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Let's not forget the heels. While I would be in favour of a partial redesign, I don't think the community at large would be happy with a change to the SoB look.

Also, what you're saying about proportions is right. I just wasn't being terribly specific!

None of the Sisters models have Power Heels... sigh.

Also, Oxy, yes. The alternative to you being really bad is that I am some kind of tactical genius, and I think we can all agree that a genius is the farthest thing from me. :p

Also, I never said anything about the Tau removing their breasts, I just said that since they're a technological, creching society, they didn't breast feed directly.

This is the reason that "The Last of Kiru's Line" is such a terrible short story. The main conflict it revolves around is Shadowsun deciding whether or not to retire to have babies. But Tau babies aren't raised by their mother, the only reason for her to need to retire to become a mother is if 'mother' in Tau means 'Sealed into a breeding rig to be constantly farmed for new children'... which sounds like a brilliant piece of anti-tau propaganda, but isn't something I really think fits their racial psychological profile.

You could make a female army out of Necrons with a lot of time and access to Iron Kingdoms miniatures.



They have a line of clockwork ladies that are pretty easy to convert into femcrons. This is a Lord (Lady?) I made from one of them.

Or, by contrast, my (more logically grounded) female Necron conversions. Just the two on the top right (well, Ereshkigal on the bottom is female too, but she's a bionic human);



Phaeron Simone (well, thats the closest humans can pronounce to her real name) of the Tiankong dynasty on the left, and her tactical advisor, Nemesor Em'ma Do Na Hu on the right.

 koooaei wrote:
And in the end fan-service always wins against common sence. Thus we have boob plates. Well, cause people like boobs, i guess

It is not about people (about half of the population is not all that interested in boobs, I guess), it is 40k players. And liking breasts in a given context is not the same as liking breast everywhere, all the time.
So yeah, I hope we will change that!

 Furyou Miko wrote:
Also, Oxy, yes. The alternative to you being really bad is that I am some kind of tactical genius, and I think we can all agree that a genius is the farthest thing from me. :p

Why could we agree on that?
Okay, now we need to settle that by playing a bunch of games against each other, and a bunch where we ally against other players, to sort it out!

 Furyou Miko wrote:
This is the reason that "The Last of Kiru's Line" is such a terrible short story. The main conflict it revolves around is Shadowsun deciding whether or not to retire to have babies.

Wait, really? That just seems… wrong. Like very wrong.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Furyou Miko wrote:
Or, by contrast, my (more logically grounded) female Necron conversions. Just the two on the top right

How are we to know they were female by looking at the model?

 Frozen Ocean wrote:

Big breasts have the sole purpose to attract males

That is completely untrue.

Ye can't wish the truth away.

 Jaceevoke wrote:

 Hybrid Son Of Oxayotl wrote:
Technically, you cannot. You can however get an army of Necron that all used to be female before their souls were transferred.

Depends on how you would define a female I suppose. If you define it as someone who can make new a life. Then yes the necrons are not female, but the orks would most likely be considered female then along with some nids.

Ehm, no. Necrons are soulless, dead robots. They don't have any gender at all. They aren't "he"s oder "she"s, they are "it"s.

Well, I would like it to be true, but those are flavor text from the GW webstore :

Illuminor Szeras labours to unravel the mysteries of life, for he fears that he would be a poor sort of god without the secrets of life at his fingertips.

Not so Anrakyr - he rose from dormancy with his mind intact and a great purpose foremost in his mind: to reunite the dynasties. Embracing this as his destiny, Anrakyr abdicated all responsibility to his own Tomb World of Pyrrhia and led an army into the stars.

Imotekh is a grand strategist, perhaps the most accomplished the galaxy has ever known, and his campaigns operate not only across worlds, but across entire star systems and sectors.

Orikan is a consummate astromancer, able to calculate the events of the future from the patterns of the stars. Thus did he know of the Fall of the Eldar, the Rise of Man, the Horus Heresy and the coming of the Tyranids many thousands of years before they came to pass.

Nemesor Zahndrekh was once counted amongst the greatest generals in the dynasties. By his campaigns of conquest did the world of Gidrim rise from ruling a small and insignificant planet on the fringes of the galaxy, to the iron-handed governance of a dozen star systems.

Trazyn the Infinite is a preserver of histories, artefacts and events. In his possession are technologies and relics that are so valuable as to be priceless.

While Vargard Obyron is the well-known bodyguard for Nemesor Zahndrekh, he is a ferocious military commander in his own right.

So yeah, the Necron special characters are ALL refereed to as explicitly male. I would have love for your option to have been chosen, because I do not think we need to always get each and every species (used quite loosely here) to be divided between male and female. But at least since they decided to gender the necrons (goddamn stupid idea), they should AT LEAST have made some female ones.
You think this is bad? Wait, there is more: here are the descriptions of the generic characters:

When a Necron Lord strides forth in his raiment of war, only the strongest and canniest of enemies have any hope of survival. His armoured form is proof against tank-busting weaponry and his metal hands can crush bones to powder in the blink of an eye.

Of all the Necron Lords, the Overlord is by far the most powerful and dangerous. At his command are uncountable legions of Necron Warriors, terrifying war machines and a vast array of devastating weaponry that could shatter entire worlds given half the chance.

feth YOU GW, feth YOUUUUUUU!
Yeah, the Necron were apparently the only race made entirely of male. Or maybe they did only transfer the souls of males. Or they were deeply patriarchal and no woman was ever a leader. Or some stupid gak like that.
That “male by default” mentality needs to GTFO.


FW have a female necron though, apparently:
http://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Xun%27bakyr

 Hybrid Son Of Oxayotl wrote:
That “male by default” mentality needs to GTFO.

It's what I expect from a company that comprises of men and is a game about war.

Good for you. I expect better.

 Hybrid Son Of Oxayotl wrote:
Good for you. I expect better.

Assuming it would be "better". I think it's folly to expect someone to write in such a way that is outside of what appeals to them personally.

All of those are military, fighter models. How many factions out there actually have female named models? How many famous female generals are out there?

It's just ressembling actual (war) history that has always been dominated by men.

AllSeeingSkink wrote:
Assuming it would be "better". I think it's folly to expect someone to write in such a way that is outside of what appeals to them personally.

Yeah, I would consider it to be better. And really, especially for Necrons that are alien with no biological bodies, all it requires is to change your pronouns, cannot be that hard…

 Sigvatr wrote:
How many factions out there actually have female named models?

Too few, but that is just part the problem. Sisters, somehow Inquisition, Tau, Dark Eldar and somehow Imperial Guard.

 Sigvatr wrote:
It's just ressembling actual (war) history that has always been dominated by men.

So, do I want my 40k resembling actual war? No. Actual war had no unintelligent hive-minded alien invaders, no space magic, no daemons, no giant robots/walkers of death,…
Generally speaking, actual war had way less fun stuff and was much more tragic than some silly game.

I was wondering if any part of the discussion was going to start involving Because that's female guard for you, and I know that I will be making an army of them...

I play SoB as primary, and try to make all the models women. Just because the priests of that army are really really really hard to picture NOT as pervy old men....lol

So i have female priestesses, and even an Inquisitor in terminator armour =)
Pictures of the model upon request (not finished so not in the gallery yet)

 Hybrid Son Of Oxayotl wrote:

So, do I want my 40k resembling actual war? No. Actual war had no unintelligent hive-minded alien invaders, no space magic, no daemons, no giant robots/walkers of death,…
Generally speaking, actual war had way less fun stuff and was much more tragic than some silly game.

It's the explanation why there aren't many female models. Whether you like it or not isn't up to debate.

Yep, I've got my Sisters of Battle army. Use a bunch of Sisters of Sigmar models as conclave, Inq retinue/henchmen (from Witchunters codex days), etc. Then there's the IG units made of old RT female IG, Schaeffer's Rocket Girl and Amazon and Necromunda Escher models.

 BlackTalos wrote:
Just because the priests of that army are really really really hard to picture NOT as pervy old men....lol

Well, Jacobus seems to have inspired the movie Hobbo with a shotgun .
Seriously, he looks like an old angry homeless unwashed guy!


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 Sigvatr wrote:
It's the explanation why there aren't many female models.

No, it is not. GW has absolutely no problem showing stuff that do not resemble actual war whatsoever. That is the excuse you are bringing forward for them not including female character.

 Badablack wrote:
You could make a female army out of Necrons with a lot of time and access to Iron Kingdoms miniatures.



They have a line of clockwork ladies that are pretty easy to convert into femcrons. This is a Lord (Lady?) I made from one of them.

Mandatory breasts on robot body because reasons.

I see no dicks on the male Necron characters, why would a female one have breasts?

The primary IG models are the Cadians. By fluff, Cadians have 100% enlistment, which means approximately 50% of them are female. There are no female Cadian models, not because women historically didn't fight in battles (which is pretty revisionist actually) but because GW HQ may as well be a tree house with a 'No Gurls Allowed' sign in front of it.

 Ashiraya wrote:
I see no dicks on the male Necron characters, why would a female one have breasts?

I see one reason: those robot are usually designed to be close to how we usually see ourselves (humans), and on a clothed human you will usually see that they have breasts, but you will not see their genitalia.

I am not saying it it a good reason, though, just a reason.

 Hybrid Son Of Oxayotl wrote:

 Ashiraya wrote:
I see no dicks on the male Necron characters, why would a female one have breasts?

I see one reason: those robot are usually designed to be close to how we usually see ourselves (humans), and on a clothed human you will usually see that they have breasts, but you will not see their genitalia.

I am not saying it it a good reason, though, just a reason.

But if you are getting a robot body, why on earth would it need breasts?

 Paimon wrote:
The primary IG models are the Cadians. By fluff, Cadians have 100% enlistment, which means approximately 50% of them are female. There are no female Cadian models, not because women historically didn't fight in battles (which is pretty revisionist actually) but because GW HQ may as well be a tree house with a 'No Gurls Allowed' sign in front of it.

However mixed gender companies are kind of rare in the IG, aren't they? Going from what I remember from the Ciaphas Cain novels (though I haven't read them in ages so could be wrong).

Though that is of course still no excuse to have no women models. Just stick an extra couple of female heads on the sprue then those who want female guard can do so and those who don't can still just use the male heads. Everybody wins.

 Hybrid Son Of Oxayotl wrote:

No, it is not. GW has absolutely no problem showing stuff that do not resemble actual war whatsoever. That is the excuse you are bringing forward for them not including female character.

Yes, the obvious reason is your perceived sexism!

 Ashiraya wrote:


I see no dicks on the male Necron characters, why would a female one have breasts?

How do we even know what the Necrontyr looked like? We only know that their bodies were mutiliated by radiation and their biology had to be quite different from humans as else, they would not have been able to sexually reproduce.

I dunno if you guys are still talking about this, but ever notice how in the rulebooks, they always refer to the players as being male if they mention the player's sex at all?

It's always "his army" "that he controls" "his opponent" "if he prefers" "he may choose."

And the example player names are always male.

The D&D rulebooks - at least the most recent ones that I've read, which was back in 4th edition (D&D 4th, not WH40k 4th) - tended to use a mix of male and female pronouns and names.

 Ashiraya wrote:
But if you are getting a robot body, why on earth would it need breasts?

Why would it need a mouth? Why would it need a head at all, actually?
To look more human-like.

 Sigvatr wrote:
Yes, the obvious reason is your perceived sexism!

The obvious reason is some “male by default” mentality that is quite prevalent in fiction in general.

 Pouncey wrote:
I dunno if you guys are still talking about this, but ever notice how in the rulebooks, they always refer to the players as being male if they mention the player's sex at all?

It's always "his army" "that he controls" "his opponent" "if he prefers" "he may choose."

And the example player names are always male.

The D&D rulebooks - at least the most recent ones that I've read, which was back in 4th edition (D&D 4th, not WH40k 4th) - tended to use a mix of male and female pronouns and names.

And in game theory, many article opt to use the feminine all the time IIRC.

 Ashiraya wrote:

 Hybrid Son Of Oxayotl wrote:

 Ashiraya wrote:
I see no dicks on the male Necron characters, why would a female one have breasts?

I see one reason: those robot are usually designed to be close to how we usually see ourselves (humans), and on a clothed human you will usually see that they have breasts, but you will not see their genitalia.

I am not saying it it a good reason, though, just a reason.

But if you are getting a robot body, why on earth would it need breasts?

Couple of possible reasons, and only one of them is a crass joke. Here goes...

They would be firm and perky FOREVER! They would never sag! It's the ultimate boob job! What woman wouldn't want that? She could make all the other women jealous and make the guys drool for over sixty million years!

Okay, serious now... We know that the less human-shaped Necrons (Destroyers and Destroyer Lords) are looked down on for having altered their shapes away from their original form (check the fluff entry in the codex). The original Necron form was reasonably close to their organinc form in shape and size. Possibly to make the biotransference easier to accept psychologically, and possibly because the Necrons liked the way they looked as organics, they just didn't like having short life spans and lots of radiation induced cancer. The Necrons look like skeletons to us because that's how they were designed by GW. But what if they don't look like skeletons to each other? We don't know what they looked like when they had skin. What if the narrow limbs and long, drawn faces are exactly they way they looked when organic? And what if the females had breasts when they were organic? Why wouldn't a female Necron Lady want a necrodermis body that looked exactly like her current body (only silver!) ? Yeah, if you look at the 'Crons as robot skeletons, boobies don't make sense. But if the 'Crons aren't skeletons to 'Cron eyes, boobies don't become as silly.

Assuming lady Necrontyr had breasts at all, which we don't/can't know for certain.

 Pouncey wrote:
I dunno if you guys are still talking about this, but ever notice how in the rulebooks, they always refer to the players as being male if they mention the player's sex at all?

It's always "his army" "that he controls" "his opponent" "if he prefers" "he may choose."

And the example player names are always male.

The D&D rulebooks - at least the most recent ones that I've read, which was back in 4th edition (D&D 4th, not WH40k 4th) - tended to use a mix of male and female pronouns and names.

In traditional English writing, the male pronoun is the default; not (entirely) because of sexism, but simply because English does not have an accepted gender-neutral pronoun other than "it", which is considered dehumanizing, because unlike the Romance languages, English does not gender verbs or nouns, and so anything we do not assign a gender to (in context or by direct reference) is automatically assumed to be a thing or an object, but not a person.

We can say "Bob goes to the store and buys himself a drink" or we can say "Sue goes to the store and buys herself a drink", but if we say "Pat goes to the store and buys itself a drink", we've implied that Pat is in some way less-than-human. Back in the 90s, White Wolf started bucking this trend by making all non-specific pronouns in their VTM and other WoD games female, but this was done in a conscious effort to stand out from previous games.

 Psienesis wrote:

 Pouncey wrote:
I dunno if you guys are still talking about this, but ever notice how in the rulebooks, they always refer to the players as being male if they mention the player's sex at all?

It's always "his army" "that he controls" "his opponent" "if he prefers" "he may choose."

And the example player names are always male.

The D&D rulebooks - at least the most recent ones that I've read, which was back in 4th edition (D&D 4th, not WH40k 4th) - tended to use a mix of male and female pronouns and names.

In traditional English writing, the male pronoun is the default; not (entirely) because of sexism, but simply because English does not have an accepted gender-neutral pronoun other than "it", which is considered dehumanizing, because unlike the Romance languages, English does not gender verbs or nouns, and so anything we do not assign a gender to (in context or by direct reference) is automatically assumed to be a thing or an object, but not a person.

We can say "Bob goes to the store and buys himself a drink" or we can say "Sue goes to the store and buys herself a drink", but if we say "Pat goes to the store and buys itself a drink", we've implied that Pat is in some way less-than-human. Back in the 90s, White Wolf started bucking this trend by making all non-specific pronouns in their VTM and other WoD games female, but this was done in a conscious effort to stand out from previous games.

Makes sense.

If my knowledge of social customs is correct (entirely possible I'm wrong) don't males react worse to being referred to in the feminine than females react to being referred to in the masculine? Or is that part of it being the default?

Sorry if I'm a bit slow to grasp things, I've been up all night.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 A Town Called Malus wrote:

 Paimon wrote:
The primary IG models are the Cadians. By fluff, Cadians have 100% enlistment, which means approximately 50% of them are female. There are no female Cadian models, not because women historically didn't fight in battles (which is pretty revisionist actually) but because GW HQ may as well be a tree house with a 'No Gurls Allowed' sign in front of it.

However mixed gender companies are kind of rare in the IG, aren't they? Going from what I remember from the Ciaphas Cain novels (though I haven't read them in ages so could be wrong).

Though that is of course still no excuse to have no women models. Just stick an extra couple of female heads on the sprue then those who want female guard can do so and those who don't can still just use the male heads. Everybody wins.

Or hell, make a conversion kit with 10 female Cadian heads plus a female Cadian Officer head. That'd do just fine.

Also, I got 3 packs of those Abbithan Banshees that Chapterhouse makes. I didn't particularly like them. Partially because the Cadian arms are huge on them, partially because they don't fit well with the rest of my Cadians, partially because they didn't assemble well (even their own parts, much less the Cadian arms, didn't always fit together well, but maybe I missed something like certain torsos having to go with certain legs), and partially because they just don't look that good to begin with. But they were pretty cheap, so I guess I got what I paid for.

Furyou Miko wrote:None of the Sisters models have Power Heels... sigh.

Wow, I didn't know that. They definitely do in the artwork, though.

Hybrid Son Of Oxayotl wrote:

 koooaei wrote:
And in the end fan-service always wins against common sence. Thus we have boob plates. Well, cause people like boobs, i guess

It is not about people (about half of the population is not all that interested in boobs, I guess), it is 40k players. And liking breasts in a given context is not the same as liking breast everywhere, all the time.
So yeah, I hope we will change that!

I'm a 40k player. I like breasts. I'm a big fan of artistic nude and the artistic merit of clothing (I went through a fashion design phase a few years ago). I am a big fan of classical feminine beauty, grace, and all that stuff. That doesn't mean I want my girl soldiers to fight in heels and silk dresses. Being pretty is fine (look at the Eldar), but not things that are blatantly detrimental to their combat ability (power heels).

Sigvatr wrote:
Ye can't wish the truth away.

No, you can't. If you would actually address what I said instead of just saying "you're wrong", we can resume this discussion.

Hybrid Son Of Oxayotl wrote:Well, I would like it to be true, but those are flavor text from the GW webstore :

Spoiler:

Illuminor Szeras labours to unravel the mysteries of life, for he fears that he would be a poor sort of god without the secrets of life at his fingertips.

Not so Anrakyr - he rose from dormancy with his mind intact and a great purpose foremost in his mind: to reunite the dynasties. Embracing this as his destiny, Anrakyr abdicated all responsibility to his own Tomb World of Pyrrhia and led an army into the stars.

Imotekh is a grand strategist, perhaps the most accomplished the galaxy has ever known, and his campaigns operate not only across worlds, but across entire star systems and sectors.

Orikan is a consummate astromancer, able to calculate the events of the future from the patterns of the stars. Thus did he know of the Fall of the Eldar, the Rise of Man, the Horus Heresy and the coming of the Tyranids many thousands of years before they came to pass.

Nemesor Zahndrekh was once counted amongst the greatest generals in the dynasties. By his campaigns of conquest did the world of Gidrim rise from ruling a small and insignificant planet on the fringes of the galaxy, to the iron-handed governance of a dozen star systems.

Trazyn the Infinite is a preserver of histories, artefacts and events. In his possession are technologies and relics that are so valuable as to be priceless.

While Vargard Obyron is the well-known bodyguard for Nemesor Zahndrekh, he is a ferocious military commander in his own right.

So yeah, the Necron special characters are ALL refereed to as explicitly male. I would have love for your option to have been chosen, because I do not think we need to always get each and every species (used quite loosely here) to be divided between male and female. But at least since they decided to gender the necrons (goddamn stupid idea), they should AT LEAST have made some female ones.
You think this is bad? Wait, there is more: here are the descriptions of the generic characters:

When a Necron Lord strides forth in his raiment of war, only the strongest and canniest of enemies have any hope of survival. His armoured form is proof against tank-busting weaponry and his metal hands can crush bones to powder in the blink of an eye.

Of all the Necron Lords, the Overlord is by far the most powerful and dangerous. At his command are uncountable legions of Necron Warriors, terrifying war machines and a vast array of devastating weaponry that could shatter entire worlds given half the chance.

feth YOU GW, feth YOUUUUUUU!
Yeah, the Necron were apparently the only race made entirely of male. Or maybe they did only transfer the souls of males. Or they were deeply patriarchal and no woman was ever a leader. Or some stupid gak like that.

That “male by default” mentality needs to GTFO.

Have an exalt.

Sigvatr wrote:All of those are military, fighter models. How many factions out there actually have female named models? How many famous female generals are out there?

It's just ressembling actual (war) history that has always been dominated by men.

War has been dominated by men because we have never been in a society that is entirely non-sexist, and even now we have female soldiers. It's not that women can't fight, it's that more often than not they simply weren't allowed. We know the Tau are equal. The Necrons bio-transferred their entire species, so excluding girls is just stupid. We know the Imperium does not discriminate against non-mutated, non-psyker, non-heretic humans - it's obviously a complete coincidence that 99.99% of the entire human race is apparently white men, looking at Guardsmen, Space Marines, Inquisitors, Chaos Space Marines, even the Primarchs (apart from Khan, the token Mongol). I would suggest that they take after their father, but the Emperor seems to be Native American, which is cool. See Paimon's post on Cadia. Then we have the Sisters of Battle, a faction entirely composed of girls, which incidentally happens to be the most neglected faction by far, with ancient minis and a "Codex" in White Dwarf. Sure, they said there were "sculpting issues", but I really don't believe that.

Paimon wrote:The primary IG models are the Cadians. By fluff, Cadians have 100% enlistment, which means approximately 50% of them are female. There are no female Cadian models, not because women historically didn't fight in battles (which is pretty revisionist actually) but because GW HQ may as well be a tree house with a 'No Gurls Allowed' sign in front of it.

Pouncey wrote:I dunno if you guys are still talking about this, but ever notice how in the rulebooks, they always refer to the players as being male if they mention the player's sex at all?

It's always "his army" "that he controls" "his opponent" "if he prefers" "he may choose."

And the example player names are always male.

The D&D rulebooks - at least the most recent ones that I've read, which was back in 4th edition (D&D 4th, not WH40k 4th) - tended to use a mix of male and female pronouns and names.

I have noticed this. They even do it on the psychic powers. It pleases me greatly that the Pathfinder book uses entirely feminine pronouns, and all of the character class artwork depicts women.

Psienesis wrote:
In traditional English writing, the male pronoun is the default; not (entirely) because of sexism, but simply because English does not have an accepted gender-neutral pronoun other than "it", which is considered dehumanizing, because unlike the Romance languages, English does not gender verbs or nouns, and so anything we do not assign a gender to (in context or by direct reference) is automatically assumed to be a thing or an object, but not a person.

Except this is nonsense, and a bad excuse. First of all, we have the singular "they", "their"; "The psyker concentrates their power to release a bolt of vicious warp-lightning". Second, it's every single time. Every time they can, they use male pronouns. Combined with the severe lack of female presence in the setting, this is just another morsel that proves our point. If they had adequate female representation - or any at all, really - then it might be okay to use male pronouns when referring to players.

When I was reading the psychic cards at the start of 6th, I noticed the all-male pronouns. Then I thought, "Are there any female psykers at all?".

I think the reaction aspect is simply social convention based on tradition. Because the male pronoun has been the default for a couple hundred years at this point, I think female readers are simply more accustomed to being referred to in the default "male" than male readers are in the other direction, though I certainly didn't have a problem with it reading Vampire: The Masquerade or Werewolf: The Apocalypse all those years ago YMMV.

That is just a guess, though.

Except this is nonsense, and a bad excuse. First of all, we have the singular "they", "their"; "The psyker concentrates their power to release a bolt of vicious warp-lightning". Second, it's every single time. Every time they can, they use male pronouns. Combined with the severe lack of female presence in the setting, this is just another morsel that proves our point. If they had adequate female representation - or any at all, really - then it might be okay to use male pronouns when referring to players.

When I was reading the psychic cards at the start of 6th, I noticed the all-male pronouns. Then I thought, "Are there any female psykers at all?".

"They" is not a formal English accepted pronoun for a singular person, from which GW's (and most every other publication) style of writing descends. Never has been. "They", formally, is always plural. Informal writing permits it to be both. Could it be? Sure. It's simply not used in that way, at least not traditionally. That is changing in the modern world, but a lot of people still learn to write in a traditional formal manner (those who write for a living, that is).

And, yes, as I said, it *is* every single time because that has been the accepted style of English print publications for over two hundred years. The male pronoun has been the default pronoun. If you want to see the historic development of writing styles, I would invite you to check out the Chicago Manual of Style, or any one of a number of similar publications in the English-speaking world. As CMOS shows below, "they" as singular is gaining favor, but is not traditionally correct.

Speaking of CMOS:

Q. I hope I’m not losing my mind. I’ve been told that “they” and “their” are used incorrectly in this sentence: “The telltale sign of a right-winger: they can’t write in English to save their lives.” I agree that it’s an awkward sentence, but is “they/their” used incorrectly? Thanks!

A. The use of they as a singular pronoun is a hot topic in online grammar forums. By traditional standards, the sentence is incorrect because it contains no plural noun for they to refer to. Traditionally, the correct versions are “The telltale sign of right-wingers: they can’t write in English to save their lives” and “The telltale sign of a right-winger: he can’t write in English to save his life.”

The growing acceptance of they as singular is in response to a need for a gender-neutral pronoun that avoids the use of he to mean he or she. Good writers would make right-winger plural to avoid the appearance of incorrectness or gender bias, but in other sentences the plural is not a good option: “Someone ate my Twinkie, and they’d better watch out!” In those contexts, many language experts now approve of the use of they. You can learn more by searching online for “singular they.”

 Frozen Ocean wrote:
Then we have the Sisters of Battle, a faction entirely composed of girls, which incidentally happens to be the most neglected faction by far, with ancient minis and a "Codex" in White Dwarf. Sure, they said there were "sculpting issues", but I really don't believe that.

Sisters have a more recent Codex than that, actually:

http://www.blacklibrary.com/games-workshop-digital-editions/Codex-Adepta-Sororitas.html

However... You might notice something missing here:

http://www.blacklibrary.com/faqs-and-errata.html

No FAQ or Errata.

Hopefully it just means that nothing in the Codex needed updating or an FAQ for 7th edition. If so, it's still pretty sad.