Mostly, they don't suck at anything. They're a pretty balanced army, with all rounded units. Nothing too specialized or too brilliant, but it works: it's hard to mess up completely. So they're quite a good army as a first approach, and being that they are the poster guys it works quite well in that sense.

H.B.M.C. wrote:

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

You're doing it again...

Nothing in my post said 'you can't have them'. It just implied that they were silly and made no sense as 40k switched from the 'silly' 40k to 'grimdark'


Anyways:
Squats weren't in our contract! They're an exception to the rule!

Exception to the rule!

Woot! Digging around I found my epic Squats!

Besides so much of the posturing in this "grimdark", is in the end, silly.

I demand more silliness! The lack of humour is exactly one of the biggest reasons I do not dig today's Warhammer.

Well, way back in the day, I played against Squats as often as anything else. I watched them fight Orks, IG, SM, BA, Nids, Eldar (me), etc... they never won, but I can say that the guy who owned them loved his Dwarves in Space and had fun every time.

Personally I'd love to see them come back... and if they do come back under the Tau banner, it would be weird, but I hope they come back big enough to fight as an army unto it self (HQ, troops, etc).

I dont care for squats because:

Santa Midgets in Space?

wow the concept sounds so much like april fools joke.

LunaHound wrote:I dont care for squats because:

Santa Midgets in Space?

wow the concept sounds so much like april fools joke.

Or you could say it like they are, Dwarves in space. And in a universe that has (Dark) Elves, Orcs, and Skellies in space, why should Dwarves be the April Fools joke??

Dawi-Marine'Va wrote:

LunaHound wrote:I dont care for squats because:

Santa Midgets in Space?

wow the concept sounds so much like april fools joke.

Or you could say it like they are, Dwarves in space. And in a universe that has (Dark) Elves, Orcs, and Skellies in space, why should Dwarves be the April Fools joke??

Because, the "Dwarves" in space are tolerable for you because on a personal level you perceive them as such.

From my point of view , its different. I see , pointed aliens with long ears that looks quite cool and pretty , i see shaved gorillas painted green ,

and then we have Squats.

Still ugly midgets that looks like Santa Claus.

:3

Dawi-Marine'Va wrote:

LunaHound wrote:I dont care for squats because:

Santa Midgets in Space?

wow the concept sounds so much like april fools joke.

Or you could say it like they are, Dwarves in space. And in a universe that has (Dark) Elves, Orcs, and Skellies in space, why should Dwarves be the April Fools joke??

Not to mention Vikings, vampires, and fish-people... Space dwarves sounds perfectly logical to me with all the other insane stuff going in the 41st millennium.

Well GW, did release a squat model rather recently coincidence I think not!

Cheesecat wrote:Well GW, did release a squat model rather recently coincidence I think not!

That's the Space White Dwarf...

Squats are still present as Demiurg.

The only hate Squats get is from GW and GW-apologists.

AvatarForm wrote:

Cheesecat wrote:Well GW, did release a squat model rather recently coincidence I think not!

That's the Space White Dwarf...

Squats are still present as Demiurg.

The only hate Squats get is from GW and GW-apologists.

I'm just joking around but I think if squats were re-released that's how I would want them to look style-wise.

Midgets piss me off, that's why.

Omegus wrote:Midgets piss me off, that's why.

I guess that's fair enough. We have our personal tastes and that's totally good and acceptable. But if GW pulled out Squats completely because they are not cool or grim enough, is like saying that nobody is allowed to like them.

For a company, who does almost anything to increase sales, this is odd behaviour. I'm willing to believe that Squats were discontinued for copyright reasons. It seems to be the most plausible explanation.

Jani wrote:For a company, who does almost anything to increase sales, this is odd behaviour.

That's making the rather large assumption that including Squats past 2nd edition would have done anything significant to increase sales.

If the design studio couldn't find a clear direction for the army, pumping out a blah codex just to keep them in the game would not necessarily have done that. Better to drop them than waste time and money developing a codex and mini range for a sub-par army that isn't going to sell.

I'm willing to believe that Squats were discontinued for copyright reasons. It seems to be the most plausible explanation.

You can believe it all you want, but there is no evidence whatsoever that it's in any way true.

Are the squats still legal to use?