"Do not underestimate the Squats. They survived for millennia cut off from the Imperium and assailed from all sides. Their determination and resilience is an example to all."
- —Attributed to Leman Russ, primarch of the Space Wolves Legion, Meditations on Imperial Command, Book XVI
A sigil representing the leagues of the Squat subspecies as a whole.
The Squats (Homo sapiens rotundus) are short, stocky and physically hardy Abhumans, a subspecies of Humanity, who were on average 1.4 metres tall and were adapted to the heavy gravity conditions that predominated on the worlds they had settled near the core of the Milky Way Galaxy.
Of all the Abhuman types encountered by the Imperium of Man, the Squats most closely resembled baseline Humans. Squats were the descendants of Human settlers who had colonised the worlds around the galactic core in the far distant past. These worlds are some of the oldest in the galaxy, formed when the galaxy's structure had not yet been fully stabilised.
The Squat species was ultimately destroyed by the invasion of an unnamed Tyranid splinter hive fleet that consumed their homeworlds in the 41st Millennium, though some survivors still serve in the Astra Militarum, hoping for revenge and to find a new beginning for the remnants of their people.
The Squats' ancestors were genetically baseline Human colonists who reached the heavy-gravity, mineral-rich worlds around the galactic core during the time of the initial expansion of Humanity beyond Earth's own Sol System during the Age of Technology.
This was many Terran millennia before the emergence of the Emperor of Mankind and the dawn of the Age of the Imperium.
The Squats battle Orks.
The colonisation came at the right time, as Old Earth's own mineral wealth had been largely depleted. The worlds at the galactic core were rich in rare and unique strategic minerals, but in terms of the existence of life they were barren and unsuited for Human colonisaton without significant terraforming.
These worlds were dark and bleak planets. Their gravity was intense, usually two or three times that of the Earth. Their atmospheres were either thin or non-existent. Even those planets that did possess atmospheres were continuously blasted by tremendous radiation storms produced by the massive black hole located in the galaxy's core.
Once settled, these planets became rich Mining Worlds. The colonists were forced to become self-sufficient, providing their own underground, hydroponically-grown food.
Due to the hostile nature of these worlds' surfaces, the colonists formed underground societies. During the long isolation of Mankind produced by the Warp Storms of the Age of Strife, the Squat subspecies genetically adapted to their new homes, adapting or genetically engineering themselves to better suit their environment, becoming far tougher, more resilient and physically shorter with a denser skeletomuscular system than found in the baseline Human genome.
The Squats had some of the best scientists and engineers in history who explored the frontiers of Human science and technology without the constraints of religion and ritual, in contrast with the dogma-bound Humans of the Adeptus Mechanicus who followed a very different path on Mars during the same period.
Some say the real history of the Squats began in the Age of Strife when their worlds were cut off from Terra and the subspecies first developed its defining physical characteristics, but their actual origins are found much earlier during the Age of Technology, or as the Squats call it, the "Age of Founding."
In war, the Squats used squads of motorcycles supported by massive artillery barrages from outlandishly large super-heavy tracked vehicles such as the Land Train, Colossus, Leviathan, and Cyclops.
History
Squat warriors defending their stronghold.
The Squats' history is divided into five "ages," each marked by a dramatic change in both galactic conditions and Squat society. These ages include the following time periods.
Age of Founding
The Squats' Age of Founding is equivalent to the period that Imperial scholars refer to as the Age of Technology. This is not technically the first period of the Squats' history, as they had yet to evolve their current physical forms, but is the time of the founding of the Human mining colonies in the galactic core that would become the Squat Homeworlds.
Almost 20,000 standard years ago, interstellar transportation and communication between these planets and Old Earth was continuous, testament to the importance of these colonies to the Human homeworld and the great interstellar civilisation it once led.
Terra also kept the Mining Worlds well-supplied with that which they could not produce for themselves in adequate amounts, primarily food. This period of contact and interaction lasted until the start of the Age of Strife in the 25th Millennium A.D.
Age of Isolation
A Squat Trike
The Age of Isolation corresponds with the earlier part of the Age of Strife -- around 18,000 to 16,000 Terran years ago. The galactic core was cut off from the rest of Human space by the devastating Warp Storms that marked the dawn of the Age of Strife and the beginning of the gestation of the Chaos God Slaanesh in the Immaterium.
Many worlds were swallowed by the Warp and disappeared forever, whilst others were trapped in stasis and became lost within the swirling tides of the Immaterium. Most survived this terrible period, although they were separated from Old Earth and all contact was lost with the rest of the Human-settled galaxy. During this time of isolation and danger the Squat worlds still in contact with each other began to organise for their mutual defence.
It was at this time that the Squats began to refer to their worlds as the "Homeworlds." The Homeworlds remained isolated for thousands of standard years and their inhabitants learned to survive in a universe that was becoming increasingly hostile. Those that survived grew and prospered. Settlements were enlarged and fortified into impregnable strongholds.
They soon developed alternative technologies to make up for the lack of supplies from Old Earth. During this isolation, the Squat Guilds were formed as politically and culturally important parts of Squat society, and the Squat colonies joined together in alliances and confederations called "leagues" that were formed from complex trade and political agreements.
The engineers produced by the Guilds were true engineers grounded in the scientific method rather than the religious dogma-bound tech-priests of the Adeptus Mechanicus who understand very little about the true scientific principles that underlie most of the technology they so ardently hoard.
Age of Trade
Location of the Squat Homeworlds in the Milky Way Galaxy in the 41st Millennium.
The Age of Trade took place during a slight abatement of the Warp Storms that marked the Age of Strife and led to the Squats encountering other intelligent species, including the Orks and Eldar.
At the beginning of the Age of Trade, some Squat strongholds were attacked, but the aliens quickly realised that the Squats were determined and tenacious fighters, and that trade and commerce with them was a more practical arrangement.
The Squats took full advantage of their tremendous mineral wealth, which they traded for weapons, foodstuffs and the xenos' high-technology systems. To this day, Squat hydroponic plants, developed with Eldar help, are among the most efficient food sources in the Imperium.
The Squats remained carefully neutral in the numerous conflicts between the Eldar and the Orks, maintaining trade links with both sides.
There were inevitably small wars from time to time, but for the most part the Squats' complex structure of treaties and trade agreements maintained a stable peace.
Age of Wars
Squat space pirate with a cybernetic leg.
The Age of Trade lasted for nearly three Terran millennia, but finally collapsed when an enormous Ork battle-fleet, under the command of the Warlord Grunhag the Flayer, attempted a full-scale invasion of the Squat Homeworlds. Losses on both sides were astronomical, with vicious tunnel-fights through the mine workings and bloody pitched battles in the Squats' underground settlements.
The Squats appealed to their Eldar trading partners for help against the invading Orks, but none was received, resulting in the development of a deep animosity among the Squats towards their former allies. The Age of Wars, as it became known, is regarded by the Squats as the blackest chapter in their history, and the double betrayal by Orks and Asuryani gave rise to a cultural enmity for both species which still persists.
Many Squat strongholds were wiped out by the Orks, and the traditional Squat epic ballad known as The Fall of Imbach commemorates one such destruction.
Even in the 41st Millennium expeditions were mounted from the Squat Homeworlds in search of lost strongholds, and these expeditions were often accompanied by Adeptus Mechanicus Tech-priests, eager to rediscover lost Squat technology.
Age of Rediscovery
The Age of Rediscovery was the most recent past phase of Squat history, corresponding to the Great Crusade and the current Age of the Imperium for the rest of Humanity.
As the Imperium of Man emerged from the Age of Strife and began to reunite the scattered worlds of Humanity, the Squat Homeworlds were rediscovered and contact with the Imperium was established.
The Imperium found that a distinct culture had developed on the Squat Homeworlds, and that the Squats had moved outwards through the galaxy, extending their own domains.
Often they settled harsh planets similar in climate to their Homeworlds, but they also occupied more conventional worlds able to support normal Human civilisations.
Age of the Imperium
The Squat Homeworlds were almost unique in the Imperium -- though they were officially a part of the Imperium of Man and owed allegiance to the Emperor of Mankind, they were not directly controlled by the Administratum. Instead, they were allowed a certain amount of political autonomy like the Adeptus Mechanicus, being ruled by the governments of their individual strongholds and leagues just as they were before the Age of Rediscovery.
The experiences of the previous millennia had left the Squats with a strong sense of cultural unity and a fiercely independent nature, and instead of rejoining the Imperium as subject worlds of the Emperor, the Sauat Homeworlds negotiated a series of treaties that enabled them to keep their local independence from the Adeptus Administratum's demands in return for military and technological assistance to the Imperium and beneficial trading terms for Imperial merchants.
The character of the Squats -- hard-working, tenacious, honourable, and inimical to alien species -- was almost perfect from the Imperial point of view, and the Imperium's High Lords of Terra were content to allow them a greater degree of self-government than normal -- and avoid the nightmarish task of unleashing a war of conquest against such a powerful, Abhuman sub-species of Mankind.
Hearthguard wearing exo-armour during tunnel fighting against an Ork incursion.
In exchange for this freedom, the Homeworlds provided troops for the Imperium and traded exclusively with other Imperial worlds. This commerce made the Squat Homeworlds very wealthy. The Squats also allowed the tech-priests of the Adeptus Mechanicus free access to their advanced technology, as the Squats possessed several STC technologies never before seen by the Mechanicus and a higher proportion of working devices dating from Humanity's Dark Age of Technology than anywhere else in the galaxy.
The Squats were also expected to follow Imperial policy in external affairs, which was not a problem as they were a very inward-looking and xenophobic society following the Age of Wars.
Squat Bike Guild Heavy Weapons Trike.
Perhaps the most surprising aspect of the relationship between the Squats and the Imperium was that the Squats did not follow the Imperial Cult. Instead, they practised a form of ancestor-worship, venerating their dead clansmen and their families. They believed that when a Squat died they joined their ancestors, adding their own honour to that of their forebears, but a part of their name and their honour remained with their living descendants, forming a constant link between the living and the dead.
Squats ensured that their deeds in life would reflect honourably on their ancestors, adding glory to their clan and their family. Squats guarded their reputation fiercely, willing to go to great lengths to blot out a disgrace to their honour or the honour of their clan.
When Squats served alongside the troops of the Astra Militarum, they adopted certain aspects of the Imperial Cult, incorporating them into their own rituals of ancestor-worship.
Imperial orthodoxy, as preached by the Astra Militarum commissars and Ecclesiarchy priests who came into contact with Squat forces, was that the ancestor-spirits of the Squats were watched over by and emanated from the Emperor, and the Squats were happy enough to accept this idea and participate in the rituals of Emperor-worship on those terms.
During combat, the Squats used squads of motorcycles supported by massive artillery barrages from massive, juggernaut-like war machines such as the Land Train, Colossus, Cyclops and Leviathan. They also used an advanced form of power armour fit to their smaller size, called exo-armour.
Squats and Chaos
Imperial Commissar observing Imperial Squats fighting corrupted Chaos Squats.
To their eternal shame, many Squat strongholds and brotherhoods sided with the insidious forces of Chaos. During the wars of the Horus Heresy, Squat forces fought on both sides, and inevitably some fell prey to the corruption of Chaos.
Like the other followers of Horus, many of these Squat followers of Chaos were banished into the Eye of Terror, but rumours persist of isolated groups of Chaos Squat raiders in various parts of the Imperium.
It has even been rumoured that some of the Squat strongholds which were lost to the Warp Storms of the Age of Isolation may have survived, their horribly mutated inhabitants raiding into the Imperium from time to time.
Squat Anatomy and Physiology
The Squat bounty hunter Grendl Grendlsen known to operate on the Hive World of Necromunda.
The Squats are the most Human-like of the Abhuman subspecies, standing about two-thirds the height of a normal Human at four feet or 1.4 metres with a stocky, powerful build.
Their hair is very strong and fast-growing, and most Squats cultivate short, pointed beards, or at least moustaches and sideburns.
Despite their short, thick-fingered hands, Squats have a very high degree of manual dexterity, and are able to operate the most intricate machinery with ease.
Squats are extraordinarily long-lived by normal Human standards. A lifespan of 300 Terran years is normal, and some Squats, known as Ancestor Lords, are often so ancient that their true age can only be guessed at.
In character, Squats are an honourable people, but they are also irascible and often short-tempered. In battle they are renowned for their doughty resolve and tenacity as warriors.
Coupled with their amazing abilities as miners, engineers and workers of metals, this has made them a valuable asset for the Imperium.
Squat Society
A Squat trooper and various Squat military insignia.
Squat society was based on the social unit known as the stronghold. A stronghold may have been a surviving mining community from the original colonisation of the Squat Homeworlds, or a so-called "newhold," founded when the Squats expanded during the latter part of the Age of Isolation and the early part of the Age of Trade.
Strongholds were self-contained, autonomous communities, ruled by a hereditary Squat lord and an aristocratic class known as the "Hearthguard." They were comparable to the city-states of early Terran cultures, and a great number of strongholds sometimes co-existed close together on the same world or in the same star system.
Strongholds joined together into "Leagues" for mutual defence, trade and other dealings with the Imperium. A League often varied in size considerably; the League of Emberg, for instance, consisted of 4 strongholds, while the powerful Kapellan League was comprised of over 3,000.
Each League was ruled by a high council, comprising the lords of each member stronghold. The high council debated all matters which affected the League as a whole, and ratified trade and other agreements on behalf of its member strongholds; it also served as a court of appeal for cases which involved the death sentence.
There was no formal organisation between the Leagues on any of the Squat Homeworlds, although they maintained constant communications with each other and acted together in times of war.
Near-Extinction of the Squats
The Tyranids are not usually drawn to relatively barren planets like those that comprised the Squat Homeworlds; nonetheless, what little life they possessed was consumed by a Tyranid hive fleet, most likely a splinter fleet of Hive Fleet Behemoth in the 41st Millennium.
The Squat sub-species was essentially destroyed, and the few remaining homeworlds were annexed outright by the Imperium of Man over the two centuries after the attacks.
Only a few scattered and embittered settlements of Squats survive throughout the Imperium at the present time, though some continue to serve in the regiments of the Astra Militarum and eagerly lend their aid to the destruction of Orks and Tyranids alike.
Legacy
"Of all the races of the universe the Squats have the longest memories and the shortest tempers. They are uncouth, unpredictably violent and frequently drunk. Overall. I'm glad they're on our side!"
- — Report to the Imperial Guard High Command (Thuro)
Squats have long memories and never forget an act of treachery or a broken promise. The Squats carry grudges for millennia, and none so strongly as that they bear for the Orks, who betrayed the Squats on more than one occasion and inflicted many losses upon them in war.
The relationship between the Squat homeworlds and the Imperium has always been strained, and the history of the two peoples is studded with bouts of war and ill-feeling. Squats are not diplomatic by nature, and their brutal manners and fierce tempers do not always inspire confidence in men.
But the Squats care little for the effete ways of men or the mincing delicacies of the Aeldari. Squats are robust in body and gruff in manner, and consider other intelligent species -- including their Human kin -- fragile and lacking in the good, honest Squat virtues of comradeship and directness.
It appears that the Squats in the late 41st Millennium were almost entirely wiped out by the Tyranids, though presumably those who were in the interior of the Imperium of Man during the attacks remain alive and enraged, surely harbouring a truly heroic grudge against the Tyranid Hive Mind.
Game History
The 1st Edition of Warhammer 40,000 was called Rogue Trader, a tabletop miniature wargame chock-full of fantasy standards drawn from Games Workshop's own Warhammer universe and reimagined in a grim, dark, futuristic, space fantasy setting. Instead of Orcs, there were Space Orks, Elves became Eldar (and then Aeldari), Ogres were Ogryn, and so on. And then there were the Space Dwarfs.
These first models were clearly Dwarfs wielding lasguns with a generous smattering of heavy weapons. Their background positioned them as miners -- the descendants of Human settlers from the Age of Technology who had evolved to survive on mineral-dense worlds with heavy gravity in the galactic core. Over the millennia, they had diverged into an Abhuman subspecies of Mankind formally named Homo sapiens rotundus, but better known to baseline Humans as "Squats" -- similar to Humans in many ways, but culturally and physiologically distinct.
Squat strongholds -- autonomous mining colonies -- formed allied leagues, with recognisable Dwarf traits from Warhammer Fantasy Battles such as ancestor worship, facial hair, a hefty dose of grumpiness, and a knack for metalwork, advanced technology and engineering projects of vast scope. A more futuristic twist was their favoured mount -- the leagues rode heavy bikes and trikes into battle, combining the aesthetics of Viking warriors and leather-clad biker gangs.
The first major evolutionary step for the Squats came in Titan Legions, a game of massive battles using tiny models at the Epic scale -- just 6 millimetres! Many of the larger units for the present tabletop game of Warhammer 40,000 have their origins here, including all those lovely Titans and Knights. It also went on to inspire modern specialty games like Adeptus Titanicus and Aeronautica Imperialis, though these are at a slightly different scale.
The Epic system brought with it an enduring enmity for the Squats with the Orks,** along with loads of machines and vehicles you could not find in the Imperium -- including gyrocopters, armoured dirigibles, land trains, and ludicrously massive siege weapons. And while they never produced Titans, ordnance like the Cyclops, the big green tank with the Gargant-killing cannon on its prow, was no less deadly.
The Warhammer Studio continued to flesh out the background of the Squats, giving the leagues a distinct aesthetic, history, and style of warfare. Where else would you find biker gang Space Dwarf industrialists piloting battle-trains?
The later years of Rogue Trader brought plenty of trikes, living ancestors (Squat psykers), and elite infantry in big, round suits called exo-armour, but while the 2nd Edition of Warhammer 40,000 offered stopgap rules for the faction in its initial boxed set, the Squats would never receive a full codex or any more new models.
For a while, however, the leagues of the Squats continued to evolve through the vividly coloured artwork of this era. These stout warriors were shown wielding more science fiction standard weapons, armour, and iconography -- but you could still see lots of golden ancestor sigils and plenty of beards, axes, and warhammers.
Homo sapiens rotundus may have started life as a sci-fi restyle of fantasy Dwarfs, but as the setting grew, they too became more unique. A galactic power in their own right, the Squat leagues were powerful enough to trade and negotiate with the Imperium on an even footing -- in fact, Imperial commissars were forbidden from executing their soldiers who served in the Astra Militarum -- and such skilled technologists that the Adeptus Mechanicus sent tech-priests to study with them, which would probably be considered tech-heresy nowadays.
And then...nothing. The Squats were not officially updated for the 3rd Edition of the Warhammer 40,000 tabletop game, and Epic came to an end. For a long period of time in the late 1990s and early 2000s, Games Workshop took the stance through its silence that the Squats had simply never existed -- older republished novels were edited to remove all references to the Squats. In other cases, books were not republished due to the stories featuring Squat characters or other obsolete species.
According to the former Games Workshop designer Jervis Johnson on a forum post in 2004 in response to the endless speculation of fans about why the faction had disappeared from the game and its universe, the Squats would probably never be a major Warhammer 40,000 faction again, rather remaining in the background of both the tabletop miniatures wargame and the universe's fiction.
Jervis explained that this was largely because the Games Workshop designers of the late 1990s eventually regretted transferring the Squats over from Warhammer and never felt that the Dwarf-like species really had a clear identity or fit very well in the background lore of the Warhammer 40,000 universe as it developed over the decades.
The disappearance of the Squat army from the game rules was eventually addressed by a background story explaining that the subspecies' homeworlds had been devoured by the Tyranids. The story went that the Squats had been virtually destroyed, and the few remaining homeworlds were annexed by the Imperium over several hundred Terran years after the attacks. Only a few scattered and embittered remnants of Squats survived throughout the Imperium.
However, the Warhammer 40,000: Rulebook for the 6th Edition of the game reinserted the Squats into the universe's background when it explicitly named them as an Abhuman subspecies officially recognised by the Imperium.
The Demiurg, a minor xenos species later allied with the T'au, were also an attempted revitalisation of the Squats' original "Space Dwarf" concept that was better integrated into the Warhammer 40,000 background, though the race never received much expansion beyond the appearance of several of its starships in the Battlefleet Gothic tabletop specialty game of starship combat.
Despite this, certain miniature companies continued to produce their own Space Dwarf models to meet the continued interest in the Squats, and some players even converted the rules of Warhammer 40,000 to allow them to play. However popular this trend proved to be, the official ruling from Games Workshop was that only official Warhammer 40,000 factions could be used in the tabletop game.
Another solution favoured by fans at this time was to field an Astra Militarum army made up of Squat models, which was allowed under then-current rules.
Finally, in 2018, following the introduction of the highly successful 8th Edition of the Warhammer 40,000 game and a decision by the Warhammer Studio to reintroduce and update older concepts from the game's past, Games Workshop formally reintroduced Squats into the setting with a Squat character and miniature in Necromunda: Underhive.
On April 1, 2022, Games Workshop announced that the Squats would be returning as a fully playable faction to Warhammer 40,000. Unfortunately, because the announcement was made on April Fools' Day, many fans believed it to simply be a joke on the company's part. In fact, the next day, April 2, Games Workshop published a second notification on its Warhammer Community website announcing that in fact the Squats were truly returning as a fully-fleshed out faction in the 9th Edition of Warhammer 40,000 and would be known as the "Leagues of Votann."
The fruits of that decision are now available for all to see on that page.
Sources
- Citadel Journal 20, "Epic 40K: Squats," by Warwick Kinrade, pp. 35-46
- Citadel Journal 14, "Epic 40K: Steel and Stone - The Steel Hawk & War Hawk Gyrocopters, Specialist Land Train Battlecars," and "Ahoy There! Ye Mutinous Dogs! - Pirate Armies, Part 2," by Phil Lowles, pp. 27-31, 43, 49
- Codex Imperialis (2nd Edition), pp. 29, 71-75
- Codex: Titanicus (2nd Edition), pg. 60
- Codex: Tyranids (2nd Edition), pp. 36-37
- Ork and Squat Warlords (Warhammer: 40,000 Epic Supplement)
- Necromunda Gang War 2 (Specialty Game), pg. 5
- Warhammer 40,000 Chapter Approved: Book of the Astronomican (1st Edition), pg. 42
- Warhammer 40,000: Compendium (1st Edition), "Warhammer 40,000: Squats - Space Dwarf Warriors & Mercenaries," by Bryan Ansell, Nigel Stillman & Graeme Davis, pp. 164-183
- Warhammer 40,000: Rulebook (6th Edition), pg. 405
- Warhammer 40,000: Rogue Trader (1st Edition), pg. 175
- White Dwarf 170 (UK), "Squat Cyclops," by Andy Chambers & Gavin Thorpe, pp. 11-13
- White Dwarf 154 (UK), "Space Marine Battle Report: The Battle for Golgotha - Orks vs. Squats," by Andy Chambers & Jervis Johnson, pp. 34-49
- White Dwarf 153 (UK), "'Eavy Metal - Epic 40K: Squat War Machines," by Games Workshop Studio Staff, pg. 11
- White Dwarf 151 (UK), "Cover: Warlords," by Dave Gallagher, "Mekboyz & Squats - The Land Train & Iron Eagle Attack Gyrocopter," by Andy Chambers, "'Eavy Metal - Epic: Squats - Land Trains & Squat Warrior Brotherhoods," pp. 45-48, 50-53
- White Dwarf 127 (UK), "Squats: How To Design A Squat War Host," by
- White Dwarf 113 (UK), "Volskheim Brotherhood," by Paul Bonner, pp. 6-7
- White Dwarf 111 (UK), "Squats," by Bryan Ansell, Nigel Stillman & Graeme Davis, pp. 27-46, 48-50
- Warhammer 40,000: Dark Millennium (2nd Edition Box Set), Squat psychic power cards (Squats Emblem)
- Extinction of the Squats, Jervis Johnson, 7/28/2004
- Warhammer Community - What April Fools? The 41st Millennium’s Next Faction is Real – Here's a Model to Prove it
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