This thread is interesting, I think there's a lot of talking across one another instead of two one another. Rather then address individuals, here's a quick list of thoughts I have.

1) The Nazis are different from other historical villians not because of the temporal immediacy, but because of the deep shared cultural bond between germany and the English speaking world. As I addressed in an earlier post, there's a lot of fear that the US, UK, etc could become a fascist state. there's very little, if any, fear that a western State could become the Golden Horde or Khmer Rouge, simply because the initial cultures are so different.

2) When an artist uses symbols as part of the creation of art, he is making an intentional choice. He knows, or should know, the impact that the message being broadcast will have on his audience. To use potent Nazi imagery runs the risk of being seen as glorifying the ideals those symbols represent. To combat that would require careful explanition. As others have pointed out: you don't spend time and money to create something that you think is awful. If you find it morbidly fascinating, explain that, preferably in the art itself, or in a seperate notice.

3) The army in question (the thor one) is not a fictionalized version of a German army from ww2. Not army fights like that, it looks more like an SS parade then a fighting force. Because of that, it's looking more like a representation of a political ideal (strength through military) then of a military ideal.

4) While Offense cannot be easily tempered, I think it's importatn to remember a classic internet law: "never attribut to malice what can be explained by incompetence." To assume that the creator might be a neo nazi is one thing, but to be completely certain is probably over reaching. The interent has more jerks then nazis, I'm sure.

5) On the other hand, anybody who simply cannot understand why anybody would be offended by that army has made the mistake of assuming that everybody in the community is as thick skinned as they are. As I've pointed out, the army, absent context, appears to be recreating the sense of renewed german vigor after the rejection of the Versailles treaty. It does so well, but to simply ignore all the baggage and ramifications of that spirit.... well, I think it's a little obtuse.

In short, I think there are some well argued ideas, but I think both sides need to work a lot harder at finding common ground, as neither have a particularly defensible position.

tegeus-Cromis wrote:

So if I want to label the people who committed those atrocities at that time with the pejorative label "Japs", I think that it is not inappropriate.

Race-based insults are never justified, because however many atrocities the Japanese committed, individuals and organisations bear the blame, not the race those individuals belonged to.

FYI, my grandparents lived through the Japanese occupation of Singapore, and I have yet to hear a racist slur out of them, and even if I had, it would not give me the right to repeat them.

I completely agree that we distinguish between groups and individuals. But keep in mind that I'm not tarring and feathering the entire Japanese people. Just all of those individuals who committed atrocities. By their actions, they lower themselves to a subhuman level that (I think) deserves a pejorative label.

So, to clarify, I have no problem with people of Japanese descent. I do, however, have a problem with those individuals within the Japanese army who ordered, commanded, committed, and condoned atrocities against civilians and POWs.

In a similar vein, I have no problem with Germans, white people, etc. But I would have a problem with individuals who espouse hate.
_______

Based on the confusion generated, I am going to go back and edit the problem post(s). Thank you.

My father was a Green Beret In Vietnam, My Grandpa was US Navy in the Pacific, My Grandfather was British Navy, My Brother is a Marine, My sister Army. I come from a Military Family.
Before My father passed a couple of years ago I had asked him about my Catachan Army if it would offend him if I started to collect that army and painted as Vietnamesque US Soldiers...
His response was No it would not offend him, it was a just game. When I started painting the soldiers he would look at them and tell me where I may want to use a different color or what not, and if I wanted to he would show me his equipment to mimick it. BTW was the coolest damn time I spent with him.
When I showed him My Empire Armies and and IG he quickly pointed out the Commisars and talked about the Russian And German influences through out the entire army.
Hell they have a unit called Stormtroopers.
I have painted some of my Catachans in a light and dark brown skin tones yes they were black soldiers, I have yet to see any multi racial army like this. Some people got upset because I had Black people in my army, and while noone would ever tell me why they thought it was wrong I just wrote it off as they see something that makes them uncomfortable and afraid of what other s may think of them if they don't agree with their way of thinking.
There is no Denying that GW has modeled minis from historical wars. If you can't see that your posting on the wrong forum.
If anyone wants to believe that the IG is based more off the romans then the Germans then your a moron! Yes the Germans were Heavily influence by the Roman Cutlure, But GW didn't give them roman type names most are german esque names.
By the way people are reacting to these pics maybe we should reevaluate the games that are out there: Axis and Allies, Call of Duty, Doomtroopers (ok dead Game but still), Warhammer , or anything that has any bad people in it. We should ban thos games cause they glorify evil, By the way I usually Play German or Japanese in Axis and Allies doe sthat make me evil or bad?

Pleae tell me that people realize that A German in World War 2 was not always a Nazi thats like saying all american are republican cause Bush is. The Iron Cross is German not Nazi! The nazi symbol was the swastika, the iron eagle, and Oak leaves.

But seriously this is the most I have written in a Forum and people need to build a bridge and Get over it, its a game if you don't want to play him then don't. Grow a set of balls and don't whine because you have some misconscieved notion that everything is black and White and that you have to be PC about everything.

Freedom of speech yes does allow people to voice their displeasure as well as someone to show what they like or believe in. But does not mean you have the right to attack anyone physically or orally, state your displeasure but don't try to make it as if he is applauding the Nazi regime, he is not he just likes the era. And don't get me started on our own Civil War... Were americans any better to the slaves, or to the Japanese during WW2. Or is it because people aren't still around that its ok?
That is about as dumb as George Lucas changing one of the Scenes in Episode 3 where a vehicle crashes into a building becuase it might offend a 9-11 victim, or survivor. People are just too sensitive these days, IMHO.

Stupid thread.

G

JohnHwangDD wrote:
If you have found errors, please go ahead and raise them, and I (or others) will do my level best to address them appropriately. If you're questioning my comment about the American-on-American casualties, my (unstated) reference is for the highest number of American casualties (war dead) being the American Civil War.

Ok for a start all the references to the Sentinels and whats on them. Where are they? No Sentinel pics have been posted by GMM, unless you are confusing him with someone else.


The last thing we want to get into is a dictators pissing contest (not that you started that). The number of Chinese who suffered at the hands of the Japanese vs the Long March is not really relevant.
- Blaming a race instead of individuals is never the best option. tegeus-Cromis made excellent contribution on this, I will let his comments stand for my own here.
- Secondly comparative statistics mean squat if you are a member of one of the races involved. Millions or a handful, it still makes good political copy, and some people dont forget. Better not to fuel such hatreds.


My main concern is regarding your YOU post about Phryxis.

- First if he can forgive and you cant, its actually an advantage as far as he is concerned.

- Also from the other peoples you have mentioned the official lines from what I gather is to 'forgive but ot forget'. So if GMM or others are not actively wanted for crimes against humanity, leave them alone. Thats the theory anyway.

Generally it looks like you are getting very upset where you should just take a breather and understand that you are not going to agree with Phryxis, makes your points and leave it at that. I wouldnt put it the same way he did, but I agree with some of his opinions, you do not. Neither of you (nor for that matter me) can claim any form of moral superiority by our opinions.
We can only show a greater maturity by the way we express them.

Those who cannot learn from history are doomed to repeat it.

JHDD:

By their actions, they lower themselves to a subhuman level that (I think) deserves a pejorative label.

Sure, but it kind of defeats the purpose to base that pejorative label on race, doesn't it?

(I'm keeping out of the rest of this thread. It's going nowhere fast.)

Polonius wrote:This thread is interesting, I think there's a lot of talking across one another instead of two one another. Rather then address individuals, here's a quick list of thoughts I have.

1) The Nazis are different from other historical villians not because of the temporal immediacy, but because of the deep shared cultural bond between germany and the English speaking world. As I addressed in an earlier post, there's a lot of fear that the US, UK, etc could become a fascist state. there's very little, if any, fear that a western State could become the Golden Horde or Khmer Rouge, simply because the initial cultures are so different.

In short, I think there are some well argued ideas, but I think both sides need to work a lot harder at finding common ground, as neither have a particularly defensible position.

Of course we're not going to become another Golden Horde, I sure as hell don't know how to ride a horse.

You'll not find common ground here unfortunately. The people on the "Nazis are evil and if you paint a swastika you're an evil Nazi" side of the line I think are pretty entrenched. Also, the people on the "It's just a model, if you don't like it then don't look at it" side of the line just can't comprehend how a couple of toy tanks can cause an aneurism.

Green Blow Fly wrote:Stupid thread.

Completely agree, after the first 3-4 pages.

I will say that communism has killed more people than Nazism and Fascism put together. If you look at Stalin's purges and Mao's great leap forward easily have the death tolls for Joseph Stalin's regime in the Soviet Union range between 3.5 and 60 million, and those for Mao Zedong's China range between 19.5 and 75 million.

I personally find Communism even more offensive than Nazism.

thehod - while you are completely right that these two cultures slaughtered way more people than Hitler could ever have dreamed of the big point that some of these guys are trying to make is that they didn't do it assembly line style. The Nazis had concentration camp. They were more organized. The Soviets just slaughtered people wholesale which apparently makes them better or something.

Stormtrooper X wrote:thehod - while you are completely right that these two cultures slaughtered way more people than Hitler could ever have dreamed of the big point that some of these guys are trying to make is that they didn't do it assembly line style. The Nazis had concentration camp. They were more organized. The Soviets just slaughtered people wholesale which apparently makes them better or something.

No the Nazi's were never as organized as the Soviets (For example the NKVD actually deported half a million people to the Gulag in 2 days 20 miles behind the front in 1944). The big difference is the Soviet Union did not have enemy troops marching all over the Gulag Archipelago seeing what they were doing. There were also active sympathizers in the west working for the Soviets (Walter Duranty being the most famous).

In Russia really only the government was doing the killing as in China, but in Germany almost the whole country was Nazis(3/4) so you can't shove everything into the government's shoes. Though still most of the blame does lie there.

Orlanth wrote:

JohnHwangDD wrote:
If you have found errors, please go ahead and raise them, and I (or others) will do my level best to address them appropriately.

Ok for a start all the references to the Sentinels and whats on them. Where are they? No Sentinel pics have been posted by GMM, unless you are confusing him with someone else.

If you go back to his original post, his mini-tank with the balloons on one side (piloted by a kid) count as a Sentinel, so that is what I am referring to. The specific conversion is based on a GW WD or BG article.

Orlanth wrote:The last thing we want to get into is a dictators pissing contest

Agreed. As I've said elsewhere, that should probably move to another thread.

Orlanth wrote:My main concern is regarding your YOU post about Phryxis.

- First if he can forgive and you cant, its actually an advantage as far as he is concerned.

It is a failing of mine that I have to live with at this time. But that is different from holding and feeding hate within one's heart, and I feel pretty good that I've moved past that particular bugbear.

Also, I believe there is a process associated with forgiveness, and that process starts with a recognition and admission of wrongdoing, followed by reparations and amends. So within my schema, based on their national reactions to the horrors perpetrated by their predecessors, the Germans would be more forgivable than the Japanese.

Orlanth wrote:We can only show a greater maturity by the way we express them.

Amen to that.

tegeus-Cromis wrote:JHDD:

By their actions, they lower themselves to a subhuman level that (I think) deserves a pejorative label.

Sure, but it kind of defeats the purpose to base that pejorative label on race, doesn't it?

Probably. Tho the Japanese aren't a race as much as a nation, in the same way that Irish, Scots, Welsh, Italians, and Swedes aren't races, either.

I apologize for my lack of clarity earlier, along with the use, which is why I've gone back and edited my posts to remove the pejorative and be clear.

First let me preference this by saying I am the very essence of evil:

I am white, christian, and conservative, and american.


Now that everyone knows which ammunition to load...let's continue.


I am of the mind that I do not find how someone paints their futuristic fantasy plastic toy solders offensive. I'd like to think that I've grown up enough to ignore whatever "Boogie-Man" might be standing 2 inches high on the table in front of me and play the GAME.

That being said, the mere fact that we play in the Universe of 40k and are offended by things IN it or representations from the "real world" IN it, is so far beyond rediculous that it doesn't even measure on the scale.

The Imperium mirrors so much of the most oppressive cultures in history...that is what makes it a DARK setting to play in. The setting of the game is not a rosey happy-go-lucky place...it is supposed to be a dark..terrifying place to be and there is very little "GOOD" in it. Because, good - just like in the real world - is relative.

There were, no matter how you wish to pretend it was not so, german solders during WW2 that believed theirs was the cause of good and it was the allied forces who were evil.

That is because horrible things happen when you are only allowed to know what your government tells you. And when you're own eyes tell you different...violence - or the threat of it - is there to help you see more clearly.

This is a game people, unless the person standing across from you at the gaming table is wearing an "I Love Hitler" t-shirt...let's just try and ignore all the silly little symbols in the army that offend you and play the game.

And if it bothers you that much...how about just not playing them again?? Or not at all to begin with.

The key here is exercise your "personal rights". Don't attempt to regulate the personal rights of other people just to make your sleep at night a little better.

And before anyone jumps on it....no you don't have the right to break the law.

Good Example:
(Person shows you their army that has Nazi iconography in it) Person: "Hey, how do you like my army?"
(proper and best response) You: "Not so much dude, have a nice day."

Bad Example:
(Person shows you their army that has Nazi iconography in it) Person: "Hey, how do you like my army?"
(proper and best response) You: "I hate it!. you're a neo nazi freak and you deserve to be run out of town, i'm going to call up the newspaper and put an ad out saying what a nazi loving freak you are!! then i'm going to go to the internet and slader your reputation as much as I possibly can..then we'll talk about deporting you next!!!!"






That you,

Dismissed.

Hilariously there has been a few cases of neo nazi self hating jews in Israel recently, I wonder if Phy is one of the afore mentioned.

I already stated the reasons I mentioned that I'm Jewish, but thanks for also going here. You've now officially made a veiled accusation of anti-semitism against an actual Jewish person. All in your need to justify your own views.

I know you're not listening, but MAYBE now would be the time to start asking yourself if your point of view is SO correct that you need to start doing things like that?

So, while I do not believe that the artist intended to endorse neo-Nazism, I think his choice of subject matter for this army was unfortunate. He'll have to spend as much time fighting his opponents as he will fighting the armis that will play against it.

I agree. I think that the backlash against him is ridiculous, insanely venomous, and actually fairly surprising, even in this age of policially correct faux moralizing. But, bottom line, I don't think the level of (apparent) hassle this army creates is worth all the (obvious) effort that went into it.

That said, I think I'd be surprised if anybody saw this in person and did anything but praise the awesome paintwork.

Phyrxis shouldnt have a greater say for being Jewish regarding to nazism

Which I think I was pretty clear in saying I didn't. Repeatedly. I could quote it, but people didn't read it last time in their haste to accuse me of being an anti-semetic Jew, so why would they this time?

it is neither a tricky nor an absurd leap to call this dude what he is.

What makes it absurd is that he's still around to be asked.

Now, if he lived in the 1800s, and was a prominent artist of his day, and we were trying to dissect his work for motivation, then fine. But he's a dude on the internet who can be asked. And what he's said so far has implied that he didn't intend for it to support a neo-Nazi viewpoint.

He also has WWII Communist iconography in there as well. Why do we focus on the Nazi part? And why are we so mad at Nazis, when Stalin was equally, if not more catastrophic to human life? Why are we not as mad at Mao, who was also a colossal mass murderer?

This is about confronting the philosophy and ideas that allowed those past atrocities to occur. Allowing representations of reprehensible ideas to be presented without challenge, is to make them seem more acceptable. Complacency is what allows public discourse to swing to dangerous ideals.

I like the sentiment, but I think you're mistaken. I don't think that opposing the colors red, white and black is fighting a resurgence of Nazism. I don't think that loudly decrying a painted plastic model is holding back the floodgates of intolerance.

On the other hand, what I DO think, is that teaching an entire nation (or world) of people to hate without reflection IS setting the stage for the sort of atrocities that happened during WWII. I'm not saying that Nazis are misunderstood. I'm saying that their movement is dead (save a few pitiable modernday malconents), and the preservation of a mentality of knee-jerk reactionism against it does not serve us well.

All it does is provide a label for people to use to demonize modern day political movements. "Oh, [insert party here] is a bunch of Nazis, man! Total fascists!" For now, it's just words, but it lays the foundation for more genocides. It creates the language needed to round people up and imprison or kill them. After all, they're NAZIs, right? They're gonna get you if you don't get them, right? Rounding up and killing Nazis... That's justifiable, right? And what about those Japs? They may as well be Nazis themselves, right?

In the end, you're left with people who hate a cateogry, hate it without reason, but have no actual experience in dealing with the terrible repercussions of such hate.

Welcome to more genocide.

But at least you have a different color scheme this time, so it's all good?

My problem is with people like YOU pretending that you have the moral authority to forgive for others, when things that were done are unforgivable.

Problem is, I didn't pretend that. I'm not responsible for your refusal/inability to read what I've actually written.

I said Nazis never did anything to me. I think everyone else on this forum is in the same boat. I'm not saying they didn't do countless evil things, they just didn't do any of it to me. So, not only did I not say I "forgive" Nazis, I clearly said I have no basis to forgive them.

My problem is with people like YOU deciding I can't form my own opinion and state it as such.

I've already been clear, you have your own opinions. I'd say "you're welcome to it" but I'm not even comfortable with that, as it implies that I have to verbally release it to you.

The fact is, I'm so certain that you can and will have your own opinions, I don't feel at all concerned about challenging them. They're yours. If I can say something that risks or damages them, then isn't that YOUR fault for not having more conviction, or more thoroughly thought out opinions?

Let me put it simply: I challenge your opinions because I give them the respect of knowing they don't hinge on my sayso.

My problem is with people like YOU deciding that unacceptable ad hominem attacks are the way to make your point in what is an otherwise reasonable discussion.

You accused somebody of being a neo-Nazi sympathizer. Is that not as direct and damaging an attack as can be made?

You called an entire nation of people "Japs." Is that not a disrespectful slang term for them?

When I started reading it was not a reasonable discussion. It was just a discussion being dominated by viewpoints you agree with.

Apparently "reasonable" to you means agreement with your views. Genocide is a handy tool in accomplishing that goal.

So what's wrong with me is YOU.

AWESOME. Most concise and transparent attempt at projection EVER. YOU WIN.

Quite frankly, your behavior in this thread means that I'm ignoring you after this. I find your responses to be totally unacceptable and personally offensive.

It's truly awesome to watch this happen. Ignoring is the internet forum equivalent of killing. It's not just skipping or skimming posts (tolerating, but not engaging). It's not reading, and trying to change ideas (engaging). It's just BAM. No more. Put the person from your forum world. Not a big deal, sure, but when confronted with dissent, with somebody you don't like, you resort to removing them from your world.

So that's two of you now. Two people who are high-and-might anti-Nazis who have decided that another viewpoint was so offensive it had to be purged from their forum experience.

Oh, you've got "reasons." I'm offensive! Do you think the Nazis didn't give "reasons" for what they did? Anybody can come up with reasons for the wrongs they do. The trick is not doing wrong things.

And they killed a lot more than 6 million people.

What is 6 million people? Wikipedia's estimate on the great leap forward: "The official toll of excess deaths recorded in China for the years of the GLF is 14 million, but scholars have estimated the number of famine victims to be between 20 and 43 million."

Please don't tell me you're one of these apologists for Mao, who tries to dismiss the horrors he propagated out of a need to foster misplaced Chinese nationalism?

It's a good thing you've ignored me, dude. I think I've got nothing but bad news for you.

I don't think I've ever been so personally *angry* at someone on Dakka in all the time I've been on this board.

Well, I'm not angry at all. Is it possible that you're angry because I've exposed very real problems with your ideology? I'm not upset when somebody accuses me of being an anti-semite, because I know I'm not, and comical lies of that sort can't hurt me. But you are upset by what I said...

Maybe somebody you don't have on ignore can help you through this more gently than I have the patience for.

This person drew/sculpted/wrote/painted this so he must be a political deviant to be exposed.
Sorry that is way too fanatical.

I agree, 100%. The fact that we can ask this guy questions leaves no room for that sort of speculation.

Now, if he was asked, and started accusing people of being "Israeli" then, sure, the conclusions get a bit less speculative. I haven't seen that yet, only heard it second hand.

And even if the guy turns out to be a flaming anti-semite, I still maintain that it's necessary to conduct due dilligence in establishing that before we start calling people Nazis.

Not army fights like that, it looks more like an SS parade then a fighting force.

Good points, but to be fair, 40K armies totally fight like that. There's a major emphasis in 40K art to show forces fighting with flags out, and totally impractical devotional activities going on. I think this is meant to harken to the parades you speak of, and to emphasize the insanity of the dogma in the 40K world, but it's still worth noting that the "shortest distance between two points" here isn't his models to an SS parade, it's his models to 40K.

I have painted some of my Catachans in a light and dark brown skin tones yes they were black soldiers, I have yet to see any multi racial army like this.

I painted my Cadians the same way. Contemptible racist that I am.

I will say that communism has killed more people than Nazism and Fascism put together. If you look at Stalin's purges and Mao's great leap forward easily have the death tolls for Joseph Stalin's regime in the Soviet Union range between 3.5 and 60 million, and those for Mao Zedong's China range between 19.5 and 75 million.

YUP. Funny that the socialist leaning folk of the world have less problem with the Communists, huh?

This is slightly tangential but people have brought it up. I have only painted a dark skinned model once or twice. The reason I don't is because I can't get it to come out like anything but a bad caricature. Which is ironic because if I bring that to a game store I can guarantee someone will try to say I'm bringing a minstrel show to the table, while according to this thread it is racist not to paint them. Sort of damned if you do, damned if you don't, no?
Perhaps if anything good comes out of this thread it is that I'm thinking about looking up some links on how to paint dark skin. I think one of the painting guides I have goes over it, I'll have to look it over again. I think dark skin on one hand has subtle highlights, yet if it is very dark, it seems to have bright highlights where the light directly hits it, sort of like a gem I guess.

One thing I continually observe is that racism ( or nazism, people group it together now in their minds) is the new communism. At one time in this country ( the united states) , any statement that didnt espouse absolute disdain for communism could get you pretty much shunned for life. You could lose your job, or you could possibly be harassed by the government. Even political groups that were fairly socialist in demeanor, like labor unions, would run a communist out on a rail. At least back then, there really were actual communist agents doing espionage and other subversive activities, though surely not as many as people believed. Now, this is how racism is. Even white supremacists now avoid the words white supremacy.
While racism certainly still exists, much like communist subversion existed during the time of McCarthy, does it really deserve the amount of hypervigilance people have? I live pretty far south, and I have never in my life seen a Klan rally anywhere but on TV. I've never known anyone who belonged to the Klan, though I do know a couple people whom I strongly suspect to be members or former members. Sure, every so often, say once every three or four years, someone will hang a noose over someone's porch, or deface a statue, or something to that effect. Overt racism just doesn't seem to be that widespread. Now whether or not there is a persistent undercurrent of racism running through American society, I'm not the one to say. Thats a topic for another thread.

Makari wrote:
I have painted some of my Catachans in a light and dark brown skin tones yes they were black soldiers, I have yet to see any multi racial army like this.

Google returns a couple links:

http://forums.relicnews.com/showthread.php?t=72680
http://www.angelfire.com/wizard2/wurmwizard/40k/Salamanders/images/Salamanders11.jpg

There are more (including my later Protectorate of Menoth stuff). I just
use the Reaper dark skin out of the bottle and I'm good.

I think some of the Imperial characters in the Dawn of War game were
dark skinned?

Just a few points I'd like to make:

1. Collecting an army does not imply an affiliation for what they stand for. i.e., a Slaanesh player is not necessarily a drug-addicted sense addict.

2. To pretend the Nazis did not exist is folly. They did, and they were bad.

3. Many themes associated with Nazi Germany make for effective hooks for an army to use. You paint an army in red white and black, and it will conjure up a similar response to seeing Nazis in a film / video game.

And hence we have the difference between these two armies. The first uses themes and iconography that (though far too similar for my liking to Nazi symbols) are designed presumably, to give the vibe of Nazi Germany, with all it's associated themes of Power, Evil and Aggression. A reminder now, Space Marines are already powerful and aggressive, and quite possibly evil. What we have here is a colour scheme to accentuate that based on out deep-rooted notion of what evil looks like.

The second army however, takes Germany's view of itself mid war, with themes of their propaganda and symbols, indicative of power again, but this time also nobility and divine right (notice the many god and god-like images). The problem here of course, that if these symbols were all associated with some other organisation that hadn't committed atrocities, it's unlikely anyone would have cause to complain (Suppose the army was painted with Britannia and various Royal Coats of arms instead. Would you feel so negatively about the army?) However, knowing as we do that there positive images come from a history of evil, the vibe we receive is that of Evil, Hypocrisy and Deception. Unlike the space marines, where negative emotions were used on a negative army, here we have the inadvertent use of negative emotions on an army that appears outwardly positive. And it;s this clashing of themes which is what I believe is the source of most people's problems.

Either, the painter has thought this through very carefully to create an army where we are lead into this state of confusion, where a positive army has connotations which are deeply negative, or he himself was ignorant to what people's responses would be. I can't say which of the two it would be, and I'm not sure which is worse. Either it was created to anger people, or it was created in ignorance to how people would respond. And this is why people are against the first, and not the second. The first is honest, and the second is confusing.

malfred wrote:

Makari wrote:
I have painted some of my Catachans in a light and dark brown skin tones yes they were black soldiers, I have yet to see any multi racial army like this.

Google returns a couple links:

http://forums.relicnews.com/showthread.php?t=72680
http://www.angelfire.com/wizard2/wurmwizard/40k/Salamanders/images/Salamanders11.jpg

There are more (including my later Protectorate of Menoth stuff). I just
use the Reaper dark skin out of the bottle and I'm good.

I think some of the Imperial characters in the Dawn of War game were
dark skinned?

Yah, the inquisitor. I could always use Vallejo's dark skin right out of the bottle, but I'd have to be careful mixing up a highlight. I'm guessing using a lighter skin tone.

I believe we've reached a point where all the important elements in this discussion have been made and are now just being repeated ad nauseam.

If you really, really want to continue the discussion about real-world iconography being used in miniature gaming I'd ask that you start a new thread in the Off-Topic forum.



Most everyone else has had their say about the topic and I thought I'd put my 2 cents in before I shut it down.

Obviously the use of potentially offensive real-world images in a science fiction miniature game is a tricky situation, as evidenced by the discussion on this forum. The reactions from people range from: "This is ridiculous it is a miniature game, it doesn't matter what you put on your models" to "The use of such themes and images is clearly a statement being pushed by the creator."

This sort of outrage and counter-outrage at the outrage is eeirly reminiscent of the last time a really well-painted model incorporated real-world iconography. . .Victor Hardy's Greater Daemon model that had an image of a daemonic Madonna/baby Jesus painted onto it.


What both these cases illustrate is that, like life, whenever you display something as your own, be it a t-shirt, bumper sticker, or miniature, this is a form of communication that other people will see, interpret and come to their own conclusions about you and why you have chosen to put forth whatever message they believe you are sending. The problem with a miniature (or any other work of art), is that the meaning behind the creator's work isn't always clear, at least not as clear as a T-shirt saying: "White Power!", which obviously has a pretty succinct message.

So without personally knowing the creator, or the ultimate goal or meaning of his work people are left to judge what has been put forth at face value and decide for themselves if it is a harmless incorporation of historical themes or rather it is a cleverly designed piece of propaganda.

I'm sure that if we were able to meet the creator in person, 95% of us would be able to judge in fairly short order what type of person he was and that judgement would quickly change our perception of his work. But the problem with the internet, or if we were to view pictures of the army in another format, is that we don't get to physically meet the person who created the army and without that basic connection many of us will forever be in doubt of their motives, no matter what they write about their intentions.

All of which begs the question: Even if the creator has absolutely no ill-will in mind with his work, why would he go to such (obviously) great lengths to create something that will be found in poor taste by a large percentage of the population? Gaming is a social hobby and for the most part the goal is for you and your opponent to have a good time playing against each other. So why would someone wish to create an army that they would essentially have to explain themselves everytime they play against a new player?

Which opens up a whole different slew of questions: Did the creator really think that no one would be offended by his work? If so, how could he possibly be so naive? If not, why would he want subject himself to the hassle of dealing with repeated negative allegations stemming from his work? Is he desperate for attention or does he really have an agenda he's trying to push?

We can go around in circles trying to guess the answers to these questions but the only person who knows for sure is the creator, and he's not participating in the discussion, so at some point it just becomes a case of everyone else spinning their wheels trying to guess the answer when there cannot be one found.


But ultimately, these are legitimate questions that need to be asked and discussed by the gaming community as it will be people like us that play games against armies like this and everyone needs to be fully aware of how other people will react to different images. I think this army, and this discussion, have done a very good job of showing the different sides of this difficult subject.

Anytime you incorporate real-world iconography into your army you have to be prepared for people to interpret those symbols and come to their own conclusions about what you have created. The more potent the real-world symbol, the more likely that others will draw negative conclusions about your motives. Finally, if you use potent real-world images on your models knowing that you will draw negative reactions from a good percentage of people you show it to, what does that say about yourself?