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Tau aux have quite a few things mentioned in a couple of sources that haven't made their way to the table top. Nicassar, Tarrelians etc
Demiurg obviously!

chaos0xomega wrote:
As if right on cure:

A decade after Warhammer 40,000’s second edition, Battlefleet Gothic – a naval game of spacebound fleets – introduced the Demiurg, a mysterious group of void-faring miners and traders. Technologically-advanced industrialists with a grudge against Orks, a number of Demiurg brotherhoods aligned themselves with the T’au Empire, lending their powerful ships to the Air Caste fleets.

Were these the Leagues sneaking back into the setting, or a new alien species filling a similar role? We’re still not sure, but the modern edition of Necromunda brought fresh hope for fans of futuristic facial hair. At the end of the ‘10s, the underhive skirmish game introduced two new characters you could add to your gang – and though their design had once again evolved, everyone knew what we were looking at.

and interesting factoid at the bottom:

**** The Book of Judgement confirmed that Squat prospectors are still around, and buying energy drills from Demiurg.

So clearly some relationship between them there, though there is also clearly some distinction between them as well.

I would invading there's a snowballs chance in hell of them diluting their new LoV army by creating them with a Tau aligned break off.

lol, "diluting"? 80% of the factions in the game are a spinoff of another faction. Chaos anything is a spinoff of an Imperial faction (it didn't take very long for them to introduce Chaos Knights right on the heels of Imperial Knights, so much for that), all the Imperial factions are a spinoff from another Imperial faction basically, then theres Drukhari and Harlequins from Aeldari, Genestealer Cults from Tyranids, etc.

Diluting in the sense of the marketing push and fleshing out of the faction.

They are going to concentrate on what makes Squats Squats, certainly for the first few releases until their basic range is fleshed out.

Open trade with multiple factions rather than 'if its Other, it needs to die.' might well be one of the defining traits of the faction.

There is a lot of space to work with here, and a lot of elements that would help build an identity, rather than automatically 'dilute' it.

JWBS wrote:
What remains on the old "Never gonna get it list but now it's here"? We have squats, plastic (mini) Thunderhawk, Zoat, plastic deffkoptas, Eldar Corsairs, a couple of others I'm sure I'm forgetting. Wheat else could be coming? Exodites? Chaos militia? (seems I remember something credible on the recent legit rumour list). Korks??? Gotta be more that people have been wishlisting since forever.

/Edit - Dark Future perchance? (kinda maybe with the new Necro box).

An actual, proper, full-fledged Inquisition codex!

It sounds as if they're going to be an evolution of their original lore rather than something entirely new, so It'll be interesting to see what "twists" they take. If the Tyranids nearly wiping them out is still part of their lore (which It seems it will be), then it would be interesting to see how that's affected them.

I'd like to see something like a situation where by, after originally being abandoned by the Eldar against the Orks, and the second time by the Imperium against the Tyranids, the surviving strongholds become more paranoid and isolated, now trusting no one but themselves and adopting a "No Half Measures" approach to things to avoid that happening again. The whole "High-tech, Stoic, Hardy, Master-craftsmen and builders" side of the Dwarf theming but taken to an extreme level in combination with the DAoT aspect and its esoteric technology; now overpreparing to absurd levels after nearly having their society entirely wiped out, building over-the-top fortress worlds and space stations, megastructures, superweapons alongside all manner of advanced weaponry etc with an overall industrialized militarized society as an evolution of the whole giant warmachines theming they had before with the colossus, land-trains, Airships etc. Mass-producing high-tech warmachines on a huge scale in order to handle anything that comes after them.

Sort of a combination between the Dwarf archetype, the Dark Angel's "hoarding forbidden technology" side, and Cadia.

beast_gts wrote:

Yeah - I wonder if they'll do something similar to Fyreslayers & Kharadron Overlords in AoS...

Fyreslayers and Overlords is more of a philosophical/religious ideology mismatch rather than two distinctive races.

I'd be disappointed if Demiurg ended up being something like that, given that art has portrayed them as looking noticeably "alien" when it comes to their facial features.

 Platuan4th wrote:
Hrud are NOT space skaven,

same as Dimurg were not Space Dwarfs for a brief period

 kodos wrote:

 Platuan4th wrote:
Hrud are NOT space skaven,

same as Dimurg were not Space Dwarfs for a brief period

Demiurg were always space dwarfs, they weren't Squats.

Hrud are specifically NOT ratmen, as evidenced by more modern artwork than a single group photo in 3rd ed.

 Agamemnon2 wrote:
I'm intrigued what this could mean:

The new background for the Leagues of Votann builds off the old lore in interesting ways – including how they interact with their ancestors.

Perhaps their "ancestors" are more literal this time around, as actual ghosts on the battlefield? We've seen advanced civilizations weaponize the dead before, with the Eldars' infinity circuits.

They always had “Living ancestors” as well.

I wonder if they'll be comically egg-shaped this time around too.

 Kanluwen wrote:

beast_gts wrote:

Yeah - I wonder if they'll do something similar to Fyreslayers & Kharadron Overlords in AoS...

Fyreslayers and Overlords is more of a philosophical/religious ideology mismatch rather than two distinctive races.

I'd be disappointed if Demiurg ended up being something like that, given that art has portrayed them as looking noticeably "alien" when it comes to their facial features.

Yes I think they sound like they are distinct from each other - Demiurg obviously have different tech to squats. It gives the setting more depth if there are two different races . Means Demiurg can appear later as something else either as part of the Tau release or through Killteam.

On the Ancestors front - someone on Bolter and Chainsword suggested the Ancestors being AI's which I like the sound of. Would make their automatia different from Eldar/Imperium forces.

 Agamemnon2 wrote:
I'm intrigued what this could mean:

The new background for the Leagues of Votann builds off the old lore in interesting ways – including how they interact with their ancestors.

Perhaps their "ancestors" are more literal this time around, as actual ghosts on the battlefield? We've seen advanced civilizations weaponize the dead before, with the Eldars' infinity circuits.

Perhaps the "Extremely heretical technology" mentioned is to do with this; creating AI facsimiles of their ancestors in machine recreations of a typical squat body.

There is a rumour engine picture of a fully mechanical leg that's different from the mechanical foot we've seen so far:

 Wha-Mu-077 wrote:
I wonder if they'll be comically egg-shaped this time around too.

One can only hope.

No, wait, Living Ancestors were the Psykers, right? And Hearthguard was the egg-shaped ones. Dangit.

 silverstu wrote:

 Kanluwen wrote:

beast_gts wrote:

Yeah - I wonder if they'll do something similar to Fyreslayers & Kharadron Overlords in AoS...

Fyreslayers and Overlords is more of a philosophical/religious ideology mismatch rather than two distinctive races.

I'd be disappointed if Demiurg ended up being something like that, given that art has portrayed them as looking noticeably "alien" when it comes to their facial features.

Yes I think they sound like they are distinct from each other - Demiurg obviously have different tech to squats. It gives the setting more depth if there are two different races . Means Demiurg can appear later as something else either as part of the Tau release or through Killteam.

On the Ancestors front - someone on Bolter and Chainsword suggested the Ancestors being AI's which I like the sound of. Would make their automatia different from Eldar/Imperium forces.

Yeah, the BFG fluff indicates that the Demiurg are the masters of ion weapon tech; T’au ship-grade ion cannon are pulsed derivatives of Demiurg continuous wave ion beam weapons. If you’ve ever seen a later season Stargate space battle, think like that. The LoV on the other hand are humans with the serial numbers filed off; they used to have lasguns and bolters etc. so I doubt that they will stray too far from that. Though as the article reported, buying xenotech because it does a given job better is exactly the sort of practicality I’d expect from them.

It would be fun to me if the Demiurg were an offshoot of the LoV, sort of twisted by the nasty energy that they unleash. Not Chaos energy, but radioactive type energy, that has devolved them.

Or pull an old Star Trek to Next Generation storyline and the Demiurg used to look like the LoV, but there was an internal matter and this is how we look now.

 Wha-Mu-077 wrote:
No, wait, Living Ancestors were the Psykers, right? And Hearthguard was the egg-shaped ones. Dangit.

In 2nd ed, at least - the Psykers were Ancestor Lords, and Hearthguard were just veterans. They came with carapace armour as standard, but could be upgraded to exo-armour (the egg suit).

I think it's interesting that they're still called "Leagues" as the new article mentions a group of strongholds (mining colonies) were called a League, which sort of implies they still have control of planets.

I mean they'd kind of have to have words worth of population to even count as having an army in the 40K setting.


I would wager its just going to be one of those things that they've "always been there" lore wise just not developed upon. Which is perfectly possible when you consider how insanely vast the Imperium is. Whole grand wars can be won and lost and no one on the other side of a sector, let alone the galaxy, need never know.

 Mentlegen324 wrote:
I think it's interesting that they're still called "Leagues" as the new article mentions a group of strongholds (mining colonies) were called a League, which sort of implies they still have control of planets.

Strongly suspect the following: Tyranids invade > Strongholds send out their best to drive them off > overwhelming numbers make this futile > retreat to the holds and weld themselves in with their power supplies and hydroponics > Ancestors mask their presence from the Hive Mind (possibly a Noble Sacrifice too) > Tyranids consume everything outside the Strongholds and leave > survivors emerge onto their brand new barren, airless world > other leagues follow suit, some don’t even bother fighting and just bottle up before the ‘nids even arrive > LoV have to refactor their entire society and figure out what to do next > now we get to find out.

JWBS wrote:
What remains on the old "Never gonna get it list but now it's here"? We have squats, plastic (mini) Thunderhawk, Zoat, plastic deffkoptas, Eldar Corsairs, a couple of others I'm sure I'm forgetting. Wheat else could be coming? Exodites? Chaos militia? (seems I remember something credible on the recent legit rumour list). Korks??? Gotta be more that people have been wishlisting since forever.

/Edit - Dark Future perchance? (kinda maybe with the new Necro box).

In the 8th Codex for Eldar, they specifically mention a redacted faction of Slaneeshi Eldar. Chaos Eldar? What about Chaos Sisters of Battle, or Chaos Tau. Those could all be options. Maybe the Return of the Old Ones?

 Mr_Rose wrote:

 Mentlegen324 wrote:
I think it's interesting that they're still called "Leagues" as the new article mentions a group of strongholds (mining colonies) were called a League, which sort of implies they still have control of planets.

Strongly suspect the following: Tyranids invade > Strongholds send out their best to drive them off > overwhelming numbers make this futile > retreat to the holds and weld themselves in with their power supplies and hydroponics > Ancestors mask their presence from the Hive Mind (possibly a Noble Sacrifice too) > Tyranids consume everything outside the Strongholds and leave > survivors emerge onto their brand new barren, airless world > other leagues follow suit, some don’t even bother fighting and just bottle up before the ‘nids even arrive > LoV have to refactor their entire society and figure out what to do next > now we get to find out.

Having them show up again on the planets they were already on but had just went completely unnoticed by the both the Tyranids (I'm not too knowledgeable about the specifics of them, but don't they have a way to detect life even underground?) and the Imperium would be a bit odd, I think.

Would be interesting if their survival comes down to some sort of DAoT device, maybe something that transported one of the Leagues elsewhere in the galaxy as a last resort after they realized the other Leagues just weren't surviving the Tyranids and the Imperium wasn't coming to help.

Deleted. I was off topic.

GW made a mistake, the only squats who rode bikes were the guilders.

 Theophony wrote:
It would be fun to me if the Demiurg were an offshoot of the LoV, sort of twisted by the nasty energy that they unleash. Not Chaos energy, but radioactive type energy, that has devolved them.

Or pull an old Star Trek to Next Generation storyline and the Demiurg used to look like the LoV, but there was an internal matter and this is how we look now.

Maybe the Demiurge are the Men of Iron in disguise. The men of iron and the squats both have origins that tie back to old earth and the initial exploration and colonization of the galaxy. Maybe this common history and desire to avoid imperial entanglements make them erstwhile allies, and explain some commonality in their tech.

 Platuan4th wrote:

Hrud are specifically NOT ratmen, as evidenced by more modern artwork than a single group photo in 3rd ed

yeah, and the latest artwork for squats was also different from what was there in 2nd/3rd and what we got now

now that we have got non-human but human looking like squats back with different technology level and different design, acting like "Hrud cannot be Space Skaven because of an artwork shown between" is kind of strange, as by this the squat that was shown is impossible too (does not follow any of the latest artworks seen before the reveal and does not follow the old fluff, not like GW has shown that they changed their mind what those should be over time)

 Overread wrote:
I mean they'd kind of have to have words worth of population to even count as having an army in the 40K setting.

Well the 40k games are tiny skirmishes. You can have 40k scaled games in our world. Platoon or two isn't particularly huge.

They don't need tons of planets and populations to appear in 40k spec op games.

I would be interested in them putting together lore where the Demiurg were Squats but something bizarre had happened to them which had evolved them into something different and now they are starting to be reconciled.

Then again I'm also happy for them to be separate races

I'm interested in playstyle, it would be cool for them to have some kind of entrenching mechanic and presumably a lot of artillery as well as the dirigibles.

I assume real concrete stuff is still a month or two away. It sounds like the trikes and biker stuff is not coming back.

If Demiurg where Squats to which... something happened that changed them into a different race, would they be ab-ab-humans?

 Overread wrote:
I mean they'd kind of have to have words worth of population to even count as having an army in the 40K setting.

Well the Dark Eldar started out as being one single city and they were a playable faction. This was retconned a decade later into being dyson sphere sized or whatever plus they respawn like in a video game.

It's also not necessary to have worlds to have worlds' worth of population. You could cram the galactic populations of all major sci-fi settings combined into orbital habitats around Sol with room to spare.