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w1zard wrote:

 Crimson wrote:

w1zard wrote:

Ciaphas Cain and Gaunt's Ghost novels mention it quite often.

Right. That is just Black Library nonsense. Black Library authors think that Librarians can jump on orbit and cut space ships in twain with force swords. BL novels are not even consistent with themselves. There is no mention of such gender limits in codices or rulebooks.

Gaunt's Ghosts and Ciaphas Cain are the two most popular novel series that portray Guard in the 40k setting. Apart from the Last Chancer's series and a few popular one-off novels like Fifteen Hours, they make up the bulk of the IG lore for 40k. You cannot just ignore them.

If you want to ignore every BL novel and only consider the codex canon, you have very little lore to work with.

The canon arguments in general hold very little water. It varies from source to source, there are conflicting things, and GW has both suggested that sources like Codexes are intentionally exaggerated so as to come from the point of view of that faction and have shown a willingness to bend or break canon to fit in what they want to do in the setting going forward.

So I don't really care what various novels have said on the subject, it's irrelevant to the argument to be honest.

w1zard wrote:

Gaunt's Ghosts and Ciaphas Cain are the two most popular novel series that portray Guard in the 40k setting. Apart from the Last Chancer's series and a few popular one-off novels like Fifteen Hours, they make up the bulk of the IG lore for 40k. You cannot just ignore them.

Yes I can. Most 40K players have not read them. Besides, we're not talking about ignoring entire books, but some throwaway detail. The studio cannot be beholden to every obscure reference in every BL book some author decodes to throw there on a whim. I mean, wehre are my multilaser wielding terminators?

If you want to ignore every BL novel and only consider the codex canon, you have very little lore to work with.

This is what most people do. Only small minority of 40K player read the BL books.

w1zard wrote:

 Peregrine wrote:
(Also, forcing people to buy multiple boxes is great business practice in GW's business model. Why do you think they keep selling you units where you have to buy multiple kits to buy enough plasma guns to equip the entire squad?)

Our disagreements about 40k lore aside... Forcing people who want an all-male regiment or all-female regiment to buy double the boxes will spark a huge fan backlash from both groups. It's never going to happen, I'd be willing to bet my right testicle on it. It's too risky a business move with too much of a potential for blowback. The most we will ever see is female headswaps for male bodies, or more realistically an all-female line. MAYBE there might be a mixed sex guerrilla irregular model line or something but it will be separate from the main IG line.

They have done it with Dark Eldar (The Kabalites has 6 males and 4 females and the Witch box has 6 females and 4 males) and with the new Stormcast Eternals. Nobody has complained. Is like wanting to have a full unhelmeted army. In many cases you need to buy multiple boxes. With the new primaris, they give you enough heads to make a full helmeted or unhelmeted unit (Something I'm very glad, because I always put helmets in my models), but thats the exception, and nobody has really complainet.

Wanting to have an All-X army is the exception, not the norm, purely aesthetical, and people is expected to pay an extra if they want it.

At the end of the day Lore means 0 to GW (Primaris, The End Times, AoS). If they see a commercial opportunity in this, they will take it. If it sells well, then they will continue with the thrend of mixed gendered units, something we have seen in recent AoS releases (Namarti Thralls and Reavers, Sacrosant Stormcasts), but thats probably because the fanbase of AoS is much more "young" and open to new concepts and ideas, and the w40k hates change, for obvious reasons, one is a stablished setting and the other has just 3 years of life.

w1zard wrote:
Sure, when something doesn't convenience you or doesn't fit your narrative, just change it... That never backfires at all...

Say hi to primaris marines. They seem to be selling.

I think a far better solution to the "multiple regiments" issue is having cadians be the "base" and having "upgrade" boxes for the other regiments like catachans, valhallans, etc...

That doesn't work at all. The base model between a Cadian and a Catachan and a Valhallan is going to be way too different and any "upgrade" box would consist of complete new models. Trying to a conversion sprue for the Cadians would mean ruining the alternate regiments by turning them into Cadians with fancy hats or whatever. That is not an acceptable price to pay for slightly more convenience for Cadian players.

Why a 1:5 ratio for women:men. Doesn't that make an all-female regiment that much harder to collect? If we want to be fair shouldn't we have a 50/50 split between women and men?

I never said 1:5. I'd be happy with 50/50, but I'd expect GW to continue their trend and do something closer to 1:5.

 Peregrine wrote:


That doesn't work at all. The base model between a Cadian and a Catachan and a Valhallan is going to be way too different and any "upgrade" box would consist of complete new models. Trying to a conversion sprue for the Cadians would mean ruining the alternate regiments by turning them into Cadians with fancy hats or whatever. That is not an acceptable price to pay for slightly more convenience for Cadian players.

You're right, however what other army gets a full line of kits for every sub faction? Not many right? If you count Blood Angels/Dark Angels/Space puppies then sure, though they are standalone codex armies.

Point is, I can't ever see us getting full ranges for many regiments again. I think GW realised it didn't make much economic sense to do it that way.

 Crimson wrote:

w1zard wrote:

Gaunt's Ghosts and Ciaphas Cain are the two most popular novel series that portray Guard in the 40k setting. Apart from the Last Chancer's series and a few popular one-off novels like Fifteen Hours, they make up the bulk of the IG lore for 40k. You cannot just ignore them.

Yes I can. Most 40K players have not read them. Besides, we're not talking about ignoring entire books, but some throwaway detail. The studio cannot be beholden to every obscure reference in every BL book some author decodes to throw there on a whim. I mean, wehre are my multilaser wielding terminators?

If you want to ignore every BL novel and only consider the codex canon, you have very little lore to work with.

This is what most people do. Only small minority of 40K player read the BL books.

I wonder if that’s true, several of the heresy novels made it to the New York Times best seller list, that’s quite a feat, I do know plenty of people that read the novels and have zero interest in the game however.

w1zard wrote:

 Mmmpi wrote:

w1zard wrote:


So just a question for both Peregrine and anyone else. Why a 1:5 ratio for women:men. Doesn't that make an all-female regiment that much harder to collect? If we want to be fair shouldn't we have a 50/50 split between women and men?

One to five is what other factions have. Not that it's ideal. Eldar guardians and I think Kabal warriors are 1/4.

Sure, which is why I was suggesting a full female cadian box and a full male cadian box. That way, people who want single sex regiments are happy (male or female), and people who want mixed sex regiments at whatever ratio they desire are happy as well. Granted, it is more work for GW, but if female guardswomen are introduced into the product line, that is how I think it should be done IMO.

Way, way too expensive. And additionally, official GW stores would need to find a place to put it. In general, I think just a changein the existing sprues or an upgrade pack would be far more cost effective for GW.

Stux wrote:
So I don't really care what various novels have said on the subject, it's irrelevant to the argument to be honest.

Then what is relevant?

If you are going to exclude the BL novels and the codices from discussions about 40k lore then how do we even have a reasonable discussion about the 40k setting?

 Crimson wrote:
This is what most people do. Only small minority of 40K player read the BL books.

Oh you sweet summer child. You do realize that the 40k novels are more popular then the tabletop game right? Like an order of magnitude more popular.

 Galas wrote:
They have done it with Dark Eldar (The Kabalites has 6 males and 4 females and the Witch box has 6 females and 4 males) and with the new Stormcast Eternals. Nobody has complained. Is like wanting to have a full unhelmeted army. In many cases you need to buy multiple boxes. With the new primaris, they give you enough heads to make a full helmeted or unhelmeted unit (Something I'm very glad, because I always put helmets in my models), but thats the exception, and nobody has really complainet.

Wanting to have an All-X army is the exception, not the norm, purely aesthetical, and people is expected to pay an extra if they want it.

At the end of the day Lore means 0 to GW (Primaris, The End Times, AoS). If they see a commercial opportunity in this, they will take it. If it sells well, then they will continue with the thrend of mixed gendered units, something we have seen in recent AoS releases (Namarti Thralls and Reavers, Sacrosant Stormcasts), but thats probably because the fanbase of AoS is much more "young" and open to new concepts and ideas, and the w40k hates change, for obvious reasons, one is a stablished setting and the other has just 3 years of life.

For the last time, you cannot compare including female models in an Eldar box set (dark eldar or otherwise) when culturally the eldar are mixed sex at all levels of society. Humans (even in the 40k era) aren't. The lore states that most IG regiments are single sex formations, and until we start seeing lore that says otherwise, or GW changes things, that is what most people are going to expect. Not to mention that if they start selling mixed sex infantry boxes, it's going to piss off a lot of people who have headcanon for their own regiment, and also piss off people on both sides of the issue that want all-female or all-male regiments

I agree that we need guardswomen models: They are a massive part of the Imperial warmachine, more inclusiveness is always welcome, and it isn't fair that people who want female regiments have to go third party but it needs to be done in a way that doesn't force people to change their armies overnight. Even with GW's introduction of Primaris Marines, you can still play with your old scale marine models so your army doesn't have to change.

I think all-female guard boxes are the way to go, as they pretty much satisfy everyone's needs.

 vaklor4 wrote:
Way, way too expensive. And additionally, official GW stores would need to find a place to put it. In general, I think just a changein the existing sprues or an upgrade pack would be far more cost effective for GW.

I'm fine with an upgrade pack too, but people in this thread seem dead set on female body sculpts .

w1zard wrote:

Stux wrote:
So I don't really care what various novels have said on the subject, it's irrelevant to the argument to be honest.

Then what is relevant?

If you are going to exclude the BL novels and the codices from discussions about 40k lore then how do we even have a reasonable discussion about the 40k setting?

This isn't a discussion about 40k lore or setting, it's a discussion about whether female Guard would sell. That depends on how they are introduced of course, and that depends to an extent on the lore I will grant you.

What I am saying is is that the lore is and always has been mutable. We shouldn't be saying 'the lore says this, so we are bound forever by it'. We should be deciding what is best separate from the lore and then allow the lore to bend to fit it.

w1zard wrote:

Oh you sweet summer child. You do realize that the 40k novels are more popular then the tabletop game right? Like an order of magnitude more popular.

No I don't. On what you're basing this assumption? Furthermore, that is not even what I said. I said that majority of the players do not read the novels. There can be bunch of non-gamers who read the books for this to still be true.

And most importantly, you just cant pluck some obscure details like this from a BL books and assume them to automatically apply to the studio fluff. BL books are way too inconsistent for that to work. Each author just writes what they like, especially for books that are not part of a shared ongoing story like HH (and even then the continuity of these sort of details is not monitored.) Abnett is so famous for contradicting the studio fluff, that his version of the setting is sometimes called 'Abnettverse' as it differs from the studio setting so much. And let's not get started about Goto.

w1zard wrote:

 Crimson wrote:

w1zard wrote:
Two lovers may go to extreme lengths to save another despite breaking orders or something, not to mention if one of them gets promoted and gets into an authority position over the other. Plus all the drama associated with scorned advances, a man or woman bouncing between lovers, etc. It is a dumpster fire waiting to happen.

And why you think this would not happen in a single-gender regiment?

It does, just to a far lesser extent then a mixed sex regiment because even GENEROUS estimates put gay+bisexual people at ~15% of the population. It is easier to control at that point.

The connotations behind "controlling" same sex relationships isn't a good one, and has no backing for my long term, but general knowledge of the setting, the Impetium doesn't care who and how you love, as long as they're human.

How to add female guard:
- 10 helmeted heads
- 5 male heads
- 5 female heads

The scion box has 17 heads for 5 models, so this really isn't a stretch. Or if you're feeling thrifty:
- 10 helmets
- 10 male heads
- 10 female heads

You'd need more than heads. With just uniforms and armor, but not bandoleers and pouches, which most GW infantry doesn't carry in large amounts, female soldiers are noticeably smaller then male soldiers, with a thinner waist.



I chose this picture because the male soldier, while huge in the real world, seems to be the right size for an heroic scale mini.

 Blndmage wrote:
The connotations behind "controlling" same sex relationships isn't a good one, and has no backing for my long term, but general knowledge of the setting, the Impetium doesn't care who and how you love, as long as they're human.

Oh please. Your vague implications are insulting.

Romantic relationships are not a welcome part of a military unit, IRL and in 40k, whether they be homosexual or heterosexual. They degrade combat efficiency, introduce drama and divisiveness into interactions that should be cohesive, and serve as an overall distraction. They definitely need to be "controlled" in order to keep the unit from degrading. Ever work in an environment where co-workers or superiors/inferiors were sexually involved with each other?

Dandelion wrote:
How to add female guard:
- 10 helmeted heads
- 5 male heads
- 5 female heads

The scion box has 17 heads for 5 models, so this really isn't a stretch. Or if you're feeling thrifty:
- 10 helmets
- 10 male heads
- 10 female heads

People have demonstrated in this thread that they think head swaps aren't enough and they want actual female body sculpts.

 Crimson wrote:
No I don't. On what you're basing this assumption? Furthermore, that is not even what I said. I said that majority of the players do not read the novels. There can be bunch of non-gamers who read the books for this to still be true.

The fact that the 40k tabletop game remains a pretty niche hobby even to this day, while multiple BL novels have made the top of the New York Times best seller list. You absolutely have a lot of non-tabletop gamers reading 40k books, but that is irrelevant to my original assertion. The 40k novels are more popular overall than the tabletop game, period.

Like it or not, the BL novels are part and parcel of the 40k setting. In fact they are a large majority of the 40k setting.

 Mmmpi wrote:
You'd need more than heads. With just uniforms and armor, but not bandoleers and pouches, which most GW infantry doesn't carry in large amounts, female soldiers are noticeably smaller then male soldiers, with a thinner waist.

Spoiler:

I chose this picture because the male soldier, while huge in the real world, seems to be the right size for an heroic scale mini.

A few points:
- Minis are tiny. There is more than enough room for approximations, and the fact that guardsmen are heroic scale would imply that female guard would also be heroic scaled. (Heroic scale = not actually to scale)
- Size varies between individuals. You can have a large woman and a small man easy peasy. Standardizing them into one size is just so much easier.

- As you can see, the woman on the far left is larger than the man on the far right.

- Compare the torso of the male wych to the female wych. They're pretty much the same aside from the boob plate. Also the height's the same.

So unless you want to go all stormcast on the guard (I don't), just keep it to a headswap.

w1zard wrote:

The fact that the 40k tabletop game remains a pretty niche hobby even to this day, while multiple BL novels have made the top of the New York Times best seller list. You absolutely have a lot of non-tabletop gamers reading 40k books, but that is irrelevant to my original assertion. The 40k novels are more popular overall than the tabletop game, period.

I'm not convinced. It takes 9000 copies sold during the first week to get on NY times best seller list. I bet most codices sell way more than that, not to mention starter sets.

 Crimson wrote:

w1zard wrote:

The fact that the 40k tabletop game remains a pretty niche hobby even to this day, while multiple BL novels have made the top of the New York Times best seller list. You absolutely have a lot of non-tabletop gamers reading 40k books, but that is irrelevant to my original assertion. The 40k novels are more popular overall than the tabletop game, period.

I'm not convinced. It takes 9000 copies sold during the first week to get on NY times best seller list. I bet most codices sell way more than that, not to mention starter sets.

Don't you remember when CoD4 came out and it's instruction manual and was at the top of the Best Seller list for like 6 months?

 JohnnyHell wrote:

 mugginns wrote:
Dang, the lunatic fringe is definitely alive and well on DakkaDakka. Surprised the mods tolerate this kind of stuff.

This. I just read the last few pages and there are some vile, vile posts. Maybe Dakka should just merge with 4chan? The post content seems to be the same anytime anyone mentions women. It’s shameful.

And now we get takes like 'if we include female soldiers, they can be sexual torture victims for Slaanesh! hur hur'

Which just proves my original point that some people won't be happy unless there are female sculpts and not just head swaps, which is why GW will never do it. Forcing people to buy multiple boxes if they want a unisex regiment is not a good business practice.

Hey man they're already doing this with Stormcast, drukhari, Deepkin, etcetc

$13.45 each.

w1zard wrote:
Holy gak, and there are extremist idiots even here. Someone was saying women's suffrage was a bad idea... followed by other people claiming that anyone who doesn't share their opinion is a sexist bigot that deserves to be publicly ridiculed. This is why I hate politics.

-No, just because people aren't as progressive as you doesn't mean they are all closet nazis/sexists.

-No, just because people want to see more women and minorities in traditionally white-male dominated media doesn't mean they are evil communists who want to destroy America and everything you hold dear.

Can we please stop trying to demonize the other side and treat each other like people with differing opinions?

I saw the post claiming womens' suffrage was a bad idea, but could you point out the post where someone said anyone who didnt share their opinion was a sexist bigot who deserved to be publicly ridiculed? Because you're trying to set up a dichotomy here where both sides are equally bad, but it kind of looks like you're basing the extreme behavior of one side on what they say, and the extreme behavior of the other on your own interpretation of what they imply.

 mugginns wrote:
Hey man they're already doing this with Stormcast, drukhari, Deepkin, etcetc

Sure, but like I said, it's different because almost all guard regiments are unisex in the lore. Most guard players also have an idea about how they want to represent their regiment as well, and female soldiers (or male soldiers) may not be part of that.

I play greatcoat+gasmask guardsmen and use third party pieces. But I do use the torsos from the GW infantry box and I would be pretty peeved if I had to start filling up my regiment with boobplate torsos... and it will be boobplate torsos, because if GW is going to go through the trouble of making female sculpts they are going to be obviously female. I would be fine with it if it was tastefully done though, but I don't trust GW to do that.

This is why I think female headswaps or an entirely female infantry box would be a better option for all parties involved. We definitely need female guardsmen though. It's not fair that people who want to have a female or mixed regiment have to go third party.

 Peregrine wrote:
That doesn't work at all. The base model between a Cadian and a Catachan and a Valhallan is going to be way too different and any "upgrade" box would consist of complete new models. Trying to a conversion sprue for the Cadians would mean ruining the alternate regiments by turning them into Cadians with fancy hats or whatever. That is not an acceptable price to pay for slightly more convenience for Cadian players.

Actually I could see Valhallans being made by just swapping out the legs and head from a cadian. A Catachan is a torso and arms swap. I don't think it is realistic to expect GW to run 5 different model lines just for guard players, upgrade sprues off of a "cadian base" might be the best we can hope for.

w1zard wrote:

 mugginns wrote:
Hey man they're already doing this with Stormcast, drukhari, Deepkin, etcetc

Sure, but like I said, it's different because almost all guard regiments are unisex in the lore. Most guard players also have an idea about how they want to represent their regiment as well, and female soldiers (or male soldiers) may not be part of that.

I play greatcoat+gasmask guardsmen and use third party pieces. But I do use the torsos from the GW infantry box and I would be pretty peeved if I had to start filling up my regiment with boobplate torsos... and it will be boobplate torsos, because if GW is going to go through the trouble of making female sculpts they are going to be obviously female.

This is why I think female headswaps or an entirely female infantry box would be a better option for all parties involved. We definitely need female guardsmen though. It's not fair that people who want to have a female or mixed regiment have to go third party.

Oh, I'm sorry, I didn't read the latest thread, you're still trying to set yourself up as a "reasonable middle ground" and to do that you need to cast people who do not want female guardsmen as crazy conservative fringe and people who want female guardsmen in the same kit as crazy liberal fringe.

THATS why you have to pretend that the response to "women should not have the right to vote" was "you are a sexist misogynist woman-hater if you disagree at all with my view" instead of the much more common "wtf are you talking about, there is not a horde of feminists losing their minds when GW puts out kits with women in them" response that you'll actually read if you go through those pages.

Sorry. carry on with your narrative. I thought it might have been a mistake you pretending to have people saying crazy left wing stuff.

the_scotsman wrote:
Oh, I'm sorry, I didn't read the latest thread, you're still trying to set yourself up as a "reasonable middle ground" and to do that you need to cast people who do not want female guardsmen as crazy conservative fringe and people who want female guardsmen in the same kit as crazy liberal fringe.

THATS why you have to pretend that the response to "women should not have the right to vote" was "you are a sexist misogynist woman-hater if you disagree at all with my view" instead of the much more common "wtf are you talking about, there is not a horde of feminists losing their minds when GW puts out kits with women in them" response that you'll actually read if you go through those pages.

Sorry. carry on with your narrative. I thought it might have been a mistake you pretending to have people saying crazy left wing stuff.

What?

I'm not trying to set myself up as anything.

I agree that it would be cool to see female guardswomen, but I don't think that forcing people to run mixed regiments by putting them in the same box is the way to do it.

I just think the people who respond with "lol women shouldn't be able to vote", or "we need female guard models in the basic infantry box and feth anyone who gets upset about it (while strongly implying the upset people are sexist)" are as equally bad as each other.

w1zard wrote:

 mugginns wrote:
Hey man they're already doing this with Stormcast, drukhari, Deepkin, etcetc

Sure, but like I said, it's different because almost all guard regiments are unisex in the lore. Most guard players also have an idea about how they want to represent their regiment as well, and female soldiers (or male soldiers) may not be part of that.

I play greatcoat+gasmask guardsmen and use third party pieces. But I do use the torsos from the GW infantry box and I would be pretty peeved if I had to start filling up my regiment with boobplate torsos... and it will be boobplate torsos, because if GW is going to go through the trouble of making female sculpts they are going to be obviously female. I would be fine with it if it was tastefully done though, but I don't trust GW to do that.

This is why I think female headswaps or an entirely female infantry box would be a better option for all parties involved. We definitely need female guardsmen though. It's not fair that people who want to have a female or mixed regiment have to go third party.

So they just change the lore. It worked with Primaris marines. Stormcast were all male for a while.

If someone doesn't want women in their regiments then they don't use the models. There are other companies or models they can use.

That's a brilliant statement, lol.

 mugginns wrote:
So they just change the lore. It worked with Primaris marines. Stormcast were all male for a while.

For what it is worth I didn't agree with the Primaris stuff either. It was a hamfisted way of having lore justification of new models.

But, at least the Primaris stuff was ADDING things to the lore. Changing the IG from a unisex fighting force involved retconning pretty much all of the established IG lore.

 mugginns wrote:
If someone doesn't want women in their regiments then they don't use the models. There are other companies or models they can use.

Very clever

But I am in agreement with you that we need guardswomen, it's a longstanding issue that needs correction. My only disagreements are in how that goal is accomplished.

w1zard wrote:

 mugginns wrote:
So they just change the lore. It worked with Primaris marines. Stormcast were all male for a while.

If someone doesn't want women in their regiments then they don't use the models. There are other companies or models they can use.

For what it is worth I didn't agree with the Primaris stuff either. It was a hamfisted way of having lore justification of new models.

But, at least the Primaris stuff was ADDING things to the lore. Changing the IG from a unisex fighting force involved retconning pretty much all of the established IG lore.

I wasn't aware Gender was addressed in IG lore, except saying that some regiments were unisex, some regiments were not.

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
I wasn't aware Gender was addressed in IG lore, except saying that some regiments were unisex, some regiments were not.

Both the Gaunt's Ghosts and Ciaphas Cain novel series repeat ad nauseum that the majority of guard regiments are unisex. They do it so often because the "protagonist regiments" in both novel series are mixed sex and it causes problems sometimes. They go out of their way to mention it multiple times over the course of both series.

I think it is also mentioned in other IG novels as well.

w1zard wrote:

the_scotsman wrote:
Oh, I'm sorry, I didn't read the latest thread, you're still trying to set yourself up as a "reasonable middle ground" and to do that you need to cast people who do not want female guardsmen as crazy conservative fringe and people who want female guardsmen in the same kit as crazy liberal fringe.

THATS why you have to pretend that the response to "women should not have the right to vote" was "you are a sexist misogynist woman-hater if you disagree at all with my view" instead of the much more common "wtf are you talking about, there is not a horde of feminists losing their minds when GW puts out kits with women in them" response that you'll actually read if you go through those pages.

Sorry. carry on with your narrative. I thought it might have been a mistake you pretending to have people saying crazy left wing stuff.

What?

I'm not trying to set myself up as anything.

I agree that it would be cool to see female guardswomen, but I don't think that forcing people to run mixed regiments by putting them in the same box is the way to do it.

I just think the people who respond with "lol women shouldn't be able to vote", or "we need female guard models in the basic infantry box and feth anyone who gets upset about it (while strongly implying the upset people are sexist)" are as equally bad as each other.

....you do? You think that someone expressing a ridiculous opinion and someone else ridiculing that opinion are equivalent?

basic plastic kits for a given faction are almost always going to include the most generic options that appeal to the most people.

It is unrealistic that Games Workshop is going to take the opportunity to make two separate kits, purely for the aesthetic distinction of the models' sex.

This pleases people who would like their guard regiments to be only male, like yourself. It makes things the hardest for people who would like their guard regiments to be only female, and it requires anyone who would like any female models at all to go to third party model manufacturers.

If you include more options in a single kit, the people who want their guys to be all one thing can make that so by buying multiple kits.

It does not make you sexist, bigoted or otherwise to want to make your guys all one thing, but it does make you extremely naive if you think the approach GW is likely to take is not going to be to add more variety to the single sprue. Regardless of what option you want. If you wanted the guard kit to include 3 plasma guns and for GW to produce another kit with only flamers so that you can have an easier time building your guys as all plasma guns, I'd say you were being equally unrealistic. And I am not implying that you are sexist, nor have I from the start of the thread. If a new guard kit ever was made, it would probably include female torsos and heads.

If you're lucky, you might get the Harlequin, Eldar, Kabalite or Tau treatment, where there are enough male parts in the kit to make all males if you want.

w1zard wrote:

 mugginns wrote:
So they just change the lore. It worked with Primaris marines. Stormcast were all male for a while.

For what it is worth I didn't agree with the Primaris stuff either. It was a hamfisted way of having lore justification of new models.

But, at least the Primaris stuff was ADDING things to the lore. Changing the IG from a unisex fighting force involved retconning pretty much all of the established IG lore.

It wouldn't exactly be like retconning Gulliman to be a World Eater or the Tau to be worshippers of Khorne. You're talking about a pretty small detail.