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I still have not got over the shock!

As a bit of a grognard and former Squat collector, I thought it be worth a post to some of the younger or more recently joined hobbyists, about how much of a big deal this is (and really how much of a change in direction by GW it represents).

It's difficult to put into words how much of a 'poisonous' concept Squats were within the hobby for many years, although obviously a lot of that has thawed over recent years as memory has faded, so I've attempted to summarise below - hopefully someone will find it interesting and I'd be interested to know what other people think!
- Squats, even back in 2nd edition, were something of the 'red headed step-child' of 40k. IIRC they didn't get any new miniatures released back in 2nd edition, and the basic codex (which was included in the boxset) was very limited and didn't really have much flavour. From memory you had some people playing with them, but not many (that may be anecdotal on my part). Certainly even towards the end of 2nd edition the miniatures were showing their age, and by 3rd edition they were dropped entirely. They looked distinctly 'Rogue Trader', when things have moved on stylistically (yes - there was a time when Beakies even were not cool!), and so dropped out of fashion (if such a thing was possible). Hard to put into words, I will say (and this might sound a bit cruel) Squat players at that time were almost like middle-aged people that dress up as Robert Smith from The Cure to attend a Katy Perry concert.
- I think combined with the name (even Jervis Johnson said "what were we thinking?!") they started to become viewed with disdain and ridicule both officially (there was an extremely patronising response to a letter asking about Squats that was printed in WD at one point) and I think also by a lot of players at the time. The small but dedicated group of Squat fans (at least in 40k - they were always much more popular in Epic, in part because they were much better realised as a concept) were pushed to one side even as they dwindled in numbers. By the late 90s even the official GW forums (when those were a thing) had a specific, numbered/referenced rule banning their discussion!
I never saw or experienced it myself, but I had heard of people not being allowed to use their Squat armies as proxies for other forces - I don't know if this is true, but thinking back to the atmosphere at the time, I can definitely believe it.
- Squats were erased from the lore. The most egregious example of this I can remember is in Ian Watson's Inquisitor War Trilogy, where plucky abhuman Grimm the Squat was replaced by a tech/human character. I still find this absolutely incredible - I don't know whether Ian himself did the re-write or GW did (as it would have been many years since Watson wrote anything for GW). Interestingly (and a topic for another thread) his books were also 'out of fashion' and almost black-listed for quite some time in the late 90s, I think perhaps as GW really tried to wrestle hold of their IP and clearly define their 40k universe.

So Squats were definitely not popular (I think they were probably disliked with a fervour matching if not exceeding those who wanted to see them return). So what has changed?
I'd be interested to know what people think. In my view, what made them unpopular and unfashionable at one time has gone full circle. There are big Oldhammer social media groups that are growing in size exponentially, perhaps it is when something is old enough it can fall into fashion again? And GW themselves have been mining this nostalgia very successfully, with the release of lots of boxed games from the past (Necromunda, Adeptus Titanicus etc.) I had also heard one of the main designers within GW had a strict "No squats" rule - I don't know who it was unfortunately, but obviously his departure will have allowed this new release to take place (something that many had speculated about when the Necromunda Squat character appeared).

Finally, I think there is also the fact that there is nothing inherently 'wrong' about the Dwarf in Space archetype - just the previous (very outdated) attempt hadn't come up to scratch by modern standards. Mantic and others have shown the miniatures can look good, and you really are wondering now what massive space-dwarf war machine plastic kits GW have in store - I'm certainly excited to find out!

Bit of a rambling post - but yes, I am still in shock! (In a very good way)

Well said! I never expected this

Like I said, not surprised in the slightest, GW has been scraping the bottom of the barrel of 80s-90s ideas to milk nostalgic whales with for years now.

Very well said.

They weren't just forgotten and left behind like Enslavers and Vampire Intelligences they were actively mocked.

I remember a GW pub quiz where one question was 'What were "squats"' with one multiple choice answer being an exercise Marines do each morning.

When an early short story featuring Squats was reprinted it was edited to turn Squat Engineer Grimm into Tech Priest Grill.

Think about that.

Someone actually spent time and money exorcising them from the text. When a full novel with squat characters was reprinted I guess a Stalin style purge was too much work so they included an editorial note about the Squats being dead and gone.

Personally I had a nostalgic attachment to them and even started a Counts as Tau Squat army but couldn't get into painting that many beards. More than 40k, I think they shined in Epic where they had a full on Steampunk vibe with Land Trains, Overlord Airships and the like. So I'm actually happier with the new AoS Sky Dwarves then what we've seen so far since they look like heavy Tau infantry to me.

But we shall see.

 Kid_Kyoto wrote:
They weren't just forgotten and left behind like Enslavers and Vampire Intelligences they were actively mocked.

Coming soon - Codex: Enslaver Kingdoms!

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

 Kid_Kyoto wrote:
They weren't just forgotten and left behind like Enslavers and Vampire Intelligences they were actively mocked.

Coming soon - Codex: Enslaver Kingdoms!

I am totally onboard the Enslaver train. Giant floating tentacle brain things with armies of mind controlled zombies. Sign me up.

I had a thing for Gilius Thunderhead from Golden Axe and so I would get quite excited over the Squats in the Rogue Trader book. Sadly I never got around to them, but the AOS Overlords looked quite promising with their steam-punk aesthetic as that alone was half-way to 40K.

I think its safe to say that one faction in 40K will have a rough equivalent in AoS, and vice verca, so Space "Overlords" was inevitable. But I honestly thought they wouldn't show up just yet, especially as an April Fools...

But yes, along with the Ambull and Zoat, these seem to be a return to the origins of 40K.

strange time ahead indeed and I am more surprised that we get an early teaser long before release rather than their return at all

GW learned that fan-service sells and it does not matter how big the groups of fans is, the important thing is to prevent them from wandering off
hence we see Sisters, Old World and now Squats (with the Enslavers already have returned in the fluff I can see them returning as well)
while 40k struggles by itself as the original satire with a fascist main faction does not match current releases/themes/marketing and legacy units/fluff is slowly changing, a new good guy kind of human faction without the grimdark theme fits in

and the marketing is working, already seen some channels which were rather critical in the past months because of the prices and the rules bloat are now back to "GW listens again to the community" or "this is GW preparing for 10th, which will be finally the balanced game we are all waiting for" etc.

Big question here is why GW teased this early and can they hold the promise of a full faction release this year as they still struggle to get things done (and as Asmodee Germany in an interview confirmed, the main thing holding everyone back at the moment is to get paper/cardboard printed as wood/paper industry is hit hard in the supply chain crisis)
And are we going to see something "real" for Old World as well (as it is strange that we have now a 40k model for Squats before we see something substantial for TOW)

Nostalgia, of course, isn't what it used to be ... (sorry).

I came in to 40k in 3rd, so squats were history even then. My recollection is that at that time there was some fondness for the concept (Dwarves in spaaaaaaace.......) but the models (even then) were pretty poor - I accept others will disagree on the latter.

My own views are that the more time passes, the rosier the spectacles get, and that while the Necromunda models are well executed, it was a clever April fool. If I'm wrong, some people will be very happy, but I thing their bolt was shot when balloon dwarves came out in AoS.

Which faction was it that some prominent staffer once said in an interview that was the "in case of emergency, break glass" thing and if it ever happened you could assume the studio was running on empty? Or words to that effect.

Can't remember which person or the exact quote, but I know I've read something along those lines.

It was either Custodes or the Primarchs.

 Azreal13 wrote:
Which faction was it that some prominent staffer once said in an interview that was the "in case of emergency, break glass" thing and if it ever happened you could assume the studio was running on empty? Or words to that effect.

Can't remember which person or the exact quote, but I know I've read something along those lines.

The Primarchs IIRC.

(which makes it super funny)

Or maybe the missing legions...

they were certainly popular enough to get plastic when plastic tooling was crazy expensive and i'm not really convinced they'd have got that without a fair level of sales or a champion of some sort in the studio (Sculptor Bob Olley? he did a whole lot of them both for Citadel proper and his own Iron Claw miniatures sub brand)

i think the problem was none of the rules writers was terribly interested in them by the time the switch to 2nd edition came along, and that meant (in the days when the enthusiatic game designers ran things) meant no no codex or content

and they eventually accepted nobody was going to bother a couple of years after 2nd dropped with the major rule changes that meant they range was sent to that corpse starch farm in the country

then on to the Kirby years with management running things and the squats became a big issue, a clear sign that a faction could vanish (as opposed to at least some of it being mushed into anothe book) and that isn't good when you're taking many years to do new codexes for some of them, customers could get jumpy, start worrying about all the money they were spending being wasted and stop spending it

so squats became offically invisible (or mocked where they could't be erased so easily

they're back now because management is has become less paranoid and inflexible, and will now have spreadsheets showing nostalgia sells (harlequins, GS cult, Sisters of Battle).

I'm interested to see if they have got a bold new idea of what to do with them (but given we now have many near identical flavours of marine with access to almost everything the rest of the chapters have i think that's less of an issue than it was when they vanished)

http://www.collecting-citadel-miniatures.com/wiki/index.php/Squat_-_Collectors_Guide

first chicago GD in 2002 had a Q&A and the sqaut question inevitably arose, from a very frustrated player. The scene was a mirror image of the Diablo scene from the Blizzcon announcing the next diablo game, where the questioner was asking if their response was a joke.

The mocking tone never sat well, as these are people who supported these same dum dums with their hard earned cash to buy squat dollies from them. The first in a long line of bridges that GW happily burnt down while wearing horse blinders.

I am not overly shocked by their return, simply because if they could make plastic sisters, then suddenly anything was now possible.

I would like to see a few more squats in the aesthetic vein they are known for, akin to the necromunda model. But as a person who views glorifying biker culture to be just as toxic as glorifying nazis (and to be sure, they are often one and the same, and if you disagree with that assertion then keep in mind that I worked for the Banditos in south texas for a few years and saw all manner of felonious activity from every level of that organization, so in short, fight me) I would still like to see some of the hardcore rebellious attire such as caps, glasses, some power boards, bikes and trikes, and a few just blatantly seditious in the face of imperial society norms that can be displayed by a dwarf that says "I ain't a part of your system under a half rotting king, so stick your purity seals where it ain't so pure". while still participating in that system. They can be bikers without being back patch, leather wearing idiots who live to be criminals.

I think these can live side by side with the more tech advanced attire we have been recently shown. There is no reason why both cant be used. I enjoy both aesthetics. And given that this is a RT era species being made again, I think it is somewhat necessary to give at least a slight nod towards those origins beyond a single necromunda fig.

I honestly hope they dump the land train idea in the toilet along with mole mortar. These are things that even squats should make "squatted".


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 kodos wrote:
"GW listens again to the community" or "this is GW preparing for 10th, which will be finally the balanced game we are all waiting for"

LOL! Ok, keep holding your breath. If you thought squats returning was impossible, then rest assured that this in itself will absolutely never happen. Especially if they stick with UGOIGO and other grossly antiquated design methods.

Those people are setting themselves up for disappointment with that sort of expectation. You want a balanced ruleset to use your 40K minis with, it aint gonna be produced by GW, thats for damn sure.

I always liked Squats and thought GW's acts of antisquatism were ego driven acts of stupidity. Squats always had their fans, and its in no fictional brand's interest to alienate any of theirs.

I don't mind GW looking back at their IP and milking their history dry, in fact I much prefer it if the alternative is something as weak as Primaris

Everything always goes in cycles. What was old and "played out" 30+ years ago seems fresh again, it's how culture has been going for a long time now. Only in the next 200 years will we know, what really stood the test of time, which ideas had eternal resonant poetential..

- Squats were erased from the lore. The most egregious example of this I can remember is in Ian Watson's Inquisitor War Trilogy, where plucky abhuman Grimm the Squat was replaced by a tech/human character. I still find this absolutely incredible - I don't know whether Ian himself did the re-write or GW did (as it would have been many years since Watson wrote anything for GW). Interestingly (and a topic for another thread) his books were also 'out of fashion' and almost black-listed for quite some time in the late 90s, I think perhaps as GW really tried to wrestle hold of their IP and clearly define their 40k universe.

^That's WILD!. Just straight up change the character in the novels? Jeebus, Squats must have really pissed somebody off.

Makes me glad I paid the pretty penny to get the originals (some even in hardback). Just finished that series a month or so ago.

 Insectum7 wrote:

- Squats were erased from the lore. The most egregious example of this I can remember is in Ian Watson's Inquisitor War Trilogy, where plucky abhuman Grimm the Squat was replaced by a tech/human character. I still find this absolutely incredible - I don't know whether Ian himself did the re-write or GW did (as it would have been many years since Watson wrote anything for GW). Interestingly (and a topic for another thread) his books were also 'out of fashion' and almost black-listed for quite some time in the late 90s, I think perhaps as GW really tried to wrestle hold of their IP and clearly define their 40k universe.

^That's WILD!. Just straight up change the character in the novels? Jeebus, Squats must have really pissed somebody off.

Makes me glad I paid the pretty penny to get the originals (some even in hardback). Just finished that series a month or so ago.

(Point of information) They only did for one short story, Warped Stars, which is a prequel of sorts to the Inquisition War. Squat Grimm became tech priest Grill, I actually took down my original copy of the Deathwing anthology to make sure I hadn't imagined it!

But when they reprinted Inq War Grimm was still in it but with an additional note in the preface that the Squats are dead.

Still an absolutely bizarre use of resources. I mean they left in the ejaculating bolters of Space Marine and the Enslaver in Warped Stars but poor Engineer Grimm had to go?

 OrlandotheTechnicoloured wrote:
they were certainly popular enough to get plastic when plastic tooling was crazy expensive and i'm not really convinced they'd have got that without a fair level of sales or a champion of some sort in the studio (Sculptor Bob Olley? he did a whole lot of them both for Citadel proper and his own Iron Claw miniatures sub brand)

i think the problem was none of the rules writers was terribly interested in them by the time the switch to 2nd edition came along, and that meant (in the days when the enthusiatic game designers ran things) meant no no codex or content

Plenty of still existing product lines sold less than squats. They weren't bottom seller by any imagination.

Thanks for the correction Kid_Kyoto - I had thought it was the Inq War, but you are right it was the short story where he was actually erased from the lore, Leon Trotsky style.

As for the lore from that period being unpopular (and actually there being a certain hostility) I was told once, by someone that worked for BL, that apparently Ian Watson's daughter was perusing a GW store and had gone into one for shelter as it was raining outside. She mentioned "ah my dad wrote some books about these". Upon revealing whose daughter she was, the staff asked her to leave and go back out into the rain..

I will be honest I'm not sure I believe the tale, but I know there was so much hostility towards the books at one time that I could kind of imagine it happening (if you think - Space Marine featured Chaos Squats riding mechanised Ambulls, attacking marines who have been buttock-branded!) And the Inquisition War, featured a sex scene At a time when GW were really trying to move away from a couple of grungy guys at the back of a store, listening to Black Sabbath, while Timmy's mum comes into the store and is peering into the gloom trying to find someone to sell her some toy soldiers.There are definitely some parallels between how the Imperium operates and GW taking a strict ownership of its IP, with anything sat outside of that being seen as 'heresy'. And no shortage of cultists that were happy to parrot that company line.

I am very glad things have changed over recent years!

 Pacific wrote:
Thanks for the correction Kid_Kyoto - I had thought it was the Inq War, but you are right it was the short story where he was actually erased from the lore, Leon Trotsky style.

No worries, for some reason I have a detailed memory of everything about Engineer Grimm. Just don't ask me what we discussed in the staff meeting yesterday.

Oh man, I am dusting off this old account to say I'm blown away by this as well. Totally thought this was a joke when I saw it on April 1.

Getting into Squats back in 1st/2nd edition... I guess this is what I've been waiting for. Lots of questions about what this means... for the game... for the lore... etc...

Anyways, I've been thinking about the old Jervis Johnson quote:

"Anyway, the Squats made it into 2nd edition, and since we were doing army books for each of the races, we started to try and figure out what to do with them. Unfortunately we just couldn't figure out a way to update them and get them to work that we felt was good enough. The 'art' of working on an army as a designer is to find the thing that you think is cool and exciting about an army, and work it up into a strong theme. This 'muse' didn't strike any of us, and so, rather than bring out a second-rate product simply re-hashing the old background, we kept doing other army books instead, with stuff we did feel inspired by."

I guess there are some people now at GW that are inspired and exited to work with and run with the dwarf archetype in Warhammer 40k.

Also noticed this from Wikipedia:

In July 2021, Johnson announced his retirement from Games Workshop after more than 38 years.

Jervis leaves... 40K gets space dwarfs? Coincidence? Nah, just kidding... they've probably been playing with ideas for awhile.

My introduction to Warhammer was via 40K and it was billed to me as a place where fantasy and science fiction meet. I saw Orks and Elves and the very first question I asked was, where were the space dwarves? Not a lot of people told me about it, but some said stuff like they used to be in the game but were removed, etc.

The one thing I don't get is why so many people get so upset over the use of the term Squat?

Well either way, if this can happen, maybe we will get Tomb Kings back in AoS.

 Togusa wrote:

The one thing I don't get is why so many people get so upset over the use of the term Squat?

It would be like calling Orks piggies or Eldar skinnys. It works as an insulting nickname but not something they'd want to be called.

Perhaps it's a native word that got corrupted? Sq'hwt maybe?

Not too impressed with Leagues of Votann as a name, back in MY day they were organized into Guilds darn it, not leagues.

The Demiurge (a name that sent me down a wikihole into the Gnostic Heresy and turned out to be very handy when reading Umberto Ecco) was a better name but ah well. Also not too impressed with the 1 model we've seen, looks too clean and Apple Computers/Tau. I'd have rather gotten something more Steam Punk.

But all of that is fine. No one's going to make me buy them.

gravitywell wrote:
Jervis leaves... 40K gets space dwarfs? Coincidence? Nah, just kidding... they've probably been playing with ideas for awhile.

Alan Merritt - a known opponent of including Genestealer Cults in the game - left the company, and all of a sudden Genestealer Cults came back. Seems plausible that Squats were waiting for Jervis to vanish.

Hopefully whoever's in charge right now leaves soon so we can get the Inquisition back.

I was quite surprised to see the video and wondered if GW was cruel enough to mock the Squat fans AGAIN; this time with an April Fool's joke... but the video was well done and the miniature reveal (and the text that went with it) solidified the fact that, finally, the Squats were returning as a faction in WH40k (not just a Kill Team or Necromunda gang).

For me, they never left and I have remained a fan of them since Rogue Trader.

That said... I am hoping that certain aspects of the original line are seriously reworked or deleted and was happy to see that the one new miniature that has been shown off, isn't in padded flak armour with an Imperial lasgun.

I remain completely open minded with regards to what is coming and will be particularly happy to see the release of the League of Voltann Codex.

Whatever the reasons for their return, I am really looking forward to seeing the new imagining of the race and may well find myself getting on board with a new army again .

Only time will tell...

But I can say one thing... no matter which direction the new army takes, there will be some very bitter old men, grumbling at the loss of their beloved "insert unit type" if they are left out of the tome and I WON'T be one of them. I am hoping for new stuff, not a rehash of a concept that the design team couldn't work with.

It's a massive "Cheers, GW" from me :

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

Hopefully whoever's in charge right now leaves soon so we can get the Inquisition back.

Got a name? I bet there's some lads who could take care of this

 Kid_Kyoto wrote:

 Togusa wrote:

The one thing I don't get is why so many people get so upset over the use of the term Squat?

It would be like calling Orks piggies or Eldar skinnys. It works as an insulting nickname but not something they'd want to be called.

Perhaps it's a native word that got corrupted? Sq'hwt maybe?

Not too impressed with Leagues of Votann as a name, back in MY day they were organized into Guilds darn it, not leagues.

The Demiurge (a name that sent me down a wikihole into the Gnostic Heresy and turned out to be very handy when reading Umberto Ecco) was a better name but ah well. Also not too impressed with the 1 model we've seen, looks too clean and Apple Computers/Tau. I'd have rather gotten something more Steam Punk.

But all of that is fine. No one's going to make me buy them.

I suppose, if it's done for flavor then that's fine. I wanted some since I first saw those goofy models and now's the time.

How much do you think modern production process and modern business analytics comes into play with this type of decision? Or similar decisions like rereleasing Sisters of Battle? Maybe there is less overhead on making stuff now? Maybe they can get better info about their decisions, both before and after they make those decisions, now?

That quote from Jervis makes it sound like producing Squats was mostly about feeling inspired. But I can't see it taking this long to have some good ideas come up, or have a couple artists produce some intriguing stuff.

With the upsurge in 3rd party space Dwarf ranges, I wouldn't be surprised if there was a realisation that there was still a lot of mileage in the race... and once anyone adamantly against the idea had left, long planned actions were brought to the fore.

I think that's one of the reasons for the change in style as well... ironically, they may have infringed on someone else's IP that was heavily influenced by old GW miniatures !

It all depends what they do with them and how much of a "space dwarf" or Squats vibe the army gives off. We've seen one model so far and I'll be waiting to see what the rest of the miniature line looks like. Although at this point, due to a love of the Squats, I am thinking they might do well as a new Crusade force I can build as I go.