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 Niiai wrote:
I am not saying that females can not enjoy a male main character, but when it becomes the norm it becomes a problem. When girls on several occasions have asked me if I can help them choose a warhammer army for them to play that contains female characters they can choose between wood elves and high elves. My anecdotal experience with these requests is that they do not like to be forced into playing dark elves or sisters of battle, neather are very good representation of women. The eldars have females, but besides the banshee we do not find female models. Banzaimash pointed out that some of the tau are female, but this does not really help if it is not shown.

And you do not think that the sisters of battle are represented as the most zealus of the imperial factions. They are always represented blaming every one else as heretics, seing things in black and white and have the settings role as alwasy playing by the books, especialy when this leads to exesive force upon people who might be innocent. I do not count them as a good female representative.

I am not saying that plenty of women are enjoying 40K, I am just saying that very few are. There is a diference there, and the difference is that the women who enjoy 40K does so despite it being a very woman unrepresentative setting.

Bronzefists42 do you not think it is a problem that the only way you know they are females is because they have boobs on the armour? How else do the game do it? 40K is made by boys for boys. Girls are welcome, but they can't have their own toys. Just a gendere representative faction would be good.

I am not saying being celibat is bad, I am saying it is not representive that the "woman faction" in warhammer are only celibat. That is just wrong.

Look at modern ballistic vests they are not form fitting they tend to make everyone look "gender neutral". From a distance you can't tell what gender the soldier/police officer is. Now look at the Tau Fire Warrior Armor. It isn't form fitting and acts the same way modern ballistic vests do and makes the wearer more "gender neutral." Tau fluff states that it is rare for one to stand out from the rest as an individual. Heck I play my Shas'o that I use to lead my army I play it as a female. What GW should do is stop being lazy make more Tau heads more feminine. Right now I have third party heads I can buy from but then again I prefer my Fire Warriors to be Helmeted.

Thank you for the endorsement Enigma Crisis. Making more female heads would indeed make more of a gender diversity in the game. It would give the game more attributes to show females other then smacking some breast on aspect armour or skin suits.

Even simple steps like adding female heads for the tau model GW does not do.

 Niiai wrote:
I am not saying that plenty of women are enjoying 40K, I am just saying that very few are. There is a difference there, and the difference is that the women who enjoy 40K does so despite it being a very woman unrepresentative setting.

Though 40K being quite male-centric with its characters isn't the only thing that might discourage women from playing. Some women have said that they were treated differently just due to their gender when they tried to get into the hobby. This sort of thing can be a big problem too.

 Niiai wrote:
What good representative female factions or characters are there in the setting that eater gender can enjoy?

Well, this is entirely subjective! One person might enjoy different things in a character.

 Niiai wrote:
I am saying it is not representative that the "woman faction" in warhammer are only celibate. That is just wrong. It could be an interesting faction if there where other women to choose from but for now they are the "girl we allow because she is a tomboy" faction in the setting.

But that SoB aren't just there to be "the token girl faction", that'd be kinda boring. They're also there to be the "fanatic" faction, showing off the heights of the Imperium's zeal and brutality.

Oh, and sorry if I came off a little rude in my previous reply. It's just something that I feel strongly about.

 Enigma Crisis wrote:

 Niiai wrote:
I am not saying that females can not enjoy a male main character, but when it becomes the norm it becomes a problem. When girls on several occasions have asked me if I can help them choose a warhammer army for them to play that contains female characters they can choose between wood elves and high elves. My anecdotal experience with these requests is that they do not like to be forced into playing dark elves or sisters of battle, neather are very good representation of women. The eldars have females, but besides the banshee we do not find female models. Banzaimash pointed out that some of the tau are female, but this does not really help if it is not shown.

And you do not think that the sisters of battle are represented as the most zealus of the imperial factions. They are always represented blaming every one else as heretics, seing things in black and white and have the settings role as alwasy playing by the books, especialy when this leads to exesive force upon people who might be innocent. I do not count them as a good female representative.

I am not saying that plenty of women are enjoying 40K, I am just saying that very few are. There is a diference there, and the difference is that the women who enjoy 40K does so despite it being a very woman unrepresentative setting.

Bronzefists42 do you not think it is a problem that the only way you know they are females is because they have boobs on the armour? How else do the game do it? 40K is made by boys for boys. Girls are welcome, but they can't have their own toys. Just a gendere representative faction would be good.

I am not saying being celibat is bad, I am saying it is not representive that the "woman faction" in warhammer are only celibat. That is just wrong.

Look at modern ballistic vests they are not form fitting they tend to make everyone look "gender neutral". From a distance you can't tell what gender the soldier/police officer is. Now look at the Tau Fire Warrior Armor. It isn't form fitting and acts the same way modern ballistic vests do and makes the wearer more "gender neutral." Tau fluff states that it is rare for one to stand out from the rest as an individual. Heck I play my Shas'o that I use to lead my army I play it as a female. What GW should do is stop being lazy make more Tau heads more feminine. Right now I have third party heads I can buy from but then again I prefer my Fire Warriors to be Helmeted.

Here in NZ you can very easily tell the difference between a female soldier and male soldier, same with police. And from all the photos i have seen (the not 99% staged ones of models in gear) are the same. To make female models you have to actually make them female. If you have seen one before they are very different physically from a male. I agree with the tau though, their armour is like a casing rather than a fit (if that makes any sense) so yea cant tell the difference ish but i think we all know GW didnt make them as women.

 Niiai wrote:
Thank you for the endorsement Enigma Crisis. Making more female heads would indeed make more of a gender diversity in the game. It would give the game more attributes to show females other then smacking some breast on aspect armour or skin suits.

Even simple steps like adding female heads for the tau model GW does not do.

Before the new codex Tau had three heads Tank Commander, Fire Warrior Sarge, and Shadowsun. 1/3 was a female head. With the new update we now have 5 more heads, Fireblades, 3 Pathfinders, and Darkstrider. Now i'ts 1/8 are female heads (Not counting Longstirke as his head comes attached to the body). Again that is GW being lazy nothing more.

Look at modern ballistic vests they are not form fitting they tend to make everyone look "gender neutral". From a distance you can't tell what gender the soldier/police officer is. Now look at the Tau Fire Warrior Armor. It isn't form fitting and acts the same way modern ballistic vests do and makes the wearer more "gender neutral." Tau fluff states that it is rare for one to stand out from the rest as an individual. Heck I play my Shas'o that I use to lead my army I play it as a female. What GW should do is stop being lazy make more Tau heads more feminine. Right now I have third party heads I can buy from but then again I prefer my Fire Warriors to be Helmeted.

Here in NZ you can very easily tell the difference between a female soldier and male soldier, same with police. And from all the photos i have seen (the not 99% staged ones of models in gear) are the same. To make female models you have to actually make them female. If you have seen one before they are very different physically from a male. I agree with the tau though, their armour is like a casing rather than a fit (if that makes any sense) so yea cant tell the difference ish but i think we all know GW didnt make them as women.

Ture I was using it as an example not a good one though. Didn't want to get into the sterotype that all woman are naturally smaller. Looking at them in a battle environment with full battle rattle you really couldn't tell till you got closer. Heck Shadowsun with her helmet on you really can't tell she is female unless you know the fluff of the character.

Edit Fixing quote fields and adding Swastakowey's reply.

The Tau are a good example that male models are the norm. I would think most people who look on Tau models would think of them as male. It is such a dominant representation in warhammer that male is the norm and female must be represented differently to be persevered as female.

As an alien race with gender equality in the field it makes no scense for GW to not make this faction one with female models. You might say that is GW being lazy and nothing more. But this same lazyness also makes women being unrepresented. If GW cared more about their female players they would have made more female characters. Especially where it clearly makes sense in the setting. Tau, imperial guard and eldar at least.

Troike thank you for contributing to the conversation.

"Though 40K being quite male-centric with its characters isn't the only thing that might discourage women from playing. Some women have said that they were treated differently just due to their gender when they tried to get into the hobby. This sort of thing can be a big problem too."

That sort of thing is definably a big problem. I would however think that this problem would decrease if a good representative female would in fact exists within the game. Right now the game is for the most part a male fictional setting with male players. I would like to see diversety in both.

"Well, this is entirely subjective! One person might enjoy different things in a character."

This is very true. I do however feel that my point of female characters to draw from is very shallow. Try to picture a girl (or a boy) wanting to play warhammer 40K with girl models. What is her options?

"But that SoB aren't just there to be "the token girl faction", that'd be kinda boring. They're also there to be the "fanatic" faction, showing off the heights of the Imperium's zeal and brutality."

I agree! However right now they are the token girl faction. While I would not object to the SoB usualy, I do so when they are the only females in being videly represented in the setting.

Only because human beings are biologically-programmed to assume female humanoids have boobs. We have yet, IRL, to encounter an alien species that don't... and we also don't definitively know whether Tau females do or do not. Tau age quickly, and are evolved from a plains-dwelling animal. It's possible that they nurse their young, be we don't know, and it may be that Tau females feature breasts only while pregnant or nursing.

This, though, is entirely conjecture on my part.

Psienesis you are again defenfing it from within the fiction of the setting.

My problem is when someone from the real world want to play with models that look like they are female.

I have already covered this before but the lack of gender diversity would always have an explanation from within the setting. Even if Tau females did not happen to look like what we associate with female in the real world, we would not recognise them as female. Again, this whole debate is about the miss representation of females when we play the game.

so, are you wanting GW to change the game and background just to shove in female characters and models where there werent before? what next, make female space marines canon?

BewareofTom I have already covered that. Making female space marine cannon would be a to radical change in the setting I relive. (Although there is little justification for it to begin with it is established cannon by now.)

What would be good solutions would simply be to print more female models that are not sexist (DE wytches and chaos demonets) or zealus fanatics (SoB). A good start would be:

Female tau heads.
A big increase in female eldars.
Female imperial guards.

It would also be very good with some female special characters.

I am a bit unsure how you could in-corporate females or femininity into the alien factions. The only one in my opinion witch is represented very neutral is the Kroot and Vespides.

Orks are represented masculine and I feel like marines they should stay that way. (I do not know what you think?)

Tyranids could do with some femeninaty on some of the models, but at least the harpy and crone are femenine names.

The necrons could do very well with some femenine models. especialy in the lord of cryptect department, but for starters I would focus on Tau, Eldar and Imperial Guard.

well I agree with you on the tau, eldar and IG front but the rest is much for me, I dont think crons or nids need a "feminine model"... I mean can you tell the difference between cockroaches of which is male and female?

what I think they could/should do for IG is just add 2-3 head and torso options in the command squad box, maybe 1-2 female heads for tau in the FW box, and maybe like 40/60 female to male options for eldar/DE

but other than that not all races need "femininity", I mean sure there where females for necrons before they were robots but now their ROBOTS, and tyranids and BUGS and I think they need role models for female players to relate too

 Niiai wrote:
BewareofTom I have already covered that. Making female space marine cannon would be a to radical change in the setting I relive. (Although there is little justification for it to begin with it is established cannon by now.)

What would be good solutions would simply be to print more female models that are not sexist (DE wytches and chaos demonets) or zealus fanatics (SoB). A good start would be:

Female tau heads.
A big increase in female eldars.
Female imperial guards.

It would also be very good with some female special characters.

I am a bit unsure how you could in-corporate females or femininity into the alien factions. The only one in my opinion witch is represented very neutral is the Kroot and Vespides.

Orks are represented masculine and I feel like marines they should stay that way. (I do not know what you think?)

Tyranids could do with some femeninaty on some of the models, but at least the harpy and crone are femenine names.

The necrons could do very well with some femenine models. especialy in the lord of cryptect department, but for starters I would focus on Tau, Eldar and Imperial Guard.

I pretty much agree except the nids/crons thing, fluff wise nids are pretty much genderless as they do not reproduce sexually in the most conventional sense. On top of that, I've never thought of a carnifex as a guy or girl, just a big, scary, alien thing that needs to die. Same with crons. They are a faceless and sadistic race of cursed souls trapped in ramshackle (by their standards) metal bodies who don't even remember who they are. I feel like giving either faction more things to associate with makes them less alien, removing the "faceless innumerable horror" type thing they have going on.

Guard and Tau on the other hand, sure. GW is just lazy; why make lots of different heads when you can provide 3 that can be swapped around to make a "new" model? I would like to see some female guard especially, it would break up some of the monotony and (in my opinion) make the guard seem more, well, human, and therefore embracing the "mere man at odds with the galaxy" dynamic. Instead of just men, you see men, women, and sometimes children (conscripts?) fighting shoulder-to-shoulder as the first and last line of defense for all of mankind. Much more epic.

Eldar is iffy, with all the race-wide skintight spandex bodysuits (remember male eldar wear them too) you might run into the same issue your thread brought up in the first place, that being "OMG BEWBS". And if you made a female model that wore a helmet and didn't have any recognizable anatomy, (no not just boobs, how about shoulder width, waist, height, ect) how do we even know it is supposed to be a female in the first place? If combat armor makes everyone look the same anyhow, then what is the point? We're talking 28mm miniatures here, you don't have a ton of room for really subtle details... Or subtle enough to know a girl is a girl under 50 pounds of armor anyway.

ted234521: "And if you made a female model that wore a helmet and didn't have any recognizable anatomy, (no not just boobs, how about shoulder width, waist, height, ect) how do we even know it is supposed to be a female in the first place? If combat armor makes everyone look the same anyhow, then what is the point?"

Because warhammer has so much males in the setting that your model is by default male until other vice proven. This is not me bad talking wimen, this is just how it is: When you see 10 warpsiders most warhammer player would assosiate them as male. The same with tau armour.


They based the design of necrons off the terminator. Even that francise has evolved.

 Niiai wrote:
They based the design of necrons off the terminator. Even that francise has evolved.

Incorrect.

The Necron is an evolution of the Chaos Android

Actually, they didn't. They're based on the RT-era Chaos Robots. The Female Terminator model is also very, very, post-Necron appearance.

If people want to play 40K with human-female-models, they have a number of choices. First and foremost being, obviously, the Sisters of Battle.

Second, there are 2 flavors of Eldar.

Third, there are old IG kits that feature female models.

Fourth, there are non-gendered races. One particularly veteran female player I know plays Tyranid. Lady loves her bugs.

And then.... there are Orks.
You brought this upon yourselves.

... you didn't, really, but I am evil like that.

The reason I keep bringing up in-universe things is because the in-universe explanations very much indicate why the models are not sexist (insofar as a small bit of plastic can be called "sexist") or depicts something that can be accurately construed as sexist or gender-discriminatory.

That GW does not have a female-equivalent model for every male model in their line does not make GW sexist, it simply makes them lazy. While I think it would be awesome if there were female IG in numbers to match the male IG, and a variety of SOB sculpts, and more fem-Dar, and more Fem-Tau (though, in a Crisis Suit, who can tell? They don't go around with their helmets off like SM do...).. that GW doesn't have them doesn't indicate a gender bias on GW's part, just the inertia of a conservative business model.

Chutululs spy the terminator movie came out in 1984 and could easily have inspired the chaos android. When where they introduced to the setting? Even if you are right the fact is that a lot of people refer to Necrons as terminators in space. Also, the current models look a lot like terminator.

Even if the necron warriors are generic and do not remember anything, shurly the cryptecs and lords do? This is not a good fictional world based exuse to not have female necrons in the game.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Psiensis you are stil not explaining how sisters of battle, eldar, dark eldar and imperial guards are good representetives for the female gender in the game.

They have to search for old female models on ebay to play female imperial guard?

You keep talking but you never actualy make any valid points. How are these representative for players if they want female characters?

 Niiai wrote:

Even if the necron warriors are generic and do not remember anything, shurly the cryptecs and lords do? This is not a good fictional world based exuse to not have female necrons in the game.

What makes you think there were female necrontyr to begin with? For all we know, they could have been parthenogenetic, or even hermophrodites.

Even if there were female necrontyr, they wouldn't have a female necron form - skeletons tend not to have breasts (provided the necrontyr even had mammary glands).

 Niiai wrote:
Chutululs spy the terminator movie came out in 1984 and could easily have inspired the chaos android. When where they introduced to the setting? Even if you are right the fact is that a lot of people refer to Necrons as terminators in space. Also, the current models look a lot like terminator.

Even if the necron warriors are generic and do not remember anything, shurly the cryptecs and lords do? This is not a good fictional world based exuse to not have female necrons in the game. 

Mainly because skeletons (what a necron essentially is) don't have many superficial traits that identify gender at a glance? Or that adding female physical traits to them makes no sense? Anyway, both the Terminator and necrons look like skeletons. Should we say they're both rip-offs of or inspired by human anatomy? As is most of the non-human beings of 40k?

Also, historically, men are the ones to have taken up arms. Wouldn't it make sense to apply this to the necrons as well? In which case, any female necrons that do exist probably don't get seen often due to not being a military asset. But I don't know much necron fluff, so I can't say too much.

I can understand, and support, wanting to add more female models into the game, I just think you're looking in the wrong places to do so.

Psiensis you are stil not explaining how sisters of battle, eldar, dark eldar and imperial guards are good representetives for the female gender in the game.

How are they bad female representatives? They are women who are either on-par with their male counterparts (IG, Eldar, Dark Eldar), or women who get along just fine, and compete on an even playing field, with their male equivalents.

I'm tired of this "don't do anything that can offend anyone" BS. That's not why I play warhammer, to feel sensitive to other's feelings. I play a game about fanatics, cultists, demons and inquisitors killing stuff. If you want gender-nuetral-all encompassing-love and hug time, go to another game. I want Warhammer to be offensive to someone. If art isn't offending someone then its not doing its job. There's no inherent right to never be offended. If I want to write a book about super human marines killing stuff, awesome. If you want to write a book where everyone is kind and caring about their feelings, go for it, but don't expect me to change just because you see the world differently than I do.

In other words, stop straining yourself looking for a cause to champion and go find some real good to do in the world. This is just annoying.

Well, in all honesty, his goal is noble and would actually do some real good in the world. My main issue is the way in which it's approached, but having viable gender options for all of the 40K armies, where it's appropriate in-universe (no FemMarines, for example), would not be a bad thing.

Having options to customize your army does no one any harm.

 Psienesis wrote:
Well, in all honesty, his goal is noble and would actually do some real good in the world. My main issue is the way in which it's approached, but having viable gender options for all of the 40K armies, where it's appropriate in-universe (no FemMarines, for example), would not be a bad thing.

Having options to customize your army does no one any harm.

I'd love to have some female IG or more female characters all around. I play SOB and don't consider them sexist. They're not role models, but no one really is in Warhammer. Heck, look at my avatar, that's a female tech priestess I made.
It's this mindless "everything I don't like is sexist" attitude that I can't stand.

Yeah, like I said... goal is good, way of getting there is off. And female Tech-Priests are another thing we could have, though they are fairly easily built.

he sisters of battle are free to have sex if they so desire, it all depends on their order and their personalities. The book Cain's Last Stand implies it nicely and their are a few hints in some of the other books as well. The sisters just don't make a big deal of it, it's the SM that can't have sex.

As for the models some armies do have female models and the army's that do not have female models their is fluff backing the reason, so it is hard to call GW sexist. The only real offenders of a lack female models are the Imperial guard, but if you read the novels fluff wise it is fairly rare for women to be inducted. There have been however, whole female regiments (I believe one of the vahallan regiments) and a few that are mixed; the models just don't represent that which is a little sad. The Tau could be accused of the same thing, but they are alien so their physiology is different then ours so there may be little visual difference.

The pin up female commissars the ones I have seen come from Raging Heroes not GW. I have heard about the female commissar Games Day model, but have never seen

And the Nor Queen and the Dominatrix are too different organisms in the tyranid swarm IIRC, but I'd have to recheck the lexicon

SaintofDaemons wrote:
he sisters of battle are free to have sex if they so desire, it all depends on their order and their personalities. The book Cain's Last Stand implies it nicely and their are a few hints in some of the other books as well.

The Cain books are considered to be the least accurate when it comes to the Sisters. Don't take Mitchell's stance on it.

The Cain books fly in the face of all previously-published Sisters Codex material that specifically states they are a celibate and penitent order. They put spikes on their writing pens so that it's painful to write something down, ffs. They are not going drinking and fornicating with random schmucks off the street.

It's a particularly egregious example of a BL author not knowing WTF he's talking about with a faction of the setting. It is, IMO, C.S. Goto-level bad.

 Psienesis wrote:
The Cain books fly in the face of all previously-published Sisters Codex material that specifically states they are a celibate and penitent order. They put spikes on their writing pens so that it's painful to write something down, ffs. They are not going drinking and fornicating with random schmucks off the street.

It's a particularly egregious example of a BL author not knowing WTF he's talking about with a faction of the setting. It is, IMO, C.S. Goto-level bad.

This and this.
All pleasure is a sin. (except maybe the pleasure of destroying the enemies of the Emperor.) These are raving fanatics. You can't apply standard psychology to them. Heck, not making your bunk in the morning probably lands you in the Repentia.

Heh, in fact, it probably does not (by "the book"), but the Sister who failed to make her bunk would *request* being sent to the Repentia, *after* the "mortifaction of the flesh" and whatever other punishments assigned to her by her Sister Superior.

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:
The Cain books are considered to be the least accurate when it comes to the Sisters. Don't take Mitchell's stance on it.

I've heard complaints from Tallarn and Ad Mech fans too... Though given that I don't know those factions in depth I'm not sure how justified those were.

 Psienesis wrote:
The Cain books fly in the face of all previously-published Sisters Codex material that specifically states they are a celibate

Not specifically, but it may as well. It mentions them living lives of "extreme self denial" and forsaking all pleasures.

 Psienesis wrote:
It's a particularly egregious example of a BL author not knowing WTF he's talking about with a faction of the setting. It is, IMO, C.S. Goto-level bad.

Yep. Though people take Mitchell more seriously than Goto, so, unfortunately, many think that that was an accurate portrayal of the SoB.

Does Swallow portray them correctly, btw? I haven't read his book yet, so I don't really know.