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-Guardsman- wrote:
Fluff-wise, my issue with Votann is that they seem to have been clumsily retconned into a game that had moved past them a long time ago, for the sole purpose of pandering to
nostalgic 45-year-old players.

I find it so incredibly strange that GW made the decision to bring back Squats, and then produced a range with only the very barest Squat nostalgia. They're short-ish, and some of them have random vaguely dwarven bits awkwardly bolted on; and that's basically it. Even the background for them is essentially 'yeah those guys you remember were a fringe group that we're not going to mention'.

 Lord Damocles wrote:

-Guardsman- wrote:
Fluff-wise, my issue with Votann is that they seem to have been clumsily retconned into a game that had moved past them a long time ago, for the sole purpose of pandering to
nostalgic 45-year-old players.

I find it so incredibly strange that GW made the decision to bring back Squats, and then produced a range with only the very barest Squat nostalgia. They're short-ish, and some of them have random vaguely dwarven bits awkwardly bolted on; and that's basically it. Even the background for them is essentially 'yeah those guys you remember were a fringe group that we're not going to mention'.

Yep. These new dwarfish guys? Not Squats. They might as well just be a more fleshed out Tau auxiliary force....

Lets be fair Squats were removed from 40K in 1990. That's 35 years ago.

Since then they only had a few models in epic a little later in the 90s and that was mostly iconic by the big boxy train tank and leviathan tank.

Otherwise we basically had no art, no lore and no design work for a good 30years. Squats also never had super iconic original art that lasted the test of time like a lot of the Eldar artwork; which are honestly about the most faithful army to their original designs - almost all the others have gone through significant changes over the years (heck tyranids had 2 massive changes over the years).


It's such a long span that I suspect it was a lot easier to just start fresh with them; esp since a lot of hteir original lore was slightly on the more jovial side of the game at the time.

edit -

Also if you look at some of the old models they 100% ARE a mix of short marines and short Imperial Guard
https://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Miniatures_(Squats)


https://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/File:Techsquat.jpg

https://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/File:Space_dwarfs_command_group.jpg

https://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/File:ChaossquatexoWd116pg61.jpg

https://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/File:SquatExo.jpg

-Guardsman- wrote:
Fluff-wise, my issue with Votann is that they seem to have been clumsily retconned into a game that had moved past them a long time ago, for the sole purpose of pandering to nostalgic 45-year-old players. Warhammer 40k may have started out as Tolkienesque fantasy in space, but it has since become its own thing. It doesn't need space dwarfs to balance out the space elves.

.

The same thing can be said about every faction in the game. None of them are "needed", that isn't why they're part of it, there was no "necessity" for any of them. They're instead added because GW sees a space for something and has an idea they think is worthwhile, they're added simply to appeal to different people who like different themes and designs.

The Leagues of Votann were added to appeal to players who like the idea of Space Dwarfs, as well as ontop of whatever nostalgia there may be for the classic Squat miniatures. They've been a part of 40k for decades and something that many wanted to see back, so now they are.

 Lord Damocles wrote:

-Guardsman- wrote:
Fluff-wise, my issue with Votann is that they seem to have been clumsily retconned into a game that had moved past them a long time ago, for the sole purpose of pandering to
nostalgic 45-year-old players.

ven the background for them is essentially 'yeah those guys you remember were a fringe group that we're not going to mention'.

No, no where in the lore is that mentioned or hinted at. The classic squats were not some specific league or random group of Kin who got wiped out or whatever, the Leagues of Votann on the whole have been retconned to be them.

ccs wrote:

 Lord Damocles wrote:

-Guardsman- wrote:
Fluff-wise, my issue with Votann is that they seem to have been clumsily retconned into a game that had moved past them a long time ago, for the sole purpose of pandering to
nostalgic 45-year-old players.

I find it so incredibly strange that GW made the decision to bring back Squats, and then produced a range with only the very barest Squat nostalgia. They're short-ish, and some of them have random vaguely dwarven bits awkwardly bolted on; and that's basically it. Even the background for them is essentially 'yeah those guys you remember were a fringe group that we're not going to mention'.

Yep. These new dwarfish guys? Not Squats. They might as well just be a more fleshed out Tau auxiliary force....

That's basically what they went with (just without the Tau connection) as they're basically the demiurg turned into a full faction. Their design is very similar to the concept art of them from years ago.

Maybe if they had a cool centerpiece model that stood out...

 Mentlegen324 wrote:


That's basically what they went with (just without the Tau connection) as they're basically the demiurg turned into a full faction. Their design is very similar to the concept art of them from years ago.

Yeah from what I recall Demiurge were basically what GW was going to re-release as dwarves in 40K.

I suspect core mech-suite Tau being so popular likely nudged them toward abandoning the idea of having lots of other xenos races in Tau so they never appeared outside of concept art and the BFG video game as a single ship.

Then when GW started going mad for tapping nostalgia and such they tested the waters with the Necromunda Squat and then BOOM went full army for the Votann

 Overread wrote:

 Mentlegen324 wrote:


That's basically what they went with (just without the Tau connection) as they're basically the demiurg turned into a full faction. Their design is very similar to the concept art of them from years ago.

Yeah from what I recall Demiurge were basically what GW was going to re-release as dwarves in 40K.

I suspect core mech-suite Tau being so popular likely nudged them toward abandoning the idea of having lots of other xenos races in Tau so they never appeared outside of concept art and the BFG video game as a single ship.

Then when GW started going mad for tapping nostalgia and such they tested the waters with the Necromunda Squat and then BOOM went full army for the Votann

Something like that, yeah. The Demiurg were put into the Tau lore to have something that they could use to basically re-introduced the Squats to the setting, or at least some variation of that idea. It just took them almost 20 years to actually go back to them and do that.

 Overread wrote:
Lets be fair Squats were removed from 40K in 1990. That's 35 years ago.

They last appeared in the 91 catalog.
And I was ordering them in 92....
And (how ever hard it became to find models) they were a fully playable faction through 2e. Wich ended in 1998.
3e was when they were actually removed (no rules).

Okay, I'll bite. There are a few things that Votann need and will hopefully get whenever they get their 10th edition book:
-A full rework of Judgment Tokens. The current system is incredibly flawed and feels more and more like a placeholder. I feel like the stats should go back to the way they were in 9th (so BS3+ on everything) and the tokens should apply different buffs. Like maybe 1 token is reroll 1's to hit, 2 is reroll 1's to hit and wound, and maybe 3 is full rerolls to hit and reroll 1's to wound. IDK, reading that it sounds a little weak, but something like that would be nice. They need to have 3 steps of tokens like before and probably more ways to generate them as well so the army doesn't need the crutch of handing out a bunch for free at the start of the game.

-A second wave of models. As of right now, Votann have only 13 datasheets, the lowest number in the game, and 5 of those are characters. As for what new models they need specifically, I think some kind of jump troops would be a good addition, and maybe some kind of Dreadnought equivalent (the lore seems like it would easily support something like that, an ancestor's consciousness in a robotic body, or maybe an Ironkin). I would suggest an aircraft, but aircraft are kind of dogshit in 10th so idk if I'd care if they got one.

-A rebalance of the various weapon options wouldn't hurt. Right now, nobody is taking certain weapon options because they are just worse than others, so it gives false choices in list building. I'm aware that other armies also have this problem, but I think it's especially bad in Votann, especially combined with their small roster.

ccs wrote:

 Overread wrote:
Lets be fair Squats were removed from 40K in 1990. That's 35 years ago.

They last appeared in the 91 catalog.
And I was ordering them in 92....
And (how ever hard it became to find models) they were a fully playable faction through 2e. Wich ended in 1998.
3e was when they were actually removed (no rules).

Yeah the reference I found was going by the last date they were sold in a catalogue/store. I got the impression they as a model range vanished in the early 90s at least from 40K scale.

But still we are looking at a very long timespan without them.

-Guardsman- wrote:

 Da Boss wrote:
That's a separate issue from what I think of as "Squad as Army Syndrome" that I think Grey Knights, Custodes, Tempestus Scions and Harlequins suffer from.

Can you explain this syndrome?

Are you talking about how their battleline squad acts as a template from which other units deviate too little, resulting in an army that's somewhat too uniform and not characterful enough?

.

Sort of yeah. I mean that those are concepts that work brilliantly as an elite squad in an army, but are a bit thin when spread out over an entire army. Deathwatch fit in a similar way.

 Da Boss wrote:

-Guardsman- wrote:

 Da Boss wrote:
That's a separate issue from what I think of as "Squad as Army Syndrome" that I think Grey Knights, Custodes, Tempestus Scions and Harlequins suffer from.

Can you explain this syndrome?

Are you talking about how their battleline squad acts as a template from which other units deviate too little, resulting in an army that's somewhat too uniform and not characterful enough?

.

Sort of yeah. I mean that those are concepts that work brilliantly as an elite squad in an army, but are a bit thin when spread out over an entire army. Deathwatch fit in a similar way.

I think conceptually some armies also fail. Inquisition, Harlies, Skaven Assassins - all of those are in the lore basically addons to main armies. They might be powerful factions in their own right, but the bulk of their major forces are nearly always the core faction they are apart of. Everything else they bring that's unique in the lore, story and background is more elite units that are the focal point, but also limited in number. So it becomes very hard to try and bulk them out into their own force because everything about them is attached to the core faction they came from.
This seems to be a stumbling block and its either the design team being unable to think/work/reach outside of what's already there (and this could be purely because they are bound by game lore and such); or its management unwilling to make a big investment in such development when the sales of the smaller force aren't enough to justify it - or its a combo of both working together.

The result is you get a tiny force that conceptually just feels wrong on so many fronts.


Now could some of those stand on their own with the right energy behind them - sure - but they have to be fully divorced from what is already there otherwise they just feel like a copy or echo. It's like how Genestealer Cults didn't feel like a "real" faction at launch cause it was basically the Imperial Guard with some symbols and the odd extra arm and one or two leaders. Now they have a fully different identity and style; sure they can still take some IG allies, but otherwise they have an entirely unique design that makes them FAR more exciting and interesting as a force.

So it CAN be done, but it took two waves of models and a big divergence from the core design to get there.

 Da Boss wrote:
Sort of yeah. I mean that those are concepts that work brilliantly as an elite squad in an army, but are a bit thin when spread out over an entire army. Deathwatch fit in a similar way.

Oh yeah, I totally get it. But GW seems to be moving away from that by folding those mini-factions into the closest major faction and creating specialized detachments for players who want, say, a more Tempestus-based Imperial Guard army. I think that's a good move.

In the case of Custodes, though, I'm not sure if that's possible. They may coordinate with other Imperial factions sometimes, but they kinda are their own thing, even when allied with Sisters of Silence as the Talons of the Emperor. You could also argue that Sisters of Silence would fit the Inquisition better (specifically for running the Black Ships and rounding up unsanctioned psykers).


To get back to the topic of Votann, forgive my ignorance of their lore, but I'm just not sure how an abhuman faction is allowed to exist in such a state of (semi?) independence from the Imperium. Are they simply considered innocuous enough that the Imperium has bigger fish to fry than bringing them into the fold? Do they inhabit worlds that are too high-grav for normal humans, and therefore the Imperium has no interest in colonizing them? Also, what are their relationships with various xenos, Chaos, etc.? Granted, they're still new to the setting (old Squats notwithstanding), and I'm sure this stuff will be fleshed out over time, but for now they seem to exist in a vacuum.

This may be part of why players aren't drawn to them. Sometimes you may be attracted to another faction via their interactions with your initial faction (such as an Imperial Guard player who gains an interest in the T'au by reading fluff about an Imperial-T'au war), but it's not easy with the Votann.

.

 Overread wrote:
So it CAN be done, but it took two waves of models and a big divergence from the core design to get there.

Mixed thoughts on this.
I mean I'd consider Custodes to be very limited. Yes you can round out with Forgeworld - but many (most?) don't. A lot won't even sully themselves with Sisters of Silence.
Despite this Custodes have been very popular - for a time possibly the go-to "new player" army in an unprecedented attack on the Marine-monopoly.

I don't really agree that LoV are "limited".
I mean what have they got?
1. Battleline light shooting Infantry Unit. Okay, no melee option - but not obviously essential.
2. Scout Infantry Unit. Can be equipped for melee. For fluff might be nice if these were Battleline but not obviously essential.
3. Dedicated Assault Infantry Unit. Can be equipped for 3 damage targets, or 1/2 damage variety.
4. Dedicated Shooty Infantry Unit.
5. Elite Tanky/Shooty/Punchy Infantry Unit
6. Bikes
7. Light Transport
8. Heavy Transport/Tank.

That's a reasonable range of units to work with. Okay they are missing a walker but I'm not sure what other unit archetypes are really missing here. If the units aren't "good" then that's a rules problem that could be changed.

So I feel the issue is at the wider imagination stage. Its subjective, but the faction just doesn't excite me. I can't think of anything especially exciting I'd like to do with it. I don't like the Judgement Token mechanic.

-Guardsman- wrote:

 Da Boss wrote:


To get back to the topic of Votann, forgive my ignorance of their lore, but I'm just not sure how an abhuman faction is allowed to exist in such a state of (semi?) independence from the Imperium. Are they simply considered innocuous enough that the Imperium has bigger fish to fry than bringing them into the fold? Do they inhabit worlds that are too high-grav for normal humans, and therefore the Imperium has no interest in colonizing them? Also, what are their relationships with various xenos, Chaos, etc.? Granted, they're still new to the setting (old Squats notwithstanding), and I'm sure this stuff will be fleshed out over time, but for now they seem to exist in a vacuum.

A combination of not knowing about them, being isolated and keeping to themselves (until recently), and being in the most hostile place in the galaxy. The "Leagues of Votann" aren't meant to be something that anyone is aware of, with the various encounters with the Kin being mis-identified as all sorts of different alien species that no one quite realizes were all the same. The few times when they are consistently identified, they're "The Squats" to the Imperium. So they don't know they exist beyond the occasional encounter, and aren't aware they are in the galactic core, which is one of the most dangerous places in the galaxy that's difficult to move around in let alone actually do anything.

How they interact with others various, but for the most part with the ones that are more reasonable, it's a basically apathy unless they have something they can benefit from. They'll trade and interact reasonably when it's convenient for them, but if using their forces instead were a less costly way of getting what they want then they'd do that, because the Kin think power is what really matters. Chaos, Dark Eldar, and the Mechanicus are avoided though.

A box to stand on.

Quixote wrote:I just think they aren't different enough to stand on their own. They look like short space marines.

If they brought something radically different to the game, I think people would be more interested in them.

Quixote wrote:Maybe if they had a cool centerpiece model that stood out...

Yeah, this stuff here. Games Workshop honestly gakked up the release of Leagues of Votann. Not only did they decide to release them a few months before a new edition came out, but they then waited 2 years before releasing a lore book featuring them. I get non-Imperium armies aren't the main focus of Games Workshop, but that was pathetic even by GW standards.

Overall though, Leagues of Votann don't have a great niche. No great niche gamplay-wise or lore-wise. On the tabletop, they look and play like short Space Marines who can destroy high-value targets of your opponents easier I guess? Lore-wise, they're just Deep Rock Galactic, but 40k.

Gameplay-wise I'd have the Leagues of Votann be terrain manipulators, they're supposed to be miners and extreme capitalists after all! Have special abilities, Enhancements, and Stratagems that allow them to summon cover & remove cover (or just ignore it for gameplay purposes). Instead of just making them tanky all the time, have them be highly durable when they're in cover, but comparatively fragile when they're out of cover or are flanked. Give them Psychic powers that allow them to damage either units in cover or highly durable units (like the old Grav). You can have HQ units keep the grudge mechanic, but it honestly ain't interesting enough on its own to carry a whole faction. Also have a couple centerpiece models or huge vehicles that have the 9th Beam weapons. That and old blast templates are great for very special units and stratagems, but you don't want it to happen too often or otherwise it really slow down the game and kills movement.

Lore-wise, I actually like the idea of hyper-capitalists run by a supercomputer. There should be more computocracies in popular science-fiction, especially with the ongoing AI boom.The Votann can almost be like the cyborg versions of the Tyranids. Showing up to a place, exploiting it to its full extent, and then leaving nothing but a husk behind. All in the pursuit of power and profits as determined by the almighty algorithm. Although unlike the Tyranids, you can actually negotiate with the Votann and they're regime is ran by humanoids.

I'd like to see more of the Iron Kin, like a full unit.

They need a flyer, and gyrocopter would work- maybe even a transport large copter and a unit of 3 small copters- kinda like Orks, only sleek.

The need a super heavy, and the Land Train works.

Personally (and I know it'll never happen) I want one of the giant floating heads that was in the preview art.

I'd like to have seen the spec ops content for their Kill Teams in KT21. That content is usually game-applied Lore- particularly the assets. I've seen their Crusade Content- WD had an article which was (according to the Goons) little more than a cosmetic update to the 9th ed bespoke content. This might mean that there's design space for new Crusade content when the dex drops, leaving the WD as extra content. Again, for me this stuff really helps translate the lore to the table better than the core mechanics of the matched-play pick-up game.

It will also be nice for them to have detachments - right now, they've only got 2.

They need to bring out the unique flavours they have in their background more than they currently do.

If you look at the way they work, they are actually quite similar thematically to the lizardmen. Because they are a created race that is spawned for specific purposes. Yet we don't see them spawn mega dwarfs the size of ogryns, winged dwarfs or 4 armed dwarfs for combat.

Where is the white mohawk spawning that generate a psychic gestalt shield that gives their friendly troops cover or something?

We also don't have nearly enough ironkin options. They can be built in whatever format you like, so why haven't they spawned mecha ironkin, giant ancestors staute warriors like the cathay terracotta sentinels.

What about termite mecha suits that are an ironkin with a kin inside them, combining them into a drill punching dreadnought squad they burrows under the enemy?

Orbital drop Menhirs that are automated mobile bastions with an ancestor face on each side.



The sheer lack of creativity on the part of the Votann or squats in general is entirely user error and always has been.

 Hellebore wrote:
What about termite mecha suits that are an ironkin with a kin inside them, combining them into a drill punching dreadnought squad they burrows under the enemy?

I'll pass on Headmaster Transformer Votann, if that's OK?

 Dysartes wrote:

 Hellebore wrote:
What about termite mecha suits that are an ironkin with a kin inside them, combining them into a drill punching dreadnought squad they burrows under the enemy?

I'll pass on Headmaster Transformer Votann, if that's OK?

What if he connects with other Votann and powers up becoming Voltrann?

I was just upset they weren't still using the original RH1-N0, at least on necromunda.

The_Real_Chris wrote:
I was just upset they weren't still using the original RH1-N0, at least on necromunda.

I'm sure the RH1-N0 (original) is still in service.
But GW will never show you another picture of it.

Calbear wrote:

Quixote wrote:I just think they aren't different enough to stand on their own. They look like short space marines.

If they brought something radically different to the game, I think people would be more interested in them.

Quixote wrote:Maybe if they had a cool centerpiece model that stood out...

Lore-wise, they're just Deep Rock Galactic, but 40k.

There's already much more to them than that, but I don't see the problem with Space Dwarfs being Space Dwarfs anyway. It's kinda the whole point of having them.

I just prefer the Mantic Forgefather miniatures, especially the enclosed helmet troopers.

I remember trying to order Codex Squats from Mail Order in probably...1997? The poor Troll on the end of the line was a bit baffled and had to explain that they didn't actually make that, which shocked me because Codex Squats was advertisd in the 2e boxed set. I ended up getting 3 Squat Bikers instead, and I still have 2 of them! I cobbled together a squat list from Slayers with Bolt Pistols and Thunderers.

The new Votaan have really cool background, I think it's a really interesting Sci Fi concept and I'm glad they did it, but what attracted me to the original Squats was the fact that they were a bunch of hard drinking space dwarves with a much heavier emphasis on the Dwarf end of things.

Over time my tastes shifted to thinking Demiurg were cooler than another bunch of abhumans (more xenos is more better). So it's funny to think that while I was really excited about Squats as a kid I haven't touched the offical GW release which is pretty well done in my view...I just had too long to marinate and develop highly specific tastes in my Space Dwarves!

 Dysartes wrote:

 Hellebore wrote:
What about termite mecha suits that are an ironkin with a kin inside them, combining them into a drill punching dreadnought squad they burrows under the enemy?

I'll pass on Headmaster Transformer Votann, if that's OK?

Good because that's not what i said.

Take a kastelan style robot, with the head being ironkin, and put a kin inside its chest making it a union between the two reflecting the equal position they both hold. Similar to a wraithknight but at the scale of a kastelan. Give it heavy dreadnought seige drills and allow them to make their own tunnels to emerge. Far less ridiculous than a centurion and GW has no issue with those.

The iron kin is contained within the featureless head component, their bodies can be anything. Allowing them to have a kin copilot creates interesting opportunities and ties into the background of the faction in unique ways.

 Hellebore wrote:


Take a kastelan style robot, with the head being ironkin, and put a kin inside its chest making it a union between the two reflecting the equal position they both hold. Similar to a wraithknight but at the scale of a kastelan. Give it heavy dreadnought seige drills and allow them to make their own tunnels to emerge. Far less ridiculous than a centurion and GW has no issue with those.

The iron kin is contained within the featureless head component, their bodies can be anything. Allowing them to have a kin copilot creates interesting opportunities and ties into the background of the faction in unique ways.

This is a cool idea.

I definitely think the Necromunda Squats are more visually interesting than their Kin counterparts, to the point where if I were to do a LoV army I'd use Necromunda proxies for them. The necro models get it. These are miners and prospectors who sometimes go to war, their equipment is advanced but it's industrial tech first, repurposed for war.

Space Marines are all smooth curves and shock and awe

Squats are rivets and visors and rock and ore. Every game against a LoV army should look like your army has just stumbled upon a worksite and pissed off the workers

Right now the LoV visual style is "Mecha-norse", but it's not even pulling that off particularly well, it gets across the "high tech" feel, barely, but it's not very distinctive.

Charax wrote:
I definitely think the Necromunda Squats are more visually interesting than their Kin counterparts, to the point where if I were to do a LoV army I'd use Necromunda proxies for them. The necro models get it. These are miners and prospectors who sometimes go to war, their equipment is advanced but it's industrial tech first, repurposed for war.

Space Marines are all smooth curves and shock and awe

Squats are rivets and visors and rock and ore. Every game against a LoV army should look like your army has just stumbled upon a worksite and pissed off the workers

Right now the LoV visual style is "Mecha-norse", but it's not even pulling that off particularly well, it gets across the "high tech" feel, barely, but it's not very distinctive.

IMO they didn't need to incorporate a hitech look because the sophistication needn't be aesthetic, only functional which is in keeping with dwarfs. Their nail gun might look very basic, but it's actually a miniature graviton cannon.

If they'd just taken the 'hitech by default' approach they could have designed things however they wanted, because it would always be hitech, regardless of its appearance. They could even use that as a military strategy, using prosaic designs deliberately to make them appear like an easy mark, when in actual fact they're packing weaponry that makes the tech priests jealous.

Charax wrote:
I definitely think the Necromunda Squats are more visually interesting than their Kin counterparts, to the point where if I were to do a LoV army I'd use Necromunda proxies for them. The necro models get it. These are miners and prospectors who sometimes go to war, their equipment is advanced but it's industrial tech first, repurposed for war.

Space Marines are all smooth curves and shock and awe

Squats are rivets and visors and rock and ore. Every game against a LoV army should look like your army has just stumbled upon a worksite and pissed off the workers

Right now the LoV visual style is "Mecha-norse", but it's not even pulling that off particularly well, it gets across the "high tech" feel, barely, but it's not very distinctive.

I don't see how that isn't the case if you actually take a closer look at the Votann models, though.

They aren't going around in ultra-high tech futuristic gear. It's ordinary wheels, trenchcoats and mundane hats, segmented attached metal plates and armour pannels bolted on, equipment with rivets/bolts/screws all over the place, typical non-powered hammers and screwdrivers.....

There is a single unit the Votann have that isn't "industrial tech first, repurposed for war.", and that's the Einhyr Exo-armour. The Hearthkyn are civilian militia wearing their typical industrial-use space suit. The Pioneers are their scouts and explorers who when not fighting are searching for resources. The Brokkyr are just their everyday "engineers", which can include everything from spaceship repair to being a chef. There's a unit from the Mining guild etc.

I think you also have to take into account is what the Votann are meant to represent; they're the last true remnants of the DAOT. Their theming is a DAOT colony of explorers and craftsmen, going out to fight to defend their territory and secure more resources. .