Leagues of Votann: Battle Report and founding the Ryâkan Combine Homebrew League

Hi all

So we received a copy of the new Leagues of Votann army box for review from Games Workshop!

So many of you may know how much I just love Squats and have been screaming for them to come back for years, so understandably I was over Lunar to receive them (An unboxing video is a day or two away). 

I immediately set to it and decided my Squats were going to be a primarily ranged force. I opened the book to see the fantastic yellow fatigues and black armoured Squats of the Kronos Hegemony. But after reading about them they were more of a let’s get toe to toe army with a lot of beating your foe in close quarters about them. 

Thus the Ryâkan Combine was created. I will write some background about them in time, but let’s just say they are a Combine between the Ryâdak and Kannâk mini Leagues. 

They have fantastic access to ballistic grade materials to improve their weapons, and spend much time honing their techniques. 

These are the Customs I have assigned to them :)

Leagues Customs: 

UNWAVERING DISCIPLINE: [Ancestral Judgement]. These Kin warriors are renowned for being stiff-necked and particularly disciplined. When their heroes mark a foe for destruction, they brook no distraction from their appointed task. Each time a model (excluding a COG model) with this custom makes an attack against a target that has 1 or more Judgement tokens, you can ignore any or all hit roll, Weapon Skill and Ballistic Skill modifiers.

WEAPONSMITHS: Whether through the skill of their Kindreds' Brökhyr, or access to sources of rare and highly perilous ballistic materials, the Kindreds of this League are able to deploy exceptionally potent firearms throughout their Oathbands. Add 4" to the Range characteristic of all ranged weapons (excluding Relics) models with this custom are equipped with.

WARRIOR PRIDE: The warriors of this League of Votann pride themselves on their martial skills and their proficiency in combat. Each time a unit with this custom is selected to shoot or fight, you can re-roll one hit roll or one wound roll when resolving that unit's attacks.

My Warlord runs with the Warlord Trait: 6. GRIM DEMEANOUR (AURA)

This warlord's grim countenance is legendary, and they are rumoured to have never smiled. Such a demeanour is, of course, an outward sign of how seriously this warlord undertakes their solemn tasks, and under their stern gaze no Kin will be found wanting.

While a friendly Ryâkan Combine core unit is within 6" of this Warlord:

That unit can ignore any or all modifiers to it’s Leadership characteristic.

Each time a Combat Attrition test is taken for that unit, you can ignore any or all modifiers.

So then the colour!

Issue was, I like the black plate and yellow fatigues of the Kronos Hegemony, buuuut when it gets translated to the Void armoured units and vehicles, they are 95% black at least. So I decide to flip it. 

Ryâkan Combine Painting Guide!

I wanted to make them very nice and easy and I think I achieved this. 

1) Undercoat with Wraithbone

2) apply Imperial Fist Contrast to all armour panels 

3) pin wash Fuegan orange or do a Lahmian/Fuegan orange mix glaze the model. 

4) apply Wyldwood Contrast to knee pads and belts

5) apply Black Templar Contrast paint to the fatigues

6) paint faces either Wyldwood or Guilliman flesh

7) paint details

8) seal with Pledge floor polish (formerly known as Klear, a quick Google will point you which you need). Let Dry

9) cover armour in AK interactive streaking grime and let dry until slightly tacky. 

10) use cotton wool buds to bring back to yellow, whilst leaving grime in recesses. 

Finished. 

Introducing my champion Kylû Fyrgrite. 

A Hernkyn Pioneer

And Hearthkyn Warrior

So I am very pleased with how they have turned out, quick and simple yet effective. 

Honey the Destroyer and I also had a battle with them (when at Battle Ready Standard) Aeldari of Craftworld Mymeara vs Ryâkan Combine. Have a watch and subscribe 

Battle Bunnies. 

Necromunda: Grendl Grendlsen Squat WIP in Rogue trader colours

Hi all

Been after this model for a long old while now. I got into this hobby when Squats were still commonplace ant the RTB01 box was available. I remember looking at the brilliant Squat models, Airships and Gyro-copters and thinking that I would love to do an army of them when I had the cash.

Anyway, time moves on and the Squat Homeworlds are thriving again apparently, so let hope we will haves some more of this great race. 

So he is currently WIP. Most of the time I like to follow the existing schemes for models, especially Character ones. This time though I thought why not use an old Rogue Trader era colour scheme. 

So I did a quick search and found the old boxes I used to see when I frequented the model shops as a wee one. 

So I am trying to match this scheme (especially the guy on the front left getting a chest hit). 

So far he is very WIP. 

For the quilted armour I used Khorne Red with a AK interactive panelliner and streaking grime mix for the recesses (comes up slightly glossy like his jacket does). 

Green was Death World green layered up with a more sandy green. 

Yellow bits were Averland and casendara yellow glaze. 

Still a long long way to go!!

Lady Atia's Squats - Numeri Khazadrim Warlord and Clan Warriors

Howdy Guys and Girls :)

Today I want to show you a little update for my Squats (also known as the Numeri Khazadrim in imperial high gothic!).

Numeri Khazadrim Warlord

The ancient standing armies of the Khazadrim Strongholds are lead in battle by a Warlord or Thane. Usually accompanied by an unit of Hearthguard, these warriors are glad in an artificer crafted form of Exo-pattern Power Armour - piece of art that might reval even these of the Legiones Astartes' Praetors.

Numeri Khazadrim Clan Warriors

The bulk of a Numeri Khazadrim force is made up by Clan Warriors equiped for close combat, aswell as long range oriented Thunderers. Clan Warriors wear void hardened carapace armour not unlike these used by the Solar Auxilia, derived from a combination of mining suits and a power generator.

Most Clan Warrior units have up to three special weapons - in this case the deadly Grav-Distorters. Developed during the Age of Isolation, at the time of the Great Crusade the Mechanicum worked on their own versions based upon the Squat's Distorters. It should be only after the horrors of the Horus Heresy that these weapons would be mass produced and used by the newly created Chapters of the Adeptus Astartes.

Next on my painting table are 15 more Clan Warriors aswell as 10 Thunderers and the Anti-grav frigate - stay tuned :)

Regards,
Lady Atia

Lady Atia's Squats - Clanwarriors and Airship

Howdy Guys and Girls :)

Just a little overview post to show what I worked on in the last days - I painted day and night to finish the first five Clan Warriors and I also started the antigrav frigate. I'll write the fluff for these units once they are finished (still have to do five more clan warriors for the first unit!).

"We have always been a race of traders. It is natural to us that we should trade the fighting skills of our Brotherhoods. As well as bringing us a profit, it also allows our youngsters to gain experience and honour, and to keep alive the skills which our strongholds may one day need for their own defence. And we may find the one or the other lost homeworld during this Great Crusade!"

Squat Clanwarriors and Antigrav Frigate (WIP)

A size comparison with a Gal Vorbak, Word Bearer, Renegade Militia and a Bloodletter. Squats are roughly a head smaller than normal humans - but keep in mind they are wearing modified mining suits and sub-types of power armour sometimes!

The next 5 Squats will be another assault cannon and 4 more CC/pistol guys. I may give these chainaxes, not sure on that yet (I also need something to equip my close combat hearthguard with!!). I will also paint two rapiers and crews for them!

Some of you may have spotted them already on the last weekly progress report - these are antigrav mines on the base!

That's all from me now - you can see Aveinus Kaane's review for the new Kharadon Overlords here.


Regards,
Lady Atia

Lady Atia's Squats - Planning a Faction

Howdy Guys and Girls :)

Today I want to talk a bit about an upcoming project of mine - the Squats. As some of you may know, Space Dwarfs are one of my dream-projects and GW's upcoming release of Kharadron Overlords will give me enough material to convert my own Squats or use as cross-over models for both systems. So let's talk about the basics - what are the Squats fluff wise and what I want to do with mine!

The Fluff - Squats, and Empire within an Empire

"Do not underestimate the Squats. They survived for millennia cut off from the Imperium and assailed from all sides. Their determination and resilience is an example to all."

-  Leman Russ, Primarch of the Space Wolves Legion

"The Squats (Homo sapiens rotundus) were short, stocky and physically hardy Abhumans who were adapted to the heavy gravity conditions that predominated on the worlds they had settled near the core of the Milky Way Galaxy. Of all the Abhuman types encountered by the Imperium, they most closely resembled baseline humans. The Squats' ancestors were human colonists who reached the heavy-gravity mineral-rich worlds around the galactic core during the time of the initial expansion of humanity beyond Earth's own Solar System during the Dark Age of Technology, many millennia before the emergence of the Emperor of Mankind and the dawn of the Age of the Imperium. The colonisation came at the right time, as Old Earth's own mineral wealth had been largely depleted. The worlds at the galactic core were rich in rare and unique strategic minerals, but in terms of the existence of life they were barren and unsuited for human colonisaton. These worlds were dark and bleak planets. Their gravity was intense, usually two or three times that of the Earth. Their atmospheres were either thin or non-existent. Even those planets that did possess atmospheres were continuously blasted by tremendous radiation storms produced by the massive black hole located in the galaxy's core.

Once settled, these planets became rich Mining Worlds. The colonists were forced to become self-sufficient, providing their own underground hydroponically-grown food. Due to the hostile nature of these worlds' surfaces, the colonists formed underground societies. During the long isolation of Mankind produced by the Warp Storms of the Age of Strife, the Squat race genetically adapted to their new homes, evolving or genetically engineering themselves to better suit their environment, becoming far tougher, more resilient and physically shorter with a denser skeletomuscular system than found in the baseline human genome. The Squats had some of the best scientists and engineers in history who explored the frontiers of human science and technology without the constraints of religion and ritual, in contrast with the dogma-bound humans of the Mechanicum who followed a very different path on Mars during the same period.

As the Imperium of Man emerged from the Age of Strife and began to reunite the scattered worlds of humanity, the Squat Homeworlds were rediscovered and contact with the Imperium was established. The Imperium found that a distinct culture had developed on the Squat Homeworlds, and that the Squats had moved outwards through the galaxy, extending their own domains. Often they settled harsh planets similar in climate to their Homeworlds, but they also occupied more conventional worlds able to support normal human civilisations."

What I want to do with my version of Squats

The fluff above will be the base for my Squats - abhumans, part of the Imperium but still independend (basically an empire within an empire, similiar to the Mechanicum). They will also split during the heresy - some of them will stay true to the Empire, while others will want to do their own thing or even turn to Chaos (it's whispered some Squat homeworlds have secret cults of the daemonic Hashut going on hidden under their surfaces ...).

I'll try to re-use most if not all of the old 1st/2nd edition fluff about them - but probably not everything. If you look at the state of some other factions during Rogue Trader - especially Orks, Guard and Eldar - you will see that most of them used similiar stuff than Space Marines - Boltguns, Dreadnoughts, Rhinos and Land Raiders (Yes, Harlequin Land Raiders were a thing!). The same goes for Squats back then. They had rhinos, boltguns and bikes. 

My Squats will be a little bit more unique - they are supposed to be their own faction, like Solar Auxilia or Mechanicum, not just Imperial Army/Marines 2.0. I want to follow Forgeworlds' way of doing the Legio Custodes - new unique looking stuff instead of "just" Land Raiders and Rhinos. I imagine them mostly using their own weapons and tanks/airships. The boltgun for example was a Terran' weapon so they should have limited access to it at the time of the Great Crusade. I think they would have their own weapon and variations - better plasma stuff, grav and anti-grav engines, laserweapons. I guess some of the squat core-STC's would be used on other imperial weapons and tanks (maybe it was the Squats assaultcannons that actually made the kheres pattern working?!). 

At that point I would like to share a comment from Jervis Johnson about the removing of the Squats:

"No, the reason that the Squats were dropped was because the creatives in the Studio (people like me, Rick, Andy C, Gav etc) felt that we had failed to do the Dwarf 'archetype' justice in its 40K incarnation. From the name of the race (Squats - what *were* we thinking?!?!) through to the short bikers motif, we had managed to turn what was a proud and noble race in Warhammer and the other literary forms where the archetype exists, into a joke race in 40K. We only fully realized what we had done when we were working on the 2nd edition of 40K. Try as we might, we just couldn't work up much enthusiasm for the Squats. The mistake we made then (deeply regretted since) was to leave them in the background and the 'get you by' army list book that appeared. With hindsight, we should have dropped the Squats back then, and saved ourselves a lot of grief later on.

Anyway, the Squats made it into 2nd edition, and since we were doing army books for each of the races, we started to try and figure out what to do with them. Unfortunately we just couldn't figure out a way to update them and get them to work that we felt was good enough. The 'art' of working on an army as a designer is to find the thing that you think is cool and exciting about an army, and work it up into a strong theme. This 'muse' didn't strike any of us, and so, rather than bring out a second-rate product simply re-hashing the old background, we kept doing other army books instead, with stuff we did feel inspired by.

Now, while this was all going on for 40K, we were actually doing some rather good stuff for the Squats in Epic. On this scale there was a natural tendency to focus on the big 'hand-made' war machines the Squat artisans produced, and this created an army with a feel that was very different to the biker hordes in 40K. However, this tended to reinforce the problems we saw in the Squat background rather than alleviate them, underlining what we *should* have done with the Squats in 40K."








With that in mind I really want to do them justice - making them a proud army that will fight alongside Space Marines, Mechanicum and Solar Auxilia against Xenos and Traitors during the Great Crusade, the Horus Heresy and beyond! I also want to create rules for them sometimes next year - with the help of Drake, once any rules changes for 40k's next edition are clear.







If there are any wishes you have for my Squats - write it in the comments below. I'm currently still in the "brain storming phase", so any help is welcome :)


Regards,
Lady Atia

The Squats shall rise!

Howdy Guys and Girls :)

This april GW will release a new army for AoS - the Kharadron Overlords, a brand new faction of duardin for the Mortal Realms. Now these guys are just really awesome and steampunky, and they will make great Squats for our 30k campaigns, serving as missing link between Space Dwarf, Mechanicum-steampunk and Solar Auxilia-steampunk.

Oh, and they have chainswords!

And awesome hats.

What do you think about these dudes? Write us in the comments below :)

Regards,

Lady Atia