Wow, it feels odd to be able to write without having to check word counts now...
Anyway, this is a topic which is going to get VERY geeky very quickly, so I'm going to state this now: if you're not at all familiar with Warhammer 40,000, go look it up now. Don't worry, this article isn't going to go anywhere while you're away!
...No, seriously, this is a rare case where I'm saying this and am not trying to be funny: if I was to explain every little detail behind the game before moving on to giving my opinion on the topic at hand, you'd probably have an article longer than the complete works of Shakespeare (and about as interesting as a book on the various shades of paints as they dry, I imagine...).
So, for the benefit of those who have never heard of Warhammer 40,00 (since most of you probably ignored my advice!), here's a quick summing up of the background for you. Basically, it's the 41st millennium and mankind is on the edge of extinction, fighting an endless war against a variety of enemies ranging from the demonic, the traitorous, the alien and, occasionally, itself due to minor administrative errors and misunderstandings. Though mankind has conquered the vast majority of the Milky Way and formed the Imperium of Man as a result, it is losing thousands, if not millions, of men every day in the wars it fights to ensure its own survival from the enemies trying to annihilate it. Whether it be fighting the might of the Ork WAAAAAAGH! on Armageddon, the terrifying forces of Chaos of the 13th Black Crusade on Cadia, the approaching Tyranid swarm around the whole galaxy, the waking Necrons around the whole galaxy, the emergent Tau Empire, the sadistic Dark Eldar striking from within the darkest corners of the Webway or the survivors of the Eldar empire, mankind is fighting a desperate battle to survive, with the only reason it has even survived to the 41st millennium being the fact that it has vast armies of its own and the fact that their enemies often are attacking each other as much as they're attacking mankind.
Or, to put it another way, mankind is being fucked so hard that I don't think there's enough lube in the world to make it any less painful.
That said, if you're looking at that and going "That's awful! I want to root for mankind!"...well, mankind in the 41st millennium is basically what North Korea would be if it was as efficient as the Russian military. Xenophobic religious fanatics would be probably an understatement to sum up humanity in the 41st millennium.
Yeah, this is the kind of game where calling any side "good" is more a case of "which side is the least evil" than anything else!
Now, the Squats are one of the races that have a very odd history in the 40k history. At the time of writing (the game's 7th edition), the Squats are officially regarded as non-canon, alongside a few other older races that got dropped for VERY valid reasons (I remember faintly reading about one race which involved raping victims it found from the setting's early days...). However, they were one of the first races of the game (granted, under the name Space Dwarfs) and even made it to the game's 2nd edition. However, they were dropped from the game between then and 4th edition (which is when I first got into the game myself) and, since then, they've basically been removed from canon entirely: any older codex which mentioned them got editing to remove them from the game and the Squats are no longer officially sold by Games Workshop. The reason they were removed is because the designers of the game realized that they'd horribly failed to represent the race correctly in the game, making them a huge joke instead of a serious force like they'd originally intended, they couldn't think of any way to solve the problem and they had no desire to keep the race in canon any longer as a result.
Despite this, the Squats do have their own fanbase which is still very vocal in demanding the return of the Squats. Interestingly enough, there WAS a plan to try to reintroduce the Squats (albeit as a serious race) as the Demiurg, but that fell through due to them basically losing out on being a good race in their own right and not just being the return of the Squats.
Here's where we leave the discussion part of this and where we have to speculate on stuff. For a minute, let us pretend we're working at Games Workshop at the moment and we wanted to reintroduce the Squats. How would we do it?
Well, for a start, we would have to look at the background for the Squats to get an idea of what to look at to start off the development process. Already, a problem can be spotted: the Squats were written back when Warhammer 40,000 was more a black comedy than the ultra grim setting it is today, which means they clash NOTICEABLY with the background of the current edition of the game. This creates a problem: do we continue with the Squats as is (so, silliness still included, regardless of whether it fits in with the setting now or not) or do we try to rework the Squats from the ground up again to try to make them a serious race?
Well...both options are fraught with difficulty. Let's say we go with option A: how do we get the Squats to fit in with the setting while still being faithful to the old lore? That requires being able to make the comedy fit in with the setting, which is just not going to work due to the setting's very grim nature now. So option A is a no go. So option B is the only option, right?
On paper, yes. However, here's where we have to remember that most people who know the Squats know them for their ridiculousness and silliness, not their seriousness. To try to reintroduce the Squats as a serious race WILL anger a lot of people and result in a lot of older fans complaining bitterly about it. So option B, while more likely to succeed, is a no go as well.
Obviously, this puts us in a lose-lose situation, so that probably is where the idea dies. For the sake of this hypothetical situation, let's assume we do manage to find a solution to the background problem (maybe a middle ground between the two options?) and we get them into development. Again, this leads to a problem: what is the actual plan to reintroduce the army? Do we want them to have their own codex or do we want to make them like the Ratlings and Ogryns and just reintroduce them as a squad or two in another codex?
Both options have their advantages and drawbacks. The former makes a grand statement: the Squats are back, no questions asked! But it has to be good from the word "go": if it's not, then it just going to end up resulting in complaints from everyone. The old folks who remember them from the first time around and want them back, the people who have just heard about them thanks to the new codex...everyone. And a codex, while not impossible to get right (you just have to look at the recently released Skitarii codex to know that doing a completely new codex right is very possible!), is a very big project and, if it's got even slightly shaky starting ground, it's going to be off to a rough start. You've got to come up with all of the units (which isn't TOO difficult in this case: most of the old units probably can be brought over to a new codex and adding newer units isn't too tough once you know what is missing from the army to make it feel like a proper army), you've got to playtest them so you can be sure profiles and points values are right and you've got to be sure they add up to an army that people want to actually play as, so it's a big project just on the development side of things and, if you're on rocky ground to start with, then you're going to be dedicating a lot of time and effort to something that could very well end up not being released because it turns out to be awful!
The second option, then, looks more sensible, right? Well, yes, I'd say there's very little opportunity for things to go badly wrong there on paper...but then you have to consider just what codex to put them in and what unit of the Squats to bring in. The first question is actually not too difficult, as there's only really one codex which could fit them in comfortably: the Imperial Guard (now titled Astra Militarum, but I'm sticking with the title I grew up knowing for this article). However, it is the second question where things get a bit tricky: just about every unit that the Squats can offer to the Imperial Guard codex already has an appropriate counterpart and there's very little they can add to the Imperial Guard army as a result. The Ogryns add muscle to the Imperial Guard and pack a punch while the Ratlings add very accurate sniper fire and are hard to kill (via return fire, at least), so they add a fair bit to the Imperial Guard army, but there's nothing the Squats can really add beyond MAYBE motorbikes (which haven't been part of the Imperial Guard for a while). And, let's be honest, most people are not going to take a squad of Dwarf bike riders in their army because it's not a unit most will have any need for in their army: infantry armies need as much firepower as they can get, so players will fill up on large numbers of squads to ensure they have access to as many lasguns as they can get, while tank armies will want to minimize the potential dangers of friendly fire by not taking bikes and, instead, taking more tanks. A nice option it may be, but it has all the practicality of a chocolate fireguard in the middle of the Sahara.
So, again, lose-lose situation. But I'm a persistent fellow, so I'll assume that a solution is provided to that one. The final challenge is how to market the new Squat units: do you rely on their old legacy and hype them to hell and back as a result or downplay it to prevent those not in the know about them already from having to learn more about them? Both have their own appeals and dangers and both, if done poorly, could sink all of the hard work done up until that point. Lets say we go with the former option. Almost immediately, that locks those who aren't familiar with the Squats out of the interest pool, which means you're only appealing to the people who remember them from the first time around. Since that's not going to be a large number of hobbyists, that means the Squats is unlikely to earn enough to make the effort worth it. HOWEVER, it shows that you're confident in them, which reassures the old guard that you've done justice to the Squats, and, if you turn out to have done just that (which isn't guaranteed, but lets be optimistic and say you have), you've got a lot of old hobbyists really happy!
By contrast, lets say we go for the latter option. Almost immediately, it looks like you have no confidence in the new Squats, which looks like a huge warning sign to the old guard that you're trying to hide that you've goofed up. You also run the risk that you still lock out the younger hobbyists because you'll still have to talk about what the Squats are to explain why the old guard are getting angry. HOWEVER, if you do them right (which, again, isn't guaranteed, but lets be optimistic again), you're got something that the old guard will like and the newer hobbyists will like, you will earn enough to making back the costs of the development time and you'll have an interesting new addition to the current 40k galaxy.
Of course, both of those rely on you having got through the last two stages in a way which is going to be liked by everyone, of course! The Internet being what it is, you don't have to look far to find people stating their dislike of highly beloved stuff or like of highly loathed stuff, so you're going to hear from people saying you've screwed up the Squats no matter what you do. However, if you don't do the Squats right...well, you're going to want to set your firewalls to maximum for a bit!
So, that's why I think the Squats aren't likely to be coming back. Ultimately, the premise of dwarfs in space is one that is difficult to do in the current 40k galaxy, so bringing the Squats back would be very difficult, if not nigh on impossible. Does that mean bringing the Squats back is never going to happen? Well...it sounds like it at the minute, but I think most people thought hell would freeze over before Black Sabbath put out an album with Ozzy Osbourne after the band's original era ended and that happened (and I found the final album a bit disappointing, personally, but that's another discussion for another time!), so I'm not going to say it's never going to happen while there is still a way for it to happen.
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