last posts from the previous thread
>>13492019We need to find some weaknesses, to make it believable. If its one big fanwank, its going to be a dead give-away.

>>13492030make sure teh title page says "Written by: Matt Ward"

I think we have the the problem stated, and then solved in the very next post. If they're fanwanked to hell and back and then we attach Matt Ward's name to it then the people reading it will go "Ohhh, this is more of Matt Ward's shit. That explains the wankery. He just really likes Squats. "

Seriously though, Toughness 3? Strength 3? For a race that has to be able to live on a Heavy Gravity Planet? Bullpucky! Maybe on their homeworlds they'd be that average , but imagine dropping a imperial guard on a heavy gravity world. Would he be able to function as good as a Squat? Would he be as tough as one? Putting a squat on a normal gravity world would be like dropping you or me on a planet with the gravity of the moon. We'd be ridiculously strong in comparison to whatever lived there, and likely ridiculously tough as well.
So giving them S 4 and T 4 right off the bat would make perfect sense. Just penalize them in other areas or better yet, give them high points costs to reflect the low numbers squats have. Force them to rely on robots and similar when they want large numbers of troops.

Make them a "drone" using race.

Oh, and that brought up an interesting point.

If they resettle on other heavy gravity worlds, then we should have rules for how this affects other forces that fight them on heavy gravity worlds.

Think about it. Drop a normal human (imperial guard) on a heavy gravity world (say 2gs or more) and he is NOT going to perform well at all. Likewise his BS is going to suffer like hell (all his training previously was in near normal gravity so it'll throw off his aim and expectation for target movement)
I'd say penalties to BS S T and I, would all be appropriate, including for Marines. They may be tough, but they aren't tougher than gravity.

Fighting a Squat on his home turf should be extra hard.

T 4 is okay, but I wouldn't give them S 4. Although they might be hard, they are not genetically enhanced super warriors.

>everybody. Bortimus

No, captcha, they won't go by the name Bortimus.

>>13494340 Squats not genetically enhanced.

Actually, yeah they are. They were genetically modified to withstand and be able to do heavy labor in a heavy gravity environment. The fact that their movement, initiative and so forth suffered as a result would be the penalty. So Strong as a Space Marine? Yeah, I'd say that they would be exactly as strong as a Space marine because not only do they have genetic engineering on their side, they've got at least 20 thousand years of biological adaptation that happened naturally to help them. So super dense bones, super dense optimized musculature. Also, space marines get better weapons skills and the whole know no fear crap as well as better init, speed, and so forth. So I see nothing wrong or illogical with S4 T4 for the basic squat trooper if marines have that.

>>13494653
Just give them a cost to reflect those stats.

Squats should not be stronger than Orks.

>>13494328
Concerning what you said about rules for High-G worlds, I'd say that whatever IG regiment is sent to a High-G planet would obviously be prepared for it. Hell, Catachans are born on a high gravity planet, that's why they're so muscular/fuckhueg

>>13494653
I'd make the squat trooper rare and expensive.

Race of engineers and miners who fight with drones and robots. Mining drones and robots.

>>13494653
I'd say S3 T4 for fairness. They're designed to be hardy, not Superhuman

>>13494691

And Catachans are still S3 T3, barring some exceptions like Harker and Straken.

Squats should have the Ork statline with -1A +1BS and better leadership.

What about Squat WS? Are they bears in close combat, or is their size too much of a hinderance to fight properly?

competent Alcaliab
Captcha seems to think they are good fighters.

>>13494704
T3 S3 is Universal across many armies. It's simply a wide realm of strength/toughness.
On an individual level, fluffwise, I'm sure a Catachan could easily break a Hormagaunt's neck while a Hormagaunt would turn a Cadian to shit if they got to him. IMHO, the difference between S4 T4 and S3 T3 seems minimal on tabletop but in fluff the difference is amazing.

>>13494735
They look more WS3 than anything, with possibly I2 and they can keep S4 T4. They look a bit slow to move

I suggest you just use the stats that I have drawn from the original stats RT-era further above:

>>13491747

Also as Squats your Flak armour, they should have a 5+ save. Don't give them too good armour, give them lots of heavy weapons instead.

Just look at the old fluff. Pic related.

>>13494825

Yeah, that statline is good.

No S4. That's a Marine/Nob/Tyranid Warrior strong, and a basic squat ain't that, high grav origin or not.

>>13494735
i think they should be cumbersome in CC. You cant kill by a mere wack on the head, but they cant hit you hard back either.
There is a reason why they love tanks, power suits, big guns etc.

Fast hitting enemies in CC should be something they DONT want to go up against.

>>13494839
Would you say...they need to do more squats?

>>13494754

It is reasons like this that I reckon GWS should switch to 1-20 stat system. That way we could justify Guardsmen as S4, regular civilians as S3, marines as S7 or S8 and Bloodthirsters as S20. GUess you'd have to switch to a D10 or D20 system though, which don't exist anymore in GW gameplay.

Anyway, I digress. On with the squats!

Wait... has anyone even read the entry for guard ratling snipers? They should have WS2 BS4 & Init3 LD7 (for purposes of going up againts grots, which i think should be their main enemy.) Squad should get lasguns and 3 assault weapons or 3 snipers, as they cant carry heavy weapons besides H-stubbers or rocket lanchers or mortars.

Their BS 4 combined with the 6+ inv save and their low points cost, say; 7-8pts should make them competitive with tau and others. Now all we need is special equipment.

First off, call them Demiurg, not Squat. "Squat" is just a bit too silly.

WS3 or WS4, depending on how much of an "elite" army you want them to be. The change is mostly defensive (not getting hit on 3+ by units in CC), so...

BS4 seems fine. They're master craftsmen and highly skilled with their weapons. (BS also counts stuff like weapon matinence, etc.)

S3; even Orks are only S3 when not charging, and as Anon says, S4 is a bit excessive.

T4; they're tough and bulky.

A1; they aren't dedicated melee fighters, so any more than that is crazy.

I2, possibly I3 if you want to stay away from the "slow and steady" theme or don't want them to be too good in CC.

Ld8 or Ld9. Fantasy Dwarfs are the best-morale army there is in that game, carrying that over to 40K seems like it could be interesting.

>>13494825

Nice statline, but I disagree with the prolific heavy weapons. With their slow moment, it might already be too tempting to just deploy a ridiculous gunline.

If every (or even most) member of a basic squad can have a heavy weapons, that a shit load of heavy weapons.

>>13494857

Try to stay close to the stats of Dwarf Warriors from fantasy; but only for physical traits (S3, T4, W1, I2).

I agree with the guy that said keep real warriors rare. Most of the army should be miners and heavy vehicles, with low WS and BS but really good guns.

I'd say a miner should be WS2 BS3 S3 T4 W1 A1 I2 Ld7 Sv5+ with a pick axe (2 handed ccw that adds +1S) and a twin-linked lasgun or a lasblaster (see Swooping hawks).

REAL warriors would have WS4, BS4, Carapace Armor (vets have power armor), and pulse weaponry, or the like. Maybe bolters that can be upgraded to 24" range pulse rifles.

The warriors, at least, should have the option of using the Slow and Purposeful rule if they choose. I see them as a relentless wall that either advances or retreats in a highly ordered fashion dealing as much damage as possible.

Can we have some sort of epic squat servitors?

>>13494930
>good guns
>TL Lasgun or Lasblaster

Do you even look at what you're typing?

>>13494930

WTF no, that is heresy, unless you've forgotten BS4 shots and 6+ inv saves are all the power you need.

A lot of the non-warrior weapons should have a mining or construction theme. So soldering lasers, rocks crushers (CC), ore incincerators etc should be de rigeur.

>>13494916

They need to pay for these guns obviously if they want to replace the lasgun. Also re-read thatr their most notable aspect is that they can field any number of heavy weapons.

As for gunlines, that is no good in objective games. Basically a combat squad sitting in cover on an objective should be hard to remove. Conversely, it should be hard for them to reach an objective on the other side of the table.

But yeah, they are more of a shooty army than close combat in general.

>Since Matt is known for his blatant fanwankery, we should be able to get away with near ridiculous levels of brokeness of the Squats without raising too many eyebrows.

What are you trying to "get away" with? No one will think it's an official codex. It will remain a fan codex no matter what you do, and people won't care who wrote it, they're still either not going to use it no matter how balanced it is, or play for giggles and not give a shit either way.

>>13494968

oops, good gun was meant for warriors. miners should have a shitty gun (but better than a guardsman's) that they pass if the mining camp gets attacked.

my bad

Here's some of my ideas for unit types, and another guys ideas for wepons

HQ:
Guildmaster (grants army-wide bonuses somehow)
Honourmaster (pure fighty warrior bloke, upholds the honour of the clan through one on one combat)
Warsmith (techmarine/librarian combo? something to do with boosting vehicle performance mid-battle)

Elites:
Hearthguard (hard as nails elite troops, can be good at both shooty and choppy)
Forgenaut (steam powered walker ho!)
Steelbreakers (infantry specialising in anti-tank)
Golem (ogryn style robots)

Troops:
Squat Squaddies
Squat Rangers
Greybeards

Fast Attack:
Squat Bikers
Jump Pack Squats

Heavy Support:
Land Train (starts with engine, add more carriages on for more points, carriages are immobile unless hooked up to engine)
Thunderer Artillery
Shieldbearers (shield unit)

Bison Transport

Furnace Gun: S4 AP5 Flamer, but fires like the Hellhound inferno cannon

Graviton guns cause pinning, with a penalty to the test dependent on how good the enemy armour is. a 2+ save nets you a -4 penalty, for example.

i also have ideas for the Warsmith "psychic powers." Should Squats even have psykers? they are human offshoots after all

guys guys guys
you are trying to reinvent the wheel. squats do have stats. all you need to do is to adapt them and to balance them towards what the general philosophy of the army should be. and imho opinion that should be guns. lots of 'em. the heavier the better.

thus my suggestion, based on the 1st squats army list:

Squat Combat Squad member
WS 4
BS 3
S 3
T 3
W 1
I 2
A 1
LD 9
Sv 5+

Lasgun, Flak armour, Close-combat weapon, Frag Grenades, Krak Grenades

Options: Meltabombs, replace Lasgun for a heavy weapon, etc.

Squats should move 5 inches for being slow fucks.

What about vehicles?
5th ed is vehicle ed, so Squats would need a little something something to remain competitive. I don't like the idea of "ok guys, guys, hey guys, imperium vehicles but smaller!"
Maybe some kind of trukk styled vehicles that were adapted to war from mining equipment? Minecar dedicated transports? Or, speaking of minecars, filling one with explosives and strapping rockets to it to make a powerful one shot weapon.

>>13495037

no living ancestors??? guys, let's all go over the existing army lists and re-use that stuff first please. after all models for these do exist. after that we can plug holes in the army list with new troop choices.

no rejection of what you have written anon, only pointing out that this order of steps would make more sense.

>>13495060

Slow and purposeful + Relentless? Or would that be too much Legion Of The Damned?

>>13495054

that should read T4

>>13495101
slow and purposeful grants relentless. Having both is redundant.

>>13495085
shit i knew i forgot something

here's my idea for the basic Squat statline
WS3 BS4 S3 T4 W1 I2 A1 LD8 SV4+

Part of me wants to go "all Squats should be Relentless"

>>13494945
Yes, i see multi-meltas, multi meltas everywhere!

May i present my idea for a special weapon. Its essentially an encinerator, counts as heavy. Cost: 30pts range; 16" (like the guard hellhound tank it can flame distance)

That aughta deter most assault fags and endeer the gamer community.

Squats should have some type of gravity weapon. A crushing force beamer of sorts.

Something they converted from a mining or ore moving tool.

Look, warhammer fags.

No squat WS4, just no. They arnt astarties their just guardsmen. What do you expect, them to go all yoda on there asses. If you can imagine it, it can happen, if not then... Their natural strength is firepower not manuverability or melee.

>>13495188
I got ideas for that:

24" S6 AP5 Heavy 1 Pinning

Shit AP because its a crushing weapon. Instead of pinning, it could force the target unit to move as if it were in difficult terrain next turn. That way fearless units dont avoid the crushing gravity

>>13495188
I did have an idea for a radiation gun a few days ago. It somhow doesnt kill everyone... maybe some sort of dish.

>>13495205
I'll go ahead and agree with this. Hell, I might even go so far as to say WS2 to show how much slower they would be in combat(I2 as well.)

>>13495216
Again, heresy.

Gravity weapons are too complex even for forgeworld squats. Only the eldar or tau should have that weapon name. You need something more indescriminate and devestating like this:
>>13495227
>>13495154

Scout and Infiltrate from ANYWHERE. Only instead of dropping in they come up from tunnels.

>>13495261
i don't think we should say "they can't too that it is too complicated". Other reasons sure, but these are the craftsmen, the dwarfs, the artisans of 40k. They should be able to make whatever they want, but won't make something without a purpose.

>>13495216
Add small blast/large blast?

>>13495205

in the existing fluff they do have ws4 bs3. this alone will keep them from being perceived as fanboi wank because it cuts into their effectiveness - you pay for an upgrade that does not buff your specialty.

and we should agree on a basic army philosophy.

suggestion:
"basic philosophy: an army bristling in heavy arms (and mech) which isn't too shabby in close combat (they are space dwarfs - look at some of the illustrations)

weaknesses: other armies are better in close combat (nids, BAs, Orks, vanilla Marines); plus it's a less maneuverable army. In a shooting contest with regular Guards, point cost differences should make for a balanced fight"

Instead of relentless, I think they should have the option of using the Slow and Purposeful rules.

>>13495073
>What about vehicles?

Just pull up some of the old Epic stuff, i.e. flying tanks (no transport), brutal artillery, and ridiculous super-heavies (the landtrain would probably work best for 40k scale, you could even use single cars as normal tanks an include the engine only for Apoc games).

Why reinvent the wheel? Use what is there already. Then fill in the gaps.

>>Gravity weapons are too complex even for forgeworld squats. Only the eldar or tau should have that weapon name. You need something more indescriminate and devestating like this:

Bullshit. Squats maintained the technology of the dark age of technology better than anyone else in the imperium did, and Gravity guns fit with their whole "heavy worlder" motif.

That said, forge world released some rules for a new grav gun I think . It requires a S test to resist it's effect.

Speaking of all this though... just found out that Ironmonger over on warseer has been working on a squat codex for some while
Here's a link to it
http://www.mediafire.com/?eo49chdzazp2phn

This is version 0.6 which is the last one before his final version.

>Army of miners
>Red Faction
Guys, I think we have some new inspiration material for weapons.
Fusion rocket launchers, rail snipers, riot shield and flamethrower shock troops, big mining robots, precision rifles, demo charges? Hell yes!

Needs more 'not-Squats' miniatures. If we're doing this, we should at least make the list compatible with the main, modern miniatures for space dwarf types.

>>13495612

Sure but the first thing we must ensure is that people can play with their old minis.

So I think we should give the basic squats only flak armour as in the old fluff. The old minis also only wear flak, not carapace.

one of the best contenders for space dwarfs is the Grymn range from Hasslefree.

>>13495667
to be fair the old miniatures are older than a lot of people on /tg/, and are not exactly easily available, especially the plastic infantry sets that would make up the bulk of any army.

>>13495612
http://www.olleysarmies.co.uk/home.html

Bob Olley even sculpted a lot of the original Squats afaik.

BOMBOTS!!!

>>13495489why reinvent the wheel.

Because, friend. This is the opportunity to introduce new stuff rather than just sitting on our asses.
Think about all the new shit that's been introduced in the new codices for the IG and Space marines in the past couple years. Why should the Squats not get a rework to make them more interesting?
If you stick with the old for no reason other than that you're a lazy fuck, you're wasting our time reading your post.
Also there are TONS of things for Squats that never got done. For example the Squat Gyrocopters, The Goliath mega cannon, the various super heavies that they have that are in epic and not in 40k. The Squat Airships and tunnelers. Can you even point me at rules for their Hellbore?
On the stats, S3 T4 sounds solid. The point someone made about Strength 3 covering a ton of variation is a solid one. However the hardiness of Squats is supposed to be legendary.
But maybe we're jumping the gun a little on statting out units. We still haven't even addressed the issue of Fluff here.
Yeah I know, fluff isn't really game related but it does determine the overall aesthetic makeup that goes into the army. So let's hear some suggestions to make them unique among the races.
Here's my suggestion for making them more interesting: Because of the low numbers of Squats there are, no more than half of your points total can go toward actual "squat" units. Everything else must be spent on vehicles, robots, and heavy weapons.
This creates an army of Drone and mech use with heavy fire power. Less shots, but more that actually will have a chance at killing the foe.
As to fluff. I say that the Imperium lured the nids to the Squat Homeworlds and the Squats have learned about it and now have turned on them.
I think casting them as an enemy of the Imperium, rather than just another abhuman race, and focusing on heavy weapons and drone use makes them significantly different and interesting as a playable race.

Old Crow do a nice range of 25mm scale (slightly smaller for the convenience of your squatish stature miniatures) vehicles, including some nice halftracks. Chunky sci-fi designs seem pretty appropriate. The separately available turrets just scream at me Tarantula support weapon platforms. Squats sure loved their mole mortars, thuddguns and other assorted support weapons after all.

http://www.oldcrowmodels.co.uk/ocproducts.htm

>>13495733
How about just robots in general?

>>13495744

sure but please let's first make rules for the minis that players have bought ages ago and still have sitting on their shelves. then built cool new stuff around this. more importantly then you have a core around which new stuff to spin. right now anon is just flooding nifty ideas. but just having ideas does not get one anywhere. let's do the hard work of laying a solid framework first.

as for what happened to the squats... i heard there has never been a nid invasion of squat homeworlds at all instead the inquis ZAP!!!!

>>13495685
HOLY SHIT THAT IS AWESOME

>>13494328
Now you know why Space Marines were used to bring the Squats in the Imperium.

Give higher ranked Squats enhanced stats and that jazz. Problem solved.

>>13495685

That's why you provide squad options, bro. The basic stats are so that oldtimers can play again and you add options ("can replace X with Y for Z pts") so that the new kids on the block can discover the awesomeness of the almighty Squat.

need rules for riding tanks. double normal carrying capacity for squats but squats can fall off during moves and the guys outside take hits when the tank is being shot at.

>>13495906

Pic related

>>13495685
>>13495668
>>13495687
Holy crap, all those are fucking fantastic minis.

The battle armor especially.

Also DAT PLASMA! It looks like what plasma guns should look like. Like the Imperial version is clearly shit tier and that one is godly tier.

I loved the "the was no nid invasion... it was actually a cover story for the inqui-zap" idea... that's fucking hilarious.

>>13495744
>Think about all the new shit that's been introduced in the new codices for the IG and Space marines in the past couple years.

Coming from an Epic 1st/2nd background, an awful lot of that wasn't new to me. It was just transferred to 28mm for the first time.

>Why should the Squats not get a rework to make them more interesting?

You misread me. I am not against adding and changing stuff. I am against throwing everything out of the window. If you read my vehicle post carefully you will note that I recommended using existing vehicles from Epic, which had never been implemented in 40k before - basically the same type of 'inovation' you praise GW for.

Then, when you are done with that - add yet more stuff on top.

>If you stick with the old for no reason other than that you're a lazy fuck, you're wasting our time reading your post.

I want to stick with the old, because change for the sake of change can stay with Tzeentch.
If you write 'SQUATS' on the cover than I expect squats within.
If you don't want squats but rather 'an army of modern soldiers in 40k who happen to be short', perhaps you should start looking for another name.

The 'best' (read: most unique) treatment of squats was during 2nd Edition Epic. I would always look there for inspiration - it keeps with existing (albeit old) fluff, gives character, and sketches a good framework for further development.

What do we have there?

From my experience, an army characterised by three
elements:

Powerful infantry, possessing excellent staying power but low on mobility (almost no organic transports, not many transport options at all).

Some fast, hard hitting light troops (bikes, trikes, also gyrocopters).

Very powerful (super-)heavy vehicles, again low on mobility, but with unsurpassed ranged firepower (most impressive perhaps the artillery).

>>13495744
Totally agreeing on the robots.

With the destruction of the squat homeworlds, their hatred should totally count against tyranids rather than orks, I'd say that'd be a nice and legitimate change of the old dwarfs hate greenskins thing.

Still, millions if not billions of the short bastards out there in the galaxy away from their homeworlds, wandering around in Imperial armies and so on. But definitely keeping their physical numbers low. Tactics revolving around delay and barrage would be brilliant, to give them a twist on the Tau method of ranged combat. Offboard support seems like a mandatory thing.

Just reading the old army list gives weapons teams with thuddguns, rapiers, tarantulas and mole mortars. Heavy webbers make an appearance in the weapons lists, I'm pretty sure no-one else has those these days. Conversion beamers would be good, perhaps a little of the old skool crazy grenade variety for the sake of disruption such as tanglefoot, stumm and scare gas, maybe even antiplant or blind. Deploy them from launchers and help stop being rushed.

Perhaps in a twist tanks are simply not used by them. sure its a fuck over in the game rules terms, but then the 40k rules system is bollocks imho, but with enough robots and weapons platforms they should be able to compensate.

>>13495963

you need at least rhinos or else you'll never get combat squads to the other side of the table before the end of the game.

>>13495947


> Powerful infantry, possessing excellent staying power but low on mobility (almost no organic transports, not many transport options at all).

> Some fast, hard hitting light troops (bikes, trikes, also gyrocopters).

> Very powerful (super-)heavy vehicles, again low on mobility, but with unsurpassed ranged firepower (most impressive perhaps the artillery).

Ayup.

>>13495921
Even the Rhino has a sodding multimelta on it.

ws4 bs3 s3 t4 w1 i2 a1 ld9

USR slow & purposeful

>>13496035

That's squats for ya. Extra XP for the good observation roll though.

>>13495947 excellent points
My sincere apologies there then. I read your post and apparently misread it. I thought you were saying "why should we spend time on redoing the squats when all we have to do is convert what already exists.

I'm a huge Epic fan myself. and have a rather large Squat army. (2 CI, 7 Cyclopes, 8 land trains, and tons and tons of gyrocopters and troops to go with as well as 5 Hellbores and moles and termites) So I'd love to see them get all their units from epic detailed, as well as the ones in the Netepic rules which added significantly to them.

I would however suggest that even back in 2e the squats were considered something of "joke" race because there was nothing really to distinguish them. I think that adding a genuine theme element might help. Which is why I brought up the possibility of having their forces have to field robots to flesh out their armies. This brings up the possibility of things like Drone control vehicles... Rhinos or similar vehicles that don't enter combat, but instead have a collection of Squats in them that are controlling the robot armies manually. Adapting them to be a drone using race (for when they need to do combat of numbers) as well as a heavy weapons race might be a good way to repackage them to appeal to new players.

>>13495963

Graviton guns as well. Don't forget the Graviton guns.

Mole Mortars and Thudd guns are squat invention so definitely need to be in.

They have to have Mole transports as well.

>>13496012
As the imperial tunnelers (also available to squats) do not feature in current IG anymore, why not use the Termite as their standard transport?

(Other option from old (Epic) units doable at 40k scale: Berserker battlecar.)

Or just force them to rely on mounted units (bikes, trikes) to range on the table and have their other infantry be all footslogging (defensive). This would also capture some of their old feel.

>>13495921
I love the look on the Commissar's face. It's like "Fuck, I hate being here, there's no cowards to shoot" He looks bored.

>>13496059

flak, save:5+. an option for carapace 4+ since non-gw models are intended to see potential use in the army

>>13496070
>They have to have Mole transports as well

Fucking easy: reverse drop pods.

Everyone seems to have forgotten the Chaos Squats. They are indistinguishable part of 40k fluff just like the loyalist Squats.

>>13496062

Distinguishing features? Heavy weapons everywhere, Slow & Purposeful. That's just as distinguishing as dwarfs in WFB.

>>13495921
>>13495685
They're not riding. Just coming out the top hatch.

>>13496112
Chaos squats were simply a conversion of the standard list, reducing a few stats (all of which would now fall under a -1 leadership) adding chaos mutations/rewards to squads and characters and letting them have 25% of the army in allies in chaos cultists, marines and orks.

>>13496134

But it'd fit, right?

Comprehensive unit list so far.
Special Units (Hq/command)
Ancestor Lord
Forward Observer
Fundamentalist
Grand Warlord
Hearthguard
Living Ancestor
Mechanist/ Mechpriest
Slayer
Slayer Champion
Warlord
Zutik Ratling Sniper

Infantry
Berserker
Bodyguards
Bodyguards (exo armor)
Burner/Furnace Lord
Expeditioners
Shortbeards
Stone Lord (grav gun team)
Stormer
Thunderer
Tunneler (Conversion beamer team)
Warrior
Engineer

>>13496252continued

Cavalry
Guild Biker
Guild Trike (various configs for heavy weapons on it)
Guild Master

Walkers
IG walker
Robots
Bomb bots
Light bots (fast combots designed to get into close combat and kill normal troops)
Medium Bots (medium all purpose combots, can be tasked as close combat, short, medium and long range weapons)
Heavy Bots (Heavy robots that carry heavy weapons)
Mining bots (hastily converted mining bots retasked to use a mix of weapons in combat)
Munitions bots (a bot that explodes into a minefield sort of like a clusterbomb)

(more to come)

>>13496252

why not divide the list into hq and elite/troops/fast/heavy?

>>13496306 continued

Vehicles
Ironhammer
Iron shield (heavy armored APC)
Land Raider
Retributor (mobile howitzer)
Rhino
Thunderfire cannon (a sort of squat version of a german 88, usable for artillery, AA, and direct fire)
Mole
Ram (up armored version of the mole)
Termite
Iron eagle gyrocopter (battle cannon armed)
Steel Hawk Gyrocoper (multi melta and rockets)
War Hawk Gyrocoper (guided missile armed)
Zutik Bomber (Melta rockets, Missiles and battlecannons

Battle cars for land trains
Berserker Battlecar
Bomb Battlecar
Buoy Battlecar
Cannon Battlecar
Carrier Battlecar
Dragon Battlecar
Fireshield Battlecar
Iron Eagle Battlecar
Morar Battlecar
Secondary engine
Skyhammer Battlecar

Reading all this, it looks like everyone is failing to make these guys tolerably beatable. You want to give them WS4 heavy assault troops along the lines of dwarf berserkers -and- access to more BS4 heavy weapons and tanks than anyone else.

If the only thing you're prepared to sacrifice is maneouvrability, you need to try harder.

Should I dump the squat pages again, or just put em in a rar for easy access?

>>13496349 still more
Light artillery
Mole Mortar
Rapier
Tarantula
Thudd Gun

Heavy Artillery
Goliath Mega cannon
Grudgekeeper
Light offboard barrage
Heavy offboard barrage

Fliers
Observation baloon
Overlord armored airship

Superheavies
Hearthlord SHMBT
Hellfury APC
Hellworm engine (landtrain variant)
Land train engine
Robot Command Vehicle

Praetorians
Behemoth
Capitol Imperialis
Colossus
Cyclops
Hellbore
Leviathan


That's all the units I'm aware of that have been used in Epic, netepic and 40k for squats.
The praetorians of course would be next to unusable for anything other than epic or Apoc. But I included them for completeness. Also expanded the robots out to logical roles and added the stone lords (grav guns)

I am not a huge fan of the 'drone army' myself, robots would be fine sure but I'd rather see them as a support choice than as mainline troops.

That leads to the question though: How is squat infantry really different from IG?

Do you think it is sufficient to give them T4 and high Ld? Or should there be something more?

>>13496168

Chaos Squats need sorcerers and Daemon Princes though, this also means inventing new psychic powers.

Unless we want them to suck like Ahriman and most of the Chaos Marine powers.

>>13496390
Dude, if you just ran down all the stuff marines get, you'd be saying the same thing. Except that Marines have even MORE options of stuff to get.
Right now we're still working on the concept. As in what will set them apart.

Placing restrictions and balancing them is when we get into the nitpicky stuff. First we have to establish a theme and backstory that makes them interesting.

As to the WS 4 and BS4 stuff. Chill. We're going to work stuff like that goes toward balance later. Right now settling on a theme and distinctive traits that make them a fun and interesting army that would attract players comes first.

>>13495921
The sunglasses-wearing rifleman (or w/e) looks absolutely positively badass.

>>13496413I am not a huge fan of the 'drone army' myself, robots would be fine sure but I'd rather see them as a support choice than as mainline troops.

Then suggest something. That's what we're starting with. Taking the old material, looking it over, and then trying to rework them as a race so that they are both unique and interesting to play. I tossed the Drone or Robot army thing out there just to get the ball rolling.
If you're not fond of the idea, you're perfectly justified in not being fond of it and welcome to offer up your ideas as well.


>>That leads to the question though: How is squat infantry really different from IG?

Exactly the problem we're trying to overcome. How to take the squats as a group and try to find a way to make them fresh and cool, and not lose that essential squatishness at the same time.

That's why we've got this whole thread going. So that we can toss out ideas and see what might surface.

>>13496413

Heavy Weapons. Heavy Weapons everywhere. And lack of maneuverability. These are distinctive features, I believe.

Squats are supposed to be more of a shooty army, I say. The WS4 and T4 and Sv5+ are supposed to help them not totally suck against real melee armies but should pose no threat to them.

Conversely, the Tau should be able to outshoot them.

>>13495921
When I see this pic, I wanna play pic related squats with a Deathkorp Commissar leading them.

http://olleysarmies.co.uk/scruntjuves.html

Robots, tarantulas, and rapiers could probably go together as one group of units: robotic weapons (either assault-y ones (robots) or shooty (the others)).

The easiest way would probably to do them as normal infantry-style units with good saves.

That would leave an option to perhaps do Exoarmor as vehicles (dread-style), to differentiate it from termies.

As for stats: I'd keep the entire army at WS 4 BS 3 - I think it's an interesting compromise to have a shooty army with high WS and helps with the defensive styling of the force.

>>13496433

If we can't agree on the basic trooper statline, we won't be able to agree on too much else.

As for why WS4? Pic related.

I always liked these power armors (I believe these are chaos squats though). Especially the uber-clunky look of the gear. Any way of implementing them in the list? Or are there already units like that?
They could have evolved from survival suits.

Possible robots or just a massive upgrade on the old exoskeleton?

Starship Troopers marauder suits if I remember right.

>>13496510Conversely, the Tau should be able to outshoot them

Do you mean "outshoot" in terms of accuracy? or in terms of outpowering them?

I'd agree on the accuracy thing, but strongly disagree on the issue of power.

Tau stuff LOOKS super futuristic. But the Imperial and Squat stuff has advanced to the point that it has ceased to care or need to look futuristic to do its job.

Squats are supposed to be the lords of the heavy weapons. Therefore having the Tau be more Effective in the Heavy Shooty department than them?... No. not gonna happen. Because doing that would take away from the whole point of them being the Heavy weapons specialists.

>>13496551

Here.

BS 3, however all of their weapons are twinlinked.

That would be lolz worthy for the fluff and on game.

>>13496544
just rip the old fucking stat line, whatever that was.

>>13496567
Then the Tau shtick would be what exactly?

>>13496613
infantry with long ranged rifles, battlesuits and railguns.

>>13496567

You misunderstand. You are looking at it from the fluff-side, not from the game-side. So let's assume a squat player plays against his friends who has Tau.

How is Tau supposed to win?

Surely not in close combat. So against the Tau, the Squats have to use Heavy Weapons cover fire to bring some squads to objective or enemy units to seal the deal.
The Tau otoh have to keep the Squats at distance and take advantage of their lack of maneuverability.

Or lack of numbers if we decide to go the "there is only a few squats left" route.

My 2 cents.

>>13496591

Ha! They already had the survival suit idea themselves I see. Shouldn't be surprised I guess with an army based on mining equipment.
Thanks for showing me.

tau are shoot and avoid melee by all means.

squat should be like: shoot if you can and only enter melee when really necessary.

one notch less shooty.

>>13496663
this.

>>13496544 If we can't agree on a basic stat block then no hope

Fine, let's start with the basic stat block and talk about it.

WS 3 BS4 S3 T4 W1 I2 A 1 LD9 Sv 5+

How does that sound for a base?

For berserkers or Hearth guard, elites whose job it might be to go into close combat or hold a place... WS4 BS3.

I'd like them to not only be heavy weapon-based, but also with this "mining" touch. So while one part of the army is busy bombing the enemy into oblivion, the other part should dig their way towards enemies and take them by surprise.
The idea of "reverse drop pods" might be interesting, or something like the tunnels of Skaven gutter runners.

>>13496606

Look at:
>>13495054

>How does that sound for a base?

Switch WS and BS and we are golden.

Have them be shooty by their equipment, not by their stats. (And have them be choppy via stats instead of equipment.)

>>13496639Or lack of numbers if we decide to go the "there is only a few squats left" route.

That's what we've been saying.

Squats: Quality of shots
Tau: Quantity of shots

Squats hit less, but harder.
Tau hit more, but softer.

>>13496687
sounds alright to me.
also, was there ever a timeline sorted out for the codex?

>>13496663

>shoot if you can and only enter melee when really necessary

You mean Eldar.

Guys!
Guys, guys!

Motorbikes!

Guys.

Morbikes with...

...Hold it...

... motorbikes with chainsaws attached!

>>13496726
Fine by me. I'm just tossing out ideas. What do others think about it?

Should the base trooper for Squats be choppier, or shootier?

I'm not of any one preference myself, there's equally good reasons for both sides of the argument the way I see it.

>>13496748

Percentage-wise I think there will be plenty of old-timers who'll use the book and fewer people who'll start a new 40K army because of it, I think. The first group will not understand why their old squats are now better at shooting than chopping.

Another thing: Seeing that squat heavy weapons in the illustrations where mostly hv bolters or multimeltas, how about using that 'divide' at more instances in the list? I.e. have units/weapon be big on specialisation rather than generalist (so, your Thunderers can either be anti-infantry or anti-tank, but you cannot give them something like missile launchers to be somewhat capable at both).

>>13496730 Timeline?

Yeah there is a squat timeline.
Also I found this http://www.mediafire.com/?eo49chdzazp2phn
Ironmonger's newest squat codex. It'd pretty good actually. Done back in 2008

So there's plenty of fluff to read.

The thing is, we need to figure out how they survived the Nid attack, whether there even was on, (maybe the nid attack was actually a cover of a covert "cleansing" that the Inquisition tried to carry out) Why the nids attacked them in the first place (I suggested that the Imperium betrayed the Squats and found a way to lure the Hive fleet into the galactic core area to get rid of the Squats) How did the squats escape to become the Demiurge and what are they doing now.

All this has real possibilities to spice up their background fluff.

>>13496802
Why not have it in the fluff that they were just chased out (adding specifics later if I have ideas) by the 'nids, but hint at your idea with evidence to suggest about the whole Inquisitorial plot thing (don't state it as fact, but make it hint at it GW style (so much it's glaringly obvious, or just plain confusing)).

>>13496773
Do it. Break thunderers up into various versions. Just because there is one entry on that list doesn't mean that there aren't variations within it. Show us your idea. Or go into the existing docs and see whats there and if you need to expand it, do so.

Grab an entry and run with it.

>>13496839

Or we leave the exact details of what happened open and just have it all be rumours.

Rumours say the were nearly wiped out by the nids, rumours say that the nids were led there, rumours say there were no nids at all just an inquisitorial death sentence.

>>13496802

Could just have it that this codex is for the squats who didn't get eaten.

Surely there must have been a planet somewhere which escaped?

>The thing is, we need to figure out how they survived the Nid attack

Simple, have the army based on the millions and millions that were out in imperial armies, trade ships, mines and so on. Have them pull together out of what was left, perhaps establish new homeworlds from colonies.

It should be very difficult to actually have them wiped out considering they were an integrated part of the Imperium. Just have them take time to pull back together.

>>13496839
But stating it as fact makes it even better. That way instead of still being able to ally with the Imperium, now they hate the Imperium too now. Seriously, the Imperium would do a dick move like that without hesitation.

But then again, maybe the Eldar gave the Imperium the device that was used to actually lure the Nids and planted the whole idea in the first place. Wouldn't that be just like them? Then they step in and help the Squats escape the nids, just to appear like the "good guys" to the Squats.

Let's have them flee the hive fleet and now return.

After all, their worlds were all barren rocks to begin with. When the squats left, there was no biomass for the nids to eat (apart from pesky ork squatters) and so the hivemind left the home worlds alone.

The squats (little scientific geniuses that they are) knew of this, and planned the whole demiurge fleet venture to be a circle route from the beginning.

Now, they return to their ancestral places, just to find them crawling with all manners of undesirables (from the usual orks, to filthy admech explorators, to nid rearguard organisms).

Tada - all set for war on all fronts. Integrating old fluff, the nids, the demiurge, and on top of it giving the 'new' squats good reasons to use all the old stuff from the 'old' squats (because they are right back where they started out).

>>13496885
I'd blame the Admech guys tbh. If anyone is going to be a direct rival, they would be.

>>13496728
You want them to shoot harder than Tau whose signature weapon is S10 AP1 and base infantry weapon is S5 AP5?
How much harder can it get?

>>13496898
I actually really like this idea. What's everybody else's thoughts on it?

>>13496854

My thinking is this: the normal troop choice of Squats should be bristling in Heavy Weapons, right? Especially the Heavy Bolter which Squats supposedly love.

So what would a Heavy Weapons squad be for Squats? What sprung to my mind was Tarantulas, Mole Mortars, Thundefire Cannons perhaps.

So I don't understand the concept of Thunderers.

>>13496922
Perhaps a better idea might be:

Long range firepower: disruptive barrage stuff, thudd guns, graviton guns, mole mortars.

Short range firepower: the actual hard hitting stuff. Meltas and so on.

>>13496932

Ayup. And the real organization behind it was the Admech because of the Squats tech mastery. The Squats don't know it and now wage war against anyone and anything they suspect responsible.

>>13496932
>>13496898
Seems like an interesting idea, but it doesn't explain yet why the 'nids came there in the first place. Personally, I don't think that the Inquisition would do something like that, I'd blame it on Eldar or AdMech. Or it was a chaos squat ritual that attracted the wrong forces. Actually, I like this idea.

One thing I did in DH when I used the demiurg is give them "glyphs", rune-type symbols that worked on a memetic level to enhance or alter equipment. I thought that felt a bit more dwarfy than just repainted psykers, though glyphmasters did use psychic enhancement to create or use the most powerful symbols.

>>13496932
I'm cool with it. It's as good an idea as any. Maybe we should have a vote or something once we have an actual list of people willing to work on this.

I'd suggest stealing a name from one of the people working on the codexes from GW for a working name.

I'll be "Matt Ward", since I'm kinda the instigator of this idea and take the least favorite name of all.

Then when we have a vote to determine what the fluff points are, we can just vote and let majority rule?

>>13496976
but the admech loved the squats

>>13496986

As a side note, in the free Deathwatch RPG mission Final Sanction, the players in the end find eveidence that a then dead Inquisitor found out that somebody lured the nids to attack the planet the mission was set on.

So this isn't a so unique plot and I expect FFG to elaborate on it.

That said, I'd love to see Adeptus Mechanicus involvement.

>>13497017

I am willing to become CS Goto. Or Bryan Ansell.

>>13496802

good dig (no pun intended) but we can do better.

>>13497021
And they loved being the sole monopolizers of technology more.

Seriously, I would actually play 40K if squats were a supported army.

>>13497014
Interesting. So are these glyphs like physical programs or USBs, or do they unlock restricted abilities, or are they just plain machines that run on psychic phenomenon like the Malleus Psycannon?

>>13497289

nanite dispensor modules perhaps?

>>13497298
Huh, if squats had nanomachines that were completely under their control, that would make them one of the most technologically advanced races in 40K. And it's probably Heretek to make it too.

If squats still have Medic units like back in the old days, Nanomachines could explain how fast they work. They could also allow the techpriest stand-ins to give vehicles regeneration...

>>13497369

not under their control, only in their possession? anyway, just an idea that popped up. the thing about nanites is that they would work with about any tek. pop the thing on and the nanites creep in and rewire the inside to work more efficiently.

otherwise why would the glyph work no matter what it was hammered onto?

anyway i am not married to the idea.

> kabledic avoid

avoid it at all costs, little squat.

>>13497046
Okay, vote time.
The Fluff is that the nids attacked the Squats and ate them. However there are some problems with this.
1. Nids go after biomass which the Squat homeworlds are NOT rich in. They are planets near the galactic center and thus are hot barren worlds of iron with magma running like rivers.
2. It's an amazing coincidence that a whole fleet of nids didn't just attack one or two worlds, but all of the Squat homeworlds pretty much at once.

This smacks of someone arranging it.

So let's vote on WHO is responsible. Then we can narrow it down.
1. The Imperium did it!
2. The Orks did it!
3. The Tau did it!
4. Chaos did it!
5. The Eldar did it!
6. The Necrons/C'tan did it!
7. The Squats did it to themselves?

Okay, clearly some of these options are lame, but if someone has a brilliant idea, far be it from me to say no.

If we go Imperium did it, then we can hammer out the details as we go. It'd be enough to say that they did it.

As to the how... Maybe they kidnapped some larva off one of the motherships in the swarm, like a queen larva or something brain bugish. The Swarm goes after the kidnappers and the culprits use drop pods to land the larva on the squat homeworlds. Instant Nid bait to attract them. Then once they're there, the nids just attack.

Either that or maybe someone figured out some sort of psychic nid attraction device. If it's activated it draws nids like flies to honey. Soft land a few of those on the Squat homeworlds... mission accomplished.

>otherwise why would the glyph work no matter what it was hammered onto?

Stable warp-infused technologies.

After all, the guild are the only ones to perfect warp-core reactors, are they not?

So just have them use the warptech stuff the admech is so afraid of.

And/or let it tie into their ancestor worship/guiding ancestor spirits.

Probably it's a combination of those.

>>13497450
I, Matt Ward, vote; 1. The Imperium did it!

The Squats had discovered that they had a long lost STC template archive containing so much lost tech that publication of it would have ruined the Admech and plunged the Imperium back into a dark age of technology. It was our duty to stop them. That and the stunty little buggers kept sneaking into my underpants drawers at night and stealing my fresh clean underware.

>>13497450

The halflings did it.

Seriously, I have no idea and am abstaining from the vote. That part of the fluff is the least interesting to me AS IT SHOULD HAVE NEVER HAPPENED TO BEGIN WITH.

Do with it what you think is the most fun, guys.

But don't forget the
> ponony fon

First of all i need to say that YOU are the best fucking board ever /tg/, so far im liking the idea about the nids "wiping" em off, and it would make sense why the squats survived, but then again that will up to ye fellas to decide.

Never change /tg/

The Chaos Squats did it. (does this count as "They did it unto themselves."?)

'nids still did it

GW even said.

They were forced underground and regained in strength until they could take back the surface again

>>13496898
This guy has the fluff and the old vs. new problems solved. Move on. Write the codex.

>>13497450

Leave it out. Focus on the survivors, their talk of 'The Devouring", and the way each faction blames some other race or faction or tactic for the decimation of the Squats.

>>13497559

Yes, this pleases Bryan Goto too.

>>13497559
Seconded; this sounds good.

>>13497600
After thinking about it, I second this. More reasons to fight/collaborate for a short time with everyone.

How to attract the nids? Unload a trail of Genestealers and Lictors in systems and shit hits the fan?

>>13497450
I vote for the Tau doing it, staging the death of the Squats so the Squats could secretly ally themselves with the Tau under the name of the Demiurg.

If that's too stupid, then I vote Imperium, but with orders that didn't include the death of the homeworlds in it's plan, but turned out that way due to a. chaos dickery, b. inquisition dickery

>>13497636

Bryan Goto thirds this.

For some reason (which?) the squats manage to pack up bags and flee, they fly a large circle and return. They cleanse their homeworlds and are now thirsty for bloody, bloody revenge.

But who to blame for luring the nids? Some say the Imperium, some say Admech (Squats vs Admech woo-hoo!), some say the Eldar. The heated debate went even so far that some squat factions went to war with each other (thus justifying squat vs squat battles or even Admech allies if some player want to maintain good relations with them).

>>13497651

Essentially yea, genestealers form cults on words they infect and create a horde of mutant hybrids. They broadcast a low level psychic signal until they build up enough power that the hive fleets pick up the beacon that this world is ripe for harvest. The cults weaken the planet from within and show which worlds are weakest

oh man, i want to make an army of these dudes.

yep, thats a cyber war bear.

Okay, sounds good. Then the concensus is... Someone did it(attracted the nids) but noone knows who.

Maybe say that the only evidence was some drop pods of unknown make, possibly alien in construction. Clearly whomever did it doesn't want their identity to be known, but rumors abound. That it was the Imperium, that it was the Chaos Squats, the Eldar, possibly even the Orks. All that is known is that someone used something that attracted the Nids.

Fortunately there was time to respond. The Squats embarked on huge mining ships that had been built to carry squats offworld in the event of a world being trapped in a warp storm for too long. These were the Demiurge. Leaving the nids to scour their homeworlds clean of orks and other infestations, the Demiurge embarked on a circular path of travel around the inner core, picking up survivors where they could and surveying new planets and dropping seed ships to establish new strongholds . They took the lack of imperial response to the invasion of their space by the nids to be an admission of possible involvement and cut off ties to the Imperium.

The Squat fleet eventually circled back around to their homeworlds, which the nids had scoured clean and left... leaving behind only a token few of their kind to check for any hidden pockets of biowealth. The Demiurge ships landed once more and reclaimed their homeworlds, only now, they stand alone, while those responsible for nearly destroying them lurk somewhere in the stars. Was it the Imperium, was it some alien race striking from the shadows. Noone knows, yet. But as always, the Squats will endure and overcome them and their treachery.

welp guys, generally what i am seeing in this thread is make them tough, make them miners, make them what they are

my suggestion is, why not make them a slow moving demolition type army

give them good toughness and focus their weaponry on demo charges and rocket launchers

give the bulk of the infantry not lasguns but what are being suggested as heavy ordnance, except for the bulk
>>13495216
>>13495227
are nice, as well as the nail rifle i saw earlier


and give them shotguns if that isn't already a sweet theme goin for them

>>13494279
As an outsider, someone who doesn't play 40k, but reads these threads....


Why the fuck are the Squats gone again? Yeah their homeworld is gone, but you can't tell me there aren't pockets of them that weren't there. Here or there.

Couldn't there have been Squats off on different planets somewhere?

Wouldn't the Squats have, (with the whole space travel and everything), realize that having every last squat ever on ONE planet is a really bad idea?

Why squats actually died:

http://www.40konline.com/community/index.php?topic=70533.0

List of available squat minatures:

http://wk.frothersunite.com/sc/spacedwarf/spacedwarf.htm

>>13497910

much of this must remain optional. one central design goal must be allow players with the old minis (which have lasguns and heavy bolters, etc) to play with the new rules.

anything hillarious and extra-cool must be on top of this as gear options and so on.

>>13497916

They didn't sell.

>>13497958
precisely, give them cheap ass wargear options and perhaps a nerf to the range of the weapons (i dont know the codex or anything, just suggesting my help) plus it is easy as hell to glue a grenade or something to his hip

>>13497958
Except you can't GET the old minis.

Why not focus the dex on the stuff you can get?

>>13497916
Terrible sales because they were a poorly executed concept.

Many 40k races were poorly executed concepts but sold well enough to warrant further development. Squats did not.

Technically, they survive as Demiurg that hang around the Tau regions of space.

> 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.

Nothing stopping you except GW employees.

> Painers warrants

>>13497910

for the record: in the old fluff the squat squads all had frag, crack and meltabombs. Sounds like a wrecking ball commando to me.

>>13497960
Bollocks did they. They sold as well as the SoB do now.

Read this, and next time, actually read up on the topic.
http://www.40konline.com/community/index.php?topic=70533.0

How many people will start an entire squat army based on our codex?

I find the concept of having the basic equipment based on the old fluff with enough options to replace with gear for current models best of both worlds.

>>13498025

Except I don't buy it.

>>13498056
So? You're just some random git on the internet, whereas GW have trotted out there version of events repeatedly and have little reason to lie about.

>>13497910
here
>>13498048
i will i have ideas and love to do conversions... i just hate painting...

possible to use ork arms and just shave them down a bit and replace the hands with ig or sms

>>13497916
>Why the fuck are the Squats gone again?

Because GW said that Squats sucked, that they couldn't make them interesting or playable, and that instead of asking outsiders for new ideas they just said "Oh... the nids ate them" and gave thousands of fans who HAD bought squat figures the finger and told them "you can't play those figures in our tourney's as squats anymore".

>>Yeah their homeworld is gone, but you can't tell me there aren't pockets of them that weren't there. Here or there.

There are, but not like on their homeworlds. And pockets of them don't provide enough numbers to make a playable racial army.

>>Couldn't there have been Squats off on different planets somewhere?Wouldn't the Squats have, (with the whole space travel and everything), realize that having every last squat ever on ONE planet is a really bad idea?

That's the thing, they weren't all on one planet, but GW had given up on trying to figure out how to make them awesome and crank them up to 11 like they had the other races and said "umm yeah the nids hit every squat world at once". That and partially because back in 1e and 2e the game designers were all about doing "in-jokes" and not being grimdark and stuff so the jokey squats didn't "fit" with 40k's new image. Instead they had Squats portrayed as cigar chewing biker dudes with big beards. (Sort of squished down versions of ZZ top) which sucked. And thus didn't sell well.

We're trying to create a rework of the whole concept and make them playable, interesting, and unique enough to attract genuine interest in playing them. Then blame the whole project on Matt Ward.

Basically to show /tg/ can get shit done and do what they said couldn't be done. A good reintroduction of the Squats that make them a playable and fun race for 40k. That or just a lark for the hell of it.

>>13498078

Well, if that's what I am, so are you - so what's the point? I don't believe that story, I think it's sales-based, that's it.

On with the programme.

I can sort of see why they took them out. Space elves you can get away with - the idea of an ancient, wise, yet dying race is a familiar one is sci-fi.

But the moment you put space dwarves into your setting it immediately makes it into a parody of fantasy. It's just a step too far.

>>13498025

Do you know anyone who bought SoB?

> That and partially because back in 1e and 2e the game designers were all about doing "in-jokes" and not being grimdark and stuff so the jokey squats didn't "fit" with 40k's new image. Instead they had Squats portrayed as cigar chewing biker dudes with big beards. (Sort of squished down versions of ZZ top) which sucked. And thus didn't sell well.

Yet they kept the Orks? Uh-huh, that makes like totally sense. Because the Orks are totally grimdark and haven't remained silly caricatures of "real" orcs?

Orks are loved because they are silly. Just as dwarfs/squats are loved for their silly rough and tough guy act.

As far as I am concerned our squats can't get enough bang. Demolitions is on the right track. It can't make BOOM loud enough.

And as real tough guys make up rules for riding up on a rhino.

>>13498175

Orks!!!?!?!???!??!!!

obligatory

demiurg concept sketch

look to be more like gnomes than dwarves

>>13498223

Orks feel different somehow. They're alien enough. But you have humans, and space elves, and now space dwarves, people are gonna notice that this is just a generic fantasy setting in space with an extra helping of grimdark.

>>13498267

I can see that. Pic related.

>>13498215
I'm not disagreeing with you. Orks are silly caricatures of rowdy football hooligans. (just look at how they're characterized as talking) I'm just explaining how GW thinks about Squats. That their name is silly, they didn't take them seriously, and that they essentially gave up on them because they didn't know how to make them fit.

/tg/ however, look at all the ideas that we're throwing out there that would genuinely make them fun and interesting to play.

>u go go buddhists

Captcha is being interesting today

needs moar ZZTop

>>13498285

They should have just rolled with it. Squats are cool after all. Where Orks are hooligans, I see Squats more as gritty, bearded war veterans that like to blow up stuff. Repeatedly. Especially if it's Orks.

Anyway can we get a vote on WS 4 or BS 4? I vote for WS 4. It fits the old fluff and gives a nice twist of having a shooty army that hasn't maxed BS but WS.

Squats are a bit hard to give a flavor to. The only real significant difference between them and humans is that they are short. I mean, that's not much to work with.

Well I gotta take a break from posting for a bit (things to do) I look forward to see what /tg/ gets done while I'm away.

>>13498347
BS 3 means that the Squats can be absolutely brimming with heavy weapons. If you bump them up to BS 4, you're going to have to cut back a little in the name of balance.

On the other hand, it seems difficult to justify why they have such high WS, while a high BS seems reasonable.

On the third hand (kill the mutant) ws 4 bs 3 is more in keeping with the old statline, which is something we should strive for.

I'm for WS 3 BS 4

>>13498347 WS 4 BS 3 vote?

I think we all kinda agreed WS 4 BS 3 a while back.

>>13496726Switch WS and BS and we are golden.
Have them be shooty by their equipment, not by their stats. (And have them be choppy via stats instead of equipment.)

>>13496748 Fine by me

This way they are shooty by equipment not stats and hard as fuck to get rid of once they have claimed a tactical objective.

Or do we need a vote for it?

> WS 3?

HEY HO, HEY HO
TO THE BATTLEFIELD WE GO
WITH RAZOR BLADES
AND HAND GRENADES
HEY HO, HEY HO

>>13498439
BS is a lot lower in Fantasy (BS4 is basically characters-only), and old 40K was a bit weird that way also. I would go WS3 BS4 or WS4 BS4.

If you want to give them lots of heavy weapons, just tone down the stats on those guns. Letting four guys pick a Heavy 3 S4 AP4 gun isn't really broken, all things considered. It's mostly the high-str/low-AP guns that you need to limit.

>>13498616

We're about to give the Squats Slow & Purposeful though, which means they can move and shoot the Heavies.

The basic army philosophy right now is: shooty but not as shooty as Tau, can do a bit of close combat too, if charged. That is the niche we are aiming for right now.

That's where WS4 and T4 would come in handy. And shooty because of the sheer amount of firepower a basic squad should bring to the table.

Gentlemen, if the codex is being attributed to Mat Ward, his name should at least be spelled correctly

So mechanically we have agreed on a slow, heavy weapons army. How is this for a basic layout?
Hq:
Warlord - combat character
Ancestor lord - psyker or support
Guildmaster - basicly a techmarine

Elites
Exo-suit squad - 2-3 plus save, linebacker squad or deepstrike
Thunderer Squad - High ap or high at
Tyranic war Veterans - access to bolters with hellfire rounds

Troops
Warrior squad - basic infantry, 1 or 2 heavy weapons
Engineer squad - similar to ia krieg engineers (inc hades drill)
Spotting team - one per warrior squad, off-map artillary or boosted accuracy for on map guns

Fast attack
gyrocopter - basicly a vulture gunship
Bike squad -squats on bikes, reaction unit, objectivr taker
Heavy trike - large weapon on a single trike like a conversion beamer
Sentinal squadron - same as ig

Heavy support
Heavy weapons squad -4 or 5 heavy weapons
Thudd gun battery
Thunderfire gun
Land raider spartian - ed 2 land raider, give special rules

land train and ordinatus for apoc

What do you guys think?

>>13499494
I'd suggest replace thudd guns with mole mortar, and add in termite boarding drills in Apoc, and look at creating a number of drilling/mining/industrial-based items for vehicles to tie into the miner style.

>>13499529 replace thudd guns with mole mortars.

Dude, thudd guns AND mole mortars were invented by the squats. In fact they originally required that squats were used to man them . You did know this, right?

Troop: Squat Hearthguard,

WS:4 BS:3 S:3 T:4 I:2 A:1 Ld:8

Standard Equipment: Furnace Rifle, CCW & Krak grenades.

Up to 4 members of the unit may upgrade to Heavy Bolter, Meltagun, Gravaton Gun or Demolition Pack.

The entire squad may pay X to be equipped with meltabombs.

Slow and Purposeful.

Furnace Rifle (need more awesome name) 18" S:3 AP:4 Rapid Fire. - Fluffed out as the bastard child of a lasgun and a mining cutting laser.

Graviton Gun: 24" S6 AP5 Heavy 1. Any unit hit counts as in difficult terrain during their next movement phase.

>>13499529

Sounds good. Perhaps a leman russ/chimera variant, it makes sense considering its a standard stc design for a dickload of civilian vehicles.
or just add the option for melta cutters instead of a hull weapon to existing ig tanks

arnt mole mortars a standard heavy weapon?

For a good characteristic basis there was a squat that was a main character in a 40k book(inquisition war maybe) he was an excellent engineer and his vehicles of choice were bikes ( tri-cycles tobe praticular).

>>13499600
yes, I do, because I was a gamer when squats had'nt been squatted.

however, what you need for a good game design is characterisation, and the tunneling/underground mining feel of termites, mole mortar, and mining equipment is what's needed for a graphic design "family" of equipment to characterise the squats as being different to other IG units.

that's what's called "design". you do know that, right?

40k noob here,

What are squats? They look pretty cool but I have no clue what's their story... Anyone care to explain?

Well, I'm going to get this started.
Living Ancestor/ Ancestor lord
WS 5 BS 5 S4 T 5 W 4 I 2 A 4 Ld 10 Sv 5+
70 pts

Composition 1 living ancestor
Unit type infantry
War gear :Flak armor, laspistol, force rod, psychic hood, frag and krak grenades
Special rules :Stuborn, Independent Character, Preferred Enemy:(special), Psyker, Slow and purposeful.

Psychic powers: A living ancestor has any two of the following (an ancestor lord has all 4)
Domination
Mental Fortress
Force Dome
Hammer of Fury

dedicated Transport:If the unit numbers 10 models of less the unit may be mounted in;
Termite +40 pts
Rhino +35 pts
Options Upgrade to Ancestor lord 50 pts
Replace las pistol with
Bolt pistol or bolter 1 pt
Flamer 3 pts
Plasma pistol/gun 15 pts
Power Fist 25 pts
Power Sword 15 pts
Storm Bolter 3 pts
Thunder Hammer 30 pts

Mount in a sidecar with a guildmaster trike 18 pts

>>13499839
Hammer of Fury
A Living Ancestor may use Hammer of Fury as a psychic shooting attack, or
at the beginning of an assault phase. Place the large blast marker so that the
centre of the marker is directly over the Living Ancestor. Any enemy model
touched by the marker takes a S5 hit with an AP of 5. In addition place the
models 1” directly away from the blast marker in a line from the marker’s
centre. Models moved in this manner must take a pinning test.
Mental Fortress
The Living Ancestor and all friendly models within 12” of the Living
Ancestor gain a 5+ invulnerable save against any damage done by a psychic
shooting attack until the end of the opposing players following turn.
Domination
A Living Ancestor may use Domination as a psychic shooting attack with a
range of 12”. The target unit must take a leadership test at -2 (see
Characteristic Tests in the Warhammer 40,000 rulebook). If the unit fails the
test they cannot move, run, shoot, assault or use any psychic powers until
the end of the opposing player’s following turn.
Force Dome
A Living Ancestor may use Force Dome as a psychic shooting attack with a
range of 24”. Place a marker by the affected unit. That unit is automatically
pinned (even if that unit were normally immune to pinning), gains a 4+
invulnerable save, and cannot be assaulted. Monstrous Creatures and any
unit larger then twelve models cannot be targeted with Force Dome.

>>13499811however, what you need for a good game design is characterisation, and the tunneling/underground mining feel of termites, mole mortar, and mining equipment is what's needed for a graphic design "family" of equipment to characterise the squats as being different to other IG units.

Dude, that's the THINNEST excuse for an... excuse I think I've ever seen.

You're actually suggesting that we shouldn't use thudd guns because they aren't part of a "mining" theme? Land trains aren't mining related, are you suggesting those should be counted out too? How about the Iron Eagle gyrocopters? Shoot, Land raiders and rhinos aren't mining related, maybe ditch those too.
I'm full well aware of what goes into good game design, and overly simplistic, chuckle headed thinking is generally not something that goes into good game design.

How has this thread not been candle-you-know-whoe'd into oblivion by the squat-killing boogeymen? Has /tg/ finally broken the longstanding curse?

>>13499839

I like where your going but its a little overkill you think?
I wrote one up myself but I cant be fucked typing it on a phone, ill post it if this up when I get home

>>13499821 what are squats

When 40k came out in the 80's (Rogue Trader was 1e) the various fantasy races of Human, Elf, Ork, and Dwarf were converted to Sci fi equivalents.
Human knights became Space Marines
Elves became the Eldar
Orks became... space orks.
and Dwarves became the Squats.

Over time things like the undead became the Necrons and the Squats (because they didn't sell well and because GW has a lack of imagination) gradually got forgotten by the people at GW. Eventually they grew tired of all the "when are you going to give us a new Squat codex" questions at cons and GW killed off the Squats claiming they couldn't come up with a way to do them justice and keep them interesting and unique, and said that the Tyranids ate them.

Hope that helps.

Its been noted on multiple occasions that squats enjoy orgyns, any chance for them being ork friendly?

>>13499978like where your going but its a little overkill you think?

If we're going to do this like a genuine Codex, why fuck around? Do it right the first time. Like a boss.

>>13499993Its been noted on multiple occasions that squats enjoy orgyns, any chance for them being ork friendly?

Not likely at all. Squats hate orks because of the great ork invasions they've suffered.

However, in the Living ancestor entry above, notice I put the Preferred enemy special rule?
I'm thinking that since we don't know who the people are that lured the nids into Squat space are, that each clan will have various "Grudge feuds" declared on who they think is responsible.
Thus a clan can declare Orks or Eldar or whomever to be their preferred enemy and get bonuses in game for fighting them. (make it a dice roll thing so that you can't just choose who it is based on what your opponent chooses to play.

>>13499973
Yes, we're breaking the curse through /tg/ getting things done.

>>13499989
Squats were killed off because they were the brainchild of GW's THAT GUY.

When THAT GUY left, GW looked at the Squats and for multiple reasons they stopped to continue the Squats, and yes, for some part that was probably because THAT GUY was a bloody fuckin' cunt.

>>13500106 Squats killed off because they were a brainchild of THAT GUY.

Here's the wiki comment on the why
A statement on why the Squats were dropped was given by games designer Jervis Johnson on 28 July 2004. In a Squat-themed thread on a popular Warhammer 40,000 message board, he posted an official response to the Squat Question. Summarizing, Johnson said the race was removed from the Warhammer 40,000 universe for the following reasons:

* The designers felt that they "had failed to do the Dwarf 'archetype' justice in its 40K incarnation", and that the Squats were more of a joke race.
* There existed a design disparity with the Warhammer 40,000 and the Epic-scale renditions of the race, which prevented there being a cohesive vision of the race.
* Despite the efforts of the design team, they were unable to think up ways to revitalize the concept

Finished an pre-alpha list, will post it once im home

>>13500106

When you say THAT GUY, who do you refer to?

HQ
0-1 Warlord

WS BS S T W I A Ld Sv
6 4 3 4 3 3 3 9 5+

Wargear:
-Flak Armour
-Bolt Pistol
-Close Combat Weapon
-Frag Grenades

Options:
-Power Weapon 10pts
-Power Fist 15pts
-Plasma Pistol 5pts
-Krak Grenades 2pts
-Meltabombs 5pts
-Carapace Armour 5pts
-Squat Trike 20pts

Special Rules:
-Independent Character
-Warmaster: units within 12’ of the Warlord are Stubborn. Also No 0-1 on Tyranid War Vets

OR

0-1 Ancestor Lord

WS BS S T W I A Ld Sv
5 4 3 4 3 3 2 10 5+

Wargear:
-Flak Armour
-Psychic Hood
-Bolt Pistol
-Close Combat Weapon
-Frag Grenades

Options:
-Power Weapon 10pts
-Power Fist 15pts
-Force Weapon 25pts
-Plasma Pistol 5pts
-Krak Grenades 2pts
-Meltabombs 5pts
-Carapace Armour 5pts
-Squat Trike 20pts

Special Rules:
-Independent Character
-Psyker: The Ancestor Lord has 2 psychic powers
Hammer of fury: R: 24’ S: 4 AP: - Pinning, Large Blast
Any affected squads count their next movement phase as being in difficult terrain.
Mental Fortress: If successful, all friendly models within 12’ of the Ancestor gain a
5+ Invun save against psychic attacks until the players next turn.
-Keeper of Honour: All units within 18’ of the ancestor Lord may re-roll leadership tests.

HQ
OR

0-1 Engineer Guildmaster

WS BS S T W I A Ld Sv
5 4 3 4 3 3 3 10 3+

Wargear:
-Power Armour
-Servo-Arm
-Bolt Pistol
-Close Combat Weapon
-Frag Grenades

Options:
-Power Weapon 10pts
-Power Fist 15pts
-Plasma Pistol 5pts
-Krak Grenades 2pts
-Meltabombs 5pts
-Servo-harness 30pts
-Squat Trike 20pts

Special Rules:
-Independent Character
-Blessing of the Omnissiah
-Keeper of the Forge: The limit on Exo-Suit Squads and Heavy Trike Squads is removed.

Command Group
If a character is not mounted on a bike he may be accompanied by a command group and forfeits the Independent Character Rule.

WS BS S T W I A Ld Sv
Squat 4 3 3 4 1 2 1 7 5+
Master 4 4 3 4 2 3 3 9 5+

1 Forgemaster
4 Squats

Wargear:
-Flak Armour
-Lasgun
-Close Combat Weapon
-Frag Grenades

Options:
Master
-Power Weapon 10pts
-Laspistol free
-Bolter/Bolt Pistol 2pts
-Plasma Pistol 5pts
Melta Bombs 5pts
Squad
-Krak Grenades 2pts per model
-Carapace Armour 5pts per model
2 of the following:
-Grenade Launcher 5 pts
-Meltagun 10pts
-Plasma Gun 15pts
-Heavy Bolter 20pts
-Missile Launcher 25pts
-Multi-Melta 30pts

Elites
0-1 Exo-Suit Squad

WS BS S T W I A Ld Sv
Squat 4 3 3 4 1 2 1 8 2+
Sergeant 4 3 3 4 1 2 1 8 2+

1 Sergeant
4 Squats

Wargear:
-Exo-Suit Armour
-Bolter
-Power Weapon
-Frag Grenades

Options:
+5 Squats xxpts per model
Sergeant
Melta Bombs 5pts
Squad
-Krak Grenades 2pts per model

Thunderer Squad (needs filling still)

WS BS S T W I A Ld Sv
Squat 4 3 3 4 1 2 1 8 5+
Sergeant 4 3 3 4 1 2 1 8 5+

1 Sergeant
9 Squats

Wargear:
-Flak Armour
-Lasgun
-Close Combat Weapon
-Frag Grenades

Options:
Sergeant
-Power Weapon 10pts
-Laspistol free
-Bolter/Bolt Pistol 2pts
-Melta Bombs 5pts
Squad
-Krak Grenades 2pts per model
-Carapace Armour 5pts per model

0-1 Tyranic War Veteran Squad

WS BS S T W I A Ld Sv
Veteran 4 3 3 4 1 3 2 8 4+

5 Veterans

Wargear:
-Carapace Armour
-Bolter
-Close Combat Weapon
-Frag Grenades

Options:
+5 Squats xxpts per model
Sergeant
-Power Weapon 10pts
-Bolter/Bolt Pistol free
-Plasma Pistol 5pts
-Storm Bolter 15pts
-Melta Bombs 5pts

Squad
-Krak Grenades 2pts per model

Special Rules:
Hellfire Rounds:
Preferred Enemy: Tyranids

Troops
Warrior Squad

WS BS S T W I A Ld Sv
Squat 4 3 3 4 1 2 1 7 5+
Sergeant 4 3 3 4 1 2 1 7 5+

1 Sergeant
9 Squats

Wargear:
-Flak Armour
-Lasgun
-Close Combat Weapon
-Frag Grenades

Options:
Sergeant
-Power Weapon 10pts
-Laspistol free
-Bolter/Bolt Pistol 2pts
-Melta Bombs 5pts
Squad
-Krak Grenades 2pts per model
2 of the following:
-Grenade Launcher 5 pts
-Meltagun 10pts
-Plasma Gun 15pts
-Heavy Bolter 20pts
-Missile Launcher 25pts
-Multi-Melta 30pts

Engineer Squad

WS BS S T W I A Ld Sv
Squat 4 3 3 4 1 2 1 7 5+
Sergeant 4 3 3 4 1 2 1 7 5+

1 Sergeant
9 Squats

Wargear:
-Flak Armour
-Lasgun
-Close Combat Weapon
-Frag Grenades
-Krak Grenades

Options:
Sergeant
-Power Weapon 10pts
-Laspistol free
-Bolter/Bolt Pistol 2pts
-Melta Bombs 5pts

>>13500062
Really should be hating tyranids by default, with the option to hate orks, eldar or imperial forces.

Probably not hate tau or chaos though. chaos squats yes, but chaos like tau would rather absorb than destroy.

On a question to all though, just how are we feeling about the trikes? personally I've always felt they worked better in EPIC (like every other light vehicle ever, but then in every edition its a better game than 40k) but there are plenty of good light armoured vehicles out there like sci-fi halftracks and so on that could feasibly operate under the same or similar rules for the mobile fire support element. Really though if any element was going to be got rid of for the sake of a more cohesive whole, trikes would be it.

In the case of off-board barrage, could we have this, simply as a 'arrives on this turn in this area' thing rather than a targeted effect.

>>13502237
Are you calling for the elimination of the Living Ancestor? The reason I ask is that you're downgrading the Ancestor lord significantly from the old one.

Living Ancestors are weaker versions of Ancestor lords. They have 2 psychic powers where Ancestor lords have historically had 4.
Also Ancestor Lords should preclude the use of non squat forces in the army list.

So if you have a Living ancestor in the army, you can have other races in the army. But if you have an ancestor lord, you can't.

Troops cont

Spotting Team
Max 1 per Warrior/Engineer Squad

WS BS S T W I A Ld Sv
Squat 4 3 3 4 1 2 1 7 5+

3 Squats

Wargear:
-Flak Armour
-Lasgun
-Close Combat Weapon
-Frag Grenades

Options:
+2 Squats xxpts per model

Special Rules:
Infiltrate
Spotters: May spot for off map artillery: R: 36’ (spotter) S: 9 AP: 3 Ordinance Barrage, Large Blast
Or half scatter for on map gun. R: 36’ (spotter)

Fast Attack
Hades Breaching Drill

BS Fr Sd Rr Type
Hades 3 Tank

Wargear:
Melta-Cutter
Power-Cutter

Special Rules:
“Deep Strike” 2 Squads

Iron Eagle Gyrocopter

BS Fr Sd Rr Type
Gyrocopter 3 11 10 10 Skimmer

Wargear:


Options:


Special Rules:


Attack Trike Squad

WS BS S T W I A Ld Sv
Squat 4 3 3 4(5) 1 2 1 7 5+

1 Sergeant
4 Squats

Wargear:
-Flak Armour
-(Bike: Twin-Linked Bolter)
-Lasgun
-Close Combat Weapon
-Frag Grenades

Options:
+5 Squats xxpts per model
Sergeant
-Power Weapon 10pts
-Laspistol free
-Bolter/Bolt Pistol 2pts
-Melta Bombs 5pts
Squad
Any bike may take 1:
Heavy Bolter 5pts
Multi-Melta 15pts
Plasma Cannon 20pts

Special Rules:
-Gyro-Stabilised: May move and fire heavy weapons.

Heavy Trike

WS BS S T W I A Ld Sv
Squat 4 3 3 4(6) 1 2 1 7 5+

1-3 Heavy Trikes

Wargear:
-Flak Armour
-(Bike: Twin-Linked Bolter)
-(Bike: Twin-Linked Heavy Bolter)
-Close Combat Weapon
-Frag Grenades

Options:
Any bike may take 1:
Twin-Linked Missile Launcher 5pts
Twin-Linked Plasma Cannon 10pts
Conversion Beamer 20pts

Special Rules:
-Gyro-Stabilised: May move and fire heavy weapons (except conversion beamer).

Sentinel Squadron
See Codex: Imperial Guard
-Plasma Cannon: 20pts

Heavy Support
Heavy Weapons Squad

WS BS S T W I A Ld Sv
Squat 4 3 3 4 1 2 1 7 5+
Sergeant 4 3 3 4 1 2 1 7 5+

1 Sergeant
4 Squats

Wargear:
-Flak Armour
-Lasgun
-Close Combat Weapon
-Frag Grenades

Options:
+5 Squats xxpts per model
Sergeant
-Power Weapon 10pts
-Laspistol free
-Bolter/Bolt Pistol 2pts
-Melta Bombs 5pts
Squad
-Krak Grenades 2pts per model
4 of the following:
-Grenade Launcher 5 pts
-Meltagun 10pts
-Plasma Gun 15pts
-Heavy Bolter 20pts
-Missile Launcher 25pts
-Multi-Melta 30pts

Thudd Gun Battery
See Imperial Armour: Siege of Vracks
With squats...

Thunderfire Gun
See Codex: Space Marines
With squats...

0-1 Land Raider Spartan

BS Fr Sd Rr Type
Spartan 3 14 14 14 Tank

Wargear:
-Hull: Heavy Bolter
-Sponsons: Lascannon (2)
Pintle-Mount Bolter

Options:
Pintle-Mount Meltagun 10pts

Transport: 16

Special Rules:
Ancient Relic:
Land raider Achilles no-melta thingo...

>>13499494
I was looking through and was about to ask about the land trains. I remember reading an older version of Second Armageddon that mentioned the Squats bringing in some of those to turn the green tide, but don't really know what they do or what they're capable of. I have to assume they're intended as their version of a Baneblade, but I could be wrong.

>>13502310
>>13502334

Its only an extreme barebones (some units are basicly empty), but feel free to pick at it, anything to add/change, etc.

>>13502421
maybe if you strung a whole load of baneblades together.

>>13502421
Far better off as an apoc unit I figure, same with termites

So is there any good fan made "Squat" codex's that aren't space dorfs on bikes?

>>13502408

Bro, I appreciate your work. However I thought we had agreed that Squats have Ld 9 as basic value. Ties in with the stats in the old fluff.

Also Heavy Bolter is the favourite heavy weapon of squats. This should be cheaper, perhaps?

Okay, repost of dispatch's basic layout:

> Hq:
> Warlord - combat character
> Ancestor lord - psyker or support
> Guildmaster - basicly a techmarine

Except that it should read Living Ancestor - accepted.

> Elites
> Exo-suit squad - 2-3 plus save, linebacker squad or deepstrike
> Thunderer Squad - High ap or high at
> Tyranic war Veterans - access to bolters with hellfire rounds

Not sure about the Thunderer Squads. First they sound like WFB, secondly... this would be a good slot to do something completely new and hilarious. Maybe we should have a look at newer non-GW Space Dwarf models and come up with something fancy.

> Troops
> Warrior squad - basic infantry, 1 or 2 heavy weapons
> Engineer squad - similar to ia krieg engineers (inc hades drill)
> Spotting team - one per warrior squad, off-map artillary or boosted accuracy for on map guns

Just fine.

Fast attack
> gyrocopter - basicly a vulture gunship
> Bike squad -squats on bikes, reaction unit, objectivr taker
> Heavy trike - large weapon on a single trike like a conversion beamer
> Sentinal squadron - same as ig

Looks good too. Do we need the Sentinels?

> Heavy support
> Heavy weapons squad -4 or 5 heavy weapons
> Thudd gun battery
> Thunderfire gun
> Land raider spartian - ed 2 land raider, give special rules

> land train and ordinatus for apoc

Okay, general question: as for the mech with which theme do we roll? Robots? No or few tanks? Lots of artillery?

Personally I am undecided except that I'd love to see lots of heavy weapon teams with mole mortars, thudd guns, thunderfirew guns and the like.

I would also like to see a return of the bombots but that's another thing.

>>13504094
Personally I think it makes them too much of an immovable object at Ld 9, 8 is probably the best option for Troops, therefore Elites 9 and Characters 10

>>13504107
Its mostly a placeholder, but the idea was toyed with to make them 4' movement but able to move and fire heavy weapons, given that, it probably needs high points to stop spam.

>>13504188
I will probably add the lite choices for all three 'heroes' and the powers thing will be changed
Thunderers will specialise in either anti-personell or anti-tank, and will (in hindsight) probably replace the Heavy Weapons Squad (Still being an elites chioce)
Sentinals are to give some mobile support to the army and to tie them in with the Imperium for fluff.

Also, what are Bombots and mechs?

Alternative working suggestion:

Troops
Squat Combat Squad

WS BS S T W I A Ld Sv
Squat 4 3 3 4 1 2 1 9 5+
Veteran 4 3 3 4 1 2 1 7 5+

1 Veteran Leader (Fancy Title can be determined later)
9+ Squats (additional can be bought)

Wargear:
-Flak Armour
-Lasgun
-Close Combat Weapon
-Frag Grenades
-Krak Grenades
The Veteran Leader has additionally:
- Melta Bombs

Options:
---------------
Veteran Leader
-Power Weapon 10pts
-Laspistol free
-Bolter/Bolt Pistol 2pts

Squad
Replace any number of Lasguns with the following
-Grenade Launcher 5 pts
-Meltagun 10pts
-Plasma Gun 15pts
-Heavy Bolter 10pts
-Missile Launcher 15pts
-Multi-Melta 15pts
-Plasma Cannon 25 pts
-Lascannon 30 pts

In that sense the basic Squat troop formation would work similar to a SM Devastator squad, except they have lower BS and no Power Armour. This also carries the limitation that if you mix Heavy Weapons some of them might be wasted attacking a particular foe. Optionally restrict the number of non-Heavy Bolters that can be had.

>>13504443

Just doing some reading, this is essentially how 2nd ed Thunderers work, unlimited special/heavy weapons.

>>13504414

Mech is short for Mechanized Infantry. In a general sense it stands for all kinds of heavy vehicles, APCs, Tanks, etc.

Bombots - here have a look at this:
http://n.1asphost.com/squats/codex/heavy_support.html#bombot

They have a really interesting Codex Squats btw. Everybody participating should have a look at their work.

>>13504464
It's pretty alright.
I'm a little let down by the lack of any unit entry besides Heavy though.

>>13504464

Quite a good list, some good ideas.
I like the idea of limited transport options however. Hades Breaching Drills can deploy squads where you need them, but once they are deployed thats it.

Bombots are similar to Grot Bommaz for my Grot Rebellion Army in the works. Would probably be easier to give Squats access to Cyclops Demo Vehicles.

The question is this: we want to be different, right? In what way?

My thinking is this: we build a standard old-school squat army as foundation and added hillarious stuff on top of it.

And yes I want to see rules for squats riding on top of tanks. That would be just in the spirit of what I just suggested. That and lots of explosives.

slogan "think of them as little angry marines"

bump

i think this should be an army using lots of blast template weapons

bumping.

> appear aturcis

yes, appear!

noone?

Well, I see that we've got some movement on things. Interesting.

But we're still casting about looking for something specific to make Squats unique and interesting.
So let's create a list of the things we've heard so far.
1. Robot/Drone users
2. Squads with unlimited Heavy weapons
3. meltas and multimeltas everywhere.
4.Slow and purposeful everywhere
5. BS 3, however all of their weapons are twinlinked.
6. 5 inch move
7.motorbikes with chainsaws attached!
8. slow moving demolition type army
9.slogan "think of them as little angry marines"
10.i think this should be an army using lots of blast template weapons''

If I've missed some theme ideas, please point them out so I can add it to the list. The thing is we need to nail down what makes Squats different.

Now, there is one thing that I'd like to suggest for Squats to help reconcile the WS BS debate. (that some people want WS4 BS3 and others want WS4 BS4 for base troopers.
Why not use the fluff here, that because Squats are... well... kinda short and stocky and clumsy looking when moving (and slow) that when on the move they are WS4 BS3, and when stationary they are WS4 BS4. Maybe call it a special rule (Stalwart defender or something) That when on the move their short stocky stature hurts their BS, but when they've occupied a position (and aren't moving around a lot) they can focus on their task of firing with precision. Maybe have it affect their close combat too.
It's just a suggestion... and does sort of play into their theme of being strong stationary defenders, but not as good when it comes to lumbering around.

>>13506707

Really, check out this link, it's good:
http://n.1asphost.com/squats/codex/hq.html

I think this should have an impact on our codex. We should try to make it stand out. Which means we need some good ideas.

> 1. Robot/Drone users

No problem with that.

> 2. Squads with unlimited Heavy weapons

np.

> 3. meltas and multimeltas everywhere.

I like melta weapons but i don't see people getting all these melta squats. as an option maybe.

> 4.Slow and purposeful everywhere

It's a simple way to make them slow using existing rules.

> 5. BS 3, however all of their weapons are twinlinked.

not my cup of tea but no strong opposition.

> 6. 5 inch move

See 4.

> 7.motorbikes with chainsaws attached!

Chainsaws? Chainswords!


> 8. slow moving demolition type army

np.

9.slogan "think of them as little angry marines"

np.

10.i think this should be an army using lots of blast template weapons''

np.

Not sure if going through it bullet by bullet helps though. The whole is more than the sum of parts and all that.

First thing is: what slot do we want them to occupy? If it's: less shooty than tau but very shooty, we have one theme.
We'd have to ask ourself: shooty in what way and the general consensus seems to be that it's heavy weapons.

So what heavy weapons? Heavy Bolter is a must as they are the favourites in the old fluff and some people will have a number of those in their possession. But what else? Melta? Or rather some template weapons? Flamers, Plasma Cannon, Frag Missiles?

And after that? What do we build around a core of gritty, slow moving, angry dwarves with lots of heavy weapons?

Whether we use bots or tanks or lots of artillery, (or all of it) that should be determined by the general feel of the army.

> Sufferin energy

They must.

>>13506707
>1. Robot/Drone users
I think robots should be included, but barely.
>2. Squads with unlimited Heavy weapons
Unlimited as in no limits on how many models per squad can be upgraded with a heavy weapon? Imokwiththis.jpg
>3. meltas and multimeltas everywhere.
I like the idea, but maybe not everywhere as such, but have them featured more often than most armies.
>4.Slow and purposeful everywhere
I like this idea.
>5. BS 3, however all of their weapons are twinlinked.
Not sure about this one if I'm honest.
>6. 5 inch move
Yes! It makes perfect sense.
>7.motorbikes with chainsaws attached!
nope.avi
>8. slow moving demolition type army
I like this one, how would it work?
>9.slogan "think of them as little angry marines"
I need artwork on the Angry Squats.
10.i think this should be an army using lots of blast template weapons''
I agree with this one, to a degree.


An idea I had, is why not make every unit upgradable with a variety of different shields with varying effects (and they reduce movement by an inch)? For example, one could give an invulnerable save, another could give a really good armour save against shooting attacks, another could work like a good armour save against shooting AND slow down enemies in combat with noxious fumes etc.... Just an idea I'm throwing in, probably just another throwaway one though.

Okay:

How much tanks?
How much bots?
Hot much cannons and stuff? (Mole mortars, thudd guns, etc)

As for little angry marines, the idea of various squat factions hating various other factions has been thrown around. How about this: the new squats have preferred enemy (whoever). They blame whateve forces they oppose for having a hand in the tyranid invasion or allying with/supporting those who are responsible. Might sound op but let's not forget the idea that they close combat mainly through good stats and won't have many fancy weapons. The usual weapon will be a close-combat weapon (axe, sword).

If you want all the weapons to be twin linked your looking at 20 points a melta-gun, plus it effectively gives them BS 4.5.

>>13507150

Perhaps not all but only a general option for all melta weapons? That way every melta could be made into twin-linked. At a cost.

>>13507365
How about this....
You can upgrade every member of any squad of regular squat troopers to have a heavy weapon, and then pay MORE and make it a twin linked heavy?

The appeal of this should be obvious. Massive shooty with an effective increase to chance to hit.

Plus, holy shit the possibility of massive damage becomes hilarious. They might not have great armor, but holy shit can they hit HARD.

well, I vote for few bots only, tank spam as an option but if so they should be slow and hard-hitting and steamrolling the enemies, cannon spam should be a common option.

Here's the original RT entry for a squat combat squad (see pic) in it we can get our

WS 4 BS 4 S3 T 4 W 1 I 2 A 1 Ld 9 Sv 5+ that we've pretty much settled on for your basic warrior squat.

And in here we get automatic crag, crack and melta bombs (which make sense, these are a fucking demolition army)
1 leader 7 troopers, and we see that you could give each squat as many heavy weapons as you want.

I'd change the squat standard weapon to a Bolters though. Las rifles just make no sense for squats.

I'd say give a cost for upgrading the basic weapon to any of the following.
Autocannon
Conversion Beamer
Grenade Launcher
Plasma
Heavy plasma
Heavy Stub
Las Cannon
Missile Launcher
Melta
Grav gun
and then give a cost to then upgrade each further to twinlinked.

End result would give them an interesting and unique feel for the table top

>>13507745

old minis have lasguns though. and we need additional cheap bodies to soak incoming fire if we treat them like devastators.

how about veteran units with more advanced weaponry?

>>13507745
err WS 4 BS 3 sorry about that.

>>13507745

Conversion Beamer should be reserved for HQ.

>>old minis have lasguns though. and we need additional cheap bodies to soak incoming fire if we treat them like devastators.

I'll address the las guns in a sec. But for the cheap bodies to soak up hits... make them cheap before you upgrade, and give the option to add shields or better armor to let them soak up hits.
If you don't upgrade them, they shouldn't cost much.

>>how about veteran units with more advanced weaponry?

You mean hearthguard and thunderers? That's kinda the point to them.

But I get what you're saying that's why I put up that huge list earlier in the thread of possible units.

One thing though, we need to have BOTH Living Ancestors and Ancestor Lords. Every other race with psykers has at least two levels to them a lower and an upper level psyker. So having LA and AL's is a must.

squat lasguns should be s4 ap-

>>glance through thread
>>all pictures from 20+ years ago

here's some recent squats

ancestor

>>13507875

no prob. the way is see it, the standard is lasguns because they are cheap mixed with heavy weapons which will be a point sink. how do you address the issue of mixed heavy weapons? if a lascannon and a heavy flamer shoot at the same target, most likely one of them will be wasted.

>>13507911

good stuff. want 5e rules.

Slayer
could see it as a...

ws bs s t w i a ld sv
4 3 4 4 1 3 2(3) 10 -
two ccw's
furious charge, feel no pain, rage, fleet

not squats, but the guy also has a dorfs army

>>13507886 squat lasguns s4 ap

took the words out of my mouth.

They're known for their use of age of strife tech. Give them las guns with higher power ratings.

and a suspicious commissar

bump

A theme that has been kicking around my head is that Squats don't have a lot of long range direct fire weapons, but are devastating up close, (meltas everywhere, upgunned las rifles) but also have ordinance out the wing-wang. Thud guns, mole mortars, and offboard artillery. Perhaps instead of sentinels as Fast Attack they have a true mining suit walker with deep strike. Pops up almost anywhere with short range weapons, but once deployed is tough to move.

>>13508952

Yeah but if one weakness of them is low maneruverability and you give them short range weapons, they'll get pwned and playing with them won't be lots of fun.

Perhaps that's the best way to approach the theme issue: what way of playing Squats will be most fun? I would say: shooting at your enemy with heavy weapons while they are away and blowing them up with grenades and meltabombs, etc when they come close.

How will the enemies have fun playing against squats? By outmaneuvering them and by charging them and ripping them slowly apart in close combat.

My 2 cents.

Also I am against Tyranid War Veterans. Two reasons:

a) We decided that the Squats had evaded the nids.
b) Nids are on the armies the Squats should struggle against (close combat monsters)

>>13509015Perhaps that's the best way to approach the theme issue: what way of playing Squats will be most fun? I would say: shooting at your enemy with heavy weapons while they are away and blowing them up with grenades and meltabombs, etc when they come close.

>>How will the enemies have fun playing against squats? By outmaneuvering them and by charging them and ripping them slowly apart in close combat.

That pretty much nails down what we're trying to put together for Squats. The thing is, how to make them flavorful as a race for play.

>>13509190

let's keep the lasguns for now tho. id like to see a conversion of the old army list into the new organizational structure first.

>>13509015

I agree, kind of. I'm saying they should have long range attacks, longer than most, but it shouldn't be direct fire. They should have excellent long range ordinance that is very difficult to defend against. Leave the direct fire ordinance to the Tau.

I should also say that when I say short range weaponry, I mean 24", not 12" or 6". Get with the little bugger's zone of contol and they'll mess your stuff up, outside it, and it's raining steel.

Just my 2 Eagle's worth.

>>13504443

So what's the thought on the above?

>>13509305
I like it. Sounds fun to play.

Oh gods, I remember the last thread. Nice to see it continuing on.

Godspeed, space stunties! Godspeed

Some new possible units.

Squat Thunderhawk fast assault bike.

>>13509997
Ogryn Bone 'ead. Squat ally.

>>13509065
Added lesser hero units and replaced heavy weapons squad with Mortar Squad (3-5 mortar teams). Also made Hades 1-2 per FOC slot.

So replace them with veterans or Guild Warriors perhaps? I would like to keep Tyranic War Vets though, possibly as a special character type unit.

Another thing, I was thinking that instead of firing all heavy weapons on the move, we can just give that to Heavy Bolters (ala Deathwatch), because firing AT weapons or the move doesnt sit right.

Thoughts?

I love it when /tg/ gets shit done!

>>13511443

Well, I wouldn't try to veto Nid Vets. Just saying that I am personally not too fond of them and why. Also they smell too much like Ultramarines.

More later.

i was thinking about giving the cannons, mortars, etc the option of some kind of force field for protection. just like in 1e.

Looking through http://n.1asphost.com/squats/codex/armoury.html , I'm curious what do purity seals or bionics do as there are no mentions of them in the current SM codex.

it's from 40k 3e.

purity seals allowed you to roll an additional d6 on fallback and choose. bionics essentially allowed you to roll a d6 at the start of your next turn for each casualty with bionics. on a 6, the model came back to life with 1 wound.

Bump.

Busy today, more later?

>>13513861
I'm thinking that a veto on Nid war vets isn't such a bad idea.

The idea we've all settled on is that the Squats avoided the Nids. So why would there be squat vets of that war?

For one, if their race left their homeworlds, then that'd leave any defenders MASSIVELY short (pardon the pun). Meaning noone running the munitions factories to provide them news ammo, noone manning the hospitals to heal them, noone even growing food to feed these armies. You have to think logistically and logically about this.

So anyone left behind would have to have lots of supplies and a reason to be there.

Finally, if they were there, then for there to be vets, they'd have to have beaten the Nids that attacked their worlds, or had run away from them. And where would they run to if the rest of their race had already taken off?

Simply put, nid vets need to be able to make sense, and kinda don't.

Don't get me wrong, I don't dislike the idea... but we need a reason why it would work.