Wow, that was unexpected!

So in the three days since we announce that the Squat army list was back on the agenda, I have been inundated by multiple posts and PM's with everyone's ideas on what to do with the Space Dwarfs. This is good thing as it shows that this little corner of the Tac Coms forums isn't as dead as the Tyranids once thought. However, I'm going to have to ask to impose a little order on the chaos, so that the ideas and changes are presented in a more formal format om your end and makes it much easier for the AC's to read the information on our end.

Please read the accompanying change philosophy and the feedback form and post your reply below!

Change Philosophy and Timeline

"Stuck in development hell" has been a good description of the Squat Army List. It is high time we had some movement on a list that most people consider to be relatively stable and close to completion.

With this in mind, we are going to take a conservative approach to any changes. We feel that 1.5 is very close to where we want to be, theme and rules wise, and it is more a problem of fixing the most glaring issues rather than getting bogged down for years in discussions of minutiae.

I would like to see the next two months simply surveying everyone's thoughts about what issues need to be changed, and to brainstorm all the solutions to said ideas. After that we can move into the play testing/battlereport phase and hopefully push for an accepted 1.6 version list in 2016.

Feedback form
If you have any desire to have an influence on the final army list, this form is the best way to make it happen. Simply copy the headings and paste it into a new reply, and fill it out!

Q1) YOUR FORUM HANDLE:

Q2) REGULAR OPPONENTS:
What army lists do your squats regularly face (if you are not a squat player, but do play against them, please indicate here)

Q3) WHAT ARE THE TWO MOST CRITICAL ISSUES PREVENTING ARMY LIST APPROVAL?
Think carefully here, as I am going to limit you to only two highest priority issues you think the Squats face. What do your opponents most complain about? What do you find yourself most unhappy about? What issues do we absolutely have to focus on for the 1.6 version?

Q4) WHAT ARE THE FOUR 'MEDIUM' PRIORTY PROBLEMS?
You can have four choices now, of problem you would like to be fixed, but you could live with in an approved list

Q5) GENERAL WISHLISTING:
Unlimited space for you to list all the minor tweaks that you would like to see included

Q6) OVERALL ARMY THEME:
How does the army 'feel' to play with and against? What do you like about it? Why do you play the squats? What 'feel' is missing or presented poorly?

Q7) CURRENT ARMY POWER LEVEL:
One of the power gamers out there. Where do you think the current 1.5 army sits in regard to the power level of other existing armies? Too strong or two weak? Please elaborate on what armies it struggles against and where you think the army should sit.




Thank you to everyone who replies. If you have any points that you have already posted about on Taccoms in previous months, please repost here. Feel free to have any discussion about the information in this thread either here, or even make your own thread for that one topic.

I'll be reading and in a few weeks, we will be having some official polls about each of the individual issues raised with the hope of gaining a majority resolution.

The floodgates are open, if you want your voice heard, post now!

To get the ball rolling, and to provide examples I've posted my own feedback

Q1) FORUM NAME:: Elsaurio

Q2) REGULAR OPPONENTS: Guard, Marines, Eldar, Necrons, Nids.


Q3) WHAT ARE THE TWO MOST CRITICAL ISSUES PREVENTING ARMY LIST APPROVAL?
1) Static AA makes army either too good or too weak against aircraft and encourages boring castling.
2) Land Train choices are poor and not not balanced against each other

Q4) WHAT ARE THE FOUR 'MEDIUM' PRIORTY PROBLEMS?
1) Warriors and Thunders are barely taken against Bezerkers
2) List is pretty inflexible and has little customisation
3) War engines might be a bit too cheap
4) Gyros and Overlords have lots of firepower, but brittle


Q5) GENERAL WISHLISTING:
Would like to see more character options.
Space/aircraft would be nice.
More unit choices? Exo armoured Squats?
Clear up all ambiguity and rules wordings!

Q6) OVERALL ARMY THEME:
I usually desribe it to opponents as 'Imperial Guard, less the tanks and more arty." I like the static firepower and the moveable skimmers. It feels like a 'real army', not a strange bag of tricks like say, Necrons.

Q7) CURRENT ARMY POWER LEVEL:
Probably a tiny bit too powerful, often referred to as 'Steel legion +1" but some of that may be due to unfamiliarity of playing against it.

I have played a number of games versus Squats that have been run by Frosthammer.

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Hey Elsaurio, I'd love to see a bit more flexibility on the basic warriors unit. Maybe an option to trade up warriors for berzerkers or thunderer rather than buying them in addition. I'm a fan of Chaos Retinues being able to swap out basic troops (exchange 2 warriors for havocs at +25, or 4 at +50).
Plus adding robots to the base formation to give them some some nuts to help their defense would be schmexy.

The units become too large and unwieldy when adding additional stands. I know this works for Imperial guard, but these are squats - low numbers, high technology and robots to compensate.

I'll leave warmachines to others to champion right now and concentrate on the Warriors

- Kendall

Q1) FORUM NAME:: JumpingJehovah

Q2) REGULAR OPPONENTS: Tau, Marines, Eldar, Titan


Q3) WHAT ARE THE TWO MOST CRITICAL ISSUES PREVENTING ARMY LIST APPROVAL?
1) Hey Elsaurio, I'd love to see a bit more flexibility on the basic warriors unit. Maybe an option to trade up warriors for berzerkers or thunderer rather than buying them in addition. I'm a fan of Chaos Retinues being able to swap out basic troops (exchange 2 warriors for havocs at +25, or 4 at +50).
Plus adding robots to the base formation to give them some some nuts to help their defense would be schmexy.

The units become too large and unwieldy when adding additional stands. I know this works for Imperial guard, but these are squats - low numbers, high technology and robots to compensate.



Q5) GENERAL WISHLISTING:
Exo armoured Squats (we have the models)
Character options - Squats were famous for their living ancestors being inspiring leaders (every squat wanted to grow old and get his psychic powers) with some small arms macro for their mental lightning.
Pit bosses? Cheap leader?
Scouting Bikers?


Q6) OVERALL ARMY THEME:
Similar tactics to guard, but a bit more flexibility in the base units - squats were superior warsmiths to their imperial counterparts

Q7) CURRENT ARMY POWER LEVEL:
Skewed - big guns are great, but the chaff around them suffers

Q1) YOUR FORUM HANDLE: stevekcole

Q2) REGULAR OPPONENTS:
Pretty much everything. I've also played against Squats with Eldar, Steel Legion, Squats and Skittari

Q3) WHAT ARE THE TWO MOST CRITICAL ISSUES PREVENTING ARMY LIST APPROVAL?

- Lose stubborn - it confuses everyone, hinders the ability to play a more fast moving attacking list (due to issues with broken units subsequently getting assaulted and wiped out. Instead just keep 1+ to rally (maybe making it +1 to rally so more in keeping with Ork/Nid etc assault or death guard/necron marshall).
- Keep spotter but reword to make clearer (Kyrt had good feedback on this) and possibly a standard 50cm range

Q4) WHAT ARE THE FOUR 'MEDIUM' PRIORTY PROBLEMS?

- AA to have a 5cm move, or be towed/entrench (with commensurate points increases). With towing the 60cm range would need to be playtested (I could see it needing to stay or being too much). Also, put an AA car on the landtrain. 75pts, (replacing mortar car), 45cm range, 1 x 4+AA, AP, AT
- Robots standardised with epic UK (they're a bit good and a bit confusing at the moment)
- A spaceship (either single pinpoint + barrage or double pinpoint) - the latter stops cyclops being mandatory in 3k list
- Rhinos/termites optional extras (5/10 points a model - makes infantry cheaper and pithead more viable)

Q5) GENERAL WISHLISTING:

- THIS ONE IS A NO BRAINER - Bikes and trikes up to 35cm move (like every other bike/trike in the game - I never got why Squats with their love of bikes and amazing engineering are slower than everyone else)
- Lose TRA on the cyclops, colossus and leviathan but keep on land train
- Leviathan in both brotherhoods and WEs
- Thunderers as separate support unit (no hearthguard)
- Rapiers and thudd guns as combined unit
- Clarity on whether land trains can 'snake', if you can they're actually a pretty damn good unit as can always be hull down by sticking the engine out and snaking the carriages back around some terrain (so you can shoot at someone with at least 50% of the unit out of sight. Currently trying this out with a triple land train list.

Maybes (ie things I've not playtested or given enough thought to)
- Change Leviathan lascannons to rapiers or autocannons to allow better synergy with warriors
- Maybe a small point drop on warriors (or boost to shooting on every model)
- Give the hellbore Self Planetfall (to represented more sophisticated guidance systems etc and make it not utterly useless) and probably buff it a bit

Q6) OVERALL ARMY THEME:
I've said before, the Squat army list currently feels like a Squat army with it's own play style. Broadly, it's somewhere between Orks and Imperial Guard. There's some nice decisions to be taken in the balance between (for me) a more boring style of play castling up with hundreds of guns or a more aggressive assault with good fire support. Lastly, the list has really good synergy between units. One of the big advantages of spotter and smaller infantry units + slow war engines is that in really encourages players to think about the army as a whole and can give rise to rewarding tactical play.

Q7) CURRENT ARMY POWER LEVEL:
I'm not a top tier player, would probably put myself in the bracket of 2nd tier tournament/club player. However, I have played 4 tournaments this year, 2 official 2 unofficial (but same standards of players). I've played as Biel Tan, Steel Legion and Squats. Finishing 1st (with 2k Squats), 3rd (steel legion), 4th (Eldar) and lower end (Squats). I've probably played 20-30 games with/against Squats in the last year or so. For what it's worth, at 2k they're a good little army and very competitive but this is mostly due to the restriction the smaller board size puts on aircraft and the war engines being great 2k BTS units.

For me, Squats at 3k are around the middle order in terms of competitive. In terms of armies I use regularly definitely not as strong as biel tann and slightly weaker than steel legion (see previous threads and below for details). However, they are shocking to face for the first turn of your first game or 2 against them (due to the volume of fire they can put out plus too many confusing special rules) - the closest comparison I can think of as an opponent is if you get alpha striked by marines or Eldar on turn one (ie you can lost the game but you need to make mistakes/get really unlucky with dice or match ups). As soon as you've played against/with them a couple of times you realise they're a bit of a glass cannon and you learn to prioritise your targets they're nowhere near as strong. Of course there are some tweaks required and a bit of depowering and uprating is needed but I'd be very wary of any move to an overall debuff at this stage. Mark's comparison with Epic UK Steel Legion is about right for me.

Please take the time to look at the other feedback threads I've run on Squats as a tournament army http://taccmd.tacticalwargames.net/viewtopic.php?f=134&t=29645

For what it's worth, this is what I think is currently the strongest Squat list playable at 3k

BERZERKER BROTHERHOOD [200]
1 Hearthguard unit, 7 Berzerker units, 4 Rhino

OVERLORD [250]
Overlord Airship

BIKERS GUILD [275]
4 Guild Bike unit, 3 trikes,Grand Warlord

THUNDERFIRE [100]
2 Thunderfire

THUNDERFIRE [100]
2 Thunderfire

THUNDERFIRE [100]
2 Thunderfire

IRON HAWK [200]
4 Iron Hawk

BIKERS GUILD [225]
4 Guild Bike unit, 3 trikes, Guildmaster

BERZERKER BROTHERHOOD [200]
1 Hearthguard unit, 7 Berzerker units, 4 Rhino

OVERLORD [250]
Overlord Airship

BERZERKER BROTHERHOOD [175]
1 Hearthguard unit, 4 Terminte Tunneller, 5 Berzerker units

COLOSSUS [450]
1 Colossus

CYCLOPS [475]
1 Cyclops

Mark on Squats vs Steel Legion - I agree with this pretty much entirely though I think Steel Legion have much better Scout units than Squats.

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Q1) YOUR FORUM HANDLE: Tiny-Tim

Q2) REGULAR OPPONENTS: Console Avenging Angel with Space Marines, Imperial Guard, DKoK, AMTL, Black Legion, Iron Warriors, Thousand Sons, Death Guard, Dark Eldar, Sisters of Battle. I can add in other Eldar forces, Vanaheim, Ulani, Orks, Speed Freaks, Ferals, Emperors Children, World Eaters, Necrons, Tryanids & LatD

Q3) WHAT ARE THE TWO MOST CRITICAL ISSUES PREVENTING ARMY LIST APPROVAL?
Berserker spam & Thunderfires (both spamming & general AA for the list)

Q4) WHAT ARE THE FOUR 'MEDIUM' PRIORTY PROBLEMS?
Spotter rule
Tunnellers & Pithead
Thunderers separate formation
Combining the Support weapons

Q5) GENERAL WISHLISTING:
1) Thunderfires are going to get a Transport Rhino to allow moving them and increase the formation size - Cost to be confirmed.
2) Warriors are going to get a small change, tbc, to give them a slight boost. Plus restrict number of berserker formations to up to the number of Warrior formations taken
3) Leviathans will be both Transport and WE options
4) Cyclops rockets will be direct fire only - designed to strip shields.
5) Land Train Cars stats modified to be a bit more even.

Q6) OVERALL ARMY THEME:
I like it, heavy war engines with support formations rumbling forward.

Q7) CURRENT ARMY POWER LEVEL:
Generally fine and mid powered. List will struggle against hoardes and specialist assault forces, but will be strong against WE heavy lists and small armies.

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This is great, keep them coming.

Once I get enough of these I'm going to record all these ideas into a single posted spreadsheet,

After which we can pick apart the most critical issues individually

I have a Squat army that I've slowly collected over the last year. It's largely a pile of unpainted metal and plastic - apart from the bits which are badly painted and need to be stripped to even get to bare metal..
I plan to start with them as my next army and would like to help getting this list approved.
I dont have any experience regarding strengths/weakness or play balance etc for Squats, just a few comments and questions from making lists when I try to figure out what I need to paint first.

I guess you could file them under Medium or Wishlisting:

Q1) FORUM NAME:: taiaha

Q3) WHAT ARE THE TWO MOST CRITICAL ISSUES PREVENTING ARMY LIST APPROVAL?
1) I agree with everyones comments on Thunderfires/AA options and possibly turning the Land Train mortar car into some kind of mobile AA.

Q4) WHAT ARE THE FOUR 'MEDIUM' PRIORTY PROBLEMS?
1) Free Rhinos seem to make Mole/Hellbore/Leviathan bad choices. Could we decrease the cost of Warrior/Bezerker slightly (250/150?) and add a cost for Rhino/Termite (10 points each?). That might give more impetus to take one of the other transport options.
2) Separate Thunderer formation
3) Bikes/trikes move 35cm.
4) I think in the 1.5 thread, Stubborn was changed to one withdrawl move rather than limiting to 15cm. Helps bikes/gyros a bit, no impact on most other formations.


Q5) GENERAL WISHLISTING:
1) I like the Spotter rule and think it is relatively simple to explain, though the actual wording in the datasheet could probably be cleaned up. It seems like it gives a nice synergy to the army.
2) The Mole rules don't make sense. Maybe removing the Critical effect (or replace it with crit: Mole Destroyed) and making it expendable (so the formation doesn't pick up BMs as soon as they move out-of-formation and the Mole gets removed). Even then, it is a worse option than Termites.

Q1) YOUR FORUM HANDLE:
Mark W

Q2) REGULAR OPPONENTS:
I play Squats and about 5 other armies. Pretty much all the armies except Dark Eldar are represented down my club. I've played against Squats using Eldar, Orks and Squats themselves.

Q3) WHAT ARE THE TWO MOST CRITICAL ISSUES PREVENTING ARMY LIST APPROVAL?

Remove Stubborn
Stubborn was originally brought in by Moscovian as a major disadvantage to help 'tone down' the Squats at a time when threy had 1+ InItiative WE's, 8 car Land Trains and 200Pt Overlords with 8BP Bombs. To be fair Moscovian had inherited an odd List and this probably seemed characterful. In actual Play it has a number of problems and its time has probably come:
(1) Good opponents can force a broken Squat formation to move into a position where it is out in the open, in a crossfire, Intermingled or just not able to get out of 5cm(and is auto-wiped out) quite easily. This makes it the most powerful negative rule in the game, and one of the nost in any game I've played. It also feels gamey and unrealistic.
(2) The rule can inadvertantly help Squat players in simularly gamey ways. for example: Units with 0-5cm(Goliaths/Thunderfires) move can stay put and not get hacked down if they are out of 5cm, and scouting units can 'pin' units down even when broken if they're in 10cm and out of 5cm. Again, doesn't feel right.
(3) It's a complex rule that isn't core and just confuses new opponents. It also pushes Squat players to play in a more defensive style that makes the list less fun to play with and against.
It's a nice idea but doesn't work well in actual play.
I like the +1 to rally(or no -1 to rally for units within 30cm if people think it should be less powerful) as if reflects Dwarven courage, but would e happy to do without to see the back of a rule that is clunky and open to exploits. It's just not 'Epic'.

Improve Warriors
Warriors are currently a slightly overcosted version of the Imperial Guard Infantry Platoon or Siegemasters Platoon. A drop to 275pts, or 225pts (2 less infantry than 250pt Steel Legion) plus having Rhinos as purchasable for 10pts each would make this core unit that should be in every Squat list more worthwhile. The expensive Warlord makes them much more expensive as a unit for your SC than bikes, and in general the unit lacks the sort of good customisation a mainstay unit needs.

Q4) WHAT ARE THE FOUR 'MEDIUM' PRIORTY PROBLEMS?
1) Thunderfires to get a tower unit to allow movement, increase the cost to reduce spamming
2) Leviathans as both Transport and WE options
3) Another small Scouting Unit to add more tactical versatility(Say 5 scout Bikes/Robots?)
4) A limit to avoid Spamming of Overlords and artillery might help the list be less Siegemaster Like.

Q5) GENERAL WISHLISTING:
Bikes and trikes up to 35cm move
Leviathan in both brotherhoods and WEs
Thunderers as separate support unit (no hearthguard)
Rapiers and thudd guns as combined unit
Improve the Hellebore, giving it Self-Planetfall or the ability to move after deployment.
I think overlords could go up to 275 to create better parity with other units.
the Cyclops rockets could be toned down
Land Train Cars stats modified to be a bit more even.
Keep Spotter though look at range

Q6) OVERALL ARMY THEME:
I find Squats more challenging to play than Orks, Eldar or Chaos/SM, but really good fun once you get the hang of them. The list requires synergy and units working together to suceed, and probably is best using a mixed style involving ranged fire and Assaults. Squats should focus on excellently engineered War Engines and artillery with courageous (if not outstanding) troops, and the list captures this well.
It's different enough from Guard to be worthy of its own list, outside of the models.

Q7) CURRENT ARMY POWER LEVEL:
Steve Cole has already re-posted my breakdown of why I would rate Squats at a similar level to Steel Legion. (See above.) For those who are interested, Steel Legion are Mid to Lower level in Epic Uk Tournaments, see here:
https://sites.google.com/site/epicarmag ... c-uk-tiers
Personally I would like to see Squats stay at around this level, as I think the main point of the list is for players who love the old models and background to have fun playing them, rather then it needs to be a major 'tourney' winning army like Speed Freaks and Krieg were a few years back.
Interested to hear others opinions and experiences with this list

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