Squats!

Way back in the day when 1st edition (called Rogue Trader back then) came out the game was much more fantasy in space mixed with the feel of 2000AD (a British sci-fi comic from the 70's & 80's). While the game didn't have Chaos until a couple years later, it did come with space elves, space orcs, space ogres and space halflings. It also had space dwarves known as Squats who were allied to the Imperium.
The problem was that Squats never really got a good shot at the game. I still have the original 1st edition Squat army list and they were a sort of weird biker army with a few heavy weapons. Games Workshop were never happy with the take they had and somewhere during the reign of 2nd edition they made the move of having them devoured by the Tyranids. For all intents and purposes the Squat race was dead.

But then in the late 1990's GW made mention of a race allied to the Tau called Demiurg. While there was no pictures or descriptions of the race itself they did get a ship in the Battlefleet Gothic game. Then a few years later a piece of concept art made the rounds.

Looks like a space dwarf to me anyway. Now in the last years worth of rumours it has been repeated over and over again by many that the new Tau Empire codex for 2012 will allow Demiurg as a playable race. Take the appropriate HQ and it unlocks Demiurg as troops. It also sounds like there will be a special character and a heavy weapon team type of unit as well. Which basically gives me hope that it will be possible to play a full Squat, sorry, Demiurg army again.
However, there is also a rumour circulating that GW still doesn't want to bring back the space dwarf and Demiurg are being turned into little stone men-like aliens. I will not be happy if this is true. I want my Squats dagnamit! There are people out here in the real world who want to see the return of the Squats, so GW sort it out.

Anywho, the Squat army is in my blood at the moment and I'm looking around for potential miniatures to use assuming rumours are accurate, the GW ones look awful or Demiurg become stone people. So far I have bought myself the 2009 White Dwarf mail subscription miniature:

I love the mini and want to use this as my HQ. Actual Squat minis on EBay are going for stupid prices and I refuse to even look there. Instead I found a company called Mantic who have just released a sci-fi wargame called Warpath (written by Calvatore who wrote 40K 5th edition). So far the only armies released for it are Forge Fathers (space dwarves) and Maruaders (space orcs).  They are the same scale as 40K, plastic for the most part and a hell of a lot cheaper. So I have ordered myself a set of their standard soldiers:

Click to enlarge for a better look. So far they also have a heavy weapon team, a thudgun type tracked cannon, terminator army looking guys (though they don't look as good) and a special character. I really want the special character but I doubt I'll get an accurate weapon load out to represent him:

The only issue I have right now other then desperately wanting to know more about the Demiurg in the new codex is if not, what codex would I use for my Squat army?