In the fluff the entire population of Cadia is destined for military life, so where are all the women in the shock troop squads?

In the reproduction chambers, making more Cadians for the frontline.

Lol, I suppose.

 DeffDred wrote:
In the reproduction chambers, making more Cadians for the frontline.

Seems legit.

The miniatures do not accurately reflect the army's background in this detail. It really is as simple and as sad as that.

Some people have done some amazing conversions, though, and I think at various points in time you could even buy conversion packs, until GW shot that down. Here is an example.

The miniatures aren't representative of the fluff. This should be obvious, consixering that, for example, there's several times more Marine miniatures on the planet than there are actually in the lore.

The women of Cadia are raging heroes

 DeffDred wrote:
In the reproduction chambers, making more Cadians for the frontline.

Probably.

Given the casualty rates and manpower requirement, one would assume, barring some kind of Kriegesque kind of technology, they'd be fairly busy going all Duggar family.

I guess Cadian women of childbearing age are more commonly assigned to support units. Which by no means are all that much safer on a planet that is a giant frontline by itself, but perhaps marginally so.

I would love some women for my Tallarn army. One of these days I'll commission BTP to do something along those lines.

Spetulhu wrote:I guess Cadian women of childbearing age are more commonly assigned to support units. Which by no means are all that much safer on a planet that is a giant frontline by itself, but perhaps marginally so.

"Childbearing age" covers a fairly broad range - just about the entire time of a military career. Rather, I assume there is a sort of early "cut-off" date at which Cadian rank-and-file are released into semi-civilian life, becoming factory workers, administrators, or ... well, get to raise a family. Cadia's military is fairly unique in that its regiments actually do return home every few years, being rotated in and out of the Interior Guard in order to reinforce home defense with units that have actual combat experience. In contrast to standard Munitorum procedure, this means that veterans actually get to retire on their own homeworld rather than settling down on some newly conquered planet, and I think it is these people that make up the 28.5% of Cadia's population that are not under arms.

Of Cadian youngsters, each and every one is recruited into the Youth Army. After they have completed this tour of duty, 1 in 10 gets to join the permanent formations of the Interior Guard, regardless of ability or achievements, whilst the rest makes up the Shock Troop regiments that are sent off-world to fight the Imperium's wars.
There may also be a veritable influx of "non-native Cadians" fathered by troopers whilst on deployment, who end up accompanying the regiment until they are eventually absorbed by it, fighting side by side with their fathers or mothers, until some day getting shipped to Cadia with the rest of the surviving soldiers.

At least that's how the studio fluff has described it. Codex: Eye of Terror fortunately goes a little bit into detail concerning life on Cadia.

On a sidenote, I don't think the concept of "support units" as they are used in most modern militaries exists for the Imperial Guard in 40k. Each regiment is a self-contained entity and needs to be able to operate as such, cut-off from any support network other than what Segmentum Command and the Adeptus Munitorum assign to them for each and every individual campaign, as well as possibly having to integrate with non-Cadian regiments for mixed Army Groups made up of multiple elements, each of whom follows a different specialisation.
Indeed, most things that modern real world support units are doing is probably regarded as unnecessary luxury, or simply done by either the regiment's civilian wagon train (see the children mentioned above, who have been said to be assigned to "menial duties" until old enough to become soldiers too) or the average troopers themselves.

Logistics duties, not represented by actual miniatures, and/or hopped up on enough testosterone that they aren't easily distinguishable from the men at 28mm scale. Contrary to what Hollywood would have you believe women in military settings usually don't actually look like actresses.

 AnomanderRake wrote:
Contrary to what Hollywood would have you believe women in military settings usually don't actually look like actresses.

On that subject... just replace "marine" with "guardsman".

 AnomanderRake wrote:
Logistics duties, not represented by actual miniatures, and/or hopped up on enough testosterone that they aren't easily distinguishable from the men at 28mm scale. Contrary to what Hollywood would have you believe women in military settings usually don't actually look like actresses.

Though they can. Female soldiers look like... women, just like you would find them out on the town. Some are plain, some are pretty, some are tall, some short. It's... just like being in the civilian world, really. They run the range of appearances, just like their male counterparts, with the obvious exceptions (again on both sides) of those who would be unfit for military service are not found in uniform (so the obese or those who have dwarfism or are midgets are not found).

And no Cadian would have those features, either because they died early on or because they've been in military training their entire life.

There were some female Cadians, I think, as a limited run. Those might have been (or there might be) Forgeworld ones. If you're looking for female soldiers and don't mind third party, then these ones that Kroot alluded to are pretty amazing.

Doesn't Cadia throw children into the firing line as Whiteshields? Yeah I'm pretty sure women get the draft card too.

The recruitment rate on Cadia is the same as its birth rate. So yes, its women see military service and combat.

 Jimsolo wrote:
There were some female Cadians, I think, as a limited run. Those might have been (or there might be) Forgeworld ones. If you're looking for female soldiers and don't mind third party, then these ones that Kroot alluded to are pretty amazing.

Most of those models are silly cheesecake models and aren't worthy of the Imperial Guard name. Even if you can put up with the "supermodels in fake uniforms" look of the range, of that entire range shown thus far, only two models might possibly be considered potential Cadian models (Heavy Gunner Aaqila Noyakin and Sniper Karmina Noxx), which is nowhere near enough for a full range.

Also, in a battlefield where the average enemy is A. Hopped up on chaos and bugnut crazy. B. A quarter ton wall of green muscle that can pop your skull like a grape with his finger grip. C. A dog sized bug dinosaur that can outrun many vehicles and has scythes for hands or shoots acidic beetles that eat you alive. D. A virtually unkillable undead robot who can strip you down to your atoms with their basic gun or tear off your arms with a tug. E. A hapless Eldar civilian given a gun that can puree you before you can blink and armor at least equal to yours on a body much faster than you or F. A psychotic version of said Eldar with a gun so poisonous it can corrode metal the differences between the male and female physiology really don't mean much.

Because who cares if a man has 30-50% more upper body strength? An Ork has like ten times more and will happily twist your arms out and beat you to death with them if upper body strength ever becomes important in a fight between you and him.

No reason not to double the amount of cannon fodder you can shove into the enemy's guns until they clog.

 Melissia wrote:
The recruitment rate on Cadia is the same as its birth rate. So yes, its women see military service and combat.

 Jimsolo wrote:
There were some female Cadians, I think, as a limited run. Those might have been (or there might be) Forgeworld ones. If you're looking for female soldiers and don't mind third party, then these ones that Kroot alluded to are pretty amazing.

Most of those models are silly cheesecake models and aren't worthy of the Imperial Guard name. Even if you can put up with the "supermodels in fake uniforms" look of the range, of that entire range shown thus far, only two models might possibly be considered potential Cadian models (Heavy Gunner Aaqila Noyakin and Sniper Karmina Noxx), which is nowhere near enough for a full range.

Lol, you've said. I think the Kurganova line as a whole is reasonable, and am mystified at people who think the Iron Empire is cheesecake. While the Jailbirds are indeed quite sexified, I think that fits the 90's girl-power cyberpunk aesthetic they were trying to go for.

I understand that you dislike the majority of the range, but as to the idea that the whole Raging Heroes thing is "silly cheesecake and aren't worthy of the Imperial Guard name," I think that many hundreds of people would disagree. (To the tune of over four hundred G's, so far.)

I certainly don't find them any sillier in a feminine way than the Catachans are in a masculine one. (Notice how no one ever complains about that? ) The Sisters of Battle are even more sexualized than 2/3 of the Raging Heroes line, and that seems to be okay. Pretty much EVERY scifi wargaming army is silly in some way or another. (In a 'overpowered mutant machismo' way, a 'ridiculous elves in space' way, a 'we totally aren't ripping off Starship Troopers bugs' kind of way, or a 'Space Nazis without swastikas so the buyers can pretend like they AREN'T buying Space Nazis' way.)

Personally, I didn't see a difference between the Kurganova troopers and the Cadian troopers.


And while sure, they aren't absolutely perfect, I've never seen female Guard-substitutes that are any better. (Incidentally, if you'd like to continue this conversation via PM so as to avoid dragging this thread off-topic, I'd be happy to do so.)

Pardon me for waxing philosophic for a bit, but you have to keep in mind that our culture encourages women (and men to a lesser extent) to be lazy and live sedentary lifetyles. A Cadian woman is stripping, cleaning, and reassembling her lasgun before she can walk. She's doing two hundred pushups a day before most men in modern times can do twenty. She's doing combat drills before most men modern times even think of joining the military.

She's killed enemies, fire her weapon in anger, and saw her friends torn apart beside her before most men in modern times ever touch a gun.

It's an extremely different culture and, as a result, Cadian women would actually be physically superior to modern men, save for the very finest specimens.

 Melissia wrote:
Pardon me for waxing philosophic for a bit, but you have to keep in mind that our culture encourages women (and men to a lesser extent) to be lazy and live sedentary lifetyles. A Cadian woman is stripping, cleaning, and reassembling her lasgun before she can walk. She's doing two hundred pushups a day before most men in modern times can do twenty. She's doing combat drills before most men modern times even think of joining the military.

She's killed enemies, fire her weapon in anger, and saw her friends torn apart beside her before most men in modern times ever touch a gun.

It's an extremely different culture and, as a result, Cadian women would actually be physically superior to modern men, save for the very finest specimens.

And given their usual luck, she and her childhood male friends will probably be shipped out to fight...at age 13.

Because Children make for shorter targets for the enemy.

Oh man I'm terrible.

http://www.forgeworld.co.uk/Warhammer-40000/Imperial_Guard/Cadian_Shock_Troops/CADIAN_HOSTILE_ENVIRONMENT_TROOPS_CONVERSION_SET.html

1 squad of Cadian women coming right up

 Jimsolo wrote:
I understand that you dislike the majority of the range, but as to the idea that the whole Raging Heroes thing is "silly cheesecake and aren't worthy of the Imperial Guard name," I think that many hundreds of people would disagree. (To the tune of over four hundred G's, so far.)

I certainly don't find them any sillier in a feminine way than the Catachans are in a masculine one. (Notice how no one ever complains about that? ) The Sisters of Battle are even more sexualized than 2/3 of the Raging Heroes line, and that seems to be okay. Pretty much EVERY scifi wargaming army is silly in some way or another. (In a 'overpowered mutant machismo' way, a 'ridiculous elves in space' way, a 'we totally aren't ripping off Starship Troopers bugs' kind of way, or a 'Space Nazis without swastikas so the buyers can pretend like they AREN'T buying Space Nazis' way.)

Personally, I didn't see a difference between the Kurganova troopers and the Cadian troopers.

And while sure, they aren't absolutely perfect, I've never seen female Guard-substitutes that are any better. (Incidentally, if you'd like to continue this conversation via PM so as to avoid dragging this thread off-topic, I'd be happy to do so.)

Actually, we do complain about the Catachans being silly in a masculine manner. At least, Melissia does. I don't give a monkey's gak about Catachans either way because I think they're horrible sculpts and want no part of them (but if men in any way interested me, I'd probably be complaining about it).

The Sisters models are... not actually sexualised all that much. They're gothic styled from foot to helm, but sexualised? Not really. They wear full body armour and are posed either firing their guns or pausing in firing their guns to throw grenades. Their armour has corset-like decoration on it, but that's got nothing to do with what's inside the armour, it's just the gothic style - which, by the way, generally involves covering up rather than showing off. Now, I may find ankle-length skirts sexy, but I am very much aware that I'm in the minority on that front, and I seriously doubt they sculpted the Sisters models just to titillate me personally (although the timing is suspicious - we did both start mainline 40k in '96/97. Hmm...). Oh, and their faces are all very... manly. :p

I use female guard substitutes that I think are just as good, design wise, without being sexed up, in the form of Shadowforge Miniature's Politburo Worker's Batallion. I also use sexed-up Shadowforge "Spec. Ops Marines", who dress like Catachans and suffer slightly for being supermodel-tall but are otherwise not that tarted up, considering they wear tank tops and combat trousers/boots and not much else.

Personally, I think Catachans are fine as they get to use the "cheesy B-movie" card to deal with any accusations of masculine sexualisation. People who don't notice the differences between the female Catachan flamer girl and the Raging Heroes line should have a check-up on their eyes, tho.

It may also be worth pointing out that masculine sexualisation is done to appeal to male players, whereas female sexualisation is done to appeal to ... male players. I thought it logical that the former is more condoned because it actually works for their gender rather than against it, but I suppose that hinges upon whether you realise the difference between something being shown as strong and heroic or something being displayed as eyecandy.

Jimsolo wrote: The Sisters of Battle are even more sexualized than 2/3 of the Raging Heroes line, and that seems to be okay.

The Repentia are really the only models that are overtly sexualized.

Now, artists who have no concept of anatomy and of how the human body would fit inside of powered armor (or apparently how power armor works) while maintaining the kind of typical muscle mass that an elite level soldier would possess...

Well yeah, the Sisters are typically drawn... awful, to say the least.

The models themselves aren't really that bad aside from the boob plate that makes it easy to distinguish them as girls.


That said, almost everything Raging Heroes does is silly. There are a handful of figs that look like they might fit the IGuard aesthetic, but for the most part, those models fit solely into the "I want an army of sexy girls" demographic. We need to wait to see a lot of the actual figs, but if they look anything like the concept art, it's just a bunch of supermodels wearing skintight "armor". Basically, the cheesecake cosplay equivalent of soldiers. You know, figures for the people who believe these girls are actually in the military.

 Veteran Sergeant wrote:

Jimsolo wrote: The Sisters of Battle are even more sexualized than 2/3 of the Raging Heroes line, and that seems to be okay.

The Repentia are really the only models that are overtly sexualized.

Now, artists who have no concept of anatomy and of how the human body would fit inside of powered armor (or apparently how power armor works) while maintaining the kind of typical muscle mass that an elite level soldier would possess...

Well yeah, the Sisters are typically drawn... awful, to say the lease.

The models themselves aren't really that bad aside from the boob plate that makes it easy to distinguish them as girls.


That said, almost everything Raging Heroes does is silly. There are a handful of figs that look like they might fit the IGuard aesthetic, but for the most part, those models fit solely into the "I want an army of sexy girls" demographic. We need to wait to see a lot of the actual figs, but if they look anything like the concept art, it's just a bunch of supermodels wearing skintight "armor". Basically, the cheesecake cosplay equivalent of soldiers. You know, figures for the people who believe this girl is actually in the Chinese army.

The sisters are handed out on loan these days?

I've not spent a lot of time (any, actually) around Chinese soldiers... but I did spend years in the US Army. You know what? We did have some incredibly hot women soldiers around. We also had some that weren't. By the same token, some of the guys were extremely homely. Some of them would not be out of place in one of those fire-fighter beefcake calendars.

Why do people find it so hard to wrap their heads around the concept that there are attractive people in the military?

 Psienesis wrote:
I've not spent a lot of time (any, actually) around Chinese soldiers... but I did spend years in the US Army. You know what? We did have some incredibly hot women soldiers around. We also had some that weren't. By the same token, some of the guys were extremely homely. Some of them would not be out of place in one of those fire-fighter beefcake calendars.

Why do people find it so hard to wrap their heads around the concept that there are attractive people in the military?

Because some people think that warriors deserve only ugliness?

Because they either are in the military and are ugly so refuse to believe that anyone could be more attractive than them, or are pretty and not in the military because it's beneath them. :p

IIRC in the "salute to armed forces" special issue of Maxim that was floating around last year, there was a USMC sergeant who posed for a shot or two.

Not homely by any means.

Looks more kickass than sexy to me.

 Psienesis wrote:
I've not spent a lot of time (any, actually) around Chinese soldiers... but I did spend years in the US Army. You know what? We did have some incredibly hot women soldiers around. We also had some that weren't. By the same token, some of the guys were extremely homely. Some of them would not be out of place in one of those fire-fighter beefcake calendars.

Why do people find it so hard to wrap their heads around the concept that there are attractive people in the military?

I was a Marine for ten years. I ran through a small, but fair share of the best looking girls the Army and Air Force had to offer. Those girls sure do love Marines.

However, my comment was more on the way they were dressed and all made up, not that it was impossible for attractive women to be in the military. More that the way the RH models are set up is in unrealistic and impractical uniforms that accentuate the femininity, and don't appear to actually be functional gear, lol. That, and the fact that they are model thin, lacking any hint of the musculature to actually life and use any of the weapons they are holding, lol.

Don't get me wrong, I love models. I dated a couple. Tall, hot, skinny. What's not to enjoy? They'd have had trouble effectively lifting and shouldering an M16, let along a Heavy Bolter facsimile. :p Heck, most of the female Marines, sailors, soldiers, etc had the same problem though, to be fair. Being able to just lift it and sight in only scratches the surface of the muscle strength and endurance needed to actually be an effective infantry(wo)man.

However, the women in those pictures above are models, posed up, and made up, for publicity purposes. The Chinese are well known for it, actually.

Heavy bolter, or M60, maybe... those are beasts, but we're replaced the pig with the M249 SAW, which weighs far less. A child can operate an M16, it's practically recoilless and weighs under 10 pounds.

As to her makeup... it's a photoshoot, not a candid shot. I mean, sure, the Chinese probably are using some sort of propaganda ministry to make their military appear to be filled with nubiles and beefcake, but that's really no different from the various recruiting ads the US DoD produces.

Me? I love the cyberpunk feel of the TGG line. I don't play wargames for a sense of realism.

No, and neither do I. I don't have any issue with the Raging Heroes line. I wouldn't buy them because they're a tad too cheesy for me.

But they're pretty good for the "I want an army of sexy girls" crowd.

If you get right down to it and be totally honest, any faction that goes into battle in power assist armor doesn't need a physical fitness program. Assuming they knew how to work the weapons, any girl/guy off the street would be equally strong and dexterous once they put on a suit of the stuff, and depending on the level of power assist they could probably all run for about the same amount of time anyway.

But we were talking about Imperial Guard...

 dementedwombat wrote:
If you get right down to it and be totally honest, any faction that goes into battle in power assist armor doesn't need a physical fitness program. Assuming they knew how to work the weapons, any girl/guy off the street would be equally strong and dexterous once they put on a suit of the stuff, and depending on the level of power assist they could probably all run for about the same amount of time anyway.

But we were talking about Imperial Guard...

In most cases, if the enemy has reached distances close enough for upper body strength to matter, the trooper is dead, male or female. The toughest a human can naturally be is still far weaker than the average ork and the average Hormagaunt can still rip their throats out before they can throw a single punch.

 Kain wrote:

 dementedwombat wrote:
But we were talking about Imperial Guard...

In most cases, if the enemy has reached distances close enough for upper body strength to matter, the trooper is dead, male or female.

Which means the only reason most western armies (or any armies) still don't allow females in front-line units is simply that we don't like women getting hurt. After all, we recruit men to protect our homeland, our civilians... which to many means our women. Many men have a stupidly strong urge to protect women even if they don't need it. I'm sure a lot of it is cultural, but surely part is from our more primitive animal heritage?

Or for some more backwards places we don't think women should ever learn they could do just as well as men if the whole "swinging a 30-pound motorized chainsaw club" thing was taken out. As I recall some men even complain that (fit) women have an easier time completing a lot of the tests for basic infantry because, well, being six feet tall with three foot wide shoulders is often a disadvantage no matter how strong you are. And ofc, women on average can take more G than a man in a fighter but we don't like sending them out either, even if the closest they're likely to get to an enemy is the max range to launch a missile.

No one remembers this lady?

http://warhammer40k.wikia.com/wiki/Mira

Spetulhu wrote:most western armies (or any armies) still don't allow females in front-line units

You'd be surprised.
Although that list is kinda outdated by now. For example, Australia has removed any and all purely gender-based restrictions in 2011. [src]

Spetulhu wrote:I'm sure a lot of it is cultural, but surely part is from our more primitive animal heritage?

According to the most recent studies, gender segregation in human evolution (aka hunter-gatherer society) is actually a fairly recent thing, "just" about 45-10k years old. It is theorised that back then, this allowed our ancestors to survive whilst the Neanderthals (whose females had comparable physical capabilities to the males) died out as they were only hunting but not gathering. [src]

Contemporary attitudes really are just a cultural thing. It's not like female warriors haven't been around before - an interesting example being the Mino regiment of the African Dahomey Empire, or some of the Germanic and Britannic tribes before Rome invaded.

Spetulhu wrote:And ofc, women on average can take more G than a man in a fighter but we don't like sending them out either

That seems to be less controversial, I think, even though aerial combat is quite physical as well all things considered. Even India and Pakistan have female fighter pilots by now - with the Indian Air Marshal commenting that on average they test consistently better than their male colleagues.

All in all, it's just a fairly new thing that, unfortunately and unsurprisingly, faces quite a bit of resistance. Give it one or two decades and an evolved society will have gotten used to it. It's no different than back then when black people were allowed to join the US military. There are some rather shameful "studies" in the archives about how they would supposedly destroy the esprit-du-corps as well, or how they'd always need a white officer to watch them etc.
It is in humanity's nature to segregate .. whether you do this based on gender, skin colour, religion, etc. is secondary, as long as those in power can feel superior.

 Lynata wrote:
It is in humanity's nature to segregate .. whether you do this based on gender, skin colour, religion, etc. is secondary, as long as those in power can feel superior.

Well, I might not have all the newest information (though I knew about the Dahomey women warriors - they used to beat their husbands, especially after the empire was taken down by France). But what I've seen is we don't like to place them in danger, not even the women I know who could beat me 1v1. I'm just a slacker 5' 10'' guy weighing too much after all. I know there are women who can beat me either through skill (my basic ju-jutsu training vs some really fast and supple ladies) or brawn (a farm girl I dated who is both taller and stronger than me). But I do remember that the nations that actually see combat aren't usually too keen on sending women into it as a first choice.vYou can have 1-2 pretty girls come back as casualties to make the enemy seem barbarians, but sacrificing a whole platoon of support women had better be kept silent. Bad publicity is bad, and letting your women die is very bad publicity.

You've seen it too - incredible newsflashes on a single pretty US servicewoman getting out alive when most of her unit didn't. And far as other soldiers can tell she was actually knocked out the whole fight while her squadmate, the less-cinematic mother of three held the line.

 Lynata wrote:

Spetulhu wrote:most western armies (or any armies) still don't allow females in front-line units

You'd be surprised.
Although that list is kinda outdated by now. For example, Australia has removed any and all purely gender-based restrictions in 2011. [src]

Spetulhu wrote:I'm sure a lot of it is cultural, but surely part is from our more primitive animal heritage?

According to the most recent studies, gender segregation in human evolution (aka hunter-gatherer society) is actually a fairly recent thing, "just" about 45-10k years old. It is theorised that back then, this allowed our ancestors to survive whilst the Neanderthals (whose females had comparable physical capabilities to the males) died out as they were only hunting but not gathering. [src]

Contemporary attitudes really are just a cultural thing. It's not like female warriors haven't been around before - an interesting example being the Mino regiment of the African Dahomey Empire, or some of the Germanic and Britannic tribes before Rome invaded.

Spetulhu wrote:And ofc, women on average can take more G than a man in a fighter but we don't like sending them out either

That seems to be less controversial, I think, even though aerial combat is quite physical as well all things considered. Even India and Pakistan have female fighter pilots by now - with the Indian Air Marshal commenting that on average they test consistently better than their male colleagues.

All in all, it's just a fairly new thing that, unfortunately and unsurprisingly, faces quite a bit of resistance. Give it one or two decades and an evolved society will have gotten used to it. It's no different than back then when black people were allowed to join the US military. There are some rather shameful "studies" in the archives about how they would supposedly destroy the esprit-du-corps as well, or how they'd always need a white officer to watch them etc.
It is in humanity's nature to segregate .. whether you do this based on gender, skin colour, religion, etc. is secondary, as long as those in power can feel superior.

The problem with women on the frontline is that men actually make different choices if a women were in danger compared to a man. They take stupid risks for them. It's no ones fault really, it's just biological, but it is a major reason why many militaries allow women in to service but actively try to keep them away from any roles that involve regular contact with the frontline.

If they can perform the same or better as the average male then no one cares; it's just when an inconvenient evolutionary history gets in the way that it's a problem. There was a lot of debate over it over the past few years here.

Having all-female units doesn't solve the problem either, but there's no reason for them not to be NCOs or in the airforce or navy which aren't typical frontline roles (and you can't exactly go out of your way riskily to save a female pilot)

Because we know a society can bounce back if it suffers a defeat that sees many of its men die. If the young healthy women who produce the next generation are also killed then the population crashes and takes longer to recover.
This is the number 1 reason having too many females in frontline combat is stupid. Then you throw in having to have extra facilities for females, particularly noticeable in confined environments like ships, those monthly mood swings, lack of physical strength in the field and the problems compound.
Modern technology has mitigated some of these drawbacks but they're still there.

I assume with the Cadians, the females would have their children first, then go join their regiment and the children would be raised by veterans no longer capable of fighting.

For people who find the Raging Heroes line too sexy (I won't mention Shadowforge here ), Victoria Miniatures is working on more realistic female troopers.

cadbren wrote:
Because we know a society can bounce back if it suffers a defeat that sees many of its men die. If the young healthy women who produce the next generation are also killed then the population crashes and takes longer to recover.
This is the number 1 reason having too many females in frontline combat is stupid. Then you throw in having to have extra facilities for females, particularly noticeable in confined environments like ships, those monthly mood swings, lack of physical strength in the field and the problems compound.
Modern technology has mitigated some of these drawbacks but they're still there.

I assume with the Cadians, the females would have their children first, then go join their regiment and the children would be raised by veterans no longer capable of fighting.

Ever heard of whiteshields? Cadian children don't get off the hook either. They get thrown into the meatgrinder like everyone else.

Contrary to popular ignorance, the 'monthly mood swings' are not only controllable chemically, but pretty firmly disconnected from the lunar cycle.

Trust me, girls can get angry or moody at any time of their cycle... just like men. It's just that being in pain tends to make people grumpy, and some girls find themselves in a lot of pain at certain times of the month. That can be managed too though.

So does anyone think Cadia is justified in sending barely pubescent children into the frontlines? Even in away missions?

I mean I have plenty of whiteshield models I count as conscripts, with Chenkov for added lulz. I had a friend run them and I think last time he used them my Hormagaunts ate them.

Mmmm, Children.

Kain wrote:So does anyone think Cadia is justified in sending barely pubescent children into the frontlines? Even in away missions?

This is tricky. Frontlines, for sure. The 13th Black Crusade's Force Disposition Chart mentioned "36 Regional Commands" being deployed to fight the forces of Chaos. Whether or not they would fight away from Cadia is more difficult to say. I would suspect not, even though there's no material to say so, just because they're expected to progress into regular Cadian units after a few years of training - and I suspect Cadian regiments on "away missions" to be away for a longer time than this training takes.

That being said, don't necessarily let that stop you as this is (a) just my interpretation, and (b) there is no actual uniform canon in 40k anyways.

Alternatively, however, you could let your kids not come from Cadia but a different world's regiment. The Codex fluff notes that in other regiments, "Whiteshield" units commonly consist of those children born of IG troops after they have begun their service, meaning either in-transit, during a campaign, or during garrison duty. In essence, the regiment takes the children with them, and once they are old enough they're handed a lasgun and grouped into platoons to help in the fight.

As a third option, you could come up with your own planet and culture that (perhaps at least partially) donates kids instead of grown-ups as part of their tithe to the Munitorum. In this case I'd recommend coming up with a bit of a backstory as to how this came to be, maybe they're youth convicts from a hive or whatever.

Shaozun wrote:It's no ones fault really, it's just biological

It really isn't, else less advanced societies would have discovered this and not have female warriors in the ancient times or, in the case of Neanderthals, even before. It's nothing but the result of cultural indoctrination promoting a specific behaviour - which doesn't even work as reliable as you suggest. The US military, for example, would have probably less of an extreme issue with cases of sexual abuse, intimidation and even murder if male troops would instinctively feel protective of their female colleagues. This "two types of soldiers" mentality just doesn't work out, and there's only one way to stop it - by promoting equality.

And I'll rather trust the success stories of mixed-gender units with actual combat experience than theoretical studies whose authors may well suffer from the same bias that caused doctors and military strategists to advise against letting black people into the army. It's quite simply up to the individual nation's military leaders to establish a climate of discipline, cameraderie, fairness and trust. This is part of the reason why some nations struggle more than others with this change in culture.

 phatonic wrote:

Looks more kickass than sexy to me.

These two things a synonymous to me ;D


But in all seriousness Warhammer never pretended to be depicting realism people. They choose aesthetics over realism all the time. Of course they'll maximize the quality of their miniatures basic aesthetics, and that means they will make the women sexy.

I do see the sexism in this, but all the lady war gamers I know choose sexy female characters over plain ones, and I don't think it's an attractiveness fantasy or anything like that. I think beautiful people are simply aesthetically more pleasing.

And hey, it's not like the Raging Heroes depicts women as stereotypically helpless or anything.


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 Kain wrote:
So does anyone think Cadia is justified in sending barely pubescent children into the frontlines? Even in away missions?

The Imperial Guard are as evil as s**t. One of the most evil teams, lol. I mean no one in 40k is great, the best is probably the mind-controlling space communists, but still... IG are this Hitler-esque evil military regime. I don't think they care about what's morally sound.

 Lynata wrote:

Kain wrote:So does anyone think Cadia is justified in sending barely pubescent children into the frontlines? Even in away missions?

This is tricky. Frontlines, for sure. The 13th Black Crusade's Force Disposition Chart mentioned "36 Regional Commands" being deployed to fight the forces of Chaos. Whether or not they would fight away from Cadia is more difficult to say. I would suspect not, even though there's no material to say so, just because they're expected to progress into regular Cadian units after a few years of training - and I suspect Cadian regiments on "away missions" to be away for a longer time than this training takes.

That being said, don't necessarily let that stop you as this is (a) just my interpretation, and (b) there is no actual uniform canon in 40k anyways.

Alternatively, however, you could let your kids not come from Cadia but a different world's regiment. The Codex fluff notes that in other regiments, "Whiteshield" units commonly consist of those children born of IG troops after they have begun their service, meaning either in-transit, during a campaign, or during garrison duty. In essence, the regiment takes the children with them, and once they are old enough they're handed a lasgun and grouped into platoons to help in the fight.

As a third option, you could come up with your own planet and culture that (perhaps at least partially) donates kids instead of grown-ups as part of their tithe to the Munitorum. In this case I'd recommend coming up with a bit of a backstory as to how this came to be, maybe they're youth convicts from a hive or whatever.

I had a big post on that create your own IG regiment site Moustaffa once had linked in his sig for the Rodinav Sabre Tyrants and some other Inciphis region regiments, but my computer reset itself and I lost all the work on it.

 Furyou Miko wrote:
Contrary to popular ignorance, the 'monthly mood swings' are not only controllable chemically, but pretty firmly disconnected from the lunar cycle.

Trust me, girls can get angry or moody at any time of their cycle... just like men. It's just that being in pain tends to make people grumpy, and some girls find themselves in a lot of pain at certain times of the month. That can be managed too though.

Why are you saying this, lol? Who is arguing against you? Please people, I know this is a male-centric hobby, but lets not talk about women like they're some kind of alien race please.


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If you want to reduce sexism in the Raging Heroes models, get a Catachan army. Then there would be a standard of ridiculousness and all that. That would be hilarious.

Spetulhu wrote:

 Kain wrote:

 dementedwombat wrote:
But we were talking about Imperial Guard...

In most cases, if the enemy has reached distances close enough for upper body strength to matter, the trooper is dead, male or female.

Which means the only reason most western armies (or any armies) still don't allow females in front-line units is simply that we don't like women getting hurt.

Well, that, and they can't pass infantry school.

Sure they are Cadian women serving, just that, as most of the 40k's art is taking its roots into those old painting of the gunpowder-enlighten age where rows of lancers charged gloriously, infantry regiments walked to their death and hold their ground as they get killed to the last man around their flag.

One thing that wasn't around on those painting (or on the battlefileld) was women.

At least they made a few female models back in the old Rogue Trader days, a couple of soldiers and even a Rogue Trader in power armour. Even now you can find a female Inquisitor, and there's also that all female gang from Necromunda (granted they have a heavy dosage of 80s in'em).

One ressource that is in large quantity in the Imperium is human beings and 'pretty sure the Emperor is an equal opportunity employer (except if you're a Witch or a mutie- and even then He'll find a way to get you to be useful whatever you like it or not)

As for the Whiteshield, it only follow the same mentality as the Boy Scouts: just a somewhat loose para-military organisation to give basic fieldcraft, leadership values, survival tips etc etc to young boys to hopefully push them toward military careers. More recently, the Hitler Youth was in a similar (if more direct) line. Hey, Canadians faced'em in Caen, so it is not that far of a stretch that the Imperium send thier Whiteshield up front for some hands-on experience.

 Kroothawk wrote:
For people who find the Raging Heroes line too sexy (I won't mention Shadowforge here ), Victoria Miniatures is working on more realistic female troopers.

It isn't "too sexy", so much as it is "not professional enough". They look less like soldiers and more like "supermodels in fake soldier outfits" and are designed to titillate the male buyer, nothing more. One can have a professional looking soldier that's also sexy.

Then again, I might be biased. I like the look of the Cadian military uniform, along with such things as the US Marine Corps dress uniform, It's hard not to look good in the USMC Blues.

I feel like a lot of people are completely missing the significance of an upper body strength difference. The issue isn't that it makes you less able to fight, it's that it makes you less able to soldier. The weight of 'kit' an infantry soldier carries has historically fallen somewhere between 60-100 pounds, depending on era - early Roman infantry carried upwards of 100 pounds of gear, while a Victorian British infantryman had closer to 60 pounds, with a modern US infantry soldier falling somewhere in the middle at around 80 pounds average including a rucksack. Given that most of the Imperial Guard seems fixed at somewhere around a WWI/WWII IN SPACE level of technology, we could probably assume that 75 pounds (a loaded set of British Army Pattern 1908 webbing) before weapons is relatively close to what a typical Guardsman carries with them into the fight. Even troops who don't have to haul their own gear, like tankers, do a lot of physically intense labor, for example replacing broken track sections (each link of an M1 Abrams' track weighs over 60 pounds) or loading and unloading vehicles. The simple fact of the matter is that soldiering is, always has been, and probably always will be a very labor-intensive job that requires a lot of physical strength and bodily resilience, and that's something that human males just have more of than human females. Life isn't fair.

 Lynata wrote:
And I'll rather trust the success stories of mixed-gender units with actual combat experience than theoretical studies whose authors may well suffer from the same bias that caused doctors and military strategists to advise against letting black people into the army. It's quite simply up to the individual nation's military leaders to establish a climate of discipline, cameraderie, fairness and trust. This is part of the reason why some nations struggle more than others with this change in culture.

Which successful mixed-gender units with actual combat experience would those be? A lot of people seem to have serious misconceptions in this regard, both in how other countries employ female troops, and in how other countries fight. The Israelis are a perfect example - very few people know that after the disastrous showing integrated units had in the 1948 Arab-Israeli War, the IDF barred women from serving in combat roles in 1950. Even since the decision was officially reversed in 2000, the IDF has created only a single integrated combat formation - the much-romanticized Caracal Battalion - which has coincidentally been posted to patrolling the relatively quiet Egyptian border ever since its inception, sitting out both Lebanon in 2006 and Gaza in 2010. There's also the noteworthy and rarely-discussed fact that the IDF is very much not an expeditionary force - they fight close to their own borders, to the extent that they typically rotate troops back home every three days even when they are engaged in combat. Hardly comparable to even the modern-day US Army, where deployments can last months or years, let alone the Imperial Guard where the regimental founding is probably the last time a typical Guardsman will ever see home.

Genosaurer wrote:I feel like a lot of people are completely missing the significance of an upper body strength difference. [...] The simple fact of the matter is that soldiering is, always has been, and probably always will be a very labor-intensive job that requires a lot of physical strength and bodily resilience, and that's something that human males just have more of than human females.

I feel like a lot of people are completely missing the fact that contrary to popular belief, female humans do not belong to a different species.

"Every male on the planet is stronger than every female on the planet, ever" is an utterly ridiculous statement to make ... and with the wording you have chosen to employ, you've just made it.

Genosaurer wrote:The Israelis are a perfect example

Which is why I'm advocating not looking to the IDF, as a lot of people (apparently you included) do, but to nations such as Canada, Russia, Germany.
The number is growing. It's up to you whether you want to stay behind or not - but according to recent changes in policy, it just looks like it'll be a somewhat more bumpy road for US women than elsewhere. But at least society is starting to acknowledge what they've been doing for the past ten years.

Oh, and as far as the Imperial Guard is concerned - guess which real world army the Valhallans are modeled after, and what they thought about female troops.


PS: I'm having a deja-vu here - but I suppose that, just like with the last thread on female IG, it was unavoidable that the topic would at least touch upon the real world situation.

Every Cadian female is stronger than you, Genosaurer.

 phatonic wrote:



Looks more kickass than sexy to me.

Given the armor (or lack thereof) I'd pitch these as Catachan women, not Cadian women, were I you...


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 Genosaurer wrote:
I feel like a lot of people are completely missing the significance of an upper body strength difference. The issue isn't that it makes you less able to fight, it's that it makes you less able to soldier. The weight of 'kit' an infantry soldier carries has historically fallen somewhere between 60-100 pounds, depending on era - early Roman infantry carried upwards of 100 pounds of gear, while a Victorian British infantryman had closer to 60 pounds, with a modern US infantry soldier falling somewhere in the middle at around 80 pounds average including a rucksack. Given that most of the Imperial Guard seems fixed at somewhere around a WWI/WWII IN SPACE level of technology, we could probably assume that 75 pounds (a loaded set of British Army Pattern 1908 webbing) before weapons is relatively close to what a typical Guardsman carries with them into the fight. Even troops who don't have to haul their own gear, like tankers, do a lot of physically intense labor, for example replacing broken track sections (each link of an M1 Abrams' track weighs over 60 pounds) or loading and unloading vehicles. The simple fact of the matter is that soldiering is, always has been, and probably always will be a very labor-intensive job that requires a lot of physical strength and bodily resilience, and that's something that human males just have more of than human females. Life isn't fair.

Your logic is sound except for a big issue smack dab in the middle: Assuming 75 pounds of kit ignores the fact that we actually have weight figures for a lot of Guard gear from Dark Heresy (a loaded lasgun is about half the weight of a loaded M16. Fancy that.), plus the fact that Guard miniatures don't appear to be hauling around backpacks loaded with extra stuff. Not to mention: Forty thousand years of tradition, training, altered cultures, selective breeding experiments, and Emperor only knows what else is going on throughout the Imperium between its millions of worlds could potentially scrap the muscular differential before the weight of the kit starts to matter at all.

"The ranks of the Imperial Guard are as varied as the countless worlds they hail from across the galaxy. All soldiers are equal in the eyes of the Departmento Munitorum and the Emperor. "
-- First two sentences in the "Gender and Appearance" section of Only War.

The Imperium as an administrative organization doesn't really recognize a difference between male and females when considering candidates for soldierhood. Soldiers are numbers to be expended on the battlefield, nothing more. Never mind the differences in culture between Cadia and modern society. You're thinking of Cadia as like the USA or UK, but that's very much wrong.

For Cadians, the birth rate and recruitment rate are the same. A child, male or female, learns to strip and clean a lasgun before they learn to walk. They are drafted in to the whiteshields to serve on the front lines before most modern children ever have their first romantic kiss. They train relentlessly, fight off daemons and mutants, slaughter and are slaughtered, et cetera. There's no comparison to modern societies. It is a culture that is utterly alien to us. Their women are not lazing about watching American idol and chatting about boys. Their women on the battlefield killing heretics. And that's before they become teenagers. Before the age that the various soldiers (and wannabe soldiers) on this forum ever thought of joining the military, Cadian women were fighting enemies that would make you crap your pants in fear.

Cadia is an alien culture unlike anything Earth has ever seen . The closest that one could get would be Russia in WWII... and that's a very long stretch to make that comparison.

When you need endless amounts of bodies to throw at the enemy, sex makes no difference. I'm sure there are just as many females in the Cadian army. GW just hasn't made any models because little timmy doesn't want to open is pack of toy soldiers and get girlie dolls . They should make some alternate packs though, it would be cool

The Red Army in WWII integrated hard as nails women into their army with what I think we can agree on, a great deal of success. They were tankers, infantry, and some of the top snipers were female. If the Soviets could do it, I think the Imperium could manage.

 Lynata wrote:
"Every male on the planet is stronger than every female on the planet, ever" is an utterly ridiculous statement to make ... and with the wording you have chosen to employ, you've just made it.

Well, that's certainly an easier argument to refute than the one I was actually making.

Perhaps I can rephrase it in a manner that's more clear, and less objectionable to you. "For a given level of physical conditioning, a man will have lower body fat percentage, better aerobic capacity, and higher physical strength in areas that are militarily useful, than a woman."

Feel free to argue against biology, though. May I suggest starting with abolishing separate male and female events in the Olympics?

 Lynata wrote:

Genosaurer wrote:The Israelis are a perfect example

Which is why I'm advocating not looking to the IDF, as a lot of people (apparently you included) do, but to nations such as Canada, Russia, Germany.

Which Canadian and German integrated combat units have actually been employed on the battlefield? I'm apparently not familiar with those examples.

 Lynata wrote:
Oh, and as far as the Imperial Guard is concerned - guess which real world army the Valhallans are modeled after, and what they thought about female troops.

You tell me. How many integrated or all-female rifle divisions did the WWII Soviet Army employ? I'll give you a hint - it rhymes with 'zero'. For bonus points, how many female troops were still serving in combatant roles in the Soviet armed forces in 1946?

Granted, women did serve in a variety of combat support roles attached to infantry units, including small numbers with mortar and machine-gun companies, considerably more with signals and anti-aircraft companies, and a tiny number in tank divisions. But as far as I know, the only modern army to employ women in an organized fashion in the actual line infantry role was the 1948 IDF. Even in their most desperate hour, Stavka never considered putting women into the infantry en masse.

 AnomanderRake wrote:
Your logic is sound except for a big issue smack dab in the middle: Assuming 75 pounds of kit ignores the fact that we actually have weight figures for a lot of Guard gear from Dark Heresy (a loaded lasgun is about half the weight of a loaded M16. Fancy that.)[...]

The weight of an M-G Short Pattern Lasrifle is 2.3kg, per the Imperial Infantryman's Uplifting Primer. A Lee-Enfield Rifle (which, I believe I mentioned, was not included in the 75 pounds of kit on a WWI British infantryman's webbing) was 3.9kg. Sure, somewhat lighter. That said, the same reference also describes the amount of gear a Guardsman is carrying ("Some details may differ from regiment to regiment but certain standardization exists.", from the intro paragraph). I'd say that unless you also anticipate equivalent weight savings in things like bayonets, hand grenades, entrenching tools, raincoats and mess kits, the 75kg looks to be pretty spot-on, as the Imperial Guardsman's kit is very similar to his 1914 British counterpart.

 AnomanderRake wrote:
Not to mention: Forty thousand years of tradition, training, altered cultures, selective breeding experiments, and Emperor only knows what else is going on throughout the Imperium between its millions of worlds could potentially scrap the muscular differential before the weight of the kit starts to matter at all.

Well, we get to see a close-up of Cadian society in Malleus, and they don't seem to be described as terribly physically different from you and me. You know, apart from the fact that they're all totally insane.

 Color Sgt. Kell wrote:
When you need endless amounts of bodies to throw at the enemy, sex makes no difference.

Err, when you need endless amounts of bodies, you typically need women to be popping those bodies out. (Kreig being the notable exception.) The fact that Cadia can maintain a relatively steady population despite being the only thing between the Eye of Terror and the rest of the Imperium for centuries, given the typical casualty rates suffered by Imperial Guard regiments, should be a pretty strong indicator of what Cadian women spend the majority of their time doing.

Of course, GW has a long and proud history of ignoring logistics and other boring aspects of the setting in favor of rule-of-cool.

Are we saying that the Imperium is wrong for throwing women and children to die just as readily as it is adult men? Because I think having poorly trained children get eaten by carnifexes after their parents also get eviscerated by said rampaging nine ton monster to be darkly humorous. In the sense that it shows that the Imperial guard gives no feths.

Color Sgt. Kell wrote:
When you need endless amounts of bodies to throw at the enemy, sex makes no difference.


Err, when you need endless amounts of bodies, you typically need women to be popping those bodies out. (Kreig being the notable exception.) The fact that Cadia can maintain a relatively steady population despite being the only thing between the Eye of Terror and the rest of the Imperium for centuries, given the typical casualty rates suffered by Imperial Guard regiments, should be a pretty strong indicator of what Cadian women spend the majority of their time doing.

Of course, GW has a long and proud history of ignoring logistics and other boring aspects of the setting in favor of rule-of-cool.

Well Kreig uses women all them, you just can't tell under all there gear. And I be a krieg Guardsmen would make a Space marine blush because the guardsmen blocked all of his melee attacks.

The women that can't birth, Either to genetics or age or even just recently given birth probably get rotated into combat.

Edit: for quotes.

Genowhatever, do you honestly think that you are "similar" to a Cadian?

Tell me, did you clean your gun before you were able to walk? Did you get drafted in to combat before you became a teenager? Did you participate in battles against daemons before you reached puberty? Did you participate in a military fitness and training regimen starting from the day you could walk? Do you come from a culture where there is no such thing as being a civilian?

Don't be ridiculous.

 Melissia wrote:
Genowhatever, do you honestly think that you are "similar" to a Cadian?

Tell me, did you clean your gun before you were able to walk? Did you get drafted in to combat before you became a teenager? Did you participate in battles against daemons before you reached puberty? Did you participate in a military fitness and training regimen starting from the day you could walk? Do you come from a culture where there is no such thing as being a civilian?

Don't be ridiculous.

Plus all the major "Model" worlds upon which other worlds often base their own tithed forces around have their guard units as their most major exports. It makes no sense to not double the amount of product you can send out, and in the case of mixed regiments, they can even self propagate as a gift to the Imperium that keeps on giving.

Which is something that is actually mentioned in the various Guard books even-- soldiers often do exactly that, and their children often join the unit when they're of age.

In fact, I wouldn't be surprised that some units have families where they have served several generations in a row all serving in the same unit without ever having set foot on their "homeworld". Now THAT is grimdark.

Genosaurer wrote:Perhaps I can rephrase it in a manner that's more clear, and less objectionable to you. "For a given level of physical conditioning, a man will have lower body fat percentage, better aerobic capacity, and higher physical strength in areas that are militarily useful, than a woman."

You're still missing the point - and make the mistake of placing entire population groups into neatly prearranged categories based on some artificial average.

Here's the thing, though - the military does not recruit this artificial average person. It recruits actual people. And actual people will have individual capabilities, which should be evaluated on an individual basis ... not gender, skin/hair/eye colour, ethnicity, or religion.

It's actually real simple, apply the same standards/requirements to everyone equally. If you're right, which I'm sure you still believe, you've got nothing to fear, no?

Genosaurer wrote:May I suggest starting with abolishing separate male and female events in the Olympics?

May I suggest separating African from other runners in the Olympics?

Actually, let me rephrase that. Why not drop the segregation? I think it could be interesting. And as I have just pointed out, the segregation of athletes based on biology is already applied unevenly.

Genosaurer wrote:Which Canadian and German integrated combat units have actually been employed on the battlefield? I'm apparently not familiar with those examples.

For Canada, the "Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry" would be a prominent example, as it had the first Canadian female combat soldier to be killed in the line of duty. Other names I dug up are the 12th Armoured Regiment and the Royal Canadian Regiment. To find examples such as these really isn't very hard with a bit of google-fu - the only thing that makes it a bit difficult is that the participation of female soldiers is only recorded whenever one of them dies or gets a medal.

For Germany, information such as this is a bit more difficult to find, as the Bundeswehr focuses more on patrols/protection, local training programs, reconstruction efforts and support for allied forces rather than fighting. Due to this, most units sent out would probably be considered support rather than combat. The unit where I served, "FlaRak Geschwader 2" of the 3rd Air Force Division, for example, is part of a NATO Quick Reaction Force, but it's just anti-air with some staff and ground protection elements.

I did, however, find this short report and this one about the first time a female German officer leads an infantry platoon in combat. Somebody did a translation here, in case you're interested.

Genosaurer wrote:You tell me. How many integrated or all-female rifle divisions did the WWII Soviet Army employ? I'll give you a hint - it rhymes with 'zero'.

This photo of the 62nd Stalingrad Army on the streets of Odessa says you're wrong about that. As does this statue of a famous female machine gunner in the 3rd Guard Shock Army's 21st Rifle Division.

As for all-female divisions ... I'll give you that, those existed "only" in WWI.

Genosaurer wrote:For bonus points, how many female troops were still serving in combatant roles in the Soviet armed forces in 1946?

What kind of question is this? Would you be able to name how many male troops did so?
But here's one example, a deputy commander of a bomber regiment (after WW2).

Genosaurer wrote:But as far as I know, the only modern army to employ women in an organized fashion in the actual line infantry role was the 1948 IDF.

Well, broaden your knowledge.
Use google, and/or read the British Army's analysis I posted earlier. Although out-of-date and thus missing at least one country that has since opened up to females in all positions (Australia), it is still an easy-to-digest overview of how many western militaries employ women in combat positions.

Or read about the female US soldiers which have been going on missions with infantry units, fighting side by side - at times unofficially, because the policy said they shouldn't, but the unit needed a combat medic and the only one on hand was a girl. Sure, you can debate that this doesn't count as "organised fashion". Yet I say "this is realism".

Seriously, this "attached =/= assigned" term-twisting was such a ridiculous show of conservatism. Using them because they're necessary, but then having the gall to go out and deny them the acknowledgement and claiming that "it's different", as if somehow a firefight wouldn't be a firefight unless only men are fighting.
It's a good example of an apparently deep-seated cultural issue, though.

Genosaurer wrote:

AnomanderRake wrote:Assuming 75 pounds of kit ignores the fact that we actually have weight figures for a lot of Guard gear from Dark Heresy (a loaded lasgun is about half the weight of a loaded M16)[...]

The weight of an M-G Short Pattern Lasrifle is 2.3kg, per the Imperial Infantryman's Uplifting Primer. [...]

Please, don't get bogged down by conflicting details such as these. This is 40k. There is no uniform canon, and FFG's RPGs as well as Black Library's novels frequently contradict each other as well as Codex fluff. This includes the IIUP, which, in spite of being entertaining to read, is a bit laughable when you consider that the Guard Codex tells us that there are even regiments that go into battle with nothing but bows and spears. And the IIUP tells me that X pieces of socks etc are considered standard? Lulz.

It's no use pulling such examples for a discussion.

It is, however, valid to look at Cadians, and then look at Catachans, and debate how many Cadian men a Catachan woman can lift.

I think the answer is "All the Cadian men"... she can lift all the Cadian men.

So why are we moving modern time situations and such like to a game that happens 38 000 years from now where humanity is living under a monolithic, theocratic, feudal system?

Really, human life in the Imperium is cheaper than a Leman russ or hell, thanks to the Mechanicus, a simple lasgun.

As long as you got all the right bits at the right places and you're not a psyker, off into the meat grinder you go FOR THE EMPEROR!

..but if we are, the people in medieval times were surely more hardy than us, what with having none of the modern comfort and utilities and innovation we got. With the 40k mentality, it would still hold the same truth.
Cold? Go chop some wood.
Hungry? Kill that chicken, pluck it, remove the innards and cook it.
Want to work? Here's a hoe, go work that field, then here's a pouch of grain, go spread it around it, then here,s a scythe, go cut the wheat.
The lazy ones had a horse or ox to help'em.

Ok maybe not, but when your parents were soldiers, that for the few thousands generations before them, woman or men, you're soldier stock.
not perfect genetic à la Space Marine, but nature got it's way to make the next generation better as it goes along.

I'm surprised this thread still generates such controversy when it comes up. Especially since it always boils down to the same two things in the end every time.

1.) In modern militaries, for every front-line solder, there are nine other people in a direct support role. Cooks, orderlies, mechanics, staff officers, truck drivers, etc, etc. The list goes on and on of things that are necessary to the prosecution of warfare that don't involve getting bullets shot at you.

Women can do no end of necessary things that don't risk the Imperium's most precious advantage - the creation and utilization of an endless stream of manpower. Even if you do put a women's primary role as reproduction (which the Imperium clearly does, at least, on Cadia), and you need them to be in direct combat roles, then you're still not going to press them into conscript platoons and send them wave by wave to the front. You're going to make them members of artillery crews, spotter corps, and tank gunners and the like.

2.) You can't, in any way, tell gender when a person is covered by armor. No way, no how. Having models with breastplates molded to show boobs, and curvy hips under baggy fatigues is as hilarious as it is stupid.

Remember, everybody, this is what a female stormtrooper looks like:



And this is how GW models female tank drivers and hull gunners:



Thankfully, Game of Thrones has been out long enough that we can all just look at the television adaptation of Brienne of Tarth to see what a real warrior woman looks like.

Like a warrior. Not like a horny male fantasy with the pretense of armor.

Ailaros wrote:In modern militaries, for every front-line solder, there are nine other people in a direct support role. Cooks, orderlies, mechanics, staff officers, truck drivers, etc, etc. The list goes on and on of things that are necessary to the prosecution of warfare that don't involve getting bullets shot at you.

As mentioned earlier, I don't think the Imperial Guard works that way. The regiments need to be able to operate semi-independently (that is, not fighting independently, but they are completely cut-off from their homeworld and constantly merge with other elements for the duration of a campaign), and the support they really do need comes largely from the Mechanicus and the Imperial Navy.

The Cadians, being a more "modern" force than, say, the Attilans, surely have some dedicated support in their regiments - but entire units? Doubtful. And ten times as large as the actual fighting body? Here I'm calling shenanigans.

Ailaros wrote:Even if you do put a women's primary role as reproduction (which the Imperium clearly does, at least, on Cadia)

Citation required.

I think that one of the most important themes in 40k is that humans are the one resource the Imperium has more than enough to spare of. The average human life is worth absolutely nothing, which becomes evident when you read about stories such as Chenkov spending them more casually than he does artillery rounds. I don't see why it should be different for Cadia. Not with the Youth Armies, which - at least in GW's Codex fluff - we know young girls get conscripted into, and sent to the front lines.

It's one thing to dislike it, and even disregarding it and replacing it with one's own ideas is completely okay if one simply cannot deal with it, but I believe that when discussing such cases in the community it should be clearly pointed out that one's opinion diverges from the studio fluff rather than suggesting that this is what the books actually say. Out of common courtesy, as well as to avoid misrepresentation / unnecessary confusion.

Ailaros wrote:I'm surprised this thread still generates such controversy when it comes up. Especially since it always boils down to the same two things in the end every time.

Conviction, I suppose. Everyone is convinced of the correctness of their opinion, regardless of how much "evidence" is tossed around.
It would probably be better to not touch real world politics at all, but I guess it's a hard topic to avoid as people always tend to draw parallels between 40k and RL.

Distilled to its most basic element, it comes down to "do all Cadian soldiers need to be white males?" - to which I don't see why there should even be a discussion if we look solely at 40k as a setting.

Distilled to its most basic element, it comes down to "do all Cadian soldiers need to be white males?"

And a not-surprising number of people would answer "yes" to this.

 Melissia wrote:
Which is something that is actually mentioned in the various Guard books even-- soldiers often do exactly that, and their children often join the unit when they're of age.

In fact, I wouldn't be surprised that some units have families where they have served several generations in a row all serving in the same unit without ever having set foot on their "homeworld". Now THAT is grimdark.

I can now imagine a family picture of two married troopers with their daughter standing on top of a dead carnifex while the three of them are grinning goofily.

Lynata:I don’t have my book close-by but I have read in many places that on Cadia, recruitment rating and birth rates are almost one in the same.

I'll browse'em tongiht before going to my game.

In retrospect, this means nothing really; I mean no mother will nurse it's kids until whiteshielding, the kid will have school and such not every single child gets raised by thier own parent directly.

Again, that argument that we're having seems a bit silly.

That is like saying that since there's a black guy here and there on Catachan art, one can only come to the conclusion that Catachan is the only world where black people live.



Look! A Catachan Black Guy!
I ain't seems no Black Cadian, or Elysian, or Vahallian, or Talharnian, so black people must all come for that single death world! Of course, everything make sense now!

 Ailaros wrote:
I'm surprised this thread still generates such controversy when it comes up. Especially since it always boils down to the same two things in the end every time.

1.) In modern militaries, for every front-line solder, there are nine other people in a direct support role. Cooks, orderlies, mechanics, staff officers, truck drivers, etc, etc. The list goes on and on of things that are necessary to the prosecution of warfare that don't involve getting bullets shot at you.

Women can do no end of necessary things that don't risk the Imperium's most precious advantage - the creation and utilization of an endless stream of manpower. Even if you do put a women's primary role as reproduction (which the Imperium clearly does, at least, on Cadia), and you need them to be in direct combat roles, then you're still not going to press them into conscript platoons and send them wave by wave to the front. You're going to make them members of artillery crews, spotter corps, and tank gunners and the like.

Yep, and if child rearing has become state sponsored and monitored, introducing the ranks of Babymaker Third Class, and Chief Wetnurse Officer.

Either way, having a birth rate that is equal to the recruitment rate is logistically impossible. And like it was mentioned, you need far fewer trigger pullers than you need everything else, just to keep an army moving.

So, contrary to the idea of Cadia as some kind of female empowerment fantasy, it's probably the exact opposite. A ridiculously regimented social system where people are utilized according to their most ideal role. The problem with the fantasy of Cadian females being all gung-ho soldiery and bad ass, filling infantry roles, is that the ages for which a human being is best suited for military service, and when women are fit for child bearing, are almost identical. Thus if Cadia is maintaining a high birth rate to keep supplying the ground forces with troops, then somebody is actually having these babies at the same high rate. We've never heard any suggestion of there being abnormally high rates of multiple births, so instead the replacement rate for Cadian women must be very high. If they're having all these babies, they are spending less time actually soldiering (in the traditional sense). This is part of the reason women make less than ideal soldiers in real life too.

Cadia probably isn't the model for equal rights and equal opportunity for women. It's probably one of the most awful and oppressive environments for women possible, where they are reduced merely to vectors for reproduction and child development.

The IG does not have "support units". That's handled entirely by the bureaucrats of the Departmento Munitorum. There is no "laundry and bath specialist" MOS in the IG. There are no "DFAC" units. In the IG, every unit is a combat-arms unit.

As to Cadia... what do you think happens if, as happens with humans from time to time, the birth rate is such that the population starts trending female? What do they do with the excess girls? Keep them there as baby-makers? If this trend continues for even a decade... you've got a real problem. You're going to run out of men.

Cadia's military forces are mostly PDF, not an Imperial Guard. A well trained PDF on par with most IGuard units, but still a PDF. As such, their support units would be organic, not Munitorum, and... you guessed it, Cadian.

Ultimately, this requires a measure of common sense. For Cadia to function, it must make babies. If all of those babies eventually end up conscripted, and the age of conscription/service coincides directly with the age of reproductive viability, it means that reproduction has also become state controlled and administrated. The older women get, the higher the rates of miscarriage and genetic deviation/birth defect. So, it stands to reason that the women are being used as breeding stock when they are younger, rather than older. The best suited females would be making babies, and if there was a surplus, there will always be plenty of jobs that don't require the physical ability needed for front line service.

The idea that the IGuard is made only out of trigger pullers is ludicrous. Born out of the imaginations of people who don't know anything about the military, not can conceive why you want your second echelon communications and logistics types to still be fairly combat capable and militarily disciplined. Either way, if we hand-wave that idea about the Guard being all trigger pullers, it still remains irrelevant, since only a small percentage of Cadian units are IGuard, and the rest are PDF. Remember, it says the majority of the Cadian population is "under arms", not that they are infantry, and definitely not that they are Imperial Guard. Any member of the military is "under arms".

So, if one in ten go to the Interior Guard, then that leaves a huge hole for what happens to the rest of the population. It is never specified what the "recruitment rate" stands for. Departmento Munitorum is the parent command for the Imperial Guard.

The problem is, you guys are confusing recruitment for just the Imperial Guard. By its very definition, the Departmento Munitorum is a military unit as well, which means anyone conscripted into the Departmento Munitorum would also be being "recruited" as well.

The same holds true of men, however, too. The longer a man waits to have children, the more likely it is his children will be born with birth defects, autism, and other disorders.

As to the IG/DM split... it's what GW has provided us with. While it makes no sense from a perspective of an actual military organization... it is what it is.

And, no, the DM is not a military unit. It's a department of the bureaucracy that is the Imperium's body-politic. It holds 3 seats on the High Lords. It is, for example, the Department of Defense compared to the U.S. Marine Corps. The former is a government agency employing, in the majority, civilians, the other is a branch of military service.

And if the bulk of Cadia's military is PDF... it's a garrison unit, really. Cadia's military focus is on defending the Cadian Gate. They're not looking to launch attacks into the Eye of Terror, they're looking to defend Cadia from attacks launched out of the Eye.

What physical functions is a woman incapable of fulfilling in a garrison unit that a man can?

None.

Psienesis wrote:And if the bulk of Cadia's military is PDF...

As per the Codex:EoT, Cadia's Interior Guard only makes up 10% of its military. "One in every ten soldiers" is recruited into the PDF, regardless of achievements or personal capability.
Of course, the Shock Troops constantly rotate in and out of the Interior Guard, so the number of regiments stationed on Cadia is actually quite a bit larger than that; the 10% would just be the ones on permanent garrison duty.
Oh, and then you add the Youth Army Regional Commands on top of that.

The average Cadian's life probably goes like this:

Birth -> Basic Education -> Youth Army Conscription -> Assignment Lottery (PDF/IG)
if PDF, they'd probably get released into civilian life after 10-20 years of garrison duty to man the factories and raise families
if IG, they'd spend 10-20 years touring the stars until either settling down like their PDF-brethren, or father children along the way
... hence my previous comment about an influx of young non-native Cadian immigrants whenever a "mobile" regiment is once again inbound for Interior Guard reinforcement.


Jex: Aye, I remember that line. I think they even used the term "synonymous", although that is probably a bit of an abstraction. Even on Cadia, they likely have an oh-point-oh-oh-something percent rate of stillborn or kids dying in their first couple years. Probably too small to actually show in the statistics, though.

After checking my books, it appears there is no claim that Cadian women are being turned into baby factories.

From 3rd Ed Guard codex:

"Its population are all destined for military life; the birth rate and recruitment rate are synonymous."

Codex: Eye of Terror page 6, a nice little example of the training regiment Cadians goes through (form the eye of a Commissar, which form his words, was harder than any battles he fought in)

Only War corebook: no mention that women are breeding cows, but they do say that everyone, and that is ,*everyone*, is combat ready, even the rear echelon (in case the interior Guard falls)

And look what I found in the OW corebook and the supplement:

Cadian female Shock Trooper



Cadian female Officer.

No need for special flak armour to show they're female, this ain't the Sororitas y'know....

I like that art, it acknowledges that they're female while still being very practical and grimey.

I always did love the Only War art style.

Same here. Only War's art style is pretty great and I'll second Kain.

To weigh in my own opinion (which in this late night won't be eloquent), yes there will most certainly be Cadian female guardsman. Just happens to be the guardsman are all constipated guys. On a side note, I admit to being curious which of all the women models you consider are good Melissa. (Apologies for the rudeness it is quite late!)

http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/531581.page

Here's some examples of decent female soldier miniatures.

Psienesis wrote:What physical functions is a woman incapable of fulfilling in a garrison unit that a man can?

We aren't talking about Garrison duty like being assigned to Landstuhl, Germany, lol.

We'll let you know as soon as the first female makes it even a few months into the Infantry Officer's Course in the Marines. So far they've all be volunteers (which means they assumed they could make it and were in top physical form for women), and they all have failed.

 Psienesis wrote:
The same holds true of men, however, too. The longer a man waits to have children, the more likely it is his children will be born with birth defects, autism, and other disorders.

I'm going to let you in on something, since it appears you may be a virgin, and/or missed sex ed in school.

The man's involvement in the reproductive process is comparatively brief. For some guys, I imagine it is really, really brief. I don't want to attach any inappropriate links, but I'm pretty sure you can find some examples using Google.

And, no, the DM is not a military unit. It's a department of the bureaucracy that is the Imperium's body-politic. It holds 3 seats on the High Lords. It is, for example, the Department of Defense compared to the U.S. Marine Corps.

Except you, know, that the DoD is a government agency that employs little to no forces in the field. Which the DM does.


Like I said, you are free to make any kind of silly extrapolations you want. I've had enough of these discussions to know that believability is of little consequence to you guys, and that you'll be happy to go along with any extrapolation, no matter how unlikely, as long as it supports your preconceived notions of how you'd like it to be. /shrug.


However, the books, at no point, make any mention of what actually happens with conscripted civilians. Only that ~70% of the population is "under arms". Not "In the Imperial Guard". Not "In the PDF". Just "under arms", which is a generic term for personnel employed in a military capacity. One in ten goes to the Interior Guard. So we know that 10% of Cadians are PDF. We have no indication of what percentage goes to the Imperial Guard, but if it is 60% of the total population, Cadia would be unsustainable, lol.

So we know the following:
Cadian recruitment rate = birth rate.
Female reproductive viability age range = military age range

Because we know recruitment = birth, child rearing must be a state organized activity. Because we know that the age at which women need to be having children is identical to military ages, and we know that the ideal time for women to have kids is before 30, they would not be pushing the ideal reproducers into combat roles. Being pregnant and having a child makes a female soldier more or less worthless for an entire year, and at the end of the year, she is less capable than her male colleagues because she is less experienced (she's missed a year of effective and practical training). Hence there's no reason to push women into combat units because it is inefficient. If they are going to have 2-3 kids or more, by the time they are 30, they are going to have missed almost a quarter of the time served as their male colleagues.

So Cadia:
~70% "under arms"
10% PDF

That's it. Those are the numbers provided. A military organization cannot be all trigger pullers. It needs some kind of logistical support. Cadia also has a Navy. We have to assume the "under arms" applies to Naval personnel too. The Navy has manpower requirements to man the ships and provide maintenance crews for air/space craft etc. And we know that the PDF and any Guard units need rear echelon support. Now, we know that 70% of Cadia's population is "under arms". That remaining 30% we're going to have to assume includes the elderly, and other engaged in civic roles because they were retired from/ineligible for service, and other kinds of capacities. Certainly that remaining 30% isn't going to be the logistical backfill for the military forces. Now, we can roll with some kind of fantasy where the field units of Departmento Munitorum aren't a military force that would be "under arms", and we can roll with a fantasy where the DM would import people from other planets to support the Cadian PDF instead of just, you know, using the Cadians already there. But we're going to use our brains, and realize that since the books make no specific mention of what "under arms" means, and no specific designation for what/where these "under arms" Cadians go aside from that roughly 14% of them are PDF (10% of total, against 70% of total that are "under arms" just to help some of you with the math).

So recruitment rate = birth rate, mothers are recruited = child bearing/rearing is state sponsored and military in nature. 70%-14% = 56%.
56% is split between Navy, tithes to Imperial Guard, and... you (may not have) guessed it, combat support roles.

Supply. Planning. Maintenance. Babies.

This isn't to say that all females would become breeders. Certainly some would be identified as being more physically capable, and certainly there is no need for sterile women to be having babies. So can females be in the Imperial Guard/PDF performing combat roles? Sure. Can they on Cadia? Definitely. Is the Cadian PDF/IGuard likely to have a significant female presence in combat units? The exact opposite. Everything we know to be true about Cadia(and the Imperium as a whole) suggests not.

Now, if you leave out certain bits of logic, then sure, it's easy to come to the conclusion that Cadian females are this tough as nails, no-nonsense asskickers who lithely bounce from delivery room to the trenches. Assuming you know nothing about the life cycle of human beings, gestation periods, and ignore all of the fluff about the Imperium being and oppressive bureaucratic nightmare and Cadia being a heavily regimented planet where life is cheap and the supply of manpower being of absolutely crucial importance. I mean, after all, it makes perfect sense that if on Cadia, the most important resource is manpower, that the society would be open and Cadians would be super progressive and all about gender equality (aside from the Imperial standard of equally meaningless as individuals), and breaking gender roles and norms. It totally makes sense.

I do find it amusing that people are willing to throw all that out the window just to believe for a second that Cadia has this super sweet co-ed force just because somebody drew a picture of a Cadian female in an RPG book once and there was totally this chick in the Space Marine video game. (You know, that one chick out of hundreds of Guardsmen portrayed in the game).

But hey, some of you are girls, and I can see why you'd want to believe that. Others of you want your army of sexy girls, so I can see that too.

Now the practical side. "Only War", aside from being ridiculously bad as RPGs go, is a roleplaying game. They want to sell to a gender neutral market. Google "-4 Strength", lol. RPGs exist in a world where the players are exceptional. Exception. al. So sure, in Only War, characters can be lady soldiers and be just as capable as the men. You know, hauling around heavy flamers that are almost as big as they are. It makes sense. Given that RPGs exist to allow you to play idealized human beings by proxy.

"Only War", aside from being ridiculously bad as RPGs go

Ignoring your hilariously inaccurate rants in the rest of the post, I object to this. Only War is one of the best RPGs ever devised.

You can take your ad hominem attack and stick it in your ear.

Educate yourself:

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/23/health/fathers-age-is-linked-to-risk-of-autism-and-schizophrenia.html?_r=0

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paternal_age_effect

http://www.intelihealth.com/IH/ihtIH/c/35320/63153/491833.html?d=dmtHMSContent

Well then someone think women should be in the kitchen making sandwiches for the boys or lying in their back with their eyes closed, thinking of England....

Geez, I half-expected to see you tell us how you aced the IOC* now, given that you're dakka's resident hero, the Veteran Marine who dates models and your "background in marketing" which also makes you an expert on GW's business tactics. How do you even manage to find time for this hobby?

But that's beside the point. I'd just like to say that this was a pretty low blow against Psienesis there, even by dakka's standards. I mean, really now?

Also, to throw a wench in your analysis: Codex:EoT says that their PDF is selected completely random, so no selection based on chromosomes if we go by GW fluff. And intersystem monitors, if Cadia has any and doesn't just leech on proper Imperial Navy resources, are already part of the PDF, too. And you ignored the bit about Cadian Shock Troop regiments rotating in and out of the Interior Guard, pushing the number of armed residents whilst they are on-site.

*: which, as far as I know, has a 30% failure rate amongst all male applicants, whose number is much, much larger than the four females that attempted it so far

But hey, some people are just very conservative, and I can see why they'd feel their worldview threatened by the changing social climate.

Cadian females are very possible. When it says that most people are in the military, I take it to mean something similar to a real military where only a small portion of military personnel are front line combat arms. The vast majority of military personnel are logistics. This is what makes a military effective or not. Sounds boring, but it's true. The United States Army is an example I know of first hand. Most jobs in the army are truck drivers, armorers, communication, supplies, food, ammo, maintenance, etc. Comparatively, a small percentage are actual front line grunts. In Iraq, women were in combat all the time because "front line" had lost its meaning. All the females in support jobs suddenly found themselves in combat. So, there's one reason to have female figures. Another is the Soviet Army model where they had many successful women in their military from tankers to snipers. I've been in combat and I've seen women in combat and guess what, there's no difference that I saw. Also, if a Cadian woman is in the PDF, she could have a family just like modern militaries. It's not the Roman Legion and so being a soldier doesn't mean you can't have babies. I could go on with more historical precedence and modern examples but sometimes guys just don't like the idea of women in combat roles.

I think it's about time this thread got brought in behind the shed.

MWHistorian wrote:Also, if a Cadian woman is in the PDF, she could have a family just like modern militaries.

That'd even be possible in the mobile Shock Troops - it's part of the Whiteshields fluff that a regiment "happens" to bear offspring whilst campaigning or garrisoning other worlds.
Although I'd suppose that the Guard would only allow pregnancy during Warp translation, whereas it might become a capital offence during a campaign (similar to shooting yourself in the foot to be excused from duty), or they just get "stuff" put into their food.

Kain wrote:I think it's about time this thread got brought in behind the shed.

I concur. It seems threads like these always develop into a crazy sort of gender war sooner or later.

 Kain wrote:
I think it's about time this thread got brought in behind the shed.

I think Veteran Sargeants last post will make a fitting tombstone for the thread. A masterlcass in....well,something or other. Thinking before hitting 'post' maybe.

And by the way Vet Sarge, you refer a lot to 'girls'. Do you think of yourself as a boy rather than a man? And if not then extend that courtesy to the other 50% of the population and assume 'women' unless there is a clear indication of age. Basic courtesy 101. The use of 'breeder' is pretty eye opening too.

 Lynata wrote:

MWHistorian wrote:Also, if a Cadian woman is in the PDF, she could have a family just like modern militaries.

That'd even be possible in the mobile Shock Troops - it's part of the Whiteshields fluff that a regiment "happens" to bear offspring whilst campaigning or garrisoning other worlds.
Although I'd suppose that the Guard would only allow pregnancy during Warp translation, whereas it might become a capital offence during a campaign (similar to shooting yourself in the foot to be excused from duty), or they just get "stuff" put into their food.

Kain wrote:I think it's about time this thread got brought in behind the shed.

I concur. It seems threads like these always develop into a crazy sort of gender war sooner or later.

I also like how people talk all about the superiority of the male body while forgetting that any old Ork boy could take the strongest human to have ever been born and fold him like a pretzel or a Hormagaunt could leap in and literally eat his face before he could register he was in a fight.

Or the fact that it doesn't matter what's between your legs when a bolter turns your torso in to beef stroganoff.

 Melissia wrote:
Or the fact that it doesn't matter what's between your legs when a bolter turns your torso in to beef stroganoff.

Or when a stark raving Khornate Bezerker shrugs off your MANLY punches with his power armor and then drives his chainaxe through your chest like so much tissue paper.

Or when a Howling Banshee effortlessly dances around your MANLY bayonet stabs and swings and then carves you into pieces with her power sword with so much grace than an olympic level fencer would break down into tears at the sight of it.

Or when a Kroot grabs your arm, pulls it off, then bites your head off or blasts through your armor with his gun and like you said, reduces your torso into the consistency of a burger that just got dropped off the empire state building.

Or when a Wych twists around all your attacks, gets on your shoulders while simultaneously carving a hole into your stomach as she flips off before breaking your back with a kick and dragging you into the nearest raider to become the newest toy/livestock in Commoragh.

As the last posts indicated the real matter is Humanity vs the Rest.

Remember the saying "There is no Civilian in the Battle for Survival."

Or when an Ork takes your MANLY bayonet thrust (hurr hurr) directly in the chest, then grabs your head and smashes it like a grape in his hands out of pure adrenaline-induced spite while looking like blade stuck in him doesn't even slow him down.

 Melissia wrote:
Or when an Ork takes your MANLY bayonet thrust (hurr hurr) directly in the chest, then grabs your head and smashes it like a grape in his hands out of pure adrenaline-induced spite while looking like blade stuck in him doesn't even slow him down.

Or when a Necron lets you wail on it for a good minute or so, checks it's chronoobserver while patiently waiting for you to finish, and then recreates the Kali Ma scene from the temple of doom.

Yeah in a setting with species created by Godlike races for the sole purpose of war (Orks, Eldar, Hrud, Jokaero, Umbra etc), Unliving machines with godlike technology that can shatter the stars, A ravenous swarm that vomits out organisms bred to slaughter at close quarters, Genetically engineered eight foot tall quarter ton demigods wrapped around in a manshaped tank, the crazy spikey cousins of said Demigods, and a species that makes up for sucking even harder than you do at close combat by employing it's own species who just love to get stuck in, whether or not you have testicles means very, very little.

Or when a thread gets closed because of all the Mod Alerts and rule breaking in it...?