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 chromedog wrote:
Or even Adolescent radioactive samurai hamsters.

Did you mean Adolescent Radioactive Black Belt Hamsters Clint, Chuck, Bruce, and Jackie?

Because they are not "samurai hamsters" they are just trained in the martial arts by Tibetan monks.

 Valkyrie wrote:
To quote the great Stephen Fry:

"You're offended by that? Well so fething what?"

Pretty much this. Seriously, ignore the people that live to be offended, and game on. There are some things you could do that could set people off in the name of having fun in your hobby, but asian themed things is FAR from that.

Not offensive at all. Samurai are hardly a taboo topic and are widely displayed in popular culture.

Look, this is a pretty easy one.

If you take something unique to a race (in this case, Japanese Samurai) and associate it with something negative (in this case, Orks that are stupid, violent, aggressive and are linguistically challenged) then people may get offended by it.

Now, you and I know this wasn't your intent. You weren't trying to say that Japanese people are like Orks, and it would be a stretch for someone to imagine that you were. But surely you can see how someone might arrive at that conclusion?

 snooggums wrote:
When I look at GW's website and see their inquisitors are wearing black white and red, with eagles and other iconography that is clearly derived from WWII Germany

See, now I know you are trolling.

 Kaldor wrote:

 snooggums wrote:
When I look at GW's website and see their inquisitors are wearing black white and red, with eagles and other iconography that is clearly derived from WWII Germany

See, now I know you are trolling.

I'm really hoping that you forgot a couple of sarcasm tags...

that's just silly you made your army because you like the style if any thing he should complement you on it but i wouldn't worry to much over it odds are some one will be offended by something you do no mater what if you stopped all of it you would probably drop dead after you stop breathing. now if you did a ork voice asking if you would like kong pow chicken with your sushi then he can get all anal all over you for a reason. bottom line cant please every one just ignore as$ hats.

 snooggums wrote:

 Kaldor wrote:

 snooggums wrote:
When I look at GW's website and see their inquisitors are wearing black white and red, with eagles and other iconography that is clearly derived from WWII Germany

See, now I know you are trolling.

I'm really hoping that you forgot a couple of sarcasm tags...

Well, either your education was so poor that you think the eagle is a distinctly Nazi symbol, or that the colours red and black (as used by the studio in the Grey Knights codex as it pertains to Inquisitors) are distinctly Nazi in style OR you're trolling.

Not wanting to assume the worst about your education, I just assumed you were trolling.

Now, you and I know this wasn't your intent. You weren't trying to say that Japanese people are like Orks, and it would be a stretch for someone to imagine that you were. But surely you can see how someone might arrive at that conclusion?

It is surly that . Dude saw your models and though "yep army makes us look like retards" aka it is offensive.

By the way I think it is very funy how non japanise people say stuff isnt offensive . I had a friend who wanted to make an army that looks like russian spec naz. The customs officers at heathrow airport , thought he was an IRA supported and confiscated his army . they also had him in custudy for more then a few hours , till finaly someone called this ambasy to get him out . non of us though the army would be offensive to anyone .
I guess you could do armies like that for most countries .

You could do an Australian army and some bogan could get offended. Have them all wearing t-shirts, riding crocodiles, wielding didgeridoos and wearing thongs. Somebody would get offended. Although that is a bit offensive...

Alright. You could do a British army with ork redcoats, and somebody would get offended.

People react to things differently. Fact of life.

Legion of Flame wrote:
You could do an Australian army

Orks are already Australian. Wait... you guys all wear leather and drive dune buggies, right?

...

D*mn.

I can see your sarcasm tags.

Orks are the rabid, primate version of Rambo.

 Grimtuff wrote:

 Sigvatr wrote:
People who get offended by painted plastic miniatures with vague cultural implications should not be taken seriously.

I'm gonna go out on a limb here and I presume you don't see a whole lot of Nazi IG armies in your neck of the woods (due to such things, being, you know, against the law and such) so you don't see the associated kurfuffle that goes with them. 9 times out of 10 the person doing it wants to be an attention-seeking knob. I'm personally not offended by it (not a lot really offends me TBH) but I can tell you that is pretty much the exact reaction these people are trying to get, along with the hamfisted attempts to fit it into the existing background of the game in question.

Take this army for example (which also serves as an example of how people on Dakka have very short memories. Go figure). It's plastered with Neo-Nazi iconography and a couple of pastiches of some WW2 propaganda posters for good measure. What is the purpose of all of this if not to draw a blatant reaction from someone?

It's up there with female SM and Ponie armies. All are blatant attempts to troll the respective communities. It's just this one can backfire spectacularly if the wrong person sees it.

oh....yeah. I have to say the reason I made that army of ponies was because I wanted to troll my local gamers. It had nothing to do with the fact that I thought it would be a fun project and something to work on when I had nothing to do -.-'

maybe people who make these armies do it because they have an interest in the topic and would like to extend it towards aspects of their hobbies. true you will get the odd attention whore whos self worth seems to be propotional the amount of people who they can piss off but yeah whatever, your oppinion (short sighted or not) may (and apparently does) vairy
to mine

as for the topic, ok, orks as something culturally siginificant to a person may offend them but those people are few and far between but hey tons of people get offended over nothing such as me taking offense to gimtuffs over generalisationof themed armies to, as in your case, samurai orks

at any rate you shouldn't feel bad in the slightest about using them

 Savageconvoy wrote:
My friend a while back actually topped the Nazi IG. He ran a Vampire Count army with all the zombies having a the yellow star of David painted on them, corpse carts filled with ashes, and Nazi vampire lords. That is damn offensive, and yes I did laugh and yes I feel really bad.

Oh wow. That's pretty brutal.

I suppose as an earlier poster suggested it would depend on how you painted them. If you are going to paint the yellow with squinty eyes and with kamikaze iconography on the flyers, yes that would be offensive.

 Grimtuff wrote:

 Sigvatr wrote:
People who get offended by painted plastic miniatures with vague cultural implications should not be taken seriously.

I'm gonna go out on a limb here and I presume you don't see a whole lot of Nazi IG armies in your neck of the woods (due to such things, being, you know, against the law and such) so you don't see the associated kurfuffle that goes with them. 9 times out of 10 the person doing it wants to be an attention-seeking knob. I'm personally not offended by it (not a lot really offends me TBH) but I can tell you that is pretty much the exact reaction these people are trying to get, along with the hamfisted attempts to fit it into the existing background of the game in question.

Take this army for example (which also serves as an example of how people on Dakka have very short memories. Go figure). It's plastered with Neo-Nazi iconography and a couple of pastiches of some WW2 propaganda posters for good measure. What is the purpose of all of this if not to draw a blatant reaction from someone?

It's up there with female SM and Ponie armies. All are blatant attempts to troll the respective communities. It's just this one can backfire spectacularly if the wrong person sees it.

While the army you linked to seems to contain a fair bit of iconography which seems provocative in a irritating and vexing sense, I can't see the parallel with female and pony marine armies which wont provoke much beside a laugh or a rant from a fluff lawyer.

Pony and Female marine armies just irritate fluff purists, or those who can't handle someone taking the piss out of the game. That's hardly trolling in the same way as making a nazi-themed army that glorifies the most evil regime in living memory and mocks the atrocities they committed.

As someone said earlier, most of these nazi-themed armies are made for attention seeking, no matter how well painted they are. It's just boring, they all act like they are the first douche to think of it. There are so many diiferent things that could inspire an army but it's funny how often it's nazis that do, just by coincidence you understand, it's not trying to shock or be clever in any way...

Oh I know I could not get away with yellow skinned orks, but not for the reasons you would think: 1) yellow is a pain in the buttocks to paint. 2) their metal armor is blue, and their padding is a shade of brown that looks like the old leather head gear. If I was to paint their skin yellow especially during football season here in Columbus Ohio, I would be run out of town.
And as far as squinty eyes are concerned, I don't think ork eyes can get any smaller. That's probably why they have such bad BS, they can barely see out of the pinpricks they call eyes.
But I wouldn't do either of those mostly because they are in horribly bad taste. Their skin is green and their eyes are stock.

I came into this thread ready to serve up my standard; "If you have to ask, then it is actually offensive"....but then I read the thread.

Ignore this thin-skinned Asian person, and enjoy your army.

 DPBellathrom wrote:

 Grimtuff wrote:

 Sigvatr wrote:
People who get offended by painted plastic miniatures with vague cultural implications should not be taken seriously.

I'm gonna go out on a limb here and I presume you don't see a whole lot of Nazi IG armies in your neck of the woods (due to such things, being, you know, against the law and such) so you don't see the associated kurfuffle that goes with them. 9 times out of 10 the person doing it wants to be an attention-seeking knob. I'm personally not offended by it (not a lot really offends me TBH) but I can tell you that is pretty much the exact reaction these people are trying to get, along with the hamfisted attempts to fit it into the existing background of the game in question.

Take this army for example (which also serves as an example of how people on Dakka have very short memories. Go figure). It's plastered with Neo-Nazi iconography and a couple of pastiches of some WW2 propaganda posters for good measure. What is the purpose of all of this if not to draw a blatant reaction from someone?

It's up there with female SM and Ponie armies. All are blatant attempts to troll the respective communities. It's just this one can backfire spectacularly if the wrong person sees it.

oh....yeah. I have to say the reason I made that army of ponies was because I wanted to troll my local gamers. It had nothing to do with the fact that I thought it would be a fun project and something to work on when I had nothing to do -.-'

maybe people who make these armies do it because they have an interest in the topic and would like to extend it towards aspects of their hobbies. true you will get the odd attention whore whos self worth seems to be propotional the amount of people who they can piss off but yeah whatever, your oppinion (short sighted or not) may (and apparently does) vairy
to mine

as for the topic, ok, orks as something culturally siginificant to a person may offend them but those people are few and far between but hey tons of people get offended over nothing such as me taking offense to gimtuffs over generalisationof themed armies to, as in your case, samurai orks

at any rate you shouldn't feel bad in the slightest about using them

my brothers wife couldn't get into space marines tile my brother made her a hello kitty space marine army then he couldn't get her to stop. its not always for the reason for trolling. you cant have fun at something afraid you might step on some ones egg shell if the guy tells you its offensive agean just ask him in what way it is then explain if you think he has a invalid point if hes still offended just ignore him some people just need to have a reason to be or there day isn't complete.
p.s. pony army sounds hilariously fun to play against.

Someone can be offended by something, but it might not be offensive.

Everyone has their own things they find offensive, but others don't. Some are more universal than others, but its still one group.

Unless you are really taking it to a level that would constitute racial hate. It's fine.

First of all:
I don't get it. Some people on the internets must have acquired some kind of superpowers.
How else can they claim they know exactly what went through a persons mind when they did something.
They have no idea who the person is, what is his race, sex, age, religion, life experience, current mood, inspiration or any belief in general. They do however are able to pinpoint the reason for creating a theme for an army to a single word like 'trolling'. If I show you guys some of my miniatures can you tell me if I have night eating syndrome or my GF is pregnant? Eldrad would be sooo jealous about your divination abilities.
It's naked boobs on miniatures all over again.


Well, back on topic. OP, I really don't think your army is offensive. I really wouldn't mind conversion based on any iconic army from my country.
What you should do is probably explain how you feel about your miniatures. It's like naming your pet turtle "the samurai". You didn't do it to show different culture in a bad light, but because you like the creature and think samurai is cool.
You can't prevent things like this when you use images strongly tied to race / country / etc. You can however try to explain your motives to the person. If they are not meant to cause harm there is not much else you can do.
Either throw your minis to the trash or accept the fact that some people won't see the difference between various intentions.

 Grimtuff wrote:

 Sigvatr wrote:
People who get offended by painted plastic miniatures with vague cultural implications should not be taken seriously.

I'm gonna go out on a limb here and I presume you don't see a whole lot of Nazi IG armies in your neck of the woods (due to such things, being, you know, against the law and such) so you don't see the associated kurfuffle that goes with them. 9 times out of 10 the person doing it wants to be an attention-seeking knob. I'm personally not offended by it (not a lot really offends me TBH) but I can tell you that is pretty much the exact reaction these people are trying to get, along with the hamfisted attempts to fit it into the existing background of the game in question.

Thanks for the reply / link.

Please note that I said "vague cultural implications", your example is pretty obviously related to the nazis...then again, I wouldn't call it offensive either. First of all, the army is AMAZING arts-wise. The free-hand, general painting, composition etc. is top tier. Secondly, to me, it has a lot of comic elements e.g. Thor all over the place. It may be considered offensive if people really tried to imitate a nazi army...

People with pink marines / retardies do not matter much to me. They clearly disrespect the fluff and people who are interested in it. You correctly stated that they only want to provoke other players - and yes, that's a no-go.

Given the current case of "samurai orks", I'd assume we can agree on them not being offensive at all.

Thanks for the example and your point, noted

 Ascalam wrote:
I don't get PO'd if someone sculpts bowlers and brollies on their orks

This is quite possibly the best idea for an ork army ever.

Power Klaw Tea Party

It just might be

When i finally get my current projects done i may have to make a madboyz squad with this theme...

'Mad squigs and Englishmen' and all that..

I say some chap simply must make a group of orky country gents. Tweed jackets, that newsboy hat, and can't forget the handlebar mustaches. I say someone make it happen post haste.
Also if you're not picturing me saying that in a plush chair with a fez on in front of a fire, well you are now. Just as planned.

For risk of being the only really dissenting voice out there-- I understand the offended guy's position, and think it's a bit disgusting to see people basically deciding for a minority what he's "allowed" to find offensive. It's basically privilege at its finest. Really the only person who can judge if something is offensive or not is the actual person being potentially offended.

In reality, when you start making armies that cleave towards history in somewhat satirical way (especially when they involve a traditionally disadvantaged or at least not advantaged group) you have to be prepared for some people in that group to be offended at it.

hands_miranda wrote:
For risk of being the only really dissenting voice out there-- I understand the offended guy's position, and think it's a bit disgusting to see people basically deciding for a minority what he's "allowed" to find offensive. It's basically privilege at its finest. Really the only person who can judge if something is offensive or not is the actual person being potentially offended.

In reality, when you start making armies that cleave towards history in somewhat satirical way (especially when they involve a traditionally disadvantaged or at least not advantaged group) you have to be prepared for some people in that group to be offended at it.

How on earth do you find the samurai to be a disadvantaged group? They would be the definition of an elite group with significant advantages.

By the way, I define offensive as people using the words "for risk" in a post. By your defition, your post is now offensive.

Lobukia wrote:How on earth do you find the samurai to be a disadvantaged group? They would be the definition of an elite group with significant advantages.

I'm assuming he was referring to likening samurai to Orks? I wonder how the guy's reaction would've been if it was Samurai Space Marines (saw a pretty good conversion job in a WD issue some time ago).

Also, quoted for truth:

Kaldor wrote:If you take something unique to a race (in this case, Japanese Samurai) and associate it with something negative (in this case, Orks that are stupid, violent, aggressive and are linguistically challenged) then people may get offended by it.
Now, you and I know this wasn't your intent. You weren't trying to say that Japanese people are like Orks, and it would be a stretch for someone to imagine that you were. But surely you can see how someone might arrive at that conclusion?

From my own limited experience, Japanese people are a fairly diverse lot hailing from a culture that seems somewhat torn between old ideals and modern pragmatism. Peoples' mindsets differ depending on region, on profession, sometimes even based on what their parents did. Most Japanese, at least those who actually do maintain global connections, seem (on the surface) fairly open-minded and would offer a certain understanding, even if part of them would still secretly feel awkward about it. Japanese media make fun of stuff like this all the time, but that doesn't change that just like, for example, the US have their own versions of fundamentalists, there may be some who are a bit more "hardcore" about respecting their heritage - at least I have talked to one such person where I had to tread very carefully in order to avoid unjust offense (allowing me to continue an exchange that was quite interesting and educational).

So I think it boils down to two questions: Is the person truly offended out of a cultural reason? And if yes, do you respect said culture enough that any slights would be purely accidental, do you simply not care and it's all a joke for you, or would you deliberately attempt to make fun of something because of what it stands for? The answers to these questions would determine the possible outcome of the situation.

OP said that this exchange student "went on a tirade", so I kind of expect there was a bit of dialogue going on? What did he say? Did you attempt to explain yourself? Feels like that bit would be an interesting detail for this thread.

In the end, different cultures are different cultures, and Japanese society is particularly alien compared to, say, US vs Europe. One might say dakka isn't even the real place to ask if this army would be offensive to Japanese people, simply because I imagine a lot of replies here will come from persons whose contact with Japanese culture does not extend beyond some low-quality hentai they watched on the interwebs. "No offense intended."

Not samurai, but the Japanese certainly suffered more than a bit of prejudice during WW2 because of their nation of origin. I could go into it if you wanted to, but I didn't think discussing politics was the point of this board.

The main thrust is that only a member of an outgroup can decide if something is offensive to that group, and only for themselves. Being the dominant social group and defining what is acceptable for the outgroup (As we saw a bunch in this thread with the classic "I'm not X, and I don't see anything wrong with it, so it isn't an issue with X") is at the heart of the whole privilege argument.

If the example with Samurai is hard to imagine, consider this: could you see someone being offended if say an Orc army was done up with the stereotype of Zulus or other Africans? Can you understand how comparing a real life group of people with a fantasy group of subhuman aliens is at least a little problematic?

For reference, the latter army is one I've seen done for WFB before. I know the guy that did it, and personally think he's a decent guy, but I'd fully understand if a black person or someone from Africa got offended at a stereotypical depiction of Africans mixed with a bunch of stupid muscle-headed Orks. This is probably part of the reason you saw Savage Orcs and Forest Goblins lose their racial undertones of Africans and Native Americans in their latest iterations.

If you're looking for a good rule of thumb, I wouldn't make armies that parallel historical outgroups with what are seen as ugly, stupid, or subhuman non-humans in games. Also accept that people might find your work offensive, and own up to it when they do versus get defensive. Note that this is starting to become an discussed issue on some gaming forums (It's one of the commonly discussed topics on the grognards.txt thread over at Something Awful, for instance) but gaming culture like a lot of nerd culture is very, very insular so there's a bunch of victim blaming and defensiveness about the whole thing because "that's the way it's always been".

 Ascalam wrote:
I'm Irish/English originally and my two cultures are lampooned all the time. I don't get PO'd if someone sculpts bowlers and brollies on their orks, or if their Eldar looks a bit Celtic

The weird thing is, to quote the 40k wiki; "Some Games Workshop designers claim that Ork culture and military tactics are loosely based on that of the ancient Irish Celts."
So basically if you think about it a bit too much, the Orks themselves are sort of filtered versions of Victorian era English paddywhackery. (Large, squat, dim, prone to drinking lager and brawling, oh and bright green doesn't help.)
Being of Irish descent, am I offended by this? Of course not. I don't really subscribe to the notion that it's always someone's choice to be offended or not, but being offended at something in no way malicious is always dumb.The retail price of a meganob, now that's offensive.

Boggy Man wrote:
Being of Irish descent, am I offended by this? Of course not. I don't really subscribe to the notion that it's always someone's choice to be offended or not, but being offended at something in no way malicious is always dumb.

Everyone is allowed to be or not be offended at things, but this idea that people get to determine other people's feelings/emotions is confusing and worrying. People get to feel how they feel, even if you disagree with it. FWIW, I'd defend your right to be offended at whatever offends you when you're the outsider. Being on the inside track of society and telling the guy in the outgroup that he doesn't get to own his own feelings is just a bit offensive.