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EDIT: I probably should have just done this as a project log from the start, so I've started a project log here:
Just started a project log here:
http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/491830.page#5028579

Ok, so I'm starting a Squat force and I'd appreciate any advice and opinions you have on how to make them work within the framework of current 40k codicies. I've got a pretty good plan down, but it's not complete.

My premises for the project are this.
1) As I'm using some non GW figs, my army won't be played at GW stores. I'm ok with this.
2) I'm using GW Squats, Harleqin Space Dwarves, and Mantic forgefathers.
3) I'm far more interested in making an army that reflects squat fluff as contained in RT and 2nd edition 40k sources than building an army that is competitive, though if you have advice in that direction I'd like to hear it.
4) I'd like the weaponry (and to some extent the armor) to be as WYSIWYG as possible to make it easy for my opponents to know -and for me to remember- what's what.
5) I'd like to keep them codex and rulebook compliant.
6) I'm planning on using an allied list of SM and IG to cover all the squat units.

Here's what I've come up with that seems pretty reasonable.

1 Squats with bolters:
The image of the squat with bolter is iconic. I've got a few metal squats with bolters and I plan on giving 2nd edition style bolters to all my Mantic forgefathers. For the most part I'm thinking that I will run them as Space Marine Scouts.

2) Thudd guns.
SM Thunderfire launcher seems like the best bet.

3) Squats with bikes.
So far I only have regular (non Heavy weapon bikes) so SM Scout bikes seems like a good choice.

4) Squats with Lasguns, plasma guns, plasma pistols, and laspistols.
The bulk of the squats will be run as imperial guardsmen, stormtroopers or vets. That will cover most of my Harlequin Space Dwarves and basic GW squats, both are armed with the weapons above. I'm leaning toward vets or stormtroopers as I think a squat would be a bit tougher than an average guardsman, but I'm not married to one or the other.

Now for the more problematic units. I'd appreciate any feedback about the suitability of these units and how you'd feel facing them.

1) Squats with Heavy Plasma guns and Multimeltas.
Heavy bolters, lascannons and Missile Launchers can fit into IG platoons or scout squads. However, squats like their big guns and I have a few squats with Heavy Plasma guns and Multi Meltas the only way to get them into the army would be to use Space Marine Devastators. I'm a bit wary about this as devastators have power armor and increased stats, though it wouldn't be too out of line for the heavily armored Mantic Forgefather "stormrage veterans " http://www.manticgames.com/Shop-Home/Warpath/Forge-Fathers/Infantry/Product/Forge-Father-Stormrage-Veterans-5-Figures.htmlwho are more heavily armored than any of my other squats and are armed with rough analogues to Heavy Bolters and Multimeltas.. Also it's not a unit that's going to get into close combat, so I don't think it the WS increase would be too Cheesy in gameplay.

One other option would be to take them as servitors for a Squat Engineer run as a techmarine (see below)

2) Squat Engineer Guildmaster
With their mix of weapons, it seems like Techmarine is the only choice. This has the same drawbacks of giving power armor in that it's a bit more potent that a squat would be, but I have to take techmarines of some sort in order to be able to use Thud guns and it would provide another path to including Multimeltas and Plasma guns (see above).

3)Squat Living Ancestor.
This is the squat psyker and the squat army list's most potent character. I'm unsure of whether to go with IG Primaris Psyker who is no slouch, but not really reflective of the Living ancestor's prominence or the Space Marine Librarian who is more reflective of the living ancestor's psychic power and prominence, but has far more close combat and offensive power than a Squat Living Ancestor would. I don't have an appropriate figure for a living ancestor yet, but I plan to find something.

4) Guildmaster and Hearthguard.
This is the Squat commander and his bodyguard. It will probably be a Space Marine captain and command squad or a Master of the forge accompanied by a SM veteran squad. I'll probably be using the Mantic Forgefathers for this though I don't know how I'll arm them. Thunderhammers seem fluffy and the forgefathers kits provide plenty of big hammers.

Anywho, I'd appreciate any input you all would have. Especially regarding the appropriateness of various units for the stats I'd be using them with. Also, I'm planning on using the vanilla SM codex. I've got the BA codex also, but it doesn't fit the squats very much. I don't know much about the Space Wolf codex, would it be more appropriate?

Just so you know this isn't completely hypothetical, here's 3 of the 10 space dwarves I painted up last week. These three are Harlequin Space Dwarves. They come armed mostly with lasgun-like weapons. For the one on the right I replaced his "lasgun" with an RT ork plasmagun. I just got a batch of GW squats in the mail today!

Step 1: Add more skulls.

Squats can easily be created as IG, and use some kind of marine allies to enable bikes, attack bikes and exoarmor models. All quite easily. Thudd guns do exist in one of the Forge World books, so it shouldn't be hard to track rules for them down to include in your army. Since you are building your list primarily for friendly fun games and not official GW games it shouldn't matter that they are forge world rules now.

It used to be that squats were pretty much just IG with a bunch of bike support and some beachballs in heavy armor.

The only thing I disagree with on your list is giving them bolters. Early on you had that option, but once the lists came out in RT lasguns became the standard squat arm, not the bolter. It would still work for character and squad leader upgrades, though.

Hopefully you can keep the thread focused on your plans and not have it degenerate into a pro/anti-squat thread. Plenty of those around.

I'd definitely like to see some photos of the finished product once you get it sorted out.

Skriker

Thanks for the input folks,

jlopatin wrote:Step 1: Add more skulls.

Funny you should mention that. For me, one of the most appealing things about the squats is thier lack of skulls.

Still, you draw attention to an intersting point regarding the comparative lack of skullyness. Back then, skulls were present, but much less common on figures. In fact marines had so few skulls and such a lack of purity seals and other decoration that you might be excused for confusing them with Tau!

Perhaps a bit of exageration, but it was a less skullified era of miniatures.

Skriker wrote:Squats can easily be created as IG, and use some kind of marine allies to enable bikes, attack bikes and exoarmor models. All quite easily. Thudd guns do exist in one of the Forge World books, so it shouldn't be hard to track rules for them down to include in your army. Since you are building your list primarily for friendly fun games and not official GW games it shouldn't matter that they are forge world rules now.

It used to be that squats were pretty much just IG with a bunch of bike support and some beachballs in heavy armor.

The only thing I disagree with on your list is giving them bolters. Early on you had that option, but once the lists came out in RT lasguns became the standard squat arm, not the bolter. It would still work for character and squad leader upgrades, though.

Hopefully you can keep the thread focused on your plans and not have it degenerate into a pro/anti-squat thread. Plenty of those around.

I'd definitely like to see some photos of the finished product once you get it sorted out.

Skriker

Good points. I'll look into finding the thud gun rules. I'd forgotten to list exo armor. That will be terminator stats. I've got some RAFM Reaction marine destructors that could fit the role quite well with some leg shortening.

As to bolters, they are a squad upgrade for squat trooper squads in the RT red book, but you're right that they were less common in the metals and notably absent from the plastic boxed set. I'll give that some thought.

I definitely plan on posting about this project as it progresses. I probably open a log thread starting with the first 10 squats this week.

Instead of a techmarine have you thought of using a techpriest engineseer? Or does the techmarine unlock something for you the techpriest wont?

Great suggtestion!
I forgot all about the engineseer.

I'll still need a techpriest for the Thunderfire, but it's appropriately fluffy to have more than one squat engineer, and the enginseer would also allow me to use two of my squat multimeltas or hvy plasma guns.

Also, Squat fluff and the RT squat army list has tech priests accompanying the squats as observers and advisors,
So I could use a squat engineer as the lower-stated enginseer that allows a couple of servitors (squats) with heavy weapons,,,
and
,,,my RT techpriest figure as the higher-statted-power-armor-wearing SM techmarine that allows me to have thunderfires (thud guns).

Good stuff.

Don't think I've got too much to contribute but I'm looking forward to seeing how your project develops. Always liked the little Squat section in the 2nd ed Codex Imperialis and I remember fondly the Squat Land Trains in Epic from around the same time. Any plans for vehicles? Squat vehicles seem like something you could scratch built quite convincingly without too much difficulty. So yeh, good luck.

P.S. Have you seen these guys?
http://www.olleysarmies.co.uk/home.html

If you're just playing friendly games I wonder how broken the old Vehicle Design Rules would be

alanmckenzie wrote:Don't think I've got too much to contribute but I'm looking forward to seeing how your project develops. Always liked the little Squat section in the 2nd ed Codex Imperialis and I remember fondly the Squat Land Trains in Epic from around the same time. Any plans for vehicles? Squat vehicles seem like something you could scratch built quite convincingly without too much difficulty. So yeh, good luck.

P.S. Have you seen these guys?
http://www.olleysarmies.co.uk/home.html

I've been an admirer of Bob's work for years (he sculpted some of the original squats) but the style of his scrunts isn't quite the squat look I'm going for. Still, if the project takes off, I may add a squad or two some time and there's a few possibilities for characters. Unfortunately some of my favorite figures of his have been sold or are OOP

Papasmerv wrote:If you're just playing friendly games I wonder how broken the old Vehicle Design Rules would be

I've got a copy of the old VDR, but they are pretty broken. Fortunately having access to the IG and Space Marine army lists provides plenty of vehicle profiles that an opponent won't bawlk at. Most likely I'll stick with Land Raiders and Rhinos (and their variants) as LR's and Rhinos are what the RT squat list had access to.

I haven't yet decided what direction to go with the vehicles, but it probably won't be GW vehicles. I've already got SM and IG armies, and I don't want to build more of the same. There's some great options from folks like Ramshackle games or Old Crow. Which represent tow very different aesthetics. Whatever I do, I'll try and keep a unified look while making the sizes and armaments match as closely as possible to the codex descriptions.



Automatically Appended Next Post:
Just started a project log here:
http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/491830.page#5028579

Just throwing this out there because the thread title caught my attention.

When the new CSM codex hit, and with the release of the new "Demon Engines", I was thinking of doing a Chaos Squat force...of course my short attention span already has me moved to a different army project. I will follow your progress to vicariously enjoy yours.

Have you thought of using you squats as SW, that’s what I am doing. The old RT squats are very similar to SW.

Wolf lord= Warlord
Wolf guard = Hearth guard
Wolf guard Termies=Exo armour
Iron Priest= squat engineer
Swift Claws=squat bikers
Rune Priest=living ancestor
Long Fangs=Thunder squads
Blood claws/grey hunters=brotherhood combat squads
Drop pods=termites

Squats also used rhinos and land raiders.
The only problem that you run into is the old lasguns and armour. However the old style lasguns carried by the squats don’t look anything like lasguns today. You could easily say they are modified “guild-master rifles” to explain the improved stats. Let’s face it if the monkeys from GK can make better lasguns then I think a thousand year old squat engineer can do even better.

As for armour in many syfy/fantasy worlds dwarfs are renowned for making armour that is lighter and stronger than other races and squats already possess lots of lost technology. The whole issue of armour is really subjective and inconsistent even by GW themselves. Look at the empire spearman wearing a breastplate, the goblin in a leather shirt, and the high elf spearman wearing a breast plate, scale skirt, bracers and a helmet. To GW all of them are wearing light armour. In 40K it is the same the SM scout with chest armour and knee pads is supposed to be the same as the Tau Fire Warrior and the IG storm trooper. Sisters of battle with their magic corsets are supposed to be the same as a space marine. Not to mention over night the metal bodied necrons went from 3+ to 4+. So if GW can’t be consistent and you have a good story go with it.

SW are a good fit for the squat archetype, the have similar tats and back grounds.

Thanks for that, I'll give that some consideration. It's certainly a thematic match and it would keep the entire army in one codex.