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You can play in whatever time period you want but as with AoS, most people are playing in "current year.M41" and most named characters are alive in "current year.M41", with the exception of Tycho who seems incapable of being discontinued despite being dead for ages in lore, like seriously he's been dead for 20 years or something by now.

40k is a setting always on its "the end of days" narrative. Even after the Rift and into Vigilus, there is complete stagnation in the setting. There's more Space Marines but there are more CSM/Daemons, Orks, Nid's, and 'Crons. The Imperium takes back some worlds but loses 200 more in the process. Abbadon crushes Cadia and opens the Rift but immediately loses all cohesion in his Black Crusade and can't get his big win. The Imperium nearly loses its only safe link to Imperium Nihilus but at the last minute, it's fine.

I heavily disagree with the point about AoS and WHFB being parallel lines. Fantasy was a stagnant game and story that needed to change to survive. With a complete reboot (however haphazard the launch), GW gave its teams a blank slate with the basic principles of:
- Make it Fantasy.
- These select individuals survived.
- Make it easy to access.
- Make it profitable.
IMO AoS has succeeded on all of these points. Most armies weren't "invalidated" until around AoS 2 IIRC barring those armies (Tomb Kings and Brettonia) and units (Empire Knights, Cannons) that were too generic to come under copyright and trademarks.

I know people like to point out the Total Warhammer games as a big interest for the Old World but I would counter that by saying they're only interested in the setting, not WHFB the game. GW still resells stories set in the Old World regarding the Elves, Empire, and the rise of Nagash but outside of the Internet (which in most cases is just people hating the change from WHFB to AoS in my experience), I've never seen a drive to return to the Old World setting.

Speaking of dead characters in 40k

That being said, given how long GW has outright refused to even give us female Guard Heads (Missed a great chance with the Tanith release) I'm being more and more inclined to go 3rd party for heads. That being said, would you be allowed to put models on table at a GW event with 3rd party heads? Would GW poke that legal turd? "player told to leave event for having Female Astartes"

Just saying, they could pull the we didn't make that line, but with Greenstuff and skill there is nothing they can say right?

I think the problem with the Tanith is the novels are "history" books, in that they take place in 750ish.M41. There's not even been a Second War for Armageddon yet in the time of the Sabbat Worlds Crusade. It's like reading Bernard Cornwell's Sharpe, you know that Napoleon loses the Napoleonic Wars, and Sharpe at some point dies of old age but it's about telling a story from that time period. The same argument applies to the Horus Heresy. We know how it ends, Emperor in the big chair, Sanguinius dead, Horus dead, the Legions are turned into chapters and a bunch of Chaos Legions escape to become the CSM. But you can still tell the stories of those characters who would have been around.

 Gert wrote:
You can play in whatever time period you want but as with AoS, most people are playing in "current year.M41" ...

I very much doubt that most people put any thought at all into what year their game is taking place in, to be honest.

I heavily disagree with the point about AoS and WHFB being parallel lines. Fantasy was a stagnant game and story that needed to change to survive.

The setting was only 'stagnant' if you choose to look at it as a story instead of a setting. I never really had a problem with the setting not advancing... a setting doesn't need to, it's just the backdrop for the games to exist in. I don't need it to advance any more than I need the setting for Heroquest, or Space Hulk, or Beware the Wolf to advance. The novels can do that.


The game absolutely needed some work, and potentially a reboot... but AoS was not a reboot of WHFB, it's a completely different game.

I'm just gonna say we start a new thread about known dead characters getting playable models in current 40k.

For this thread, I would like to know what if any kickback GW would face if a player's army were deemed "illegal" because there were no female SM heads to use?

FezzikDaBullgryn wrote:
I'm just gonna say we start a new thread about known dead characters getting playable models in current 40k.

For this thread, I would like to know what if any kickback GW would face if a player's army were deemed "illegal" because there were no female SM heads to use?

With the current state of things, I imagine GW would not want to open a can of worms like that and wouldn't make a fuss if someone played a tournament with them. Or some tournament judge out there will be a stickler for the rules and we get to read an endless deluge of articles about GW banning female marines to varying degrees of accuracy.

Gert, all those dead characters like Macharius, Naaman, Cortez, and Xavier were dead when they were introduced. They’d be an entry in a codex, and right next to the entry it would describe how and where they had died.

 insaniak wrote:
Given the way they have advanced the story with the return of Guilliman and the addition of Primaris Marines, I'd like to see them go further with that and have the full blown schism within the Imperium that was rumoured when we first found out that Guilliman was coming back. Have the current Imperium, led by the High Lords on one side, and Ultramar and those who side with Guilliman on the other trying to put in place a less totalitarian regime. That lets them have their 'good guy' space marines while simultaneously emphasising just how corrupt and evil the Imperium has become.

Hell, female marines could even be the breaking point there... The purists were horrified enough about Cawl messing with the Emperor's design, so adding women to the ranks could well be that one step too far for the High Lords to accept.

Precisely an example why most fan fiction is just far worse than whatever GW puts out LOL

 insaniak wrote:
Given the way they have advanced the story with the return of Guilliman and the addition of Primaris Marines, I'd like to see them go further with that and have the full blown schism within the Imperium that was rumoured when we first found out that Guilliman was coming back. Have the current Imperium, led by the High Lords on one side, and Ultramar and those who side with Guilliman on the other trying to put in place a less totalitarian regime. That lets them have their 'good guy' space marines while simultaneously emphasising just how corrupt and evil the Imperium has become.

Hell, female marines could even be the breaking point there... The purists were horrified enough about Cawl messing with the Emperor's design, so adding women to the ranks could well be that one step too far for the High Lords to accept.

I was honestly a little surprised that GW didn't use the Primaris release as an opportunity to integrate females into Marines. I was hoping they would.

I still wouldn't have collected them, as I hate Primaris I'd probably hate them a little less though.

 Grimskul wrote:

 Castozor wrote:
We already have female representation though, not sure why it needs to be the poster boys too? I'd equally balk at people wanting male SoB.
If you are so insecure you absolutely need each and every faction to be filled to the brim with females as well the problem might very well be you. Let's not pretend superhuman monastic death machines are in anyway representative of your average male wargamer.

I'd argue it's precisely this as the problem. It's the same problem that's leaked into many mainline franchises where people have put ideology and the idea behind needing "equal representation" in everything they see as some kind of new dogma for popular entertainment. They know it's hard to actually take the time to create an interesting original story or character to prop up that kind of representation without it falling apart under its own vacuousness if diversity is its only real selling point, so they latch onto existing ones and try to subvert it towards what they feel is ideal, when in doing so they change a core part of the setting that has existed for years only for the sake of a very shallow belief that they're making "progress" of some sort. Even from a purely monetary standpoint, I don't think they'll make THAT much more money from having SM suddenly be female, especially if there's just heads, since it's not like you couldn't use other heads from the GW range to begin with if you wanted to make your own homebrew female SM.

Why not find a different setting that fulfills your need for bioengineered adryognous soldiers in power armour? If there isn't one, why not do you part to help and create it? Not necessarily even as a self-sufficient franchise, but it's not like you can't make up your own RPG/game, etc. There's tons of other outlets if you want that kind of fix.

I'm Asian, I can play and have fun with settings where the majority presented is white, female, black, or whatever. I don't need 100% representation of me for everything I interact with. Hell, I play Orks, which are nothing like me. I don't understand this bizarre desire to have this optimal diversity when it isn't even that indicative of what that's like IRL. There's plenty of homogenous societies of primarily one type of race like in Japan, just as there are places that are incredibly multicultural, like where I live.

I’m in 40k ‘cos I like 40k, not because I’m after equality. But if something approaching equality can be reached, I’d rather like that.

I'm in the US because I like the US, but if we could make the US better, I'd like that. Same exact logic with the NY Mets. 40k is a hobby, and I prefer my hobbies to be more of a influence for positivity, rather than a detractor. If they continue to be a source of the ugliest of our society I'll just go back to a different hobby.

 Insectum7 wrote:

 insaniak wrote:
Given the way they have advanced the story with the return of Guilliman and the addition of Primaris Marines, I'd like to see them go further with that and have the full blown schism within the Imperium that was rumoured when we first found out that Guilliman was coming back. Have the current Imperium, led by the High Lords on one side, and Ultramar and those who side with Guilliman on the other trying to put in place a less totalitarian regime. That lets them have their 'good guy' space marines while simultaneously emphasising just how corrupt and evil the Imperium has become.

Hell, female marines could even be the breaking point there... The purists were horrified enough about Cawl messing with the Emperor's design, so adding women to the ranks could well be that one step too far for the High Lords to accept.

I was honestly a little surprised that GW didn't use the Primaris release as an opportunity to integrate females into Marines. I was hoping they would.

I still wouldn't have collected them, as I hate Primaris I'd probably hate them a little less though.

It is extremely clear that GW is treating 40k with an order of magnitude greater safety and conservatism than they are treating their fantasy franchise.

And you only need to take a quick peek at the last few reveals for AOS vs 40k to see how badly 40k is paying for that in terms of creative and interesting ideas. Everything 40k is either just an extremely straightforward remake of an existing unit brought to plastic from finecast, or the teeniest, tiniest, most predictable variation on an existing theme (basically we've just got Orks like Atlas holding up the entire burden of original ideas in the 40k universe) and every release for AOS and Specialist Games is an insane, balls to the wall crazy awesome idea.

AOS took an idea as basic and simplistic as "zombie" or "giant bat" or "Skeleton on a horse" and executed them all in the most spectacular way imaginable. there are more interesting ideas on the single model of the recently previewed Necromunda noblewoman than in the entire latest wave of primaris stuff.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Like, just take a look at the Zombies they just put out in the Cursed City game:

Every single one you can clearly tell from their appearance who the zombie used to be, and you can even tell they come from this insane grimdark world where getting resurrected as a zombie by a necromancer is a normal occurrence, to the point where civilians regularly pin corpses into the ground with steel spikes, and many zombies have to drag their whole headstone along with them to counteract that.

That's absolutely incredible. What ideas are present in Primaris Eradicators, Heavy Intercessors, Primaris Captain with Heavy Bolt Rifle, etc?

What if intercessor....wearing aggressor armor? Well...he'd have an aggressor's statline...and he could probably hold a bigger rifle, yeah? So like the normal bolt rifle, but heavy. That'd have like. Heavy bolter stats.

You know how space marines can have multi-meltas, and meltaguns? What if we done a primaris with one of those. Yep, that's a primaris melta gun haver.

What if space marine bike, but primaris?

Slightly related - the next Marvel comic series is a SoB one:

Looks good.... except where the feth are the sisters left and right holding their boltguns excactly?

Is that Rogue from the Xmen?

Not Online!!! wrote:
Looks good.... except where the feth are the sisters left and right holding their boltguns excactly?

Either an unseen side grip or a poor hold on the magazine?

Not going to lie, anyone discharging a firearm with that much muzzle flash that close to their face is no "Expert warrior".

That cover needs work. As in a better artist.

FezzikDaBullgryn wrote:
Not going to lie, anyone discharging a firearm with that much muzzle flash that close to their face is no "Expert warrior".

That cover needs work. As in a better artist.

It's a gw Made problem that, aka what i have dubbed the "no Stockitis". Gw seems to ignore autogun riflelbutts and it Leads to the Same Problem on some cultists.



Automatically Appended Next Post:

beast_gts wrote:

Not Online!!! wrote:
Looks good.... except where the feth are the sisters left and right holding their boltguns excactly?

Either an unseen side grip or a poor hold on the magazine?

I mean i am someone forced to wear glasses permanently but there is no Hand on a mag, nevermind that you should not so that.... So the Trained warrior archetype geht's thrown out a window of the Prager castle.. also to my knowledge in the far future there's no Grip modifactions for most things either....

beast_gts wrote:

Not Online!!! wrote:
Looks good.... except where the feth are the sisters left and right holding their boltguns excactly?

Either an unseen side grip or a poor hold on the magazine?

Someone said in another thread they look like they originally had pistols and they were given bolters later.

Yeah, I kinda thought they might be Seraphim at first, kinda flanking the obvious main character?

This bears repeating, since it's the crux of the matter:

40k plays on archaic strings. It's better worldbuilding by being more archaic by having the exclusive elite warrior orders mimic monks and nuns and be separate. Female Sisters of Silence and Sororitas on the one hand, and male Astartes and Custodes are much better worldbuilding ploys than mixed orders of Astartes and Custodes. You don't mix monks and nuns and retain an archaic impression.

This is one example where GW has stayed a lot truer to the spirit of 40k through all these decades, than one would expect. Kudos to GW for playing the right strings to build their setting, where so many others would have fallen for outside pressure and muddled the setting.

Of course, the elite monks and nuns situation does not apply to the Mechanicus/Titanicus (who cares little about fleshly matters) or the ragtag plebeian hordes of Imperial Guard (where any setup conceivable, such as mixed or separate regiments, or just male or even just female regiments will happen somewhere depending on local culture). Neither does the Inquisition need it, since it's such an excentric individually focused organization. Sororitas/Astartes and Custodes/Sisters of Silence is the relevant arena. They are the big shining warrior orders.

And they ought to feel archaic. This isn't the Dark Age of Technology, but the regressed, myopic and parochial Age of Imperium, where things often do not make sense and weird traditions are king. There is a good reason why Games Workshop in the 1990s abandoned the idea of female Space Marines and gave the Sisters of Battle a true remake into their very own cool thing.

Cheers

Yeah because female SM models weren't selling. That's it. The sales influence the lore as they always have.

And to reiterate my earlier point, where are the similarities between monks and SM? They live in a monastery and are all dudes, but they're only dudes because the Emperor (famous Aethist BTW) didn't like girls.

The Custodes are fancy bodyguards for the Emperor, none of them are girls because again the Emperor thinks girls are icky.

SoB are SciFi warrior nuns because a core tenant of their character is that they are religious and only exist to skirt around a rule that the religious institution wasn't allowed to have "men" in its armed forces.

The Sister of Silence are all women but GW hasn't given a reason why. Best explanation is the Emperor wanted to emphasise how much he didn't like girls by making the ONLY female exclusive warrior order full of people who literally repulse normals with their unsettling aura.

Yeah, ain't that the truth. AoS has really impressed with its model line so far. I mean, there's nothing wrong with how Primaris look, but they're just so...generic? And for the Imperium to suddenly have access to all this super special tech to the point where they can outfit entire Chapters with, say, anti-grave tech when it used to be limited to a single company in a single founding chapter and the custodes...is just weird.

When you look at what's come out of AoS that didn't even really have FB equivalents--the deepkin, fyreslayers, steampunk dwarves, etc., they're just so much more interesting modelwise than anything that's really come out on the 40k side except maybe the recent SoB. Other than that, we have the new orks which look like...AoS orks with guns.

I'm starting to wonder if the initial AoS fiasco hit GW harder psychologically than just it starting out a bit crap. From what I understand, they were pushing the stormcast to basically being the space marines of AoS which failed. Maybe GW is afraid of Space Marines becoming just another army in 40k like stormcast are just another army in AoS.

Karak Norn Clansman wrote:40k plays on archaic strings.

Is that why the Astra Militarum is mono gender? The Inquisition? The Assassinorum?

It's better worldbuilding by being more archaic by having the exclusive elite warrior orders mimic monks and nuns and be separate.

But it's terrible when one of those exclusive elite warrior orders is the poster boy for the whole setting, and is given explicitly more treatment and attention than everything else (nearly) combined.

Furthermore, we already have Custodes as the "exclusive elite" if you need that. Space Marines don't also need to be.

You don't mix monks and nuns and retain an archaic impression.

And that's why the mixed gender Inquisition don't have an archaic impression? Oh, hang on - they're more archaic than many Space Marine Chapters are.

This is one example where GW has stayed a lot truer to the spirit of 40k through all these decades, than one would expect. Kudos to GW for playing the right strings to build their setting, where so many others would have fallen for outside pressure and muddled the setting.

Giving women fair representation in a toy solider hobby is "falling for outside pressure and muddling the setting"?

Sorry, but I think making sure that people feel welcome in the hobby is more important than any made up words written to justify sales of toy soldiers.

Neither does the Inquisition need it, since it's such an excentric individually focused organization.

You mean, like every Space Marine Chapter, which operate independently as fiefdoms within the wider Imperium, with greater autonomy than the Inquisition?

Sororitas/Astartes and Custodes/Sisters of Silence is the relevant arena. They are the big shining warrior orders.

Sisters, yes, because it is, and has ALWAYS been integral to their identity and image. Lest I remind you that women Space Marines *were* a thing, and only didn't make it because they didn't sell in the 80s/90s?

Also, by that same token, why do the Custodes even need to exist? We have Space Marines, why do we need another "big shining warrior order"?

And they ought to feel archaic. This isn't the Dark Age of Technology, but the regressed, myopic and parochial Age of Imperium, where things often do not make sense and weird traditions are king.

But *we* live in the 21st century, and I'd very much like that people don't feel like they're being excluded because "noooooooo you can't be the cool elite faction, you're not allowed enhanced soldiers with this particular aesthetic because REASONS!"

When the worldbuilding gets in the way of creativity and inclusion, worldbuilding should take a step back. There's no excuse for exclusionary behaviours.

There is a good reason why Games Workshop in the 1990s abandoned the idea of female Space Marines

Unless you're going to say "because they didn't sell well in the 80s/90s", whatever reason you give ain't accurate.

So, given now that we're 30/40 years down the line, and the hobby has opened its doors somewhat, I don't exactly think consumer data from the previous millennium will be much use.

It's very common in fantasy settings to have "archaic institutions" with mixed gender representation.
Like paladins in every dnd setting, tv show, movie, video game, etc.

 Karak Norn Clansman wrote:
This bears repeating, since it's the crux of the matter:

40k plays on archaic strings. It's better worldbuilding by being more archaic by having the exclusive elite warrior orders mimic monks and nuns and be separate. Female Sisters of Silence and Sororitas on the one hand, and male Astartes and Custodes are much better worldbuilding ploys than mixed orders of Astartes and Custodes. You don't mix monks and nuns and retain an archaic impression.

This is one example where GW has stayed a lot truer to the spirit of 40k through all these decades, than one would expect. Kudos to GW for playing the right strings to build their setting, where so many others would have fallen for outside pressure and muddled the setting.

Of course, the elite monks and nuns situation does not apply to the Mechanicus/Titanicus (who cares little about fleshly matters) or the ragtag plebeian hordes of Imperial Guard (where any setup conceivable, such as mixed or separate regiments, or just male or even just female regiments will happen somewhere depending on local culture). Neither does the Inquisition need it, since it's such an excentric individually focused organization. Sororitas/Astartes and Custodes/Sisters of Silence is the relevant arena. They are the big shining warrior orders.

And they ought to feel archaic. This isn't the Dark Age of Technology, but the regressed, myopic and parochial Age of Imperium, where things often do not make sense and weird traditions are king. There is a good reason why Games Workshop in the 1990s abandoned the idea of female Space Marines and gave the Sisters of Battle a true remake into their very own cool thing.

Cheers

I think your ideas and art are great, but I think your takes about inclusivity here aren't that great.

The Imperium doesn't care about gender or sex. If it could jam gene-seed in a woman and have it succeed, it would do so in a heartbeat. That's double the Space Marines, their best asset.

And before anyone brings it into question: I had a talk with my GW store owner over Friday's lunch break, and he said the 9th edition Base SM codex explicitly states the lore saying SMs have to be male. I lent my book to my coworker a week ago, can anyone please confirm?

 RaptorusRex wrote:
. If it could jam gene-seed in a woman and have it succeed, it would do so in a heartbeat. That's double the Space Marines, their best asset.

Well, yes to the first, but no to the second. The limiting factor is geneseed, not bodies. The number of space marines vs the sheer mass of humanity in m41 makes that a non-factor. As it stands they could double anyway (and with the addition of Primaris, probably did, really).

At this point the only real limitation in this regard is GW not be willing to mess with the fluff.

FezzikDaBullgryn wrote:And before anyone brings it into question: I had a talk with my GW store owner over Friday's lunch break, and he said the 9th edition Base SM codex explicitly states the lore saying SMs have to be male. I lent my book to my coworker a week ago, can anyone please confirm?

Referencing a store manager is pretty much the most questionable thing you can do.
Anyway, it doesn't. 'Creation of a Space Marine' is now a single page. It vaguely refers to the products of the process as gene-sons and battle-brothers for some gendered language, but the only actual requirements are that they be 'youths' and 'hardy.' After 'years of arduous training, agonizing surgery and psycho-indoctrination' yielding 'post-humans,' I can hardly see why it would matter. Space Marines that are technically mixed gendered, but effectively non-binary eunuchs/neuters wouldn't be any different.

If you want to go hunting for some obscure reference elsewhere in the book, knock yourself out.

Voss wrote:

 RaptorusRex wrote:
. If it could jam gene-seed in a woman and have it succeed, it would do so in a heartbeat. That's double the Space Marines, their best asset.

Well, yes to the first, but no to the second. The limiting factor is geneseed, not bodies. The number of space marines vs the sheer mass of humanity in m41 makes that a non-factor. As it stands they could double anyway (and with the addition of Primaris, probably did, really).

At this point the only real limitation in this regard is GW not be willing to mess with the fluff.

FezzikDaBullgryn wrote:And before anyone brings it into question: I had a talk with my GW store owner over Friday's lunch break, and he said the 9th edition Base SM codex explicitly states the lore saying SMs have to be male. I lent my book to my coworker a week ago, can anyone please confirm?

Referencing a store manager is pretty much the most questionable thing you can do.
Anyway, it doesn't. 'Creation of a Space Marine' is now a single page. It vaguely refers to the products of the process as gene-sons and battle-brothers for some gendered language, but the only actual requirements are that they be 'youths' and 'hardy.' After 'years of arduous training, agonizing surgery and psycho-indoctrination' yielding 'post-humans,' I can hardly see why it would matter. Space Marines that are technically mixed gendered, but effectively non-binary eunuchs/neuters wouldn't be any different.

If you want to go hunting for some obscure reference elsewhere in the book, knock yourself out.

Thank you, for the response. I apologize for the fopaux, I was merely trying to illustrate the information I was told. Would it be better if I said a guy on the street told me, would that be better.

I realize it was a claim to authority, and that was wrong.

For the record, I am on the side of letting female Astartes be a thing, I wasn't trying to argue the lore prevents it. I just wanted to say a "source" told me something that contradicted what I thought was a factual statement. (There was never lore that explicitly states no male is required).

Just wanted to make that clear.

God forbid you have women space she might paint her armor pink and join chaos or something. Wait guys already did that. I think sisters does a great job including women models into the game. I think they should be included in Guard also but definitely not Orks. Next thing you know they will be ordering the nobz about and making everything gets clean and all their shootas will have to be put away.