Not another fandex

As I've said before, I'm building a squat army for 40k. They haven't had a new, official army list since 1993, and that was a fragmentary one. As such, squats are one of the factions that get the most home brew army lists. Over the years, I've downloaded a few. As such, when I say that I'm building a squat army, it's a common assumption that I'll be developing my own custom army list. This, however, isn't the case.

When I started my squats, i had the goal of being able to field them in a GW store or official event, so, an extant Codex and Citadel miniatures. On the latter point, i could trawl Ebay for the original squat models, but they are now 30 years old and expensive, so i chose to convert dwarfs/duardin from Age of Sigmar. As for an army list, I've seen numerous people use a marine list, but that just didn't feel right. Others have made the connection of squats being miners and the modern Genestealer Cult being miners, but i have a soft spot for the GSC, and it just didn't seem like a good fit. Jervis Johnson suggested using orks, but i have a small ork force, and their play style just doesn't feel right. His other suggestion was Guard, and i have Guard aplenty already.

Looking through the current Codex Astra Militarum, I started teasing threads to see if I could make it work. Then, suddenly, a penny dropped: the Vostroyan relic is, essentially a suit of exo-armour, their Warlord Trait and Stratagem are based on pride and honour, their Doctrine is based on well maintained weaponry, and their Order just felt right. I had found my squat army list.

Of course, a Guard force is very different from the squats of old, being based on rank and regimental structures rather than clans and feudalism, but it can easily be worked around.

And so an idea to have a detachment or two of squats in my Guard, became my building a squat army.

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