<![CDATA[Latest posts for the thread "Goggles and Flak jackets"]]> http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/69.page JForum - http://www.jforum.net Goggles and Flak jackets 40k universe these days is Squats. I'm sure I remember them being in 40k as 40k's equivalent of WHFB's dwarfs. They had little flak jackets, wore goggles and carried what looked like lasguns and shotguns etc.

Why have they been taken out of the game? Surely they could make a come back - I don't know about WHFB but I imagine that dwarfs are a popular army ( I even painted them for a while many years ago) so why wouldn't Squats be? If they were given a decent story line then I'm sure people would be interested in them.

It would also help out with an area that does seem to be lacking from what I have read so far - the lack of alliances and mutual co-operation. Other than mates teaming up to beat each other with with, say, a combined Tyranids/Necron army Vs a combined Chaos Marines/Space Marines army for a laugh the only official 'alliances' seem to revolve around Space Marines, IG and Inquisition. Adding in Squats would bring the bonus of a new (comeback) army and give more scope for more varied alliances.

I would also like to see some official alliances between the Imperium of Man and Eldar and Tau. The official stuff about all the mistrust and 'burn the Alien' kind of thing keeps them apart and that's fine but surely, in a time of survival and possible extinction, races such as Human, Eldar and Tau would team up more often? ]]> http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/preList/320781/1995597.page http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/preList/320781/1995597.page GMT Goggles and Flak jackets
ColdSadHungry wrote:Why have they been [Squated]?
Fixed. And they are pretty much gone for good per the fluff I believe.]]> http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/preList/320781/1995666.page http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/preList/320781/1995666.page GMT Re:Goggles and Flak jackets
Jervis Johnson wrote:I know I shouldn't get drawn on this... but... can't... resist

Seriously, a couple of points just so you can have an informed debate based on the real reasons that Squats are no longer available. Be warned, it is going to be hard reading for people that like the Squat background.

First of all, Squats were *not* dropped because they were not selling well. There were then, and are now, plenty of other figure ranges that sell in the sort of % quantaties that the Squats pulled down, especially when you look across all of the ranges produced by GW rather than just those for 40K.

No, the reason that the Squats were dropped was because the creatives in the Studio (people like me, Rick, Andy C, Gav etc) felt that we had failed to do the Dwarf 'archetype' justice in its 40K incarnation. From the name of the race (Squats - what *were* we thinking?!?!) through to the short bikers motif, we had managed to turn what was a proud and noble race in Warhammer and the other literary forms where the archetype exists, into a joke race in 40K. We only fully realised what we had done when we were working on the 2nd edition of 40K. Try as we might, we just couldn't work up much enthusiasm for the Squats. The mistake we made then (deeply regreted since) was to leave them in the background and the 'get you by' army list book that appeared. With hindsight, we should have dropped the Squats back then, and saved ourselves a lot of grief later on.

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.

Now, while this was all going on for 40K, we were actually doing some rather good stuff for the Squats in Epic. On this scale there was a natural tendancy to focus on the big 'hand-made' war machines the Squat artisans produced, and this created an army with a feel that was very different to the biker hordes in 40K. However, this tended to reinforce the problems we saw in the Squat background rather than alleviate them, underlining what we *should* have done with the Squats in 40K.

In the end (and it took years to really get to the roots of the problem) this led to a realisation that we were going to have to drop the Squats in their 'Squat' form from the 40K background. There was little point having a major race that we weren't willing to make an army book for, and their inclusion in the background meant that people kept asking us when we'd do a Squat Codex. 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. This would give us the option in the future to return to making a race based on the Squat archetype for 40K. This race was given the name of Demiurg, and a certain amount of preliminary work was done to get a 'feel' for what the race would be like. At present the only hint of the Demiurg in 40K is the Demiurg spaceship for BFG. However, we do have this race 'in our back pocket' as a possible new race for 40K, or an interesting character model in Inquisitor, or whatever. So far the Demiurg have lost out to other projects, and it may be that their time never actually comes, as they will have to win through on their merits, not simply because we once made some Squat models in the past. At present, I have to say that it is more lilely that they *don't* make the cut than do, as there is a certain predudice these days to simply taking races from Warhammer and cross them over to 40K like we did in the early days, so it may be that the Squats/Demiurg end up remaining a footnote in the history of the 40K galaxy. Only time will tell...

I'll finish off by saying that whatever we decide to do 'officially', there is nothing stopping players with Squat armies from using them, either in Epic or 40k for that matter. There is no GW 'rule' against using old Citadel Miniatures, as long as you use them with exisiting army lists and in a way that won't cause confusion for other players. I recommend taking a positive stand by saying "Have you seen these cool old models? They're called the Squats and GW used to make them back in the late eighties/early nineties. I love 'em, so I count them as Imperial Guard and use them with the current rules..." Put like this I can't imagine that anyone would stop you from using your army.

Best regards,

Jervis Johnson
Head Fanatic
]]> http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/preList/320781/1995746.page http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/preList/320781/1995746.page GMT Goggles and Flak jackets
Still feel there's scope for a squat comeback tho, he even hints at it. IDK anything about Demiurg but whatever happens, if they do want to do more with them, they should still be the 'squats' even if they do change the name. ]]> http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/preList/320781/1995832.page http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/preList/320781/1995832.page GMT Goggles and Flak jackets ]]> http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/preList/320781/1995843.page http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/preList/320781/1995843.page GMT