Ironhead Squat Prospectors

Symbol of the Ironhead Squat Prospectors.

"Rock and Stone!"

– The Prospector's infamous battlecry

"I am a dwarf squat and I'm digging a hole. Diggy diggy hole, I'm digging a hole!"

– Ironhead mining song

Squat Prospectors from Necromunda. Basically Deep Rock Galactic, but Necromundan. While they’re miners and resources diggers through and through, like any space dorf, they’re just as willing to use their guns and mining gear to fight off anyone trying to hijack their ore. What little we know comes from this post over on Warcom. While they’re culturally distant cousins with the Leagues of Votann due to settling Necromunda some time in M31, they’re said to get along well.

Overview

You don't Rock and Stone, you ain't coming home!

Like the Tau-aligned Demiurg, the Ironheads were once a Prospect fleet of Kin who came to Necromunda as part of the clean up crew in M31, in the wake of the Horus Heresy. Apparently, the rebellious sons of the Emperor also made a mess of their room (that being the galaxy), as Necromunda had so much trash and scrap on it, that the Kin were contracted to come clean it up. Well, nine millennia later, the Kin that came to Necromunda have diverged heavily from their League-bound cousins. Going so far as to lose much contact with them, though retaining familial bonds. Kinda like an uncle twice-removed from the family. You’re not really very close or know much about him but you respect him enough to get along, and maybe you agree on a few things, but that's basically it. Going officially by the name "Squats", the Ironheads formed a nomadic, mining-based culture on the hive world, where their massive rig-cities, dust crawlers, and land trains travel the dune wastes looking for junk and scrap to harvest, as well as digging up valuable ores, archaeotech, ancestral shards of valuable lost data, and shooting any longshanks dumb enough to try and take their shit.

As mentioned before, in the early years of Necromunda, the squats were essential in the reconstruction of planetary infrastructure and mining work. The ancestors of modern Ironhead squats moved to the planet in search of work and were respected enough to be hired directly by the Imperium. Nowadays, most nobles don't know about ancient history and won't even let squats into their hives, dismissing them as abhuman wasteland scum. Some of the less dumb ones fund the squats scavenging expeditions and reconstruction efforts. The really stupid ones will dismiss ever hiring them just to prevent paying after a job is done. These oathbreakers usually end up dead.

For the most part the Ironheads tend to avoid traveling to or dealing directly with the Hive cities as the guys on the upper levels of the hive tend to be a bunch of racist small minded assholes and won’t let the abhumans in thus forcing them to use other wasteland traders as intermediaries. Should news of a piece of valuable tech or data getting uncovered reach their ears though, or should a Squat become an outcast amongst his people due to some past action, then you will occasionally see them sneaking in and visiting the underhive, something which is a lot easier than visiting the upper levels since Hive Enforcer patrols tend to be lighter down there and, due to the rampant mutation occurring on the lowers levels, the people down there tend to be a bit more accepting of abhumans.

Culturally, the Ironheads have retained an affinity with better tech, though theirs is much more along the lines of everyone having artificer wargear rather than ion guns and true AI, unlike the Kin. Their society is divided into a set of twelve clans with each having a separate fort from which they seasonally leave in Land Trains to find prospective drill sites for valuable scrap tech and ore to extract for use or profit. The four biggest clans are the mercantile Anglish, mercenary Svardhol (Icelandic for black hole), the technophilic Tapferkeit, and the exploratory Scragfrid. Since the loss of their Votann sometime in the last 10 millennia under mysterious circumstances (looking at you House Van Saar), their society has become one of a rigid workplace environment, with the bosses and overseers, known as Charter Masters, with their centuries of experience and their sick ass hammers, leading their efforts. Below them are the Drill Masters, which would be akin to middle management, as well as serving the role as champions. Working under them are the Drill-Kyn, who are the workhorse grunts of the clans raised from their rookies that are called Diggers. Supporting them are the Vartijan Exo-Drillers, who take their name from the legendary Squat engineer Valya Vartijan of the Svardhol mining clan who managed to modify the prospectors remaining old Hearthguard Exo-Armour suits into an incredibly useful general purpose tool. The giant mech suits that resulted, seriously they could rival Centurion Armour in girth and rotundness, effectively turned the Vartijan Exo-Drillers into heavy duty guardians for the mining crews, that is when they weren’t helping with the heavy lifting. Any enemies that dared to threaten one of the mining crews equipped with these mechs would soon either get pounded flat by their piston-powered pulverizing fist and seismic crusher or find themselves blasted by bursts of fire from either a heavy flamer or heavy bolter depending on how the suit was equipped. Last but not least amongst the prospectors, are the squats known as Gearheads who pilot the vehicles needed to maintain their nomadic lifestyle. Only thing they're lacking is a Molly of their own to carry their rocks and stones to go full Deep Rock Galactic.

Gallery

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  Deep is where we go.

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  Heave Ho! For Rock and Stone!

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  Bend your backs to take your gold.

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  Dirt and dark is what we know.

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  Deep in Rock is where we go!

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  The space dorfs look eggcellent.

Playable Factions of Necromunda
Clan Houses:	Cawdor - Delaque - Escher - Goliath - Orlock - Van Saar
Noble Houses:	Catallus - Greim - Ko'iron - Ran Lo - Ty - Ulanti - Spyrers
Others:	Ash Waste Nomads - Corpse Grinder Cults - Cult of the Redemption Ironhead Squat Prospectors - Palanite Enforcers - Ratskins - Scavvies