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When White Dwarf 111 was published in March 1989, as a 14 year old, I fell in love with the front cover: It was everything a young me wanted to see and suck me into 40k. Lots of guns, dynamic poses - an army assaulting an unseen enemy. I was hooked. Although, a box of plastic squats was available at the time, the poses and my modelling skills at that time were insufficient to make anything like that iconic front cover. Fast forward 30+ years, my modelling and painting skills have improved and although I was disappointed when the Votaan were released as they had moved away from the previous aesthetic. Around 2 years ago, I started to make some of my own Squats based on the original artwork and having been touched by Chaos over the preceeding 30 years, they became Chaos Squats: I used parts from GW Necromunda, AOS etc and lots of milliput to sculpt and mould items. I made around 50 of them, including naked berzerker ones, but they were very time consuming to make and I then plucked up courage and invested in an Elegoo Mars 2 Pro resin printer. This sucked me into the world of resin printing and over the past 2 years I've been printing lots of varied models. I stumbled across a few free Squat models on Myminifactory from Hardcore Miniatures and having printed them off and painted them, I decided to become a patreon and get a few of the Space Dwarf kits that had been created. Having printed off 50+ models, cleaned them up, converted some and finally painting them all, I give you ........ I haven't made a diorama for a few years, so had to invest in modelling compound, pva, flocking, tufts etc and have spent the past month making this. Although it's not a 100% match, I feel I have made something that closely resembles it. Before anyone says anything, I know their spacing needs to be improved and a single shell could take out 50 troopers but this is 40k and not the real world!!! Unlike the artwork, I wanted to have a consistent uniform, so field caps and helmets were painted the same rather than each having their own unique pieces of equipment. I used 2 coats of GW Ork Flesh contrast on his uniform and Flesh Tearer red on his Flak jackets. Contrast Imperial Fist Yellow for helmets, Aggoras Dunes for boots and gloves, Gulliman Flesh and Black Legion for belts. Army Painter Gun Metal for weapons and different contrast browns for beards. A small amount of highlights and these models were quickly finished. I don't have the hand control to paint the blue head tattoo's that the laspistol wielding trooper should have :( To fit the artwork, I mirrored the officer that is pointing with his left hand from my resin printer and then added a knife in his right hand and a lasgun in his raised right hand. "We've got a Dwarf down!" I added the medic and wounded dwarf as in the original artwork, there was an empty space which looks like a shell-hole and didn't think I could make that convincing in my diorama. "CHAAAAARGGGEEE!!" Here's a shot of the Command Squad. From the original artwork, I could only make out the Standard Bearer but I assume the Command Squad would be near by. I have more shots if anybody is interested. Please feel free to ask any questions. Regards, Phil.

hi all. i have collected exo armour squats for more than ten years. at one point i had more than 40. they were my favourite sculpt from GW and I was super keen to do something with them over time, i sold a few, started and stopped a few projects, and generally just kept them in a drawer i've been on a bit of a hobby revival recently (no doubt connected to taking antidepressants for the first time in my life) and it's motivated me to seeing a project through with the little guys so, the plan generally, people near me play 9th edition 40k. it's also the obvious choice for venturing out in the wider world to play. therefore, i am going to try and build something for the current edition how to execute it 1 - the models as you already know, GW put out 3 exo sculpts. 5 if you count heretic ones. that gives us 5 variations to work with, but we probably need variety to keep things visually interesting and not repeat the same models. therefore, we need to do some surgery: some/most of these will have details filed off like the above. the intention is for each individual to be a bit... well... individual. sacrilege to some to tamper with old lead, but it will be OK if numbers start to run low, i have a plan b these cracking models are by Wereweevil Miniatures and really capture the classic "egg with legs" feel how to execute it 2 - the crunch the standard modern proxy unit for exos in 40k these days is Terminators, so let's go with that. unfortunately, though, Terminators are generally equipped with storm bolters and power fists (or chain fists for a few more points) so that might a problem?! how to execute it 3 - the fluff we know we want to personalise the models, we know we want to bring their loadout closer to Terminators, but we need a story. this will guide everything else: how they're converted, how they're painted, how we explain their equipment in-universe. we'll also probably also encounter jokes about how the tyranids ate the squats, so it would be nice to fit that in somewhere. how about...... these squats are part of an itinerant mining brotherhood. away from the homeworlds when the unnamed hive fleet nommed their brethren, they now continue with their mining/merchant ways, moonlighting as mercenaries whenever needed. for safety and identification when underground they favour fluorescent "safety" colours. greens, yellows, etc. the need to exterminate gribblies while mining means they maintain high-end imperial weaponry. their mining tools are also pretty good for this! how to execute it 4 - bringing it all together OK, so we know we want exos, we know what their story is, and we know what we want to play them as. the final hurdle is that the "official" exo armour loadout is not all that great. your options are power swords, bolters, power lances, and a chainsword if you're feeling heretical. ideally, we want to use storm bolters and something we can proxy for a power fist/chainfist to cut a long story short, i have wrecked a good number of exo armour arms trying to convert them, or pry them free from superglue trying to strip paint from things bought from ebay, so i'm a bit short on arms. 3d printing has also exploded in popularity recently, and now there's all sorts of people who will bring your ideas to life in exchange for cash. therefore, i made some connections, spoke to a very talented 3d artist, and they came up with this: the bits still needs a few tweaks, but you're looking at the world's first ever exo armour holding a storm bolter and power drill. cool! anyway that's all i have so far, next steps are to move the idea forward a little more and recover from the cost of my commission happy to share more photos or explain more about what i've written so far, but leaving it here for now (p.s.: i checked wth Brother Tyler that this was OK to post)

As the title says, why can't I resist new things? When the return of the Squats was teased on April Fools Day, and then confirmed shortly afterwards as the Leagues of Votann, I got very excited! The Squats were actually coming back - this was an army that was around when I first discovered the GW universe, and it reminded of those good times that you always look back on fondly. I ended up making a couple of videos about it which went down quite well, and I looked forward to seeing what GW had in store for the Leagues. Then came an article about the Votanns, which it turns out are ancient ancestor cores, containing all sorts of information including complete STC patterns. I was even more excited, this sounded amazing. Then they said they were all clones. Wait what? At first this annoyed me, and coupled with the release of Horus Heresy 2.0, I started to lose a bit of interest. But then they started showing cool things... but still I resisted. Then they showed the Brôkhyr Thunderkyn, and my head was turned. I could see them painted like the power loader from Aliens... Then it was NOVA open 2022. They got me. Believe it or not, the thing that did it was a picture of the Hekaton Land Fortress photoshopped to look like the TMNT Turtle Van. It was stupidly awesome, and I could see that colour scheme again that I'd envisioned for the Thunderkyn - a JCB/Industrial Yellow and Dark Grey or Black. Some people have commented on how different the range is and how it doesn't seem to mesh or follow a common theme, but thats what I love about it. I also don't mind the cloneskyn thing anymore, it actually sounds like an interesting take on the lore. Now I find myself wanting the Army box so I can start building a Leagues of Votann force. To be honest all of the above is just nonsense - its just me trying to justify spending more money on minis when there's a cost of living crisis going on, not to mention the fact that my pile of shame is just ridiculous. Why can't I resist new things? If anyone wants me I'll be on eBay.

Hello all! It's been a while since I was last active on this forum and I notice you've since invited xenos and all sorts of other denizens of the galaxy to poke their foot in the door! Here are some pics of my latest project, a Squat 'count-as' Space Marine force. I've not made huge amounts of progress on painting them, but I'm really loving the models so far: Scout snipers: Tactical squad: Techmarine with Thunderfire / Quad Cannon: Sternguard: Captain: I've got a few other bits to build including a unit of Centurions inspired by this excellent conversion, a Land Speeder (Gunhauler), a rhino (Goliath) and a termite. Watch this space for updates, would love to hear your thoughts, feedback and suggestions for the army!