Rehabilitation of the Squats?

[LordGrise]

Okies, I am relatively new to 40K; ::grin:: only since halfway thru 5th as a functioning player. But my understanding is that the Squats were aliens, basically Space Dwarves, mildly cartoonish in portrayal, from Fourth edition or earlier, and that they were utterly discontinued, and then not referred to, ever, in official GW anything.

Welp, if you will take your brand spanking new 6th ed book (standard one, I dunno if the limited edition ones have a different layout) on page four-oh-four (this is in the appendices) you will find the section on abhumans. On page four-of-five, fisrt column, second paragraph, the Squats are listed as a not-extinct stable variety of abhuman.

Troths, Felinids, and Neandors are apparently highly limited; Beastmen are well on the way to being declared as mutants, with all the relevant bad things applicable to that status within the Imperium. But the section concludes with "The remaining abhuman races are variously present across the entire Imperium. In some regions they are plentiful and common, living in large colonies or even populating entire worlds, in others they are scarce and virtually unknown." As I read this, it would strongly imply the Squats are once again canon, and the 'Nids did not, in fact, eat them all. Which would explain why the 'Nids are getting bigger, and not smaller.

By the way, who or what are the Troths, Felinids, and Neandors? From the name, I would expect Felinids to be Cat-folk, but what are the others?

[Rev. Tiberius Jackhammer]

I'm pretty sure Squats have always been abhumans. The old fluff talks about humans who slowly adapted to living underground in high-gravity.

The "Pelager" abhuman might be the "Piscean Warrior" (Sharkman) from Rogue Trader days.

[Cpt Codpiece]

troths are i am guessing moss/algae men
felanids you got right as feline humans
neandors as the name sugggests are cavemen/troglodytes (neanderthals)

[Flammenwerfer13]

Squats are abhumans, they were ported straight from Fantasy when they made Rogue Trader in the 80's. GW killed them off after 2nd Edition because they were the worst selling army and then claimed a Hive Fleet ate them. To this day they have been a huge thorn in GW's side because of their (very typical) hamfisted efforts to forgot they ever existed and stop people from talking about them.

Beastmen use to be in the Guard codex (Rogue Trader actually) as specialist assault troops who urn to die for the Emperor to be forgive for being born as Beastmen to begin with. They were utterly loyal to the Emperor and were on par with Ogyrn for intelligence.

They also had human bombs for IG in Rogue Trader. A lone IG trooper with a bomb collar would go running towards the enemy and a Techpriest would sit in the back and when he felt the suicide trooper was in the right spot blow up the poor guy. Yeah having a suicide bomber in today's world no so much lol.

[Rev. Tiberius Jackhammer]

Squats are abhumans, they were ported straight from Fantasy when they made Rogue Trader in the 80's. GW killed them off after 2nd Edition because they were the worst selling army and then claimed a Hive Fleet ate them. To this day they have been a huge thorn in GW's side because of their (very typical) hamfisted efforts to forgot they ever existed and stop people from talking about them.One of the design team had a lot to say about 'em a few years back - the Squats had decent, average sales at the time, but the design studio just couldn't think of any interesting way to expand them since they felt they hadn't grown beyond "Dorfs in SPAAAAAACE".

[joescalise]

Squats have been in recent novels, such as the inquisition war

[The AKH]

Squats have been in recent novels, such as the inquisition war

I wouldn't call the Inquisition War trilogy "recent".

[Majorcrash]

Years ago, when squats were first dropped it was reportly not for poor sales but as was said earlier, no room to grow. they were in all way IG, just better and they had bikers gangs, bikes and trikes. PLus the worst looking terminator armor ever. (imagine and egg with arms and legs and a gun) Supposedly they were going to just be folded into the guard, but someone (probably an accountant) had them removed as they didnt add to the army. I was at a Rogue trader tournament ages ago, during a question and answer session, in which they were brought up and jervis johnson nearly had a sezizure.

[Eberk]

PLus the worst looking terminator armor ever. (imagine and egg with arms and legs and a gun)

And if I recall correctly you could put characters in Exo-armour on bikes/trikes. ;)

(and they took their grandfathers, aka Living Ancestors, with them to war :D)

[Psychosplodge]

I thought they said they sold at a similar level to dark eldar? but the issue was they didnt like that they'd turned into space biker dwarfs ?

[Wolfshade]

You also had chaos beastmen :)

But the squats have also made an appearance in the Ravenor trilogy, or at least one has. He was the captain of a rouge trader.

[Mr Mystery]

Yup. Squats were cooler in Epic, as they had cool vehicles and that, but in 40k they were just short, fat hairy bikers.

Couldn't say where or when, but Jervis has said they won't see light of day until the 40k army could resemble the Epic version. And I'd say they're capable of that now. However the expense pod doing an army from scratch is different hurdle altogether. But given Dark Eldar, and to a slightly lesser degree, Necrons, I'd say it's not insurmountable. Just needs someone in the studio to drive the project.

[TashaG]

And if I recall correctly you could put characters in Exo-armour on bikes/trikes. ;)

(and they took their grandfathers, aka Living Ancestors, with them to war :D)

As Squats aged they would (if lucky) become a psycher AKA a Living Ancestor. IIRC Living Ancestors tended to have lifespans that extended way past regular Squats.

So you could have a bike that had a shooty Squat on it and a Living Ancestor in the side car for Psychic backup.

The Exo-Armor was really stupid looking like a fisher/price weebel with guns (ie a kid's toy). Mantic's version of exo armor is MUCH cooler.

If the Design team had really thought about it. They would have just said that the Biker Squats were one Variety of Squat kind of like Cult of Speed Orks. They could have mixed the Squats with the Adeptus Mechanus and had the Squat Homeworld be one huge Forgeworld.

Besides having Space Dwarves is VERY fun and gives another army for those so inclined to collect.