Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

 Grey Templar wrote:
I've never seen an instance where the Imperium uses child soldiers. certainly not as suicide bombers.

Of course what the Imperium defines as a child and what we call a child may be different. You can probably join the IG as soon as your body has reached a certain development stage, so potentially as young as 12-13. With the time it takes to train and transport a regiment, they will probably be at minimum 14-15 years old before any actual combat occurs. Ignoring a planetary invasion.

Child Soldiers = Marine Aspirants

They don't see any combat till they become Scouts. Which is not until they are at least 16. Which isn't really a child.

Cadia's Youth Army springs to mind as well. Hundreds of "Regional Commands" were deployed against Abbadon's forces during the 13th Black Crusade, if one were to go by the rulebook's force disposition chart. On the Gateway World, the citizens learn how to operate a lasgun "before they can walk". Maybe this is largely hyperbole, but it's still telling and hints at how the children would be pushed towards a militaristic lifestyle.

The students in the Schola Progenium would easily classify as child soldiers as well, even though they don't actually see a battlefield until being young adults and having finished their education.

The oldest active duty Battle Sisters remaining in the battered convent of the Order of the Ermine Mantle in the Cadia sector are age seventeen.

And then there were the kids who fought against the Orks on Valhalla, although technically this was a local thing rather than under actual Imperial control.

Ultimately, I don't see why the Imperium as a whole would not use children to fill any gaps left by a temporary shortage of more efficient (adult) soldiers. "We don't care" is, I think, a central theme for this monolithic bureaucratic entity, as is the absence of morality of the sort currently preached by modern western society.

"In the streets outside the hab-blocks and manufactorums, the Arbitrators enforce their unforgiving rule upon the desperate and the homeless. Feral children fight over the dead flesh of the fallen, their struggles lit only by flickering luminas set into crumbling masonry. Scapegoats, lepers, and pilgrims press and push in great queues that will last a lifetime, desperate in their quests for absolution they will never receive. Through this sickly gruel of flesh stride the privileged few, untouched by disease or the ravages of acidic rain. It is they who maintain the status quo for their own hidden ends, they who guide humanity itself. Some are pure of intent, some embody the corruption at the heart of the Imperium, but one thing is true for all - they care not for the fate of the common man."

Besides, it wasn't too long ago that soldiers aged sixteen and younger were somewhat common in our regions as well.
Example: http://yourarchives.nationalarchives.gov.uk/index.php?title=Enlistment_of_Boy_Soldiers_in_the_British_Army%2C_1795-1959

Kids in training is different than child soldiers.

I really wouldn't view anything above 14 as being a child soldier. I am sure the Imperium has sent kids into battle before, but only because they needed more bodies.

I am 100% sure the Imperium isn't rounding up and accepting 8-12 year olds and shipping them off to another planet. If and when it does happen, its probably done because the planet is being attacked and everyone that can hold a lasgun is needed on the front.

Yea, I wouldn't classify kids In training as child soldiers either. I wouldn't put it past the Imperium to actually send kids to COMBAT in desperate situations (Hey, when that tyranid wants to eat EVERYONE, you might as well give the kid a gun if you have a gun lying around). However, I imagine the Imperium likely doesn't resort to this very often, if only for the simple reason that the gun is probably more expensive than the kid, and the Imperium doesn't have enough guns to give to children in the first place.

Why waste giving a gun or a bomb to a kid when you have plenty o "adults" or kids-in-training (again, I don't count those as child soldiers) lying around? Humans are considered expendable in the greater imperium, but other resources (such as guns and bombs) are NOT. And a child soldier on the battlefield is simply a waste of a gun or bomb used to arm him compared to a trained adult (or adult trained ever since s/he was a kid).

http://memestorage.com/news/anita_sarkeesian_i_bet_the_patriarchy_did_this/2013-04-02-1852

Grey Templar wrote:I am sure the Imperium has sent kids into battle before, but only because they needed more bodies.

Technically, it wouldn't even be "the Imperium" but rather the local government that is fulfilling a draconically enforced quota. The Imperium would "merely" be at fault for not putting a stop to such practices. In other words, I really don't think the Imperium is enforcing a galaxywide minimum age of recruitment, as far as its tithe is concerned.

I don't have any fluff to back my beliefs up this time - it's just a gut feeling I get when looking at the Imperium, and then looking at a whole lot of real Earth nations that had no problem sending kids onto a battlefield as well. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_use_of_children#History

Meet Sergeant John Clem of the US Union Army:

Shadowbrand wrote:http://memestorage.com/news/anita_sarkeesian_i_bet_the_patriarchy_did_this/2013-04-02-1852

Anything you actually have to contribute, aside from ignorance towards current social issues?

I think that the Imperium is patriarchal for one reason. The whole theme of 40k is that, "gak got worse".

Humanity has devolved. We don't understand our own machinery anymore, and we waste our lives fighting for xenophobic ideals and long dead tyrants. Its a crime to ask questions.

Do you think that, while humanity is getting worse and worse, and the galaxy is undersiege by xenos and daemons, and each day more and more people are executed as heretics, everyone would take the time to solve social problems that have always plagued human civilization? No. Things aren't better in the 41st millenium. gak got worse.

What makes you think women being oppressed more than men is worse than both genders being equally oppressed and suffering an equally unrelentingly gakky lot in life?

 LoneLictor wrote:
I think that the Imperium is patriarchal for one reason. The whole theme of 40k is that, "gak got worse".

Humanity has devolved. We don't understand our own machinery anymore, and we waste our lives fighting for xenophobic ideals and long dead tyrants. Its a crime to ask questions.

Do you think that, while humanity is getting worse and worse, and the galaxy is undersiege by xenos and daemons, and each day more and more people are executed as heretics, everyone would take the time to solve social problems that have always plagued human civilization? No. Things aren't better in the 41st millenium. gak got worse.

"The situation is grim" does not necessarily have a bearing on the Imperium's stance on gender equality.

And again, I think it's been quite firmly established that they do not care. Female Inquisitors, female High Lords and female IG regiments all quite canonically exist.

No, it's not a patriarchy.

If it was, then women would be the ones being subjugated, and men would not be forced into conscription to die in a far away world where they will never see their families again. Check out the actual definition of "patriarchy" to see what I mean.

40K is a reflection of what the real world was at the time, when men worked to keep women safe because men are, in a reproductive sense, disposable. And women were not.

Men would work/die in war to keep the women safe.

It all really hinges on what your definition of patriarchy is, and of course whether a patriarchy exists today or not.

I don't believe that we live in a patriarchy, because of gender quotas, biased healthcare, posters that brand all men as rapists, biased divorce laws, biased child custody laws and the fact that all great civilisations were built on the disposability of their sons. And the fact that this is all hunky dory with everyone.

I know it looks like I've really gone off the point entirely here, but questioning what a patriarchy is was necessary to make my point.

And let's not forget that war itself is quite masculine. Where else are you going to find an abundance of masculinity, other than in something very masculine?

Troike wrote:"The situation is grim" does not necessarily have a bearing on the Imperium's stance on gender equality.

Or if it does, it would likely be to the contrary. Historically, a people become more united, and less divided by such issues as skin colour or gender, "the more worse gak gets". Because segregation is a luxury that perhaps cannot be afforded anymore when the enemy is knocking on your door.

This is a large part of why women were able to advance their role in society at all. Jeanne d'Arc would not have been accepted if France did not need her, Russian women would not have found their way into the Russian army in both world wars, and the German Wehrmacht surely would not have sent girls into battle as well in its final months, were it not for the pressure on the leaders and the nation as a whole.

The Imperium even allows Ogryns, Ratlings and Psykers(!) into its ranks - which is rather remarkable, considering how it does not tire to discriminate against "mutants and witches"..

a fat guy wrote:[...]

must ... not ... respond ....

 Lynata wrote:

a fat guy wrote:[...]

must ... not ... respond ....

You know you want to.

 Grey Templar wrote:
I've never seen an instance where the Imperium uses child soldiers. certainly not as suicide bombers.

Of course what the Imperium defines as a child and what we call a child may be different. You can probably join the IG as soon as your body has reached a certain development stage, so potentially as young as 12-13. With the time it takes to train and transport a regiment, they will probably be at minimum 14-15 years old before any actual combat occurs. Ignoring a planetary invasion.

Throwing your young as suicide bombers during a planetary invasion is a very legit tactic, especially since the people of Armageddon used themselves as suicide bombers during the second war.

It was more of a spot of black humor anyway. That the Imperium values life so little that it will rip a whole family from it's home and give them all bomb packs if there aren't enough lasguns to go around and your planet's about to be Omnomnom'd/Kaptored for Kay-oss/Taken by the filthy blueies/Abducted en masse/WAAAAGH'd/Gauss'd out of the Emperor's light.

I mean, throwing your children and elderly at the enemy can often double your supply of soldiers! And it also makes them think you're flying rodent gak crazy. Better to die executed by the Tau because they think you're too nutty for them than to allow yourself to be drafted into their caste based utilitarian system!

Yea, "Enemy Mine" situations are one of the greatest ways to unite people. If even Blood Angels and Necrons will cease hostilities because Tyranids are knocking at their door, then surely men and women (who unlike Blood Angels and Necrons are of the same species as opposed to super humans vs soulless robots) would obviously unite against such a threat.

I believe World War 2 did a lot to advance womens' status in America too. Because all the men were at war, women found employment in places where they otherwise wouldn't have gotten it. That's where the "We can do it!" poster of that strong woman flexing her arms comes from (the point of the poster being that men were depending on the women to now take up the work at the homefront to keep things going while they went off to die)

Of course, in the Imperium's case, things are so bad that they need to send lots of women off to die, too. The fact that this isn't reflected in the models has more to do with sales than anything else I imagine. Only War, which isn't bound by what model sells the best, has LOTS (and I mean LOTS) of official artwork of female guardsmen and commisars. Ever wanted to see what a female Cadian or Mordian looks like? You can find it there.

TiamatRoar wrote:
Yea, "Enemy Mine" situations are one of the greatest ways to unite people. If even Blood Angels and Necrons will cease hostilities because Tyranids are knocking at their door, then surely men and women (who unlike Blood Angels and Necrons are of the same species as opposed to super humans vs soulless robots) would obviously unite against such a threat.

I believe World War 2 did a lot to advance womens' status in America too. Because all the men were at war, women found employment in places where they otherwise wouldn't have gotten it. That's where the "We can do it!" poster of that strong woman flexing her arms comes from (the point of the poster being that men were depending on the women to now take up the work at the homefront to keep things going while they went off to die)

Of course, in the Imperium's case, things are so bad that they need to send lots of women off to die, too. The fact that this isn't reflected in the models has more to do with sales than anything else I imagine. Only War, which isn't bound by what model sells the best, has LOTS (and I mean LOTS) of official artwork of female guardsmen and commisars. Ever wanted to see what a female Cadian or Mordian looks like? You can find it there.

Man, woman, they're both equally dead when eaten by fifty fleshborer beetles.

 Kain wrote:

 Grey Templar wrote:
I've never seen an instance where the Imperium uses child soldiers. certainly not as suicide bombers.

Of course what the Imperium defines as a child and what we call a child may be different. You can probably join the IG as soon as your body has reached a certain development stage, so potentially as young as 12-13. With the time it takes to train and transport a regiment, they will probably be at minimum 14-15 years old before any actual combat occurs. Ignoring a planetary invasion.

Throwing your young as suicide bombers during a planetary invasion is a very legit tactic, especially since the people of Armageddon used themselves as suicide bombers during the second war.

It was more of a spot of black humor anyway. That the Imperium values life so little that it will rip a whole family from it's home and give them all bomb packs if there aren't enough lasguns to go around and your planet's about to be Omnomnom'd/Kaptored for Kay-oss/Taken by the filthy blueies/Abducted en masse/WAAAAGH'd/Gauss'd out of the Emperor's light.

I mean, throwing your children and elderly at the enemy can often double your supply of soldiers! And it also makes them think you're flying rodent gak crazy. Better to die executed by the Tau because they think you're too nutty for them than to allow yourself to be drafted into their caste based utilitarian system!

As er... interesting as that is, I think one of the main points is we have yet to see confirmation of that actually happening in any fluff source or story. I don't think a child or an elderly would make a very good bomb deliverer anyways. They don't run fast enough to get the bomb to its proper payload point, for one thing.

TiamatRoar wrote:

 Kain wrote:

 Grey Templar wrote:
I've never seen an instance where the Imperium uses child soldiers. certainly not as suicide bombers.

Of course what the Imperium defines as a child and what we call a child may be different. You can probably join the IG as soon as your body has reached a certain development stage, so potentially as young as 12-13. With the time it takes to train and transport a regiment, they will probably be at minimum 14-15 years old before any actual combat occurs. Ignoring a planetary invasion.

Throwing your young as suicide bombers during a planetary invasion is a very legit tactic, especially since the people of Armageddon used themselves as suicide bombers during the second war.

It was more of a spot of black humor anyway. That the Imperium values life so little that it will rip a whole family from it's home and give them all bomb packs if there aren't enough lasguns to go around and your planet's about to be Omnomnom'd/Kaptored for Kay-oss/Taken by the filthy blueies/Abducted en masse/WAAAAGH'd/Gauss'd out of the Emperor's light.

I mean, throwing your children and elderly at the enemy can often double your supply of soldiers! And it also makes them think you're flying rodent gak crazy. Better to die executed by the Tau because they think you're too nutty for them than to allow yourself to be drafted into their caste based utilitarian system!

As er... interesting as that is, I think one of the main points is we have yet to see confirmation of that actually happening in any fluff source or story. I don't think a child or an elderly would make a very good bomb deliverer anyways. They don't run fast enough to get the bomb to its proper payload point, for one thing.

Nonsense, just have them go to some Tau looking cute and desperate asking the Fire Warriors to help find their parents, and then have them blow themselves up and take the fire warriors with them.

Or in case of Tyranids, throw them in front to slow down a Hormagaunt mass and detonate them from afar to slow down the Tyranid advance while the Hormagaunts are busy eating them.

Men are no more disposable to human reproduction than females are. It does take two to tango, after all. Or, with the Adeptus Mechanicus and the Vitae-Womb and their other gubbinz, both genders are equally irrelevant. The AdMech can simply keep cloning them.

I don't believe that we live in a patriarchy, because of gender quotas, biased healthcare, posters that brand all men as rapists, biased divorce laws, biased child custody laws and the fact that all great civilisations were built on the disposability of their sons. And the fact that this is all hunky dory with everyone.

Yeah, come talk when most of that actually exists. It *is* a patriarchal, and actually misogynistic, viewpoint that women make better parents, when it comes to custody roles. The unspoken philosophy behind those *are* based on our patriarchal societal origins, because that viewpoint holds that child-rearing is a "woman's work". Never mind the fact that a man is perfectly suited to raising children beyond the breast-feeding stage and a woman is perfectly capable of pursuing her own career. However, following a divorce, a man should not be burdened with the actual task of raising his children, leave that to the woman, the man should just pay for it. Or, at least, so the philosophy behind these (by all means not universal) divorce and custody laws maintain.

There is also the fact that, because of our patriarchal society, in the event of a divorce, a woman is often in a much disadvantaged position to continue on with her life, as she has been dependent on her husband's income for a given time (whether 5 years or 50, it doesn't matter) and has not been given the opportunities to maintain an education or a skill-set that offers chances of gainful opportunity.

We've spent two thousand years telling women, and training them from birth, to be housekeepers, caregivers, and obedient little wives. Is it any surprise, then, that when a divorce happens, that they are unprepared for life in the world of business? Fortunately, this has been changing over the last 30 years or so, and there are now more women entering college and other avenues of secondary education than men, which leads to a growing number of women in the workplace. In time, as our society becomes accustomed to gender equality, then our laws will follow suit. Right now, they're written as if this was still 1956.

Starting in roughly 2000 BC, a religious sect was founded that established a mono-deific cult that, as its core tenets, promoted a patriarchal society. Though this was not the only patriarchal society in the world at the time, it was one of the only religious communities that did not have female deities, and the only one in which such female deities were not amongst the most-revered and respected of the entire pantheon. This cult would, over the next 3900 years, go onto conquer most of the Western hemisphere and establish its patriarchal cultural mores as the de facto social structure, often on pain of death, which was, at times, horrifically creative in its application.

Although this cult would splinter into all manner of off-shoots and varieties, the core tenets would remain largely unchanged. One single deity, sometimes viewed as a triumvirate, all of which are male, an established male-only priesthood, and a doctrinal statement that women are automatically submissive and inferior to men. These beliefs would shape social constructs for the rest of history, lasting well into (and continuing in) the modern era.

This is patriarchy, and resultant misogyny drawn from the doctrine, as an established policy of law and writ of religious canon. It is about as text-book an example as one can find.

You don't believe we live in a patriarchy simply because it's a painful truth to admit that you've been the recipient of preferential treatment since the moment you were born, with an entire society built around the idea of ensuring that your gender opens as many doors as possible, provided you fit the social class and ethnic group most approved-of by the powers that be. To be born a white, middle class male is one the greatest blessings in the United States.

 Kain wrote:

Nonsense, just have them go to some Tau looking cute and desperate asking the Fire Warriors to help find their parents, and then have them blow themselves up and take the fire warriors with them.

Or in case of Tyranids, throw them in front to slow down a Hormagaunt mass and detonate them from afar to slow down the Tyranid advance while the Hormagaunts are busy eating them.

Tau don't actually emphasize with children very much. Baby Tau are taken from their parents at birth and raised by the state. So trying to trick a tau with desperate children isn't going to work.

As for throwing a child with a bomb... well... throwing a child a far distance is difficult. Children are friggin' heavy. Why not just throw the bomb by itself? (which is what every army does with its bombs, really). You don't need to strap a bomb to a child as a trap for oncoming tyranids when you have land mines, either.

TiamatRoar wrote:

 Kain wrote:

Nonsense, just have them go to some Tau looking cute and desperate asking the Fire Warriors to help find their parents, and then have them blow themselves up and take the fire warriors with them.

Or in case of Tyranids, throw them in front to slow down a Hormagaunt mass and detonate them from afar to slow down the Tyranid advance while the Hormagaunts are busy eating them.

Tau don't actually emphasize with children very much. Baby Tau are taken from their parents at birth and raised by the state. So trying to trick a tau with desperate children isn't going to work.

As for throwing a child with a bomb... um... throwing a child a far distance is difficult. Children are friggin' heavy. Why not just throw the bomb by itself? (which is what every army does with its bombs, really)

No, no, HERD them in front of you and leave them out to get horribly eaten and slaughtered by the Tyranids, them blow them up while they're getting eaten. Have their parents between the now dead children and tyranid swarm, and the guardsmen and space marines and sisters of battle equipped with whatever you can have and let them charge at the Tyranids to slow them down further as they try to take revenge.

Of course if Space Wolves, Ultramarines, Blood Angels, or Salamanders are on hand the General who tries this trick's ass is grass.

Literally throwing soldiers into battle remains an Ork thing I'm afraid.

I don't think blowing up a couple of gaunts will be worth the morale effect such a tactic could have on your troops. One of the reasons why concentration camps were used by the Germans in WWII was that the normal rank and file troops started falling apart psychologically when they were made to carry out the kilings, themselves. As grim dark as WH40k is, one of the things that separates the Imperium from Chaos is that the Imperium at least TRIES to have a set of morals (unlike Chaos where they declare that morality is simply an illusion). If I were an inquisitor and got wind of a regiment doing strategies like that, I'd investigate them for chaos corruption.

TiamatRoar wrote:
I don't think blowing up a couple of gaunts will be worth the morale effect such a tactic could have on your troops. One of the reasons why concentration camps were used by the Germans in WWII was that the normal rank and file troops started falling apart psychologically when they were made to carry out the kilings, themselves. As grim dark as WH40k is, one of the things that separates the Imperium from Chaos is that the Imperium at least TRIES to have a set of morals (unlike Chaos where they declare that morality is simply an illusion). If I were an inquisitor and got wind of a regiment doing strategies like that, I'd investigate them for chaos corruption.

What else are you going to do with a drain on food supplies in the midst of a desperate situation? You can always repopulate when it's over.

I wouldn't be surprised if it actually happened, although such cases would be so rare and most if not all of them probably ended up with no survivors to tell the tale about it anyways. That and I doubt it's Imperium policy or else we'd have seen a fluff source somewhere point out the use of such a tactic in the Tactica Imperialis.

 Kain wrote:
No, no, HERD them in front of you and leave them out to get horribly eaten and slaughtered by the Tyranids, them blow them up while they're getting eaten. Have their parents between the now dead children and tyranid swarm, and the guardsmen and space marines and sisters of battle equipped with whatever you can have and let them charge at the Tyranids to slow them down further as they try to take revenge.

You've put... A lot of thought into this.

The Imperium is a big place; of course, there are many differences from one world to another. That doesn't stop GW from creating a sweeping vision of the Imperium as a cruel theocracy. Similarly, I don't think it stops us -- for the reasons K_K mentioned in the OP -- from detecting patriarchal preferences in Imperial society. You don't need to overtly and exhaustively oppress women to have a patriarchal society (see e.g., real life). It's not like the elements that generate and reinforce patriarchal tendencies in the real world are not also present in 40k. Maybe the trouble here is assuming that misogyny and patriarchy are the same ...

 Psienesis wrote:
Stuff that would be a pain to quote in its entirety.

Damn man, talk about using a sledgehammer to hammer a nail! No matter how much you disagree with someone, you should always at least entertain their point of view with some measure of patience and restraint.

Men are more disposable, hence why men "do the chasing". http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vp8tToFv-bA&feature=c4-overview&playnext=1&list=TL1CCwSnExuiA

One man can father many children, so one man can "do the work" of many. Hence, disposability.

Women get free breast cancer checks, there are actual gender quotas for the Boards of Directors in the EU, the "don't be that guy" campaign in Canada implies that all men are capable of rape and women can take full custody of their children and demand a third of the fathers income regardless of whether he wants to see the child or not.

You make it sound like looking after a child is a prison sentence... Surely seeing your child is preferential to going to work? Gender roles have forced men into industrial slavery just as much as they have forced women into their child-minding roles. No-one has won in such cases. However, this was largely, as you said, being changed by women going to college, as they should be. As for women being unprepared, that's entirely because they had their husband to rely upon. Again, this was in the past. The women of the future will not be subject to this, as they will have jobs. So I'm not entirely sure what your point is, since it's only going to get better for women. Besides, surely being the minder of your loving child is better than having to die in war, work yourself to death or dying earlier than your wife? It may be boring sometimes, but it won't get you killed.

Religion, by the way, simply reflects how life used to be. The father works, impacts the outside world, and get's noticed by others. The mother does not, as she stays home to mind the child. A "doer" and a "minder", if you will. Is it any wonder that religion is personified by the "doer"? I'm not defending religion by the way, almost all of it is bad news.

I haven't received any preferential treatment in my life because of my gender. If anything, being male has been as disadvantage. Up until recently, if an underage boy and girl had sex, the boy was sent to prison regardless of consent and age, in my country. There are women-only hours at the gym, any man that's seen with a child is perceived as a paedofile, and in general, you have to be careful about what you say.

See this link for some more points: http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?p=85325618

Men kill themselves much more often than women too http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gender_differences_in_suicide

Do you really think that they were in any way more privileged than women?

And I'm actually Irish.

Gender studies generally belongs in the OT subforum. Please start a thread there if you want to continue on Men's Rights topics.

 Manchu wrote:
The Imperium is a big place; of course, there are many differences from one world to another. That doesn't stop GW from creating a sweeping vision of the Imperium as a cruel theocracy. Similarly, I don't think it stops us -- for the reasons K_K mentioned in the OP -- from detecting patriarchal preferences in Imperial society. You don't need to overtly and exhaustively oppress women to have a patriarchal society (see e.g., real life). It's not like the elements that generate and reinforce patriarchal tendencies in the real world are not also present in 40k. Maybe the trouble here is assuming that misogyny and patriarchy are the same ...

But whether or not it's a cruel theocracy and whether or not it is a patriarchy are different issues. If a planet promotes free thought and alternate religions? The Imperium comes down on them hard. A world is a matriarchy? The Imperium doesn't care, as long as it provides Guard regiments and pays its tithes. A High Lord doesn't promote a harsh dictatorship? The Imperium's control is lessened. A High Lord is a woman? It's not an issue.

And anyway, the way GW characterises the 40K universe, in this case having lots of male protagonists, does not necessarily translate into in-universe cultural norms. The big, heroic men just happen to be where the camera is usually pointing.

 Troike wrote:

 Kain wrote:
No, no, HERD them in front of you and leave them out to get horribly eaten and slaughtered by the Tyranids, them blow them up while they're getting eaten. Have their parents between the now dead children and tyranid swarm, and the guardsmen and space marines and sisters of battle equipped with whatever you can have and let them charge at the Tyranids to slow them down further as they try to take revenge.

You've put... A lot of thought into this.

What can I say? I'm a terrible person who's already reproduced.