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I like it, and applaud the masterful double bluff on GW's part.

I think the rock and hard place they were in with the design was why it took so long to come back to them. Much as I love Slam Sector, they really couldn't just straight update their original sculpts (although I reckon there is still room for a more lightly-armored unit that looks like the Necromunda model), and once you get rid of the no-longer-really-fitting-40K "biker gang" models and the very-much-stepping-on-Space-Wolf-toes "straight-up viking" models, there isn't too much to work with. "Beards, padded jackets, and visored helmets" do not a rich vein for design make. And I really think the setting could use a human (or human-adjacent) faction that shows that no, the Imperial way of doing it is not, in fact, the only option for humanity.

I do wonder what happened to the Demiurg, though.

I'd like to see a variety of tribes (or leagues, if you like) with a slightly different aesthetic but an overall shared culture and look. Like goffs, deff skullz, blood axes, snakebites etc. We could have "generic sci fi" league of votunn, "hairy bikers" league of zz top, "chonky exo armor" league of chonk, etc. All squats, all like their booze, all a bit Celtic, but distinct in their lifestyles. That'd be good.

There's a kill team, right there. Not my work, I might add. I couldnt draw a picture if my life depended on it

I could see Grumpy making a pretty good 40k squat/space dwarf, but I’m not sure Sleepy would last even a day in the Grim Dark future. (Ms. White already knows something about purging witches, so I’m sure she’ll make Canoness quickly.)

me_in_japan wrote: ↑

Mon Apr 04, 2022 4:36 am

There's a kill team, right there. Not my work, I might add. I couldnt draw a picture if my life depended on it

I want to see this movie!

And I feel I should comment, being one of the, as far as I know, 3 people in Japan with Squats.

Yeah, total rock-and-a-hard place design wise, absolutely. On top of Guard and Marines taking all the historical themes, there are tons and tons of other folk, Mantic for example, who have been making Squat-ish figures for years. Not much to work with and come up with something original. I remember reading somewhere, a Rick Priestly interview maybe, that Squats sort of turned into the joke army. It was impossible to make anything that felt dignified for them. I mean even the name is a joke. So, they let them pass into obscurity. Or to be eaten by the Tyranids, it was even hinted at in the flavor text in some rule book or another!

But anyhow, solid looking design. Nothing flash. Maybe they will sort of go for a gritty, asteroid-miner. independent space-explorer sort of thing, an "The Expanse" vibe? Who knows? But power to them. Vortunn? What ever. Guard are Guard. Squats and Squats.

The remaining Votann are now up for preorder in Japan and thus the army is finally a thing here. I have grown my backlog accordingly.

I've been playing them a bunch online and I like them a lot; I'd say they're a glass cannon but it's more they're especially demanding on the opponent to hit the right units with the right kind of aggro. If so, and especially if I haven't screened well, they collapse. If not, they will kill absolutely everything they can see.

That lethality is driven by the Judgement Token system, so you can play around it to some extent by limiting what the Kahl can draw LOS too (or assassinating them if you have the means). I really like the Judgement Tokens, the dwarves get very properly grudgy, but it does go a long way to eliminating the failure gate of wound rolls, and it emphasises good conventual saves/AoC rather than toughness or invulns.

I think they're definitely not busted in their current state (they would 100% have been as printed), but are reasonably demanding to play against. I'll definitely be waiting for a PL update in any case before playing them IRL, I've been guestimating PLs based on the points increases for online because their as-written PLs are hilariously OP.

I should also mention I'm a fan of their lore, having got the Codex and read through with the army box a while back. They're clones that live in and strip for resources the most hellish places of the Galactic Core, then feed the memories of their dead back into their AI gods, driving them slowly insane. It does a good job of covering why everyone thought they were dead (you only see a small % of the population because you really don't want to be where the rest are), giving them a veneer of being different and in many respects superior to the Imperium, and then whoops properly grimdark after all

" I've seen things you people wouldn't believe. Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion. I watched C-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhauser gate. All those moments will be lost in time... like tears in rain... Time to die."

Clones?! Really! When I was into 40K and into Squats I was thinking that would be a cool idea. I was even writing up some home-brew Squat rules......15+ years ago .....with sort of that theme. I should read some lore.
I wonder if I have those old rules on a thumbdrive somewhere?