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I’d be alright with that. But I’d prefer it to be a new Cawlian development.

XvArcanevX wrote:Removed.

I'd love to see your explanation for this comment.

A.T. wrote:

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
it does make sense to ensure your recruits are as adept with it as possible, hence all female / And by culture or technological limitation, it’s only women that are brought in/manufactured.

That is the current space marine lore, yes.


With the talk of head swaps i'd be curious to see the results of a poll on female representation vs feminine representation. Like the unisex Skitarii there is no particular reason why a female space marine would look any different to a male one beneath the armour and gene-editing.
If GW went down the old dwarf path of 'half of them are already female, beards and all' would that be enough for people, if not why not?

I strongly agree with this, actually! Beneath the armour and helmet, a Space Marine is a Space Marine, regardless of if they were an infant boy or girl. It's when the helmet comes off that we can question the gendered presentation of Astartes.

Here's where I stand:
Either we lean into the "Space Marines are inhuman and barely recognisable, having been stripped of their humanity and now are only killing machines" approach (which results in Space Marine heads needing to be remastered to look brutishly inhuman and none of the "strong jawed, handsome male hero" faces that we currently have, which result in a gendered appearance)
or
We can keep the "strong jawed handsome male hero" heads that we already have, and supplement that with "strong jawed, handsome female hero" heads - very much the same sort of roided up brutish and aggressive faces, just with a more fem slant. We already see this with Stormcast models.

But it really is just a headswap - we don't need slimmer armour plates or different breastplates - and beneath any helmeted model could be either.



Either those, OR massively and retroactively depopularise Astartes, going back decades. But that's simply so unrealistic as to not be a productive answer for this topic.

shortymcnostrill wrote:
Oh no dear reader, an evil chaos fleet just plopped out of a warp rift in segmentum solar and is currently nearing Terra. And while our brave defenders are boltering as hard as they can, they may not be able to bolter hard enough! Oh the humanity!

But wait, what's that? The ground on Venus erupts in a furious warcry, reopening a long-forgotten cave. Forth springs Femisarius Cawl, Belisarius' twin sister thought dead for 10000 years, with a band of heroic Femarines following in her wake...

That looks about right. But surely that plot should be covered by an NDA? GW won't want it socialised this early!


Automatically Appended Next Post:

A.T. wrote:
With the talk of head swaps i'd be curious to see the results of a poll on female representation vs feminine representation. Like the unisex Skitarii there is no particular reason why a female space marine would look any different to a male one beneath the armour and gene-editing.
If GW went down the old dwarf path of 'half of them are already female, beards and all' would that be enough for people, if not why not?

Its a good one - SOBs can look female but after extreme conditioning, which as many have pointed out means they lose many of the stereotyped looks of women in fantasy. Not least the sort of damage and wear your body receives as a front line soldier is considered a masculine in how it looks, but the women I know who did multiple hard tours in Afghanistan with more time in contact than most male soldiers of the previous four decades, are grappling with the same issues and the same visible toll.

Throw in extensive gene editing, increasing height by 15-20%, body mass by considerably more, thickening bones, etc etc and humans tend to look very similar. If GW tomorrow said, you know they take both sexes for selection and alter them both ending up in this, that is going to be quite credible. And I think if Astartes are still around in 20 years that generation of customers with the advances in gender reassignment that will take place will consider it perfectly plausible for little girls and boys to go in one end and identical transhumans come out the other.

Indeed looking back its surprising the writers didn't propose that in the 80's as a further dose of punk gothic horror.

In fact I think that is going to be my headcannon going forward.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Sgt_Smudge wrote:

Either we lean into the "Space Marines are inhuman and barely recognisable, having been stripped of their humanity and now are only killing machines" approach (which results in Space Marine heads needing to be remastered to look brutishly inhuman and none of the "strong jawed, handsome male hero" faces that we currently have, which result in a gendered appearance)

I would vote for this. Inhuman brutes...

 Sgt_Smudge wrote:
and none of the "strong jawed, handsome male hero" faces that we currently have

eh... handsome?

I suppose it's a matter of what is and isn't considered attractive in men and women but the primaris heads (pictured) are lantern jawed slabheads.

Pretty much all of the replacement 'female space marine' heads are basically escher heads with more undercuts. Feminine but human, no hint of the muscle or bone growth or testosterone poisoning of an astartes.

A.T. wrote:

 Sgt_Smudge wrote:
and none of the "strong jawed, handsome male hero" faces that we currently have

eh... handsome?

Some of the heads could definitely be considered handsome, by personal preferences.

And models notwithstanding, but all three of the main characters in Space Marine 2 are definitely in the handsome tier (especially Gadriel).

But, to get back onto the point, they're identifiably masculine and not nearly "inhuman".

 Sgt_Smudge wrote:

A.T. wrote:

 Sgt_Smudge wrote:
and none of the "strong jawed, handsome male hero" faces that we currently have

eh... handsome?

Some of the heads could definitely be considered handsome, by personal preferences.

And models notwithstanding, but all three of the main characters in Space Marine 2 are definitely in the handsome tier (especially Gadriel).

But, to get back onto the point, they're identifiably masculine and not nearly "inhuman".

Calgar has that silver fox thing going and is rocking it.

A.T. wrote:

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
it does make sense to ensure your recruits are as adept with it as possible, hence all female / And by culture or technological limitation, it’s only women that are brought in/manufactured.

That is the current space marine lore, yes.


With the talk of head swaps i'd be curious to see the results of a poll on female representation vs feminine representation. Like the unisex Skitarii there is no particular reason why a female space marine would look any different to a male one beneath the armour and gene-editing.
If GW went down the old dwarf path of 'half of them are already female, beards and all' would that be enough for people, if not why not?

That brings us back to MDG’s “Orks are gender neutral, actually” argument that pretends orks don’t add to the presentation of the game as a sausage fest despite being sculpted to look like sausage. If a gamer has to be two levels into the weeds of the lore in order to know the burly beefcake is actually inclusivity pie, then the game is sending mixed messages at best to prospective and casual gamers.

On the model bonces? They don’t quite match the background description, where they’re described as closer to Robert Z’Dar, to offer a real world analogy.



Recognisably human, but of oddly exaggerated, slightly unnatural (but not grotesque or necessarily unattractive) looking, features.

 Crimson wrote:

What I find hilarious is that this almost exactly describes the situation and my personal feelings with the prequel trilogy. Yes, the Disney trilogy is bad, but it didn't "ruin Star Wars," Lucas already did that himself. I have literally never been as disappointed with a film than I was with Phantom Menace. At least the dialogue and acting in the Disney trilogy is not actively painful to watch most of the time, even though the plot makes no sense whatsoever.

There's a generational component to this. Guys younger than I am moan about how Disney ruined SW in the 2010s. I counter that it was ruined in 1999 by Lucas himself. To which they reply, "no way!", because that's when they started with SW.

Hey hey, could you fine young cannibals not quote offensive / obvious bait posts when you report them, makes cleanup easier, ta!

 Arschbombe wrote:

 Crimson wrote:

What I find hilarious is that this almost exactly describes the situation and my personal feelings with the prequel trilogy. Yes, the Disney trilogy is bad, but it didn't "ruin Star Wars," Lucas already did that himself. I have literally never been as disappointed with a film than I was with Phantom Menace. At least the dialogue and acting in the Disney trilogy is not actively painful to watch most of the time, even though the plot makes no sense whatsoever.

There's a generational component to this. Guys younger than I am moan about how Disney ruined SW in the 2010s. I counter that it was ruined in 1999 by Lucas himself. To which they reply, "no way!", because that's when they started with SW.

Also, those who say the sequels, and even prequels, are bad movies need to watch Actually Bad Movies.

Disappointing I will happily accept. But bad? Objectively not even close.

Hard Ticket To Hawaii? That is an objectively BAD movie.

The Room? That is an objectively BAD movie.

Children Shouldn’t Play With Dead Things? That is an objectively BAD movie.

Live a little, watch some abject crap. Gain better perspective. Learn the merely disappointing from the objectively bloody awful.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:

 Arschbombe wrote:

 Crimson wrote:

What I find hilarious is that this almost exactly describes the situation and my personal feelings with the prequel trilogy. Yes, the Disney trilogy is bad, but it didn't "ruin Star Wars," Lucas already did that himself. I have literally never been as disappointed with a film than I was with Phantom Menace. At least the dialogue and acting in the Disney trilogy is not actively painful to watch most of the time, even though the plot makes no sense whatsoever.

There's a generational component to this. Guys younger than I am moan about how Disney ruined SW in the 2010s. I counter that it was ruined in 1999 by Lucas himself. To which they reply, "no way!", because that's when they started with SW.

Also, those who say the sequels, and even prequels, are bad movies need to watch Actually Bad Movies.

Disappointing I will happily accept. But bad? Objectively not even close.

Hard Ticket To Hawaii? That is an objectively BAD movie.

The Room? That is an objectively BAD movie.

Children Shouldn’t Play With Dead Things? That is an objectively BAD movie.

Live a little, watch some abject crap. Gain better perspective. Learn the merely disappointing from the objectively bloody awful.

I still contend that gremlins 2 is superior to gremlins 1, and that ghostbusters 2 was a fine movie.

Before sliding off on a tangent, I'd like to attach one bit to that tangent.

Remember the outrage over female stormtroopers in the new movies?

Did everyone throw their Star Wars merchandise into a bonfire and quit loving their franchise?

Nope. It will be the same here. A little grumbling from a minority of the fanbase, I'll get some new models to paint up, swap a head onto my Castigator pilot, and then we can all the enjoy the game we love....

And hopefully get some new players.

BanjoJohn wrote:

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:

 Arschbombe wrote:

 Crimson wrote:

What I find hilarious is that this almost exactly describes the situation and my personal feelings with the prequel trilogy. Yes, the Disney trilogy is bad, but it didn't "ruin Star Wars," Lucas already did that himself. I have literally never been as disappointed with a film than I was with Phantom Menace. At least the dialogue and acting in the Disney trilogy is not actively painful to watch most of the time, even though the plot makes no sense whatsoever.

There's a generational component to this. Guys younger than I am moan about how Disney ruined SW in the 2010s. I counter that it was ruined in 1999 by Lucas himself. To which they reply, "no way!", because that's when they started with SW.

Also, those who say the sequels, and even prequels, are bad movies need to watch Actually Bad Movies.

Disappointing I will happily accept. But bad? Objectively not even close.

Hard Ticket To Hawaii? That is an objectively BAD movie.

The Room? That is an objectively BAD movie.

Children Shouldn’t Play With Dead Things? That is an objectively BAD movie.

Live a little, watch some abject crap. Gain better perspective. Learn the merely disappointing from the objectively bloody awful.

I still contend that gremlins 2 is superior to gremlins 1, and that ghostbusters 2 was a fine movie.

Hey hey hey! Whooooooooooaaaaaaaaaaaa there Pedro!

Who said Gremlins 2 and Ghostbusters 2 are cack?

You point them out to me, and I’ll bash ‘em.

I even enjoyed Ghostbusters 2016. Granted it’s not a great Ghosbusters film, but as a comedy it’s like, totally fine.

Gremlins 2 was the perfect sequel to Gremlins, as Gremlins didn't need a sequel.

So feth it, go balls to the wall insane with the total creative control you secured from the studio and the bigger budget.

 Lathe Biosas wrote:
Before sliding off on a tangent, I'd like to attach one bit to that tangent.

Remember the outrage over female stormtroopers in the new movies?

Did everyone throw their Star Wars merchandise into a bonfire and quit loving their franchise?

Nope. It will be the same here. A little grumbling from a minority of the fanbase, I'll get some new models to paint up, swap a head onto my Castigator pilot, and then we can all the enjoy the game we love....

And hopefully get some new players.

Were stormtroopers ever explicitly all male?

The only limitation I know of was that they typically weren't short, lol.

. . .

I'd love to engage more with this thread but I'm taking the day off, holiday and all.

 Arschbombe wrote:

 Crimson wrote:

What I find hilarious is that this almost exactly describes the situation and my personal feelings with the prequel trilogy. Yes, the Disney trilogy is bad, but it didn't "ruin Star Wars," Lucas already did that himself. I have literally never been as disappointed with a film than I was with Phantom Menace. At least the dialogue and acting in the Disney trilogy is not actively painful to watch most of the time, even though the plot makes no sense whatsoever.

There's a generational component to this. Guys younger than I am moan about how Disney ruined SW in the 2010s. I counter that it was ruined in 1999 by Lucas himself. To which they reply, "no way!", because that's when they started with SW.

Oh it gets much further back than that, to the very original SW fans Lucas ruined it in 1983.

 Tyran wrote:

 Arschbombe wrote:

 Crimson wrote:

What I find hilarious is that this almost exactly describes the situation and my personal feelings with the prequel trilogy. Yes, the Disney trilogy is bad, but it didn't "ruin Star Wars," Lucas already did that himself. I have literally never been as disappointed with a film than I was with Phantom Menace. At least the dialogue and acting in the Disney trilogy is not actively painful to watch most of the time, even though the plot makes no sense whatsoever.

There's a generational component to this. Guys younger than I am moan about how Disney ruined SW in the 2010s. I counter that it was ruined in 1999 by Lucas himself. To which they reply, "no way!", because that's when they started with SW.

Oh it gets much further back than that, to the very original SW fans Lucas ruined it in 1983.

Not 1978, with the Holiday Special?

Return of the Jedi is my favourite of the OT.

No. Really. I even did a thread breaking down why the fleet engagement over Endor is amazing.
https://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/814041.page

Might be mild threadomancy at this point, but it is what it is.

 Dysartes wrote:

 Tyran wrote:

 Arschbombe wrote:

 Crimson wrote:

What I find hilarious is that this almost exactly describes the situation and my personal feelings with the prequel trilogy. Yes, the Disney trilogy is bad, but it didn't "ruin Star Wars," Lucas already did that himself. I have literally never been as disappointed with a film than I was with Phantom Menace. At least the dialogue and acting in the Disney trilogy is not actively painful to watch most of the time, even though the plot makes no sense whatsoever.

There's a generational component to this. Guys younger than I am moan about how Disney ruined SW in the 2010s. I counter that it was ruined in 1999 by Lucas himself. To which they reply, "no way!", because that's when they started with SW.

Oh it gets much further back than that, to the very original SW fans Lucas ruined it in 1983.

Not 1978, with the Holiday Special?

You could even argue 1977. Hard to ruin what doesn't exist.

 JNAProductions wrote:

A.T. wrote:

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
it does make sense to ensure your recruits are as adept with it as possible, hence all female / And by culture or technological limitation, it’s only women that are brought in/manufactured.

That is the current space marine lore, yes.


With the talk of head swaps i'd be curious to see the results of a poll on female representation vs feminine representation. Like the unisex Skitarii there is no particular reason why a female space marine would look any different to a male one beneath the armour and gene-editing.
If GW went down the old dwarf path of 'half of them are already female, beards and all' would that be enough for people, if not why not?

I'd prefer an upgrade sprue of more feminine heads and for future Marine kits to have an equal mix of male and female unhelmeted heads, in addition to the lore change.
Admittedly, I do not know how hard it would be to sculpt and convey that at the Warhammer scale. I assume it's possible, but I'm not super well-versed in that area of the hobby.

Though the bigger thing is the lore change.

Two words: Stormcast Eternals.

We know for a fact that GW can do this. And if The Tithes proved anything about the lore, it's that a fully-armored female Space Marine would be indistinguishable from a male Space Marine. Even if the did make feminine bodies, they could still use the Stormcast as a template for their approach since I wouldn't call what female Stormcast wear 'boobplate' like what the Sisters wear.

Folks, there's a whole separate section of the forum where you can talk about Start Wars to your heart's content...

 Manfred von Drakken wrote:


Two words: Stormcast Eternals.

We know for a fact that GW can do this. And if The Tithes proved anything about the lore, it's that a fully-armored female Space Marine would be indistinguishable from a male Space Marine. Even if the did make feminine bodies, they could still use the Stormcast as a template for their approach since I wouldn't call what female Stormcast wear 'boobplate' like what the Sisters wear.

I'm not too familiar with AoS, we're the Stormcast originally all male and they were changed to be multi gender, or were the Stormcast male and female when the game began?

Edit: Looking at the Stormcast, you could do female Marines in that style.... just don't let the guys selling Female Chaos Marines (or Female Tau) on Etsy anywhere close to the moulds.

They were all male at first. I don’t remember if there was a lore prohibition against women Stormcast Eternals at first, but there was some resistance when the first female SCE minis released.

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:
They were all male at first. I don’t remember if there was a lore prohibition against women Stormcast Eternals at first, but there was some resistance when the first female SCE minis released.

And people still play AoS? Did I miss the apocalypse? World still there?

Seems like the Von Drakken solved this.

EDIT: I'm not attempting to be sarcastic or funny. I honestly think that if it's been done for one game and everything is okay, you can do it for another game.

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:
They were all male at first. I don’t remember if there was a lore prohibition against women Stormcast Eternals at first, but there was some resistance when the first female SCE minis released.

They were also all empty suits of armor at first, so gender/sex didn't mean much.

I don't think there was a whole lot of investment in Stormcast at the time, and I imagine much of the playerbase was still more concerned with the detonation of the previous world/lore etc.

 Insectum7 wrote:
I don't think there was a whole lot of investment in Stormcast at the time, and I imagine much of the playerbase was still more concerned with the detonation of the previous world/lore etc.

Oh, then just bring back Leman Russ, signal the end times, and poof 11th Edition and all sorts of new stuff in the new continuity.

We can start at any time in the timeline (post heresy of course) and create tons of new stories.

You don't need to shoehorn in any sexes, because everything will be brand new.


EDIT: Now to find some Skaven to blow up the universe.

On Stormcast, I recall they were men and women from the very start but the models were clearly male. Us fans came up with the theories of empty suits, all remade to look like male humans etc. But GW did later release models that were female.

On Space Marine faces they do supposed to have gigantism to some degree. Which thickens facial features. Thick jaws and brows; bigger noses etc.

For what its worth I am fine with female Custodes, but I would prefer Space Marines stay the sole all male faction in the Imperium. I will be fine if the release female space marines well (I have my doubts GW can). I would prefer Space Marines be de-emphasised. At least the first founding chapters. If the home-world is not near the conflict pick another Chapter. I do not want to force others to my preferences, but I do want them heard.

Maybe our patron Saint, Henry Cavill, will change the pov from Marines to Custodes. They are the Imperium's best and brightest. It's time for the Custodes to shine.