Adeptus Ridiculous - SQUATS & WHY GAMES WORKSHOP KILLED THEM ALL | Warhammer 40k Lore

Episode Date: April 2, 2021

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Welcome everybody to another bonus episode of Adeptus Ridiculous. I today am your host, Bricky. Joined with me is my co-host today, of course, with DK, because we're doing a little bit of a switcheroo. But before we get too into that, I do need to give a shout out to all of our fantastic patrons at Adeptus Ridiculous on Patreon. All of you and your consistent and pretty insane support as of lately is the reason we are doing bonus episodes like this,

And, well, we're about to get shitfaced sometime pretty soon, apparently. So that's going to be a really good time. Less than $200 away. Is it really that close? I wonder what it'll be when this actually like airs. We'll probably be setting it up. What alcohol are you drinking? What are we reading?

That's probably where it's going to be at. Shy, I asked for the simple thing, like I mentioned last time. No, no Drukari fan fiction. Only like anything but that. Oh, yeah, that's let's not do that. She says I promise nothing. That's not good. So, D.K., my friend, it seems that today we have a bit of a different episode. You want to tell people why?

We've decided to flip the script, and I am going to be attempting to teach all of you about squats. Squats are super popular. Doing squats. We're doing squats, man. You got to work those glutes, right? You've done more research on this than Game's Workshop. Well, Games Workshop does play prominently into the rise and fall of the squats. So this should be an interesting episode.

Indeed, do you know anything about the squats, Bricky? I know that they're dwarves. I'm assuming that it's like, because it's 40K, it's like fantasy sci-fi, they're like sci-fi dwarves? Uh, we'll get into it, but they are very, very,

very, very on the nose dwarfs. If you've ever done anything with a fantasy dwarf, you probably already know like 50% of what makes a squat, a squat. But I figure there's, uh, there's not a ton of lore on the squats. So I kind of figured I just kind of go

through most of it, try and, you know, do a little quick pass-by on everything. So... All right. So initially, squats weren't dwarfs. They were just humans. Back in the dark age of technology, like back when, like, humans are first reaching out and they're starting to colonize other planets, a bunch of humans decided that they needed to colonize near the galactic core, which is just this...

Yes, yes, the giant hodgepodge of black holes and burning suns and etc. Yep, yep, the supermassive black hole at the galactic core. They decide to settle near those planets. Now, from your reaction, you can tell this wasn't exactly a great idea. These were barren wastelands, absolutely barren wastelands, but they were super rich in like, rare minerals that Terra desperately needed. Tara had like no minerals at the time. They needed these planets something fierce.

So these colonizers decide to go there. And really the only way you can survive on this planet is if you're living underground. Because not only is it a barren, nigh, inhospitable planet. These planets also have like a really thin atmosphere. So because they're so close to all of these. black holes and all this other shit, they are constantly getting bombarded by radiation. So even if you can figure out a way to survive on the surface that's barren and you can't really grow anything, you're going to get absolutely fucked over by the radiation. So they're living

underground. But because it's so important to Tara to get these minerals, Tara make sure to supply them with like everything that they need. Supplies mostly food because it's barren and they don't have any. You can't, you can't really make crops. So they're mostly getting food. And so they're doing they're doing okay now. You know, they get underground. They're sending these minerals off to Tara. Tara is sending them regular supplies. That's all great. Fantastic. Well, they're doing okay in terms of 40K. Why is it that, at our first, episode we did an irradiated death core planet and now for your first episode we're doing irradiated squats. As I was reading this I'd like man the creig would love to dig a hole here

and set up shop. They just bring their their their fucking trench shovels and just go to town. Exactly. And little little trench babies and they can have a great time being miserable and awful on this barren, irradiated fucking wasteland. But hey, they're, they're, They're rich. They've got so much mineral wealth there, and it's so important to have these planets. Until that whole Slanesh thing happens. Oh, no. So remember how you taught me about Slenesh, the Big Suck, and how that thing just cut off most of the worlds, most of the terran worlds for each other? Yes, the warp storms to stop interstellar travel.

Yeah, the age of strife. Yep. So the squats are completely isolated. Um, they refer to this as the age of isolation. Um, so they can't contact Tara anymore. They can't get their shipment of supplies and they can't get their shipment of food.

So they're kind of boned. Yeah. Fucking elves. Dwarves hate elves, if I'm not mistaken, don't they? They do. They do. assholes? But not yet. They don't...

Well, no, I mean like... I mean like in like old fantasy and stuff. Oh, yes. Old fantasy. Like, it is... We'll allude to this later, but like in old, like, you know, fantasy games, like D&Ds and stuff, it's usually pretty typical that the dwarfs really hate orcs and they really hate elves. Perfect. Spoiler alert.

As we move on, it's no... different here. So things kind of sort of, you know, they kind of suck for the squats right now, but it's during this sort of age of isolation that they start to, they were normal humans, but now, because also, I don't know how I forgot to mention this, but aside from thin atmosphere, radiation, barren wasteland, these planets also have, I think three times the gravity of Terra. Oh shit. Yeah, so these squads start to actually evolve to better suit the planet. So they become really short, stocky, they're tenacious, they're kind of noble, because, like, at this point, they're forming these underground societies called strongholds, which is like a city-state.

And bunches of these strongholds will form leagues because it's the age of strife. They need to keep some semblance of defense. They start doing politics. And they'll start doing some trade stuff that they kind of need, like, an established sort of government for. So while they're in this... So they didn't just, like, starve to death, like, 90% of the imperial population. They were like, hey, we're going to, wait, what do they eat? So it's not exactly made clear anywhere what they ate.

I'm assuming that, what I assumed anyway, was that Tara had supplied them so well with food before that they were just kind of rationing everything because they're on a barren fucking wasteland anyway. They got their big shipment like right before everything went to shit. Yeah, and they're just kind of living off of that. I'm assuming a bunch of them did actually starve to death, but from all of the stuff that I saw, I couldn't really find anything specific on like what they ate. actually there is something that they eat later but I guess that's a good I guess that's a good

segue it's actually not that bad because during the age of strife there was a period where the warp storm started to die down a little bit and they started to sort of they're not as intense and you know the squads were introduced to a couple of other races specifically the Eldar and the orcs

oh goody Yeah, so the elder and the orcs, they show up, and on their first, when they first see the squat homeworlds, like, whoa, that's a mineral-rich place. We need, we need that. And they try to attack the squats. Problem is... Wait, wait, wait, wait, hold up. Which Eldar? Craft World, or?

Craft World, yes, Kraft World. Okay, okay. I should have made that clear. Yes, the Craft World Eldar. I'm not sure specifically which orcs, or if there are different. segments of orcs, but... There are clans, but who gives us shit, the orcs are there.

We know what the orcs want. Yes, we do know what the orcs want. And they both try to attack the squads, but the squats are so tenacious, so strong, and so just resilient, because I think they do a lot of, like,

tunnel fighting, since they're down in those tunnels mining all the time. They do a lot of tunnel fighting. They've kind of got the advantage down there. And literally, both the Eldar and the orcs are like, man, this is too hard. These guys are too tough. You know what? Fuck it. Let's just, let's set up a treaty and let's just trade with them. You know, so whatever, we'll trade with them. Everything will be great. We'll get our minerals, whatever. And that turns out super great for the squats because now that they're trading with the Eldari, now that they're trading with the orcs,

they trade with the orcs? Who trades with the fucking orgs? I was literally about to get into that Like every Okay okay Everything I looked up about the orcs Was like oh yeah they start trading with the orcs And I'm like how Everything I've heard about the orcs is just like

Yeah they're not gonna trade with you They're gonna try and punch your fucking face in If they do trade with the orcs It's normally like short term They'll like take weapons from them And then they'll like shoot the guy who gave them their weapons So it's very strange Yeah all as I can assume

Because this is way back in like rogue trader days. So I'm assuming that back then, there may be a little easier. You know, they're not quite as hardcore as they are now. Maybe you can form little itty-bitty treaties here and there. But works out great. Works out pretty, pretty great for the squats, because now they're trade, now they can trade like with the L. Dari for food, for weapons. Apparently they had some old dark age technology that was in very high demand with the Eldar. So it worked out great from the end. The food thing, the Eldar actually helped them make hydroponic plants.

So that's like plants that you can grow without soil. You just need like minerals, nutrients, and some gravel. And you can essentially, you can essentially build crops. You can, you know, and specifically, this might sound a little gross, but not in the 40K way. They were known for growing like these weird forms of algae. I'll say it's ate a bunch of moss. Sort of.

Because they could like take this moss and apparently you could like refine it into like flower. So you could make all sorts of different things from this algae. And because they're dwarfs, of course, they fermented the algae, turned it into an ale. And that ale apparently absolutely fucks. It's apparently stupid potent. So this goes on for... So some sources said it goes on for 300 years.

Others said it goes on for three millennia, which is a big discrepancy. A tag? It's just a little bit of a discrepancy. The wiki says millennia, so I'm going to say millennia. And then the orcs do something very ork. They're like, you know what?

Sick and fucking tired. of all of this trade shit, we're going to invade full-scale invasion, and we are going to take what we want. And that's the end of it. So they do a... Wait, wait, I'm sorry, that's the end of it is, and that's the end of the squads lore, or... No, no, no, that's the end of like...

Oh, I thought it was like, and then roll credits. I was like, no, what a cliffhanger. That's sort of the end of their peaceful coexistence. Like, the squads had tried to remain kind of neutral between the Eldar and the orcs because, you know, they tried to attack us. We have some treaties now. We're doing kind of good. We're kind of trading.

And then the orks come in are like, yeah, you know what, though? Let's not. I forget what the guy's name is that actually led the war. Oh, it's Warlord Grunhag the Flayer. That's a classic orc name. Classic orc name. But he launches a full-scale invasion of the homeworlds. And surprisingly, it's a really close fight.

Like, both sides are kind of getting wrecked here. Both sides are losing tons of soldiers, so much so that the squats, they decide that they're in so much trouble here, and it's such a close neck-and-neck deal that they're like, yo, we need to call on some allies. Let's ask the Eldari for help. Surely, if anyone will come help us against the Orks. It's the Eldari.

And essentially, the Eldari tell them to get fucked. They don't send any help. They don't send any aid. And they basically just let the squats deal with it themselves. So now the squats have like this pincere move of betrayal. And congratulations, we've hit fantasy dwarfdom because now the space dwarf squats despise orcs and they despise the Eldar

That's perfect That is the exact squat thing I was hoping for I wanted a bunch of minor blacksmith dwarves Underground who were just like Fucking elves Fucking elves Fucking elves fucking orcs Although one thing I forgot to mention

Is their society did start to Before the orcs and the Eldar showed up They were making like these little Sort of engineer guilds And the reason that's kind of important is because, like, as far as, like, squat technology is concerned, like, the adeptus mechanicus are kind of like, they look at a piece of machinery and they're like, yeah, there's a machine spirit in there. It makes it do things. Praise the omnisiah. But the squats, they're all about the scientific methods. So they know how to build their technology.

They know how the insides of their technology work. and they know how to like rebuild it. They don't have this idea like, oh, a machine spirit is in there. Praise it. Oh, no, they're not going to be friends. Well, well, I mean, I don't think the two of them have any sort of interaction or anything. Or something.

Orricks with each other, yeah. So, I mean, the squads did manage to fend off the orcs, though the squats lost a lot of strongholds. they lost a whole shitload of it. So after that kind of ends, the age of strife is kind of coming to an end. And the Imperium of Man is starting to sort of reconnect with all of their lost worlds. And when they find the squats, they're like, ooh, oh, this is, this is good. Like these guys are tenacious fighters.

they've got all these minerals. They're xenophobes just like us because of what happened with the orcs and the Eldar. So this is good. This is good. This is great. From what I've heard,

they did kind of fight each other when the Imperium of Man first found them, but it was another case of like, oh shit, these guys are really tough. And, oh, my God, we really don't want to fight these guys. It's sort of like the Adeptus Mechanicus thing where it's like, yeah, could we take them over? Probably, but, uh, it's so many resources.

And they're at the Galactic Corps. And I really don't want to do this. So let's just, let's just be friends. Let's just do our thing. And, um, very much like the Adeptus Mechanicus, they're not, they're not like, um, they're not like governed by the Imperium of Man. They're allies, but they're still governed by like,

their strongholds and their leagues. So they're doing pretty good in the age of Imperium, you know? They're giving them a lot of stuff. They're providing some of that old STC technology that had never been seen before, which the Mechanicus are very happy about. Yeah, yeah, reclaim the old technology. That's right. Yeah, getting STC is like hot shit.

That's a big deal. That's super hot shit So they're in the Imperium of man Everything's going good Wonder wonder wonder And then Guess who shows up Oh shit

Oh Biggie No The Tyrn that show up And they just Wait wait wait wait hold up Wait we did time skip here We sure did Okay so they connected back with the Imperium

Because that's during the Great Crusade Right EMS going around Getting people I thought maybe he was going to show up and you'll just be like, oh, so, so no, we're in like year 40,700 now.

Yeah, I don't have specific things. The tyrannists arrived like, like the most recent race, I think. They're really recent. So yeah, after they sort of, you know,

get their, get their bearings with the Imperium, they're doing pretty well. They've sort of found their place. The tyrannids show up. And, oh boy. They just consume,

the squat home worlds. Just almost all-encompassingly eat the squat home worlds and the squats are driven to near extinction. That's it? That's it. What a... What a fuck? What a blunder?

So the crazy thing is nobody's really sure what the tyranids are doing near the galactic core. And they're not really sure why the tyranids decided to go to these barren fucking wastelands that Tyrannids would never go to anyway.

Why would they want to eat a barren wasteland full of squats? Right? That's not... Apparently, people think it's a splinter fleet of the hive fleet behemoth, which means... Yeah, that's the big one.

It means nothing to me, but it's apparently a big hive fleet that had a splinter group, and they were like, yeah, we're just going to eat the squats. Yeah, I think, I think behemoth is the largest high... fleet and that's why maybe it's like a splinter of like the big one I think but yeah the tiernit

did did the swath cykers did they like did they like do something and then then the tyrannids were like in the warp and then they went over there or something because that that sometimes happens not not so far as I can tell what the fuck so so I guess we kind of got to talk about the tabletop now because that's sort of uh the crux of what what table top of why the squats were sort of just unceremoniously sort of like yeated out of the game or as it's become the popular verb they were squatted whenever a race gets is thought to be you know deleted from warhammer everyone's oh my god they're going to get squatted oh my god squatted because the squats were very

unceremoniously whoop eaten by the the tyrannids so back In the day, there was just Warhammer Fantasy, and there was Rogue Trader. And I think it was second edition when the Squads finally made it in. And essentially, the plan was take the dwarfs from the fantasy game and put them in space. And apparently the models were doing pretty well. Like, if you look at the models, there are a lot of really cool models, too. The squads love bikes. They love trikes.

I imagine shy would really like the squat vibe because they have a lot of sort of steam punk stuff like a lot of big drills a lot of these crazy fucking trains heavy artillery out the wazoo like there I saw one of their tanks it had this gigantic cannon that was half the size of the fucking tank

that sounds fun right they have some really cool looking models but apparently the problem was GW didn't think they were doing the dwarf archetype any justice. There's this open letter from Jervis Johnson, who was like one of the game designers, creators, where he specifically says, like, the models were actually doing really well.

They didn't squat the squats because the models weren't selling. They squatted the squats because GW felt like they had turned it into a joke. They even thought, like, in this letter, he's like even the name squats, what the fuck were we thinking? Squats for dwarfs? What the fuck is wrong with us? And they just, they felt like they weren't doing it justice. It was becoming too much of a parody on the sort of fantasy squat.

So they decided that they were just going to have the tyrannids eat the squats and sort of like extinguish them because then it would be able to give them sort of a fresh start. they could try to do more justice to the dwarfs. And apparently they had plans to make this other race called the, oh boy, I'm going to butcher this, the Demiurg. What? The Demiurg, D-E-M-I-U-R-G, and do it better justice. And apparently there was some preliminary work done.

And I think if you play the Battlefleet Gothic games, there are a couple of demiurg ships that show up as, I think they fall under the Tao banner. And so they're kind of sitting in there. But what was said in the letter was that they just, even though they wanted to do something with them, they just lost out to bigger projects. And nothing really ever became of the demiurg. And the squats kind of just turned into a meme where, oh, this thing's going to get squatted. They got squatted.

The fans still really like the squats, though, and they kept asking, when are the squats coming back? When are the squats coming back? So much so that GW had this meme about resetting a clock where they had a, in their HQ, they had a wall of clocks where if this clock hits midnight with nobody asking if they're coming back, they'll come back. But the joke is, squats are being asked for so often, this clock is fucking always getting reset. until they started actually

showing up in rule books again they started showing up under the list of potential ab humans okay for like guard and stuff like bullgrind and like rattlings and shit yeah

so fans were like man the squads are showing up again like they're showing up in rule books they weren't just like completely yeated the way they were before. Like, we actually see some squat stuff. What, like, what's going on? Is this, is, are we, are we seeing, like, a potential revival?

Sort of. Sort of. Sort of. Sort of. Is it happening? It is actually kind of happening. They were sort of revived. So, um, I mentioned that meme about the clock.

Because I think it was in February of 2018. GW released this, uh, video where, um, they're just kind of scrolling through their forum, and one of the guys is like, oh, he's reading a message, and he's like, oh, when will you bring back the? And he's like, oh, time to reset the clock. Time to reset the clock. And they reset the squat one, which was only at like one minute.

And then the squat clock, it falls off the wall, and it breaks. And they're like, oh, my God, what do we do now? And then they both look at the camera. And it has announced that in Necromunda Underhive, there are going to be there's a bounty hunter squat and his ammo squat

Grendel Grendelson and Ragnier Gunstein Grendel Grendelsen like it's the same name but with a sin at the end Yep that's that's about the size of it

Oh my God and Ragnar Gunnstein But they exist And they're cannon And their squats They have fully I mean, it's sort of a revival, you know, I'm sure squat fans will take it. The fact that there is a canon squat that exists and it's here and it's back and happy day.

Shai just posted a picture of them in the chat, as you can see. I was about to say, is the guy on the top with the helmet Grendel Grendelsen? Yes. Or is that Gunderhard Zibbins, what the fuck his name was? Ragnear Gunstein is the second one. He's the, I think they literally call him an ammo squat. I mean, he's got three barrels of ammunition next to him, so I guess it makes sense. I gotta be honest, Grendel Grendelson actually looks like a fucking Chad.

That helmet is so cool looking. Yeah. I mean, I gotta be honest with you. I don't think there's gonna be like a full squat revival. But, I mean, I think we could see some. releases here and there of like squat heroes that like they were off world or maybe they were able to flee or maybe they were just chilling with the Imperium doing some stuff. Apparently there's still some specks of squats that are still hanging out with the

Imperium that still just love going around slicing up Tyrannids and orcs. But I don't think a full Army revival would be possible since, you know, I know, I know it's GW, but it's kind of hard to retcon getting your fucking homeworlds eaten. Also, I can't imagine them making an entire new army of squats, but I would be stoked

if they added like a squat squad. Because the guard have tons of ab humans, and it would make sense to have like, hey, here's a dude of squats and they're a bunch of demo guys and they got a little drill or something. That'd be fun. They could totally do that. They could

totally do like a mercenary squat squad of just like, yeah, we just have to lord that support. I'm not going to do that accent. That's an orc accent. That's my go-to accent, man. Like cockly British? Doing an orc accent for the squats.

Oof. Oh, they're not happy with that one. No, no. Squat fans are like, you motherfucker, downvoting this immediately. At least it's not an elf one. At least it's not like the home. Oh, do reinforcements.

It's too bad. good little man. Oh, I'm going to go fuck my brother. Where did fuck my brother come from? Zelda, I don't know. All right, cool. But that's kind of all there is about the squats and their weird little history and sort of why they were put in the game and why they were taken out of the game

and why they were put back into the game. So. Weird situation. I really feel bad for. Squat fans. And there were a lot of them. Like, people were asking, like, where are the squats? When the squats come back?

We want squats. And it's just, I guess GW is just like, nah, we, we fucked this up, dude. Like, we really screwed up the dwarf archetype. We made them so on the nose dwarfs that it's just, it's a parody. It's a joke. Oh, man, we got a, we got to, we got to, we got to, we got to, they didn't even like the name squats. They were just like, squats. What a joke.

Fuck, what were we thinking. So. I do think squats is a little silly, truth be told. It is. But they're widow squats. They are their widow squads. We're tiny little little babies. We're so squatty.

We're squatty babies. That's even worse. Some of the fact that they're going to be, like they're a buff as fucking are probably just easily crump everyone. Actually crumping this orc thing, clobber. Whoa, man. All the orc references in this are going to make squat fans very unhappy. It's a bunch of like gremliny, like buff dudes with an funny accent.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's or so I. I am positive that I'm going to get actually lead the fuck in the comments. But that's fine, because this was fun. This is fun. This is different. This is the role reversal. I actually knew nothing about squats.

And I think it's funny that Tyrannids ate everything. Yeah. It makes the Tyrannid's scarier again. I think like a couple of homeworlds survive, but in lore they're just like, yeah, the Imperium just annexed them and whatever. They're desolate and there's nobody on them. anyway, so, so, yeah,

the tyrannages showed up and we're like, oh, bye-bye. The end. Oh, I guess, I guess I do the outro now, don't I? Yeah, you do.

Oh, shit. It's on you, my dude. Oh, damn. So, uh, Bricky, do you, do you have any, any questions? Any, anything I can alleviate? No, I mean,

I don't know if there's anything else you can even say, because it doesn't even, there's a lot of squats. This is a lot of squats. So thank you everybody for putting up with this episode of DK trying to teach people something. You did a good job. I think your notes were a lot better produced than mine normally are.

So that's pretty good. I'm quite pleased. You had a good flow. Thanks, Bricky. And thanks to everybody watching or listening. Again, head over to the Patreon. Patreon.com slash Adeptus Ridiculous. If you enjoyed this episode, support the country.

content where, like we said earlier, we're less than $200 away from an absolute bat-shit goal of getting pissed drunk on camera and reading Warhammer fan fiction. So, uh, thank you guys for hanging out. Uh, I've been D.K. Diamantis. You can find me at D.K. Diamantis. Twitter, Twitch and YouTube. Bricky. Where can they find you, friend? Do they find me at Bricky in everything everywhere? Oh, wow. The branding. Fantastic. And you can find, and you can find Shy at, uh, Quiet Shy, Quiet Shallow, whether it's YouTube. Twitter, Twitch,

it's one of those. Just Google both of them. I'm sure he'll be all right. And that's it. I guess we'll see... What are we doing next, anyway? Are we... Is it... Uh, admec? Admec. Fantastic. Will this episode be up by the time? The admec one goes?

I'm sure... I'm sure it'll be... It'll be Dracari than this, than admec, I'm assuming. Fantastic. Uh, that's the end.