I watched yesterday by chance the WOW movie for the first time and noticed the presence of female orcs. The last time I had anything to do with Warcraft was in the 90s when I played Warcraft I & II. These games lacked any green skinned women as well as WHFB and 40K. Afaik the only instance of female orcs GW made to order were BB cheerleaders and the people sculpting these models made sure that they weren´t top sellers.
So how would you feel about the inclusion of more attractive orc female models in your current AoS horde?


EDIT:
I own two Ork army books from WHFB (German version):

- Orks & Goblins (Priestly & Thornton, 2001)
- Orks & Goblins (Ward, 2006)

The fluff does not mention any Ork females and also no way in which the Orks or Goblins reproduce asexually (e.g.: fungi spores). I am not familiar, if GW changed this fluff up to this day but for the sake of the discussion let´s PRETEND that there are Ork females in the background.

A bit rusty on my AoS lore, but aren't they the same as in 40k, where they're a fungus-based life form that grows, rather than is birthed?

Going off that assumption and trying to think of how female orruks would be included in the game is hard. A specialized life-form, like how some are born with inherant knowledge? What would 'female' orruks purpose be? To exist as an alternate model for kits that already exist, or do something different?

Thadin 40K orks are indeed fungus and grown. That being said they are definetivly based on males and are quite maskuline. In their defense the 40K orks veru eraly took inspiration from american football and rugby player in their appearance and army design. While I am a big fan of female models, I think orks is the one place there are strong cases for not doing it.

I would like to se female necrons, tau (some are already) imperial guard, space marines (retcon it or introduce it in the fluff, some head swaps would be enough as space marines are post human) and eldar. Interestingly the two races that do gender representation very well are dark eldar with multiple genders within each unit, and tyranids that are gender neutral (with the exception of the termagon baby mashine.)

But, this is the Fantasy Forum and the original poster asked about fantasy. The awnser is whole heartedly yes. I would like to see more female models. I do not remember if a lot of female orks existed in Warcraft 3, but by the time world of warcraft (2004) comes out you have gender options for all races. Including the tauren female cow with udders and all. I really liked that.

Contrast that to some GW licened computer game that never came out. I remember reading the question about gender where they said "All races will have both gender options. Except ogres. Nobody want to play a female ogre." Contrast this to Wow, where you get udders. Not only do you get udders, but you have armour that have the equilant of boob armour for the udders. It is a glorius example of representation.

Most age of sigmar armies could do with more female representation. (Preferably not with boob armour.) It should be mentioned this is hard to do with undead skeletons. I should know, I kitbashed a Khemri blood bowl team with 5 females on the team. :-(

I suppose I should have been more clear in the intention of my post. It was meant to be inquisitive, looking for input in to WHY Orruks needed or should have female-style models. What would the point be?

While not opposed to the possible inclusion, I don't see a reason beyond just including them. Being fungus based, it could just be natural evolution or forced evolution that lead to a female-like orruk type but... for what purpose.

I'm on the side too, that we could all use more female models on the table, but I want to keep it reasonable and within lore. Or, if the lore has to change, at least make it good writing.

But god yes, if they do make female orruks a thing, please don't go the trash korean/japanese MMO route, and make them green female humans. Make them proper female orruks.

There is one way that's fluffy.
You know how there are hair squigs? There are now tit squigs. They make beer instead of milk.

Cough cough cough...

it works in AOS

less so in 40k but who cares.

Blood Bowl, actually. Which I don't think is canon.

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:
Blood Bowl, actually. Which I don't think is canon.

Oh. :( boourns

Thadin, why do you keep bringing up the fungus thing? Only the 40K are fungus, no?

As to why. Some reasons of the topp of my head:

1. Aesthetic pleasure. Warhammer is a visual game. Other models can make for a more varied and pleasent experience.

2. Variations in modelling. New models are great. Females can have slender builds while still being orky. Also, you get more models to kitbash in,

3. Representation. The more people can identefy with at least some of the models the bigger chance that they will jump onm the band waggon. More female players or other players that like a wider specter of representation is good,

4. Realismn. Many of these rases are only warriors. Do you think their females are at home birthing babies? Not if they want to be in charge. They wanne winn gold and glory.

They are Fungus in WHFB too. Their spores came to the world with the Old Ones by accident.
Yes, the Old Ones are in WHFB too. They created the Lizardmen and built the warp gates.
Page 159, 8th Edition Rule Book.

Yup, fungus in fantasy too. I'm for no Ork/Orruk females in Warhammer-it fits with the fluff. Give us females for races that do have them in the fluff but don't have miniatures. It doesn't have to be a ton of them (actually it makes more sense for it to be less, given that military tends to be a male-dominant pursuit) but some representation would be great. Especially as GW tends to do a pretty good job with females.

Aelves have always had that well covered (well, not -literally- in the case of DoK), Stormcast have a great lineup of badass women now, and Death is good where it can be. Let's see some ogors (other than the one maneater), humans (bring back the fem-warpriests especially), and more females for khorne, nurgle, tzeentch, and undivided. Maybe duardin, but I get the sense that their society has rigid social constructs that don't tend to involve female warriors. Beasts of chaos is a grey area since I don't think they have ever illuminated anything about females in their society.

But the others? Seraphon & greenskins don't even have females, daemons are their own thing, and skaven females are just something else entirely.

Are there ogre women? I don't remember reading anything about that. Then again, I haven't really read their Army Book. All I know is that they killed Sky Titans, they are really hungry and they are basically Fantasy Mongols.
Edit : Huh, the wiki page talks about "siring" and progeny, so I guess they do reproduce sexually.

https://www.games-workshop.com/en-US/Ogre-Kingdoms-Female-Maneater

Legit Ogor cleaveage there bro.

 NinthMusketeer wrote:
https://www.games-workshop.com/en-US/Ogre-Kingdoms-Female-Maneater

Legit Ogor cleaveage there bro.

Oh wow, I guess there are.
I saw that model before, but I assumed it was in drag, because are you going to tell an ogre not to? Unless those breasts are man boobs. Its hard to tell.

Well. If the orks in fantasy are fungus then they are not male, they are gender neutral.

In that case there is no reason why orks need to be represented masculine. They could also be represented femenine, gender fluid or gender neutral. Bring it on I say.

Why would they be presented as female if they are already gender neutral? There is no reason for them to have breasts, except as a joke. Hence Bloodbowl.
If you want ork tits that badly, sculpt them yourself.

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:
Why would they be presented as female if they are already gender neutral? There is no reason for them to have breasts, except as a joke. Hence Bloodbowl.
If you want ork tits that badly, sculpt them yourself.

They also dont have nipps.

i recall seeing some with nipp rings and gauges though and wonder... why.

Much like Niiai I'd love to see more female models for any future factions/updates period, and the female orcs in WoW are pretty cool after all.

Sadly don't see orks getting any female models simply because their male* look has been pretty much set in stone for about what, 30+ years now, and it doesn't really need to change.
I could on the other hand see a future ork-like destruction faction featuring female models, maybe demi-ogres, a crossbreed between ogres and savage humans living in Ghur.


*Are orks even male, I thought they were genderless, or is that 40k?

I would have no problem with Orc Women models. I wouldn’t give a fart in the wind if tomorrow GW put out a notice saying...

“Hey folks. We decided we want to release some Orcish Women miniatures. We like how they look, and we hope you will too! We’re changing the fluff to accommodate, so don’t be surprised when future fluff snippets mention gendered Orcs. Also, please replace all instances of the word “Orc” with the proper trademarked version... my phone keeps autocorrecting it.”

And since I’m a well adjusted human being, I’d say...

“Neat. If I ever start an AOS army, it would be Orcs and Goblins (again) so this would increase my model options.”

Make female orcs.

Make female Iron Jawz.

Paint female Iron Jawz blue.

There. Female ultramarines. Now everyone can shut up.

Heh... bear with me on this one...

I once heard a story about this fantasy race of all males, that were always depicted as living around fungus. I reasoned, they weren’t male, but reproduced by spore, which is why they all looked so darned similar.

An evil wizard was attempting to destroy this race, and with arcane sorcery created a simulacrum, an artificial member of this race, to infiltrate and spread disharmony, even as it spied. But, for his dark knowledge, the wizard did not understand their life cycle, or their lack of gender. So, he made his infiltrator female...

As a result, she was caught quickly, and through their own magic brought into the control of the race she was meant to destroy. Soon, among the spawn of this race, “females” began to appear. The female aberration, introduced by a human who knew no better, was now recreating more like herself, creating a permanent female sub strain of the species.

That’s the origin story of Smurfette.

But, I think it would work for Orruks too.

 greatbigtree wrote:
I would have no problem with Orc Women models. I wouldn’t give a fart in the wind if tomorrow GW put out a notice saying...

“Hey folks. We decided we want to release some Orcish Women miniatures. We like how they look, and we hope you will too! We’re changing the fluff to accommodate, so don’t be surprised when future fluff snippets mention gendered Orcs. Also, please replace all instances of the word “Orc” with the proper trademarked version... my phone keeps autocorrecting it.”

And since I’m a well adjusted human being, I’d say...

“Neat. If I ever start an AOS army, it would be Orcs and Goblins (again) so this would increase my model options.”

You read my mind. The fluff is obviously the biggest hindrance for people to accept female orcs. So it would just take a retcon to remedy the situation. Though when I watched the WoW movie, the two greenskin genders looked off as if they were of two different species. The orc woman was a slightly altered human and I was okay with that but the male orcs looked like ogres because of their massive body frames. GW´s orcs have a similar problem. According to the designers, male orcs are inspired by gorillas and have therefore a much more bestial look. As a result of this, GW would need to overhaul the male orcs in order for them to look more human.
When writing this post, another thought came to my mind. Both orc genders have in common that they are big and buff. Would you think that the average GW customer would feel threatened in his masculinity by buff orc women? This is not a troll question as it would directly impact sales of said models.

There's no reason for orks to be "male" or "female" since they are fungus people. As someone mentioned above the reason we even read them as "male" is because they are somewhat based off of male gorillas. It could be fun to have "female" presenting orks, no doubt, and the "fluff" of AoS is such a hot mess anyway I certainly wouldn't care less if they changed it or came up with a fun reason why they existed. They did as much with why some orks have "hair."

That being said I think they would do better to focus on the races that do have sexual dimorphism to have more variation in model lines and respresentation. The Stormcast females so far are pretty bad ass...though I wish the ratio was closer to 50/50. Seems like they will continue this trend on newer kits and I love it.

 exliontamer wrote:
There's no reason for orks to be "male" or "female" since they are fungus people. As someone mentioned above the reason we even read them as "male" is because they are somewhat based off of male gorillas. It could be fun to have "female" presenting orks, no doubt, and the "fluff" of AoS is such a hot mess anyway I certainly wouldn't care less if they changed it or came up with a fun reason why they existed. They did as much with why some orks have "hair."

That being said I think they would do better to focus on the races that do have sexual dimorphism to have more variation in model lines and respresentation. The Stormcast females so far are pretty bad ass...though I wish the ratio was closer to 50/50. Seems like they will continue this trend on newer kits and I love it.

As has already been stated, the fungi thing is 40k only. It's never been like that for Fantasy or AoS. And how is the fluff a hot mess?

 Inquisitor Gideon wrote:

 exliontamer wrote:
There's no reason for orks to be "male" or "female" since they are fungus people. As someone mentioned above the reason we even read them as "male" is because they are somewhat based off of male gorillas. It could be fun to have "female" presenting orks, no doubt, and the "fluff" of AoS is such a hot mess anyway I certainly wouldn't care less if they changed it or came up with a fun reason why they existed. They did as much with why some orks have "hair."

That being said I think they would do better to focus on the races that do have sexual dimorphism to have more variation in model lines and respresentation. The Stormcast females so far are pretty bad ass...though I wish the ratio was closer to 50/50. Seems like they will continue this trend on newer kits and I love it.

As has already been stated, the fungi thing is 40k only. It's never been like that for Fantasyor AoS. And how is the fluff a hot mess?

Wrong
159 of the 8th ed BRB explicitly states that the orcs came to the world as spores, heavily implying that greenskins in both 40k and WHFB are the same.
If the orcs from AoS are the same as the ones from WHFB, then logically they would be fungus based too.

Fantasy and 40K cross over their lore in many ways, in fact at its core 40K is basically just fantasy in space; or fantasy is just 40K in fantasy settings.


As for orks specifically I think that I'd be ok if GW decided to change orks from spores to a regular male-female based species for Age of Sigmar. It would be a prime time to make such a change. That said orks in fantasy are less developed than in 40K in some ways. I think they suffered somewhat from being the generic second-bad (the core bad bieng chaos). Orks were the faceless henchmen of evil and thus i think some aspects of their history were simpler to make it easier.

Orks could change to have females and I'd be ok with that in AoS, but I'm equally happy with them being spore-born and running with that line of story too. Both open up wide options for variety and design and story choices. I don't think GW has done much with AoS orks and greenskins in general thus far, they've been on the back-burner in terms of armies and stories so hopefully with BadMoon coming next (for AoS at least in terms of new Battletomes) we can get a better idea of where they are in the AoS realms.


Note - even if orks get womenfolk they don't have to appear in the armies, they could be protected so heavily that the orks never let them into battle at all, even within the heavily war torn world they live and even within the violent ork society. A bit like Skaven females in that they are kept hidden, kept safe and kept well away from rank and file armies.

Skaven females aren't capable of a combat role--they are large grotesque breeders continually birthing more Skaven.

I now want to see/make an ork army of either game as Smurfs. My issue now though, is I can't not see GW orks as anything but Smurf ripoffs as Smurfs were created in 1958. All male inhuman colored fungus people. Instead of Dakka Dakka Dakka! It's La La Laa Laa Laa Laa, La Laa Laa Laa Laaaa!

 NinthMusketeer wrote:
Skaven females aren't capable of a combat role--they are large grotesque breeders continually birthing more Skaven.

Yes but we are talking about skaven here. They can certainly get one female, strap her to enough warpstone, bits of machinery and stuff and send her out to war! Or she can force the issue herself possibly probably somehow. Heck Tyranids manage to get Tervigons on the battlefield and Skaven already have those huge abonination mutations rolling around. Ergo it "could" be done but might never be done.

That said what a lot of thsi really is is gamers expressing a desire to look beyond battles. What can move a 1 dimensional character into fully fleshed out is often taking a view of them (or their race) outside of the core focus. So for Warhammer this means looking at warriors at rest, at play, living life outside of war and battle and politics. Once you start to add that layer of detail to a faction and character they become far more real.

Meanwhile something like a hollywood evil character or "goon" is often seen as such because we only ever see them doing one single thing. Of course the same is also true of heroes!

Female orcs - happy to see 'em

Hell put those blood bowl minis on a table as a force.

 NinthMusketeer wrote:
Skaven females aren't capable of a combat role--they are large grotesque breeders continually birthing more Skaven.

Which, again, is simply a fluff-adjustment away.

"Hi Folks! With the success of our Lady-Orcs, we've decided to introduce Lady Skaven! No, not the sort-of-offensive baby mills they used to be, but current, bold, ruthless rat-beauties doing their part to climb the horrible ladder that is Skaven politics. Hope you like them!"

And AoS lets them make a lot of fluff adjustments. And yet at the same time in Heart of Winter the Scourge Privateers are still sailing around the seas in huge Black Arks (powered by mighty krackens underneath).

Plus Skaven shifted from being warpstone users to having the Great Horned One as full blown Chaos god so that can bring with it all kinds of change.

That said they don't have to make female skaven the same as males; they can still have the huge bloated mother-rat beast approach!

No, look how ridiculous the female orc is in the WoW movie, we would try to make the orc appealing, keep them savage as they are. No need for a male-female mechanic on every race.

There is room in AOS for sexy daring rat girls and monster mothers - and lots in between.

Although it is also nice that there are absolutely no redeeming features about any Skaven ever

They’d be my second choice army, after Orcs and Gobbos.

Mostly the zany weapons. The mutants and plague stuff never piqued my interest... but those war machines!

I don't recall if Fantasy orcs were ever stated to have females or not, and the models that were sculpted were most definitely joke models for Blood Bowl.

Most likely, Fantasy Orcs are androgynous beings that are either hermaphroditic or the same as 40k orcs being a fungus.

I think it is amusing that people are assuming the gender of the orcs we see in Fantasy. In order to be male, there needs to be another gender to work with.

Being asexual, there is only one gender, so there is no more "male" than "female". Mammary glands are only necessary for a species which suckles their young. Orcs do not suckle their young, so no need for breasts. Heavy bone and muscle structure is needed for fighting, so their physiology more closely resembles a sex whose reproductive contribution is minimal. I wonder if they have their spore pods under their loin cloths instead of the sperm-positors that humans have.

If you really want to have an interesting read on how an assumption of sex is handled, read up on the Mardukans of the Empire of Man series starting with March Upcountry by John Ringo and David Weber. Let's just say that the ovipositors of the assumed males are rather impressive, except they don't deliver sperm.

 Charistoph wrote:
I think it is amusing that people are assuming the gender of the orcs we see in Fantasy. In order to be male, there needs to be another gender to work with.

Being asexual, there is only one gender, so there is no more "male" than "female". Mammary glands are only necessary for a species which suckles their young. Orcs do not suckle their young, so no need for breasts. Heavy bone and muscle structure is needed for fighting, so their physiology more closely resembles a sex whose reproductive contribution is minimal. I wonder if they have their spore pods under their loin cloths instead of the sperm-positors that humans have.

If you really want to have an interesting read on how an assumption of sex is handled, read up on the Mardukans of the Empire of Man series starting with March Upcountry by John Ringo and David Weber. Let's just say that the ovipositors of the assumed males are rather impressive, except they don't deliver sperm.

Apparently Orcs / Orks constantly release spores throughout their lives, and release a lot of spores when they die.
So I guess they have spore pods everywhere.

Such a question came up in a Dark Heresy campaign I did. My explanation was that 40k Orks had a large urinary tract depositor that appeared similar to a penis. But nothing else down there. Which caused confusion when the group was trying to explain to some ork sentries why they should be afraid of Big Boss Big Nutz.

Ummm - orks don't have a sex. So suggesting they have a sex is quite....sexist? Wouldn't you say? The ork model currently in line aren't actually males...Just because their name is name are often (----)Boyz - it doesn't make them male. It's just what they call themselves.

You know there are species on earth where females have larger stature....
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anglerfish
The male in this species is quite literally a sperm delivering mino type parasite. Only the females in this species have actual lives.

Plus there are many species which display 0 sexual dimorphism. Orks could easily be like that. Since we know they don't actually reproduce sexually - they have no need for male or female models.

 Big Mac wrote:
No, look how ridiculous the female orc is in the WoW movie, we would try to make the orc appealing, keep them savage as they are. No need for a male-female mechanic on every race.

TBF the main character girl is only half-orc and the full orcs are less human looking. But honestly GW is one of the one companies I would trust to be willing to make non-sexy females. Look at the female maneater, or the troll hag, or valkia.

Fluff be damned, I want the most model variation possible for a horde army. Painting boyz is tedious.

My concern is that GW loves to make their few female models dainty as hell, e.g. Celestine. I just finished up set of Escher Gang and they looked a lot more bulky in pictures than real life.

Except you already have a lot of variation though?
No 2 orks are the same in my army.

Unless you're talking about AoS orcs. In that case its a failure of GW for not adding enough options.

as a spore orks can't be male or female but you can have more female looking ones but I would also equally be as happy with them how they are as we call them male because in general men are more muscular than females. If it were the other way around we would say orks looked female
list of female species for models why or why not
space marines NO come from emporer emps was a guy simple as
dark eldar already a thing with over 50% of them being female model wise
eldar could be who knows mabye the ones with a helmet are female just are smart and want to live
tau same as normal eldar
orks already explained
guard don't know would change so much from world to world do whatever you want.
necrons are male and female but all put their souls into identical robot things so no new female models needed
nids ? heck it seems the birthing things are female and hourmagaunts are male but who knows
demonds they are gender neutral only rpresenting their gods emotion
skitari you cant tell as they are more robot than man
genestealercults can be wahtever as its a cult of dudes( sorry people) worshiping a genestealer

 Xenomancers wrote:
Ummm - orks don't have a sex. So suggesting they have a sex is quite....sexist? Wouldn't you say? The ork model currently in line aren't actually males...Just because their name is name are often (----)Boyz - it doesn't make them male. It's just what they call themselves.

Well, they tend to spawn more spores in a combat environment, so for Orcs/Orks, combat is literally an orgy of destruction...

 Niiai wrote:
Thadin 40K orks are indeed fungus and grown. That being said they are definetivly based on males and are quite maskuline. In their defense the 40K orks veru eraly took inspiration from american football and rugby player in their appearance and army design. While I am a big fan of female models, I think orks is the one place there are strong cases for not doing it.

I would like to se female necrons, tau (some are already) imperial guard, space marines (retcon it or introduce it in the fluff, some head swaps would be enough as space marines are post human) and eldar. Interestingly the two races that do gender representation very well are dark eldar with multiple genders within each unit, and tyranids that are gender neutral (with the exception of the termagon baby mashine.)

But, this is the Fantasy Forum and the original poster asked about fantasy. The awnser is whole heartedly yes. I would like to see more female models. I do not remember if a lot of female orks existed in Warcraft 3, but by the time world of warcraft (2004) comes out you have gender options for all races. Including the tauren female cow with udders and all. I really liked that.

Contrast that to some GW licened computer game that never came out. I remember reading the question about gender where they said "All races will have both gender options. Except ogres. Nobody want to play a female ogre." Contrast this to Wow, where you get udders. Not only do you get udders, but you have armour that have the equilant of boob armour for the udders. It is a glorius example of representation.

Most age of sigmar armies could do with more female representation. (Preferably not with boob armour.) It should be mentioned this is hard to do with undead skeletons. I should know, I kitbashed a Khemri blood bowl team with 5 females on the team. :-(

Or simply introduce females in your own lore I'm using a Khinerai as a valkyrie for my Space Wolves (used as a Rune Priest with jump pack). Probably going to make a Wolf Lord (err, Lady) with jump pack out of one as well.

 Charistoph wrote:

Well, they tend to spawn more spores in a combat environment, so for Orcs/Orks, combat is literally an orgy of destruction...

Thinking about all the people breathing in the spores....


im surprised warriors or guardsmen dont explode into orks after a battle.

We inhale something like an average of 7 fungal spores with every breath. Being adapted to grow in moist ground and being adapted to grow in lungs are very different. Unless the spores have some sort of toxin or are in massive quantity there would not be a serious health concern. Tyranid spores, on the other hand...

So has there been any female conversions of WFB/AoS orks that we can see? I'm not talking about slapping some tits on them and calling it a day, full on conversion.
I don't own any fantasy orks to test this myself (might have a few 40k boyz laying around somewhere), but I'd love to see if its been done.


On the subject of non-breeder fem-skaven, sure, I'd love my own little Ink-Eyes style assassin running around.

I haven't seen any but the aforementioned Orc cheerleaders from Blood Bowl.

 Charistoph wrote:
I haven't seen any but the aforementioned Orc cheerleaders from Blood Bowl.

It is fortunate they were not included in the BB computer game

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:

 Inquisitor Gideon wrote:

 exliontamer wrote:
There's no reason for orks to be "male" or "female" since they are fungus people. As someone mentioned above the reason we even read them as "male" is because they are somewhat based off of male gorillas. It could be fun to have "female" presenting orks, no doubt, and the "fluff" of AoS is such a hot mess anyway I certainly wouldn't care less if they changed it or came up with a fun reason why they existed. They did as much with why some orks have "hair."

That being said I think they would do better to focus on the races that do have sexual dimorphism to have more variation in model lines and respresentation. The Stormcast females so far are pretty bad ass...though I wish the ratio was closer to 50/50. Seems like they will continue this trend on newer kits and I love it.

As has already been stated, the fungi thing is 40k only. It's never been like that for Fantasyor AoS. And how is the fluff a hot mess?

Wrong
159 of the 8th ed BRB explicitly states that the orcs came to the world as spores, heavily implying that greenskins in both 40k and WHFB are the same.
If the orcs from AoS are the same as the ones from WHFB, then logically they would be fungus based too.

That was an 8th edition only thing. It has zero bearing on Warhammer Fantasy as a whole since 8th only existed to kill the property, and little bearing on AoS.

Orcs in other fantasy editions definitely had genders.

Voss wrote:

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:

 Inquisitor Gideon wrote:

 exliontamer wrote:
There's no reason for orks to be "male" or "female" since they are fungus people. As someone mentioned above the reason we even read them as "male" is because they are somewhat based off of male gorillas. It could be fun to have "female" presenting orks, no doubt, and the "fluff" of AoS is such a hot mess anyway I certainly wouldn't care less if they changed it or came up with a fun reason why they existed. They did as much with why some orks have "hair."

That being said I think they would do better to focus on the races that do have sexual dimorphism to have more variation in model lines and respresentation. The Stormcast females so far are pretty bad ass...though I wish the ratio was closer to 50/50. Seems like they will continue this trend on newer kits and I love it.

As has already been stated, the fungi thing is 40k only. It's never been like that for Fantasyor AoS. And how is the fluff a hot mess?

Wrong
159 of the 8th ed BRB explicitly states that the orcs came to the world as spores, heavily implying that greenskins in both 40k and WHFB are the same.
If the orcs from AoS are the same as the ones from WHFB, then logically they would be fungus based too.

That was an 8th edition only thing. It has zero bearing on Warhammer Fantasy as a whole since 8th only existed to kill the property, and little bearing on AoS.

Orcs in other fantasy editions definitely had genders.

Also wrong.
Look on page 124 of the 7th ed rulebook. It was not only in 8th ed.
Please point out where they "definitely" had genders. Because I looked through earlier editions, and I could find nothing of the sort.

As an answer to the original post:

Why not.

I really don't understand the reason to change fluff just so some people can have female models for their army.
There are tons of armies that either already have female models or would deserve some as it just would make sense with the fluff as it is.

I hear no one complaining about only female SoB (or DoK to keep with fantasy). What if I want a Battle Brother? After all, "no man in arms" was meant to be "no human in arms", so the church is already ignoring the RAI. Just change the fluff.

But after all, it's your army on the table and if you want female orcs, just go for it. But don't expect GW to change existing fluff, produce model kits for your fantasy or every opponent to understand your desire despite the fluff.
Fireforge has a mixed gender orc kit in the line, but it could be a while before it's available, as the stretch goal wasn't met in the Kickstarter.

You are building a straw man of people who wants female models in their army. It is not just the odd person who wants a female model, quite many want them. Also, this thread is a bit of a self selective audience because we already play the game. And even hang out on the forums.

Do not make it out like there is a big change in setting introducing female orks. Of course in the fantasy/age of sigmat and 40k we would be talking about femenine and maskuline takes on the models as all the models are sexually neutral, but gender maskuline. (Sex being the genetic sex and gender being the social representation of the percieved sex.)

It is not like changes are never introduced in the setting. (Introduction of AoS, neew factions deepkind, new models withing excisting ranges. Or the 8th edition jump in 40k, factions jumping inn and out of excistence (genestealer cult) races (squats or zoats.)) Changes happens all the time, no one bats and eye.

Nobody would bat an eye if there are female models, or in the gender neutral race, femenine models.

 Hanskrampf wrote:

I hear no one complaining about only female SoB (or DoK to keep with fantasy). What if I want a Battle Brother?

This stupid argument again? Every word in that last sentence is a link to a different male model from the SoB army list.

There are also males in Daughters of Khaine, iirc.
Still, those miniatures aren't formally Sisters of Battle, are they? They just are in the SoB army, doesn't mean they are SoB.
It's like Canoptek units; they are in the necron army, they have the necron keyword, but they aren't really necrons.

 EnTyme wrote:

 Hanskrampf wrote:

I hear no one complaining about only female SoB (or DoK to keep with fantasy). What if I want a Battle Brother?

This stupid argument again? Every word in that last sentence is a link to a different male model from the SoB army list.

How is this stupid? The thread is literally about wanting to add females to a race of genderless asexual mutated fungi when there is no fluff justification at all.

 Hanskrampf wrote:

 EnTyme wrote:

 Hanskrampf wrote:

I hear no one complaining about only female SoB (or DoK to keep with fantasy). What if I want a Battle Brother?

This stupid argument again? Every word in that last sentence is a link to a different male model from the SoB army list.

How is this stupid? The thread is literally about wanting to add females to a race of genderless asexual mutated fungi when there is no fluff justification at all.

Nah, they were right. Your point was pretty silly and they were highlighting why. In fact your own argument here is exposing why your Sisters comment was ill-advised...

SISTERS of Battle, a force of highly trained human female fighters is supported by male units in the fluff, and there are plenty of ways to include or model those units in the game. There would be no real fluffy (or logical) reason to have a male human battle "sister." Trans woman, sure, knock yourself out on that one.

This of course has nothing to do with:

ORKS, a genderless race of barbaric warriors who have all sorts of bizarre physiology and fluff (including why their race adopted "hair") and could have any number of convincing reasons for having Orks who appear "female" to other races. It would have no bearing on their tactics, history, fluff, etc. It could literally be done with a hand-wave precisely because of the nature of their fluff. Gretchin, Boyz, why not Galz? It's all made up.

I agree with you that Orks don't NEED "female" minis. Just arguing from a "fluff" perspective, or using the "why not male Sisters?" argument are both foolish.

Hence my idea of beer producing squig breasts. If squigs can mimic hair they can mimic other things as well.

 exliontamer wrote:

 Hanskrampf wrote:

 EnTyme wrote:

 Hanskrampf wrote:

I hear no one complaining about only female SoB (or DoK to keep with fantasy). What if I want a Battle Brother?

This stupid argument again? Every word in that last sentence is a link to a different male model from the SoB army list.

How is this stupid? The thread is literally about wanting to add females to a race of genderless asexual mutated fungi when there is no fluff justification at all.

Nah, they were right. Your point was pretty silly and they were highlighting why. In fact your own argument here is exposing why your Sisters comment was ill-advised...

SISTERS of Battle, a force of highly trained human female fighters is supported by male units in the fluff, and there are plenty of ways to include or model those units in the game. There would be no real fluffy (or logical) reason to have a male human battle "sister." Trans woman, sure, knock yourself out on that one.

This of course has nothing to do with:

ORKS, a genderless race of barbaric warriors who have all sorts of bizarre physiology and fluff (including why their race adopted "hair") and could have any number of convincing reasons for having Orks who appear "female" to other races. It would have no bearing on their tactics, history, fluff, etc. It could literally be done with a hand-wave precisely because of the nature of their fluff. Gretchin, Boyz, why not Galz? It's all made up.

I agree with you that Orks don't NEED "female" minis. Just arguing from a "fluff" perspective, or using the "why not male Sisters?" argument are both foolish.

Yeah but why would you assume their gender just because they "looked like" females even though they don't even have sexes. Wouldn't that be offensive for multiple reasons?

Gender and sex are two slightly different things.

But I really do not understand the sisters argument. That would be like saying just because we have all male armies we do not need more male models.

And while we do have all male armies, we do not have all female armies. Sisters include things like the priests etc.

And what do sisters have to do with variation in the ork fantasy line? It is not even the same army, let alone the same game universe.

Fluff is story. Story can change. There may not be gendered Orcs in AOS currently, but there weren’t a lot of things in the source material. By which I mean the various editions of WHFB and the spin-off games.

I haven’t played WHFB since early 6th edition, and have never played a game of AOS. From my limited following, I believe the following changes have occurred...

The planet no longer exists.
Dwarves now fly, instead of living in mountains.
Elves now swim, instead of living on land.
Lizard men are now essentially Daemons of Order, or memories given form?
Black Orks are now ‘Ard boys.
Morathi is no longer an Elf, but some kind of Daemon Naga thing.
There are now more ghosts than you can shake a stick at.
Sigmar essentially created Daemons of Order in the Stormcast.
Skaven now have a god to interact with, and gain power from, rather than snorting all the warp dust?

Flat-out rewriting Orc fluff to make women Orcs seems like small potatoes by comparison. Frankly, this isn’t the era it used to be. It’s a time of inclusion and fiction keeps pace with society’s changes.

Maybe the AOS universe is advancing socially. North American social norms have changed dramatically (for the better) in the 37 years I’ve been alive. I don’t see a reason the AOS fluff can’t change to welcome those changes.

Weirdly they almost all seem both wrong and right at the same time...

@Greatbigtree I do not agree with you. While the Orks clearly lack a sex, they are all quite clearky of the male gender. If they are presented as male gendered while they have a neutral sex, then clearly they can be represented as female as well.

Isn't the Orc word for 'Orc' 'Boy'?
"Lets get 'm LADS!" and all that?
Since they already self identify as male shouldn't we be respectful of their gender choice?

In all seriousness, I don't care. I don't play orcs. Or even Orruks.
I wouldn't care if I saw them during a game because they're probably just going to be in a mass of other orc models I won't take a very close look at.
More than likely the only way I would notice is because some one would shove it in my face and be all "look at my one badly painted model! Its got bewbs!"
To which I'll gesture at my DoK army and say "I gots more bewbs than you!"

I kind of feel we don't need female Ork(c)s any more than we need female Tyranids in 40k, or female Lizardmen in Fantasy/AoS.

 AegisGrimm wrote:
I kind of feel we don't need female Ork(c)s any more than we need female Tyranids in 40k, or female Lizardmen in Fantasy/AoS.

The only reason we don't have Norn Queens is because they are too big for the table- whilst everyone (Tyranid at least) is still waiting for GW to give the Lord of War - Dominatrix model (also I'm pretty sure the harpy and tervigone are fairly female in focus and name).

 AegisGrimm wrote:
I kind of feel we don't need female Ork(c)s any more than we need female Tyranids in 40k, or female Lizardmen in Fantasy/AoS.

There are female tyranids though. They are basically birthing machines.

Hi Niiai,

I’m pro Orc women models. You may have confused me with someone else.

 Niiai wrote:
@Greatbigtree I do not agree with you. While the Orks clearly lack a sex, they are all quite clearky of the male gender. If they are presented as male gendered while they have a neutral sex, then clearly they can be represented as female as well.

What clearly defines them as the male gender?

Please note that pointing out any biological distinctions will not be referring to the sociological definition of gender.

You are applying human norms to a completely alien specie which is not even of our kingdom of life.

If theyb are not represented as masculine and male now, why do you care if they change? You can not have it both ways with your argument.

 Niiai wrote:
If theyb are not represented as masculine and male now, why do you care if they change? You can not have it both ways with your argument.

But I'm NOT caring, someone else cares. Someone else is trying to humanize a completely alien specie and I am explaining the situation. If someone wants to represent unnecessary organs on a soldier-type organism to fit their human aesthetic, that's their business. I just don't see the point to try an force human concepts and norms on an alien specie that has survived longer than humanity. But apparently someone does care about that because they want to have it represented.

However, you skipped a question, what makes an orc masculine and male?

I did not skip a question. You are trying to trap me by having them be gender neutral and masculine at the same time. In the first senwrio they are now neutral even though they are depicted in a certain way and by that logic they would stil be neutral when depicted another way. We all know this to be wrong, but you are trying to bring the logic there.

In the other senario the orks are clearly male and maskuline. This is very odd since every third post in this thread has posted then to have no sex. This points out the hypocrasy in that senario and argument.

The original poster asks wheather we can have female orks in AoS even though they are fungus, using WoW as an example of female orks that work. The two aproaches above show that either they are not male now, and thus it would not matter if they got a different form. Or they are in fact male now, and if you are gendering the non sex race there is no reason why you can not gender them female as well.

You can not have your cake and eat it to.

Do not come here and say they are humenising an entierly alien species. The tyranids are an slightly alien species. The sci-fi books by Stanislaw Lem feature entier alien species. Painting green paint, growing some big fangs and being a rip off from Tolkien is not an entier alien species. If they are so entier alien, why do the female orks work so well inn WoW and other media?

 Niiai wrote:
I did not skip a question. You are trying to trap me by having them be gender neutral and masculine at the same time. In the first senwrio they are now neutral even though they are depicted in a certain way and by that logic they would stil be neutral when depicted another way. We all know this to be wrong, but you are trying to bring the logic there.

In the other senario the orks are clearly male and maskuline. This is very odd since every third post in this thread has posted then to have no sex. This points out the hypocrasy in that senario and argument.

The original poster asks wheather we can have female orks in AoS even though they are fungus, using WoW as an example of female orks that work. The two aproaches above show that either they are not male now, and thus it would not matter if they got a different form. Or they are in fact male now, and if you are gendering the non sex race there is no reason why you can not gender them female as well.

You can not have your cake and eat it to.

Actually I am pointing out the hypocrisy about the concern of gendering a specie which has been noted to not have gender in this age where people are politicizing gender while ignoring the biological. I'm not the one calling them masculine, after all, YOU are. So the question is rather poignant and says more about you than about me.

So, TL;DR, I'm simply pointing out to you that the cake is a lie. I know there is no cake there, so I'm not even trying to eat it. I'm just pointing out the ridiculousness of trying to push a mud pie as a cake, and that is not chocolate, it is dirt mixed with water.

 Niiai wrote:
Do not come here and say they are humenising an entierly alien species. The tyranids are an slightly alien species. The sci-fi books by Stanislaw Lem feature entier alien species. Painting green paint, growing some big fangs and being a rip off from Tolkien is not an entier alien species. If they are so entier alien, why do the female orks work so well inn WoW and other media?

I can say you are humanizing a specie when:
1) They are not human.
2) They are not mammal.
3) They are not animal.

WoW orcs are animal. Since they have hair and they have noted bisexual differentiation common to mammals, I will even go so far as say they are of the mammalia class. Since they have had children with at least three other species, one hybrid actually have a successful attempt at reproduction with a human, they are easily within the same Family and could even be within the same Genus as us. I'll leave the those more familiar with animal taxonomy to determine if they are within the same Specie.

Warhammer Orcs/Orks are Fungi. That is a completely different KINGDOM than humans. That's two levels of taxonomic rank above mammal classification. They have more biology in common with the mushrooms on your pizza than with you. They are not mammals, no matter how sentient and bipedal they are. Beyond that, their culture is completely foreign based on the needs of their physiology.

So trying to put such human morphisms or genderisms in to play on such an alien specie would be humanizing them.

Alright, a thread where people are arguing for and against the existence of sexual dimorphism via an asexually reproducing fantasy race of sentient fungi is pretty bizarre even for me

 Luciferian wrote:
Alright, a thread where people are arguing for and against the existence of sexual dimorphism via an asexually reproducing fantasy race of sentient fungi is pretty bizarre even for me

NPC's are just scripted, they can't make any logical arguments.

 Charistoph wrote:

 Niiai wrote:
I did not skip a question. You are trying to trap me by having them be gender neutral and masculine at the same time. In the first senwrio they are now neutral even though they are depicted in a certain way and by that logic they would stil be neutral when depicted another way. We all know this to be wrong, but you are trying to bring the logic there.

In the other senario the orks are clearly male and maskuline. This is very odd since every third post in this thread has posted then to have no sex. This points out the hypocrasy in that senario and argument.

The original poster asks wheather we can have female orks in AoS even though they are fungus, using WoW as an example of female orks that work. The two aproaches above show that either they are not male now, and thus it would not matter if they got a different form. Or they are in fact male now, and if you are gendering the non sex race there is no reason why you can not gender them female as well.

You can not have your cake and eat it to.

Actually I am pointing out the hypocrisy about the concern of gendering a specie which has been noted to not have gender in this age where people are politicizing gender while ignoring the biological. I'm not the one calling them masculine, after all, YOU are. So the question is rather poignant and says more about you than about me.

So, TL;DR, I'm simply pointing out to you that the cake is a lie. I know there is no cake there, so I'm not even trying to eat it. I'm just pointing out the ridiculousness of trying to push a mud pie as a cake, and that is not chocolate, it is dirt mixed with water.

 Niiai wrote:
Do not come here and say they are humenising an entierly alien species. The tyranids are an slightly alien species. The sci-fi books by Stanislaw Lem feature entier alien species. Painting green paint, growing some big fangs and being a rip off from Tolkien is not an entier alien species. If they are so entier alien, why do the female orks work so well inn WoW and other media?

I can say you are humanizing a specie when:
1) They are not human.
2) They are not mammal.
3) They are not animal.

WoW orcs are animal. Since they have hair and they have noted bisexual differentiation common to mammals, I will even go so far as say they are of the mammalia class. Since they have had children with at least three other species, one hybrid actually have a successful attempt at reproduction with a human, they are easily within the same Family and could even be within the same Genus as us. I'll leave the those more familiar with animal taxonomy to determine if they are within the same Specie.

Warhammer Orcs/Orks are Fungi. That is a completely different KINGDOM than humans. That's two levels of taxonomic rank above mammal classification. They have more biology in common with the mushrooms on your pizza than with you. They are not mammals, no matter how sentient and bipedal they are. Beyond that, their culture is completely foreign based on the needs of their physiology.

So trying to put such human morphisms or genderisms in to play on such an alien specie would be humanizing them.

Yet they are clearly represented as masculine.

 Niiai wrote:
Yet they are clearly represented as masculine.

And I repeat. How? What makes them masculine in gender?

I own two Ork army books from WHFB (German version):

- Orks & Goblins (Priestly & Thornton, 2001)
- Orks & Goblins (Ward, 2006)

The fluff does not mention any Ork females and also no way in which the Orks or Goblins reproduce asexually (e.g.: fungi spores). I am not familiar, if GW changed this fluff up to this day but for the sake of the discussion let´s PRETEND that there are Ork females in the background.


OP edited.

Feminine Orks doesn't make sense though. For starters, Orks reproduce asexually which means there's no primary or secondary sex organs, so giving them boobs or wide hips is out of the question. Secondly, Orks constantly gain muscle mass, which means a slender ork would either grow out of it or get killed. Which is central to why orks are so bloody dangerous.

Biologically speaking, the main reason men and women look different (besides sex organs) is because men build muscle (and bone mass) more than women... you know... to help us fight things. So it makes sense that Orks look "masculine" because their only purpose is to fight. Any ork that isn't big and strong just dies. A large "feminine" ork wouldn't really be possible, since it'd more than likely end up looking masculine due to its size and build.

Even if we ignore all that, female orks would just look dumb imo. Doubly so if they looked anything like she-hulk.

Dandelion wrote:
Feminine Orks doesn't make sense though. For starters, Orks reproduce asexually which means there's no primary or secondary sex organs, so giving them boobs or wide hips is out of the question. Secondly, Orks constantly gain muscle mass, which means a slender ork would either grow out of it or get killed. Which is central to why orks are so bloody dangerous.

Biologically speaking, the main reason men and women look different (besides sex organs) is because men build muscle (and bone mass) more than women... you know... to help us fight things. So it makes sense that Orks look "masculine" because their only purpose is to fight. Any ork that isn't big and strong just dies. A large "feminine" ork wouldn't really be possible, since it'd more than likely end up looking masculine due to its size and build.

Even if we ignore all that, female orks would just look dumb imo. Doubly so if they looked anything like she-hulk.

Christ, have you read my prior post? Your contribution is a poorly concealed troll post. Ignored.

Um... to clarify my position, I like the idea of masculine and feminine models being on the table. When it comes to humanoids, which Orcs are, I think the increased variety is nice.

To that end, I would have no objection to reworking the fluff to accommodate the existence of women Orc warriors. I have no particular attachment to any of the fluff. To me, it is just *fluff*. Literally inconsequential to my enjoyment of the game or models.

I understand that other people take it more seriously. For me, the models and game are of primary importance. The fluff is just there to stimulate the imagination, not restrict it. So if GW releases women Orcs, or other, more dangerously seditious, women versions of models, I’m down with it.

In my case, the Orks look male as I associate their heavily muscled bodies with looking masculine, regardless of their fluffy lack of gender. So if GW released more feminine looking Orks and changed the fluff to accommodate that, I’d be happy as that increases model diversity and in my opinion helps with inclusivity, which I value.

No.

 Strg Alt wrote:
I own two Ork army books from WHFB (German version):

- Orks & Goblins (Priestly & Thornton, 2001)
- Orks & Goblins (Ward, 2006)

The fluff does not mention any Ork females and also no way in which the Orks or Goblins reproduce asexually (e.g.: fungi spores). I am not familiar, if GW changed this fluff up to this day but for the sake of the discussion let´s PRETEND that there are Ork females in the background.


OP edited.

I mean, if there are then fine I guess? But there aren't, and it wouldn't make sense that there would be, so what's the point?
You might as well say "I want more octopi men in my army of undead"
Well, ok, but since when were there octopi men, and what does that have to do with the undead?

While Fajita has made a difficult to refute point, I would also be cool with Cthulu’s Octopi Undead.

I would think that of all people, adding Cthulhu inspired undead would float your boat! At least then the aqua elves would have a reason to gtfo of the sea, and wage war on the air breathers.

I’d like Orc women for the same reason octundead would do it for me. It would be cool! Just because they haven’t existed before, doesn’t mean they shouldn’t. I disliked the stagnant background of both WHFB and 40K. I like that they’re moving forward and that new things are happening. I like change. I guess I should have played Tzeentch or something.

New faction, or an addition to an old one. New models are neat. More variety is neat. I have no personal interest in Undead armies, but I’d totally be down with playing against drowned pirates or something like that. The fluff is inspiring to me, not restrictive.

Well, yeah, it would be cool, but just because something is cool doesn't mean its a good idea.
How would you fit an octopus man in an undead army, that's primarily themed off of European horror and ghosts? Wouldn't that be thematically jarring?

"Because its cool!" isn't a a good reason for me. By that logic, we can just add all sorts of stupid gak, like 10,000 foot tall cyborgs or a Scottish Lumber jack who izuna drops giant bears for fun and shoots lightning out of his arse. Who cares if it doesn't make sense? Its kewl!
Coherency ranks higher than coolness for me.

That said, perhaps the octopus was not a good example, as I did just remember there was something called the Vampire Coast in the WHFB world, which was basically inhabited by Undead pirates. You could use that as a base for something, throw a bunch of voodoo or just rip off Pirates of the Caribbean.
So there is something of a precedent for that at least, more than female orcs anyway. It would also me more interesting; entire army of undead pirates and friends, based off of an barely developed bit of lore from WHFB, or orcs that have suddenly grown tits for reasons, that they don't even need because orcs aren't mammals.
One of these is "cooler" than the other.

 Strg Alt wrote:

Christ, have you read my prior post? Your contribution is a poorly concealed troll post. Ignored.

Someone's cranky, geez.

I am tapping out here.

The I like it how it is, or I do not like the suggestion are welcome. But there are a lot of bad arguments that have been rebutled and just gets repeated.

Good hustle. Female orks for 2020.

Ok, bye then.
And no, no female Orks for 2020. Just use greenstuff.

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:
Ok, bye then.
And no, no female Orks for 2020. Just use greenstuff.

This. I'm not opposed to having people design their own unique armies to what they personally want to see aesthetically. But to impose it over an entire faction when there's never been a precedent, art, model or fluff-wise, smacks of pandering and change for change's sake. It doesn't add anything significant and it wastes effort that should be brought to more gender variety for factions that should have it, aka the majority of the human/aelf/maybe even duardin factions.

*shrug* Without change, nothing new develops. And the entire reason I play GW games is because I thought they were cool. If I didn’t find them cool, I never would have started in the first place!

There have been so many cool things that GW have released over the years, I wouldn’t know where to begin. Stagnation is not my cup of tea.

The release of the Chaos Terminator with Reaper Autocannon got me into 40k. Without that advertisement in a White Dwarf, I may have never started playing 40k. Something new, with no previous model, started my love (mostly) of the game.

For me, something new and exciting should exist on its own merit. If the model looks cool it should be a part of the game. I think Orc women would be a cool addition. I get that other people have no interest in it. In hypothetical land, those people wouldn’t buy such models. I probably would.

 Charistoph wrote:

 Niiai wrote:
Yet they are clearly represented as masculine.

And I repeat. How? What makes them masculine in gender?

Multiple references over the years to "Gettin' kicked in the danglies'.

Still, if female Orcs are a huge need then must be people are clamoring for female Saurus and Skinks, too. Unless of course both these races are fine the way they are, with no need for sexual equality to completely change their racial back stories.

Because then we all need female Gors, Ungors, and minotaurs, too.

And female Goblins and Runtlings. Trolls?

 greatbigtree wrote:
While Fajita has made a difficult to refute point, I would also be cool with Cthulu’s Octopi Undead.

I would think that of all people, adding Cthulhu inspired undead would float your boat! At least then the aqua elves would have a reason to gtfo of the sea, and wage war on the air breathers.

I’d like Orc women for the same reason octundead would do it for me. It would be cool! Just because they haven’t existed before, doesn’t mean they shouldn’t. I disliked the stagnant background of both WHFB and 40K. I like that they’re moving forward and that new things are happening. I like change. I guess I should have played Tzeentch or something.

New faction, or an addition to an old one. New models are neat. More variety is neat. I have no personal interest in Undead armies, but I’d totally be down with playing against drowned pirates or something like that. The fluff is inspiring to me, not restrictive.

My "no" was meant for female orcs, not anything about the undead. Orcs in the fluff are made from like fungus or something and don't reproduce so the concept of gender for them is meaningless. They're not male or female, they're just orcs or orks.

Now I'm totally in favor of female human or eldar or even tau models and I don't want them proportioned like Playmate comic book characters either. I'd be totally in favor of female models with realistic proportions to add variety to units like IG or something. Just not orcs or orks. Waaaagh.

Female guard, human soldiers, elves and Eldar etc. just make sense. They fit thematically with those factions because the focus of those factions is on something other than brute physicality, whether that be innumerable ranks of troops, agility, or what have you. Factions like Orc(k)s and Space Marines, on the other hand, are supposed to be representative of the pinnacle of athleticism, strength and martial prowess, and those are just simply masculine traits. Orcs don't even have a sex, yet they are perceived as masculine for just that reason. Female Orcs would also have to portray those masculine traits rather than being representative of the feminine. In real life, women just can't compete with men on a physical level. That's not a political statement, it's biological reality. There's a reason professional sports are divided by gender, and it's not discrimination. It's because no one wants to watch Serena Williams get beat by the 100th best male tennis player or Rhonda Rousey lose in the first round to a male MMA fighter. There's nothing wrong with Serena Williams or Rhonda Rousey, they just don't have the same body structure that their male counterparts do and they never will, even if you put them on steroids. It's pure physics. No amount of social constructivism is ever going to make that reality or the stereotypes it engenders go away, any more than decrying gravity will give humans the power of unassisted flight.

That being said, I wouldn't be against the idea of female Orcs or whatever if they embodied the same traditionally masculine traits that Orcs do, but at that point you have to ask what the point is. Giving women a way to identify with orcs is a bad answer. Humans are not like Orcs, but human women even less so. Your average woman isn't going to identify with green-skinned football hooligans who live to eat squigs and chop stuff with improvised axes. Giving Orcs identifiable sex organs isn't going to change that, because people are more than their private bits. Most female gamers I know play factions that are the hardest to identify with in a human way, such as Tyranid or Death, because xenomorphs and skellies are what they find cool as individuals, not because they can point to reproductive organs on a model and proudly proclaim they are operating with the same equipment. Putting tits on a platypus and expecting a woman to suddenly identify with marsupials is frankly ludicrous and somewhat insulting. It's like patting them on the head and congratulating them for doing such a great job of being born female. See, we put tits on a platypus to show you how proud and accepting of you we are because you have tits!

Aesthetic variation would be a good answer if variation from brute physicality didn't inherently violate the aesthetic themes and principles that Orcs are based on in the first place. Again, you could simply give your typically muscle-bound Orc visible cleavage and call it a day, but is there really a demand for that? I don't exactly have hard evidence but I doubt that most people who are attracted to a stereotypically masculine faction have a yearning to make that faction more feminine just because. And I presume that includes a majority of female Orc players.

Besides, can you imagine the offense that would be caused by stereotypically masculine Orcs aping female traits like some thoughtless parody of drag culture? Just because you have good intentions doesn't mean your actions won't cause injury to someone, and it doesn't guarantee results. That's why "just because" is a perfectly valid reason for your own models, but not for someone else's creative property or business.

If you have heard the call of the WAAAAAGH it's becus you wanta git stuck in wit da BOYZ! Don't deprive yourself of that privilege, nor any female gamer who wants to do exactly the same!

CthuluIsSpy wrote:That said, perhaps the octopus was not a good example, as I did just remember there was something called the Vampire Coast in the WHFB world, which was basically inhabited by Undead pirates. You could use that as a base for something, throw a bunch of voodoo or just rip off Pirates of the Caribbean.
So there is something of a precedent for that at least, more than female orcs anyway. It would also me more interesting; entire army of undead pirates and friends, based off of an barely developed bit of lore from WHFB, or orcs that have suddenly grown tits for reasons, that they don't even need because orcs aren't mammals.

Total Warhammer 2 just released DLC on those guys, actually.

AegisGrimm wrote:

 Charistoph wrote:

 Niiai wrote:
Yet they are clearly represented as masculine.

And I repeat. How? What makes them masculine in gender?

Multiple references over the years to "Gettin' kicked in the danglies'.

So how is that masculine for such an alien specie? Just because it is masculine for humans doesn't mean it is masculine for orcs.

If anything, we've seen orks adapt due to their experiences on the battlefield, and GW has done little to dissuade us as this is a factor for the Greenskins of Old World/Sigmar.

In all seriousness, in order to properly define a feminine, you have to determine a masculine. How do you determine a male dog, a male ant, or a male mushroom? Not all such distinguishing features are representable on everything. Heck, for all we know what we see on the Greenskins IS the feminine features for their race.

 Charistoph wrote:

AegisGrimm wrote:

 Charistoph wrote:

 Niiai wrote:
Yet they are clearly represented as masculine.

And I repeat. How? What makes them masculine in gender?

Multiple references over the years to "Gettin' kicked in the danglies'.

So how is that masculine for such an alien specie? Just because it is masculine for humans doesn't mean it is masculine for orcs.

I'm pretty sure Niiai means "masculine for us humans". Orks do indeed have masculine traits, as we humans understand the concept.

In all seriousness, in order to properly define a feminine, you have to determine a masculine. How do you determine a male dog, a male ant, or a male mushroom? Not all such distinguishing features are representable on everything. Heck, for all we know what we see on the Greenskins IS the feminine features for their race.

Because unless your a breeders, the gender of any of those would matter not. Having female orcs is like taking females to hooligan brawls. It wouldn't make sense.

So how is that masculine for such an alien specie? Just because it is masculine for humans doesn't mean it is masculine for orcs.

Face, muscle mass of the upper body, no female orcs in the lore or at least not in the one I could find. That is enough.

If anything, we've seen orks adapt due to their experiences on the battlefield, and GW has done little to dissuade us as this is a factor for the Greenskins of Old World/Sigmar.

Am not sure how that should help the argument in favour of female orcs. In brawl situations among bi peds males have most of the adventages. A group orcs that would for some reason turn in to females, or even become less male, would just be picked off by those orcs who stayed man.

Grey Templar wrote:

 Charistoph wrote:

AegisGrimm wrote:

 Charistoph wrote:

 Niiai wrote:
Yet they are clearly represented as masculine.

And I repeat. How? What makes them masculine in gender?

Multiple references over the years to "Gettin' kicked in the danglies'.

So how is that masculine for such an alien specie? Just because it is masculine for humans doesn't mean it is masculine for orcs.

I'm pretty sure Niiai means "masculine for us humans". Orks do indeed have masculine traits, as we humans understand the concept.

As we understand the concept FOR HUMANS. Orks aren't human. Warhammer Orks aren't even animals. So you are humanizing an alien species and expect them to have the same standards as we do. Keep in mind, that even in the mammal class, we don't all have the same sexual dimorphisms, and that's assuming you're actually speaking of sexual traits as opposed to social gendering which is an entirely different subject. If an asexual being has dangly spore positers, how does that make it masculine?

And even then, you're not really answering the question.

Karol wrote:

In all seriousness, in order to properly define a feminine, you have to determine a masculine. How do you determine a male dog, a male ant, or a male mushroom? Not all such distinguishing features are representable on everything. Heck, for all we know what we see on the Greenskins IS the feminine features for their race.

Because unless your a breeders, the gender of any of those would matter not. Having female orcs is like taking females to hooligan brawls. It wouldn't make sense.

It really depends on the female. Some of those ladies be crazy.

Breeders indicates either a morphism of totally dedicated generation, closer to an insect queen, or part of a sexual grouping dedicated for production. Males can be breeders as much as males. In fact, many prize male race horses become breeders. It is part of that whole "put out to pasture" concept. Don't even get me started on how much breeding soldiers do while away from home, either.

I think you're confusing breeder with brooder. Now, in the mammalian class, females tend to be brooders, but we have examples in the animal kingdom where the males tend to be the brooders. They provide the sperm, and then watch the kids while mommy goes off and does her thing. Only problem being that aside from a primitive intellect, we have every indication that Orcs aren't even animals, so until we have information as such, we can't use any animal standard to make such judgements on.

Orks don't breed, they release spores while aroused for combat. GW has given indications that the Sigmar Orcs are little different.

Karol wrote:

So how is that masculine for such an alien specie? Just because it is masculine for humans doesn't mean it is masculine for orcs.

Face, muscle mass of the upper body, no female orcs in the lore or at least not in the one I could find. That is enough.

So, you're applying human concepts to an alien specie. Just because no orc has been observed with human female sex characteristics does not necessarily indicate that all we see are masculine. 99% of the ants you see will be sterile females. Did you assume that you were stepping on a bunch of boyz when you trod on an ant hill?

Not to mention, someone was speaking of "gender" of which is supposed to be sociological, and it is those characteristics I was requesting.

Karol wrote:

If anything, we've seen orks adapt due to their experiences on the battlefield, and GW has done little to dissuade us as this is a factor for the Greenskins of Old World/Sigmar.

Am not sure how that should help the argument in favour of female orcs. In brawl situations among bi peds males have most of the adventages. A group orcs that would for some reason turn in to females, or even become less male, would just be picked off by those orcs who stayed man.

Actually I was referring to the comment of "the danglies". Most of what Orcs tend to face are masculine, so their speech would match a male soldiers' speech. That's assuming that their asexual spore-positor isn't a dangly under their loin cloths. It would be interesting to see how a colony of orcs would develop if they only faced amazons or adeptus sororitas and if their language would match them.

Also I tend to think that in 40k, at least, Orks are bioweapons who have more in common to asexually reproducing clones, rather than a normal mixed gender race.

As Orcs/Orruks have been given the same reproductive style as Orks, the point still stands that they, more than any other of the stranger races, are seperate from the normal biological process. It would be more of an argument to say we should have more female Chaos Warriors. The two Darkoath figures are sort of in the right direction as they are followers of Chaos, though they are more like Chaos Marauders. I mean actual armored Warriors, similar to female Stormcast.

Okay, I had to make an account just to point this out, Orruks are NOT ORKS. Or even orcs. All of old world blew up, taking physical bodies of everyone and everything save some gods and heroes with it.

That means Orruks are not physical continuation of Orks/orcs and are not bound by their limitations. They sprung from whatever magic/aether also created aelves, duardin and humans, they are not Old Ones' creations.

As such, there is absolutely no reason not to have female orruks. GW to my knowledge left how different monstrous species (orruks, beastmen etc.) vague. I'll be of course happy to be proven wrong, just tell me in which battletome are orruks described as genderless fungoids.

They’ll always be orcs to me.

 Cronch wrote:
Okay, I had to make an account just to point this out, Orruks are NOT ORKS. Or even orcs. All of old world blew up, taking physical bodies of everyone and everything save some gods and heroes with it.

That means Orruks are not physical continuation of Orks/orcs and are not bound by their limitations. They sprung from whatever magic/aether also created aelves, duardin and humans, they are not Old Ones' creations.

As such, there is absolutely no reason not to have female orruks. GW to my knowledge left how different monstrous species (orruks, beastmen etc.) vague. I'll be of course happy to be proven wrong, just tell me in which battletome are orruks described as genderless fungoids.

So that means Freeguilds procreate through cellular mitosis now?

As we have both female and male humans, no. Same with aelves and duardin. However, there is no information regarding orruks, and orruks are not orks, so we do not know how they breed. As such, there is no pre-existing canon to claim they don't have sexes or are fungi.

 Cronch wrote:
As we have both female and male humans, no. Same with aelves and duardin. However, there is no information regarding orruks, and orruks are not orks, so we do not know how they breed. As such, there is no pre-existing canon to claim they don't have sexes or are fungi.

Do you have evidence they aren't the Orks of 40K or Orcs of the Old World? Name change means little if they sprang from the same place.

From my understanding, the new Realms were based off of the Old World, so naturally it would include the bestiary from it, including those dangerous ogres and orcs given names that are similar to the ones their races had on a world long past.

There is no physical continuity between the old world and Mortal Realms. A few heroes managed to escape via magic/chaos intervention, but that is it. The creatures of Mortal Realms are not descendants of Old World creatures, they just look the same because GW had models existing they wanted to use. Orruks are not Orcs, because no Orcs survived the Old World destruction. Just like Aelves are not children of Elves, they are reincarnated souls of elves that weren't eaten by Slaanesh.

Yes, the models and some aspects are based on the existing ones, but they are not 1:1 copies in lore. We were not given any information how orruks breed, and to assume they are the same species with no direct lore source to claim so is just wishful thinking. You can't transfer Old World lore to Mortal Realms, because they are not the same thing. As of right now, in the lore written for Mortal Realms, there is no reason that I know of to not have female orruks.

 Cronch wrote:
There is no physical continuity between the old world and Mortal Realms. A few heroes managed to escape via magic/chaos intervention, but that is it. The creatures of Mortal Realms are not descendants of Old World creatures, they just look the same because GW had models existing they wanted to use. Orruks are not Orcs, because no Orcs survived the Old World destruction. Just like Aelves are not children of Elves, they are reincarnated souls of elves that weren't eaten by Slaanesh.

Yes, the models and some aspects are based on the existing ones, but they are not 1:1 copies in lore. We were not given any information how orruks breed, and to assume they are the same species with no direct lore source to claim so is just wishful thinking. You can't transfer Old World lore to Mortal Realms, because they are not the same thing. As of right now, in the lore written for Mortal Realms, there is no reason that I know of to not have female orruks.

They aren't the same because thousands of years have passed between them and one was quite literally formed from the core of the other. Everything that grew on them was based off of Sigmar's memories of the Old World and whatever new things he thought up. Then there are the things which came in later like the Saurus, the Skaven, and the Daemons.

And again the question is asked, do you have evidence that Orruks are not Orcs with a new name? Just stating they are not is not evidence. What in the lore describes the Orruks coming from somewhere or something other than the Old World or Space?

I wouldn't like orc females.

Ogre females, on the other hand? As a rabid Ogre fan and collector I would love for ogre females.

Don't sexualize then, make them just like this wow ogre female fanart:

Cronch wrote:
As we have both female and male humans, no.

Are they though? Maybe they're just 'remembering' being male or female. We have no information in regards to how they really procreate, do we? No.

There is a female Ogre model.

I know, but that model is more a "Joke" model like the orc cheerleaders than a proper model. And is very old. I want new female ogre models.

 Galas wrote:
I know, but that model is more a "Joke" model like the orc cheerleaders than a proper model. And is very old. I want new female ogre models.

Not a joke model. It was one of the official maneater models.

I haven't read all the responses, sorry. But don't orks spawn from spores (maybe Im mixing 40k and Fantasy/AoS)? they are not even androgynous, they take on the most beneficial characteristics to be dominate (that would inherently lead them to be more masculine in characteristics, e.g. they don't need breasts because they don't need to feed infants, so want pure muscle. They don't need to have pronounced hips because they don't give birth etc etc.

Spectral Ceramite wrote:
I haven't read all the responses, sorry. But don't orks spawn from spores (maybe Im mixing 40k and Fantasy/AoS)? they are not even androgynous, they take on the most beneficial characteristics to be dominate (that would inherently lead them to be more masculine in characteristics, e.g. they don't need breasts because they don't need to feed infants, so want pure muscle. They don't need to have pronounced hips because they don't give birth etc etc.

Except they do?
In WHFB 7th ed it explicitly states that they come from spores, and even prior to that there were some hints, as they had a certain affinity for fungus.
In 40k Orks clearly spawn from spores.

Edit : Bah, I misread it. Yeah, they spawn from spores.

Okay some of you all have really strong feelings on an odd topic. The units in the newest orc books all have models so you probably won’t see female orcs any time soon. I’m not interested in having them as I’d rather resourcea be spent on other projects.

Having female human models make sense as those other ranges expand but I don’t think you’re going to see much expansions of races like orcs and ogres. If they do it I’m not going to write an angry letter but I have no interest in female orcs nor do I see women joining the hobby because of it. I don’t really see the advantage financially or logically and I doubt GW does either.

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:

Spectral Ceramite wrote:
I haven't read all the responses, sorry. But don't orks spawn from spores (maybe Im mixing 40k and Fantasy/AoS)? they are not even androgynous, they take on the most beneficial characteristics to be dominate (that would inherently lead them to be more masculine in characteristics, e.g. they don't need breasts because they don't need to feed infants, so want pure muscle. They don't need to have pronounced hips because they don't give birth etc etc.

Except they do?
In WHFB 7th ed it explicitly states that they come from spores, and even prior to that there were some hints, as they had a certain affinity for fungus.
In 40k Orks clearly spawn from spores.

Then they are like lichen and fungi, and have like sex types going in to tens of thousands, making the question of why some don't look like orc versions of human females moot, at least in my opinion.

Question about WFB though, where there ever half orcs or hobgoblins in WFB, they don't seem to be any in AoS. Not that I couldn't have mixed them of course.

Half orcs, no. I think Hobgolbins were mentioned as being a variant of greenskin, but that was a while ago. I think they mentioned it in one of the 6th ed books?

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:
Half orcs, no. I think Hobgolbins were mentioned as being a variant of greenskin, but that was a while ago. I think they mentioned it in one of the 6th ed books?

Hobgoblins are (were?) a Chaos Dwarf unit.

 Ghaz wrote:

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:
Half orcs, no. I think Hobgolbins were mentioned as being a variant of greenskin, but that was a while ago. I think they mentioned it in one of the 6th ed books?

Hobgoblins are (were?) a Chaos Dwarf unit.

Probably. That does sound vaguely familiar.

Ah, there's an article on them

https://warhammerfantasy.fandom.com/wiki/Hobgoblin

It seems that they are from the East, which is why you don't hear much of them. Most of the old Warhammer world was focused on the West.
I mean, they could have shifted the focus Eastwards instead of blowing the world up, but that would have been hard.

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:
Half orcs, no. I think Hobgolbins were mentioned as being a variant of greenskin, but that was a while ago. I think they mentioned it in one of the 6th ed books?

Ok, I just noticed that the hobgoblins of british/germanic culture come to existance in a drasticly different way then slavic ones do. I retract my question. Because our hobgoblins can very much be male or female humanoid. But then again they can also be male or female horse or cow, British hobgoblins seem to be a lot more peaceful.

Thanks for the link to the articles though, a ton of very interesting stuff.It is kind of a sad it no longer a thing anymore.

In my opinion, any wargame in which there are dimorphic species should have models of the morphs. If not, one has to provide a very good excuse for that state of being. If there are Orc females in fantasy and they look different then their males, then there should be models for them. If the entire race is hermaphrodite like the Ork of 40K, then it should be explained so. If males and females are nearly identical beside the difference in genitals then its also useless to make models of both sex. For human and other similar races and faction, there should be models of men and women and if not one has to provide a good reason it. At least, they can provide us with unisex models like a person in a full plate armor for example that could either be a man or woman if they don't want to waste money on different customisations.

I never cease to be amazed at the topics which end up in multi-page debates.

Anyone know where to find some correct scale Smurf models or heads? I think I need to make an Ork list now.

epronovost wrote:
In my opinion, any wargame in which there are dimorphic species should have models of the morphs. If not, one has to provide a very good excuse for that state of being. If there are Orc females in fantasy and they look different then their males, then there should be models for them. If the entire race is hermaphrodite like the Ork of 40K, then it should be explained so. If males and females are nearly identical beside the difference in genitals then its also useless to make models of both sex. For human and other similar races and faction, there should be models of men and women and if not one has to provide a good reason it. At least, they can provide us with unisex models like a person in a full plate armor for example that could either be a man or woman if they don't want to waste money on different customisations.

To be fair, it's not hard to come up with a reason one sex might not be on the line with a sexually dimorphic species if one of the sexes is clearly not as fit for combat due to being smaller, weaker (or even obviously too large and slow etc.)

Sexual dimorphism by definition means that there are differences in biology and/or behavior beyond simply having different reproductive organs. For humans, that means the average male and female differ significantly in terms of skeletal structure, muscle mass and size, which pretty much sums up why you wouldn't have seen human females fairing too well on a medieval battlefield. So it might be unpopular in today's climate of gender parity but it would be more realistic not to feature both sexes for armies that rely on size and strength. We are talking about fantasy, however. The problem is balancing having a race where there are clearly different sexes with markedly different physical characteristics and still making them interchangeable (i.e. it's hard to do unisex and have clearly different sexes at the same time).

epronovost wrote:
In my opinion, any wargame in which there are dimorphic species should have models of the morphs. If not, one has to provide a very good excuse for that state of being. If there are Orc females in fantasy and they look different then their males, then there should be models for them. If the entire race is hermaphrodite like the Ork of 40K, then it should be explained so. If males and females are nearly identical beside the difference in genitals then its also useless to make models of both sex. For human and other similar races and faction, there should be models of men and women and if not one has to provide a good reason it. At least, they can provide us with unisex models like a person in a full plate armor for example that could either be a man or woman if they don't want to waste money on different customisations.

I think I summed this up on the previous page. They are not hermaphrodites because they come from spores they don't need sex organs. It is explained in 40k many many times.

Spectral Ceramite wrote:
I haven't read all the responses, sorry. But don't orks spawn from spores (maybe Im mixing 40k and Fantasy/AoS)? they are not even androgynous, they take on the most beneficial characteristics to be dominate (that would inherently lead them to be more masculine in characteristics, e.g. they don't need breasts because they don't need to feed infants, so want pure muscle. They don't need to have pronounced hips because they don't give birth etc etc.

EDIT: I want Imperial Guard female models, I want tau female models (for 40k) etc etc. I want some beastmen female models etc as well, I want more diversity in ranges of models that can or do encompass a faction that could have female models/units. Just Orks I don't think qualify.

 Luciferian wrote:

Sexual dimorphism by definition means that there are differences in biology and/or behavior beyond simply having different reproductive organs. For humans, that means the average male and female differ significantly in terms of skeletal structure, muscle mass and size, which pretty much sums up why you wouldn't have seen human females fairing too well on a medieval battlefield.

While not a common sight on a medieval battlefield in western europe, neither were women exactly. About 10% of the Russ and Viking troops were made of women, a bit less for Mongolians, Japanese and Turks. The same goes for early medieval Celts. For those who were present on the battlefield, they seemed to have faired about as well as their males counterpart probably thanks to the fact that warfare isn't athletism. The prevalence of size and strength isn't as important as one might think compared to factors like moral, discipline, tactics, strategy, equipment, training, battle experience, skill, team work, weather and more. Plus, when it comes to gender dimorphism amongst humans, or really any humanoid race based on the same proportion than humans, the overlap is massive so the idea that a woman can match in strength and size even an very athletic man, let alone an average one isn't surprising. If, hypotheticaly, I was to make an army that would recruit only the top 0.1% of the strongest people on Earth, I would still have a few women in my army (about 10% of it actually). Even in an army that exalt physical might above everything else, women, or the weaker sex should it be men in that specie, could still have a presence.

The problem is balancing having a race where there are clearly different sexes with markedly different physical characteristics and still making them interchangeable (i.e. it's hard to do unisex and have clearly different sexes at the same time).

Unisex isn't that hard considering the reduce scale of models and things like a fullplate armors. I don't think anybody can seriously make the difference between men and women when both are in fullplates and seen from about 60 meters away. For other species, dimorphism might be linked to things more like color patterns or horns/hairs or size of the fangs or breats more than actual size and strength which might very well be equal or not statisticaly insignificant. Its not easy to make believable unisex troops when they aren't fully armored or clothed, but I don't think its such an obstacle, especially not with things like beastmen for example.

While not a common sight on a medieval battlefield in western europe, neither were women exactly. About 10% of the Russ and Viking troops were made of women, a bit less for Mongolians, Japanese and Turks. The same goes for early medieval Celts. For those who were present on the battlefield, they seemed to have faired about as well as their males counterpart probably thanks to the fact that warfare isn't athletism. The prevalence of size and strength isn't as important as one might think compared to factors like moral, discipline, tactics, strategy, equipment, training, battle experience, skill, team work, weather and more. Plus, when it comes to gender dimorphism amongst humans, or really any humanoid race based on the same proportion than humans, the overlap is massive so the idea that a woman can match in strength and size even an very athletic man, let alone an average one isn't surprising. If, hypotheticaly, I was to make an army that would recruit only the top 0.1% of the strongest people on Earth, I would still have a few women in my army (about 10% of it actually). Even in an army that exalt physical might above everything else, women, or the weaker sex should it be men in that specie, could still have a presence.

Oh I read those type of data. Some even fo as far as 1/3 of armies being female durning the 30 year war. The thing is, just because you are on the pay list and in the camp durning battle doesn't mean your the same as line infantry. We and the austro hungerians had 3 centuries of war vs the turks, if every 10th of their soldier was female we would have noticed. Same with mongols or vikings. You guys take burial data and just because someone was burried with a weapon, you claim they were a warrior. When the bone structure damage, or rather lack of it doesn't sugest that at all. In japan in the sengoku period, and before it, women were trained to use pole arms. But there were no female units or mass female conscription, there are no female budoka found. There are some Joan dArc type of female warriors in the literature create after the sengoku wars ended, but even there female "warriors" are rare.
The part of women catching up to man as strengh goes, is even more ludacris. I go to a sports school, I have seen female wrestling coachs taken in to submission by 2ed year highschool boys. No amount of training or discipline, can override someone being juiced up on natural testosteron all their life.
Yes there are those stories about female taking up arms and armor, and butchering unarmored and unarmed peasents trying to breach a town hall. Probablly every transition period nation has such stories. But if you put 50 armored man against 40 armored man and women, the second units formation will crumble faster. Even stuff like injuries work "better" with man.
If any AoS fantasy species has the same strenght to body mass to bone density ratio as human do, and the same spread of stats over the whole population, you would never want to have females in your army. Barring magic making up for it, but then the magic would have to work on females only. Because man with the same type of magic would again, be better suited for a warrior role.

Unisex isn't that hard considering the reduce scale of models and things like a fullplate armors. I don't think anybody can seriously make the difference between men and women when both are in fullplates and seen from about 60 meters away.

now considering we don't have examples of females of some of the races it is hard to judge, but as far as humans do. You would recognise a female soldider in armor at first glance. They are the ones that carry less weapons, less ammo, have smaller frame and lighter armor. Maybe if you had some sort of light cavalery in chain mail armor, not armed with spears, because pole arms favor man, then it would be harder to spot the females. But even among step folk like the huns, monogol, tatars or turks those type of units weren't the most popular, and those nations did not use females as line soldiers, or any soldiers if we were to believe the sources and archeolgical data.

Yeah, 10% sounds really high.
Graves are not an accurate way of determining if someone was a soldier, as swords were status symbols as well as weapons. A wealthy Viking woman would have owned a sword, even if she never actually used it.
Apparently there wasn't much good iron in Scandinavia, so a well made steel sword was basically the equivalent of a gold necklace.

There's not much historical evidence of shieldmaidens either. Keep in mind that Saga's are not primary historical accounts, and are subject to embellishments. Unless you mean to tell me that a wolf is going to eat the sun.

Also, the idea that athleticism wasn't a big factor in medieval warfare is laughable.
You need to be fit and strong in order to move in armor, fight for extended periods of time, and actually swing your weapon with enough force to actually hurt your opponent.
Despite what video games would tell you, bows are not a dex weapon and require quite a bit of upper body strength to wield.

Onna Busheiga, or warrior women, did exist in Japan as a well trained fighting force and are probably the most well documented case of such a unit. Even then they were relatively rare and most of them were left at home to protect the household from enemies.
Joan of Arc, despite the legend, never actually fought or killed anyone. Oh, she led charges and certainly commanded her forces, but she never actually fought. She said herself that her rule was more leadership than combat

“Better, forty times better, my banner than my sword!” – Joan of Arc

epronovost wrote:
While not a common sight on a medieval battlefield in western europe, neither were women exactly. About 10% of the Russ and Viking troops were made of women, a bit less for Mongolians, Japanese and Turks. The same goes for early medieval Celts. For those who were present on the battlefield, they seemed to have faired about as well as their males counterpart probably thanks to the fact that warfare isn't athletism. The prevalence of size and strength isn't as important as one might think compared to factors like moral, discipline, tactics, strategy, equipment, training, battle experience, skill, team work, weather and more. Plus, when it comes to gender dimorphism amongst humans, or really any humanoid race based on the same proportion than humans, the overlap is massive so the idea that a woman can match in strength and size even an very athletic man, let alone an average one isn't surprising. If, hypotheticaly, I was to make an army that would recruit only the top 0.1% of the strongest people on Earth, I would still have a few women in my army (about 10% of it actually). Even in an army that exalt physical might above everything else, women, or the weaker sex should it be men in that specie, could still have a presence.

It REALLY depends on the time frame you're talking about, but athleticism does have a decent factor in warfare, otherwise the concept of 4F and the story of Captain America would have no meaning, and that's in a time when body armor wasn't a thing. A man and a woman with the same level of training will see the man dominate in athletic endeavors. That's why men and women sports are separated in the Olympics. Just check out the records in such events and you'll see a significant difference. Now, that doesn't mean a woman can't beat a man in an athletic endeavor, it just either requires a vast difference in training or where one's intelligence matters as much as strength, such as certain martial art sports. I'll freely admit that a trained woman would probably kick my arse up and down the field in any athletic endeavor.

And then there are efforts to down-grade requirements for roles in military and para-military roles so that women can more easily enter. Many of those requirements are there for a reason. When you need to drag a fellow soldier in to cover with all of his gear, that requires a certain level of athleticism. When you're packing full gear across a 10 mile hike at a decent pace, that requires a certain level of athleticism. While I might be able to handle the one (being heavy builds its own strength), the latter I couldn't even consider at my best, which is why I never joined.

TL;DR, any effective human woman in the military would be an outlier, not a standard. Even more so at a time when women usually bred themselves to death to increase the chance that someone would survive to have another generation. But that's for humans and other species operate on COMPLETELY different standards.

Karol wrote:

Oh I read those type of data. Some even fo as far as 1/3 of armies being female durning the 30 year war. The thing is, just because you are on the pay list and in the camp durning battle doesn't mean your the same as line infantry. We and the austro hungerians had 3 centuries of war vs the turks, if every 10th of their soldier was female we would have noticed. Same with mongols or vikings. You guys take burial data and just because someone was burried with a weapon, you claim they were a warrior. When the bone structure damage, or rather lack of it doesn't sugest that at all. In japan in the sengoku period, and before it, women were trained to use pole arms. But there were no female units or mass female conscription, there are no female budoka found. There are some Joan dArc type of female warriors in the literature create after the sengoku wars ended, but even there female "warriors" are rare.

I should note that the 10% estimate isn't from grave objects (it would rise to about 30% in that case or even more in some cases), but from casualty reports of Russ people by Byzantine historians who did found hundreds of women cadavres in armors and weapons after the battle ended (Saxo Grammaticus also made similar observations about the Danes). For the Turks, I must mention it was a feature of early medieval Turks before they arrived in Europe proper and before they converted to Islam. After their conversion, and their spectacular growth, the need for female warriors abated (much like the need for lower class male Turks), largely replaced by conscript of vassal nations. There is a lot of documentation on women participating in combat, most often during sieges where if you could stand you could fight and the traditional few exception brought by women raised in military family without living brothers who made war their trade as to preserve the family tradition. Young teenagers (14-15 years old) were also not all that rare, especially as scouts, messengers, sappers and skirmishers (roles that were also frequentely given to women in addition to cooks, spies and nurses).

The part of women catching up to man as strengh goes, is even more ludacris. I go to a sports school, I have seen female wrestling coachs taken in to submission by 2ed year highschool boys. No amount of training or discipline, can override someone being juiced up on natural testosteron all their life.

I am a teacher in a sport highschool and I have seen a terminal female student submit her male teacher in a wrestling match. I have also seen many girl outperform boys in judo. These are only annecdotes. I have seen boys outperfrom girls and indeed, I have also seen a boy beat his female teacher in a wresting match. Annecdotes are rather insignificant since you can fin an enormous quantity if divergeant ones. While statistically speaking men are indeed larger and stronger then women, but that doesn't mean that all men are stronger then all women or even that women are all weak. In fact, if you take everything into account there are about 5 to 10 thousand men in the world who can reasonnably pretend to be stronger than all women (that's if we use olympic weight lifting statistics as a barometer). For the rest of us, there is at least one woman who can overpower us with more or less ease. That's just a reality of things.



Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Charistoph wrote:
TL;DR, any effective human woman in the military would be an outlier, not a standard. Even more so at a time when women usually bred themselves to death to increase the chance that someone would survive to have another generation. But that's for humans and other species operate on COMPLETELY different standards.

10% is within the outlier realm. That's not a lot. Plus in most of those civilisation that used women as soldiers in such proportion, the choice wasn't men vs women, but more only men or men and women. In war, number is its own quality. Most of those civilisations had scarce resources and lived in a state of nearly constant warfare. If it wasn't for the need to have a lot of children, there would probably have been far more women then a 10% (at most) I would say. That's why in desperate situation, women on the battlefield become much more common and give, in general, a good account of themselves when compared to their conterpart conscripted men. Sadly, children also suffer a similar fate. While most civilisation would not wilingly send men younger than 16 on the battlefield, there were time were they had too, but that's another thing. I think fantasy could do with a few model of children like a drummer boy, sappers or brigands. It might be something GW might want to investigate for their special anniversary models for example.

epronovost wrote:

 Charistoph wrote:
TL;DR, any effective human woman in the military would be an outlier, not a standard. Even more so at a time when women usually bred themselves to death to increase the chance that someone would survive to have another generation. But that's for humans and other species operate on COMPLETELY different standards.

10% is within the outlier realm. That's not a lot. Plus in most of those civilisation that used women as soldiers in such proportion, the choice wasn't men vs women, but more only men or men and women. In war, number is its own quality. Most of those civilisations had scarce resources and lived in a state of nearly constant warfare. If it wasn't for the need to have a lot of children, there would probably have been far more women then a 10% (at most) I would say. That's why in desperate situation, women on the battlefield become much more common and give, in general, a good account of themselves when compared to their conterpart conscripted men. Sadly, children also suffer a similar fate. While most civilisation would not wilingly send men younger than 16 on the battlefield, there were time were they had too, but that's another thing. I think fantasy could do with a few model of children like a drummer boy, sappers or brigands. It might be something GW might want to investigate for their special anniversary models for example.

Few civilizations before the last couple of centuries knew true "constant warfare". Combat operations were limited to certain times of the year because your numerous combat personnel were often as not your food growers, too, especially in the desperate times. Troop movement is extremely reliant on their stomachs, and you need to be able to feed your troops. Scavenging was a common practice in enemy territory as it deprived them of resources, too, but it was rarely useful in a case where you were going to be in a constant state of warfare we can truly commit to in our day.

Add on to the fact that women tended to be gravid more often than not, and it would only be a case of fending off immediate genocide when such women would be on the battlefield. That really sees that possible number drop below that 10% to maybe a handful in a legion, and they would mostly be hiding the fact so they didn't end up being raped.

 Charistoph wrote:

Few civilizations before the last couple of centuries knew true "constant warfare". Combat operations were limited to certain times of the year because your numerous combat personnel were often as not your food growers, too, especially in the desperate times. Troop movement is extremely reliant on their stomachs, and you need to be able to feed your troops. Scavenging was a common practice in enemy territory as it deprived them of resources, too, but it was rarely useful in a case where you were going to be in a constant state of warfare we can truly commit to in our day.

Add on to the fact that women tended to be gravid more often than not, and it would only be a case of fending off immediate genocide when such women would be on the battlefield. That really sees that possible number drop below that 10% to maybe a handful in a legion, and they would mostly be hiding the fact so they didn't end up being raped.

You are correct to a point, but war needs not be a large business on a large battlefield. Most of the early Medieval and Antique wars were conflicts between a few hundred individuals opposing two clans in conflict. It's true that women's percentage in an army would vary. At some point, especially in times of prosperity and peace, they would be almost completely gone. It could also rise well above 10% in some region under certain circomstances. To name only one, there was a case when a Welsh castle was assaulted by English forces and it was defended by almost exclusively by women since the men were either sick, dead, old or searching for the English forces at the wrong place (the English were forced to retreat btw), but these are exceptional situations. Most women who fought in armies of the Middle-Age and Antiquity did so openly. Most these culture and nation had very little to no objection to women doing such a thing. It wasn't a taboo. While some might have done it in disguise like it would happen more or less often in the following centuries, we have, to my knowledge no such story reported to us from this time period which is sort of the point. Nobody was supposed to know they were women in the first place. As for the idea of rape, that was a problem no matter the gender and the reason why those gravid of prostitutes, mistresses and spouses following the army were so important for moral and discipline in earlier times when the average soldier was far from being as well trained as modern ones (with a few exceptions) and even then rape and sexual violence is a very common problem in modern armies and most of its victims are men.

epronovost wrote:
You are correct to a point, but war needs not be a large business on a large battlefield. Most of the early Medieval and Antique wars were conflicts between a few hundred individuals opposing two clans in conflict. It's true that women's percentage in an army would vary. At some point, especially in times of prosperity and peace, they would be almost completely gone. It could also rise well above 10% in some region under certain circomstances. To name only one, there was a case when a Welsh castle was assaulted by English forces and it was defended by almost exclusively by women since the men were either sick, dead, old or searching for the English forces at the wrong place (the English were forced to retreat btw), but these are exceptional situations. Most women who fought in armies of the Middle-Age and Antiquity did so openly. Most these culture and nation had very little to no objection to women doing such a thing. It wasn't a taboo. While some might have done it in disguise like it would happen more or less often in the following centuries, we have, to my knowledge no such story reported to us from this time period which is sort of the point. Nobody was supposed to know they were women in the first place. As for the idea of rape, that was a problem no matter the gender and the reason why those gravid of prostitutes, mistresses and spouses following the army were so important for moral and discipline in earlier times when the average soldier was far from being as well trained as modern ones (with a few exceptions) and even then rape and sexual violence is a very common problem in modern armies and most of its victims are men.

The reason most common victims of rape in the military are men is a simple case of statistics. The same applies to rape in prison. There is simply a much much larger proportion of men in both the militaries and prisons then there are women. But a woman found to be a soldier is in much more danger, especially if they are captured while their army is winning.

 Charistoph wrote:

The reason most common victims of rape in the military are men is a simple case of statistics. The same applies to rape in prison. There is simply a much much larger proportion of men in both the militaries and prisons then there are women. But a woman found to be a soldier is in much more danger, especially if they are captured while their army is winning.

Its true that female soldiers are more likely to suffer from sexual crimes then their male couterpart, but that's the case for civilian women too. In fact, while its greater in the military, in terms of proportion (men vs women), the danger is distributed in pretty much the same fashion then in civilian society. The only difference is that occurences is higher. Also considering that torture was pretty much a given and sadly still is in many situation, the idea that women should fear being capture more than men appears to me stupid. Both will be submitted to torture, some of which will be of sexual nature. If you think that torturer didn't think of inserting certain object in certain place of your anathomy, forcing you to be nacked while someone ridicule your anathomy and a quantity of other treatment, then you have learned nothing from the abuse in Abu-Ghraib and even then, your class and standing will have an enormous impact in your detention conditions especially in Medieval times and Antiquity. Joan of Arc was a young, beautiful woman who was captured while the army of her nation was on a roll of victory to which she was instrumental and while she ended being executed for crimes against the Church (wearing an armor more specifically), she was never submited to torture or sexual violence and was in fact rather well treated during her two years of detention. Women who soldier during war time knew or at least expected that they would face an enormous amount of sexual violence should they be captured or lost the war (and many probably expected sexual violence from their own side). To me the fact that they faced with certainty such a danger to which some of their battle brothers might have been oblivious is a testament to their courage and their determination, the defining trait of a good soldier in my opinion.

PS: while certainly interesting, I think we are deviating of the subject which is basically should there be female models of other races than human and elves for example orcs. On that subject, am I the only one who wants to see female ogres and beastmen in fantasy?

I think there should be female models in almost every AoS and 40k army, I just don't feel like they fit aesthetically and thematically with a couple of very specific examples.

epronovost wrote:

 Charistoph wrote:

The reason most common victims of rape in the military are men is a simple case of statistics. The same applies to rape in prison. There is simply a much much larger proportion of men in both the militaries and prisons then there are women. But a woman found to be a soldier is in much more danger, especially if they are captured while their army is winning.

Its true that female soldiers are more likely to suffer from sexual crimes then their male couterpart, but that's the case for civilian women too. In fact, while its greater in the military, in terms of proportion (men vs women), the danger is distributed in pretty much the same fashion then in civilian society. The only difference is that occurences is higher. Also considering that torture was pretty much a given and sadly still is in many situation, the idea that women should fear being capture more than men appears to me stupid. Both will be submitted to torture, some of which will be of sexual nature. If you think that torturer didn't think of inserting certain object in certain place of your anathomy, forcing you to be nacked while someone ridicule your anathomy and a quantity of other treatment, then you have learned nothing from the abuse in Abu-Ghraib and even then, your class and standing will have an enormous impact in your detention conditions especially in Medieval times and Antiquity. Joan of Arc was a young, beautiful woman who was captured while the army of her nation was on a roll of victory to which she was instrumental and while she ended being executed for crimes against the Church (wearing an armor more specifically), she was never submited to torture or sexual violence and was in fact rather well treated during her two years of detention. Women who soldier during war time knew or at least expected that they would face an enormous amount of sexual violence should they be captured or lost the war (and many probably expected sexual violence from their own side). To me the fact that they faced with certainty such a danger to which some of their battle brothers might have been oblivious is a testament to their courage and their determination, the defining trait of a good soldier in my opinion.

Being officer helped in the past, but not so much today. Being an officer carried a lot more privileges than we assign today. One of the transport helicopter pilots during Desert Storm who was shot down was in danger of being raped (I can't remember if she actually was off hand) as they transported her and the living remainder of her crew away from the battlefield. They even made a movie of this pilot.

It also depends on who you are fighting. Asian and African cultures who do not recognize the rights of a woman without their guardian around are more likely to see raping of found woman as a perquisite of battle. European-based armies (including America and Canada) usually have a stronger pressure of preventing such actions. American tribes we have to go on hearsay, but they trended to capture "wives" when they didn't have one at home.

epronovost wrote:
PS: while certainly interesting, I think we are deviating of the subject which is basically should there be female models of other races than human and elves for example orcs. On that subject, am I the only one who wants to see female ogres and beastmen in fantasy?

Which is why I pointed out that it only applies to human cultures, and not as easily placed in other cultures, be they Elven, Dwarven, or otherwise. Orcs and Saurians have no distinctive need or reason for such dimorphisms. However, the ogres and beastmen are of a different category. There are Slaanesh-worshiping beastmen, so we should see such results there, but for battle with beastmen... Considering what they do when they are not fighting, I wonder if they would ever make it.

Didn't feel like reading 5 pages, but don't Orks reproduce via spores and therefore asexual? They'd just all look much alike physiologically?

I agree that Beastmen and Warherd types might have gender specific differences in appearance (being mammals too). Seraphon maybe males would be more colorful?

Seraphon aren't living creatures but entities born from a Slaan mage priest's memories, iirc.
And the Lizardmen they were based on were born in magical pools. There were no Lizardmen females.

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:
Seraphon aren't living creatures but entities born from a Slaan mage priest's memories, iirc.
And the Lizardmen they were based on were born in magical pools. There were no Lizardmen females.

Not quite. Once a Seraphon is "dreamed" back into existence, it's a fully living being. It's literally a physical copy of one of the Lizardmen of the World that Was. They live in cities, eat, sleep, etc.

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:
Seraphon aren't living creatures but entities born from a Slaan mage priest's memories, iirc.
And the Lizardmen they were based on were born in magical pools. There were no Lizardmen females.

Aside from the pronouns used with specific characters, how would we KNOW the Saurus were male? More specifically, what if the pronouns used were assumptions used by Elves or Humans who saw them, and rather than being male, they were like ant soldiers and just infertile females?

As for the Seraphon, they were based on previously living Saurus, so that is a rather pointless distinction.

 Charistoph wrote:
It also depends on who you are fighting. Asian and African cultures who do not recognize the rights of a woman without their guardian around are more likely to see raping of found woman as a perquisite of battle. European-based armies (including America and Canada) usually have a stronger pressure of preventing such actions. American tribes we have to go on hearsay, but they trended to capture "wives" when they didn't have one at home.

Actually during Antiquity and Middle Ages a woman was dependant on a male guardian too in most circomstances. Women emensipation was one throughout the 19th and 20th century in western Europe through the work and sacrifice of hundreds of feminists. In Europe, raping the women of your enemy was considered the "privilege of the victor", rare were those who openly condamned the practice and actually tried to make it stop. Promising plunder and women to your troops was basically how many armies were paid. Women eaarned a higher measure of respect through years of activism which involved a lot more violence then what many people are comfortable with. As for native americans, they were known to indeed capture people, no matter their gender, to replace dead relatives. Many soldiers and missionnaries were actually amased by the respect native american men display toward women even in war times as rape was frowned upon. The concept of bastard doesn't exist amongst natives and when it comes to Iroquois, Huron, Neutra, Mohawk, Pétuns, being matrilinéal societies, raping a women would basically mean giving children to your enemies, a rather stupid idea.

Which is why I pointed out that it only applies to human cultures, and not as easily placed in other cultures, be they Elven, Dwarven, or otherwise. Orcs and Saurians have no distinctive need or reason for such dimorphisms. However, the ogres and beastmen are of a different category. There are Slaanesh-worshiping beastmen, so we should see such results there, but for battle with beastmen... Considering what they do when they are not fighting, I wonder if they would ever make it.

Beastmen, at least to me, should have a lot of women within their ranks. In fact it should be pretty much 50/50. I think pretty much all beastmen are bloodthirsty, lustful beasts who can't help themselves, but seek a fight once in a while. They are more like packs of animals on the hunt then professionnal or semi-professionnal forces. Plus, unlike most humanoids, most animal remain very physically capable even when they are pregnant. Children are probably more autonomous too then human babiesnd even if they were not, I don't imagine the beastmen being very good parents. Their infantile mortality rate must be significantly higher than that of more civilised races. Plus, considering their nature, I don't think that dimorphism is such an issue for beastmen.

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:
Seraphon aren't living creatures but entities born from a Slaan mage priest's memories, iirc.
And the Lizardmen they were based on were born in magical pools. There were no Lizardmen females.

To be fair it's not easy to readily identify reptile females as they aren't shaped like mammals.

 Fajita Fan wrote:

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:
Seraphon aren't living creatures but entities born from a Slaan mage priest's memories, iirc.
And the Lizardmen they were based on were born in magical pools. There were no Lizardmen females.

To be fair it's not easy to readily identify reptile females as they aren't shaped like mammals.

Apparently there are studies on it though

apparently male lizardos have larger heads and torsos.

You could also go the bird route of making male lizards more colorful.

epronovost wrote:

 Charistoph wrote:
It also depends on who you are fighting. Asian and African cultures who do not recognize the rights of a woman without their guardian around are more likely to see raping of found woman as a perquisite of battle. European-based armies (including America and Canada) usually have a stronger pressure of preventing such actions. American tribes we have to go on hearsay, but they trended to capture "wives" when they didn't have one at home.

Actually during Antiquity and Middle Ages a woman was dependant on a male guardian too in most circomstances. Women emensipation was one throughout the 19th and 20th century in western Europe through the work and sacrifice of hundreds of feminists. In Europe, raping the women of your enemy was considered the "privilege of the victor", rare were those who openly condamned the practice and actually tried to make it stop. Promising plunder and women to your troops was basically how many armies were paid. Women eaarned a higher measure of respect through years of activism which involved a lot more violence then what many people are comfortable with. As for native americans, they were known to indeed capture people, no matter their gender, to replace dead relatives. Many soldiers and missionnaries were actually amased by the respect native american men display toward women even in war times as rape was frowned upon. The concept of bastard doesn't exist amongst natives and when it comes to Iroquois, Huron, Neutra, Mohawk, Pétuns, being matrilinéal societies, raping a women would basically mean giving children to your enemies, a rather stupid idea.

Indeed. There are some cultures still in Asia and Africa who would still be using spears and arrows if we hadn't introduced them to firearms (which is partly odd since firearm tech came through some of those Asian cultures). Nor was I trying to state that this wasn't a past happenstance for European-model armies. I was trying to imply for those of current times.

I called the American Tribal actions "hearsay" because we all know how some tales grow longer in the telling, especially when the uneducated are the ones passing them on. However, your points definitely would lead to that direction. Of course, those usually only apply to non-slaving tribes. As one went farther south and started getting in to the tribes who acquired slaves, other issues abounded.

epronovost wrote:

Which is why I pointed out that it only applies to human cultures, and not as easily placed in other cultures, be they Elven, Dwarven, or otherwise. Orcs and Saurians have no distinctive need or reason for such dimorphisms. However, the ogres and beastmen are of a different category. There are Slaanesh-worshiping beastmen, so we should see such results there, but for battle with beastmen... Considering what they do when they are not fighting, I wonder if they would ever make it.

Beastmen, at least to me, should have a lot of women within their ranks. In fact it should be pretty much 50/50. I think pretty much all beastmen are bloodthirsty, lustful beasts who can't help themselves, but seek a fight once in a while. They are more like packs of animals on the hunt then professionnal or semi-professionnal forces. Plus, unlike most humanoids, most animal remain very physically capable even when they are pregnant. Children are probably more autonomous too then human babiesnd even if they were not, I don't imagine the beastmen being very good parents. Their infantile mortality rate must be significantly higher than that of more civilised races. Plus, considering their nature, I don't think that dimorphism is such an issue for beastmen.

It isn't so much the dimorphism as much as being abused to death for the pleasure of the males. There are some notations of that happening when the Beastmen raided a town. Not even the beasts were ignored from such a fate.

Fajita Fan wrote:

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:
Seraphon aren't living creatures but entities born from a Slaan mage priest's memories, iirc.
And the Lizardmen they were based on were born in magical pools. There were no Lizardmen females.

To be fair it's not easy to readily identify reptile females as they aren't shaped like mammals.

Indeed. It can be difficult with canines and felines at times as well if you don't have a good view of the aft, but reptiles are even worse. And when one considers the complete lack of reproduction from mating, the need for any such distinctions in a designed specie go right out the window. Which is how we get back to the Orcs and their situation.

epronovost wrote:


Beastmen, at least to me, should have a lot of women within their ranks. In fact it should be pretty much 50/50. I think pretty much all beastmen are bloodthirsty, lustful beasts who can't help themselves, but seek a fight once in a while. They are more like packs of animals on the hunt then professionnal or semi-professionnal forces. Plus, unlike most humanoids, most animal remain very physically capable even when they are pregnant. Children are probably more autonomous too then human babiesnd even if they were not, I don't imagine the beastmen being very good parents. Their infantile mortality rate must be significantly higher than that of more civilised races. Plus, considering their nature, I don't think that dimorphism is such an issue for beastmen.

Yeah, and as you mentioned we wouldn't have much visual ques to determine a different. A female vs a male Gor might be slightly smaller horns, but given that all beastmen have huge differences between each other, each being basically a unique combination of human and bestial features it would be difficult to tell if an observed difference is because it is a male/female or because of something else. Its not like there is a single established body pattern for Gors, Ungors, etc...

Plus Beastmen can reproduce multiple ways. With each other, with humans, or from two normal humans who were unfortunate enough to have their child randomly be a beastman.

 Charistoph wrote:

It isn't so much the dimorphism as much as being abused to death for the pleasure of the males. There are some notations of that happening when the Beastmen raided a town. Not even the beasts were ignored from such a fate.

I think you are underestimating a potential element there. Your average women sexual endurance usually far outstrip that of the average men (Mark Twain illariously illustrated that in Letters from the Earth). If this translate to beastmen that means their women are so savage and lustful not only can they handle their horny (both literally and figuratively) males, but once they are spent they might still be hungry for that cute little men with the spear over there. Ain't he cute he, he brought a gift. Mama-razorgor is going to take care of you..ur-ur-wink-wink.

@Grey Templar

I would expect some Beastmen or more accurately Beastwomen to display breats or numerous teets for example (different shape of horns or even some weirdly exagerated feminine curves like "childbearing hips" for example could also be a thing). Female Ungors might display some more feminine traits.

epronovost wrote:

 Charistoph wrote:

It isn't so much the dimorphism as much as being abused to death for the pleasure of the males. There are some notations of that happening when the Beastmen raided a town. Not even the beasts were ignored from such a fate.

I think you are underestimating a potential element there. Your average women sexual endurance usually far outstrip that of the average men (Mark Twain illariously illustrated that in Letters from the Earth). If this translate to beastmen that means their women are so savage and lustful not only can they handle their horny (both literally and figuratively) males, but once they are spent they might still be hungry for that cute little men with the spear over there. Ain't he cute he, he brought a gift. Mama-razorgor is going to take care of you..ur-ur-wink-wink.

Not all abuse came from or is based on the winky-wink.

 Charistoph wrote:

Not all abuse came from or is based on the winky-wink.

Abuse goes both ways.

OKAY, LET US ALL WHO DONT NEED FEMALE ORCS BE HONEST HERE: THEYD BE HIDEOUS LOOKING.

THERE, I SAID IT.

epronovost wrote:

 Charistoph wrote:

It isn't so much the dimorphism as much as being abused to death for the pleasure of the males. There are some notations of that happening when the Beastmen raided a town. Not even the beasts were ignored from such a fate.

I think you are underestimating a potential element there. Your average women sexual endurance usually far outstrip that of the average men (Mark Twain illariously illustrated that in Letters from the Earth). If this translate to beastmen that means their women are so savage and lustful not only can they handle their horny (both literally and figuratively) males, but once they are spent they might still be hungry for that cute little men with the spear over there. Ain't he cute he, he brought a gift. Mama-razorgor is going to take care of you..ur-ur-wink-wink.

@Grey Templar

I would expect some Beastmen or more accurately Beastwomen to display breats or numerous teets for example (different shape of horns or even some weirdly exagerated feminine curves like "childbearing hips" for example could also be a thing). Female Ungors might display some more feminine traits.

Not necessarily. Animals generally only have developed breasts while actually suckling young. When they are weaned the breasts shrink back to an undeveloped size. The man part of Beastman might alter this, but it could go either way.

 Fajita Fan wrote:
OKAY, LET US ALL WHO DONT NEED FEMALE ORCS BE HONEST HERE: THEYD BE HIDEOUS LOOKING.

THERE, I SAID IT.

Hypothetically speaking, wouldn't it be part of the fun of such a model? If tomorrow GW decided to produce a limited eddition anniversary model of an immensely savage orc/ork dressed up as a sexy cheerleader (with pigtails and all) armed with a ridiculously large and brutal weapon (or a pair), I would buy this model in a heartbeat. The uglier, the more disturbing, the better. That's what gives both a bit of humor, panash and fear factor to a model collection. The same could be said for Beastwomen or Ogress.

 Fajita Fan wrote:
OKAY, LET US ALL WHO DONT NEED FEMALE ORCS BE HONEST HERE: THEYD BE HIDEOUS LOOKING.

THERE, I SAID IT.

Why use the future tense when GW has already Orc Cheerleaders who have put human female dimorphisms on them.

And yeah, it's rather scary.

Yeah, I mean, just look at my profile pic.
I'm surprised no one brought that up in a thread about Female Orcs.

I personally find it amusing, and that's the point behind them; they are a joke, and the reason why they are jokes is because there are no such things as female orcs.

If there were female orcs a lot of the comedic impact would be lost, as it hinges heavily on shock and absurdity.

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:
Yeah, I mean, just look at my profile pic.
I'm surprised no one brought that up in a thread about Female Orcs.

I believe it has been brought up once or twice.

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:
I personally find it amusing, and that's the point behind them; they are a joke, and the reason why they are jokes is because there are no such things as female orcs.

If there were female orcs a lot of the comedic impact would be lost, as it hinges heavily on shock and absurdity.

I always looked at the cheerleaders as the orcs improvising an observed adaptation. They see the other players with "female" cheerleaders, and so they "develop" their own cheerleaders. There's 40K fluff on this and is a good indication that the Old World would have been royally screwed if any of the Orcs had been reminded of anything higher tech for even a minute.

Sure, why not have women in the race? Don;t give me that mushroom balls they conjured up a few years ago.