Games Workshop Is Reviving One ofWarhammer 40K‘s Weirdest Races

Warhammer 40,000is home to heaps of foreign and peculiar sect , beyond the realm of its poster - child royal zealots inthe Space Marines . There’shaughty Space Elvesof both the standard and goth varieties , there ’s hive mind Xenomorph knockoffs , there ’s Space Orks ( not to be confused withregular old Orcs ) , and more fiend than you could shake a chainsaw - sword hybrid at . But none of them compare to the weirdness of the biz ’s latest returning face .

On April 1 , Games Workshop posted a reveal alleging that one of 40 K ’s oldest — and , for a very tenacious time , retired — factions , the Space Dwarves , also known as “ Squats , ” would be return to the venerable skirmish secret plan . Players laughed it off , and go on their way , until this weekGames Workshop said “ well , actually , we ’re not joking . ”

The Space Dwarves will be reborn as a new Warhammer 40 K junto subsequently this year call the Leagues of Votann — a race of humanity that was cut off from the bulk of the race that would metamorphose into the Imperium of Man , shortened over generations of colonise sobriety - dense surround and brandish with their own mercantile society outside of the Imperium ’s fascistic , religious tenet . They apportion the same heritage as the Squats did when they were usher in right smart back in the very first variation of Warhammer 40 K , when , as a spinoff ofGames Workshop ’s fantasy game , the miniatures maker took illusion trope race like Orcs , Dwarves , and Elves , and turned them into sci - fi counterparts in a plot call Rogue Trader .

Don’t call him squat, or he’ll blast your kneecaps off.

Don’t call him squat, or he’ll blast your kneecaps off.Image: Games Workshop

in the beginning more of a joke than a serious camarilla — the Space Dwarves were , for all intents and purposes , roaming biker crew of tiny space - Viking - esque warrior — the faction disappeared from Warhammer 40 K by the third edition of the game , expel in 1998 , and since then , have largely been consign to Easter egg references in traditional knowledge . Twenty years after they faded from prescribed rules , just two models for the faction have released — and even they were one - offs for the spinoff pack warfare game Necromunda , rather than a standalone faction .

That ’s all modify this yr , however . Reimagined for the current 9th version of 40 K , the Leagues of Votann will update the Space Dwarves ’ honest-to-goodness artistic — and trench the derogatory Squats name — as well as turn the dauntless race into a fully fledged sect in the game , with its own prescript and , of line , an wholly unexampled ambit of mannikin . Only one has been revealed so far , ditching the old biker - gang aesthetic in favor of … Dwarf - sized major power causa ? Hell yeah .

It ’s a fun way to expand the current land of Warhammer 40 K , bringing back and modernizing something eldritch and silly from the game ’s earliest roots while still comprehend some of that inherent curiosity that 40 K has strayed from as it lean into its “ grimdark ” spirit . Plus , it give players who ’d like to play a human - esque faction that does n’t involve cap for theobscurely - veil satire of the Imperium ’s fascism , and if you get to do that while also being blood plasma - hit man - add dwarf in power armor ? That ’s bang-up .

Image: Games Workshop