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 ZebioLizard2 wrote:

AllSeeingSkink wrote:

 ZebioLizard2 wrote:

What makes the setting of 40k attractive is that it's fething huge. Pretty much anything can happen.

That's somewhat a dangerous assertion because it implies that the fluff is loose enough that it can be ignored outright when it comes to canon things. You won't find an Ethereal as lower then Fire Warriors in rank for example. Nor would you find a peaceful Khornate Daemon that is nonviolent and preaches veganism. The assertion alone is dangerous to think of.

I find your use of "dangerous" curious, I don't see it as remotely dangerous if someone wants to bend the fluff to their desires. I reckon the whole reason GW originally made 40k a mostly unexplored universe was to allow people to do whatever they wanted and just write it off as "well, that occurs in this sector of the galaxy you've never heard about before".

There's a difference between bending and outright breaking it over your knee. At some point it makes it sound like you don't really care about the setting at all and may desire another one instead.

But it's possible someone likes the 40k universe but the faction they want to play within it doesn't actually exist, in which case they can bend or break whatever the hell they want to make it happen.

In a game with such fickle lore, I've never understood why people give a damn about others breaking the fluff.

I don't want GW to break their own fluff, but when other gamers do it, more power to them.

NO, there already are sisters of battle, that are an imperium army made of women in power armors which makes them female space marines. Update their catalogue would be great, introducing other imperium stuff no please, half 40k armies are already imperium stuff.

 Traditio wrote:
How would female space marine models differ from male space marine models? Most space marines are clad in bulky power armor and wear helmets. Granted, we do have some space marines without helmets, and they are all males. But the vast majority of space marines wear helmets. How would a female space marine sculpt qualitatively differ from a male space marine sculpt?

Granted that they did differ, how would that work?

Like Tau.

 Traditio wrote:
Would GW put both male and female space marines in the same kit? Or would they offer two separate kits?

Same kits. Like Tau or Eldar guardians or DE Kabalites or Wyches.

 Traditio wrote:
How would this affect their sales?

Not so much at first. Maybe quite a lot in the long run.

 Traditio wrote:
Personally, I wouldn't want to purchase a female space marine kit, and the existence of "mixed" kits would just anger me as a consumer.

If you are angry as a customer because you get some extra heads on your sprue, it's on you.


How many Cult Genestealer armies have you seen before GW released rules and models for them? How many Cult Mechanicus armies?

 General Annoyance wrote:
the idea of female Space Marines completely neuter the point of SoB - there would be no point for SoB to exist if we could have female Marines.

That's your opinion. But to me, that's a bit like saying “Ultramarines neuter the point of all Space Marines variants”…
Well of course there is still way more difference between Sisters of Battle and female Marines than between Ultramarines and Space Wolves…

Why is their a second thread for this?

I'm interested by this question more so than the thread running alongside this one about female marines as I've got bored of that discussion repeatedly reappearing.

The first thing to consider would be the fluff. Your question states that we're to think on the basis that GW could and would change the established lore (specifically that only males are suitable for implantation of the geneseed organs to make full marones). What does this lead to? Well it'd indicate a change to the way the Imperium thinks about innovation and change to traditional tech. Traditionally the imperium has been shown to be very resistant to changes and innovation, and for very good reason, but GW has nearly thrown this out he window with inventions being made and new advances to allow GW to introduce new models. The introduction of "Nu-marines" is further evident of this.

There is a logical argument that changing the lore of 40k too much will turn off fans and reduce the customer base to which GW could sell these marines too (this is based on the assertion that the lore is the primary driver for people getting into and continuing, in any way, in the hobby). The general principle being, change the lore people are in 40k for and people will leave 40k. Simple logic would say this is correct but there is actually little evidence of this with previous lore changes to introduce new products.

The other concern people have is that it'd reduce the marketability of sisters of battle but GW have done a pretty good job of that already...

To me I'm not sure it'd be a question of reducing any marketability but of whether all the input needed would increase the marketability of marines? I'd be inclined to say not.

Apart from a very small minority GW is not under any pressure to release female space marines. So the options available to GW would likely be a wasted investment. Making all new sprews just to appease a tiny minority would make very little business sense and on top of that having to create fluff to support it whilst not p***ing off lore fanatics is a near impossible job.

I think about it this way. How many people don't play 40k because the bioengineered, superhuman, psychotic warrior monks don't have women in them? And how many people who currently play 40k don't buy marines because they are a "no girls allowed" club? I don't think there is any actually evidence beyond the anecdotal but I'd be willing to wager any evidence collected would indicate a negligible change to the inclination of people both in and out of the hobby if marines had females in... therefore marketability with a view to cost/gain benefit would be nearly zero.

 Traditio wrote:


At the end of the day:

I have no lore objections to the idea.

I have every marketing objection to the idea. I think it would be a massive sales flop.

Let me put this kindly: who cares. Why are earth are you wasting our time with most popular title we all hate #1 just to make this statement?! You have clearly very little exposure to the lore and fandom. And a thousand times over, they lose players and credibility with fans if they do this... and gain very little more than a brief initial sales bump.

Plastic Sisters needs to happen first. Mysteriously we got plastic Sisters of Silence instead.

 Tactical_Spam wrote:
Why is their a second thread for this?

This one's a poll.

Comparing the sales of current SoB to the possibles sales of female SM is stupid and pointless, a bad representation of what would be expected.

The answer to why SoB has low sales is simple:

I'm not going to buy overpriced and out of date metals that not only cost an arm and a leg for everything, more so than usual for just barely a squad that I can't customize, and on top of that once I sold my soul to GW to get my hands on it, it will be supported by rules that make Sisters one of the weakest armies in the game! People here already will drop weak armies and go to new ones, there is thread after thread of examples! So why?!

 Pr3Mu5 wrote:


There is a logical argument that changing the lore of 40k too much will turn off fans and reduce the customer base to which GW could sell these marines too (this is based on the assertion that the lore is the primary driver for people getting into and continuing, in any way, in the hobby). The general principle being, change the lore people are in 40k for and people will leave 40k. Simple logic would say this is correct but there is actually little evidence of this with previous lore changes to introduce new products.

Age of sigmar says different the sales slump was so bad it completely negated the massive sales the calth box set produced.

To people saying Sisters sell badly because of the bad/expensive/old miniatures, consider that once upon a time the Sister's models were actually new, pretty good quality compared to other GW miniatures at the time and similarly priced.

I can only assume the reason Sisters never went anywhere is way back then they sold relatively poorly so GW have assumed there's not a big enough market for them.

The metal Sisters we know and love came out at pretty much the same time as the original metal Necrons, except when 3rd edition rolled around the Necrons got revamped with plastics and the Sisters didn't.

You mean they produced easily repeatable skeleton warriors that are barely even hard to produce at all.

I already make them by just putting Statuesque Miniatures' heads on Marine bodies.

I'd check them out if GW produced them - but if GW exaggerated them to make them more noticeably female, I'd just ignore them.

I am honestly not too sure OP.

1) It has been ingrained in us for years that Spacemarines are male, exclusively.

2) The primarch project and custodes all came via the big E, a male from his chosen persona.

3) Rowboat and Cawl could be working on something which would introduce females into the ranks of the Astartes.

Would female Spacemarines be acceptable to the community at large, who knows? As a bit of a vet I would say fine with newer players but not necessarily with old.

It's not like it's a sexism thing in the lore. The Emperor doesn't really care about the gender of the people dying for him.

Also, bear in mind that in one of the HH books Malcador states to Dorn that him and the Emp considered at length making the primarchs female.

AllSeeingSkink wrote:
...To people saying Sisters sell badly because of the bad/expensive/old miniatures...

Chicken/egg. Players: "I'm not spending $140 for a pewter ten-woman infantry squad in a transport, that's just stupid." GW: "Nobody is buying these things, why should we update them?"

How the cycle started is kind of irrelevant at this point; both arguments are true and valid. If you don't push them they won't sell. If they don't sell you won't push them.

OMG! Female Space Marines ARE Sisters of Battle.

Yes it would be alright, but as long as the focus isnt just space marines but female, however I have seen sisters of silence on games workshop which I believe helped the death guard in hunting psykers in flight of the eisenstein which I would love to see as they seem super cool in that book.

Every other mayor Wargame out there has mixed miniatures ranges with a good number of females: Infinity ,Warmahordes, Malifaux, etc...

Warhammer is the only one that just don't want to go that route. Why? I don't know. Maybe in the future.

The Kickstarters of "Toughtes Girls in the Galaxy" show thats theres customers to female miniadures. The First Kickstarter earned 700k dollars, the second 800k.

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/loudnraging/raging-heroes-the-toughest-girls-of-the-galaxy

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/loudnraging/tgg2-light-and-darkness

Female Space Marines, from a pure ECONOMICAL standpoint, are a totally viable kit that can earn GW money. Basically ,everything that is "Space Marine" will earn then money. I'm sure that they'll sell more Female Space Marines kits that Tauroxs kits, for example.

hobojebus wrote:

 Pr3Mu5 wrote:


There is a logical argument that changing the lore of 40k too much will turn off fans and reduce the customer base to which GW could sell these marines too (this is based on the assertion that the lore is the primary driver for people getting into and continuing, in any way, in the hobby). The general principle being, change the lore people are in 40k for and people will leave 40k. Simple logic would say this is correct but there is actually little evidence of this with previous lore changes to introduce new products.

Age of sigmar says different the sales slump was so bad it completely negated the massive sales the calth box set produced.

The Backlash of the launch of Age of Sigmar was real, but after the GHB it was reversed and now AoS has sales that are greater than Fantasy in many many years past. Humans have a limited attention spawn. You can change completely the setting: They are gonna be mad a limited amount of time. After that, they will continue as if nothing happens.

And I think thats why fanboys and radicals of different fantasy and sci-fi settings are so mad about changes: Because deep inside, they know that they are the only ones that care about that, and in 1-2 years nobody are gonna be mad of those changes.
And I said this being in the past a fanboy of the lore of Warcraft, but after so many changes I have just emotionally separated from it.

I would fall on my knees and shout Hallelueah the day GW openly states the Taurox was a mistake and it is redesigned. (apologies if slightly off topic).

It was the one reason I did not start an Astra Militarum force.

Correction - Militarum Tempestus, doh!

I'm willing to go with a tentative "yes." I'd fully expect people to put up a stink for a while, then it's a joke for a bit, then it's something that's mostly just excepted.

I think the ridiculous Necron retcon, while not going against as long an established canon, was a larger rejection of it.

I think a reasonably done "female giant plate armor in space" version that also didn't step on Sisters' toes would probably go over fine, probably be good PR outside the established base and eventually be good for the company.

You have people still mad about the lore change about Necrons. That's a far less popular army compared to Space Marines.

Also as I already pointed out Sisters and Marines are their own exclusive "No Opposite Gender Allowed" Clubs. What's wrong with leaving it like that?


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Mr Morden wrote:
Yes it does - female models etc are now prevalent in pretty all much gaming systems - they are not niche just part of the setting - as it should be.

Sisters have not been supported so its not a decent comparison.

They didn't bother putting any female bodies in Genestlealer cults - now being a very icky cult many of the females would be honoured (or otherwise) breeding stock but the fluff does talk about the parents of both sexes taking part in the uprisings and defending their offspring...........

Female guardsmen are often in the novels and fluff - but yep no models

Knights now have canon (Gathering Storm sourcebook for one source) female pilots.

soo why no models? GW do seem to think that they will not sell and that may contiiue.

GW is usually very reluctant to have female units - they can just about manage to have single characters ( "exceptions" ) sculpted but they really have trouble imagining female units will sell.

Sisters of Silence are out and again be interesting to see if they expand (as Custodians are doing) or not.

It was interesting that we had a number of female special characters in the Gathering Storm with models - Celestine and her bodyguards, GreyFax and Yvrainne - they will look at their sales but might also (sadly) think "oh well they bought the box cos of the other stuff and tolerated the female models - that does seem to be an attitude from conversations I have had with female staff......

Personally I prefer mixed sex units in the fluff appropriate areas - So Guard, Mechancius Dark Eldar, Eldar, Tau.

IMO Marines and Sisters (of both variety) should be male and female respectively as that's the fluff for them.

Now Female Custodes - not sure if there is much been written about the process of creating them and if there is any fluff based gender restrictions.

I just want to point out it is funny that you bring up Knights because there's literally no way to model that unless you were planning to stick tits on the Knight somehow.

 Traditio wrote:
Fluffwise, I don't think that's true.

Marketing-wise, I think that's difficult to disagree with.

You don't think Guard differ enough from Space Marines?

 Hybrid Son Of Oxayotl wrote:
That's your opinion. But to me, that's a bit like saying “Ultramarines neuter the point of all Space Marines variants”…
Well of course there is still way more difference between Sisters of Battle and female Marines than between Ultramarines and Space Wolves…

The point there is that there would be no reason to keep the Adepta Sororitas as an Imperial organisation if mankind could create female Space Marines; what could they bring to the table that a next generation of Space Marines couldn't outpace them easily in?

The other Chapters of Space Marines exist even in the presence of the Ultramarines for 3 reasons. 1. it's currently not possible to replace every Marine with an Ultramarine, 2. it would defy the very reason that the Codex Astartes was created for - the breakdown of the Legions, and 3. as perfect as the Ultramarines are as soldiers, there are sometimes opportunities/strategies that only other Chapters would be willing to employ for victory over the enemies of man.

Say female Space Marines became a thing, all lore points against it aside - what couldn't they do better over the SoB? They could still be just as fanatical, blessed and devoted as Battle Sisters, only now they have all the implants that make a Space Marine tough as nails. That's the biggest problem with the idea if you ask me.

Opinions are opinions, yeah, I get that. I just wouldn't see the need to keep SoB if this happened, and that would honestly make me feel quite sad, as someone who wants some SoB deep down, but isn't prepared to buy into an expensive, all metal, monopose army.

From a marketing point of view I think a set of just female heads would sell fairly well. I just think it would sell best for imperial guard. It's like asking if female tau would sell. It wouldn't make sense to market female space marines. It would be profitable to market more diverse cadians

 Traditio wrote:
[

Evidence?

Look at Sisters of Battle.

Yes, there is apparently a cult fanbase for Sisters of Battle.

But I've never seen a Sisters army face to face.

And apparently, GW doesn't seem to think that they sell particularly well.

You mean like Dark Eldar? They had nothing new for 20 years just like SoB, they had a cult following online, but very few actually played them. New models and new kits and suddenly the amount of people you saw playing them exploded. Same would happen with SoB I am sure. GW also builds their marketing model on selling new things, so having female Marines would certainly be a big new thing for them to sell. Plus people have to have noticed that girl geeks are becoming more and more common, even if not many have migrated to miniature wargames there is still a potential market there.

I'd say same kits, just add a few extra head options with slightly more feminine looks. Because let's be honest-power armour is gonna cover up any remaining feminine looks, so it's only the idiots who forgot their helmets where you could tell the difference.

Why would there be female space marines? Forgive me if im wrong but space marines all come from the same genes as the primarches right? And considering none of them are female it just makes no sense of why they would be a thing, again they should really focus on the sisters of silence as they look really cool in horus heresy novels.

 JNAProductions wrote:
I'd say same kits, just add a few extra head options with slightly more feminine looks. Because let's be honest-power armour is gonna cover up any remaining feminine looks, so it's only the idiots who forgot their helmets where you could tell the difference.

That's more or less what I'm thinking.

Which is even stronger support that female space marines are not a viable market idea.

There is NOTHING stopping anyone from modeling an all-female space marine chapter now.

Hypothetically, there is nothing stopping someone from getting a bunch of space marine models, making sure that everyone is wearing helmets, and specifying to the opponent before the game starts: "Just so you know, they're all women!"

In principle, you could paint them all bright pink, put them in full 10 woman squads, NOT combat-squad them (because woman reasons)...

I simply don't see how GW has anything substantial to gain by making female marine models, whatever that might mean.

 Traditio wrote:
I simply don't see how GW has anything substantial to gain by making "female" marine models, whatever that might mean.

You're pretty much spot on with that

The focus needs to be with SoB, not with a new idea

I don't think that female Space Marines would make much of a difference one way or another, as far as marketing and sales go. It would piss a few people off, and it might bring a few new people in. It's not like all of a sudden thousands of women who thought about getting into wargaming, but didn't because there were no female Space Marines, will suddenly be pounding on GW doors to buy a FeMarine army.

More female heads/torsos in their other lines would probably have a broader overall effect.