Jaakko and Forin - The Long Forgotten Squat Brotherhood

Cold wind breezed throught the bleak and empty corridors of the mining colony Forin called home. He felt lonely and sad. It felt like ages since the last cargo ship had left the planet. He was just a boy back then but they had continued to fulfil their mission proudly. In their glory days their colony was admired for the high lead content of their ore and celebrated by fellow squats far and wide. Now those days were but a fading memory. Even as the piles of unwanted lead kept growing ever higher Forin kept reflecting on the glory days of their colony and a warm feeling of nostalgia embraced him. With the lingering warmness blinding his judgment Forin thought to himself: "Maybe we should just try to dig deeper."

 

Hello again! It's great to be back and to enter my second season. This time I will paint a Roque trader era squat brotherhood according to the armylist in the Warhammer 40.000 Compendium. Even though I think that the Rogue Trader rules are at their best when playing scirmishes, the aim of this project is a full size army that is playable in the terms of the armylist. This is another childhood dream army for me as I started collecting squats when I was a kid. I only managed to collect a handful of squat adventurers and four mole mortars, but they felt important.

 I try to be very organized this time around and I even have an actual monthly plan. Here are the miniatures I have prepared:

CORE:

The leader month will consist of Squat Warlord Forin Leadenshield and his hearthguard. I added semi random weapons from my bits box for now. If I have the time and energy during leader month, I will randomize the gear according to the armylist and make the needed changes.

For rank & file months 1-3 I have prepared three eight squat strong combat squads, two brotherhood weapon teams, a comissar and a living ancestor. The fourth rank & file month will consist of three rhinos. This is the minimum amount of models that I'm aiming at, but to make things interesting I have also prepared some stretch goals.

EXTRAS:

More combat squads, more weapon teams and a guildmaster who is still in dire need of arms. As one brotherhood can only field two weapon teams the tarantula and rapier laser destroyers are here to provide options (and because I had them). The additional mole mortars need more work to make them work out with the armylist as I would need a second brotherhood to have all four of them.

A guild bike squad and three guild weapon teams. These are still missing some bits here and there and are a bike short of making a full squad. I have more bikes and bike bits in the post at the moment and I would really like to make this happen.

A land raider that's been waiting for this for some thirty years. The other side is still missing the lascannons, but other than that it's ready to be painted. It would seem unfair if the grunts got to ride in rhinos while the Warlord had to walk, wouldn't it?

This one is not actually a stretch goal, but I wanted to give him his own picture. George sent this to me when he heard that I was planning to paint squats this season so I'll paint him as part of the core. I still need to prepare a worthy squad for him, though. Luckily I still have a lot of bits and parts to make even more squats and I'm also scanning the miniature markets for some possible additions into his unit.

WILD CARD:

Wild card month will still stay a secret. Partly because the miniatures I have planned for that month have not yet arrived and partly because I plan to do some projects not involving actual miniatures. This will be something new to me, but I might say that I'm not perspiring because of it.

 

OATH/BOAST:

This year we are adding voluntary self-imposed challenges to ourselves. Last season I admired at the several different terrain projects and secretly wanted to make some terrain of my own. So this year I will add several terrain side projects during the challenge. My initial thought was to make it a monthly challenge, but as it might be too much of a distraction from the actual army I'm aiming at terrain on at least four months.

 

POINTS:

Here is the points allocation of the core of the project without additional points calculated for gear yet

- Warlord (major hero) and hearthguard (heroes) 400 pts

- Three combat squads                                          645 pts

- Thudd gun                                                             90 pts

- Mole mortar                                                        100 pts

- Commissar                                                            45 pts

- Living ancestor                                                   190 pts

- Three rhinos                                                      1110 pts

Total:                                                                   2580 pts

And last and most importantly best of luck to everyone taking part in the challenge!

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,

Meditations on Imperial Command, Book XVI