Peregrine wrote:

Women knights or monks are ridiculous enough to kill the reference dead. You could smuggle some Jeanne d'Arc esque general but on massive scale it would reek of parody or at least look artificial and forced.

Are you serious? You can't possibly believe something this absurd.

I think if GW re-released Cadians tomorrow with half female and half male it'd appear pretty forced and I could see how some people would feel it's artificial pandering to the PC crowd.

Either way I think the whole thing is way overblown. It may sound harsh but I don't really see wanting females/blacks as anything more than me wanting Space Wolves that are less wolf and more viking, it's just an aesthetic desire which GW unfortunately don't seem to agree with for whatever reason

Id like to add that I dont consider all feminist claims artificial problems. Date rapes are a problem, women underpayed is a problem, women position in India is a problem. Sexism in a niche space fantasy game for nerds is not a problem. And no first world problems fallacy doesnt apply.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Peregrine wrote:Have you actually looked at the current IG codex? Almost all of the fluff/art is Cadians and Catachans, and virtually all of the photographs are those armies. Their presence in codex art is massively disproportionate to their numbers in the fluff.

Yes there is a pic of Vostroyan, Valhallan, Steel Legion, DKoK guardsmen. Battle arts are mostly Cadian but there's not a lot of pictures in general tbh. There's not a single woman and it looks intended imo.

Peregrine wrote:

Female guardsmen you posted are from licensed sources, I take GW over them when it comes to 40k vision.

Why? GW has no such policy. Why is your personal opinion about what is canon more important than the actual owners and creators of the setting

Plumbumbarum wrote:
Can you tell the difference between Roman inspired and straight Roman building?

Yeah. How did the buildings I posted inspire anything about 40k architecture?

Plumbumbarum wrote:
Dictator is an anachronism when used in context of Rome?

Yes it is. Unless you are talking about the Roman title of dictator which is something completely different:

In the Roman Republic the term "Dictator" did not have the negative meaning it has later assumed. Rather, a Dictator was a person given sole power (unlike the normal Roman republican practice, where rule was divided between two equal Consuls) for a specific limited period, in order to deal with an emergency. At the end of his term, the Dictator was supposed to hand power over to the normal Consular rule and give account of his actions – and Roman dictators usually did.

Plumbumbarum wrote:
It's not the first time you quote me in a way that my words look bad, cant say intentional or not but it gets annoying.

It is not intentional. Actually, the only way to not make your words look bad, in my opinion, would be to not quote them at all.

Plumbumbarum wrote:
Female guardsmen you posted are from licensed sources, I take GW over them when it comes to 40k vision.

So, if I give you an artwork featuring an female guardswoman by GW proper, from as early as 2nd edition, will you give up your silly position? I happen to have one. Or what about models? If I show you official GW proper models for Imperial Guardswomen, will you then give up your ridiculous claims? I have that to. I am surprised Peregrine did not mention either.

Plumbumbarum wrote:
Ofc reference is not a copy. That you can recognise it doesnt mean that it's not ridiculous. Women knights or monks are ridiculous enough to kill the reference dead. You could smuggle some Jeanne d'Arc esque general but on massive scale it would reek of parody or at least look artificial and forced.

Plumbumbarum wrote:
The equivalent of woman legionaire would be putting curtains with flower patterns on said building.

.
I am pretty sure the Sisters of Battle might do just that. The flowers would be Lys, though .

Plumbumbarum wrote:
On the contrary actualy, it was made by punkish nerds in times were every punk was obligatory anti Thatcher and if I was to define it politicaly it would be some leftist grimdark parody on church, racism and facism that got dulled over the years because of its commercial succes.

Yeah. And guess how they parodied racism, from the very beginning? The very same way that comics like X-men and movies like District 9 did: putting mutants and aliens as the victims of bigotry rather than black peoples.

Plumbumbarum wrote:
Now, the dialog:

Crazy pc person from USA: GW has a racist problem.

Plumbumbarum: Well that would actualy be great because the setting is extreme and offensive and it would fit the IoM making impression of bad people.

Crazy mac person from France: No, because the Imperium already gives the impression of being oppressive and bigoted by how mutants and abhumans are treated. Even down to using “Xenos”, like in xenophobe, as a derogatory term for aliens.

Plumbumbarum wrote:
Crazy feminist person from USA: Not enough women. Sexism.

Plumbumbarum: Well too much women. Id love if there was a mysogynist problem there just like history and stuff.

Crazy feminist person from France: No, because we already have history for that, and tons and tons of already written books with sexists societies. It would not be novel, it would not be interesting, and it would not be enjoyable, except maybe for you. But that is totally unrelated to you being a bigot, right.

Plumbumbarum wrote:
I am myself an insane person and consider it as one of my upsides.

Uh, what?

Plumbumbarum wrote:
Swaping weapons and armour for future one is not the same as swapping the strong cultural and historical connotations for a supposedly better suited future one.

Oh. What about spitting acid, psychic powers, intense xenophobia and indoctrination, becoming small independent entities rather than one unified army, swapping from polytheism to very strong monotheism/atheism and all that? Those do not count either because… reasons, amirite? Reasons totally not being “I want my own prejudices catered to”.
You have still to explain what is ridiculous about the idea of a female knight. You need to explain history how it is wrong and how we should go back into the past to prevent it from happening multiple times over.

Plumbumbarum wrote:
I dont know, when I look at GW IG art it's ussualy balls to the walls epic yet grimdark, maybe women just make it harder to showcase gritty, brutal soldiers of grimdark or sth.

Sorry, I cannot hear you over the sound of all the grimdark balls to the wall epicness of this picture:

AllSeeingSkink wrote:
I think if GW re-released Cadians tomorrow with half female and half male it'd appear pretty forced and I could see how some people would feel it's artificial pandering to the PC crowd.

And I would call it a badly-needed redesign of a kit that is years overdue for one. The only problem with female Cadians would be the fact that GW would need to significantly improve the kit to make it work, at least without resorting to idiotic "sexy" armor.

Either way I think the whole thing is way overblown. It may sound harsh but I don't really see wanting females/blacks as anything more than me wanting Space Wolves that are less wolf and more viking, it's just an aesthetic desire which GW unfortunately don't seem to agree with for whatever reason

It's a difference because it's not just about personal preference, it's whether a potential new player can find any characters like them to identify with. Right now if that's something you value and you aren't a white man you're probably not going to be interested in the game. And something that's so easy to fix should not be pushing people away from the hobby.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Plumbumbarum wrote:
Sexism in a niche space fantasy game for nerds is not a problem.

It's not a problem for you. Those two words are very important.

Yes there is a pic of Vostroyan, Valhallan, Steel Legion, DKoK guardsmen. Battle arts are mostly Cadian but there's not a lot of pictures in general tbh. There's not a single woman and it looks intended imo.

There are hardly any pictures of those other regiments compared to the Cadians and Catachans. And how do you know that the DKoK soldiers are all men? A woman in the same uniform would look exactly the same as a man.

Might be not easy to say to the US based company you just licensed your IP to "you know...if you could... just not put any wome in there. Oh also black people. Thanks". Or get the book to endorse and tell them to cut all women out. Or they dont give a crap because money. All speculation ofc but my speculation is like an average person fact. That good.

As you said, this is all just speculation. Why are you wasting our time with speculation that has no evidence at all to support it? There is no reason to believe that FFG/BL/etc are doing anything that "main GW" doesn't approve of, or that those sources are any kind of lesser canon.

Even Vasquez times 100 would look more delicate than typical GW screaming Cadians.

Lol. That's really all that comment deserves.

I think if GW re-released Cadians tomorrow with half female and half male it'd appear pretty forced and I could see how some people would feel it's artificial pandering to the PC crowd.

Either way I think the whole thing is way overblown.

What I see is that many other people would be glad to have more diversity in their IG ranks. If you want to stick with the 10yo ugly cadians faces that are sold in the kit, it's fine, but don't pretend everyone would want it too.

Without being an excited leftist - kind of people I usually don't like - I would be happy to have some women in my army. I don't advocate a 50/50 head sprues because that would look forced; even a single female head model out of ten would be a great improvement. It would not be forced, it would not be stupid, it is just a better way to stick to the fluff. Note that I don't talk about colour, since Cadian faces are so generic that you can paint them African or Chinese without problem.

Plus if you think gender equality is merely a "PC" whim then we can't do much for you. The mere fact that this thread has now 11 pages shows that people are actually interested and it's not because YOU don't care that the world don't.

Hybrid Son of Oxyotl, I'll be brief to give you as little to quote as possible, also this is my last post to you in this topic. Id love to get low to your level into cheap discussion techniques multiple quote match but it's too much of a chore and waste of time on the phone. Sorry.

It's nice to see you still completly missinterpret at least half of what I say. I never meant that girl cant be epic grimdark. After that I mention brutal soldiers. If you look at most of the IG art, they are mostly looking like really vicious super bastards. I know GW can pull it off with girls as evidenced by sororitas codex but maybe they just use men becase brutal men are brutal brutal heh.

You only made my words look bad with three quotes and not in the way you think you did, dont flatter yourself.

 Peregrine wrote:

AllSeeingSkink wrote:
I think if GW re-released Cadians tomorrow with half female and half male it'd appear pretty forced and I could see how some people would feel it's artificial pandering to the PC crowd.

And I would call it a badly-needed redesign of a kit that is years overdue for one. The only problem with female Cadians would be the fact that GW would need to significantly improve the kit to make it work, at least without resorting to idiotic "sexy" armor.

Female or not I'd be happy with a Cadian redesign, but I still think it'd come across as being forced. Though I tend to be of the opinion GW would need to rethink the entire scaling of 40k to make female models look reasonable.

Either way I think the whole thing is way overblown. It may sound harsh but I don't really see wanting females/blacks as anything more than me wanting Space Wolves that are less wolf and more viking, it's just an aesthetic desire which GW unfortunately don't seem to agree with for whatever reason

It's a difference because it's not just about personal preference, it's whether a potential new player can find any characters like them to identify with. Right now if that's something you value and you aren't a white man you're probably not going to be interested in the game. And something that's so easy to fix should not be pushing people away from the hobby.

I still don't see the difference. Someone wants an aesthetic option that GW don't provide. Maybe it's an untapped source of customers, maybe it's not.

Not being able to identify because of sex/race seems like a personal problem more than anything as it's hardly a requirement. If someone struggles to identify with a sex/race that's not their own then they should probably be asking themselves if they're just a little bit racist/sexist, not the other way around

Peregrine have you looked at IG faces recently, Vasquez looks like a nice girl in comparision. GW actualy have some faces that could work in multiples but the examples of female guardsmen you posted are closer to sorority girls than to a true grimdark grit (tm) of IG. The obligatory minimum would be every IG gal with a face like first pic in adepta sororitas dex, under schola progenium.

Sexism in space fantasy is not a problem for me. If it is for you then you qualify for the forefront of the ridiculous pc overeaction club instantly. For me. And any not yet "corrected" individual. Really I can understand that you want women into 40k because it makes sense from this or that standpoint. Finding sexism in a fictional (and offensive all around) space fantasy universe a problem? That's like our flagship national feminist when she was doing book reviews, she claimed women issues as a theme with every single book they reviewed, it was ridiculous, even some of the authors didnt know what she was talking about. Btw we're talking in circles now.

Something to identify with? Black people have salamanders, Asian have white scars, women have sisters. You cant have anything. Should I write to Rockstar because I cant identify with San Andreas protagonist? What if I want white Salamanders- sure I can paint how I want but I want them in the art and fluff 50/50 or how will I identify? Sounds a bit ott charging the windmills pointless and kind of makes everything the same, no? It's funny btw that if all this forced diversity succeeds, it will actualy kill diversity heh.

Here's a great post from mr. (or mrs.) Code about the identify thing.

 Code wrote:

Mustela wrote:
@Mysterious Pants

That's a fair explanation. However, 40K is fantasy, a place that people escape to. Not everyone's perfect escape involves a single race and a gender imbalance. It seems a little messed up to me if you escape to a reality where there is arbitrarily only white people and a gender imbalance. Some people, like you, have offered speculation as to why there might only be white people. While I don't think there's anything wrong with that, there are just as many explanations for why there would be racial diversity. And honestly, why not have more racial diversity? I don't see what that changes. I'm pretty sure a little creativity can solve whatever potential issue people throw out.

I can see how social justice can be annoying when you're trying to have fun but I try to follow the tenets of: real world > fake world and real people > fake people.

And the bottom line which I support is that you can paint your models any way you want and anyone who actually cares how you paint them can go themselves.

I think, there are plenty of problems with that approach to fiction.

1) If you take it seriously, then every fictional work ever has to follow this rule. That means, if I create a fictional setting, no matter how far away into the future or how far away into the past, no matter how fundamentally different it is from our world, it HAS to represent 21st century US demographics. This idea alone is pretty ridiculous in my opinion.

2) I'm not even sure, what the problem is.

You say, some people might not be comfortable to escape to a place with a single race and gender imbalace. So apparently they are still confortable escaping to a place, where human life has absolutely no worth and is thrown away by the millions just to have minor military victories. Where there is exactly one religion and if you don't follow it, you're going to get killed. Where people are hoarded to planet earth like animals, so the one true ruler of mankind can consume their souls... but gender imbalance really is a deal breaker!
Doesn't make sense to me.

Others have said, there should be people that look like you, so everyone feels represented. The thing is, there is nobody in 40k that looks like me! I'm 5 ft 7, 155 lbs and wear glasses. Who exactly looks like me. You pick ONE external characteristic, skin color, ignore everything else and then make representation about this one thing. That's arbitrary.

3) Building on the last point: It's a slippery slope. You want black people represented in 40k, fine. But now obviously you need hispanic, asian and arabic people as well, so you put in those. Now you've got all the big ethnicities covered, but what about the smaller ones? What about the native americans and polynesians, that don't feel represented? Ok, so we put in every possible ethnicity, that exist today and we're done right?
But what about the disabled people? Shouldn't they be represented as well? What about transgender people? And gay people? What about people with autism? What about Little People? What about amputees?
So we are not done, until we have a gay 4 ft 5 transgender autistic Space Marine, that may or may not have native alaskan heritage...

4) To me this approach to fiction KILLS immersion. And I'm convinced, that most people of the affected groups feel the same way. When you see this happening (and most of the time it's blatantly obvious) you're starting to think of real-world politics and stop thinking about the world you're trying to experience, which kills the fun.

This is one of the worst problem of "everything is political". TV shows are political, books are political, music is political, movies are political and 40k is political. Ironically the people suffering the most from this, are the ones trying to push this agenda. Can they even enjoy ANY media anymore? How can you enjoy something, when all you're thinking about is "Let's see how well everyone is represented in this"? How can you get lost in a work of fiction, when all you do, is trying to judge how well this supports your political goals?

In short: Keep politics where they belong! There are more than enough real-world issues in need of solving, where your commitment to social justice is well placed and productive (Occupy Wall Street, Black Lives Matter, etc.) But if you're taking your politics to places, that are supposed to be a fun escape from the real world, and taking them back into the real world in the process, all you're doing is alienating people and hurting your cause. (especially as it might not even be a problem, see point 2)

Automatically Appended Next Post:

 RazgrizOne wrote:

I think if GW re-released Cadians tomorrow with half female and half male it'd appear pretty forced and I could see how some people would feel it's artificial pandering to the PC crowd.

Either way I think the whole thing is way overblown.

What I see is that many other people would be glad to have more diversity in their IG ranks. If you want to stick with the 10yo ugly cadians faces that are sold in the kit, it's fine, but don't pretend everyone would want it too.

Without being an excited leftist - kind of people I usually don't like - I would be happy to have some women in my army. I don't advocate a 50/50 head sprues because that would look forced; even a single female head model out of ten would be a great improvement. It would not be forced, it would not be stupid, it is just a better way to stick to the fluff. Note that I don't talk about colour, since Cadian faces are so generic that you can paint them African or Chinese without problem.

Plus if you think gender equality is merely a "PC" whim then we can't do much for you. The mere fact that this thread has now 11 pages shows that people are actually interested and it's not because YOU don't care that the world don't.

Fair enough. Im talking about pc to the people that have pc like agenda. Women in IG would not be the end of the world (forced diverity everywhere would though imo) tbh but it's just better now.

In the end, the artwork goes to crap anyway, it got much worse in 7th edition with some of the new pictures looking cheap, low quality and less 40k ish than ever imo. Not all dexes though skitarii was really ok and at least model wise they seem to dodge stormraven tauroxes like debacles. Anyway women or not it might die in my eyes anyway.

Plumbumbarum wrote:
Id love to get low to your level into cheap discussion techniques multiple quote match

How is pointing to precise part of your message cheap discussion techniques?
I could have done basically the same message without the citations, if that is what you want.
Your pretense that there is no guardswomen in the art and models of GW proper is wrong, because there is. Do you need me to show them to you, or do you already know them and just pretend they do not exist for some reason?
There is absolutely no need for “modern day racism/sexism” because there is already plenty of space fantasy racism in this space fantasy game, and GW decided it would only contain space fantasy racism rather than modern day racism long ago, for very good reasons.
Spitting acid is about as far as you can be from the idea of a Roman legionnaire, so if you say that a legion of acid-spitting Roman legionnaire that have sorcerers and spacecraft is not ridiculous, but having some of those acid-spitting Roman legionnaire be female is ridiculous, that is only telling about your bias.
And if the concept of a female knight seems so wrong to you, though luck, because history have them. And history does not have acid-spitting knights with machine gun. Therefore, female knights are less ridiculous than acid-spitting knights with machine gun. Deal with it.

Makumba wrote:

 Hybrid Son Of Oxayotl wrote:
Well, should 40k cater to Polish people over the rest of the world?

No but how does it change the fact that for me and people living here a dictator is a white dude, and a black or female would feel at best out of place and at worse funny.

Okay. Then we can ignore this fact for the sake of the many, many people for which not having them would feel out of place or funny.

Makumba wrote:
It has nothing to do with miss conceptions or how italians may or may not look like. It is all about what people think an space marine who is an ultramarine should look like.

It has everything to do with it, because 40k is an international product, which has certainly more consumers in Italy than it does in Poland.

Makumba wrote:
The closest non white on the pole made is mao and his is not even in top 10.

But do he look ridiculous or out of place?

Makumba wrote:
I worked for 3 months in UK last year. more then half of my co workers and all of my employers were called mustafa etc

Yeah, it is called immigration.

Makumba wrote:
An association or feeling can't be false. If I look at a spider and feel nothing and boyfriend gets scared out of his wits. Then my lack of being repulsed by it is not false, neither is his reaction.
.

If that “association of feeling” makes you believe the tarantula crawling up your arm is not dangerous and you die as a result, I am pretty sure it would be wrong. Any “association of feeling” that makes you believe stuff that is false (like “Black people cannot be bloody dictators”, or “Women will never hold position of power”) is wrong. Especially if they make one act in dangerous or otherwise bad ways.

AllSeeingSkink wrote:
Not being able to identify because of sex/race seems like a personal problem more than anything as it's hardly a requirement. If someone struggles to identify with a sex/race that's not their own then they should probably be asking themselves if they're just a little bit racist/sexist, not the other way around

Can I ask you your race and gender? I would like to know if you have ever been subjected to the problem and are talking from experience, or if you are just talking about other people experiences about something you never had to experience.
Because I remember an Iranian friend of mine, which is really as far as one can be from a racist, telling me how it was going to be so nice to actually see people that looked like her on screen when we went to see Prince of Persia. While she had never complained about it before, and has never complained about it after either, by the way.

In the end, the artwork goes to crap anyway, it got much worse in 7th edition with some of the new pictures looking cheap, low quality and less 40k ish than ever imo. Not all dexes though skitarii was really ok and at least model wise they seem to dodge stormraven tauroxes like debacles. Anyway women or not it might die in my eyes anyway.

I agree to say artworks in codex are not what they were anymore but it is not the point we're making here. We're talking women in the IG, and I will be glad to discuss why you'll be so pissed to see women in plastic kits.

Women in IG would not be the end of the world (forced diverity everywhere would though imo) tbh but it's just better now.

The thing you said there, and it is as clear as water, is that adding women would get the kit worse. I had difficulties to identify what you were arguing for since the beginning of this thread but now it seems pretty clear to me.

text removed.

Reds8n

Don't bypass the language filter like this.

Plumbumbarum wrote:
Even fething Dark Heresy

Do not bypass the word filter like that, or you will get a temporary ban by the mod.

If I am going to sum up, an old picture showing an imperial guardswoman would not convince you (it is old!), a new picture showing an imperial guardswoman would not convince you (they are caving under pressure from “us pc people”). Nothing will convince you, then. This picture is quite a good proof that in the original version of the fluff, without any commercial pressure yet, there was already imperial guardswomen.

I would be fine with a 30% women and 70% men, actually, and I am quite sure that most people would. But that is beside the point. That Wikipedia article is there to show you that the concept of a female knight is not ridiculous. Way less so than an acid-spitting knight. It was never intended to be an argument in its own right, it was intended as a counter to your argument that a female knight would be a ridiculous concept.

Why not complement fictional racism with “real” racism? A bunch of reasons. The satire/criticism usually works better that way. It will serve better as a form of escapism. It makes much more sense in-universe.
Basically the same reasons why the criticism of religion is not attacking actual Christianity but “the cult of the God-Emperor”.

Considering that all of this eventually boils down to target markets, I don't really see a reson to include more women to the game. The most obvious reason for this would be that people who are either customed to the current models, or that find female front-line troops odd would be driven away. However, of course to this many people will say that including women would increase the number of female gamers, but I find that to be untrue. It is funny how many people have said that females are especialy attracted to female models, but nobody has provided any evidence. However, from my empirical data it would actually seem that inhumane armies like tyranids that are more animal like seem to attract female gamers more. Therefore from a business view point increasing the number of female models would only reduce the number of customers, and bring in nothing.

Also it is very funny, how many people in this thread first complain that there are not enough females in the fluff, yet when it supports their argument they can come up with several examples. Although to be honest the number of women in the fluff at the moment seems to be about okay, as you would not expect the gender ration in the military to change after staying the same for as long as history has been recorded. However it actually makes a lot of sense though that there are much more females in the FFG material, as the ratio could be much more balanced in the navy, and would be more balanced in the terms of the civilian population.

Considering that all of this eventually boils down to target markets, I don't really see a reson to include more women to the game. The most obvious reason for this would be that people who are either customed to the current models, or that find female front-line troops odd would be driven away

"People will be driven away by women. The most obvious reason for this is they would be driven away by women". That's a fair point.... And don't say SoB are a proof of the commercial unattractivity of women, you perfectly know they were forsaken for too long. My bet new SoB plastic army would sell very well, just like Skitarii and AdMech are.

Therefore from a business view point increasing the number of female models would only reduce the number of customers, and bring in nothing

I would be curious to witness your "empirical data". Can you shed some light on it? Cause at first glance it just seems to be your short-viewed personal observations gathered without any methodology.

And what if I told you that it's not all about bringing girls in? Many male hobbyists would be glad to add women in their army and that's why you have such a flourishing parallel market on female minis on the internet. I am sure that girls would be more attracted if they could identify themselves in the Hobby; it would be a few, but it would be.

Your argument about the historical military ratio is also irrelevant : you compare real history where male domination was a thing for 2000 years with a dystopian universe where everybody is expected to fight for the Emperor, regardless of its gender. On Cadia, conscription rate is actually 100% so 50% of Shock Troopers should be women on the field. This is not a golden rule on Imperial worlds but on the grim darkness of a far future, there's only war and everybody ends up being threatened one day.

 Sienisoturi wrote:
Considering that all of this eventually boils down to target markets, I don't really see a reson to include more women to the game. The most obvious reason for this would be that people who are either customed to the current models, or that find female front-line troops odd would be driven away. However, of course to this many people will say that including women would increase the number of female gamers, but I find that to be untrue. It is funny how many people have said that females are especialy attracted to female models, but nobody has provided any evidence. However, from my empirical data it would actually seem that inhumane armies like tyranids that are more animal like seem to attract female gamers more. Therefore from a business view point increasing the number of female models would only reduce the number of customers, and bring in nothing.

Also it is very funny, how many people in this thread first complain that there are not enough females in the fluff, yet when it supports their argument they can come up with several examples. Although to be honest the number of women in the fluff at the moment seems to be about okay, as you would not expect the gender ration in the military to change after staying the same for as long as history has been recorded. However it actually makes a lot of sense though that there are much more females in the FFG material, as the ratio could be much more balanced in the navy, and would be more balanced in the terms of the civilian population.

... the other options are the ultra-expensive Sisters of Battle or limited choices in the two Eldar lines. It's a self-fulfilling issue. The argument is never "not enough women in the fluff"; the complaint is always "not enough women in the model-line for armies where they should be".

as you would not expect the gender ration in the military to change after staying the same for as long as history has been recorded

This line doesn't make any sense. The span of time between now, 2015, and M41 is eight times longer than the entire span of recorded human history, starting now and working backwards.

 RazgrizOne wrote:

Considering that all of this eventually boils down to target markets, I don't really see a reson to include more women to the game. The most obvious reason for this would be that people who are either customed to the current models, or that find female front-line troops odd would be driven away

"People will be driven away by women. The most obvious reason for this is they would be driven away by women". That's a fair point.... And don't say SoB are a proof of the commercial unattractivity of women, you perfectly know they were forsaken for too long. My bet new SoB plastic army would sell very well, just like Skitarii and AdMech are.

Therefore from a business view point increasing the number of female models would only reduce the number of customers, and bring in nothing

I would be curious to witness your "empirical data". Can you shed some light on it? Cause at first glance it just seems to be your short-viewed personal observations gathered without any methodology.

And what if I told you that it's not all about bringing girls in? Many male hobbyists would be glad to add women in their army and that's why you have such a flourishing parallel market on female minis on the internet. I am sure that girls would be more attracted if they could identify themselves in the Hobby; it would be a few, but it would be.

Your argument about the historical military ratio is also irrelevant : you compare real history where male domination was a thing for 2000 years with a dystopian universe where everybody is expected to fight for the Emperor, regardless of its gender. On Cadia, conscription rate is actually 100% so 50% of Shock Troopers should be women on the field. This is not a golden rule on Imperial worlds but on the grim darkness of a far future, there's only war and everybody ends up being threatened one day.

I'll just underlight the areas that are quotes from your text.

""People will be driven away by women. The most obvious reason for this is they would be driven away by women". That's a fair point.... And don't say SoB are a proof of the commercial unattractivity of women, you perfectly know they were forsaken for too long. My bet new SoB plastic army would sell very well, just like Skitarii and AdMech are."

We are talking about increasing the ratio of female models in the IG and SM here by replacing some male models, not about making a completely new army or remaking its models. I hope you misread me accidentally.

"I would be curious to witness your "empirical data". Can you shed some light on it? Cause at first glance it just seems to be your short-viewed personal observations gathered without any methodology."

My empirical data is just as valid as your claim that females are more attracted to female models. Until somebody posts an actual source it can't be said for sure if either of these claims are correct.

"And what if I told you that it's not all about bringing girls in? Many male hobbyists would be glad to add women in their army and that's why you have such a flourishing parallel market on female minis on the internet. I am sure that girls would be more attracted if they could identify themselves in the Hobby; it would be a few, but it would be.

Your argument about the historical military ratio is also irrelevant : you compare real history where male domination was a thing for 2000 years with a dystopian universe where everybody is expected to fight for the Emperor, regardless of its gender. On Cadia, conscription rate is actually 100% so 50% of Shock Troopers should be women on the field. This is not a golden rule on Imperial worlds but on the grim darkness of a far future, there's only war and everybody ends up being threatened one day."

Just as some people might prefer to have more females in the armies, some might prefer the more realistic gender ratio the same way that many people would prefer a new design for the leman-russ. Also the sources upon Cadia seem to conflict. I recall that some sources claim that only males are sent to frontline duty, and some say that all people are sent to the duty without regard to gender.

Claiming for realism (also known for your purpose as XXI°century/real human history reference) in a fictional universe where pretty much everything we know does not exit anymore is utterly out of any logic, I guess you get that.

Plus I never said that females minis = auto-female customers. You even copy/paste my sentence "I am sure that girls would be more attracted if they could identify themselves in the Hobby; it would be a few, but it would be" but you did not understand it very well.

About empirical stuff, you just prove me right saying you have nothing. All along my posts, I tried to emphasize on the difficulty of the gender topic and made moderate claims to stick as close as possible to reality, taking in account that social situations can be completly different.

You just came saying : "lol girlz will make guyz quit the hobby because they are girlz".

So much social understandiiiiiing and careful thinking !! I don't pretend to be a sociologist but come on.

 RazgrizOne wrote:
Claiming for realism (also known for your purpose as XXI°century/real human history reference) in a fictional universe where pretty much everything we know does not exit anymore is utterly out of any logic, I guess you get that.

Plus I never said that females minis = auto-female customers. You even copy/paste my sentence "I am sure that girls would be more attracted if they could identify themselves in the Hobby; it would be a few, but it would be" but you did not understand it very well.

About empirical stuff, you just prove me right saying you have nothing. All along my posts, I tried to emphasize on the difficulty of the gender topic and made moderate claims to stick as close as possible to reality, taking in account that social situations can be completly different.

You just came saying : "lol girlz will make guyz quit the hobby because they are girlz".

So much social understandiiiiiing and careful thinking !! I don't pretend to be a sociologist but come on.

Most of your post appears to be a straw man, could you please refrain from making mistakes like that. I never said that all the players would leave if there were more female models, nor that there could not be female soldiers due to historical reasons. What I stated instead was that some people might be driven away from the game because of that, as they are used to the setting and would feel that changing it would be forced.

It's not changing the setting, it's simply changing the product line... and changing it back to what it was 20 years ago, at that, in some instances.

 Hybrid Son Of Oxayotl wrote:

AllSeeingSkink wrote:
Not being able to identify because of sex/race seems like a personal problem more than anything as it's hardly a requirement. If someone struggles to identify with a sex/race that's not their own then they should probably be asking themselves if they're just a little bit racist/sexist, not the other way around

Can I ask you your race and gender? I would like to know if you have ever been subjected to the problem and are talking from experience, or if you are just talking about other people experiences about something you never had to experience.
Because I remember an Iranian friend of mine, which is really as far as one can be from a racist, telling me how it was going to be so nice to actually see people that looked like her on screen when we went to see Prince of Persia. While she had never complained about it before, and has never complained about it after either, by the way.

I'm male, half Indian (from India) and half Australian. Maybe because I grew up in that environment it's not really a "thing" for me.

It's not that I don't appreciate wanting diversity, I just think the place to start is getting people who want to make such models in to the design studios rather than complaining about the people who are already there not pandering to your desires. Especially because when people do go out of their way to do that, they rarely do it justice unless they have a genuine passion to do it.

That's assuming having a personal or cultural connection with the models is even necessary. My first army was Lizardmen, I have no links with South American culture nor am I a lizard

I think the end goal should be a society that doesn't need a model that fits their race/gender in order to be able to identify with them. At that point I see no difference between wanting a Hispanic female model and not getting them or wanting any other aesthetic design choice and not getting it.

AllSeeingSkink wrote:
I just think the place to start is getting people who want to make such models in to the design studios rather than complaining about the people who are already there not pandering to your desires.

Why? People complain about everything else about GW's models and demand changes, so why is this any different?

I think the end goal should be a society that doesn't need a model that fits their race/gender in order to be able to identify with them.

That's nice, but it's very easy for you to say that since you have plenty of male characters to identify with. Many women feel that the lack of female characters is a problem and are less interested in stories/hobbies/etc where that lack of representation exists.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Plumbumbarum wrote:
Peregrine have you looked at IG faces recently, Vasquez looks like a nice girl in comparision.

IG faces don't look mean, they look poorly sculpted.

If it is for you then you qualify for the forefront of the ridiculous pc overeaction club instantly.

IOW, "STOP CRITICIZING THIS THING I LIKE". And you say I'm overreacting...

Something to identify with? Black people have salamanders, Asian have white scars, women have sisters.

Do you really not see a problem with being limited to token characters/armies? That's still sending a message that the default is a white man, and everyone else is stuffed into their token niche where they can be mostly ignored.

 Peregrine wrote:

AllSeeingSkink wrote:
I just think the place to start is getting people who want to make such models in to the design studios rather than complaining about the people who are already there not pandering to your desires.

Why? People complain about everything else about GW's models and demand changes, so why is this any different?

That's exactly my point. Why is it any different? We don't need a 20 page thread about it twice a week because it shouldn't be any different.

I think the end goal should be a society that doesn't need a model that fits their race/gender in order to be able to identify with them.

That's nice, but it's very easy for you to say that since you have plenty of male characters to identify with. Many women feel that the lack of female characters is a problem and are less interested in stories/hobbies/etc where that lack of representation exists.

But who says a designer has to make something that is trying to appeal to everyone to begin with? A designer should (IMO) stick to producing what THEY want to produce and what THEY have a vision for. Which is why, to me, the question isn't "why isn't there a larger mix of gender and race in models?", it's "why aren't there more designers who want to make those models?" (and I'm not saying the answer to that is a simple one, but IMO it's both the more useful and productive one to ask).

Just a quick point about female guard torso. Here is a female soldier:


Here is another:
And another:

Really the Cadian torso is actually a pretty realistic model for a female torso in body armour. Some female heads would be nice still, of course.

Az

AllSeeingSkink wrote:
That's exactly my point. Why is it any different? We don't need a 20 page thread about it twice a week because it shouldn't be any different.

We don't get that many threads on the subject, and there are plenty of posts/threads complaining about GW's other design issues. The main reason this one gets more attention than the others is that there are a lot more people willing to stubbornly defend the absurd lack of female models than things like the Taurox or Wolfy Claus and his sleigh.

A designer should (IMO) stick to producing what THEY want to produce and what THEY have a vision for.

That's not a very good way to run a company. If you're working as a designer for a company larger than your personal sculpting work you're going to design what your boss tells you to design, based on what the company wants to sell. It's nice if the designer is happy with their work, but you don't just tell them "make us whatever stuff you like".

AllSeeingSkink wrote:
I think if GW re-released Cadians tomorrow with half female and half male it'd appear pretty forced and I could see how some people would feel it's artificial pandering to the PC crowd.

You think what they're already doing isn't pandering? It is.

It's just pandering to you.

 Aben Zin wrote:
Just a quick point about female guard torso. Here is a female soldier:

Spoiler:

Here is another:

Spoiler:

And another:

Spoiler:

Really the Cadian torso is actually a pretty realistic model for a female torso in body armour. Some female heads would be nice still, of course.

Az

Victoria Miniatures has an excellent range of female guardswomen which are realistic but still give you the sense of them being female soldiers; it is the little things like slightly shorter models, slightly thinner arms and legs, and of course well sculpted faces.



http://victoriaminiatures.highwire.com/products/female-troops-and-bits?pagesize=12

Personally I enjoy having a mix of male and female troops in my Eldar. It adds a lot to be able to see that the entire population is out to ensure the survival of the Eldar race. Sadly I sold my IG before Victoria sculpted her guardswomen otherwise I would have included them. My D&D/Pathfinder/RPG model collection has a huge number of female models of various races and classes, though strangely most of the bad guy races are male (orcs, zombies, etc ).

AllSeeingSkink wrote:
It's not that I don't appreciate wanting diversity, I just think the place to start is getting people who want to make such models in to the design studios rather than complaining about the people who are already there not pandering to your desires.

What is the problem with complaining about it? It that not called feedback, and something that companies like to get so they can make more attractive products?

AllSeeingSkink wrote:
That's assuming having a personal or cultural connection with the models is even necessary. My first army was Lizardmen, I have no links with South American culture nor am I a lizard

My first army was lizardmen too. And then Sisters of Battle (which I painted black). And then trollbloods. I do not think I own any model of a white man, which I am. I still have tons and tons of white male present in almost every setting of every media I ever consume. Be it comics, movies, video games, wargames, …
So of course, not getting a white male once in a while (say, in Shadow Warrior, very nice FPS which I am currently playing where the hero and the other human characters are all Japanese) is absolutely not a problem to me. I still can see how it could grew tiresome and annoying if there never, or almost never was any white man in there.

Drager wrote:


Personally my human models are painted a mix of different races, as I find monochrome human groups weird and off putting, I've seen plenty of private collections painted as different races too. Much as I've seen many private collections with more women. GW as a company, though, seems to have a bit of a racism and sexism problem.

I don't think they have a problem I think it just is simply due to multiple factors.

Their primary demographic is white and male. Generally when I make a character in a video game or paint I project my own being into a model / character. I assume these artists or painters do the same so you are left with a scheme that reflects the creators.

I also figured the Imperium is very culty-religious like with the Emperor so they were naturally anti-women. Even they have Sisters of Battle, Assassins, female inquisition. Some Eldar craft worlds are matriarchal.

As others have said it just seems up to preference. To say GW has a bit of a racism or sexism problem is looking at what simply is through a narrow perspective making it seem like this conclusion could only come about from negative items. I'd look to other games that ONLY make female characters and exploit that type of marketing if you want to look at a sexism problem.

Whilst they might not be the majority, a lot of woman and PoC do play 40k, and more probably would if they had better representation within the setting., which I personally think would be awesome!

Also, as others have pointed out, the IoM has never been particularly racist, sexist, homophobic etc., probably because 1) it's been 40,000 years, presumably most modern bigotry has died out in that time (and has been replaced by NEW bigotry! Burn the heretic!) and 2) they probably can't afford to be bigoted when you need a bajillion soldiers to fight off some alien bugs!

 SilverMK2 wrote:
though strangely most of the bad guy races are male (orcs, zombies, etc ).

Hehe I always kind of thought the IoM were the main "bad guys"

 Psienesis wrote:

 Hawky wrote:
Why is almost everyone obssesed with "diversity"... Does it really matter?

Yes.

First of all, you can paint them how you want, second, the majority of 40k players are white, also, imagine black cadians for a second. Not only that, don't mean to be racist, I imagine that white people probably went to space with the emperor first, so that most of the planets humans would be white. I imagine that there a black people on terra(because they may have stayed in the age of strife) and catachan because of he climates. Now, time to hide from all the people who want diversity and claim all those that have second thoughts racists.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
I am gonna have a small rant here about racist and sexist topics in 40k

First, No black people? There is black people as well, I know I posted about there not many branching out of terra for white people going to the stars and repopulating planets, but you can just paint them black. Catachans and Tallarn may be black for harsh climate. Cadians are supposed to be white, for the climate of there planet is much like america,EU and England. White scars are mongolian and the salamanders have dark skin supposing they may be african.

Second, sexism. People complaining about there being no big boobed soldiers in the imperial guard. Seriously

 orkdwarf wrote:
Not only that, don't mean to be racist, I imagine that white people probably went to space with the emperor first, so that most of the planets humans would be white.

For this sentence to make [i]any[i] sense you really, really need to explain two things.

1. Why would only white people go off on the great crusade with the Emperor?

2. What about the countless billions that had already colonized the galaxy during the age of technology?

The problem is not any in-universe explanation. If GW said (and I personally very sceptical that it has ever been stated in the terms you describe) that "white people" left Earth in greater numbers or whatever then that is what they said. The question is why they would make such a design decision? What could it possibly add to the universe by excluding entire groups of people? It may be an artistic vision to imagine a future without PoC but that does not mean it is one that cannot be problematic.

How can it not break immersion if the supposed very best and brightest of humanity are consistently depicted as hailing from a single ethnic group? Why should the exceptions be cordoned off into seperate chapters or organisations? The whole in-universe justification for the Sisters of Battle is a loophole! Why does it require a loophole, an administrative mistake, to include women? This is the problem. GW are gods of their fluff and thus we really should be talking about the decisions being made behind the fluff and not the fiction itself

 orkdwarf wrote:
also, imagine black cadians for a second.

Okay. I did. Nothing happened. What was supposed to happen, exactly?

 orkdwarf wrote:
Not only that, don't mean to be racist, I imagine that white people probably went to space with the emperor first, so that most of the planets humans would be white.

First, most people went to space before the Dark Age of Technology, so long before the Emperor revealed himself. Second, why? Why would the first settlers be mostly white? I can see no reason. Based on current economics, most of them being Asian would make more sense .

 orkdwarf wrote:
I imagine that there a black people on terra(because they may have stayed in the age of strife) and catachan because of he climates.

And what about the climate on Cadia? Would it not make black people? Keep in mind we are talking about a whole planet here. What about all the millions of other planet?

Gasmasked Mook wrote:
The problem is not any in-universe explanation. If GW said (and I personally very sceptical that it has ever been stated in the terms you describe) that "white people" left Earth in greater numbers or whatever then that is what they said. The question is why they would make such a design decision? What could it possibly add to the universe by excluding entire groups of people? It may be an artistic vision to imagine a future without PoC but that does not mean it is one that cannot be problematic.

How can it not break immersion if the supposed very best and brightest of humanity are consistently depicted as hailing from a single ethnic group? Why should the exceptions be cordoned off into seperate chapters or organisations? The whole in-universe justification for the Sisters of Battle is a loophole! Why does it require a loophole, an administrative mistake, to include women? This is the problem. GW are gods of their fluff and thus we really should be talking about the decisions being made behind the fluff and not the fiction itself

Exactly. This comes to mind whenever someone argues against female space marines by saying "but the geneseed is incompatible with women blahblahblah." This isn't some sad immutable fact that we have to accept in our lives. GW made the decision to include that piece of fluff. 40k is a constructed world made by people with their own biases. And those can be challenged.

 General Kroll wrote:

 orkdwarf wrote:
Not only that, don't mean to be racist, I imagine that white people probably went to space with the emperor first, so that most of the planets humans would be white.

For this sentence to make [i]any[i] sense you really, really need to explain two things.

1. Why would only white people go off on the great crusade with the Emperor?

2. What about the countless billions that had already colonized the galaxy during the age of technology?

Basing on current countries with not enough money to go to space, africa. Most of the continent. There. So I think I cleared up an entire issue.

 orkdwarf wrote:

Basing on current countries with not enough money to go to space, africa. Most of the continent. There. So I think I cleared up an entire issue.

You're using the current political/economical climate to justify something that happens some 10k-40k years in the future?

And you're serious?

I don't think I've read something that starts with 'I don't mean to be racist', and then end up being not racist.

Unless as some sort of joke, like 'I'm not racist, but apples are fething delicious'.

@orkdwarf

So based on economic datas of countries on a planet were interplanetary space travel is complete science fiction, we should assume the follwing:

1) there will be no major migration of human beings in the next 20 000 years

2) geo-economical maps will remain largely the same during those 20 000 years

3) proportion of the varius ethinic group will remain similar.

4) billions of people will be left behind.

5) skin pigmentation of human being won't change in 30 000 years to match new environments (AKA white people turning darker and darker of skin over multiple generations)

Here is some reality check for you. Caucasian people represent around 25% of the world population. In the next 100 years, this should go down to around 17%. 60% of the world population right now is of asian complexion. Black people are the group with the greatest growth of population by a landslide.

I don't want to sound to patronising, but you seem to suffer a lot from an ethnocentric point of view which leeds you into murkier waters in certain context and discussion.

epronovost wrote:
@orkdwarf
Here is some reality check for you. Caucasian people represent around 25% of the world population. In the next 100 years, this should go down to around 17%. 60% of the world population right now is of asian complexion. Black people are the group with the greatest growth of population by a landslide..

Out of interest, how did you come to the Caucasian proportional decrease? Did you draw that conclusion based upon other ethnicities having more children that Caucasians? Or something like mixed race etc becoming more prevalent? Just genuinely intrigued by that comment

nudibranch wrote:

AllSeeingSkink wrote:
I think if GW re-released Cadians tomorrow with half female and half male it'd appear pretty forced and I could see how some people would feel it's artificial pandering to the PC crowd.

You think what they're already doing isn't pandering? It is.

It's just pandering to you.

let's not kid ourselves here, we all know that GW pander to 12 year old boys, not any of us here on the forums.

 orkdwarf wrote:


Basing on current countries with not enough money to go to space, africa. Most of the continent. There. So I think I cleared up an entire issue.

No, you just brought up an issue which had already been brought up and dismissed in this thread. IIRC multiple times.

 orkdwarf wrote:

 General Kroll wrote:

 orkdwarf wrote:
Not only that, don't mean to be racist, I imagine that white people probably went to space with the emperor first, so that most of the planets humans would be white.

For this sentence to make [i]any[i] sense you really, really need to explain two things.

1. Why would only white people go off on the great crusade with the Emperor?

2. What about the countless billions that had already colonized the galaxy during the age of technology?

Basing on current countries with not enough money to go to space, africa. Most of the continent. There. So I think I cleared up an entire issue.

That's utter hogwash.

@statu

Actually both. Most Western country have negative birth rates which means their population naturaly decrease. For exemple Germany has a birth rate of around 1.50 while Kenya has child birth rate of 6.5.

 orkdwarf wrote:
Basing on current countries with not enough money to go to space

Current biggest economy in the world: the USA. Has a black president and a big black population.
Soon to be biggest economy? China. Barely any “white” “caucasian” in it.

 Hybrid Son Of Oxayotl wrote:

AllSeeingSkink wrote:
It's not that I don't appreciate wanting diversity, I just think the place to start is getting people who want to make such models in to the design studios rather than complaining about the people who are already there not pandering to your desires.

What is the problem with complaining about it? It that not called feedback, and something that companies like to get so they can make more attractive products?

Sorry I misspoke. Sure, complain about it, I just don't see why it has to be taken any further than any other aesthetic complaint.

That is, don't assume everyone wants the same thing or that it would be inherently "better" if they did change it to the way you want it... accept that in the end it's probably just because that's the way the designer wants it to be... don't assume there's racism/sexism just because the designer doesn't want to make non-white/non-male models... don't assume people who don't want diversity in race/sex in their models are themselves wrong/sexist/racist.

Of course if we did all those things, threads like this would only last a couple of pages instead of lasting 20 pages before ending up locked because people can't get along

Personally I'd like to see more non-whites and non-males in design studios more than I actually care about the models. I tend to think it will occur naturally if/when a more diverse audience gets interested in wargaming and start finding their way in to design studios. If it never happens I think it says more about society as a whole than whether the models themselves were male/female.

GW doesn't feel like making black miniatures.

You can paint as many black people as you want, though. Nobody will care if you have an army of black Guardsmen/Marines/whatever.

There's your answer and solution.

 Blacksails wrote:

 orkdwarf wrote:

Basing on current countries with not enough money to go to space, africa. Most of the continent. There. So I think I cleared up an entire issue.

You're using the current political/economical climate to justify something that happens some 10k-40k years in the future?

And you're serious?

I don't think I've read something that starts with 'I don't mean to be racist', and then end up being not racist.

Unless as some sort of joke, like 'I'm not racist, but apples are fething delicious'.

Fair point. Shoulda put it on the Imagine black cadians for a second bit.

AllSeeingSkink wrote:
I just don't see why it has to be taken any further than any other aesthetic complaint.

Not sure what you mean by “further”.

AllSeeingSkink wrote:
accept that in the end it's probably just because that's the way the designer wants it to be...

But I do not think it is that way because the designer made a conscious choice about it, that is one of the points! I really do not think that the painter/illustrator/… took a second to ask himself or herself “Which skin color am I going to give to this character. Oh, I know, white will be perfect”, I think he or she just skipped the asking yourself part.

Return of a Bigot, I was sent to enjoy a little ban heh. I have yet to read into what was posted to me but would like to answer this first.

 Peregrine wrote:
The main reason this one gets more attention than the others is that there are a lot more people willing to stubbornly defend the absurd lack of female models than things like the Taurox or Wolfy Claus and his sleigh.

I didnt think it will come to this (me quoting Dark Heresy) but there you go

"The wartorn 41st millenium is not always an encouraging place to be for a female. Few get the opportunities of their male counterparts, but by the same token they do not get exposed to the danger out there in the wilder parts of the galaxy. Certain Imperial Guard regiments recruit females to fight alongside men; the Eclessiarchy and the Inquisition likewise employ females at all ranks, but again their number is not in proportion to men"

There was also a quote from some book that women are below 10% in regiments that do employ them.

The really funny bottom line to this is the answer to this fluff bit on the forum I typed it from, posted by a "pro women 40k equality" person:

"Thankfuly licensed sources are not canon"

so it seems to go both ways heh. I agree though, just because canon is allowed by GW to contradict itself in various sources which is the attitude I applaud btw.

Anyway please stop claiming it's absurd when it has a basis in sources you yourself seem to consider valid. Im not about your quote in particular but your general stance on how it's obvious that women would be send to fight just as men, you can find a lot of valid reasons for women to not be included in IG ranks on massive scale, I understand your line of thinking but it's not the utimate logical assumption you think it is.

Btw reading of your other quotes, one could read it a bit like a suggestion that I "like" sexism. I don't, I actualy hate it in real life and happened to act accordingly too, despite being a child of a "traditional culture" that is so often singled out as a source of all the wrong women suffer. It's deep in my head that women are equal just because we all have brains capable of understanding beyond such simple differencies.

I like the extremeness of 40k though and I dont want that part to be restrained by anything, pg ratings, target audience political bias etc. That's all there is to it.

Your post made made understand something ; each "side" can find what it wants in the fluff to prove his opinion. The lore is not a solid matter and can be used to justify pretty much anything.

Thus, any argument based on "I read it here and there" is doomed to end up in a stalemate.

The only true thing is : some plastic sets could have more girls (and I don't speak about Space Marines, they are men and that's fine), especially in the IG, but they don't. This can certainly be explained by a mix of GW designers' background, audience targeting or simple laziness. I don't know and I don't really care.

Whether you like it or not, the presence of female troopers is likely in the ranks of the IG but GW does not give us the opportunity to make it happen.

 RazgrizOne wrote:

In the end, the artwork goes to crap anyway, it got much worse in 7th edition with some of the new pictures looking cheap, low quality and less 40k ish than ever imo. Not all dexes though skitarii was really ok and at least model wise they seem to dodge stormraven tauroxes like debacles. Anyway women or not it might die in my eyes anyway.

I agree to say artworks in codex are not what they were anymore but it is not the point we're making here. We're talking women in the IG, and I will be glad to discuss why you'll be so pissed to see women in plastic kits.

Women in IG would not be the end of the world (forced diverity everywhere would though imo) tbh but it's just better now.

The thing you said there, and it is as clear as water, is that adding women would get the kit worse. I had difficulties to identify what you were arguing for since the beginning of this thread but now it seems pretty clear to me.

Actualy a few heads in the actual kit for people who want to use women would not be a problem. Problem for me would be those women making it to the art in high numbers especialy in the context of adding more diversity in general. I dont want pics of Hispanic, Asian, Indian, black and white boys and gals together led by black comissair with his retinue of grenadier girls.

Btw my current campaign in xcom enemy within I have more girls than guys and a hefty number of black people among the ranks. I dismiss and hire new operatives until I find the right one (or I was until I discovered that you can custom race etc heh) so it's not because of random draw, I actualy prefer female operatives for some reason. So, it's not that Im opposed to the idea of girls as soldiers in general or sth.

Also as said multiple times, noone can stop you from painting your Cadians black or to get third party women bits or minis. Victoria Miniatures girls posted here dont really click with me in the context of 40k but I wont have a bad game or refuse playing against them or sth. I dont like Star Wars either and would cry if space marines went in the direction of stormtroopers design wise (well sm being multiples of beefy vader is great actualy though helmet is actualy the only great think about vader imo) but have nothing but appreciation for the work and enthusiasm of someone with a star wars themed army.

Plumbumbarum wrote:

I like the extremeness of 40k though and I dont want that part to be restrained by anything, pg ratings, target audience political bias etc. That's all there is to it.

Wouldn't restricting 40K characters to mainly a certain demographic, or restraining a given demographic within 40K to a role be restraining it? Honestly that would make the 40K universe seem smaller to me. At least for me part of the appeal of the 40K universe is the absurd scale.

Is there not the issue of generally, from what I've seen in store, there are not many women/other ethnicities, entering the stores? In the 7 or so years I've been playing, I can probably count on one hand the number of women and non-White people I've seen in store. Is the vast majority of people even just looking at the product are white males, what push is there for GW to change? I don't know if there's maybe a cultural taboo or something that seems to restrict the people looking at the products in this way, but I rarely even see women or someone from another ethnicity even looking at the display models. My old store was in the food court of a shopping centre, with the display tables at the entrance, where there were no walls on that side, and 99% or so of those I observed looking at these tables were white males

I'm pretty sure that most people who play 40k are not 7ft tall superhumans, giant part fungi green warriors, robots, anime fish people, or any of the other races of the far future... yet people seem to have no issues playing a game including them.

But seemingly women and non-whites makes things too unrealistic and breaks the immersion?

 SilverMK2 wrote:
I'm pretty sure that most people who play 40k are not 7ft tall superhumans, giant part fungi green warriors, robots, anime fish people, or any of the other races of the far future... yet people seem to have no issues playing a game including them.

But seemingly women and non-whites makes things too unrealistic and breaks the immersion?

Actually, most 40K players are 7ft tall anime robot fungus.

 SilverMK2 wrote:
I'm pretty sure that most people who play 40k are not 7ft tall superhumans, giant part fungi green warriors, robots, anime fish people, or any of the other races of the far future... yet people seem to have no issues playing a game including them.

But seemingly women and non-whites makes things too unrealistic and breaks the immersion?

Apparently.

 SilverMK2 wrote:
I'm pretty sure that most people who play 40k are not 7ft tall superhumans, giant part fungi green warriors, robots, anime fish people, or any of the other races of the far future... yet people seem to have no issues playing a game including them.

But seemingly women and non-whites makes things too unrealistic and breaks the immersion?

I don't think it has anything to do with being unrealitic or breaking immersion, and more to do with a) people resisting change, and b) for most people the image they hold of a soldier would be of a man in that role. Similarly for a nurse they would imagine a woman. Now if you take a group of white men, and put them in charge of making toy soldiers, the humans are going to be male, and white, especially if your player base is almost exclusively white males, or at least from what you see of them.

 SilverMK2 wrote:
I'm pretty sure that most people who play 40k are not 7ft tall superhumans, giant part fungi green warriors, robots, anime fish people, or any of the other races of the far future... yet people seem to have no issues playing a game including them.

But seemingly women and non-whites makes things too unrealistic and breaks the immersion?

Things you mention have some rules, archetypes as well just they are not releated to gender or skin colour.

Remove teeth from an ork, soften the face expression and it will look less 40k but closer gummi bears Toudi.

Add decoration and pipes to anime robot and it will resembe an Imperial vehicle more and more.

Add racial diversity and gender balance to opressive and backwards empire and it will start resembling a modern social sensitive democratic society.


Please note that I mainly speak about visual connotations.


Eldar have women, do I for example say a word against? No, they fit 100%. Now, black skinned Eldar, Im not really sure. Saw them in Thor dark world (space black skinned elves) and they looked kinda ridiculous imo. I dont think it was necessary especialy that Marvel Universe is full of black people already as it's alternate version of current times.

Still would prefer black skinned Eldar over diverse Imperium.

Plumbumbarum wrote:
Add racial diversity and gender balance to opressive and backwards empire and it will start resembling a modern social sensitive democratic society.

No it won't, because the Imperium is still an oppressive and backwards empire, just in different ways. Non-humans are to be slaughtered without mercy so that their resources can be used by humanity, which is a pretty good example of the attitudes that motivate real-world racism. There is no reason that, after 40,000 years, we should expect oppressive and backwards empires to be oppressive and backwards in the same way that they are in 2015. A black person is still a human, and that's far more important than whose distant and forgotten ancestors did what to each other 40,000 years ago.

And yet most people will associate it with a cosy minority caring society, while screaming white bald fanatics will be associated with a facist and racist one.

You used similar arguments for women equality in 40k but somehow FFG seems to have a different idea.

Plumbumbarum wrote:
And yet most people will associate it with a cosy minority caring society, while screaming white bald fanatics will be associated with a facist and racist one.

Only if "most people" are stupid and can't think of any fascist and racist society that doesn't conform to 2015 racism. If you see a picture of a screaming bald black fanatic next to a screaming bald white fanatic and they're chainswording a bunch of baby Eldar into bloody chunks and you think that it's a "cozy minority caring society", well, I'm not really sure what to say to you.

You used similar arguments for women equality in 40k but somehow FFG seems to have a different idea.

You do realize that the pictures I posted were from FFG, right?

Yes I do realise and that's why I used quote from there against your claims.

You can make up reasons for racism being alive and kicking in 40th millenium, wasnt there a book about genocide of natives to make place for new Imperial settlers? I find the idea that just external threat would eradicate racism in a world like that a bit naive tbh.

You can make up reasons for people being predominantly white as well, lack of UV, race war in the past or simply that there never were that many black people in the first place in that fictional, ridiculous universe of 40k.

You seem to think your idea about racism being non existant is some ultimate logical conclusion but it's just as made up as those above.

I dont think it's stupid to just go for visual mesaage in 40k instead of logical explanation. If you actualy look at some art the perspective is borked, slopes are impossible, details excessive and cabling exposed, then come the orkz and none of it makes sense. But it's still works on imagination, subconsciousness etc and why change somethng that works for out of place logical reasons.

Not to mention cosy and nice societies send people to war and you could make nasty pictures too. Then they get back to pretending they re nice and cosy and debating whether 10% differnce in women salary is just outrageous or already dark ages, loosing any cool in the process. The kind of nazi Germany/ Soviet Russia cool, entities that are responsible for millions of my countrymen killed and that put one of my grandfathers to a basement as "polnische Schwein, polnische Hund" and the other grandfather into soviet camp and below 40 kg of weigt at 175cm height with open wounds on entire body, mind you (yet you apparently think sexism is the offensive part of 40k heh).

@Plumbumbarum

Why don't you simply explain your preference for white males simply by stating your unease at the idea of white males being a minority (which they are on our planet)?

Plumb, just to be clear, are you against the inclusion of female miniatures in 40k, and the depiction of other skin colours in 40k art and studio figures?

 orkdwarf wrote:
Hope that clears everything up.

Haha. Oh. Wow.
I don't mean to sound ageist, but I assume you are very young. Wait, did that come out ageist?

 Psienesis wrote:
It's not changing the setting, it's simply changing the product line... and changing it back to what it was 20 years ago, at that, in some instances.

Setting=models+fluff, and in that message I was referring to the models.

This is an issue of the Fantasy genre in general. Warcraft, LoTR, Game of Thrones and so on are all about white people and their adventures. Even several of the fantasy races in these series are predominately or entirely Caucasian in appearance. I do not think there is a malicious intent on the author's (Or movie makers') part when they design the look of their worlds. They are just writing and/or designing their worlds from what they know and many of these writers are white people from predominately white societies.

There are no different races in 40k because after 30k years of breeding on earth, all the colors sort of just mixed together. Turns out that a lighter color was the majority.
Remember that in those ~28k years, there were probably countless wars, genocides, and all sorts of terrible gak could have happened. For all we know, Mexico was virus bombed by Canada in the year 12044. Then in 17032 a plague spread that turned everyone albino, and it took 500 years to pigment to return to the human race.

No races in 40k, because the bigger concern is different species. Paint your minis how you want, pretty sure there are dark skinned people in many books too.

 General Kroll wrote:
Ok, so I'm not being funny or anything, this is a genuine question, but why are there no black people in the 41st Millennium? I never see any models painted in darker shades, most are a pale white, with some a healthy pink at best.

Have I missed a memo or something?

The 41st millennium isn't racist: everyone is mistreated, exploited and killed in equal measure in the Imperium.

"Welcome to the 41st millenium where you are all equally worthless.

Seriously though, in the 40k setting whole planets are exterminated and entire populations killed because they read the wrong book or didn't bow quick enough in a ceremony. Imagine if one of their stories happened to have this happen to a bunch of non-whites. You would have nutjobs screaming that GW is racist and threatening lawsuits...

 gwarsh41 wrote:
There are no different races in 40k because after 30k years of breeding on earth, all the colors sort of just mixed together. Turns out that a lighter color was the majority.
Remember that in those ~28k years, there were probably countless wars, genocides, and all sorts of terrible gak could have happened. For all we know, Mexico was virus bombed by Canada in the year 12044. Then in 17032 a plague spread that turned everyone albino, and it took 500 years to pigment to return to the human race.

No races in 40k, because the bigger concern is different species. Paint your minis how you want, pretty sure there are dark skinned people in many books too.

Glavians are Black and, according to Abnett, the best pilots the Imperium can field.

Moreso, with 99%+ of the Imperium's population never leaving the planet of their birth, all those people living on desert worlds are, in the course of 10-20,000 years, going to be rather dark-skinned, even if the initial colony that settled the world was entirely, 100% Caucasian (which, btw, includes Arabs). Environmental evolution alone, across the million-plus planets the Imperium controls, would ensure ethnic diversity.

 gwarsh41 wrote:
There are no different races in 40k because after 30k years of breeding on earth, all the colors sort of just mixed together. Turns out that a lighter color was the majority.
Remember that in those ~28k years, there were probably countless wars, genocides, and all sorts of terrible gak could have happened. For all we know, Mexico was virus bombed by Canada in the year 12044. Then in 17032 a plague spread that turned everyone albino, and it took 500 years to pigment to return to the human race.

No races in 40k, because the bigger concern is different species. Paint your minis how you want, pretty sure there are dark skinned people in many books too.

Humanity has lived on worlds with differing climates for over 10,000 years. I believe that is sufficient time for differences in skin color to occur.

 CT GAMER wrote:
The 41st millennium isn't racist: everyone is mistreated, exploited and killed in equal measure in the Imperium.

"Welcome to the 41st millenium where you are all equally worthless.

Tell that to the mutants and abhumans. They missed the memo.

 CT GAMER wrote:
Seriously though, in the 40k setting whole planets are exterminated and entire populations killed because they read the wrong book or didn't bow quick enough in a ceremony. Imagine if one of their stories happened to have this happen to a bunch of non-whites. You would have nutjobs screaming that GW is racist and threatening lawsuits...

Suuuuuure. Hey, remember when Shadow Warrior was in trouble because the main characters butchers a bunch of Asian dudes? Oh, wait, that never happened! Because it made perfect sense in the story and what obviously not racist. Maybe people are not as stupid as you make them out to be.

My LGS regularly sees 40K players from a wide variety of backgrounds. And yes I've met plenty of women who play 40k.

And again if 40K is supposed to be solely bald white people, how do you care to explain the prominent roles of the Tallarn Desert Raiders, White Scars, Salamanders and the general diversity seen in the more recent (and even older artwork) for Catachans and Cadians?

Part of the point of 40K is that its supposed to show that all of humanity's major civilizations, not just specific cultures, tend to be pretty bigoted and oppressive.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Hybrid Son Of Oxayotl wrote:

 CT GAMER wrote:
The 41st millennium isn't racist: everyone is mistreated, exploited and killed in equal measure in the Imperium.

"Welcome to the 41st millenium where you are all equally worthless.

Tell that to the mutants and abhumans. They missed the memo.

 CT GAMER wrote:
Seriously though, in the 40k setting whole planets are exterminated and entire populations killed because they read the wrong book or didn't bow quick enough in a ceremony. Imagine if one of their stories happened to have this happen to a bunch of non-whites. You would have nutjobs screaming that GW is racist and threatening lawsuits...

Suuuuuure. Hey, remember when Shadow Warrior was in trouble because the main characters butchers a bunch of Asian dudes? Oh, wait, that never happened! Because it made perfect sense in the story and what obviously not racist. Maybe people are not as stupid as you make them out to be.

More recent Ogryn fluff implies that Ogryns are only kept around because of how damn useful they are. There is an FFG book that describes how one Ratling planet is a pleasure planet, with its populace being enslaved and forced into indentured servitude by the nobles on a regular basis. Abhumans are treated abominably and only kept around because they serve a purpose (some more than others.)

This could provide some rather disturbing implications for the real disappearance of the squats...

 Blacksails wrote:
Plumb, just to be clear, are you against the inclusion of female miniatures in 40k, and the depiction of other skin colours in 40k art and studio figures?

No. I love sisters of battle, an odd female inquisitor is fine. Women also fit great to Eldar and Dark Eldar.

I also have nothing against White Scars or Salamanders. Catachans could become designated regiment for black people too for example both in art and studio models.

I'm against making every faction racialy diverse and gender balanced and showing Imperium as a diverse society. It's imo good as it is, crazy white bald men leading the pack.

In fact an odd woman shown as Cadian general or a screaming bald black Blood Angel somewhere in the codex wouldnt be the end of the world but it's a slippery slope of tolerance, equality, awerness and social justice heh so it's imo better to leave it as is. We could end with black DKoK Vostroyan or Valhallans, women Dark Angels, racialy diverse Eldar or male Sisters dulling the visual messages of 40k even further.

In short Im against adding more women and other skin colours into 40k.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

epronovost wrote:
@Plumbumbarum

Why don't you simply explain your preference for white males simply by stating your unease at the idea of white males being a minority (which they are on our planet)?

Stop exposing me like that, it's exposist.

 Hybrid Son Of Oxayotl wrote:

 CT GAMER wrote:
The 41st millennium isn't racist: everyone is mistreated, exploited and killed in equal measure in the Imperium.

"Welcome to the 41st millenium where you are all equally worthless.

Tell that to the mutants and abhumans. They missed the memo.

 CT GAMER wrote:
Seriously though, in the 40k setting whole planets are exterminated and entire populations killed because they read the wrong book or didn't bow quick enough in a ceremony. Imagine if one of their stories happened to have this happen to a bunch of non-whites. You would have nutjobs screaming that GW is racist and threatening lawsuits...

Suuuuuure. Hey, remember when Shadow Warrior was in trouble because the main characters butchers a bunch of Asian dudes? Oh, wait, that never happened! Because it made perfect sense in the story and what obviously not racist. Maybe people are not as stupid as you make them out to be.

Some aren't. And many are

 Bronzefists42 wrote:
My LGS regularly sees 40K players from a wide variety of backgrounds. And yes I've met plenty of women who play 40k.

And again if 40K is supposed to be solely bald white people, how do you care to explain the prominent roles of the Tallarn Desert Raiders, White Scars, Salamanders and the general diversity seen in the more recent (and even older artwork) for Catachans and Cadians.

I touched on that multiple times including my first post in this thread. They're fine cop outs for gamers who want to play a non white space marine for example also exactly the reason we dont need more diversity, or diversity everywhere.

Btw what do you mean diverity in more recent Cadians artwork? I dont think there was a single woman or non white in the AM codex or in fact any codex of late. Catachan I think there was one dude who had either a light shade of black skin or a strong tan, I couldnt decide afair.

Most Codex art is recycled. Again look at ANY of the only war books, particularly the main rulebook, where 75% of the art is commissioned.

Your weird phobia of diversity is kind of off putting.

Is it as off putting as potential ebony Space wolves and wolfettes though.

Plumbumbarum wrote:
Is it as off putting as potential ebony Space wolves and wolfettes though.

...No? I mean, why would it be?

Plumbumbarum wrote:
Is it as off putting as potential ebony Space wolves and wolfettes though.

Yeahhh, sorry, this is just straight up racism.

@plumbumbarum

I don't want to sound insulting and even less threatening to you with my last question (and even less with this one), but from what you have been writting on this thread, you seem to suffer from a certain form of xenophobia and sexism we sometimes call «closet bigotery». It's not a crime, neither is it specifically insulting to the victims of your bigotery since it's unintentionnal from your part (but it's still disrespectful).

Usually «closet bigotery» express itself through ignorance, social prejudices and social norms and traditions. A Space Wolf woudn't be less feral wild and viking-like because he would look like a black men or asian men. The essence of the Space Wolfs isn't racial. It's in a culture (completly fictionnal).

In the same fashion, a black women commissar leading a charge of Imperial guardsmen mostly made of hyspanic and asian with female grenadiers and in toes with some polynesian looking support trooper, an old couple and six teenagers one of them with a missing limb really looks like humanity vallient and hopeless last stand against the darkest creatures of the galaxy. The same image, but only with white men in their 30's or 40's (an odd age for combat unit soldiers, since the average is around 18 to 22) looks like some occidental country invading yet another corner of the world. Yet, this was the cover for the 5th eddition Imperial Guard codex and let's not get into the debate that Cadian women actually represent about half of their soldiers or we will never be finish with this.

 CT GAMER wrote:
Some aren't. And many are

Well,explain Shadow Warrior getting absolutely no controversy to me.

epronovost wrote:
@plumbumbarum

I don't want to sound insulting and even less threatening to you with my last question (and even less with this one), but from what you have been writting on this thread, you seem to suffer from a certain form of xenophobia and sexism we sometimes call «closet bigotery». It's not a crime, neither is it specifically insulting to the victims of your bigotery since it's unintentionnal from your part (but it's still disrespectful).

Usually «closet bigotery» express itself through ignorance, social prejudices and social norms and traditions. A Space Wolf woudn't be less feral wild and viking-like because he would look like a black men or asian men. The essence of the Space Wolfs isn't racial. It's in a culture (completly fictionnal).

In the same fashion, a black women commissar leading a charge of Imperial guardsmen mostly made of hyspanic and asian with female grenadiers and in toes with some polynesian looking support trooper, an old couple and six teenagers one of them with a missing limb really looks like humanity vallient and hopeless last stand against the darkest creatures of the galaxy. The same image, but only with white men in their 30's or 40's (an odd age for combat unit soldiers, since the average is around 18 to 22) looks like some occidental country invading yet another corner of the world. Yet, this was the cover for the 5th eddition Imperial Guard codex and let's not get into the debate that Cadian women actually represent about half of their soldiers or we will never be finish with this.

"In the same fashion, a black women commissar leading a charge of Imperial guardsmen mostly made of hyspanic and asian with female grenadiers and in toes with some polynesian looking support trooper, an old couple and six teenagers one of them with a missing limb really looks like humanity vallient and hopeless last stand against the darkest creatures of the galaxy. The same image, but only with white men in their 30's or 40's (an odd age for combat unit soldiers, since the average is around 18 to 22) looks like some occidental country invading yet another corner of the world. Yet, this was the cover for the 5th eddition Imperial Guard codex and let's not get into the debate that Cadian women actually represent about half of their soldiers or we will never be finish with this."

The main problem with this however that I could see as the reason why people oppose it is that it takes the focus away from the action and grimdark and into the racial and gender relations.

Would a Fenrisian be more Eskimo in skin colour and body/face morphology? Trying to think about this purely in terms of adaptation

epronovost wrote:
@plumbumbarum

I don't want to sound insulting and even less threatening to you with my last question (and even less with this one), but from what you have been writting on this thread, you seem to suffer from a certain form of xenophobia and sexism we sometimes call «closet bigotery». It's not a crime, neither is it specifically insulting to the victims of your bigotery since it's unintentionnal from your part (but it's still disrespectful).

Usually «closet bigotery» express itself through ignorance, social prejudices and social norms and traditions. A Space Wolf woudn't be less feral wild and viking-like because he would look like a black men or asian men. The essence of the Space Wolfs isn't racial. It's in a culture (completly fictionnal).

In the same fashion, a black women commissar leading a charge of Imperial guardsmen mostly made of hyspanic and asian with female grenadiers and in toes with some polynesian looking support trooper, an old couple and six teenagers one of them with a missing limb really looks like humanity vallient and hopeless last stand against the darkest creatures of the galaxy. The same image, but only with white men in their 30's or 40's (an odd age for combat unit soldiers, since the average is around 18 to 22) looks like some occidental country invading yet another corner of the world. Yet, this was the cover for the 5th eddition Imperial Guard codex and let's not get into the debate that Cadian women actually represent about half of their soldiers or we will never be finish with this.

Usually when the women, the young, the sick/mutilated and the old are being depicted in battle its a sign the nation has lots its ability to supply able bodied men and is losing. Generally seen in the final stages of a conflict.

Also the Space Wolf culture may not exist, but it relies heavily on the "viking theme" which is usually blond and ginger white invaders. So yea a black viking will not be a common sight.

I think the issue many have missed is how many of the cultures that are popular in 40k are actually taken from white culture inspiration. I think Tallarn are the only ones who of our current selection that should feature middle easterners. The rest are taken from white cultures. So instead of complaining that there are no women, blacks or so on in a Praetorian army, instead ask for cultures that did originate from different lands to use as fluff instead of adding your current culture ideals to the cultures that have made the Imperial Guard what they are.

The 3rd edition Guard codex had regiments made up from different cultures. If you look at them all you can easily see what inspired them. From that image I gather 40k is a galaxy where each planet usually has its own race/culture type.

I would stop trying to shame him into being a bigot. He is simply saying that you guys want to add your cultural ideals into a world that relies on other cultural ideals for inspiration. It would be like demanding women in a Praetorian Guard force which is based around the British in Africa (like in the Zulu Movie). What you are effectively saying is you find the culture at the time upsetting and you want to change how it is portrayed in 40k fluff to fit your feels.

Instead of demanding that the inspiration for all these 40k ideas be changed, instead why not complain they dont include other cultures like they did with the Tallarn for the humans. Otherwise you are in a way trying to merge your own ideals with those cultures that inspired these writers. Like the Space Wolves having black people is very far from their cultural inspiration.

What people like you want is to fudge the cultures that make up 40k (vikings for example) and change them to fit your cultural views. I can see why people dont like that. It would be like demanding people paint their Sci Fi Zulu Guardsmen white, when they are blatantly taken from Zulu Inspiration. Or demanding that your Samurai Inspired Guardsmen need more Baltic Peoples. Its not a hard argument to understand really.

Closet bigot, straight racist and diversitophobic (ha I'm good at newspeak too), this is getting better and better.

nudibranch wrote:

Plumbumbarum wrote:
Is it as off putting as potential ebony Space wolves and wolfettes though.

Yeahhh, sorry, this is just straight up racism.

Yeah if you ignore all my earlier posts including the one 4 posts before the one you quoted.

Sorry, no. It has actualy nothing to do with racism but a lot to do with the fact that vikings were predominantly pale whitish white and even if you're wouldnt be bothered by black skinned future ones, why on earth would anyone introduce them? Is it insulting otherwise? This is really beyond me.

Congratulations on jumping the occasion to point a finger though. Remember face value ftw.

@epronvost

Being bothered by black skinned vikings pointlesly shoehorned into space fantasy setting is not closet bigotry, does not have to come from prejudice or ignorance. In my case it just comes from a fact that a black skined viking looks silly, just as I would look silly pretending to be a Maasai. I really, really see no disrespect in saying to a black skin person "sorry man you dont really look like a viking".

Do you know what is silly? Vikings riding wolves. Some Viking riding an antigrav sledge that is tracted by wolves.

 Hybrid Son Of Oxayotl wrote:
Do you know what is silly? Vikings riding wolves. Some Viking riding an antigrav sledge that is tracted by wolves.

Yes, but so is shoehorning in a variety of genders into a theme based around white people. Instead ask for a chapter to be more represented of a differing culture.

There is a Space Marine chapter I saw once in GW fluff that are based of The Maori people in NZ. They had the moko designs on their army and everything. GW has all these cultures in the fluff to use, but instead the popular ones happen to be white or alien. (Oh gee, wonder why...)

So instead ask for the other cultures to be represented if you desire, dont simply demand the other ones change.

I am pretty sure thats all he is arguing for. Its what I prefer as well.

 Hybrid Son Of Oxayotl wrote:

 CT GAMER wrote:
Some aren't. And many are

Well,explain Shadow Warrior getting absolutely no controversy to me.

Never heard of it.

So are you claiming that people/groups have never made weakly backed claims of perceived racism/racial bias in mass media and entertainment content(movies, TV, etc )?

 Hybrid Son Of Oxayotl wrote:
Do you know what is silly? Vikings riding wolves. Some Viking riding an antigrav sledge that is tracted by wolves.

Except for the fact that norse mythology is full of them and it fits 10000x more than black skin, something rather associated with Africa. Not sure if that wasnt racist now though.

And why hasn't GW released black female space marine!?!

I'm sick of the man trying to keep us down!!!

No justice no peace...

Ah I love the smell of cultural marxism in the morning.

No other smell like it in the world.

I honestly don't give a crap if gw don't paint there minatures black who gives a feck seriously this isn't the problem the true problem is why any one thinks any one else other than them selves must or should paint there miniatures multi cultural its OK to be white you know just as much as it is to be any other colour of skin.

You know what would happen in a game if we all painted a team of multi racial marines as soon as you use snipers to kill one even if it's a legit target like the guys holding a plasma gun but happens to be painted black some one some where would call you racist for doing it . I am sorry but its a game nothing more so feck all race crap or hard feelings my guys are white because I want them to be and it fits in with the fluff of my dark eldar being pale.

I have to say as well I have never seen a black skin tone painted well at all seen a few beautiful Japanese and Chinese skin tones think the models where from infinite but not seen a decent black skin tone at all.

 Swastakowey wrote:

 Hybrid Son Of Oxayotl wrote:
Do you know what is silly? Vikings riding wolves. Some Viking riding an antigrav sledge that is tracted by wolves.

Yes, but so is shoehorning in a variety of genders into a theme based around white people. Instead ask for a chapter to be more represented of a differing culture.

There is a Space Marine chapter I saw once in GW fluff that are based of The Maori people in NZ. They had the moko designs on their army and everything. GW has all these cultures in the fluff to use, but instead the popular ones happen to be white or alien. (Oh gee, wonder why...)

So instead ask for the other cultures to be represented if you desire, dont simply demand the other ones change.

I am pretty sure thats all he is arguing for. Its what I prefer as well.

Yes just ask for a new cool faction/ subfaction representing whatever you want to see represented instead of stretching the already stretched themes, for no apparent reason other than selective overreaction.

Plumbumbarum wrote:
You can make up reasons for racism being alive and kicking in 40th millenium, wasnt there a book about genocide of natives to make place for new Imperial settlers? I find the idea that just external threat would eradicate racism in a world like that a bit naive tbh.

And you're missing the point: racism isn't gone in 40k, it just has a new target. The Imperium's attitude towards non-humans would make the average KKK member look like a reasonable moderate, and genociding an entire non-human civilization to make room for human settlers is exactly what we'd expect. It just isn't plausible that the Imperium would care about the same racism that existed 40,000 years ago in a completely different society.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Swastakowey wrote:
I think the issue many have missed is how many of the cultures that are popular in 40k are actually taken from white culture inspiration. I think Tallarn are the only ones who of our current selection that should feature middle easterners. The rest are taken from white cultures.

This isn't true at all. Catachans are the Vietnam-era US army in space, and that was certainly not an all-white culture. Cadians are generic scifi soldiers with no real-world cultural inspiration. DKoK have uniforms taken from real WWI designs, but their culture has nothing to do with it (and no culture like it ever existed in the real world). Elysians are generic scifi soldiers like Cadians. So of the four IG regiments that GW currently produces none of them have this supposed "white culture" inspiration.

Ive been playing 40k since the the early 90's.

In that roughly 25 years I have known a number of non-white players and collectors. I have never heard any of them raise this issue. Thinking back on it I don't remember any of them going out of their way to include non-white models.

I do however recall a number of obnoxious white douches who did it, and for all the wrong reasons...

I knew a black guy that played space wolves and he painted them all in the traditional manner. Should I phone him up and inform him he's a racist because he didn't paint his tiny men dark enough?

@CT GAMER

No, of course not. But, you would be equally wrong to take offense of people who do paint them in non white colour and want them to be various sex. That's the issue there. We are not trying to prevent people from having an army painted the way they want with the model they want with the sex they want.

I would like to have Cadian females since there is a lot of them in the fluff, but I can't because GW doesn't make any. I would also like to have better paint tutorials for other shade of skin beside white, but I don't have them either. The problem isn't what you do with your stuff. The problem is your opposition to me having more options for my stuff. That's the point we are trying to make.

Also, when we ask the reasons for your dislike of diversity in artwork, models and paints we receive only excuses based on traditionnalist and rather bigoted point of views. If you want your army to be true to their cultural inspiration, then Space Wolf need females for 10 to 20% of the viking raiders were women, they have mythological figures like valkyries who were all women too. Ultramarines are greeko-roman so were are their females greeko-roman mythologie is filled with warrior women most notable of them all the Amazons. The Dark Angels and Black Templar are knights. Female in disguise has knights is a popular thrope in medieval strories from the early songs of Robin Hood to Knig Arthur's court which counted both a muslim guy and two women at the round table and we aren't counting women who indeed went to battle has knights. Viet-nam war inspired guardsmen? Were are the South Vietnamese? Even the cultures from which these armies draw inspirations were more diverse then what we see. W

 Swastakowey wrote:
Yes, but so is shoehorning in a variety of genders into a theme based around white people.

Genders? Vikings?
http://www.tor.com/2014/09/02/female-viking-warriors-proof-swords/

 CT GAMER wrote:
Never heard of it.

I put a link on my previous message.

 CT GAMER wrote:
So are you claiming that people/groups have never made weakly backed claims of perceived racism/racial bias in mass media and entertainment content(movies, TV, etc )?

Maybe they have, but it is nowhere as prevalent as you make it to be.

 CT GAMER wrote:
I knew a black guy that played space wolves and he painted them all in the traditional manner. Should I phone him up and inform him he's a racist because he didn't paint his tiny men dark enough?

Has he lectured you on how you should not paint your space wolves blacks, or how GW should not do it?

What I don't understand is why it s a sensitive issue. Black, white, male female, as long as the minis look cool, I'm game

@Gordon Shumway

I completly agree with you, but some need some convincing and other some reassuring.

gw is white.
the majority of the market is white.
warhammer is a power fantasy.
power fantasy's need to relate to the market.

 Peregrine wrote:

Plumbumbarum wrote:
You can make up reasons for racism being alive and kicking in 40th millenium, wasnt there a book about genocide of natives to make place for new Imperial settlers? I find the idea that just external threat would eradicate racism in a world like that a bit naive tbh.

And you're missing the point: racism isn't gone in 40k, it just has a new target. The Imperium's attitude towards non-humans would make the average KKK member look like a reasonable moderate, and genociding an entire non-human civilization to make room for human settlers is exactly what we'd expect. It just isn't plausible that the Imperium would care about the same racism that existed 40,000 years ago in a completely different society.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Swastakowey wrote:
I think the issue many have missed is how many of the cultures that are popular in 40k are actually taken from white culture inspiration. I think Tallarn are the only ones who of our current selection that should feature middle easterners. The rest are taken from white cultures.

This isn't true at all. Catachans are the Vietnam-era US army in space, and that was certainly not an all-white culture. Cadians are generic scifi soldiers with no real-world cultural inspiration. DKoK have uniforms taken from real WWI designs, but their culture has nothing to do with it (and no culture like it ever existed in the real world). Elysians are generic scifi soldiers like Cadians. So of the four IG regiments that GW currently produces none of them have this supposed "white culture" inspiration.

True I suppose.

I still would rather cultures be shown through bringing back the old stuff which had heaps of cool cultures. It was the theme of the Guard, all the cultures from their respective planets coming together (sometimes with difficulty) to fight its enemies. I would say though, that GW fluff as far as I can tell, has planets made entirely of one race and culture.

 Peregrine wrote:

Plumbumbarum wrote:
You can make up reasons for racism being alive and kicking in 40th millenium, wasnt there a book about genocide of natives to make place for new Imperial settlers? I find the idea that just external threat would eradicate racism in a world like that a bit naive tbh.

And you're missing the point: racism isn't gone in 40k, it just has a new target. The Imperium's attitude towards non-humans would make the average KKK member look like a reasonable moderate, and genociding an entire non-human civilization to make room for human settlers is exactly what we'd expect. It just isn't plausible that the Imperium would care about the same racism that existed 40,000 years ago in a completely different society.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Swastakowey wrote:
I think the issue many have missed is how many of the cultures that are popular in 40k are actually taken from white culture inspiration. I think Tallarn are the only ones who of our current selection that should feature middle easterners. The rest are taken from white cultures.

This isn't true at all. Catachans are the Vietnam-era US army in space, and that was certainly not an all-white culture. Cadians are generic scifi soldiers with no real-world cultural inspiration. DKoK have uniforms taken from real WWI designs, but their culture has nothing to do with it (and no culture like it ever existed in the real world). Elysians are generic scifi soldiers like Cadians. So of the four IG regiments that GW currently produces none of them have this supposed "white culture" inspiration.

Well the book was about human Imperials genociding human, not alien natives.

It's just as plausible for the Imperium to be racist both externaly and internaly. Opressed and scared individuals fueled with paranoia, living in a violent times in overcrowded places and backwards cultures, that just begs for conflicts driven by differencies including racial ones, especialy given the inherent distrust to everything different that humans seem to carry. Again, what I see is your made up reasons not the ultimately plausible version of fluff.

As for guard regiments, yes Catachans should be racialy diverse that would be in line with their theme, Arnold's squad from Predator with Rambo but 10x tougher, sounds great. You're giving too much weight to the word culture in relation to guard regiments fluff though and visual design is imo most important when it comes to theme. Id say DKoK are clearly associated with white people and Cadians are meant to be main Imperial force, with said Imperium having nods to medieval one, Soviet and Nazi regimes, WW I etc - the majority of it being based on white cultures history. Elysians I dont know tbh.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
@epronvost

The viking archetype is white male. Valkyries elite unit for Space Wolves? Great idea. Some women into an SW squad? Maybe, Im not sold as they soften the image of archetypical viking. Black skinned Space Wolves? Nope.

Then amazons as a separate sm unit for those greek inspired chapters, not that bad. Not something Id like to see but not immersion breaking either.

Do you really want a female in disguise thrope for black templars though heh?

Plumbumbarum wrote:
It's just as plausible for the Imperium to be racist both externaly and internaly. Opressed and scared individuals fueled with paranoia, living in a violent times in overcrowded places and backwards cultures, that just begs for conflicts driven by differencies including racial ones, especialy given the inherent distrust to everything different that humans seem to carry. Again, what I see is your made up reasons not the ultimately plausible version of fluff.

Ok, let's assume this is true for the sake of discussion. Why would the Imperium's racism follow the same divisions as racism from 40,000 years earlier on a long-forgotten planet and culture? Do you still have racist attitudes based on ancient Sumerian racism? The much more plausible scenario is that the targets of racism will have changed completely after 40,000 years of history, and will have nothing to do with the racism of 2015. So an accurate representation of racism in 40k might be a picture of a black guy and a white guy uniting to murder some other white guy based on prejudices that wouldn't make any sense to us.

You're giving too much weight to the word culture in relation to guard regiments fluff though and visual design is imo most important when it comes to theme.

So let me get this straight: the uniforms the DKoK soldiers wear are far more important in defining them than things like their civilization-destroying nuclear war or their obsession with martyrdom?

Cadians are meant to be main Imperial force

Yes, and their inspiration is the same old generic scifi soldiers that exist everywhere else. They have no real-world cultural inspiration behind them.

Hybrid Son of Oxyotl, I find it symptomatic that you in particular would use "hard data" like that fifty fifty viking squads link of yours

http://www.missedinhistory.com/blog/raining-on-your-parade-about-those-women-viking-warriors/

 The Home Nuggeteer wrote:
Ah I love the smell of cultural marxism in the morning.

No other smell like it in the world.

You did not just use that term unironically...

 Peregrine wrote:

Plumbumbarum wrote:
It's just as plausible for the Imperium to be racist both externaly and internaly. Opressed and scared individuals fueled with paranoia, living in a violent times in overcrowded places and backwards cultures, that just begs for conflicts driven by differencies including racial ones, especialy given the inherent distrust to everything different that humans seem to carry. Again, what I see is your made up reasons not the ultimately plausible version of fluff.

Ok, let's assume this is true for the sake of discussion. Why would the Imperium's racism follow the same divisions as racism from 40,000 years earlier on a long-forgotten planet and culture? Do you still have racist attitudes based on ancient Sumerian racism? The much more plausible scenario is that the targets of racism will have changed completely after 40,000 years of history, and will have nothing to do with the racism of 2015. So an accurate representation of racism in 40k might be a picture of a black guy and a white guy uniting to murder some other white guy based on prejudices that wouldn't make any sense to us.

You're giving too much weight to the word culture in relation to guard regiments fluff though and visual design is imo most important when it comes to theme.

So let me get this straight: the uniforms the DKoK soldiers wear are far more important in defining them than things like their civilization-destroying nuclear war or their obsession with martyrdom?

Cadians are meant to be main Imperial force

Yes, and their inspiration is the same old generic scifi soldiers that exist everywhere else. They have no real-world cultural inspiration behind them.

1. Why not? They have equipment looking like supercharged 20th century, maybe their racism is supercharged 20th century like as well. Im just saying that arguments can go both ways and there is no hard ultimate reason for GW to start showing all regiments as diverse because it's "more plausible".

2. Yes Id say so, especialy when it comes to their skin colour. Just like Tallarn or Catachan, uniforms facial features and skin colour should compliment themselves for at least some resembling of consistency imo.

3. Yes and no. They still operate that WW I esque equpiment and have comissairs who are clearly white people history based, though indeed there are no clear nods on Cadians themselves. Except for, ofc, all oc them being white on GWs art.

Plumbumbarum wrote:
1. Why not? They have equipment looking like supercharged 20th century, maybe their racism is supercharged 20th century like as well. Im just saying that arguments can go both ways and there is no hard ultimate reason for GW to start showing all regiments as diverse because it's "more plausible".

It's "more plausible" for the same reason that you don't have racist attitudes based on whatever racism existed in ancient Sumeria. From the point of view of 40k all of our 20th century attitudes are much more distant than the ancient Sumerians are to us.

2. Yes Id say so, especialy when it comes to their skin colour. Just like Tallarn or Catachan, uniforms facial features and skin colour should compliment themselves for at least some resembling of consistency imo.

And exactly how many DKoK have you seen without their uniforms? How do you know what race they are?

3. Yes and no. They still operate that WW I esque equpiment and have comissairs who are clearly white people history based, though indeed there are no clear nods on Cadians themselves. Except for, ofc, all oc them being white on GWs art.

So because they have one feature (commissars) that are related to a "white" culture, just like every other IG regiment, Cadians are somehow inspired by "white culture". That makes absolutely no sense at all.

Also, the only reason Cadians are always white in GW's art is that in our society the default character is almost always a straight white man, and artist who don't think about race/gender/etc very much tend to go with that default. They aren't based on any real-world race or culture where white people are an overwhelming majority.

There's nothing to fuss about, if you don't want your entire army white like GW always has them shown just paint them as you want. I've painted a darkish skinned latino Chaos Marine and a few others black. I'm white by the way, I just like cultural variety in my army. If you look as the cover of the HH book "Galaxy in Flames ", there is a black Death Guard marine right there for everyone to see.

nudibranch wrote:

 The Home Nuggeteer wrote:
Ah I love the smell of cultural marxism in the morning.

No other smell like it in the world.

You did not just use that term unironically...

I fail to see the problem, we have already seen a bunch of other pseudo intellectual bull gak spewed from both sides here I just thought I would pile on.

The back and forth in this thread is what you'll see each and every time something like this comes up. It happened when another guy asked it, and when I asked it, and now when you asked it. It'll take a much longer time for that to change, as the norm is still, sadly, the white male.

Through my 25 years of life, I've learned that asking other people to try and see things from your or another person's point of view is pointless.
"I've never seen anyone complain about it before,"
"Their main customers are blah and blah,"
"Oh it's just a fantasy world, they can be however the creators want,"
"Why not make your own _____ instead of complaining,"

If the shoe was on the other foot, you can bet your butt the other side would be complaining and feeling the same as you do, but it's not and as is the norm with people, they only care when it directly affects them; thus all the excuses and arguments against any kind of new diversity.

This isn't a new thing that is solely 40k's, but is seen in almost all sci-fi and fantasy works by "the norm." I myself have simply just stopped asking and no longer buy or support anything that doesn't have at least some diversity. I make sure to research any books, games, movies, thoroughly before I go for it, and it honestly just makes me sad.

As a youngster my head was filled with the wonders of knights and dragons and aliens and spaceships, but I've grown more and more like my chaos space marines, jaded, frustrated, and cynical. The simple fact that in so many settings and mediums used to escape reality, it's really only for some people, not all.

There are "islands" of diversity out there, but the majority of "the world" is Europe.
Haha even said a couple times before in thread ad repeated in almost any other one about such a subject, obviously the whole world will merge into just one big western white mass of people, and not trillions of light-years, millions of years on different planets, thousands of new and differing climates, nor the gods themselves can change it apparently.

epronovost wrote:

I would like to have Cadian females since there is a lot of them in the fluff, but I can't because GW doesn't make any. I would also like to have better paint tutorials for other shade of skin beside white, but I don't have them either. The problem isn't what you do with your stuff. The problem is your opposition to me having more options for my stuff. That's the point we are trying to make.

Some people seem to have this idea that you can't add anything to the game without taking something else away, I guess.

But no, we absolutely can not have more options or include anyone else. Even one head bit rendered unusable because it was sculpted with a clearly female face instead of a billionth bald and screaming male is too much. PC GONE MAD!

Plumbumbarum wrote:
Hybrid Son of Oxyotl, I find it symptomatic that you in particular would use "hard data" like that fifty fifty viking squads link of yours

http://www.missedinhistory.com/blog/raining-on-your-parade-about-those-women-viking-warriors/

Not sure where you are going. Those were vikings. Maybe warriors or maybe not, but female vikings. And, from your very own link:
“And there is plenty of evidence that, yes, there were female Norse warriors (and neither I nor the source am saying there were not). ”
So what is wrong with female space wolves again?

I just wanted to point out the fact that wanting some diversity like female heads in IG boxes does not make you an egalitarist/leftist/excited militant.

Personnally, I don't try to force others to paint their forces in a mulitcultural way and I will never criticize them for playing a white-only army. Stating that it is what I actually do when I ask for black catachans or female bits is utterly stupid and is more a bigot reaction than anything else.

Space Marines should stay male, SW should stay vikings and should not be "multiculturalized" because their true nature is linked with medieval knights and generic Nordic barbarians.

What I and others in this thread are advocating is just "put some women and black guys where it would actually make sense" that is to say IG.

Plumbumbarum wrote:
It's just as plausible for the Imperium to be racist both externaly and internaly.

As I mentioned a bunch of time itt already, it is. See mutants and abhumans. That racism has been made plain and easy for all to see and is an integral part of the setting, unlike the racism you want to see.

@Hybrid Son of Oxayotl where Im going is that you posted that obviously sensationalist and stretched article as some kind of proof that the other poster knows nothing and you have the truth in hand, while in fact I for example would be ashamed to post a link like that without a huge disclaimer. Just as I need a disclaimer now that I cant say this guy is valid for sure but he claims to be an archeologist and claims that most scholars belive that 99.9% of warriors were male

http://scienceblogs.com/aardvarchaeology/2013/07/29/shield-maidens-true-or-false/

Posted for the sake of balance. The sources for this are too few to draw ultimate conclusions, let alone ridiculous one like that fifty fifty claim. Also obviously it matters whether they were warriors or just wives or migrants in context of Space Wolves, do I really have to explain that?

I already posted my opinion about female sw btw:

Plumbumbarum wrote:
@epronvost

The viking archetype is white male. Valkyries elite unit for Space Wolves? Great idea. Some women into an SW squad? Maybe, Im not sold as they soften the image of archetypical viking. Black skinned Space Wolves? Nope.

Then amazons as a separate sm unit for those greek inspired chapters, not that bad. Not something Id like to see but not immersion breaking either.

Do you really want a female in disguise thrope for black templars though heh?

Plumbumbarum wrote:
The sources for this are too few to draw ultimate conclusions

Depends on what you intent on proving. If you want to prove that 50% of viking warriors were women, yes, you cannot draw that conclusion. If you want to prove that the idea of viking female warrior is not considered ridiculous by historians, then it definitely proves it. Therefore the argument that there should be no women among the space wolves because “Blah blah historical vikings blah blah and just forget about spitting acid and using jetpacks and bikes and absolutely no boat and all that” is moot.

Plumbumbarum wrote:

 Peregrine wrote:

Plumbumbarum wrote:
You can make up reasons for racism being alive and kicking in 40th millenium, wasnt there a book about genocide of natives to make place for new Imperial settlers? I find the idea that just external threat would eradicate racism in a world like that a bit naive tbh.

And you're missing the point: racism isn't gone in 40k, it just has a new target. The Imperium's attitude towards non-humans would make the average KKK member look like a reasonable moderate, and genociding an entire non-human civilization to make room for human settlers is exactly what we'd expect. It just isn't plausible that the Imperium would care about the same racism that existed 40,000 years ago in a completely different society.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Swastakowey wrote:
I think the issue many have missed is how many of the cultures that are popular in 40k are actually taken from white culture inspiration. I think Tallarn are the only ones who of our current selection that should feature middle easterners. The rest are taken from white cultures.

This isn't true at all. Catachans are the Vietnam-era US army in space, and that was certainly not an all-white culture. Cadians are generic scifi soldiers with no real-world cultural inspiration. DKoK have uniforms taken from real WWI designs, but their culture has nothing to do with it (and no culture like it ever existed in the real world). Elysians are generic scifi soldiers like Cadians. So of the four IG regiments that GW currently produces none of them have this supposed "white culture" inspiration.

Well the book was about human Imperials genociding human, not alien natives.

It's just as plausible for the Imperium to be racist both externaly and internaly. Opressed and scared individuals fueled with paranoia, living in a violent times in overcrowded places and backwards cultures, that just begs for conflicts driven by differencies including racial ones, especialy given the inherent distrust to everything different that humans seem to carry. Again, what I see is your made up reasons not the ultimately plausible version of fluff.

As for guard regiments, yes Catachans should be racialy diverse that would be in line with their theme, Arnold's squad from Predator with Rambo but 10x tougher, sounds great. You're giving too much weight to the word culture in relation to guard regiments fluff though and visual design is imo most important when it comes to theme. Id say DKoK are clearly associated with white people and Cadians are meant to be main Imperial force, with said Imperium having nods to medieval one, Soviet and Nazi regimes, WW I etc - the majority of it being based on white cultures history. Elysians I dont know tbh.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
@epronvost

The viking archetype is white male. Valkyries elite unit for Space Wolves? Great idea. Some women into an SW squad? Maybe, Im not sold as they soften the image of archetypical viking. Black skinned Space Wolves? Nope.

Then amazons as a separate sm unit for those greek inspired chapters, not that bad. Not something Id like to see but not immersion breaking either.

Do you really want a female in disguise thrope for black templars though heh?

WWI was not fought solely by white people as you erroneously imply:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/369th_Infantry_Regiment_%28United_States%29

There were numerous non white soldiers fighting in WWI. DKOK are a smorgasbord of all WWI forces so it isn't too ridiculous to have diverse DKOK.

 Bronzefists42 wrote:

Plumbumbarum wrote:

 Peregrine wrote:

Plumbumbarum wrote:
You can make up reasons for racism being alive and kicking in 40th millenium, wasnt there a book about genocide of natives to make place for new Imperial settlers? I find the idea that just external threat would eradicate racism in a world like that a bit naive tbh.

And you're missing the point: racism isn't gone in 40k, it just has a new target. The Imperium's attitude towards non-humans would make the average KKK member look like a reasonable moderate, and genociding an entire non-human civilization to make room for human settlers is exactly what we'd expect. It just isn't plausible that the Imperium would care about the same racism that existed 40,000 years ago in a completely different society.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Swastakowey wrote:
I think the issue many have missed is how many of the cultures that are popular in 40k are actually taken from white culture inspiration. I think Tallarn are the only ones who of our current selection that should feature middle easterners. The rest are taken from white cultures.

This isn't true at all. Catachans are the Vietnam-era US army in space, and that was certainly not an all-white culture. Cadians are generic scifi soldiers with no real-world cultural inspiration. DKoK have uniforms taken from real WWI designs, but their culture has nothing to do with it (and no culture like it ever existed in the real world). Elysians are generic scifi soldiers like Cadians. So of the four IG regiments that GW currently produces none of them have this supposed "white culture" inspiration.

Well the book was about human Imperials genociding human, not alien natives.

It's just as plausible for the Imperium to be racist both externaly and internaly. Opressed and scared individuals fueled with paranoia, living in a violent times in overcrowded places and backwards cultures, that just begs for conflicts driven by differencies including racial ones, especialy given the inherent distrust to everything different that humans seem to carry. Again, what I see is your made up reasons not the ultimately plausible version of fluff.

As for guard regiments, yes Catachans should be racialy diverse that would be in line with their theme, Arnold's squad from Predator with Rambo but 10x tougher, sounds great. You're giving too much weight to the word culture in relation to guard regiments fluff though and visual design is imo most important when it comes to theme. Id say DKoK are clearly associated with white people and Cadians are meant to be main Imperial force, with said Imperium having nods to medieval one, Soviet and Nazi regimes, WW I etc - the majority of it being based on white cultures history. Elysians I dont know tbh.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
@epronvost

The viking archetype is white male. Valkyries elite unit for Space Wolves? Great idea. Some women into an SW squad? Maybe, Im not sold as they soften the image of archetypical viking. Black skinned Space Wolves? Nope.

Then amazons as a separate sm unit for those greek inspired chapters, not that bad. Not something Id like to see but not immersion breaking either.

Do you really want a female in disguise thrope for black templars though heh?

WWI was not fought solely by white people as you erroneously imply:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/369th_Infantry_Regiment_%28United_States%29

There were numerous non white soldiers fighting in WWI. DKOK are a smorgasbord of all WWI forces so it isn't too ridiculous to have diverse DKOK.

Note however that the DKOK are spesifically inspired by the German forces, which had far less diverse units in the war.

 Sienisoturi wrote:

 Bronzefists42 wrote:

Plumbumbarum wrote:

 Peregrine wrote:

Plumbumbarum wrote:
You can make up reasons for racism being alive and kicking in 40th millenium, wasnt there a book about genocide of natives to make place for new Imperial settlers? I find the idea that just external threat would eradicate racism in a world like that a bit naive tbh.

And you're missing the point: racism isn't gone in 40k, it just has a new target. The Imperium's attitude towards non-humans would make the average KKK member look like a reasonable moderate, and genociding an entire non-human civilization to make room for human settlers is exactly what we'd expect. It just isn't plausible that the Imperium would care about the same racism that existed 40,000 years ago in a completely different society.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Swastakowey wrote:
I think the issue many have missed is how many of the cultures that are popular in 40k are actually taken from white culture inspiration. I think Tallarn are the only ones who of our current selection that should feature middle easterners. The rest are taken from white cultures.

This isn't true at all. Catachans are the Vietnam-era US army in space, and that was certainly not an all-white culture. Cadians are generic scifi soldiers with no real-world cultural inspiration. DKoK have uniforms taken from real WWI designs, but their culture has nothing to do with it (and no culture like it ever existed in the real world). Elysians are generic scifi soldiers like Cadians. So of the four IG regiments that GW currently produces none of them have this supposed "white culture" inspiration.

Well the book was about human Imperials genociding human, not alien natives.

It's just as plausible for the Imperium to be racist both externaly and internaly. Opressed and scared individuals fueled with paranoia, living in a violent times in overcrowded places and backwards cultures, that just begs for conflicts driven by differencies including racial ones, especialy given the inherent distrust to everything different that humans seem to carry. Again, what I see is your made up reasons not the ultimately plausible version of fluff.

As for guard regiments, yes Catachans should be racialy diverse that would be in line with their theme, Arnold's squad from Predator with Rambo but 10x tougher, sounds great. You're giving too much weight to the word culture in relation to guard regiments fluff though and visual design is imo most important when it comes to theme. Id say DKoK are clearly associated with white people and Cadians are meant to be main Imperial force, with said Imperium having nods to medieval one, Soviet and Nazi regimes, WW I etc - the majority of it being based on white cultures history. Elysians I dont know tbh.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
@epronvost

The viking archetype is white male. Valkyries elite unit for Space Wolves? Great idea. Some women into an SW squad? Maybe, Im not sold as they soften the image of archetypical viking. Black skinned Space Wolves? Nope.

Then amazons as a separate sm unit for those greek inspired chapters, not that bad. Not something Id like to see but not immersion breaking either.

Do you really want a female in disguise thrope for black templars though heh?

WWI was not fought solely by white people as you erroneously imply:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/369th_Infantry_Regiment_%28United_States%29

There were numerous non white soldiers fighting in WWI. DKOK are a smorgasbord of all WWI forces so it isn't too ridiculous to have diverse DKOK.

Note however that the DKOK are spesifically inspired by the German forces, which had far less diverse units in the war.

Actually they're not. Aesthetically they resemble a mixture of different forces, including German, but moreso French:



They seem more 'generic WW1' inspired than 'German WW1' specifically (despite the name). And their whole martyrdom philosophy doesn't really resemble any specific WW1 military.

@Sienisoturi

not to mention and all the african and Rom (avout 100 000) who fought alongside their German coloniser during the war. All GW armies are a mix and match of various cultures, myths, prejudice and sci-gy/fantasy twist.

 Swastakowey wrote:

 Hybrid Son Of Oxayotl wrote:
Do you know what is silly? Vikings riding wolves. Some Viking riding an antigrav sledge that is tracted by wolves.

Yes, but so is shoehorning in a variety of genders into a theme based around white people. Instead ask for a chapter to be more represented of a differing culture.

There is a Space Marine chapter I saw once in GW fluff that are based of The Maori people in NZ. They had the moko designs on their army and everything. GW has all these cultures in the fluff to use, but instead the popular ones happen to be white or alien. (Oh gee, wonder why...)

So instead ask for the other cultures to be represented if you desire, dont simply demand the other ones change.

I am pretty sure thats all he is arguing for. Its what I prefer as well.

You do realize that Maori Chapter if fanfic.... riiiight?


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 Hybrid Son Of Oxayotl wrote:

Plumbumbarum wrote:
Hybrid Son of Oxyotl, I find it symptomatic that you in particular would use "hard data" like that fifty fifty viking squads link of yours

http://www.missedinhistory.com/blog/raining-on-your-parade-about-those-women-viking-warriors/

Not sure where you are going. Those were vikings. Maybe warriors or maybe not, but female vikings. And, from your very own link:
“And there is plenty of evidence that, yes, there were female Norse warriors (and neither I nor the source am saying there were not). ”
So what is wrong with female space wolves again?

Yes, just like there are female Americans and female Franks. Viking does not mean soldier, it means a Scandinavian culture and people who were traders and colonists first, raiders second. That has never been questioned, because obviously around fifty percent of any population is going to consist of women. What's questioned, and your link(s) utterly fail to address is if these women actually ever fought in combat and worked as volunteer soldiers alongside the males.

There's not going to be female Space Wolves because they're warriors, which is a predominately male occupation- plus in universe there's zero reason to take more unreliable female candidates. Obviously around fifty percent of Fenrisian humans are female, as they're the same unto the Vikings. Many men and women were Normans, but only men were Norman Knights.

Let's not go making statements you can't actually back up, wyzilla, as much as you love doing that.

"Unreliable female candidates"...yeah, that's why the new Dark Eldar codex sucks so much, I hear; the 60/40 split between male/female bits on the sprues and being forced to use more "unreliable" female rules and stat lines.

If only they were 100% male, then they might be competitive.

About the female warrior from Norse society, I may shed some light. Has an historian who specialise in early medieval era, I do have a decent working knowledge about these people.

It's commonly admited that both women and men were warriors in Norse and Viking society. In fact, from the few burial ground we have (Norse burial sites are few because they mostly cremated their dead), sagas and writings from other civilisation who encountered them, we can reasonnably say that some women Vikings were indeed warriors.

The most commonly used numbers were of around 10% so a small minority, but still far from being uncommon or surprising. Some sites would make that number rise to nearly 50/50, but this seems to be dubious and more of an exeption than actual norm (we are talking about about 15 dead bodies all partial skeletons in a colonie so they might have been explorers ready for trouble more than actual warriors).

Most of the time, women were used to defend the keep while men were away fishing or raiding and only a minority of adult women without children or of high social standing were actively warriors and participated to expedition regularly. The term «shield maiden» that is use to describe them relates to unmarried daughters of Jarls. Norse culture changed significantly by the turn of the first millenia when they converted to christianity and had more frequent, peaceful and cultural excanges and contacts with other civilisations.

In the end, if we talk about Space Wolfs, beside names and some iconographie, they make a terrible job to represent actual Norse people. They are closer to a mix and mash of Celts, Britain, Norse with a dash of mythological reference. Than again, all these civilisations were known to have «shield maiden» warriors amongst their rank in similar proportion.

The reason there will never be female Space Wolf holds more to the fact that Space Marines were declared all male for genetic reasons (even if they make little sense, but Space Marines biologie doesn't either, so we won't hold it against them) than because the inspirationnal source material (Norse, Celts and Britains) were predominantly male dominant warrior cultures. In fact in that regard they were amongst the most equalitarian civilisation of Europe in that era.

I am white as the driven snow and about 10% of the human figures I have painted over the last 15 years have been black. It's a non-issue guys. Hell, there's just as much of a lack of freaking redheads among studio models, too.

Hell, an entire faction in one of GW's past games, Necromunda, is exclusively women. Not only is one of my Escher juves black, one of the gangers is an albino.

 Sidstyler wrote:
"Unreliable female candidates"...yeah, that's why the new Dark Eldar codex sucks so much, I hear; the 60/40 split between male/female bits on the sprues and being forced to use more "unreliable" female rules and stat lines.

If only they were 100% male, then they might be competitive.

Eldar aren't human, we don't know to what degree sexual dimorphism affects them. Indeed, they appear to be pretty much the same with the only difference of the females obviously having breasts, but otherwise they seem to share the same musculature and lithe build- IIRC from official artwork their hips don't even appear to be notably wider. So there's not going to be any significant difference in strength between the sexes as there is in humanity.

Humans however, do have sexual dimorphism. Females on average are weaker thanks to the way their bodies have evolved for childbirth- their skeletons had to sacrifice strength in favor for childbearth (because humans have gigantic heads compared to other mammalian species). This isn't some disputed idea, this is a biologic fact of humanity, and why women aren't typically allowed into the special forces as combat roles in real life. You've got to be drinking some serious Kool Aid to think that somebody in charge of recruiting super soldiers that cares only for efficiency is going to start testing a new (female) pool that have a higher chance of failure if geneseed was even compatible with female bodies.


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 Melissia wrote:
Let's not go making statements you can't actually back up, wyzilla, as much as you love doing that.

Exactly how much of Viking culture do you actually know of?

I personally would like to see more badass female guardsmen models (that are not hyper-sexualized for a change) than some female-for-the-sake-of-it variant of tragically flawed, hypno-indoctrinated living weapons who aren't even fully human anymore. Seriously, this "female Space marine" thing is becoming something of a variant of the Nazi rule that inevitably shows up in half the threads on Dakka.

At least female guardsmen can show female versions of humans fighting the good fight despite the horrible odds the galaxy can throw at them, rather than having your females be another version of lab-created monsters.

As for the racial issues among the models, you have to remember that 40K is another example of the classic Sci-fi tropes, like entire planets having only one biosphere, only one racial example, only one language, etc. And also all the painters are probably trained to the same style, and dark colors of any sort (either skintone or armor) are harder to photograph well and get all the crisp details without them being hyper-exaggerated.

Light skin tones are easier to photograph on models because the darker shading shows up better against a lighter palette. I highly doubt among toy-soldier circles it's racially motivated.

@Wyzilla

Why would hypothetical female Space Marines be less srong and tall than male ones? They could very well be even taller and stronger because the organs responsible for their growth of muscle and bones, linked to testosterone, would try to overcompensate for the small quantity of it in a women body thus resulting in larger and more powerful Space Marine with a female gender. Why would they not be identical since it's an effect of a preprogammed body modification thus under the control of the apothicary who will regulate the body until it reaches correct parameters. Why would Space Marine have the same kind of sexual dimorphism in the same fashion than humans? That seems to me a weird choice. There is no specifically good reason to do so. Eldar don't have that problem, orks being all plants don't have that problem, tau neither (apparently) neither do kroots or tyranids (which are mostly sexless) so why not Space Marines? They are about as close to humans as eldars after all.

Plus, Space Marines would know a lot more about combat than you seem to. Because of this, they are fully aware that slightly lower average strength as absolutly no impact on combat capacity since the simple concept of strength = better in combat is strongly dependant on a very specific and limited number of martial traditions. The very best fighters on any given planet might very well count a good number of women if they were given the chance to grow in an environment that nurtures these types of skills amongst them (like a death world for exemple). It could be a good thing since it reduces the numbers of none excellence based criteria to become a Space Marines from three to two.

Female Astartes would simply be a moot point, as they would look very similar to the men, and all the defining emotional characteristics that define a woman (reproductive drive, nurturing, etc) would be violently removed from their psyche, where at least with Imperial Guardsmen(women) you would get the full spectrum of balance between nurturing protection and badass-itude, Ellen Ripley-style.

Space Marines are just biological versions of Men of Iron, more easily controlled.

@AegisGrimm

I would disagree a little bit (I don't seriously think female Space Marines are needed since there is Sisters of Battle who are equaly badass and similar in style). Women are far more divers than what you seem to think. I know some who hates children so much they can't stand being in the same room than one for more than 15 minutes. Others who have no nurturing interest or very little. One who's even a pro culturist whose completly infertile because of it. None of these women are any less womenly than any other. If I was to transport you in time to Sarmatian land you would think these women to be insanly and pointlessly violent and aggresice while they would think that someone transformed ours in house pets.

epronovost wrote:
@Wyzilla

Why would hypothetical female Space Marines be less srong and tall than male ones? They could very well be even taller and stronger because the organs responsible for their growth of muscle and bones, linked to testosterone, would try to overcompensate for the small quantity of it in a women body thus resulting in larger and more powerful Space Marine with a female gender. Why would they not be identical since it's an effect of a preprogammed body modification thus under the control of the apothicary who will regulate the body until it reaches correct parameters. Why would Space Marine have the same kind of sexual dimorphism in the same fashion than humans? That seems to me a weird choice. There is no specifically good reason to do so. Eldar don't have that problem, orks being all plants don't have that problem, tau neither (apparently) neither do kroots or tyranids (which are mostly sexless) so why not Space Marines? They are about as close to humans as eldars after all.

Plus, Space Marines would know a lot more about combat than you seem to. Because of this, they are fully aware that slightly lower average strength as absolutly no impact on combat capacity since the simple concept of strength = better in combat is strongly dependant on a very specific and limited number of martial traditions. The very best fighters on any given planet might very well count a good number of women if they were given the chance to grow in an environment that nurtures these types of skills amongst them (like a death world for exemple). It could be a good thing since it reduces the numbers of none excellence based criteria to become a Space Marines from three to two.

I have no idea how you think female SMs would be bigger and stronger than male ones. Men are naturally bigger and stronger than women, and that won't change after implantation. the female body would require far more work, probably even more organs than neccesary to have the desired effect than it would for males.

And also, another thing everyone fails to notice on here is that the Imperium likely will not turn women into Space Marines if they knew it wasn't needed. Women are important in the 41st millennium because they give birth, something that is very crucial for the continued survival of humankind. At this point, men are cannon fodder for such situations, most SM recruits are psychotic male gangsters taken from the streets of hive worlds and turned into Space Marines. Women serve in the IG obviously but guardsmen aren't always forced into duty, some of them can join on their own accord.

epronovost wrote:
@AegisGrimm

I would disagree a little bit (I don't seriously think female Space Marines are needed since there is Sisters of Battle who are equaly badass and similar in style). Women are far more divers than what you seem to think. I know some who hates children so much they can't stand being in the same room than one for more than 15 minutes. Others who have no nurturing interest or very little. One who's even a pro culturist whose completly infertile because of it. None of these women are any less womenly than any other. If I was to transport you in time to Sarmatian land you would think these women to be insanly and pointlessly violent and aggresice while they would think that someone transformed ours in house pets.

Well, obviously, I was being pretty general in my statement, because mot all guys are alike. But the nurture/badass elements I speak of are pretty universally a part of women in fiction of the type 40K is a part of. Like the woman I can't remember for the life of me her name (Tona Criid, maybe, or something like that??), from Gaunts Ghosts.

But- keep in mind I am being pretty generalist- (most) women in my experience have different psyches than men, and they tend to think differently. But anything that makes a woman different than a man- and vice versa- has no purpose when making a Space Marine, both in the fluff and on the tabletop. Especially, like lots of people have said, we have Sisters of Battle.

I simply take the best of both worlds and have both Space Marines and Sisters of Battle for armies, for years and years now (Since the SoB came out in 2nd ed.).

 Lord Tarkin wrote:
Women are important in the 41st millennium because they give birth, something that is very crucial for the continued survival of humankind.

But even if both the IG and space marines were 100% female they would have a negligible effect on birth rates. Remember that IG regiments are taken from the elite of a planet's military, and outside of Cadia/Krieg/etc only a relatively small percentage of the population is going to be in the military at all. Taking a regiment every year from a population of billions is just a rounding error. And space marines take even smaller numbers. You aren't going to see the level of mass conscription that would threaten birth rates outside of extreme circumstances like a Tyranid fleet about to eat the planet, and in that kind of situation you can't afford to hold women back to give birth to the next generation because there might not be a next generation if you do.

 Peregrine wrote:

 Lord Tarkin wrote:
Women are important in the 41st millennium because they give birth, something that is very crucial for the continued survival of humankind.

But even if both the IG and space marines were 100% female they would have a negligible effect on birth rates. Remember that IG regiments are taken from the elite of a planet's military, and outside of Cadia/Krieg/etc only a relatively small percentage of the population is going to be in the military at all. Taking a regiment every year from a population of billions is just a rounding error. And space marines take even smaller numbers. You aren't going to see the level of mass conscription that would threaten birth rates outside of extreme circumstances like a Tyranid fleet about to eat the planet, and in that kind of situation you can't afford to hold women back to give birth to the next generation because there might not be a next generation if you do.

In that regard, perhaps you are right but it still doesn't explain the difference in strength between men and women. You believe women would make better SMs? I'm of the mindset that their body would not be able to accept the genetics of geneseed and like I said, women would require even more organs than men to be sufficient. Like Wyzilla has explained in much better detail, the female body is simply too fragile for the implantation process.

 Lord Tarkin wrote:
I'm of the mindset that their body would not be able to accept the genetics of geneseed and like I said, women would require even more organs than men to be sufficient. Like Wyzilla has explained in much better detail, the female body is simply too fragile for the implantation process.

You have an awful lot of confidence in your understanding of a process that is entirely fictional. The only reason space marines are all-male is because GW said so. You could just as easily create an alternative technobabble explanation of geneseed where only women can survive the process and there are no male space marines.

Even so, with their helmets on people might as well be demanding more female representation in the Death Korps of Kreig.

I think it's a little curious that someone who wants to join the Boy Scouts , joins the Girl Scouts, and that a religion-loathing secularist would join a church army.

But, obviously ( ? ) , I love the Girl Scouts and I love the Eclesiarchy.

And when I go for a little diversity and build an IG Army , it will be nearly all girl. The commander, the rank and file, most of the Commissars . Only a very few males here and there ( because that figure was so cool I couldn't resist adding it even though it was a male. )

Am I discriminating ?

I certainly am.

Am I a bigot ?

I certainly am.

I hate 'Nids, I hate Tau, I hate Space Marines, and I really really hate Grey knights.

I'm a terrible person ?

You weren't going to loan me a few thousand , or invite me to your birthday party, anyway.

So I'll collect what I arbitrarily like .

I thought women couldn't become space marines because the implantation was keyed to an XY setup going to an XYZ setup for almost every cell in the body. Therefore an entirely new process would have to be developed to key it to an XX system, and the only guy capable of doing that is a vegetable. Also, why would you want female space marines? I don't get the need for it. I mean there is less than one marine per world of the imperium so it's not like they have to keep recruitment numbers up.

 Peregrine wrote:

 Lord Tarkin wrote:
I'm of the mindset that their body would not be able to accept the genetics of geneseed and like I said, women would require even more organs than men to be sufficient. Like Wyzilla has explained in much better detail, the female body is simply too fragile for the implantation process.

You have an awful lot of confidence in your understanding of a process that is entirely fictional. The only reason space marines are all-male is because GW said so. You could just as easily create an alternative technobabble explanation of geneseed where only women can survive the process and there are no male space marines.

Yet with all your babble you fail to explain why women would make better or even equal SMs. SMs are brotherhoods, they are composed of men, the obviously logical choice of sex if you were to create superhumans. The geneseed process can only be made based on a single sex. In order to accommodate both males and females, a second process would have to be created, making things rather more expensive and complicated than it needs to be. So of males and females, any person with half a brain would just stick with producing men instead of risking a process just because someone like you wants to see female SMs. Stick to SOB if you wanna see female badasses.

I'd be perfectly fine with a Sisters army, as soon as GW decides to fething support them.

 Sidstyler wrote:
I'd be perfectly fine with a Sisters army, as soon as GW decides to fething support them.

Yeah, unfortunately SOB are completely neglected, I think the most neglected army in the game. I honestly would feel comfortable collecting a small force of them, they are an awesome faction but they are in desperate need of an update....like a complete makeover. They should be the first thing on GW to-do list.

 Sidstyler wrote:

epronovost wrote:

I would like to have Cadian females since there is a lot of them in the fluff, but I can't because GW doesn't make any. I would also like to have better paint tutorials for other shade of skin beside white, but I don't have them either. The problem isn't what you do with your stuff. The problem is your opposition to me having more options for my stuff. That's the point we are trying to make.

Some people seem to have this idea that you can't add anything to the game without taking something else away, I guess.

But no, we absolutely can not have more options or include anyone else. Even one head bit rendered unusable because it was sculpted with a clearly female face instead of a billionth bald and screaming male is too much. PC GONE MAD!

I assume that you're paraphrasing me there and congratulations on the hyperbole and on the stretch. I could point you to my post where I say that the odd female Cadian general or black Blood Angel wouldnt be the end of the world. Or how you could add/ designate entire factions/ subfactions for things you want represented instead of pushing diversity into every faction. Or how I find valkyries elite units in SW a great idea, they would fit imo as opposed to half of the SW squad being black.

If you go back though, people were implying that half the sm chapter with knight/ monk references being women would be ok because you can dig up the odd chapter that recruited 100 and the odd women knight somewhere else or how gender is not a part of knight reference. You know like those thousands of females in plate armour clashing on medieval battlefields.



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 Hybrid Son Of Oxayotl wrote:

Plumbumbarum wrote:
The sources for this are too few to draw ultimate conclusions

Depends on what you intent on proving. If you want to prove that 50% of viking warriors were women, yes, you cannot draw that conclusion. If you want to prove that the idea of viking female warrior is not considered ridiculous by historians, then it definitely proves it. Therefore the argument that there should be no women among the space wolves because “Blah blah historical vikings blah blah and just forget about spitting acid and using jetpacks and bikes and absolutely no boat and all that” is moot.

It's better imo than blah blah obscure fact gets arrogant no fact gets boorish blah blah spitting acid detail that is hardly ever on artwork blah blah jetpacks black vikings all the same.


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 Bronzefists42 wrote:

Plumbumbarum wrote:

 Peregrine wrote:

Plumbumbarum wrote:
You can make up reasons for racism being alive and kicking in 40th millenium, wasnt there a book about genocide of natives to make place for new Imperial settlers? I find the idea that just external threat would eradicate racism in a world like that a bit naive tbh.

And you're missing the point: racism isn't gone in 40k, it just has a new target. The Imperium's attitude towards non-humans would make the average KKK member look like a reasonable moderate, and genociding an entire non-human civilization to make room for human settlers is exactly what we'd expect. It just isn't plausible that the Imperium would care about the same racism that existed 40,000 years ago in a completely different society.


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 Swastakowey wrote:
I think the issue many have missed is how many of the cultures that are popular in 40k are actually taken from white culture inspiration. I think Tallarn are the only ones who of our current selection that should feature middle easterners. The rest are taken from white cultures.

This isn't true at all. Catachans are the Vietnam-era US army in space, and that was certainly not an all-white culture. Cadians are generic scifi soldiers with no real-world cultural inspiration. DKoK have uniforms taken from real WWI designs, but their culture has nothing to do with it (and no culture like it ever existed in the real world). Elysians are generic scifi soldiers like Cadians. So of the four IG regiments that GW currently produces none of them have this supposed "white culture" inspiration.

Well the book was about human Imperials genociding human, not alien natives.

It's just as plausible for the Imperium to be racist both externaly and internaly. Opressed and scared individuals fueled with paranoia, living in a violent times in overcrowded places and backwards cultures, that just begs for conflicts driven by differencies including racial ones, especialy given the inherent distrust to everything different that humans seem to carry. Again, what I see is your made up reasons not the ultimately plausible version of fluff.

As for guard regiments, yes Catachans should be racialy diverse that would be in line with their theme, Arnold's squad from Predator with Rambo but 10x tougher, sounds great. You're giving too much weight to the word culture in relation to guard regiments fluff though and visual design is imo most important when it comes to theme. Id say DKoK are clearly associated with white people and Cadians are meant to be main Imperial force, with said Imperium having nods to medieval one, Soviet and Nazi regimes, WW I etc - the majority of it being based on white cultures history. Elysians I dont know tbh.


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@epronvost

The viking archetype is white male. Valkyries elite unit for Space Wolves? Great idea. Some women into an SW squad? Maybe, Im not sold as they soften the image of archetypical viking. Black skinned Space Wolves? Nope.

Then amazons as a separate sm unit for those greek inspired chapters, not that bad. Not something Id like to see but not immersion breaking either.

Do you really want a female in disguise thrope for black templars though heh?

WWI was not fought solely by white people as you erroneously imply:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/369th_Infantry_Regiment_%28United_States%29

There were numerous non white soldiers fighting in WWI. DKOK are a smorgasbord of all WWI forces so it isn't too ridiculous to have diverse DKOK.

Point me to the sentence where I imply that WW I was fought solely by white people. I said certain regiments look associated with white people history. Even if you dig me an entire squad of Russian black guys wearing outfits that Vostroyans are based on, it will not change the fact that half of the Russians in space depicted as black would be weird and unnecessary.

You assume that I dont know these facts. I do but consider them irrelevant to the whole picture and just exceptions.


Ask for a guard regiment based on that Harlem guys though, why not.


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 Peregrine wrote:

Plumbumbarum wrote:
1. Why not? They have equipment looking like supercharged 20th century, maybe their racism is supercharged 20th century like as well. Im just saying that arguments can go both ways and there is no hard ultimate reason for GW to start showing all regiments as diverse because it's "more plausible".

It's "more plausible" for the same reason that you don't have racist attitudes based on whatever racism existed in ancient Sumeria. From the point of view of 40k all of our 20th century attitudes are much more distant than the ancient Sumerians are to us.

2. Yes Id say so, especialy when it comes to their skin colour. Just like Tallarn or Catachan, uniforms facial features and skin colour should compliment themselves for at least some resembling of consistency imo.

And exactly how many DKoK have you seen without their uniforms? How do you know what race they are?

3. Yes and no. They still operate that WW I esque equpiment and have comissairs who are clearly white people history based, though indeed there are no clear nods on Cadians themselves. Except for, ofc, all oc them being white on GWs art.

So because they have one feature (commissars) that are related to a "white" culture, just like every other IG regiment, Cadians are somehow inspired by "white culture". That makes absolutely no sense at all.

Also, the only reason Cadians are always white in GW's art is that in our society the default character is almost always a straight white man, and artist who don't think about race/gender/etc very much tend to go with that default. They aren't based on any real-world race or culture where white people are an overwhelming majority.

1. Yes I see your point but then 20th century war organisation, designs and in a fact a lot of things that are in 40k would be long gone and ancient too. I dont think drawing hard conclusion based on prognostics for next 38 thousands of year for a ridiculous space fantasy setting is a way to go. 40k is all about our history, themes and ideas twisted, mixed and reflected on fantasy factions waging a crazy war.

2. I don't but I dont think black face fits that particular uniform. The world didnt crumble when a black actor (that I am a fan of) was cast as Heimdall but there was a significant laughing response from many people watching it. Fething Polish bigots, initiate obligatory gender studies, no tolerance to intolerance! Mythology correction inbound.

Obviously Thor movie is a more obvious example of imo misplaced diversity and not a direct analogy, on the other hand it's the universe full of people running in pyjamas so maybe it's easier to swallow like that. Not to mention Ezra sold it somehow, takes some actor though.

3. Yes I kind of agreed with you, my point was the bigger picture and it made a *bit* of sense heh.

It's not the only possible explanation for Cadian being white, UK media is full of diversity and BBC is on the anti racist crusade.

Well, you're not likely going to find many historic examples of female warriors simply because men have kinda ruled the world this entire time, and decreed that a woman's "place" wasn't on the battlefield. There's been a rather big chunk of time where women were barely even considered people, so...in my eyes it's really difficult to argue that women aren't willing or even capable when historically they just haven't been allowed to prove themselves at all.

Despite that history is still full of women that have defied all expectation and even surpassed men in their accomplishments from time to time, but you don't often hear about it because men have extremely fragile egos and simply can not process being outdone by a woman in any capacity. For example, Jackie Mitchell, a 17-year-old girl who became famous for striking out the two greatest baseball players in history, including Babe Ruth himself, who shortly after claimed women were "too delicate" and it would kill them to play ball every day. Literally days later her contract was voided and the commissioner declared women unfit to play baseball because it was "too strenuous". Co-ed sports aren't a thing because men are afraid of losing to women, and when they do they're practically dumbfounded and don't know what to do with themselves, like ol' Babe Ruth there who practically fething gave up.

Then there's this lady. Total badass. Started out in a brothel and became one of the world's most powerful pirates, and one of the few who actually managed to retire (and keep all the loot). Call her fragile and you'd probably be missing your head shortly after.

Now obviously war is a whole different ballgame, but I wouldn't be at all surprised if men had the same aversion to seeing women on the battlefield for the same kinda reasons they didn't want Jackie on the diamond. It has nothing to do with their "protection", it's not because women are too "fragile" or "delicate" to fight, it's more to do with the fact that men don't want to be outperformed by women, whom they've long considered to be virtually inferior in every way, only worth keeping around because the species wouldn't survive without them. It's more about the ego, and sexist machismo, than it is about any so-called biological facts.

Regardless of how things have been in the past, or if men really are biologically more suited for fighting than women, it doesn't mean that women can't fight, or that they should somehow not be allowed to if they're willing and able. Women are people, too, and should be allowed to rule their own lives, so as long as they're fit enough to be soldiers then I don't see what the issue is.

As far as 40k goes, when you take into account crap like genetic modification or human augmentation, and the fact that people are walking around with guns that can blow holes in tank armor and swords that cut through it like butter regardless of the strength of the user, it would seem that "stronger = better soldier" doesn't really hold true anymore. No matter how strong you are, your weak, human flesh isn't going to be as strong as a full bionic replacement, and there's an entire faction in 40k religiously dedicated to that idea, to the point where they're almost entirely machine except for the bits that can't be replaced. The biggest, strongest man in the galaxy that can still be considered a human being (and not some genetic freak killing machine) probably still isn't strong enough to survive hand-to-hand combat with an Ork boy, let alone the myriad of things in the galaxy that chew them up like nothing. As far as carrying wounded comrades away, since I always see that brought up during the "debates" about whether women should be allowed to serve in the military ("If I get wounded I'm fethed because women are too weak and frail to carry my ass to safety."), in the 41st millenium there's about a 99% chance that there's not enough left of you to save anyway. Your soul was devoured by a demon, you were dissolved in seconds by powerful acid, you were stripped down to nothing on a molecular level, you were scratched by a weapon covered in poison so virulent that there's literally nothing anyone can do for you, your very life force was sucked out of you by some alien blade and now you're a dry husk, you were eaten, stomped, sawed in half, sucked into a portable black hole...40k's a scary god-damned place and you really don't stand a chance regardless of who or what you are.

Ok but Im talking about history references and functioning archetypes. Apparently we cant rest until those are corrected according to current political ideas even if the correction is based on rare data or questionable conclusions or just not necessary.


It's not a rule, the idea of underappreciated women. I have accomplished girl climbers friends and they are nothing but cherished but then Im quite certain than Polish women rule 90% of the country. My wife has near absolute power over me that's for sure. I dont think there's a lot of sexism here apart from natural douchebags that are bad to everyone just it takes different forms. The most traditional writers 2 centuries back were already showing women in warrior positions whenever possible, one for example saving a knight from a bear in the forest 1410 AD heh, women hunting just as men etc. Or just noble patriots, culture holders, social fighters, intelectuals.

Oh and I dont think women cant fight, or shouldnt be able to, especialy today when automatic weapons kind of equalise on any biological differences heh. Id just like the historical or mythical references not dulled further.

 Lord Tarkin wrote:
YYet with all your babble you fail to explain why women would make better or even equal SMs. SMs are brotherhoods, they are composed of men, the obviously logical choice of sex if you were to create superhumans. The geneseed process can only be made based on a single sex. In order to accommodate both males and females, a second process would have to be created, making things rather more expensive and complicated than it needs to be. So of males and females, any person with half a brain would just stick with producing men instead of risking a process just because someone like you wants to see female SMs. Stick to SOB if you wanna see female badasses.

Again, the entire thing is fiction. The process only works on men because GW said so, there's nothing inherently more reasonable or obvious about it working on men than on women. GW could change the entire concept of space marines with one sentence of fluff:

"The geneseed process works by merging the two X chromosomes into a single Z chromosome, therefore it only works on women".

Enjoy your female space marines.


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Plumbumbarum wrote:
If you go back though, people were implying that half the sm chapter with knight/ monk references being women would be ok because you can dig up the odd chapter that recruited 100 and the odd women knight somewhere else or how gender is not a part of knight reference. You know like those thousands of females in plate armour clashing on medieval battlefields.

Why are you so obsessed with sex and race matching the source material? Who cares how many women were on medieval battlefields, a female knight is still a knight. And if making a gender swap would ruin the reference for you I don't know how you can tolerate things like "knights" being armed with bolters and chainsaw swords.

I dont think drawing hard conclusion based on prognostics for next 38 thousands of year for a ridiculous space fantasy setting is a way to go.

But that's exactly what you're doing. You're assuming that not only will the Imperium be racist, it will be racist in the exact same ways that people are racist in 2015. And you're complaining that the plausibility of the setting would be destroyed if they aren't racist like that.

2. I don't but I dont think black face fits that particular uniform. The world didnt crumble when a black actor (that I am a fan of) was cast as Heimdall but there was a significant laughing response from many people watching it. Fething Polish bigots, initiate obligatory gender studies, no tolerance to intolerance! Mythology correction inbound.

This makes absolutely no sense. DKoK have no real-world cultural inspiration (and no, borrowing details from a bunch of different WWI uniforms doesn't count as "culture"), so how can you say what race "fits" them?

I do find it odd that in a setting with chainsaw swords, skyscraper robots and mushroom men, people draw the immersion line at women and PoC. A medieval knight carrying a chainsaw sword in SPACE is fine, but having a lady knight is just too far? I simply cannot grasp that logic.

Its more the strange need to make them women just because. It's the same as if it were being demanded that there should be female Orks, just for diversity purposes. Or fantasy Orcs/Goblins, or Brettonian Knights. But ignoring the fact that armies that could easily have female models without even a minute change to decades-established fiction do not have even a bit of them, like Guard, makes it a clearly manufactured issue.

At least some companies like Victoria have awesome looking female guardsmen. Or even the Sedition Wars Vanguard have cool looking women. Or Dreamforge.

Of course other than what I've seen of the Victoria models, when companies typically exaggerate the female form to make them more noticeable at 1 inch tall, they get lambasted by idiots for making cheesecake, like how many thought the Sed Wars Vanguard or Dreamforge troops had "too much bubble butt". You can't win with some people.

I don't really see Astartes as really having a gender, as many chapters and Legions are so monstrous and altered (World Eaters, Carcharodons, Black Dragons, Etc.) they can barely qualify as human.

 Peregrine wrote:

 Lord Tarkin wrote:
YYet with all your babble you fail to explain why women would make better or even equal SMs. SMs are brotherhoods, they are composed of men, the obviously logical choice of sex if you were to create superhumans. The geneseed process can only be made based on a single sex. In order to accommodate both males and females, a second process would have to be created, making things rather more expensive and complicated than it needs to be. So of males and females, any person with half a brain would just stick with producing men instead of risking a process just because someone like you wants to see female SMs. Stick to SOB if you wanna see female badasses.

Again, the entire thing is fiction. The process only works on men because GW said so, there's nothing inherently more reasonable or obvious about it working on men than on women. GW could change the entire concept of space marines with one sentence of fluff:

"The geneseed process works by merging the two X chromosomes into a single Z chromosome, therefore it only works on women".

Enjoy your female space marines.

Yup, but that isn't stated anywhere in the fluff, is it? See, now you're just making things up. I can't believe how hard this is for you to understand, and it isn't hard to understand at all. The only argument you provide is that geneseed implantation is fictional and while true, you can still draw logical reasons as to why there are no female SMs. Several people have provided you with such reasons and you can't reply with a logical explanation, other than "it's fictional and this is only the case because GW says so".

And from what you say, you prefer that SMs be all female. Why? Show me the logic? You're just arguing for fun I assume, as what you're saying makes 0 sense.

Space marines are all male because on a power armor miniature, a female lower torso would have to be distinct from a male model. So would the upper torso front AND back, meaning that arms too would not be interchangeable. In fact, a female backpack would need to be different too.

Keep in mind that this is partly because the male players demand sexy females, rather than female heads on male bodies.

Contrast with slim elvish bodies (eg kabalites), where male and female bits can be interchanged, with only a front upper torso swap.

How's THAT for a reason

 Lord Tarkin wrote:
And from what you say, you prefer that SMs be all female. Why? Show me the logic? You're just arguing for fun I assume, as what you're saying makes 0 sense.

No, I never said that I want all marines to be female. I just pointed out the absurdity of talking about how "only male marines make sense" when the entire process of creating a space marine is technobabble. There's nothing inherently more appropriate about male marines compared to female marines, it just happens to be the case that GW said "male only". Any justification beyond "GW said so" is just nonsense.

Did GW ever adequately explain why Imperial Knight pilots can't ever be female?

 Peregrine wrote:

 Lord Tarkin wrote:
And from what you say, you prefer that SMs be all female. Why? Show me the logic? You're just arguing for fun I assume, as what you're saying makes 0 sense.

No, I never said that I want all marines to be female. I just pointed out the absurdity of talking about how "only male marines make sense" when the entire process of creating a space marine is technobabble. There's nothing inherently more appropriate about male marines compared to female marines, it just happens to be the case that GW said "male only". Any justification beyond "GW said so" is just nonsense.

lol it's not technobabble, it's common sense. The male and female bodies are so different from eachother that the Imperium would need to create two procedures rather than just one, which is just unnecessary.


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Man, why can't there be male SOB? That's a serious question, why not? Apparently there can be female SMs so why no male SOB? GW being sexist towards men there.

 Lord Tarkin wrote:
lol it's not technobabble, it's common sense. The male and female bodies are so different from eachother that the Imperium would need to create two procedures rather than just one, which is just unnecessary.

IOW, you don't understand what "technobabble" means. WHY would there have to be two separate procedures? GW could easily say "the same procedure works on both men and women" and that would be no more or less realistic than "it only works on men". The whole process is essentially "the space wizards cast a magic spell on the marine" no matter what sex/gender it is applied to.

Man, why can't there be male SOB? That's a serious question, why not?

Because that's what GW decided.

(Fluff-wise SoB exploit a loophole in a ban on having "men" under the command of the church.)

 Lord Tarkin wrote:

 Peregrine wrote:

 Lord Tarkin wrote:
And from what you say, you prefer that SMs be all female. Why? Show me the logic? You're just arguing for fun I assume, as what you're saying makes 0 sense.

No, I never said that I want all marines to be female. I just pointed out the absurdity of talking about how "only male marines make sense" when the entire process of creating a space marine is technobabble. There's nothing inherently more appropriate about male marines compared to female marines, it just happens to be the case that GW said "male only". Any justification beyond "GW said so" is just nonsense.

lol it's not technobabble, it's common sense. The male and female bodies are so different from eachother that the Imperium would need to create two procedures rather than just one, which is just unnecessary.


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Man, why can't there be male SOB? That's a serious question, why not? Apparently there can be female SMs so why no male SOB? GW being sexist towards men there.

Because they'd no longer be the Sisters of Battle. Instead, the Holy Trinity would be wielded by the...... Co-genders of Battle? Some has got to have a better word then Co-genders. Suggestions, people?

Seriously, the Sisters of Battle being gender specific makes more sense then marines being male only, fluff wise. Smart ass clergy. That being said, you can understand why the game developers made marines male only, especially given the age of the universe. Generic males more athletic, traditionally soldiers, blah blah, not saying anything about its morality, or PC, but that is what it is.

It is a game system that people use to chill out and have fun. Multiculturalism and gender equality is great, and something to be strived for, but at the end of the day, I'm sure the world isn't going to suffer if people paint their miniatures white.

 Peregrine wrote:

 Lord Tarkin wrote:
lol it's not technobabble, it's common sense. The male and female bodies are so different from eachother that the Imperium would need to create two procedures rather than just one, which is just unnecessary.

IOW, you don't understand what "technobabble" means. WHY would there have to be two separate procedures? GW could easily say "the same procedure works on both men and women" and that would be no more or less realistic than "it only works on men". The whole process is essentially "the space wizards cast a magic spell on the marine" no matter what sex/gender it is applied to.

It's less like magic and more like just stuffing a bunch of extra organs into a person under the impression that "more organs = stronger", from what I can tell.

Yeah, the male and female bodies do have some physical differences, obviously, but the way some people talk you'd think women were like fething aliens or something. Like they're so completely different that it's a wonder we're even compatible at all, really!

 Peregrine wrote:

Man, why can't there be male SOB? That's a serious question, why not?

Because that's what GW decided.

(Fluff-wise SoB exploit a loophole in a ban on having "men" under the command of the church.)

Aren't the "male Sisters" technically the Militarum Tempestus Scions? Admittedly I don't know a whole lot about Imperial fluff so I might be entirely wrong.

Scions are IG spec ops

Only speaking for my own locality but I rarely see women, apart from wives looking at their watches or mums looking at the prices in GW stores. But truthfully I rarely see any other race but whites playing the games either. I can't recall seeing any other races employed by GW on the customer facing front line. The models reflect the demograph that play. Maybe it's more diverse elsewhere? Also black skin is a lot more difficult to paint.

Dark skin is only hard to paint if you're unfamiliar with it. A little study and practice and you're good to go.

Knockagh wrote:
Only speaking for my own locality but I rarely see women, apart from wives looking at their watches or mums looking at the prices in GW stores. But truthfully I rarely see any other race but whites playing the games either. I can't recall seeing any other races employed by GW on the customer facing front line. The models reflect the demograph that play. Maybe it's more diverse elsewhere? Also black skin is a lot more difficult to paint.

Well actually, I do know a black guy who goes to my store, he's cool. I know women who go too but really, people make it a bigger deal than it needs to be. If you want a couple of your IG black, then paint them as such! You don't HAVE to paint your models the way GW has them displayed. Like I've said earlier in the thread, I have painted some of my Chaos Marines black. However, I do feel GW should find a way to include some female choices among the IG box sets. maybe GW is worried that if they include 10 choices for females and 10 male choices that people will take advantage of the 10 unit size box sets and turn them into 20, thus practically getting 2 squads in one (Referring to a normal 10 man/woman strong IG infantry squad). If that isn't the problem though then I don't understand why they can't do it.


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 Crimson Devil wrote:
Dark skin is only hard to paint if you're unfamiliar with it. A little study and practice and you're good to go.

With GW paints, mixing Chaos Black with a dab (maybe more) of Mournfang Brown does the trick just fine.

I think something we'd do well to remember is that 40k is a Mary Sue game.

There's a reason you constantly see overpowered special characters pop up in Proposed Rules. The 40k ruleset encourages you to use your Warlord to represent yourself on the battlefield, and adds mechanics like Warlord Traits and Challenges to put further emphasis on your Warlord and the other characters.

You even start to care for your common footsoldiers. If nothing else, you've spent a significant amount of money on them, and time, and effort. That makes you care.

So if you feel like you'd want to be represented with an inhuman monster, that is fine. We have Tyranids.

If you feel like you'd want to be represented with a man, that is fine too. Literally every faction in the game aside from Tyranids has either predominantly to solely male characters, or decisively masculine characters.

IF you feel like you'd want to be represented with a woman, that works less well. Not every faction has any female models at all, and of the minority that does, they tend to be one-off special characters or otherwise very rare.

It's very easy to think there are no problems because you have been catered to for so long so any other situation becomes difficult to relate to. It's something you really must take into account.

Now, not everyone is affected by this. Just as some men are fine with playing SoB, I am 100% fine with my all-male Chaos Space Marines, and I think the fact that they are all male only makes them even more exotic from my perspective. I still think that the white male is overrepresented among the factions where more diversity should exist, such as IG and Inquisitors.

I think at least updating SoB, throwing in a female inquisitor and a female IG model here and there would do no harm.

I noticed in the Witch Hunters book as I was flipping through it earlier that there used to be a female Inquisitor model (had some wild hair, though), but that's apparently gone now.

I would have loved to see a model like this one come out in a female version. I think they kinda did that for Dawn of War 2: Retribution, might have been on the title screen or the box art I can't remember, but I remember seeing a female Inquisitor with that same kind of outfit, and the badass hat, too. Looked fething awesome to me, I love that kinda stuff. Hell, I want to play Bloodborne almost entirely because of the outfits and because you play as that kind of badass monster hunter character...and being a spiritual successor to Dark Souls kinda helps too, but still.

 Bobthehero wrote:
Scions are IG spec ops

I dunno, in the Witch Hunters book it said battle sisters were orphans raised by the Schola Progenium, and stormtroopers were recruited from the Schola Progenium. It makes it sound like they're related but I guess that could have changed in new fluff or I'm just not understanding it right. The way the Imperium is organized is just confusing to me and I never really bothered trying to figure it out.

Peregrine wrote:

Plumbumbarum wrote:
If you go back though, people were implying that half the sm chapter with knight/ monk references being women would be ok because you can dig up the odd chapter that recruited 100 and the odd women knight somewhere else or how gender is not a part of knight reference. You know like those thousands of females in plate armour clashing on medieval battlefields.

Why are you so obsessed with sex and race matching the source material? Who cares how many women were on medieval battlefields, a female knight is still a knight. And if making a gender swap would ruin the reference for you I don't know how you can tolerate things like "knights" being armed with bolters and chainsaw swords.

I dont think drawing hard conclusion based on prognostics for next 38 thousands of year for a ridiculous space fantasy setting is a way to go.

But that's exactly what you're doing. You're assuming that not only will the Imperium be racist, it will be racist in the exact same ways that people are racist in 2015. And you're complaining that the plausibility of the setting would be destroyed if they aren't racist like that.

2. I don't but I dont think black face fits that particular uniform. The world didnt crumble when a black actor (that I am a fan of) was cast as Heimdall but there was a significant laughing response from many people watching it. Fething Polish bigots, initiate obligatory gender studies, no tolerance to intolerance! Mythology correction inbound.

This makes absolutely no sense. DKoK have no real-world cultural inspiration (and no, borrowing details from a bunch of different WWI uniforms doesn't count as "culture"), so how can you say what race "fits" them?

 Lord Tarkin wrote:
And from what you say, you prefer that SMs be all female.

And I was supposed to be stretching your point? Are you being serious?

 Lord Tarkin wrote:
lol it's not technobabble, it's common sense.

A space marine can gain the memory of someone by eating him. Your argument is therefore irrelevant.

Sheesh. This whole thread makes me roll my eyes.

If it's that big a deal play Adeptus Mechanicus and say all the Skiitari are women. Err...horribly, horribly mutilated and irradiated women, unfortunately.

Then go to Victoria miniatures and paint up a bunch of cool female Cadians or Ghosts.

 Sidstyler wrote:
I would have loved to see a model like this one come out in a female version. I think they kinda did that for Dawn of War 2: Retribution, might have been on the title screen or the box art I can't remember, but I remember seeing a female Inquisitor with that same kind of outfit, and the badass hat, too. Looked fething awesome to me, I love that kinda stuff.

Should deffo recieve a model.

 Ashiraya wrote:

 Sidstyler wrote:
I would have loved to see a model like this one come out in a female version. I think they kinda did that for Dawn of War 2: Retribution, might have been on the title screen or the box art I can't remember, but I remember seeing a female Inquisitor with that same kind of outfit, and the badass hat, too. Looked fething awesome to me, I love that kinda stuff.

Spoiler:

Should deffo recieve a model.

Throw in a 2nd Lt. Mira model and I'd be peachy.

@Plumbumbarum

Maybe this will sound like a grumpy intellectual (which I am, but my excuse is that it comes with the work), but GW don't produce things to match archetypes. They produce things that calls to archetypes. For exemple, if SoB were all female Space Marines belonging to a close knit group of successor chapters all very zealous living a monastic lifestyle of holy crusaders, they would still call to the exact same cultural reference, use the same basic archetypes which is the same than the Space Marines (the monastic knights of the feudal era). The only difference is that the SoB are all clones of a single perticular historical figures that probably grew up learning about mythical knights and biblical myths. That wouldn't even be a big change of fluff for the Sisters. You need to dig to found actual differences between Sisters of Battle and Black Templars beside gender and body modifications. The two armies are like twin brother and sisters.

The second problem I see, is that if when I was a teen, stereotypes of knights, vikings, WW I and II, Viet-Nam, etc. were filling my imagination, when I started to study history, practice martial arts, trained in the army for a few years and basically turned into an adult, I reallised that those stereotypes were either wrong, diminutive or blatantly miss interpretated.

You can't have a fictionnal order of knights and paladin without a women and a black guy. The mother of all fictionnal order of knights and paladin had one black guy and three women. The paragon of chivalry in the first writen form of the Code of Chivalry was a muslim kurde named Saladin and he was their ennemy (that's how much they respected him). More than a hundred women were actual knights (with all the privilege and obligation that comes with it).

You can't have vikings inspired culture without warrior women. that's one of their defining cultural trait. it would be like having a brittain inspired fictionnal country without a parliement, a queen or king and a Victorian attitude. That's a rather big stretch. Heimdall needed to be black because the Myth tells that his skin was in bronze and bronze is pretty much a dark colour. that's why I say that many prejudice and stereotypes are kept alive by ignorance. Many people know of Heimdall has a Norse god, but don't know that his skin was made of bronze (and act all surpsied when he is portayed by a black guy), just like most people know Lancelot and Perceval, but don't know who Enid, Evelyn or Luciel are (and would think that seeing their characters in a King Arthur movie has a shamless PC thing, while they were there for centuries). They know who his King Richard Lionheart, but don't know he was french of origin (his family name is Plantagenet) and not many know who Saladin was. In the same fashion they know of that thing called chivalry, but would be unable to talk in length about it's origin, it's cultural aspirations or even about the specific tenets of that code.

In the same fashion, people don't know or see mutch of those light infantrie regiments that came from algeria or morocco to fight in world war I and II, but they faced more battle and casualties then actual French or Brittish since they were deemed sacrificial. Just like a minority of American Indians lived in tippies (most lived in long houses and didn't wear feathers) neither do they had more respect for nature than europeans of the time. You also experimented that feelling when you saw the bear riders. When I see or hear people saying things along the lines of «only men were knights», «chivalry is a eurepean and white men thing», «they call to arthurian myths and legends so of course they are all white men», «they are supposed to represent vikings so they are big rowdy and favor huge axes», «most soldiers in the two World Wars were white», etc. My reaction is facepalming all the time.

I personnaly start to think that it's not to remain true to a cultural product and stereotype that diversity is low in many wargame like this one, but because they seek a young audience. Kids and teens are by nature rather ignorant and proud to be. I will have to live with the fact that I can't get what I want and keep producing my own headcanon to fill the voids. I guess like Dany Glover said: «I'm too old for this gak.»

This is an issue that doesn't need to be addressed in a game. You have the unpainted plastic, do with it as you will. If it is such an important issue to you, prove it and make your own army diverse. And, if you don't like that GW's own artist tend to exclude certain racial groups, vote your displeasure by not buying their products.

 Gridge wrote:
And, if you don't like that GW's own artist tend to exclude certain racial groups, vote your displeasure by not buying their products.

This doesn't work in practice. Even if a substantial amount of players ceased to buy GW products for this reason (which they may already have), it would just tell GW that their profits are decreasing, not why.

Maybe GW would think they just need to add more bling to their Space Marines.

@Gridge

Then give me better paint to make darker shade of skins and tutorials for me (an idiot of an artist) to do it more quickly and better. Than give me my female models so that I can play in my local GW (I have an army of Scions with female stormtroopers form another company, but can't play there because of store policies of course). Since I don't have either of these, my ambitions are a bit thwarted. I need to make my own mix of paint which makes my black guy look more dirty or camo than actual black and my females makes my army impossibl to play at my local gaming store and slightly affect the entire army homogeneity when it comes to sculpt style and uniforms. Can we complain to improve products instead of dropping them whithout trying first?

As if that's a real problem. I have been painting the occasional "African" skin-tones on my models for more than 15 years with just Scorched Earth with Dark Flesh and Bestial Brown highlights. Because those are also my go-to leather and earth layering colors, they were the first colors I had to go out and find analogues of when GW changed their stupid color line.

But at the same time, while I absolutely love how my "black guys" look on the tabletop, I can't for the life of me take a good picture of them where they don't just have a monotone skin color with no details showing. Light tones, no problem.

Hell I have the old metal Catachan female with grenade launcher model, who I also painted as an African American.

Seriously, the lack of models in GW products is really only an issue in GW stores or if you want female Space Marines really, really bad. Because third-party groups make female guardsmen that are higher quality than GW can attain with their humongously proportioned Cadians.

Or if you want to play in a GW store, I guess.

@epronovost

Thank you for that lesson but believe me or not, you told me little new. Saladin for example is one of my favourite historical figures and I used word indoctrinated on purpose when mentioning noble savage.

The warrior women defining the viking culture are new though, from what I now the sources are few and scattered and women presence on the battlefield might have been flukes not really the trend. Give me sources though I'll gladly read.

Where we differ is the interpretation of all this. Yes they call to archetypes, I wrote functioning archetypes each time but sterotype maybe is a better word. So they call to stereotypes but that's good. That was what I meant about second part of what I wrote about hussars, it doesnt matter whether they used wings in battle or not until 100% ruled out because the stereotype and the image of the charging winged warrior works great. I dont think 100 female knights warrant a change of the stereotype either because that's an exception not the rule and if you want historical accuracy, put three women and one black guy into sm chapter instead of, what others suggested, making half of chapter women and all of them racialy diverse. You want arabic knights based chapters, make one or ask GW because BT or DA are not. I dont really find an analogy between my reaction to bear cavalry and you facepalming at viking being rowdy and having big axes or white male knights, it's different kind and level of mixup. Well white male knights in context of mediavel Europe is not a mixup at all imo.

Where I facepalm is the calls for changing all those stereotypes and shouting ignorance and prejudice because you can dig up the odd exception If 90% of Polish people were thieves, showing 10% that are not wouldnt make the Polish thieves stereotype less useful. You dont sound like grumpy intelectual but one with a bias for me tbh and lot of what you posted as facts is debatable. Not sure I want to open that can of worms here though heh.

And if you want to show skin made of bronze, you go for CGI not a black actor and it wasnt what Marvel meant anyway, they threw in black elves and are shoehorning diversity everywhere, female Thor etc. Maybe they just didnt like the sound of 'whitiest of the gods' heh.

Plumbumbarum wrote:
and if you want historical accuracy

But the point is we don't want historical accuracy, because it's a reference, not a literal copy. That's why space marines are armed with bolters and chainsaws, not swords and lances. That's why marines wear power armor instead of plate armor. That's why marines ride bikes and Rhinos, not horses. That's why marines slaughter in the name of the Emperor, not Christianity and the king. Etc.

And that is why it would be okay if GW one day decided female Marines exist. Because the reference remains intact.

@plumbumbarum

I think you misunderstood the issue I was trying to raise. The fact is these stereotypes exist, they probably won't change much over time. People are going to remember Lancelot and not Evelyn and people are going to think that vikings were rowdy, savage warriors with a greataxe has a favorite weapon despite the fact that real vikings fought in orderly close formation called shieldsrtom and their favorite weapon was the long spear. The axe was the favorite weapon of their saxons cousins. I will still find those stereotype stupid, dated and ignorant of their own roots because I know a lot of thing that can challenge them. They could change if people knew more about history and litterature, but one thing is shure thow. Stereotypes won't change because Space Marines become more ethnically divers. Imperial Guard won't lose their flavor because they have women models.

The product of GW won't affect the state of the stereotypes they draw from, just like Evelyn or Luciel won't dissapear from king Arthur court despite your possible ignorance of them. If suddenly half the space marines turned into girls (or worst completly) and 75% became non white, they would still be inspired by the very same, unchanged, stereotypes. They would be just has historically accurate then those we have now (not at all if we want to be honest since Space Marines have nothing really in common with medieval knights or Imperial Guard with WW II veterans). The only difference would be how they look like a bit different than before.

New miniatures, movies, games, plays, pictures, etc. would still be influenced by stereotypes of knights has a brotherhood of noble and honorable warriors (even if they were never a brotherhood, had a few sisters here in there and many of them had questionnable honor). Vikings in popular culture would still be portayed with horned helmets and large axes despite the fact that horned helmets were not a viking thing and large axes were more often tool for carpentry than weapons of war.

Stereotypes that you may like, and for a long while a liked them too, won't be lessen by a change in GW product or of any other company. They may be changed by people like me writting books and articles about their sources and teaching my findings to my students who will themselves hopefully transform them so that stereotypes can evolve. To paraphrase your exemple. If 90% of the polish were thieves, it would be correct to call them dishonest and stereotype them has criminal. But, the 10% that rest would really like to have some representation because they were polish and honest and they had a hard time being called thieves and crook all the while being honest. The best stereotype would then be polish are largely thieves, but some of them are surprisingly honest.

 Peregrine wrote:

Plumbumbarum wrote:
and if you want historical accuracy

But the point is we don't want historical accuracy, because it's a reference, not a literal copy. That's why space marines are armed with bolters and chainsaws, not swords and lances. That's why marines wear power armor instead of plate armor. That's why marines ride bikes and Rhinos, not horses. That's why marines slaughter in the name of the Emperor, not Christianity and the king. Etc.

Yes but if you slap too much on your reference, it might get silly or unrecognisable or sth. On that example, adding a small percent of females or different skin colours to the chapter referencing crusader knights, the reference will be, I dont know, stronger than it would be if it was shown as diverse, especialy that they already wear power armour instead of plate armour and ride bikes not horses. That it's a reference doesnt mean it cant get silly.

We're talking in circles btw.

Plumbumbarum wrote:
Yes but if you slap too much on your reference, it might get silly or unrecognisable or sth.

So why does adding female knights just cross that line and make the reference silly or unrecognizable, while adding things like Land Raiders and chainsaw swords is just fine? By any reasonable standard those other changes are much more significant. So where's your campaign to get rid of bike marines and replace them with horses, because otherwise they aren't really knights in space?

We're talking in circles btw.

Yes, because you keep making absurd claims and never defending them with more than "it's a reference".

@epronvost

Well stereotypes changing to current state of knowledge is a good thing (though some misconceptions may have a function) and all power to you, GW could obviously up their game here or there (though I dont think it's really necessary). The thing is, I have serious doubts that there is enough out there for the gender or racial stereotypes discussed here to be changed.

Stereotypes wont change because GW become more ethnicaly diverse but GW wont be calling to stereotype anymore, unnecesarily dulling the simple visual mesage.

It's funny but what you say was exactly my point at some point here (I think heh), nothing significant will change if GW does this or that, it's not shaping anything anywhere to anyone and we can safely leave the screaming bald white men also never mention more women in contex of 40k again heh.




Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Peregrine wrote:

Plumbumbarum wrote:
Yes but if you slap too much on your reference, it might get silly or unrecognisable or sth.

So why does adding female knights just cross that line and make the reference silly or unrecognizable, while adding things like Land Raiders and chainsaw swords is just fine? By any reasonable standard those other changes are much more significant. So where's your campaign to get rid of bike marines and replace them with horses, because otherwise they aren't really knights in space?

We're talking in circles btw.

Yes, because you keep making absurd claims and never defending them with more than "it's a reference".

I anwsered /defended that already I think, changing gender or race has more implications than just changing weapons or transport.

Both are 'what would happen if we had future knight" affairs but you rather have to change weapons, you dont have to dull it further then.

@plumbumbarum

I think we are comming to the same conclusion:

1) stereotypes won't change because of GW products

We also agree on the sources

2) GW product are inspired by some stereotypes linked to the medieval era.

3) These stereotypes are sometime missused, false or to simplistic.

But we disagree on a the conlusion

You think adding more diversity will make the product more dull and further away from it's source. I think the opposite. That GW product would be less dull with more women and people of various races and that would hardly affect their distance from the source material because even niched in those stereotypes there is more variaty than one might think. Second, by placing them in a different univers, against different ennemies, with different allies with different technologies and consequences, GW has produced something that is very far away from their inspiration.

We do have some things in common. You did agree on female Space Wolf and a Valkyrie kind of unit. You did agree on an elite unit of amazon-like Ultramarine/Imperial Fist. We also agree on more ethnic diversity for Catashans (black, asian, white, just strange). I think you were not opposed to child soldier models (many think they would be insensitive and while this may be true, they would fit the fluff of many Imperial Guard regiments). I think you were not opposed to Black Kriegsmen since WW I counted a lot of black men under the uniforms of both French and German soldiers. I think you were not against female Cadians (since 76% of the planet population is supposed to be in the Guard, that would imply a lot of women too.). I think you love, or at least tolerate, diversity a lot more than you give yourself credit for. In fact you are inches away from reclaiming more diversity in GW products like most people in that thread. Maybe next time the subject comes up (it inevitably comes up once in a while) it should be in the form of a poll to see how much of us would like to have greater ethnical and sexual diversity in GW model range and novel protagonist/antagonist, same has now, lesser or don't care either way. This way we could see what we really want has a community.

+epronovost
Real question how do we know that most kriegsman are not already black?

@The Home Nuggeteer

Your right we don't know. I withdraw that comment.

The only description of a Kriegsman without his mask is that they're extremely pale.

 VorpalBunny74 wrote:
Did GW ever adequately explain why Imperial Knight pilots can't ever be female?

Haven't read the new Codex but from what I gather from the previous one plus The Red Waagh, Knight Households are quite socially backwards, bound by customs and traditions that even the average imperial citizen would find absurd, and relegating women to wives and housekeepers seems to be one of them. Besides, to pilot a Knight one has to be accepted by its Throne Mechanicum, which houses the fragmentary remnants of the minds of the thousand prejudiced bigots that sat on it before you, what makes the chances of a woman (or a lowborn, for what matters) being able to pilot a Knight close to nil.

However, the explanation itself leaves room for exceptions. Back when I still considered getting a Knight I had this idea about a noblewoman who escaped her family's terrible fate at the hands of a corrupt inquisitor. In desperation, she sat on the Throne of her father's Knight, swearing to use the machine to bring revenge on those who had betrayed and murdered her kin or die trying. Against all odds, she was accepted, and now roams the Galaxy as a freeblade, concealing her identity to those she works with, in an effort to kill the men responsible for her House's downfall and restore its lost honor.

Yea, think Arya Stark/Brienne of Tarth in space. In a big stompy robot.

Salamanders?

epronovost wrote:
@Gridge

Then give me better paint to make darker shade of skins and tutorials for me (an idiot of an artist) to do it more quickly and better.

I personally don't know how good Scale 75 paints are as I haven't been able to buy them, but this set might help you with that. This is one of the ones I've been eyeballing as a first purchase, actually. It's supposed to come with a guide for painting different skin tones and (hopefully) has one for darker skin, too.

 Satchmojones wrote:
Salamanders?

Oh yeah, because in 17 pages that hasn't even come up once. Pretty sure that got brought up on page one and it was quickly pointed out that it didn't really "count" anyway because they're technically mutants. They're not black humans, it's coal black like a drow elf.

@epronvost

Yes I have nothing against diversity like that valkyries example or catachan or a whole black men regiment, it's how GW does it already and no reason to oppose that. I'd hate fifty fifty females in Cadia tbh and Id still leave dkok alone but in the end the masks seem to be a good cop out as everybody is free to believe that theyre all black or mixed or whatever.

There's one more issue when it comes to female Cadians and guard in general though. Look at 4th edition IG codex art at the face of the guy on the left. He's a vicious, war rotten bastard and kind of personification of what I think grimdark grunt is. Now look at FFG IG gals, they imo fit a prom more than grimdark field of battle, let's not be sexist and give women a chance to look like a proper war criminals. If GW introduced them like that (and I know they are capable of) screaming, bald, scarred with bad teeth and vicious stares then I could actualy be in.

But yes we can take your conclusions and leave it at that, there's a lot of talking in circles anyway, everybody more or less explained themselves and I doubt anyone changing their minds one way or another tbh heh.

Uhm Soviet army had a lot women in WW2 and they had no problem sticking a knife in a vicious rotten bastard.

The 40K setting is what you want to be, the fluff gives enough examples of females and all kind of races in all kind of positions.

But if your Wo..40K view is that there only is a white pure human race all called Heinrich, where the women expectantly wait at home to be impregnated, go for it.

 Jehan-reznor wrote:
Uhm Soviet army had a lot women in WW2 and they had no problem sticking a knife in a vicious rotten bastard.

The 40K setting is what you want to be, the fluff gives enough examples of females and all kind of races in all kind of positions.

But if your Wo..40K view is that there only is a white pure human race all called Heinrich, where the women expectantly wait at home to be impregnated, go for it.

That has nothing to do with what I said though. I just dont want them painted girlie hair in the wind nice if they ever get to the art.

Not to mention I citied a nice fluff bit some pages back saying few women get the opportunities men have or sth like that.

But yes racism and sexism.

epronovost wrote:
People are going to remember Lancelot and not Evelyn and people are going to think that vikings were rowdy, savage warriors with a greataxe has a favorite weapon despite the fact that real vikings fought in orderly close formation called shieldsrtom and their favorite weapon was the long spear.

No. People will remember what they hear and see in their favorite media. Regardless of whether it is right or wrong. If vikings start to get depicted pervasively in entertainment medias as wearing a cowl, an apron, and using javelins in battle, people will start to picture vikings like that.

@plumbumbarum

Well technically Cadians are already 50/50 or so in term of sex disparity in their forces since their forces are composed of everybody on Cadia from age 14 to 60. Thats what 76% of a planet total population represent. The artwork and models just don't represent it because the artwork is supposed to represent the models and there is no female Cadian for some reason. A reasonnable explanation of this would be that Cadia has very little mixted sex regiment,

Has for how women look in the art work, well in Only War men look kind of good too if you want my opinion (like the very first guy in the War without end section, the catashan, the weapon specialist, hell even the ratling is a handsome devil!). I do admit that some of their pictures were rather sexist (the female commissar with cleavage and heel shoes come to mind) and it's a thing that could be changed others were just fine lije the Elysian Drop trooper or the Cadian. The thing you are not going to see (even it would be nice once in while) is ugly and tough female on a regular basis. Ugly, scared men in uniform are one of the representation of tough warriors in stereotypes. They sell well and are easy o identify with because it's a common stereotypes, just like the handsome knight. Tough women remain cute. Bravery and beauty amongst women are interwoven concept. Bald (or shaven head) males are viril males and tough. Bald females are humiliated females, slaves or powerless. Hairs are a symbole of women bravery and power, while men uses hats for the same purpose. Thats why in any representation of bravery, heroism and power under the guise of women (a common thing in art), the women in question will be young, fit, partially naked, pretty, have ong flowing hair and cloths in the wind. GW also tries to catter to that stereotype just has much has they catter to knights in shinning armor, or brutal barbarians. Stereotypes have two edges. I don't think we are running in circles completly. You have mellowed down a LOT since your first post on that thread. Am I still a little marxist who loves Joseph Stalin way of thinking?

@Hybrid Son Of Oxayotl

I think you underestimate how many of these stereotypes are ingrained in our culture and how early you are exposed to some of them, but that's another debate.

 Bobthehero wrote:
The only description of a Kriegsman without his mask is that they're extremely pale.

Doesn't actually pertain to the color of their skin, a black person can still be pale or pallid, especially if they never took a gas mask off of their face.

New head cannon right here.

@The Home Nuggeteer

Since they all live in dark caves all their lives for millenia. They might very well be albino. Loosing colour frequently happens to mammals in that kind of circomstances. It could be a good idea.

 The Home Nuggeteer wrote:


New head cannon right here.

Plasma or Railgun? Or... is it the D?

epronovost wrote:
The thing you are not going to see (even it would be nice once in while) is ugly and tough female on a regular basis. Ugly, scared men in uniform are one of the representation of tough warriors in stereotypes. They sell well and are easy o identify with because it's a common stereotypes, just like the handsome knight. Tough women remain cute. Bravery and beauty amongst women are interwoven concept. Bald (or shaven head) males are viril males and tough. Bald females are humiliated females, slaves or powerless. Hairs are a symbole of women bravery and power, while men uses hats for the same purpose. Thats why in any representation of bravery, heroism and power under the guise of women (a common thing in art), the women in question will be young, fit, partially naked, pretty, have ong flowing hair and cloths in the wind.

Yeah. Reminds me of that.


(Though though women with very short hair happens. See the mythical Vasquez character for instance. Or Evey Hammond from V for Vendetta. Actually, having your female character shave her head when she goes all warrior mode works quite well.)

 Psienesis wrote:

 The Home Nuggeteer wrote:


New head cannon right here.

Plasma or Railgun? Or... is it the D?

All at the same time.

epronovost wrote:
I think you underestimate how many of these stereotypes are ingrained in our culture and how early you are exposed to some of them, but that's another debate.

No, I just believe that the same effect would have the same cause, and that being exposed early and often to another stereotype will just change the stereotype we go by.

 Hybrid Son Of Oxayotl wrote:

epronovost wrote:
The thing you are not going to see (even it would be nice once in while) is ugly and tough female on a regular basis. Ugly, scared men in uniform are one of the representation of tough warriors in stereotypes. They sell well and are easy o identify with because it's a common stereotypes, just like the handsome knight. Tough women remain cute. Bravery and beauty amongst women are interwoven concept. Bald (or shaven head) males are viril males and tough. Bald females are humiliated females, slaves or powerless. Hairs are a symbole of women bravery and power, while men uses hats for the same purpose. Thats why in any representation of bravery, heroism and power under the guise of women (a common thing in art), the women in question will be young, fit, partially naked, pretty, have ong flowing hair and cloths in the wind.

Yeah. Reminds me of that.


(Though though women with very short hair happens. See the mythical Vasquez character for instance. Or Evey Hammond from V for Vendetta. Actually, having your female character shave her head when she goes all warrior mode works quite well.)

Case in point, Ripley from Alien 3.

Oh and everyone's new favourite badass, Furiosa from Fury Road.

@Hybrid Son Of Oxayotl

To be honest, this perticular stereotype isn't in that bad on his own. The paragon of this stereotype is the painting «La Liberté Guidant le Peuple». It has a female has the representation of freedom, liberty and bravery. She is partially naked, has flowing long hairs (though not that long) and is pretty. The problem is that just like so many other thing in life, it needs carefull balancing of the different element of the picture to invoque the correct message which is in that case, the heroism of the french poor class during the revolution, the purity of their ideals and the strength of their conviction and not «Dude, that chick with the flag is so hot!». The trick with beautiful, heroic women is that they must strike you with their bravery and use their beauty to entice you to follow them/be inspired by them. If you just see an pinup, you have failed to grasp two important thing. First, the nature of bravery and second the nature of a women beauty itself. It's trickier than one might think, but GW has actually succeded at that on several occasions.

Has for short haired heroic women, they of course exist and are also awesome (in my opinion even more because only exploited for century instead of 5000 years), but they don't call to the same artistical stereotype (which his broadly refered has heroic beauty). These are more reminescent of another stereotype which is the Industrial Endurence. These are represent their archetype character (usually a women too) in a very different way to make you feel the endurence and determination of the character. They will have short hair, have a stern expression, will be dirty and wear very hard working cloath or even rags. The idea is to show you someone stript of all it's riches and comfort, but use that to create emphasis on their determination and willpower. Usually the character will either stand tall and straight or make provocative gesture (like a good old middle finger for exemple). This type of art is frequently associated with socialist and sexual revolution.

Both stereotypes could be exploited extensively by GW in it's artwork. The more classical Heroic Beauty would be used to depict noble, rich, almost supernatural warriors (Sisters of Battle for exemple go well with it). While the more grim and dirty Industrial Endurence would go well with Guardsmen or even Inquisition.

 Wyzilla wrote:

 Swastakowey wrote:

 Hybrid Son Of Oxayotl wrote:
Do you know what is silly? Vikings riding wolves. Some Viking riding an antigrav sledge that is tracted by wolves.

Yes, but so is shoehorning in a variety of genders into a theme based around white people. Instead ask for a chapter to be more represented of a differing culture.

There is a Space Marine chapter I saw once in GW fluff that are based of The Maori people in NZ. They had the moko designs on their army and everything. GW has all these cultures in the fluff to use, but instead the popular ones happen to be white or alien. (Oh gee, wonder why...)

So instead ask for the other cultures to be represented if you desire, dont simply demand the other ones change.

I am pretty sure thats all he is arguing for. Its what I prefer as well.

You do realize that Maori Chapter if fanfic.... riiiight?

Nah its a real chapter called the Shadow Warriors. Only known in name. But they are a GW made chapter.



Might buy some marines and paint em up like this.

So the name is canon and everything else is fanfiction. That proves... what?

 Ashiraya wrote:
So the name is canon and everything else is fanfiction. That proves... what?

What? No the chapter is clearly based on the Maori with Moko and colours. But he siad it was fanfiction, when in fact its a GW chapter. My point was originally that GW has all these chapters + regiments based on other cultures but fail to make use of them.

Lexicanum doesn't even have an entry on them. Where are you getting this Chapter from?

Did a search on them, found literally nothing but the image you linked and a few others. Oh also, the images are hosted on Warhammer 40k Wiki, where a lot of people post fan chapters and general fanon.

 Psienesis wrote:
Lexicanum doesn't even have an entry on them. Where are you getting this Chapter from?

Tried to find where I initially saw it, but can't find it anywhere. It was on page after page of all the chapters which had a name and their 2d front profile in with colour featured and nothing more.

Hmmm. I spent a while looking too. Maybe it isn't cannon? There where like 4-7 pages of chapters.

It may be an image that someone Photoshopped some details on, after ripping the image off Lexi (or another canon source) and then added the Maori details to as backstory...

.... which makes it entirely fan-fiction and entirely non-canon.

 Psienesis wrote:
It may be an image that someone Photoshopped some details on, after ripping the image off Lexi (or another canon source) and then added the Maori details to as backstory...

.... which makes it entirely fan-fiction and entirely non-canon.

Nah it had no backstory. Merely an image with hundreds of others.

It could well be some random guy just made a bunch of pictures. The original pictorial list of chapters I saw them on is gone though. Oh well.

On a brighter note, while searching I found these fellows. the Yellowjackets...


BEE MARINES