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 Ouze wrote:
What about this universe [...] would have the suspension of disbelief ruined by the presence of a female marine?

Sorry but I'm not talking about suspension of disbelief. I'm talking about a coherent aesthetic.

 Manchu wrote:

 Ouze wrote:
What about this universe [...] would have the suspension of disbelief ruined by the presence of a female marine?

Sorry but I'm not talking about suspension of disbelief. I'm talking about a coherent aesthetic.

I don't see anything in 40k that would make it less coherent if there were fem-marines, but then again I've been called a marine-hater and marine-basher and the like for years now (even as I was posting Space Marine lists, custom chapter lore, and discussing how awesome I thought Space Wolves and Salamanders are), so my opinion probably doesn't matter.

 Melissia wrote:

 Peregrine wrote:
Why does the whole "do SoB have sex" question matter anyway?

It doesn't matter, but that doesn't stop it from coming up all the time.

And the answer is that they don't. Even if they have no vow of chastity, they do not have the time or inclination for such things-- sex is a vice and a weakness, and they live a life of self-denial and discipline that does not allow for such weaknesses.

Uch, that sounds like the George Lucas view of spiritual perfection... and now the idea of SoB as the execrable Jedi Order of the prequel movies is in my head.

Just great.

 Buzzsaw wrote:

 Melissia wrote:

 Peregrine wrote:
Why does the whole "do SoB have sex" question matter anyway?

It doesn't matter, but that doesn't stop it from coming up all the time.

And the answer is that they don't. Even if they have no vow of chastity, they do not have the time or inclination for such things-- sex is a vice and a weakness, and they live a life of self-denial and discipline that does not allow for such weaknesses.

Uch, that sounds like the George Lucas view of spiritual perfection... and now the idea of SoB as the execrable Jedi Order of the prequel movies is in my head.

The fact that their Acts of Faith are hinted at being essentially a martial arts style probably won't help.

 Buzzsaw wrote:

 Melissia wrote:

 Peregrine wrote:
Why does the whole "do SoB have sex" question matter anyway?

It doesn't matter, but that doesn't stop it from coming up all the time.

And the answer is that they don't. Even if they have no vow of chastity, they do not have the time or inclination for such things-- sex is a vice and a weakness, and they live a life of self-denial and discipline that does not allow for such weaknesses.

Uch, that sounds like the George Lucas view of spiritual perfection... and now the idea of SoB as the execrable Jedi Order of the prequel movies is in my head.

Just great.

Don't say that he will remake them again if he reads this he will buy SW back and do It! noooooo

 CajunMan550 wrote:
Please remove head from ass before talking. I said everyone has a fantasy land I EVEN SAID IN MY POST THERE IS A PLACE FOR BOTH TYPES OF MODELS. Offering all types of models fulfills everyones fantasies when playing no matter what they are.

Except that having lots of sex-object models tells potential female customers "you're here to be a sex object, not a real character". And you've made it clear that your fantasy land involves women being "idealized" sex objects whose primary purpose is to look pretty. Can you really not see how moving the game in that direction excludes people and/or makes them feel uncomfortable?

Thank you for being an idiot and incapable of reading holy crap please go count something before I get banned for ripping you apart on here.

Well I'd say you're well on your way to getting banned, just as soon as I press that little report button.

 Peregrine wrote:

 CajunMan550 wrote:
Please remove head from ass before talking. I said everyone has a fantasy land I EVEN SAID IN MY POST THERE IS A PLACE FOR BOTH TYPES OF MODELS. Offering all types of models fulfills everyones fantasies when playing no matter what they are.

Except that having lots of sex-object models tells potential female customers "you're here to be a sex object, not a real character". And you've made it clear that your fantasy land involves women being "idealized" sex objects whose primary purpose is to look pretty. Can you really not see how moving the game in that direction excludes people and/or makes them feel uncomfortable?

Thank you for being an idiot and incapable of reading holy crap please go count something before I get banned for ripping you apart on here.

Well I'd say you're well on your way to getting banned, just as soon as I press that little report button.

Your also saying all women are as sensitive as you and that none don't have opposing views. On top of this you are talking about a hobby that is 99% male. Then next you are talking about women as if all don't like other beautiful women? Tell me more.

The hobby being 99% male (a number most assuredly pulled out of thin air and not representative of reality) is not a justification for actively trying to exclude women.

 Melissia wrote:


The problem is not just finding "soldiers who are female" but also trying to get them to fit in with the rest of the models while not sticking out too much. A lot of sci-fi models have the girls wear jumpsuits, or have aesthetics that just clash with cadian models, and so on and so forth.

As for the RPG characters, that's really just a matter of me being too picky most of the time.

Would something like this be ok? old Citadel female imperial guard, i think Ripley is the name

 Manchu wrote:

 Ouze wrote:
What about this universe [...] would have the suspension of disbelief ruined by the presence of a female marine?

Sorry but I'm not talking about suspension of disbelief. I'm talking about a coherent aesthetic.

Would you expand upon this?

 Melissia wrote:
The hobby being 99% male (a number most assuredly pulled out of thin air and not representative of reality) is not a justification for actively trying to exclude women.

And 99% of people in the hobby (a number most assuredly pulled out of thin air and not representative of reality) do not actively try to exclude women.

 Jehan-reznor wrote:

 Melissia wrote:


The problem is not just finding "soldiers who are female" but also trying to get them to fit in with the rest of the models while not sticking out too much. A lot of sci-fi models have the girls wear jumpsuits, or have aesthetics that just clash with cadian models, and so on and so forth.

As for the RPG characters, that's really just a matter of me being too picky most of the time.

Would something like this be ok? old Citadel female imperial guard, i think Ripley is the name
http://img846.imageshack.us/img846/1102/femimp.png

If I was collecting Catachan that could definitely work.

But I'm collecting mostly Cadians. I could definitely pick her up to add to my veteran squad though, whom I'm representing with Catachans.

 Jehan-reznor wrote:
Would something like this be ok? old Citadel female imperial guard, i think Ripley is the name

Yes, it would. She's wearing a tight T-shirt, but that is because she is a Catachan, not because she has boobs.

Also good:

 CajunMan550 wrote:
Your also saying all women are as sensitive as you and that none don't have opposing views.

No, I'm saying that when the dominant role of women in a game is "male fantasy material" it causes a lot of people to look at the game, eyeroll at the immaturity and/or sexism, and find something else to spend their time and money on. And it also seems to encourage an attitude among the community that the proper response to any criticism of that role is to scream about "feminazis" oppressing men for being men.

On top of this you are talking about a hobby that is 99% male.

I wonder why it's 99% male....

Then next you are talking about women as if all don't like other beautiful women?

Of course some women like other beautiful women. But that's not the point. The problem isn't a single sculpt taken in isolation, it's that the general trend in the hobby is to act like women are just there to fulfill male fantasies, not to be legitimate characters.

AllSeeingSkink wrote:

 Melissia wrote:
The hobby being 99% male (a number most assuredly pulled out of thin air and not representative of reality) is not a justification for actively trying to exclude women.

And 99% of people in the hobby (a number most assuredly pulled out of thin air and not representative of reality) do not actively try to exclude women.

I never said they did. In fact, I specifically expressed this sentiment of "a few rotten individuals make it bad for everyone else" several times over the course of this

 Melissia wrote:

 Jehan-reznor wrote:

 Melissia wrote:


The problem is not just finding "soldiers who are female" but also trying to get them to fit in with the rest of the models while not sticking out too much. A lot of sci-fi models have the girls wear jumpsuits, or have aesthetics that just clash with cadian models, and so on and so forth.

As for the RPG characters, that's really just a matter of me being too picky most of the time.

Would something like this be ok? old Citadel female imperial guard, i think Ripley is the name
http://img846.imageshack.us/img846/1102/femimp.png

If I was collecting Catachan that could definitely work.

But I'm collecting mostly Cadians. I could definitely pick her up to add to my veteran squad though, whom I'm representing with Catachans.

Catachans are actually pretty easy. Shadow Forge has a good selection which work for those.

http://eurekamin.com.au/index.php?cPath=806_807_812&sort=3a

Yeah, Catachan are basically "Vietnam-era US soldiers" crossed with Rambo, heh.

The faces on some of those models do kind of bother me, but that might just be the paint jobs.

 Melissia wrote:
Yeah, Catachan are basically "Vietnam-era US soldiers" crossed with Rambo, heh.

The faces on some of those models do kind of bother me, but that might just be the paint jobs.

Mostly the paint jobs - they are actually prettty good. The rest aren't too bad either, but that would likely cause all sorts of fits and what not for their blatant hyper-feminization.

Not fits, just me not caring enough to even consider buying them. I'm interested in models I can use on the tabletop, rather than models that titilate or "just look nice" but aren't very usable.

 Buzzsaw wrote:

 Melissia wrote:

 Peregrine wrote:
Why does the whole "do SoB have sex" question matter anyway?

It doesn't matter, but that doesn't stop it from coming up all the time.

And the answer is that they don't. Even if they have no vow of chastity, they do not have the time or inclination for such things-- sex is a vice and a weakness, and they live a life of self-denial and discipline that does not allow for such weaknesses.

Uch, that sounds like the George Lucas view of spiritual perfection... and now the idea of SoB as the execrable Jedi Order of the prequel movies is in my head.

Just great.

Giving SoB lightsabers would be one way to freshen up the model line. I'd buy a dozen.

Jumping back to the lore, GW in particular does have some strong female characters. the aforementioned Ciaphas Cain novels in particular have some straight up bad ass ladies in the officer and enlisted ranks. Col. Castine and Lt. Sulla are a rich part of that world. Hell roll up rules for Amberly Vail and stick her into the IG codex with the above. She's consistently the most bad ass character in the books in every conceivable way and the Colonel's a short second. Sulla makes me face palm because she's a typical butterbar, but she becomes the first Lady-General in Guard history, so who am I to talk gak eh? The fluff's there, decent rules and a write up, then actually providing the models, and they will come. Hell I'd buy 30-40 (if not more) fem guard even if they were forgeworld.

How hard would it be for GW to make then sell the following?
597th Valhallan Command Squad, Standard Bearer, Vox Officer, Col. Regina Castine, Ciaphas Cain, Lt. Jenit Sulla, Jurgen,

Given'em a mix of special abilities and fun rules, Sulla for example comes with a free Chimera because she's a Mech Infantry officer, any infantry unit within X distance gains "Fearless Charge" because of her famous suicidal bravery, etc.

and a "Female Guard" 10 trooper box, or conversion kit?

I'd probably go as far as to buy an Imperial Armor volume for such, but that's pushing it.

Sexuality has a time to be expressed. TBH if a game like 40k consisted of mostly nude, male Space Marines with huge packages, sticking out their ass and bashfully smiling, or in other such poses as to make them sexual objects before all else... not sure how I would feel about playing that game . It's silly and unrealistic in the first place for a military simulation, and it's hard to get past. But I'm not going to tell anyone not to make models like that.

There are women who have no problem with sexualizing themselves and identifying with sexy heroines, but not all women (although probably more than men), so I think games ought to take that into account.

But the main reason women don't play wargames is the same that men don't play with dollhouses, it's all about gender roles imprinted on us. There still is the fact that testosterone-infused males are more aggressive and wargames (as well as sports) are a great way to channel our aggression, and we are conditioned from a young age to play with guns and identify with the military so that we might one day willing die for our leaders in foreign countries (rather than staying at home and possibly overthrowing them).

As for KD, I think it's a cool game. More into the monsters than the pinups, but hey, they are at least tastefully sexy.

Thats something that would convince me to fork over my cash to GW, mainly because i love Ciaphas Cain.

 Meade wrote:
But the main reason women don't play wargames is the same that men don't play with dollhouses, it's all about gender roles imprinted on us.

The same reason why advertisers think young girls are mentally defective while they try to treat young boys as brilliant. Cultural bias which has no real basis in fact, it's just tradition.

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ClarkesLawForGirlsToys
http://www.cracked.com/blog/the-5-most-pointlessly-women-specific-products/

 Meade wrote:


But the main reason women don't play wargames is the same that men don't play with dollhouses, it's all about gender roles imprinted on us.

Interestingly I'd say we're actually at a period where that imprinting is starting to fail. Female gamers are as we've all seen strongly on the rise, within wargaming, RPGs, and video games along with the rest of nerd culture on a pretty large scale. Conversely we have the Brony population who say of them what you will are a group of relatively average nerds who watch a TV show for girls about pastel sparkle ponies. More and more people are challenging those gender roles and ultimately casting them aside.

 Manchu wrote:

 Ouze wrote:
What about this universe [...] would have the suspension of disbelief ruined by the presence of a female marine?

Sorry but I'm not talking about suspension of disbelief. I'm talking about a coherent aesthetic.

I'm not sure if this is in the same vein as what you are thinking, but I'm not overly keen on having rank and file female guardsmen in my own army. Not because I'm some woman hater, but because I like the idea of my guardsmen being the best mankind can achieve without genetic modification, representing the best athletes and most fit and strong people, but at the same time being nameless and faceless meat for the grinder, so I want them to look like they were churned out of a factory all looking the same. For that reason I like the aesthetic created by having them all men and all looking much the same. There could be women in there, but by the end of it they're as buff as the men (since they have to be), wearing the same armour as the men and indistinguishable from them. I LIKE that all my guardsmen look the same. Like any individuality has been crushed out of them, even in appearance.

That said, I'd be happy enough to see distinctly female models as commanders and such in my IG army.

Now, that's MY view of my guardsmen. Other people are free to have other views of them of course and I understand why other people might want distinctly female guardsmen. But personally I'm happy that my guardsmen are all male models and if they had a separate box of female guard add ons, that would be fine and other people could use them, but I wouldn't want to use them myself and if they made guardsmen as a mixed set of male and female parts I'd end up less happy because I'd be discarding all the female bits and effectively paying more per model for the ones I do want.

Obviously if GW did do that I'd just have to suck it up and deal with it. There's plenty of armies that are close to what I want but lack the aesthetic that I'd like.

Now, for my Wood Elves (and Eldar or Dark Elves if I collected them) on the other hand, I view them much differently and am happy to have a mix of female and male bits in the boxes of glade riders/glade guard/eternal guard/etc. I think the only units in the WE army that aren't mixed gender are the Wild Riders and the Dryads.

 Varrick wrote:
Thats something that would convince me to fork over my cash to GW, mainly because i love Ciaphas Cain.

I know right? I'd buy direct for that even. They did release that Cain limited edition mini for the Black Library, pretty sure they're over $100 for one on ebay and it's not even playable without home brew rules.

 Meade wrote:
Sexuality has a time to be expressed. TBH if a game like 40k consisted of mostly nude, male Space Marines with huge packages, sticking out their ass and bashfully smiling, or in other such poses as to make them sexual objects before all else... not sure how I would feel about playing that game . It's silly and unrealistic in the first place for a military simulation, and it's hard to get past. But I'm not going to tell anyone not to make models like that.

You could make a slanesh chaos marine army like that

Any Cain miniature release needs a Jurgen.

 Melissia wrote:
Any Cain miniature release needs a Jurgen.

This is a given. Failure to comply will be deemed heresy most foul.

On the Cain subject... yes, strangely that makes sense. A lot of sense.

On advertising to girls like they're retards... well, as a young boy a lot of people tried to convince me that there was a fat man who came down the chimney to give me presents and he flew in a sled pulled by reindeer. So I don't think it's entirely gender-specific. The pink-blue thing is rather obviously made up by culture and it goes both ways.