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Hey guys,

I am scratching my brain and hunting the interwebs but cant find/remember anything. Did Squats get anything post Rouge Trader for 40k? I know they had a lot of Epic stuff and the Rule Book/Codex Imperialis for 2nd did include a list for them but just wondered if they had any follow ups in White Dwarf or codex format.

Looking to get back into 2nd edition and also think they would work great as a 30k Milita

Definitely not in codex format. May have had extra rules in WD but dont have any back issues numbers to hand.

Did you root out the old 2nd ed battle bible (fan made)? - some definite rules in there.

The only other thing I can think of would be vehicle cards in Dark Millennium. Don't recall anything in WD, although Citadel Journal might have had unofficial rules.

They were in the black pamphlet which gave all the rules for the armies in 2nd prior to the codex being realised.

Cheers guys, I do have Dark Millennium and the vehicle cards, which did make me think of official expanded rules.

They were only ever featured in the "Black Book"

(There initial fluff was likewise included in the initial Codex: Imperialis, rules for their weapons in the basic Wargear book of the starter box, etc.)

However, one reason there is a little confusion is that I believe the Dark Millenium expansion did include a couple of Datafaxes for Squat vehicles if I recall correctly.

I believe at least Codex: Imperial Guard at the time referenced Codex: Squats as an upcoming book that would be available as an Allies option.

Very likely. Many codices also hinted at the upcoming "Imperial Agents" codex which never appeared. If anything, several codices included Squats as viable allies in their army list section.

 Dysartes wrote:
I believe at least Codex: Imperial Guard at the time referenced Codex: Squats as an upcoming book that would be available as an Allies option.

That's where/when us Rotundus players were relegated to oblivion.

The black book/codex imperialis was the 2nd ed rules source for all armies until a stand alone codex was released. Squats and Imperial Agents never moved out of this book but most of the other factions did even if it was little more than a reprint (like chaos cult and daemon world armies got as a footnote in codex chaos).

 Elbows wrote:
They were only ever featured in the "Black Book"

(There initial fluff was likewise included in the initial Codex: Imperialis, rules for their weapons in the basic Wargear book of the starter box, etc.)

However, one reason there is a little confusion is that I believe the Dark Millenium expansion did include a couple of Datafaxes for Squat vehicles if I recall correctly.

It had psychic powers for them as well.

But yeah, that's as far as it went. GW worked up a few concept models that were never released, and then quietly pushed the whole army under the sofa and moved on.

Yep, good point. What I do like though is that in 2nd edition your codex didn't really provide a heap of crazy stuff for your army, so the Squats were 100% playable in 2nd edition from what I could see.

Not making it into 3rd was sad, but if you rocked 2nd, you could run them with very little issue - is this true from the people who ran them? I've debated making a 2nd ed. Squat army for fun.

Yeah, the Black Booklet lists were actually generally pretty solid, although I can't say how good Squats were specifically as I never came up against them.

 Elbows wrote:
Yep, good point. What I do like though is that in 2nd edition your codex didn't really provide a heap of crazy stuff for your army. . .

Except maybe some of those Exarch powers and builds

More on topic, I have a friend who's currently scrounging the Ebay for Squats and putting together an army. Personally I have a box of 40 something plastic Squats that I was thinking of turning into a small Guard force for fun.

The power of the super-hero builds in 2nd edition absolutely pales though, compared to the madness of modern editions. They look downright tame by comparison.

 Elbows wrote:
The power of the super-hero builds in 2nd edition absolutely pales though, compared to the madness of modern editions. They look downright tame by comparison.

An Erversor Assassin "walking" 30something inches and firing 16 times with his pistol.
An Eldar Exarch "Disarming" a Titans Turbo Laser.
An Inquisitor Lord in Terminator Armor Teleporting and casting Vortex in the psychic phase.

2nd Ed could be pretty dang crazy.

Squats existed throughout the 2nd ed box set books.

They had an entire section in the codex imperialis {bestiary) on their units, their exo armour appears in the wargear book, their army list appears in the black codex (which when you compare to the final codices are pretty much identical in terms of stats and options, with a few extra maybe and special characters).

Images of them even appear in the rule book.

They also had two well done unofficial lists in Inquisitor magazine.

It'd be rather easy to create a simple and concise Squat codex from that Black Book for 8th edition. It's just a matter of sourcing the appropriate models, etc.

Most of the wargear exists today, and you can translate the stats pretty well. Bump the move to 4" or 5" (considering everyone except Eldar have a much faster base movement now), etc.

The_Real_Chris wrote:
They were in the black pamphlet which gave all the rules for the armies in 2nd prior to the codex being realised.

That was my '3 page codex' I used to joke about when I played squats.

They were still quite competitive though, Ancestor Lord was a combat beast of a little old man and Engineer guildmaster with gravaton gun and teleport was a killer.

Nobody at the studio ever got inspiration to do anything about squats that wouldn't have felt lame. They ran into issue with whole biker theme resulting in dwarves being more of a joke army. This led to death of faction before codex came out

tneva82 wrote:
Nobody at the studio ever got inspiration to do anything about squats that wouldn't have felt lame. They ran into issue with whole biker theme resulting in dwarves being more of a joke army. This led to death of faction before codex came out

My Biker gang never felt lame.

GW just wanted to go apeshit on eldar & marines instead.

I would almost take anything other than being nid food.

There were several guys from GW at the time who admitted that they just didn't know where to go with Squats. At the time they were starting to leave the "Fantasy in Space" model and trying to go more grimdark. I'd suspect there was probably not a champion of the Squats at the studio. I don't believe I ever saw a single White Dwarf article or battle report featuring them. The decision may have been made pretty early in 2nd edition.

Here's something I did out of boredom this evening:



Now if only there were some good Squat stand-in figures I'd maybe do up an army of them just for laughs (with a bespoke Codex).

 Elbows wrote:
There were several guys from GW at the time who admitted that they just didn't know where to go with Squats. At the time they were starting to leave the "Fantasy in Space" model and trying to go more grimdark. I'd suspect there was probably not a champion of the Squats at the studio. I don't believe I ever saw a single White Dwarf article or battle report featuring them. The decision may have been made pretty early in 2nd edition.

Here's something I did out of boredom this evening:

Spoiler:

Now if only there were some good Squat stand-in figures I'd maybe do up an army of them just for laughs (with a bespoke Codex).

You don't like mantic forgefathers?

they look cool, but I think Kharadrons would make a much better aesthetic to go for, just grimdark it up to get "current" 40k Rotundus.

Hell, I think they(GW/FW) could release a bunch of upgrade/conversions to give the overlords 40k weapons.

At this point I'd even take a 100% resin army(never thought I'd say that) if they keep the sculpt quality the same as Grendl.

I do have some old epic/Aeronautica Squat stuff coming that I'm gonna make rules for in AI19 to use in a campaign. But not a 40k army does it make.

 Elbows wrote:

Now if only there were some good Squat stand-in figures I'd maybe do up an army of them just for laughs (with a bespoke Codex).

This black book you guys are referring to - is that the old fan made 2nd ed battle bible?

Racerguy180 wrote:
they look cool, but I think Kharadrons would make a much better aesthetic to go for, just grimdark it up to get "current" 40k Rotundus.

Hell, I think they(GW/FW) could release a bunch of upgrade/conversions to give the overlords 40k weapons.

At this point I'd even take a 100% resin army(never thought I'd say that) if they keep the sculpt quality the same as Grendl.

I do have some old epic/Aeronautica Squat stuff coming that I'm gonna make rules for in AI19 to use in a campaign. But not a 40k army does it make.

Kromlech do a whole range of squat dudes they call dvergr
https://bitsofwar.com/58-dvergr-commando

always loved this squat art from the 2ed books when i was a teenager

 Ratius wrote:
This black book you guys are referring to - is that the old fan made 2nd ed battle bible?

The 2nd edition box set came with a black and white book containing basic rules for all factions, including the squats.
The battle bible is a compilation of all of the full codex releases from the edition, including the black book entries for those without a release.

Something worth noting - the squat heavy weapons had targeters, and the last time I looked a the battle bible they had forgotten to include them in the squat entry. The BS4 makes quite a difference when your core troop choices include 5 men with a heavy bolter (for victory point purposes), and devastator-style squads.

Racerguy180 wrote:

tneva82 wrote:
Nobody at the studio ever got inspiration to do anything about squats that wouldn't have felt lame. They ran into issue with whole biker theme resulting in dwarves being more of a joke army. This led to death of faction before codex came out

My Biker gang never felt lame.

GW just wanted to go apeshit on eldar & marines instead.

I would almost take anything other than being nid food.

No the reason was literally they didn't have anything they felt inspired. They didn't like the biker gang theme but couldn't come up with anything that sparked their inspiration.

People claimed it was sales but squats sold out more than several other lines that never got killed off.