You're Gonna See Squat

I was contacted not too long ago by Draxius (no, not their real name) about the Squats I've shown from time to time here on the blog. Drax has just started up a new blog and its focus is on making a "counts as" Imperial Guard army with the stunty folk. There's lots of conversions and army planning, as well as some cool, older models you just don't see anymore (and clever modern conversions too). It's good for a visit, even if you're not a stalwart 40k'er.

The name of the blog is You Ain't Seen Squat! and it's been up for about a week. I thought I'd plug it here and try to send some traffic their way. This isn't something I normally do, but when a new blog catches my eye I like to spread the word. He's got cool ideas, has quality posts, and is following through on his project quite well. Subscribe as a follower and throw out some comments, tips, or whatever kind of feedback you think might help. Remember, if you haven't seen his blog yet, then...you ain't seen Squat!

Squats Reinforcements Arrive

The Squat land-train rolls on, this time with a new batch of reinforcements! This was a good haul indeed. The last batch is still soaking in Simple Green, and they're going to take some work getting into usable shape, but those are just the ground-pounders.

This batch, mostly all metal, will be the personalities and special weapons troopers. There's a lot of fun ones in here, so let's not delay!


A trio of melta-gunners...


A trio of dual-wielding chainswords and laspistols...


A trio of plasma gunners...


A trio of, what? Auto-gunners?

Last is this guy, which I was very happy to find as this is one of the Squats I've been trying to get a hold of since I started this project. He's missing his foot tab, but that's only a minor inconvenience. When you're acquiring 20+ year old figs, you take what you can get. This one is armed with a bolt pistol (really it's a boltgun) and a big ole power fist. He also has some kind of cybernetic face-mask thing going on. I've got some cool personalities already, but this guy's going to join their ranks for sure.

What am I doing with all these Squats? I dunno. It's fun piecing together this pretty venerable collection of the Emperor's stepchildren however.

Beards and Lasguns

Squats continue to pop up on the HUD. This last lot will pay off in the end, but I foresee a lot of work reconditioning them to their former glory. I picked up a sizeable batch of the stout folk, actually multiple small batches, and have set to the scrubbing.

Some of them are simply falling apart as I strip them. This is in large part due to the fact that it appears they were painted first, then glued together second. There's a second batch that appears to have been painted using enamel paints, and the third batch...well the third batch is holding up rather well through it all. All in all I'm hoping to salvage a good thirty to forty of the original multi-part plastic "Imperial Guard" Squats.




The bone pile o' pieces...


Here's my metal Squats who have come in intermixed and mingled. Of all the Rogue Trader stuff I've ever owned, I only had two Squats among them. There was a boxed set that included a Space Marine Landspeeder, an Imperial Guard Tarantula gun platform, and a Squat Mole Mortar. Sadly, those two Mole Mortar crew members are gone, but I feel like I've somewhat replaced their numbers. They're all gems really, but the Squat Adeptus Mechanicus in Power Armor is one of my favorites of the bunch. I've also got a Squat Medic (with a comically short chainsword, or chainknife. A Squat Servitor (which I didn't know existed), a heavy gunner, a loader model, and a cool looking character model with a Bolter strapped to his back. Rounding out all the stunty-ness is a Squat Thudd Gun.

I would be remiss if I didn't post my Squat Biker either! I will perfectly honest, this one was destined for the Simple Green, but I couldn't bring myself to it. My buddy Andy, of Little Lead Heroes, did a great job painting this guy up, and that's all there is to it. How can you not like this model either, he's a Squat Biker...it doesn't get any cooler than that!

So, the Squats continue to amass in the depths of the Mik's Minis project files. If you have a lone Squat (or more) lying around and want to donate them to the cause, please do so! Beard and beer karma will reward you!

Squats on the HUD

I've been working on a backburner plan for some time; Space Dwarves (Squats, B'Dass, Grymn, Scrunts, what-have-you)! I've been soliciting the Barter Bucket over at Santa Cruz Warhammer for the last week or two as well, looking for pretty much anything that can pass as a "Space Dwarf", such as this fellow I got in the mail this week!

I'm not looking to go pure GW either, pretty much anything will do (though the originals are more than welcome). This excellent exo-armored Chaos Squat shown here came from the unwanted bowels of somebody's bits bin! So please forgive this, my unabashed and shameless plug to put the word out to the community for some more of the sci-fi short folk!

"Official" Demiurg?

The White Dwarf, err, White Demiurg, click to enlarge

Some of those lucky few people who attended Games Day UK will have seen an exclusive peek at the new White Dwarf subscriber model, so we thought it was only fair to show it to you all as well! Look out in November's White Dwarf and on the web for loads more information about to get your hands on this great model. -From Games Workshop

Thanks to Andy for pointing this one out! As I have stalwartly been collecting all sightings of Squats across the intarweb, I had to include this one of course! Well, it's a Space Dwarf, there is ZERO doubt about that, and it's sculpted and produced by Games Workshop, so it's about as "official" as it gets. It's a "White Dwarf Subscriber Model", which means what? It's just a promo fig, a glimpse of things to come, a teaser? Who knows, my down-to-Earth thought is that it will end up being just a cool one-shot. My flight-of-fancy screams out that it the tip of a massive Demiurg / Squat iceberg heading this way!

Curiously enough, the news item occurs right next to the announcement of a new Tyranid codex headed this way in the new year. The flufficized the fate of the Squats dying out after being eaten by one of the great hive fleets. It would be nice if there was a mini-dex in the back of the 'Nid book allowing you to field forces of 'renegade Squats'. Kind of like the way they include cultists lists in the back of some of the Inquisitorial codices.

Looking at the fig, it's everything GW said they didn't want to do in the first place, a fantasy Dwarf in space. I personally love the idea (obviously). He's got a great flight suit on, including the leather fighter pilot looking headcover, and cool, heavy industrial boots to clomp around in. At his feet is a solid helmet, more than capable for EVA (mining an asteroid, fixing a ship hull, etc.), and in his hand he sports a hefty power hammer, including a rune on its head. He sports a mechadendrite arm on his back, which doesn't look anything like a tech-priest arm, but does the same job nonetheless. Curiously though, he's snagged a space-suited Gretchen in its claw, and not a 'nid critter, which kinda dashes my hopes from earlier.

Squat Sighting?

This post is double, probably triple, dipping from some other sites out there that have already mentioned this and speculated on exactly what is going on in the above pic. Keeping with my own trend of Space Dwarf sightings, I just had to include it here for posterity. The pic and the quoted text are from the BoLS boys and girls. Enjoy!

Also breaking over the last couple of days is this intriguing picture. Its anyone's guess as to what this is or if it has anything to do with Space Hulk the Mystery Box. It looks like a Demiurge, the Fenksworld Pit Thing, and a Stench Beast of Strank from Dark Heresy. FFG did say they had a big release to unveil at Gen-con so perhaps this is it. -BoLS

Lego Space Dwarves

Before you freak out, I know I would, these are not official sets from LEGO, which is really too bad, because I would be buying these up big time! Angus MacLane has done a brilliant job bringing together the best of both worlds; Dwarves and space. Not only that, but he's whipped up some amazing fan sets that feature some nice build techniques, plenty of character, and out of the box design that is just spectacular.


Everything about this shot is perfectly executed; the hinged door with recessed storage, the landing ramp with rails, even the cybernetic Dwarf. More pics here.


Who needs aerodynamics in space?


Of course if you have Space Dwarves, you've gotta have Cosmo Goblins!

Long Live the Space Dwarves!

A pic taken from Jes Goodwin's sketchbook.

“You misunderstand, this is Tau space, despite what the Gue’la [human] may claim and you are welcomed to it as friend. We too have suffered difficulty with the Or’es’la, since it seems they wish no unity. We would be honoured to have you fight alongside us against this common enemy. You will find it to the benefit of both our peoples, You will find it, I have no doubt, to be for the greater good.”
- Por’O Dal’yth V’Rok greets the Thurm Brotherhood during first contact with the Demiurg ARMADA 109

Blips on the horizon, and increased chatter over the ether, points to a possible resurgence of the magnanimous Space Dwarfs. Call 'em what you want; Squats, Scrunts, Dwarves, Dwarfs, whatever the name, there has been sightings. Now of course, Space Dwarves have been around for a while, and still are through Bob Olley and others. The Scrunts even have an entry in 5150. I'm talking in the realm of the ubiquitous GW, who at one point had them, then killed them, then kinda had them back, etc. Their latest moniker the Demiurg. That link's got a pretty succinct writeup too. I've also collected some other nuggets on the subject.

From Jervis Johnson:

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

A three-up bust sculpt from the shelves at GW, of an "unknown" alien...

“They are aliens, granted. But if ever I witness another creature so furiously keen to wipe out the greenskinned scum, it could be a ship’s plasma-rat, and I wouldn’t think twice about having them fight by my side.”
- Rogue Trader Ennumerius Skurien

Some thoughts gleaned from a scattering of forums:

Are the Demiurge the remnants of the Squat Empire that was destroyed by the Tyranids? If so they should be recognizable as Abhumans. You can still work with that to give them rock-like flesh in browns/grays. You can make them utterly psychologically incompatible with humanity since they are the survivors of a genocidal betrayal and are probably looking to even the score. Not to mention what did they have to do to survive the Tyranid? Did they have a...patron of some sort? It doesn't have to be Chaos. It could be some sort of Old One technology they discovered or something else.

Change the name. It would be I think highly appropriate to make the term 'squat' an imperial derogatory term like ratling. The squats must have a name for themselves, and it would give them much more credibility. The fact that they were part of the original human colonists to spread out to the galaxy could give you a clue- maybe they see themselves as the only TRUE humans left? They retain the technology of their forefathers and teh memory of them, why not give them an air of racial superiority in addition to their technological one? Perhaps they call themselves the trueborn, or Lastbloods, or Pureborn? Maybe they call themselves Primatorians or Unimans (a play on human). They are the oldest human colonists with thousands of years of isolation to develop a very distinct culture- it would be good to have them as 'squats' in slurs only.