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I have seen people talking about 'squats'. What exactly are they?

Dwarves in space. Eaten by Tyranids because GW didn't know what else to do with them. Dwarves....IN SPAAAAACEEEEEE!!!

Seriously though, GW felt their original design made too much fun of a noble race (dwarves) and rather than retcon them, they decided they had no idea how to improve them and they were wiped out by a Tyranid invasion. Other people can give you a LOT more detail, but I got into 40k way after they became intergalactic soup, so I don't even notice their non-existence.

They WERE the 40k equivalent of Space Dwarves, but unfortunately GW didn't enjoy how their whole reputation was being developed. By that I mean that they felt they were too much a joke, and not serious enough. GW suddenly pulled the plug on them, and when people questioned why on their forums all the posts were deleted and the user who posted them banned.

They were really cool though, and some players still make them "counts as" IG.

They used to be, basically, Space Dwarfs. Imagine if you put people on a planet of high gravity, and let them evolve. They become dwarfs, in the medieval fantasy sense. Then, their entire race gotten eaten by Tyranids. The end.

Look up "Squats" in the Gallery.
There are quite a few pics there. As for what they are/were... Pretty much covered.
A combination of heavy weapon troops and bikes, with terminator style elites, and a Psycher, Command could have bikes and the Exo Armor.... at the same time.

Jervis has made vague allusions that the Squats might someday return, but many people (including me) believe that to be a deception.

Give it time. Tau 'dex 2012's Demiurg.

They sound really cool...Dwarves (or Dwarfs)... IN SPACE. Why did the Tyranids eat them? Like GW wanted them dead but why not Tau or Eldar or whatever?

Hellwolf wrote:Why did the Tyranids eat them? Like GW wanted them dead but why not Tau or Eldar or whatever?

If I remember correctly, that was said to be an off-hand comment because someone at GW wanted closure to the argument, and that was the best in-universe explanation he could spontaneously come up with. I'm not sure if GW ever communicated this officially. Andy Hoare at least has never heard of it and described it as an urban legend, similar to 8+ feet Marines or that everything bearing the 40k logo is official canon and other ideas that just circulate around the fanbase, with no-one actually knowing where they come from and just picking them up because everyone else does so.

The reason they got rid of the Space Dwarfs was that the sales figures were not great on them. Besides they had simialr attributes to marines without the cool factor. Basically they did not sell enough to wARRENT there continuing the line. The decided to concentrate on newer races like the nids/necrons and dark eldar.

At least according to Jervis Johnson it wasn't due to sales. They just didn't feel good about them. Mind you, this was at a time where there was still a much bigger hobby aspect about GW and designers designed stuff because they had fun doing so, less because of $$$.

Here's some quote: http://www.warseer.com/forums/showpost.php?p=779012&postcount=1

beef wrote:The reason they got rid of the Space Dwarfs was that the sales figures were not great on them. Besides they had simialr attributes to marines without the cool factor. Basically they did not sell enough to wARRENT there continuing the line. The decided to concentrate on newer races like the nids/necrons and dark eldar.

Sales factored in way less than lack of interest within the studio.
With the advent of Epic, they had two different style armies sharing a name and lacked the interest and creative spark to tie them together.
As it was, they were, even in just the 40k version, two armies in one: the 'fat, drunk bikers' and the IG/marine hybrids.

Had they actually thought about things, they could have worked up the race focusing more on the "Space Miners" theme that Squats were supposed to be in the first place.

I doubt the demiurg 'space monkeys' are going to be as popular as Squats were and Sisters are.

im doing a chaos squat army becuase i found that even tho the "squats" may be dead some may have turned to chaos and survived this. The rules are just going to be the same as the chaos space marines with a tone of converted dwalf models.

"The reason they got rid of the Space Dwarfs was that the sales figures were not great on them. Besides they had simialr attributes to marines without the cool factor. Basically they did not sell enough to wARRENT there continuing the line. The decided to concentrate on newer races like the nids/necrons and dark eldar."

The squats actually sold as well as anything else from the time period ... I still have mine my older brother got for me when I was 6 years old. They were the first models I ever painted.

As an army they were unique. The bulk of the troops were in flak armour and had lasguns, lots of heavy weapon teams, and their own version of terminator armour ... but no power armour. The only vehicles they had were attack trikes, land raiders, and rhinos. (the epic version of squats had a unique, and very large set of vehicles, but they never made them for 40K).

The basic stat line was a little off too ...
M WS BS S T W I A LD
3 4 3 3 4 1 2 1 9
Movement 3!! That meant in the old rules they could "walk" 3 in and fire, or run a whopping 6 in ... while humans could run 8, eldar 10, and things like genestealers 12 in! High weapon skill, very tough, very high leadership, but miserable initiative ... they were always a bit funny stat wise.

The idea that they didn't make them to focus on other races isn't true. The guys in the dev team that thought them up in the first place had moved on before they ever got a chance to make a codex for them. Dark Eldar came out at the start of third edition, and Necrons at the end of second, long after they had stoped supporting them. Every race that existed when the second edition rules were released eventually got a codex ... except the squats. They even made models to update the Rogue Trader squats at the begining of second edition, but they never released them.

Like the guy above, I'm going to take my original squats and repaint them as chaos. I have a squad of the original chaos squats in exo armour, some of the plastic "space dwarfs" box set, and lots of the attack trikes. During the Horus Heresy many of the squat guilds and houses sided with horus and fled with the chaos marines into the eye of terror. The imperial squats may have been "eaten by tyranids" but the chaos squats are still out there ... and mine will be joining in a chaos raiding party as soon as I repaint them.

What was "off" about Movement 3? They are short and, well, squat, lol. Besides, M3 was the classic Fantasy Dwarf movement too in a game where M4 was the "average".

I think that GW just decided they didn't fit into the fluff as well as they wanted them to. I do think the whole "inexplicably eaten by Tyranids" thing (despite the lack of an established hive fleet anywhere near their home worlds), and GW's refusal to talk about them hasn't been the right way to handle it though. They could have very well just said "We've decided not to continue the Squat line, but you should use them as Imperial Guard if you want to" would have been better.

Of course, given how silly/bad some of the fluff is, I can't figure out what makes the Squats so transgressive, but hey. Different time in the game's development I guess. It isn't like they've never totally redone a race and given it entirely new fluff. Personally, if I ever fully resurrect my Imperial Guard army, I picked up a Squat advisor to serve various different roles, just because the old school model looks so awesome. Squats were the first army I ever played with, and the one that introduced me to the hobby, even though, like many kids, I was first attracted to Spess Mahreens as a collector.

I think it highly likely that some squats would have survived being on the tyranid menu. Some worked in the imperium and with the Ad Mech, so it simply doesn't seem right that they would all be on the homeworld when eaten.

if there had been enough warning for all the squats to return home for the defence why didn't the imperium help? It's sad that they haven't been so much written out as dismissed in the fluff.


On the other hand, I'm not sure where it was ever put into print that they were eaten.

I don't know if it ever was, or at least I can't ever remember where it was printed. The closest thing to an official recognition that I've ever found was the link to Jervis Johnson's quote above ( Original post here ). There was never was a mention of it in anything "official" that I know of from the time. The comment was made about "eaten by Tyranids" and then they sorta dropped out of the official consciousness. Eventually "eaten by Tyranids" transition to never existing. The whole "Squat Denial" status quo seems rather pointless, actually. Jervis's stance in that post about "Use them if you want as "counts as", we're just not going to make models or rules for them anymore" makes a lot more sense than just saying "Squats? Heresy! Blam!"

On Vacation this summer down in south Texas I went into a GW store and in talking to the black shirt there I mentioned having a copy of the Warhammer 40k Compendium that had squats in it. He said "Wow really? I'd like to get a look at that." After a little buying we left the store and on the highway we got into bad accident. Coincidence? I think not....

I have the White Dwarf couple of issues with the Squat army list not 5 feet away at this very moment...



It is worth nothing that many companies do space dwarves now, Bob olley's Scrunts, Hasslefreee's Grymn and recently Mantic's forgefathers. GW don't really need to do Squats for us to field a great looking army.