Squatted

Gone, but not forgotten. And not quite gone.

"There is nothing new besides what has been forgotten."

– Marie Antoinette

"I forgot"

– Games Workshop, probably

"To be Squatted" is a term used by the folks of /tg/ to refer to a specific army/faction/subfaction/character/game being, for a lack of better words, abandoned or ignored by Games Workshop. Something that some may consider inevitable due to the fact that the company has many games under its belt, with each a myriad of factions and sub-factions, with their spin-offs which also have their own sub-factions, special characters, etc. But also! They have a considerable amount of lore to consider and to write books about. So, its easy to assume that it's very likely some things might get... Forgotten.

But, what IS IT really to be squatted? Is it to be cancelled? Forgotten? Discontinued? Disowned? Let's dig deeper into this rabbit hole.

Origins of the term

The term "Squatted" owes its existence to the Squats, or now the Leagues of Votann, back when they were nothing but dorf bikers in outer space. This was back when Warhammer 40k and Warhammer Fantasy were significantly lighter in tone and presentation, so the idea of something as ridiculous as the Squats was passable at best. Not that the game was once happy-go-lively, it was just more-or-less aware of its sheer ridiculousness, henceforth, the game was prone to use caricatural representations of its characters and lore. But more often than not, the universe was still taken very seriously. At least, to a certain extent.

The Squats were, at the time, a joke. Or what essentially boiled down to a joke. Since they were the 40k equivalent of the Dwarfs, that meant GW significantly downgraded the race itself to fit in the canon of its counterpart game. So we went from a proud race of grudge-holding strong "men" of small stature with a culture so alien only ONE human managed to grasp a fraction of it to a race of short angry space bikers who were, essentially, a degenerate off-shoot of humanity. Yeah, not really a good concept for your then whole new and exciting space war-game, especially if you wanted it to be darker, bigger and more serious than your existing fantasy one.

In terms of rules, the Squats weren't even really unique, matter of fact, they didn't even counted as an army at all! It was only in Epic that they took a more significant role, where they truly shined as a faction of its own. But Epic being an alternative to the base game, the Squats didn't have a significant presence in the tabletop scene. People remembered them for being funny and kind of goofy when compared to the rest of the edgy, warmongering and flamboyant cast of Warhammer 40k.

And so, after a small appearance in 2nd Edition and a few mentions here and there, the Squats just... disappeared. Well, Games Workshop hinted at the idea that the Squat homeworlds were "eaten by the Tyranids" and called it a day, or rather, a sufficient excuse to get rid of them. For a long time any mentions of the Squats on the official forums would get your account instantly permabanned, and asking about them at official GW events featuring Q&As was likely to get you escorted out by security. This resulted in a long-running joke within the community that talking about the Squats in any capacity resulted in a visit from GW's wetworks team, often mid-sente*BLAM*.

...And they say Commissars don't have a sense of humor. Carry on, scribe.

...right. This rather extreme reaction could be pinned down on Tom Kirby, then the CEO of Games Workshop at the time of the Squatting, and as many Grognards will tell you he was not a pleasant person to be around. Why he instated such measures in the first place is unknown, unless extreme embarrassment regarding their existence was the issue. Still, this was the order of business for years until Kevin Rountree took the reins of the company in 2015, though Kirby stayed with GW as a consultant for a year before he left for good.

During Kirby's reign there was a half-hearted attempt to bring the Squats back with the Demiurg, and some of the old Squat armaments ended up in the hands of other factions, but it wouldn't be until 2022 that Games Workshop officially unveiled their return. First with the introduction of Squat mercenary Grendl Grendlsen (the first Squat miniature in over two decades) and the Ironhead Squat Prospectors, both based out of Necromunda, but most notably the Leagues of Votann (with Grendlsen and company being descendants of the cleanup crews sent to repair Necromunda after the Horus Heresy), ending their isolationism from the galaxy in the wake of the Great Rift. As for the Squats of old (now known as the Emberg Agnir Bloc) and the Demiurg (now known as the Seran-Tok Mercantile League), they were retconned as Leagues that opted to break the Kin's policy of isolationism early, with fatal results for the Bloc. Despite their namesake no longer retconned out of existence, the term "Squatted" still applies to a lot of things in Warhammer or other /tg/-related properties that simply just got dropped without any mention at best, and straight-up disavowal from their parent companies at worst.

What does it mean to be squatted?

Given the origins of the term itself, it might not be too unwise to use the example of the Squats to figure out what it really means to get squatted. A quick look at their history gives off most examples of a good ol' squatting, and most other factions who followed them on their path to corporate obscurity usually reflects their lifespan as a forgotten/forbidden army.

A faction/sub-faction/character/anything counts as squatted if:

• Their stats have not been updated in a very long time : The most obvious and common denominator of the squatted bunch. If your army didn't get a new codex, or at least an update regarding their stats, then it probably means their company forgot about them, or wants you to FORGET about them.
• There isn't much lore to be found : For those who don't play the games ( :^) ), you may notice that some faction or character barely gets a mention in recent books or codexes. This is a good indication that the Black Library forgot about your favorite boyz, too.
• There aren't any new models at all : An army can be old and have very few updates besides the usual balance changes between editions, but they may still have fairly recent models, or at least a catalogue of minis decent enough to still pass as good today (that is, if you paint them well). However, a squatted faction/anything is one that doesn't get shit. No model. None. Nada. You may afford some old models, but there aren't any new ones. For that one, it's actually most likely that your faction is about to get squatted, but it's just too soon to tell.
• Their company is remarkably silent about it : Corporations being corporate, communication is a central key to their great relationship with the customer. While some companies have the decency of at least listening to their customers and providing goods and services adapted by their demands, GW is a bit different. You see, they don't see any loyal fanbase, instead they saw a wide range of possible customers, and their only way of "communicating" with said customers was to look at a ubiquitous pie chart every month. At least at the time when he-who's-name-shall-not-be-pronounced-here was in charge. If Games Workshop has not said a single word about them for quite some time, then I'm afraid I have some less than stellar news for you, my friend.
• Your faction is niche : If the Squats themselves didn't raise any red flags earlier in the article, it would be an understatement to say that, in the base game, they were especially niche, only becoming relevant in the bigger, even more niche and definitely-not-available-to-anyone-with-a-thin-wallet alternative game Epic. If your faction/subfaction isn't popular amongst other players, or occupies an oddly specific role in the game, then chances are GW is gonna drop it once there aren't enough sales being made. Or if they don't make enough appearances in tournaments.
• The company outright censors you for mentioning them : Well, the case of the Squats was a most peculiar one, and it was a frequent phenomenon during the era of the massive cunt who was such a FUCKING HERETIC that he rivals even EA at their own game. But to be fair, it's such a rare instance that you're not even gonna get a ban or a mute on the forums for mentioning this or that faction that got scrapped some time ago. Hell, the forums made some highlights on some Oldhammer stuff, including the uber-squatted Chaos Androids.

Should your chosen faction fit some if not most of those criteria, there's a chance they might be squatted. But bare this in mind; discussions regarding the possible squatting of a specific faction/subfaction are ALWAYS driven by suppositions. Even the Squats themselves got un-squatted. "Being squatted" never means the end of a faction, it just means that the community regards it as a "dead and long gone" thing of the past. Not GW.

Other infamous things that have been Squatted

• In 40K:
  • The Zoats. Originally some sort of scout race for the Tyranids, they were wiped out by the 'Nids after the Hive Mind deemed them a liability (read: They weren't popular so GeeDubs fed them to their in-universe garbage disposal). Only returned with the Blackstone Fortress game with their Tyranid connections scrubbed out.
  • The Eldar Bonesinger. Only got a limited-edition datasheet and then to oblivion...
  • Necron Pariahs. The biggest casualty of the great Necron Retcon of 5th Ed. Thanks for that, Ward...
    • The original Necron Wraiths were like this too, with the Great Retcron turning them from snakelike Necrons to something more insectoid. Then 9th Edition came around and rebranded them as Ophydian Destroyers.
    • Same can be said about Necrons' supposed predecessors, the Chaos Androids. Only appearing in two box sets and getting a few mentions here and there, they didn't occupy a significant role in their time. Well, it wasn't like the Chaos Squats did themselves, as anyone in the Warp, especially slaves, could sent to build/forge weaponry for the legions of Chaos. So naturally, their most prestigious inventions didn't get a pass either.
  • Tons of heroes from the Imperial Guard have either become MIA or KIA in 9th Edition’s Codex. These include notable names such as Sebastian Yarrick, Ursurkar Creed, Knight Commander Pask, Colour Sergeant Kell, and the special characters from Blackstone Fortress.
  • The Ork Goff Rokkers. Too wild to last... until 9th Edition that is.
  • Daemon Princes of Chaos Undivided are in a semi-squatted status, as Be'lakor has been retconned into being the only Undivided prince, meanwhile we know jack shit about the "true" alignments about the two Undivided Daemon Primarchs, Lorgar and Perturabo. Daniel, on the other hand, is a bit more dubious. Not only is he an OC created specifically for TWW3, but he's also a Make-A-Daemon Prince with an allegiance determined by the player.
  • The Dark Eldar were in a semi-squatted state for a very long time, with no codex updates for 12 years, until 5th Edition gave them a massive update. They have since stayed out of Squatting status since then.
    • That said, most of their special characters have been dropping like flies, and not even Asdrubael Vect was safe from this from a rules perspective.
  • The Sisters of Battle had felt like it was next in line to be squatted for years after the Witch Hunters codex. Not only did they see no models until FUCKING 2019, but their relevance in the line had slowly dwindled, going from codex to a White Dwarf article that wasn't updated either to an online-only EPUB file before 8th Edition remembered that they existed and finally resurrected them to some value of freshness.
    • The same cannot be said for the Repressor, whose real-world mold was damaged, and a combination of poor sales and GW's refusal to let North Americans print their own models led to its discontinuation.
  • Renegades and Heretics. A forgeworld army for traitor guard with its own rules and lore, introduced along with the Imperial Armour series for the Siege of Vraks. Around 8th and started to be put into Legends. Occasionally, there will be Traitor Guard models from Blackstone Fortress or Kill Team, but very few options from the traitor guard list like Plague Ogryns or Mutant Rabble are distinctly missing.
  • Genestealer Cults. Originally introduced as part of the original Tyranid codex in 2E and then never seen again for decades until Deathwatch: Overkill came out with brand new rules for Genestealer cultists. From there on, they've been pretty decently supported.
  • The Tau XV15 Stealth Suits is another piece of Warhams history that got written off both in-universe and out of it. See, during the first Damocles Crusade, the Mechanicus managed to capture some of these things and managed to halt their screeching about tech-heresy and xenotech long enough to reverse-engineer the thing. Considering it a waste of time to counter the reverse-engineering (and if you believe some neckbeards, to stop people from just building stealth teams out of Fire Warriors) the XV15 was pulled from production and the bulkier XV25s took their place. Unlike most discontinued models, we haven't even seen this on their special "Built to Order" carousel whenever it's showed up.
  • Tyranid Mycetic Spores, one of the most visible losses from the whole Chapterhouse Studios fiasco. Because GW hates people making models for units they never will do, they decided to just axe the entire unit from the codex with no regard to how utterly fucked the nids were without it - which was pretty much news as usual for the 'nids. Was brought back in 7E as the Tyrannocyte, serving the same purpose but now with an official model.
  • 40K Rules for the Blackstone Fortress characters. While their appearance in 8E was more a formality than anything, there was no efforts to really keep anything around. The Technoarchaeologist only got ported as a generic character in the Mechanicus Codex while the two Rogue Traders were only profiles for a generic 9E Rogue Trader in a campaign splat...before being scrubbed out with the Agents of the Imperium PDF in favor of Elucia Vhane.

• In Warhammer Fantasy:
  • Arachnitids, although they might still exist in background lore as just Spider-like Squigs instead of as a weird crossover thing between 40K and Fantasy like Oldhammer sometimes attempted.
  • The Chaos Gods of Law...not like they did shit anyways. They were mostly used as a opposite force to Chaos in general (like how Solkan is a god of just and noble war), but then they were dropped to make original Four more morally grey (for example, adding hope as one of characteristics of Tzeentch). Although it seems like GeeDubs are slowly bringing them back, if Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay books are to believe.
  • Malal, though his Squatting had more to do with legal troubles rather than GW shifting gears. Which, if we're perfectly honest, is completely ridiculous. Because it wasn't like the current copyrights holders were using the character AT ALL. GW at least didn't let it die by the existence of Malice (and to some, also Zuvassin and Necoho, the respective gods of ruined schemes and atheism)
  • The Tomb Kings once Age of Sigmar came around. No, those new skelly-boys do NOT count.
  • Pygmies, one of the few times getting Squatted was unironically for the best given the less than stellar cultural undertones associated with them.
  • The Chaos Dwarfs, which is funny considering now that Warhammer Fantasy was getting more and more grimdark as time went on, a corrupted version of the Dwarfs made nothing but sense. But we suppose that big beardy dwarfs with big pointy hats and Persian vibes were just too silly for the serious tones of modern Warhammer...or so it seemed...
    • Hell, their fans were so enraged by their lack of appearances in the last few years (to say nothing about the game that replaced WFB) that they made an entire forum just for them.
    • And then Total War: Warhammer 3 brought them back. And it was glorious. HASHUT! VORRGRUND! ZHARR-NAGRUND!
  • Old Nippon, which had ended any attempts at fleshing out Eastern Lands human nations... well, until Total War: Warhammer came out.
  • The Fimir. They served as servitors of Chaos and were sometimes compared to the beastmen, but a mixture of sculpting errors, subpar stats, and implications about their in-universe reproduction would consign them to the trash bin. They never had any new models in ages, their most recent appearance being, yet again, in Total War: Warhammer...as a special unit for Norsca.
  • Bretonnia, for a very, VERY long time. They were to Fantasy what the Dark Eldar and Sisters of Battle were to 40k, it's just that when they FINALLY returned, they didn't have the same lore/unit back-up to become popular again, only getting a 6th Edition armybook and then nothing else but erratas. Then AoS started, and fancy Arthurian knights followed skelly-Egyptians in being completely discontinued, before Warhammer: The Old World officialy announced them.
  • Tilea, or more accurately, the Dogs of War. Besides the zaniest mercenary bands and characters, the usual infantry of this faction was so similar to the Empire's guard that people just preferred to play Empire instead. That plus, Tilea's lore is missing the legendary and epic mysticism of Karl Franz' home. It's hard enough to rival Sigmar in terms of sheer badassery, but you don't do it by making your faction revolve around Borgia-levels of house politics!
  • Albion. As with any other human faction it seems. Albion never had real concrete army for a long time and a very negligent role in the lore. Not even Total War: Warhammer brought them back and that's saying something. Too bad! We could use some Celtic shenanigans, it wasn't like the actual celts had a goddess that was so hellbent on war and violence that it could rival both Khaine and Khorne at their own game. Or hell, even bring Arianka back...
  • Araby, a rare case of being squatted despite only having models in Warmaster. Considered to be a province of Bretonnia for the longest time. Possibly not made due to possible complaints from the Arabic community complaining about cultural appropriation, and the whole province thing that could've reminded many of Algeria or many other European colonies.
  • Estalia, too. Total War: Warhammer didn't even bother with them and gave the whole country to Balthazar Gelt. That should tell you how much even GW cares about Estalia. And even then, the Empire already has soldiers and officers that look like conquistadors, so what was Estalia going to bring to the table? The Warhammer Army Project at least tries to make them as interesting as they can possibly get.
    • By the way, if you're wondering how good Human factions could be, check out this project. Not the most perfect thing on the planet, but hey.
  • For years Kislev was only available in a 5th Ed Rule booklet with like 4 models, and as optional mercenaries for the Empire in following editions, until Total War: Warhammer 3 dropped.
  • Cathay. Noticing a trend here yet? As above, this changed when TW:W 3 made Cathay their own unique army.
  • Technically, the old Undead, which counted both Vampires counts and the skellies that would once become the Tomb Kings. Let's say that their theming was less about "high castles and vampires" or "egyptians mummies" and more "Imagine what a fantasy skeleton would wear or do in your average European-inspired fantasy setting". The Undead Legion could be interpreted as a call-back to those days, though given what that heralded, it didn't last long.
  • In a similar vein, the united forces of chaos, where daemon, mortal and beastman walked on the same field without allies. 5th had the Realms of Chaos armybook give you a novel system which had one of the three factions take the majority share of the army's forces while the others were put to the Special and Rare FOC slots. 6th kept to a similar system, though split between the Hordes of Chaos (mortals and daemons) and Beasts of Chaos (beastmen), likely to avoid excess bloat. Past that, the armies would remain split up by race. Forge World had novel rules to try bringing back the merged forces, but they never really took. GW would try again years later with the Legions of Chaos and the Grand Army of the Everchosen would bring back the Skaven to their oft-forgotten roots as a type of Beastmen. However, you know what happened next...
  • Forge World's attempts at both WHF and AoS have both been...meager at best. For WFB, there was Monstrous Arcanum (aka the giant monster book), but there was also an attempt at making some big ongoing campaign that started with Tamurkhan: Throne of Chaos before just...stopping. And nothing more ever came from FW for WHF because they were making infinite amounts more dosh making 40k stuff.
    • The AoS stuff is even sadder, with only a handful of original models for the game and some token Legends Armybooks for their old Tamurkhan's Horde and Legions of Azgorh lists. As anyone knows about Warhammer Legends, the odds of getting out of there, especially with the shakeup in leadership at FW, are quite out of your favor.

• In Age of Sigmar:
  • The Grand Alliance Books. An attempt to create centralized books for mixed armies of the same Grand Alliance, they didn't really do much but confuse people with rules for stuff without battletomes and rules that would only apply to mixed-faction armies.
  • Orcs. That is to say, regular Orcs, ones that aren't either insane painted savages, hulking armored brutes or conniving filthmongers. Their existence was ultimately the result of GW needing to use their old Warhammer line while trying to make new models, but it still stings to see those old greenskins vanish.

Squatted games

Because sometimes, it's not just the factions that disappear.

• Games Workshop:
  • Man O' War. Before being officially "replaced" by Dreadfleet, Man O' War was THE fantasy naval strategy game... And it wasn't super popular. While it did introduce us the premisces of what would once become the Vampire Coast, the game didn't recieve much support from the fans and from GW, so down the drain it went.
    • Even stranger case, that of Man O' War: Corsair, the video game adaptation of the tabletop one. It was an unfinished game and it got scrapped. Funnily enough, the game looks awfully similar to Sea of Thieves, which is still a very popular (if repetitive) game to this day. That, plus the success of Assassin's Creed; Black Flag and it's naval battles, which will then spawn its successor; Skull and Bones. So maybe it wasn't worth throwing the game in the scrap yard, eh GW?
  • Space Hulk 2013/Space Hulk: Ascension Edition. In 2019, Full Control Studios' publishing license for GW stuff ran out, seeing it eventually taken off Steam alongside all its DLC. That gap for Space Hulk Computer Game wouldn't be shut for long though, as 2018 would see Space Hulk: Tactics release.
  • Warhammer Online. The game had lots of issues, to say the least, and EA helming the project pretty much spelled its doom. Kept alive by private fanservers made by dedicated folks.
  • Warhammer 40,000: Eternal Crusade. The entire thing was a mess pretty much from the get-go, slowly bleeding everything out before its inglorious end in 2021. Unlike Warhammer Online, nobody's jumping at making private servers to keep the fucking thing alive.
• Privateer Press:
  • Warmachine: Tactics. Went through a Kickstarter campaign to get funded but faceplanted hard, being released well before it was ready to do so. Whatever hope there was to make this the video game equivalent to the Wargame have become little more than hollow promises.

Squatted stuff outside of Games Workshop

While the term may have originated from a Games Workshop IP, other tabletop games are just as capable of Squatting things for their own reasons. Poor sales, backlash, and no longer fitting the current tone of the product are some of the many reasons tabletop games might give something the boot;

• The Character Builder App for Dungeons & Dragons 4th Edition. Originally it was meant to be an offline build companion that was periodically updated via patches until Wizards, geniuses they were, decided to shift to some always-online Silverlight bullshit that was exclusive to D&D Insider subscribers. Thankfully, those in the community who kept their copies of the old offline builder not only shared with the rest of the community, meaning it's not only still around even decades after the game's sunsetting, but it's also been updated with the Essentials and Dragon Magazine content as well.
  • Similarly, there were plans for making a Virtual Tabletop for 4E as well. The development for that pretty much hit a dead end after the lead dev died, and WotC washed their hands of it shortly after.
• In Warmachine: The entire Protectorate of Menoth. As part of the massive lore shakeup that Mk4 has insisted on sticking to, the entire army has been dissolved and incorporated into other armies, rendering irrelevant quite a bit. Paints a pretty dreary image to the supposed revival...