+ inload: Squat Volksmen +

+ inload: Squat Volksmen +

+ A bit of a closer look at the squat warriors I posted up yesterday. The torsos and heads of these are ebay purchases, and a little damaged from over-enthusiastic polystyrene cement application. This rather forced me to put some of the arms into rather contorted positions to help cover things up; but I think they work fairly well overall as concept models, so I'll use the same approach on the remaining ones, but work a little more carefully.

+ In addition to the Volksmen (the regular line troopers pictured above), I've picked up some models to use as Hearthguard. These are from Mantic's Dreadball range; but with a little weapon swap, they look pretty cool, I think.

+ I've been wondering whether to use Imperial weaponry or not. This basically boils down to whether my reimagined background has them as Imperial abhumans or not (i.e. separate species, or otherwise using their own tech).

+ Currently, I'm leaning towards giving them Imperial stuff. The test Hearthguard (left) has a bolt pistol and chainsword from the Space Wolves terminator set, which have some lovely runic/Norse touches that fit in nicely with how I picture the culture.

+ Concept inload: Squat weaponry + 

+ Special weapons – grav-based and volkite. Both of these weapon types are cool and (to me, at least) fairly unusual; having grown up with the standard flamer, melta, plasma (and grenade launcher). They're high-tech, which suits the 'cunning metalworking dwarf' trope. Grav weapons work nicely in the context of the high-gravity worlds that shaped the squats, and volkite weapons appeal for their novelty and short-range. As an extra bonus, there are two 'basic' types of volkite guns, which gives me three options to choose from (volkite charger, volkite caliver and graviton gun) to neatly replace the traditional flamer, melta and plasma.

+ Standard weapons – a personal mix of boltguns, lasguns and autoguns. I see squats as having much more freedom in personalisation and choice than the guard – a mix of revered hand-me-down artefacts, stubborn insistence that 'X is better', and a refusal to back down from clan/family traditions.

+ Close combat weapons – Chainaxes and power mauls. Unusual but not unknown to the Imperium, this is a great way of showing that they have a common ancestor with the Imperials, but differ in detail.