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Did GW ever have a real exuse for anti Squats? I heard from a red shirt many moons ago that it was because they didnt want fantasy races in 40k. Makes no sence to me. We got: Space Elves (Eldar), Space Orks, Space Ogres (ogryns) Space Hobbits (rattling snippers). why not space dwarfs on that line of thinking? I figured it would be cool if some survived and joined the fold of the guard and became a type of tech preist. Meh just a thought.

Because "Squats" is a stupid name.

Moving on...

They could have just changed the name lol

The generally accepted reason was that the "biker dwarves in space" was a little too Rogue Trader and not grim dark enough for the direction 40K was headed in 2nd.

Problem was, nobody in the studio could really get excited about a new direction to take them, and the (more successful IMO) portrayal in Epic scale (lots of big fancy war machines) didn't really translate to 28mm scale (the Land Train would have to be the lions share of half a table to be in scale) so the decision was made to bin them.

The Tau Empire does have a race called the Demiurg that could be the spiritual successors if GW ever decided they wanted to bring a dwarf type faction into 40K though.

Omicron-Fenrir wrote:Did GW ever have a real exuse for anti Squats? I heard from a red shirt many moons ago that it was because they didnt want fantasy races in 40k. Makes no sence to me. We got: Space Elves (Eldar), Space Orks, Space Ogres (ogryns) Space Hobbits (rattling snippers). why not space dwarfs on that line of thinking? I figured it would be cool if some survived and joined the fold of the guard and became a type of tech preist. Meh just a thought.

Basically, lack of identity. What did they have that was truly their own, and unique that no other army had going for them. They just couldn't separate them as their own force, not to mention the name also drove a point home. Every army had a special name, that didn't sound half bad. Then you had the squats sitting in the corner.

Omicron-Fenrir wrote:They could have just changed the name lol

They did, last I checked, in a sense. Gone are most of the Squats, since they got eaten by Tyranids, and now we have the Demiurg. Honestly, be glad that you still have Squats being referenced even in this edition. Try finding Zoats.

From various articles I've read over the years the basic gist of the problem is that the Design Team painted themselves into a corner over the look of the Squats and felt that it would be such a mammoth task to integrate with the GrimDark of 2nd Ed. that they just couldn't do it or at least, do it properly in a way they felt would do justice to the Squat background but update them to remove the unfortunate RT silliness.

TLDR - the Studio thought they were silly and couldn't be bothered to fix them so came up with the lame excuse that they were all (almost all) om nommed by the Nids.

ok that makes more sence that what i was told many moons ago.

In-universe I believe they all got eaten by the Tyranids.

We do have the Demiurg these days for fantasy Dwarves, but they basically only appear in the Battlefleet Gothic Tau rules, no models on the tabletop right now.

 Gogsnik wrote:
From various articles I've read over the years the basic gist of the problem is that the Design Team painted themselves into a corner over the look of the Squats and felt that it would be such a mammoth task to integrate with the GrimDark of 2nd Ed. that they just couldn't do it or at least, do it properly in a way they felt would do justice to the Squat background but update them to remove the unfortunate RT silliness.

TLDR - the Studio thought they were silly and couldn't be bothered to fix them so came up with the lame excuse that they were all (almost all) om nommed by the Nids.

They totally overhauled the look of the Orks after 2nd edition. All the klans, the goofy colours, many weird units like madboys and freebooterz, weird artillery were gone and they brought in the feral look adopted from Gorkamorka.

Saw *that* article where one of the creators of 40k basically says Squats added nothing to the game that wasn't already available in other factions, mainly Imperial Guard.

They also looked stupid even by Rogue Trader era standards..

I always figured the Demiurge and the Squats were kinda like the Gnomes and the Dwarves.

Similar, but one is less human and more otherworldly than the other.

 Unyielding Hunger wrote:
Basically, lack of identity.

This. If you think Space Marines are the Mary Sue of the 40k universe, wait until you read about the Squats. They were allied to the opressive, backwards and dogmatic Imperium but were free from the religious constraints of the Ecclesiarchy and the Machine Cult. They retained knowledge long lost to the Imperium, and their engineering and scientific skills put the techpriests of the Adeptus Mechanicus to shame. They had some bad blood with the Eldar, who had betrayed them in the past, and absolutely hated orks.

In all, in Squat-world 40k, the Imperium was somewhat lenient towards genetic, religious and political deviancy, the AdMech were not the sole keepers of the last, fragmented remnants of ancient technological lore but a bunch of freakish robed guys who were really bad at engineering, and an Ork invasion and Eldar scheming and betrayal were extraordinary events.

Basically, the Squats existed on exceptions. Other factions had to be diminished or to act against character for them to fit in. Add some poor naming and design choices, and a desire to distance 40k from its Fantasy cousin, and you have the reason why they ceased to exist as a faction.

They're gone, OP, gone the way of the space-dodo.

Time to move on...

I just wish GW would make [expletive deleted] top knots extinct...

 Howard A Treesong wrote:

 Gogsnik wrote:
From various articles I've read over the years the basic gist of the problem is that the Design Team painted themselves into a corner over the look of the Squats and felt that it would be such a mammoth task to integrate with the GrimDark of 2nd Ed. that they just couldn't do it or at least, do it properly in a way they felt would do justice to the Squat background but update them to remove the unfortunate RT silliness.

TLDR - the Studio thought they were silly and couldn't be bothered to fix them so came up with the lame excuse that they were all (almost all) om nommed by the Nids.

They totally overhauled the look of the Orks after 2nd edition. All the klans, the goofy colours, many weird units like madboys and freebooterz, weird artillery were gone and they brought in the feral look adopted from Gorkamorka.

This is true. I remember them saying that previously Ork armies tended to look like 'an explosion in a paint factory' with how Goff Boyz mobs would sit next to Blood Axe Kommandos and Deffskull Lootas. Basically they de-emphasised the Clan thing, keeping it in the background rather than out front and centre for unit selections. It was a good thing for providing a unified look and feel imo, but at the expense of some of the Clan character. Hopefully they rebalance it a tad with the new Codex to encourage single Clan based armies which have access to slightly different lists or abilities to get the balance of character and unified feel right.

On the Squat topic though, yes the Jervis Johnson quote re Squats is pretty good at explaining how they just didn't feel like they could get 'Space Dwarves' to work at the time in 40k. It was a shame as I do really like bits of their fluff. Turning old mining equipment into heavily armed exo-armour suits and having technology far in advance of the normal IoM was great, as were the large scale Epic war machines like the Colossus, Land Train, Cyclops, GOLIATH MEGA CANNON, Overlord Armoured Airship and so on. The problem is when you got to the scale of regular 40k they had no clear identity, what with bikes/trikes being the most identifiable thing and that not really fitting the heavily armed & armoured mining aesthetic much.

It's a shame really as there's definitely something worth tapping into there. If it could be got down tight, it'd be great I reckon. Hopefully one day but it'd be a long way off.

Ironically, GW currently lists dwarves under the new releases for 40K.

Squats are coming back in 2015/16. Jarvis had a WD article about how GW is reaching back to the past and reinventing old forgotten armies and other things.

 Wilytank wrote:
Because "Squats" is a stupid name.

Moving on...

QFT

My armies are made of squads

Edit: Typo.

I was under the impression GW lost the IP for Squats due the their early practice of allowing individual employees to retain creation rights for different IPs, and the creator in question left the company, taking the Squats IP with him. Most IPs eventually expire if the holder does not maintain the IP or aggressively defend their IP from infringement. If indeed we do see a return of the Squat Ab-Human racial faction in 40k, that means GW has determined they can legal use that IP at this point in time.

At least, that's my take on it.

SJ

There was in interview a while ago (might have been a GWl Studio panel) where the reason given was that they couldn't figure out a good identity for Squats on the tabletop come 2nd edition, so they never got a codex. Fluff has them eaten by the Tyranids, but they're mentioned by name in the fluff of the 6th ed rulebook, so I guess anything could happen.

 krazynadechukr wrote:
Squats are coming back in 2015/16. Jarvis had a WD article about how GW is reaching back to the past and reinventing old forgotten armies and other things.

Just like fetch, saying this over and over won't make it happen.

 jeffersonian000 wrote:
I was under the impression GW lost the IP for Squats due the their early practice of allowing individual employees to retain creation rights for different IPs, and the creator in question left the company, taking the Squats IP with him. Most IPs eventually expire if the holder does not maintain the IP or aggressively defend their IP from infringement. If indeed we do see a return of the Squat Ab-Human racial faction in 40k, that means GW has determined they can legal use that IP at this point in time.

At least, that's my take on it.

SJ

I imagine if that were true GW would say so, they've never been secretive about losing the Malal IP and it would shut the rabid Squat fans up far better than the 'nids ate em' excuse.

Bob Olley - the original Squat sculptor - sells dwarves with guns called Scrunts, but he's only been doing that about a decade, and GW were selling Squats for years after he left.

 jeffersonian000 wrote:
I was under the impression GW lost the IP for Squats due the their early practice of allowing individual employees to retain creation rights for different IPs, and the creator in question left the company, taking the Squats IP with him. Most IPs eventually expire if the holder does not maintain the IP or aggressively defend their IP from infringement. If indeed we do see a return of the Squat Ab-Human racial faction in 40k, that means GW has determined they can legal use that IP at this point in time.

At least, that's my take on it.

SJ

Considering they still have Dwarves in their Fantasy line, I don't think this is even remotely familiar with reality. It sounds good, like something you'd get off a forum or a mailing list, as a reason why GW was "secretive" (they weren't really) about doing away with the Squats, and it sounds better than "because they were kind of stupid and we were moving the game into a not-as-stupid direction".

Because, let's face it... Squats were kind of stupid. Drunken Dwarves on Bikes with shotguns. They had power armor (so did Space Marines), they had tanks and artillery (so did IG), they had bikes (so did Eldar, White Scars, and three other armies) and they had... uh... trains. Big trains. In Epic.

For the skirmish-level game that 2nd Ed was, Squats were basically IG/SM hybrids with no real identity outside of this, and they had carried over the rivalry of the Dwarves and Elves from Fantasy (which is why they didn't like Eldar... even in Warhammer Fantasy RP, there are rules about Dwarves hating Elves and Orcs)... and so no one in the studio could come up with an idea to take the Squats forward with.

I was thinking of possible new identities for 40k scale Demiurge. They are a mining race. What if their vehicles had a mining theme to them?

Also, what if you mixed-up the squad options a bit? Instead of buying a squad with the option of a transport, what if you bought a vehicle with the option of taking infantry support? (basically extra "workers" for mining equipment)

They could have vehicles that can overwatch without embarked passengers.

Also, they could have vehicles that can embark on other, larger vehicles. With the way GW is favoring larger sized kits these days that could work out well for them. Imagine a 2000 point army made up of 3 slow larger-than-Landraider models with a few scout vehicles, a handful of mining exosuits, some grunt laborers, and some energy-shield barriers kind of things (imagine something that if fired though would provided decent cover to friendly units, but NOT enemy units. Possibly dropped by a light skimmer kind of "gyrocopter")

I think that is enough to give them a unique identity in the 40k game.

I thought they were going to produce a Demiurge Line, where most the force were robots controlled by the few remaining squats

Demiurg will not be the remnants of Squats, if they ever make an appearance at all, but a Xenos race that is a rehash of the "Dwarves In Spaaaaace!" style.

That would be rather cool to see.

"Space dwarves" is the one hook that GW has that would get me I'd throw my money at them if they released a 40K Demiurg army ('cause they're not going to rerelease Squats).

I owned a bunch of Squats, and there are a bunch of cool concepts from 40K and Epic that they could roll into a new dwarf army. Plus the Demiurg are supposed to be awesome robot builders and that could provide some cool units or ideas.

 Psienesis wrote:
Demiurg will not be the remnants of Squats, if they ever make an appearance at all, but a Xenos race that is a rehash of the "Dwarves In Spaaaaace!" style.

Gnomes in space. *cough*