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Hi folks,

Thought this might be an interesting one for people to get their specs on and do some research. There was some discussion in the N&R thread but it got overwhelmed by the base sizing and space Dwarves-as-Nazis conversation, so instead thought it would be a good place to discuss here.

Do we have any 'official' lore on what happened to the Squats previously and their demise? The below is listed from Lexicanum, which is a great resource, but not always conclusive so I wondered if anyone had come across anything else? Unless my memory is playing tricks on me (which is always a strong possibility) I am sure I have read something in either a Tyranid codex (between 3rd and 6th edition) or in the main rulebook of around the same era.

There was this comment from the famous Jervis Johnson message, written in 2004

Instead we decided that we'd write the Squats out of the background by saying that their Homworlds had been devoured by a Tyranid Hivefleet.

Which to me definitely implies it has been stated somewhere in official lore.

There is the quote in the intro to Inquisition War, a re-print of the Ian Watson trilogy, which seeks to explain the existence of Grimm the Squat in those books. I don't have this quote unfortunately.

This is then taken from Lexicanum on the topic, and referencing 'that letter'

The period from the Third Edition to the Fifth Edition was marked by a disappearance of Squats, and the planned development of Demiurg in their place. At first the disappearance of the Squat army from the game rules seems not to have been explained at all. They were seemingly just gone and Games Workshop did not mention them or what happened to them (as far as we currently know) for a very long time. Nevertheless many players and readers believe that Games Workshop sometime in the early second edition of Warhammer 40,000 officially stated that all of the Squats had been devoured by the Tyranids. The truth however seems to be more complicated. The whole "myth" seems to originally stem from a very selective and imprecise interpretation of the answer of an unnamed Games Workshop employee who was in charge of answering readers' letters in the January 2000 (US) edition of White Dwarf[7] which places this event during the third edition of Warhammer 40,000 which came out in 1998. Reader Tim Gutierrez had vented his frustration at GW dropping the Squats with a message entitled "WE WANT SQUATS!!!" and the answer of the unnamed GW respondent was as follows:

"Would you believe they were all eaten by the Tyranid invasion? Or, due to the Squats biker life style, everyone of them was arrested for disturbing the peace and sacrificed to the Emperor. Where do you think they get all of those souls anyway? All kidding aside, it doesn't seem likely the Squats will ever again see the light of day. When they were out they never seemed very popular, showed up at our stores, or tournaments, and didn't sell on top of all that. Their look was really outdated compared to the hundreds of other great Warhammer 40,000 models. Don't send us hate mail, it's just the cold hard facts of the 41st Millennium."
- unnamed GW employee[7]

Seeing this actual quote makes it quite clear that the "Tyranids ate 'em all" urban legend originally was neither formulated as a definite statement (there even is a question mark there), nor was the text that was often erroneously assumed to have spawned this idea really a very official statement. It was simply a somewhat strange answer by an anonymous Games Workshop mail responder. Based on this source it was just as probable or improbable to believe that all Squats had been sacrificed to the Emperor of Mankind for disturbing the peace on their bikes.[7]

So if this is a starting point does anyone else have any knowledge to add?

Just a little thing to add - there are a number of Unreleased 2nd Ed. Squat models. (Cyberslayers? What were they thinking...)

It's definitely canon that the Imperium thinks they're extinct. There's an encounter with one of their ships in Psychic Awakening, where a magos is in completely disbelief about it because they aren't meant to exist anymore.

It's an encounter that also happens near the galactic core, which is an area that's mostly unexplored by the Imperium and also full of resources. Their return could just be as simple as some Leagues them went there at some point in the past and set up some worlds, and are now re-emerging due to the Great Rift affecting them. Wouldn't be any need to change anything about the destruction of their worlds in Imperial space.

Mentlegen do you mind me asking is this new lore that is being added around the new guys being released, rather than the original canon explanation for what happened to them?

beast_gts wrote:
Just a little thing to add - there are a number of Unreleased 2nd Ed. Squat models. (Cyberslayers? What were they thinking...)

It definitely makes you think that they were just trying to find a direction for them. I think weren't those Jes Goodwin sculpts IIRC? Definitely more of a 2nd/3rd edition feel to them, away from the Rogue Trader style of the 1st edition miniatures. It would have been interested if they had fully fleshed them out.

 Mentlegen324 wrote:
It's definitely canon that the Imperium thinks they're extinct. There's an encounter with one of their ships in Psychic Awakening, where a magos is in completely disbelief about it because they aren't meant to exist anymore.

It's an encounter that also happens near the galactic core, which is an area that's mostly unexplored by the Imperium and also full of resources. Their return could just be as simple as some Leagues them went there at some point in the past and set up some worlds, and are now re-emerging due to the Great Rift affecting them. Wouldn't be any need to change anything about the destruction of their worlds in Imperial space.

yeah this sounds good- the Imperium is ignorant of the remaining Kin homewards [probably as planned by the Kin - isolationism is a dwarf trait..
I wondering if the new Nid book will mention them in the lore section. I'm surprised they didn't seed more hints in other codex released recently.

Well, it’s worth noting that Golgotha was a homeworld, possibly their galactic capital.

There’s a now semi-canonised 2nd Ed Epic Battle Report, where Yarrick pursues Ghaz to Golgotha. The Squats lose the battle report, and that’s when, in canon, Yarrick is captured by Ghaz, later to be released.

It’s also interesting to note that Return to Armageddon mentions Ghaz using Golgotha as his base of operations for a time.

https://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Golgotha

Of course, modern background makes no reference to Golgotha being a Squat world, so who knows.

But that is the closest I’m aware of to explaining what might’ve happened to the Squats.

The introduction to Draco in one of the reprints of The Inquisition War featured this in-universe claim:
'Of his outlandish companions, I have more mixed feelings. The work itself states that the Callidus temple acknowledges the presence upon its roll of infamy a such‐named assassin. Yet in all my years I have never heard of such a request for information producing such an unequivocable result ‐ that the secretive leaders of the assassinsʹ shrines openly would even acknowledge any such query from those outside their order is frankly unbelievable. The Navigator… well, well we know of old the scorn with which our ʹʹbrothersʹʹ in the Navis Nobilite regard outside enquiries. As to the abhuman, the thread is cut. The accursed hive fleet of the tyranid put paid to that line too long ago. I cannot believe, however, that even a renegade inquisitor, if that is what this Draco really was, would tolerate the presence of such a disgusting mutation'

 Pacific wrote:
Mentlegen do you mind me asking is this new lore that is being added around the new guys being released, rather than the original canon explanation for what happened to them?

beast_gts wrote:
Just a little thing to add - there are a number of Unreleased 2nd Ed. Squat models. (Cyberslayers? What were they thinking...)

It definitely makes you think that they were just trying to find a direction for them. I think weren't those Jes Goodwin sculpts IIRC? Definitely more of a 2nd/3rd edition feel to them, away from the Rogue Trader style of the 1st edition miniatures. It would have been interested if they had fully fleshed them out.

It's from Psychic Awakening: Pariah which released back in 2020, so very recent lore, and it was after the Grendlesen miniature in Necromunda.

https://spikeybits.com/2020/07/squats-in-pariah-backstory-could-this-be-building-up-to-something.html

As GW operates on a several year timeframe when it comes to releasing new miniatures, this was evidently a tease for the League of Votann, so presumably the small bits of lore here are relevant to how they'll be - Gravitational weapons, near the galactic core, and were canonically considered extinct for some reason.

What is mentioned on the Lexicanum page is kind of all what we got, and from those sources, all we get is tongue in cheek references and “in-universe” speculation.

I once posted a long post about the Squat’s fate, because I never could be convinced that the Tyranids were the cause of their dissapearance.

In fact, there is a point to be made that the Imperium itself caused their disappearance. I distinctively remember that the second edition guard codex mentioned that the Squat Empire seceded from the Imperium. It also was originally mentioned that Mark 3 armour was used to fight against the Squats. While not high on the Imperium’s “to-kill” list, but a rebellious and bold group of Abhumans that commits Tech-heresy in the Mechanicus’ Eyes and disproves the Human-supremacist ideology that the Ecclesiarchy likes to boast about, is not really something that the Imperium would want to keep alive.

“Just make up a story how they got eaten by Tyranids. What do you mean, the Squats disappeared before the first Tyrannic War? Nobody will notice, surely…”

The most recent mention of the Squats in Liber Xenologis did reference the Tyranid thing, but once again, it is an in-character speculative account by someone who doesn’t even realise that Genestealers are a Tyranid sub-species. It also specifically doesn’t mention the Tyranids, just that the Squats were invaded by some Xenos species.

A side tangent, but we also atleast know that Hearthguard are still a thing, because Ragnir Gunnsteins description in the Book of the Outcast specifically mentions them.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:


Of course, modern background makes no reference to Golgotha being a Squat world, so who knows.

But that is the closest I’m aware of to explaining what might’ve happened to the Squats.

Actually, Lexicanum did mention that a recent German White Dwarf reconfirmed Golgotha to be a former Squat world. When I went to look at that specific White Dwarf, I found the same description applying to the English version of that Issue.

Could this thread not been part of the other Squat thread also in the 40k Background forum?

I might be wrong, but from what I could gather, the "eaten by tyranids" thing was just a way to answer people who kept asking about the squats after they went out of production. As far as I know, GW never went all the way to make it a well established piece of lore. They probably kept it vague on purpose in case they wanted to bring the squats back after all.

So in-universe, the Imperium's official story seems to be that some tyranid hive fleet ate the space dwarves. Which is probably wrong... Whether it's because they don't know better or because they're hiding something remains to be seen.

There’s something about the name, leagues of votann, that makes me think that this is a group of squats from a specific part of the galaxy and maybe different to the group that got eaten by the nids and the ones that throw in with the tau.

I think the ones that got eaten by the nids were sort of part of the imperium where as the LOV seem to be very independent

mrFickle wrote:
There’s something about the name, leagues of votann, that makes me think that this is a group of squats from a specific part of the galaxy and maybe different to the group that got eaten by the nids and the ones that throw in with the tau.

I think the ones that got eaten by the nids were sort of part of the imperium where as the LOV seem to be very independent

Could be, but I’m speculating since they specifically call them leagues, instead of league, that the faction encompasses all of the Space Dwarfs. In old lore, all Squats were part of one of 700 leagues, each with a specific name, such as the league of thor or the league of grindel.

I’m betting “Leagues of Votann” is just the new name that the “Squat Homeworlds” were given. They kind of made it very clear that Squat is a derogatory term, so obviously, they wouldn’t have that word used in their name.

It strikes me that Votann is their own name for their species/sub-species (depending on how you look at it), and Leagues Of is descriptive.

So one could be a members of the Leagues of Votann, but be a member of a specific League, such as, to borrow an original Squat league, League of Grendel.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
I really must dig out and present the info in Ork & Squat Warlords.

It’s in the Cupboard O’Doom, I’m just being lazy.

 Mentlegen324 wrote:

 Pacific wrote:
Mentlegen do you mind me asking is this new lore that is being added around the new guys being released, rather than the original canon explanation for what happened to them?

beast_gts wrote:
Just a little thing to add - there are a number of Unreleased 2nd Ed. Squat models. (Cyberslayers? What were they thinking...)

It definitely makes you think that they were just trying to find a direction for them. I think weren't those Jes Goodwin sculpts IIRC? Definitely more of a 2nd/3rd edition feel to them, away from the Rogue Trader style of the 1st edition miniatures. It would have been interested if they had fully fleshed them out.

It's from Psychic Awakening: Pariah which released back in 2020, so very recent lore, and it was after the Grendlesen miniature in Necromunda.

https://spikeybits.com/2020/07/squats-in-pariah-backstory-could-this-be-building-up-to-something.html

As GW operates on a several year timeframe when it comes to releasing new miniatures, this was evidently a tease for the League of Votann, so presumably the small bits of lore here are relevant to how they'll be - Gravitational weapons, near the galactic core, and were canonically considered extinct for some reason.

Ah that's really interesting, thanks Mentlegen I hadn't realised they had released that very obvious snippet!