Squatted

"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 /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.

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

Origins of the term and definition

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 Squats were "eaten by the Tyranids" and called it a day, or rather, a sufficient excuse to get rid of them.)