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 H.B.M.C. wrote:

 Melissia wrote:
Actually I do make that complaint.

Then play Soviets. They had women in their army.

Or realise that 99.999% of the soliers in WW2 were men and you cannot change that.

 MetalOxide wrote:

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

 Melissia wrote:
Actually I do make that complaint.

Then play Soviets. They had women in their army.

Or realise that 99.999% of the soliers in WW2 were men and you cannot change that.

The women here in the US were busy welding Sherman tanks and loading millions of rounds of .30-06 for M1 Garands. I don't think anyone's looking to change history here. Though ignoring the many many Soviet women who contributed directly in combat during the Great Patriotic War (WW2 to the rest of us) is just being blind.

 Dentry wrote:

AllSeeingSkink wrote:
Just because the universe is at war doesn't mean you throw every man, woman and child in to battle.

That's what the Imperium should be doing to combat the impending Tyranid invasion. At the point that the species is truly on the brink I don't think anyone's going to overlook normally non-combatants.

Yeah, if your planet is being wiped out then that's true, but as I understand it (and I don't pretend to be well read) that the imperium is still a functioning society, just like many nations fighting in WW2. There's still kids to be taught, scholars doing research, gangs fighting among themselves. And it's not like a warmachine is purely soldiers, you have people you have to build and maintain weaponry, create the supply lines for the soldiers, etc. It may take 1 person to fly a fighter plane, it takes many more to build and maintain one.

Now if your view of the imperium is one where its pushed to the point of throwing anyone in to the meat grinder, or a place where women are as physically capable as men, that's up to you and I'm not going to say you can't have your desires, but personally thats not how I see my own guard army.

Skink and there's room in the fluff for all those possibilities. The Imperium is made of of millions of worlds and many many trillions of people. We /know/ that all female and mixed gender regiments exist. Not just in "Oh gak any one with a pulse will work we need the numbers" situations like when Gaunt's Ghosts took on it's second levy of troops but planets like Valhalla supply all female units. Cadia's entire populace is on active duty, etc and so forth.

Plenty of room for everyone, especially in the Guard.

 Ouze wrote:

silent25 wrote:
Just want to point out that GW has already shown what female IG look like. One of the characters in the Space Marine video game was a female IG officer.

With armor on, can't tell the difference. More people outside gaming will be familiar with this portrayal of women by GW than any model they put out.

And I'd reply, Fantasy Flight Games has shown me what a female guardsmen looks like. Relic has shown me what a female guardsman looks like.

Show me which one of those whole box of Rambo is a woman I can use in my game. I even underlined my point just to avoid this response.

I was not responding to you. I was responding to all the comments about sexism at GW and how most people outside gaming, Lt. Mina is their exposure to how GW portrays females in 40k.

Just coincidence that your post came right before mine. Had spent several minutes trying to dig up some pics on Mina.

But by your response, you believe then that all troop boxes for all fantasy/future soldier games should be 50/50 male/female?

silent25 wrote:

 Ouze wrote:

silent25 wrote:
Just want to point out that GW has already shown what female IG look like. One of the characters in the Space Marine video game was a female IG officer.

With armor on, can't tell the difference. More people outside gaming will be familiar with this portrayal of women by GW than any model they put out.

And I'd reply, Fantasy Flight Games has shown me what a female guardsmen looks like. Relic has shown me what a female guardsman looks like.

Show me which one of those whole box of Rambo is a woman I can use in my game. I even underlined my point just to avoid this response.

I was not responding to you. I was responding to all the comments about sexism at GW and how most people outside gaming, Lt. Mina is their exposure to how GW portrays females in 40k.

Just coincidence that your post came right before mine. Had spent several minutes trying to dig up some pics on Mina.

But by your response, you believe then that all troop boxes for all fantasy/future soldier games should be 50/50 male/female?

I'd say most everyone in this thread is calling for conversion kits or new kits. Not changing existing troop boxes, or even changing existing fluff.

My Ciaphas Cain example for example. Provides three strong and extremely BA heroines who are established in the fluff, and then a conversion kit from there can make you all the femguard you want.

AllSeeingSkink wrote:

 DemetriDominov wrote:
Dunno, I'm not championing the "untapped" factor - poor choice of words if you ask me - but rather the idea that in a universe bereft with war, it doesn't seem sensible that:

A. Women are in the passenger's seat or even in the back seat when it comes to competency on the battlefield.
B. Women dress like domimatrix's and bikini models with atmoic bombs blowing up just out of lethal range from them.
C. Women don't really do much in the narrative apart from die, usually as horrible failures.

I think you used bereft the wrong way. Anyway. There are many Eldar models that don't fit in to that category. Sisters of Battle don't fit in to that category.

The only real army I can think of that could have female models and doesn't is IG, and I expressed my opinion about that on the previous page.

I personally have no real problem with not having female IG guardsmen. They could be in there as commanders or pilots, but I don't think they fit in to my own personal vision of my base line IG grunts, as I mentioned on the previous page. Just because the universe is at war doesn't mean you throw every man, woman and child in to battle.

Even if you do feel IG should have female models, whoopty-friggin-do, there's tons of armies that are bereft of models which I think they should have.

So I did, but it's 1:50am here and if misusing a word that is similar to the one to the one I had intended is the only thing keeping my post from being bereft of mistakes, I'd call it a success. Either way, you still got the picture, and I thank you for pointing out the mistake - I'm better for it.

Eldar and SoB solidly fit into categories A and C. Both are mulched in the fiction, and in the case of the SoB, not trusted over a man's word considered superior to theirs. Your description of a soldier at their physical peak whose individuality has been crushed from them can still apply to female models where only a slight difference in appearance. The Eldar do it, and do it well. We can tell the howling banshee's are female, while guardian's usually aren't.

In a galaxy at war, it's clear that every available asset must be used. Starship Troopers, Halo, and even Hilter/other despots used/use both women and children to fight. This is a grimdark universe, and nothing solidifies that dystopia more than using what many think as weakness and especially our very future in desperation to save us all from extinction. Does that mean I want child soldier models on the main GW production lines? No, not at all, but the vision of an exclusive club reserved to a gender better suited for war is not logical apart from the SM's. It doesn't suit the narrative, it doesn't serve the fans to take that vision to heart, and it certainly doesn't make sense why women would be any less capable of fighting for what they believe in than a man would.

silent25 wrote:
But by your response, you believe then that all troop boxes for all fantasy/future soldier games should be 50/50 male/female?

Not necessarily, I'd be satisfied with even a 70/30 split, and I think most people feel the same way.

However, using realism as an excuse for why there shouldn't be women in combat is just insane. Nothing about 40k is realistic, and I really don't see why having female IG models is just too far over the line in a game where you have so many utterly ridiculous things already.

 MetalOxide wrote:

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

 Melissia wrote:
Actually I do make that complaint.

Then play Soviets. They had women in their army.

Or realise that 99.999% of the soliers in WW2 were men and you cannot change that.

Sure I can, it's called alternate history fiction. Far more interesting than merely re-living the same history over and over and over again, with absolutely no creativity. I only play historical games specifically when they allow me to feth history up so much that it becomes utterly unrecognizable to historians.

Which, again, explains why the HH is yawn-inducing to me. [/shrug]

I'll like to see SoB get remade and most of the independent characters to get a female options.

 Melissia wrote:

 Meade wrote:
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.

You don't understand the full extent of it, then. I really recommend you read through those two links I gave, if you want to understand my low opinion about the expertise and intelligence of the advertising industry.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Vladsimpaler wrote:
Anyway, here's the dealio: It's not possible for there to be female marines.

If GW wanted to change it, it's possible. Just like with every other part of the lore.

The question isn't "can", it's "should".

I'm definitely on the "should not" side of things - Space Marines are already halfway to being the white knights of the Warhammer world. Anything that makes them less like modern heroes and more like the bunch of bullying, uptight, , entitled, chauvinistic, racist fundies they really are should be encouraged. SM are not and should not be the heroes of the game. They should be like the rest of the world sees US foreign policy - bastards with worryingly good toys whose bad side you can't afford to remain on. Their strict boys club policy is one of the only questionable traits still front and center, and they need to keep it.

If it were up to me, we'd have about 30-40% female IG, and a good 50/50 in both eldar armies. SM remain a bunch of sexist jerks, and SOB get all the ladies, and are led by a bunch of sexist jerks (the Ecclesiarchy). This is grimdark after all - the only reasonable, progressive people out there are a dying race being slowly devoured by a demon. And their less reasonable but quite fashionable Dark kin.

-D

 Melissia wrote:

 MetalOxide wrote:

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

 Melissia wrote:
Actually I do make that complaint.

Then play Soviets. They had women in their army.

Or realise that 99.999% of the soliers in WW2 were men and you cannot change that.

Sure I can, it's called alternate history fiction. Far more interesting than merely re-living the same history over and over and over again, with absolutely no creativity. I only play historical games specifically when they allow me to feth history up so much that it becomes utterly unrecognizable to historians.

Which, again, explains why the HH is yawn-inducing to me. [/shrug]

Partizans had females too,
Imperial Guard should have females, in many stories there are female captains, pilots, arbites etc, so why not grunts?
(depends of course on which imperial guard army off course (steel legion females should be easy )

I came onto this thread expecting a vaguley calm and rational discussion and found an absolute bitch fest. Despite this i am still going to throw in my Warjacks worth:

I have noticed the sexism in the hobby but it has rarely bothered me(apart from the times my mothers started commenting on it in the middle of the store-I still hold the official "owned by mum" award at my local GW.......

Let me get this out here now. I have female models. Some are extremely sexulised such as slavegirls and some are not such as my converted IG female squad of whom have long hair and slightly modified breast plates to give the impression of breasts. And slightly modified faces in some occasions.

I have SOB figs, The old DE succubus model, a DE slavegirl, and many others and some are sexulised and some are not.

I do not care fo this "Sexual prejudice" idea-since the vaery ist game of DnD was played back in the primordial soup of wargamin the hobby has been primerily male based. Sure overtime some females have joined, bringing much needed diversity to the hobby but still most gamers are guys. And should we lonely few wish for some Dominatrix esque women to field and paint then so be it-you womens rights and fminists and all thos may hate them but then why do you go out of your way to find them and ogle at them? Mayhaps it would be better to just ignore them? I mean forgive an old gamer veteran here but surely i m not mistaken in the belief that you are not being tied down and forced to view them? No? Well then whats your problem?

also @ Melissia: its good that youve found something that interests you and if you wish to convert an army of female SMs then you have a willing opponent right here but please dont smut historical games-they are very good and just because you say nay it does not mean otherwise. And i do agree that there is a lack of female GW models-i for one would welcom some female IG grunts.

and finally @ all those feminist nutcases:
I do paint nudy girls. On the sides of my vehicles. In particular my all Female IG vet grenadiers squad has a chimera with the image of a naked blond on the side panel along with the legend "troops comforts". I do not do these exessively, only where it is fluffy or as in this example for a bit of a laugh.
I play Deneghra as my primary caster and quite frankly if you look at what she wears.... shall we just say BDSM.......

And finally i also use the Witch Coven of Garlghast. Whom have this image readily available on google images:

silent25 wrote:
I was not responding to you. I was responding to all the comments about sexism at GW and how most people outside gaming, Lt. Mina is their exposure to how GW portrays females in 40k.

Just coincidence that your post came right before mine. Had spent several minutes trying to dig up some pics on Mina.

But by your response, you believe then that all troop boxes for all fantasy/future soldier games should be 50/50 male/female?

Yeah, I thought after re-reading it that it wasn't actually a response but an offering for the thread in general. I thought about posting again but didn't want to look even more like a its-all-about-me-egomaniac. So, sorry about that.


The exact ratio, I dunno. I don't think they should force some arbitrary ratio to try and fit real-world norms, that would be a weird politically correct goal. On the other hand, the current ratio of female guardsman on the tabletop (0) just feels weird on the tabletop, right? In 2013, no females in the army?

My solution would be for them to sell a test conversion kit of female Cadians that involve different torsos, arms, and heads via FW, just as they do now for traitor guards. See how they sell, see how they are received.

My more ideal solution would be to resculpt the 10 man Cadian\Catachan boxes so they have more slender legs, and arms, and then include a mix of female and male torsos in the box, just as they did with the Dark Eldar release. But that would obviously involve a very major effort on an unknown quantity, whereas FW is perfect for a small test run as above.

I'd like for the gamers today who are having kids to be able to tell their daughters, yes, you too can see something of yourself as a heroic guardswoman in this game. If one person, Nakatan can do it as Alfandrate pointed out, I'm sure that a multi-million dollar global corporation can.

Well one point on arms and legs is that you might not really need to resculpt. As people have pointed out, the thing about modern combat gear is it tends to obscure human features male or female except for the overweight and the genetically exceptional. (If you're 6'8" and have shoulders like an Abrams tank that ain't getting obscured)



These female Marines getting geared up for what looks like an exercise in 29 Palms California (I can sense the misery emanating from the photo) if their helmets were on, you'd have to get close enough to get a decent look at their faces to tell if they were male or female.

But this is 28mm minis in the far future, we can change the torsos around a little bit and challenge GW to sculpt a decent female face. That "corrected" sister of battle someone linked earlier actually did stand out as feminine to me despite the heavy power armor because of the facial features. Meanwhile the current battle sister facial sculpts remind me of Jeanne Claude Van Dam screaming as he kicks someone in the mouth.

Really there's a lot of options for implementation ranging from "easy" to difficult. I'm right with Ouze though, this is exactly what Forge World is for.

I think that the sci-fi gak lends itself perfectly to chicks fighting all the time personally... and I say this as a somewhat arrogant Green Beret with very little confidence in the fairer sex when it comes to physical jerks. I never ever was impressed by a single one during 10 years service. I met a few who were decent, but not a single one who could match me on a run, and I'm not a long limbed speed merchant, I'm only 5'9"!

Women have to be exceptional to be as strong or as fast as men, an average man can get fit enough to climb a 30 foot rope in his webbing and carrying a rifle, it takes a rare lady to have that kind of strength.

That's just biology. If a woman and a man are of the same weight, then the man will be 20% stronger due to a higher percentage of our weight being from muscle.

But technology is the ultimate force multiplier!

One of the fittest, strongest, most intelligent and professional soldiers I ever worked with was killed in March 2008 because he was unlucky enough to be on fire support detail one day when we went out, and the vehicle he was riding in rolled over an anti-tank mine.

Add sniper rifles and IDF into the mix, and women can kill like never before.

And in the future they can have plasma pistols and power swords that cut through armour like butter. Its not like having to brain someone with a 70lb warhammer!

I think an all female army for Sci-Fi is entirely sound, and a great idea. Less so with historical stuff, simply because the idea of women kicking ass in platemail whilst carrying broadswords can only work on the very very rare lady who happens to be built like a brick gak house.

So maybe use some as heroes it would look cool... but It would become implausible for a whole regiment or company.

Here's a good one you could have as a force commander for your Britonnians!

What about amazons?
I think they make a great candidate

 Ouze wrote:

 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?

Valdsimpaler pretty much summed it up:

 Vladsimpaler wrote:
It's not possible for there to be female marines. Just like Sisters of Battle don't traditionally give into vices like sex, etc. It's part of the background.

I'd put Femarines on the same shelf as slutty Sisters of Battle: it might work on /tg/ but it has no place in the published setting.

 DemetriDominov wrote:
Dunno, I'm not championing the "untapped" factor - poor choice of words if you ask me - .

Indeed.

 DemetriDominov wrote:
A. Women are in the passenger's seat or even in the back seat when it comes to competency on the battlefield..

Sisters of Battle are pretty prominent, right?

 DemetriDominov wrote:
B. Women dress like domimatrix's and bikini models with atmoic bombs blowing up just out of lethal range from them..

I'm not sure that this is because of sexism, or simply the penchant for "cheesecake" in sci-fi. Which is to say, I think the intent behind these sort of things matters.

 DemetriDominov wrote:
C. Women don't really do much in the narrative apart from die, usually as horrible failures.

Again, I'm not really sure this is backed up by the fluff. There are examples of female characters that are both successful and failures and believe me, I didn't have to look very hard.

 Ouze wrote:

silent25 wrote:
I'd like for the gamers today who are having kids to be able to tell their daughters, yes, you too can see something of yourself as a heroic guardswoman in this game. If one person, Nakatan can do it as Alfandrate pointed out, I'm sure that a multi-million dollar global corporation can.

By that same logic, though, couldn't anyone?

Great, now I'm being called called a feminist [insult] again. Go figure.

Your options are this:

a) prove to the companies there is a market for more non"cheesecake" minis. Get a petition together, start a newsgroup, gather up like-minded people together and promote yourselves and more importantly your money as a sub-market that can be exploited.

or

b) Continue whining about it, taking offense whenever anyone challenges your generalizations, and taking the role of victim whenever people don't agree with you.

or

c) Deal with it and move on. Buying whatever rare mini that meets your specifications


Your choice.



Contrary to your opinion, mini companies I would bet are not sexist; they are capitalist. They sell what sells and makes money. Historically those are the minis that they are making. For them to change their formula (which has been working for 20 years), they will need proof that they can make money.

This has nothing to do with gender.

This has nothing to do with sexism.

This is a monetary decision.

Otherwise, one might say that wargaming companies are racist as well... I mean how many space marines are black? or Asian? Or any other minority.

 hammeyaneggs wrote:
b) Continue whining about it

Right, because any time someone asks for something you don't care for, it's whining. And stop acting like petitions are relevant.

 hammeyaneggs wrote:
Contrary to your opinion, mini companies I would bet are not sexist; they are capitalist.

Since capitalism is imperfect and has failed innumerable times over the course of history, what makes you think that this makes any difference?

Capitalism hasn't actually stopped anyone from being misogynistic in the past. "Oh, we can't hire her, she's a WOMAN, and ignore her competence and capabilities, we just don't like women here!" was a thing which actually happened, AND STILL DOES.

I never accused GW of being actively sexist, myself. But they're still for the most part a bunch of old white heterosexual males, the most privileged class in modern society.

 Monster Rain wrote:

 Ouze wrote:
I'd like for the gamers today who are having kids to be able to tell their daughters, yes, you too can see something of yourself as a heroic guardswoman in this game. If one person, Nakatan can do it as Alfandrate pointed out, I'm sure that a multi-million dollar global corporation can.

By that same logic, though, couldn't anyone?

All the fem-marine talk is tangential to the point. I'm content with the current SM lore that doesn't allow for women to join their ranks. It's fine that in the 40k universe there exists this kind of organization.

With regards to my experiences with women in the hobby, those have been few and far between. I've been to a handful of hobby shops and most of the women there were either accompanying their significant other, exclusively into the painting aspect, or occupied with something else the particular store offered (such as comic books). There was one girl, I believe she was about 16 or 17, that was interested in the game. Can't remember what army she was playing, though.

It's still a rare sight and perhaps the lack of involvement of women is seen as a lack of interest. I know that's still what I believe in most cases. Granted that miniatures games aren't exactly marketed to the masses.

 MetalOxide wrote:

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

 Melissia wrote:
Actually I do make that complaint.

Then play Soviets. They had women in their army.

Or realise that 99.999% of the soliers in WW2 were men and you cannot change that.

Well not quite. Soviets alone had 800,000 women in arms during WW2.

 Melissia wrote:


Add fem-marines in, and I'd still prefer Guard and Sisters. I might buy some of the models if they're really good, though, maybe toss in a squad using allies rules, since it makes more tactical sense for Marines to act in support of the Guard anyway.

So this is just a case of "They should add this but I probably wouldn't get them unless I liked them". Do you understand why things like this don't fly?

I want the Squats to return but I'm not kidding myself because I know they wouldn't sell all that well. Then again Mantic's forgefathers have sold rather well so at least I have that.

 Vladsimpaler wrote:
So this is just a case of "They should add this but I probably wouldn't get them unless I liked them".

I never asked for female Space Marines. It was topic that came up, and so I discussed it. Nothing more. I made it very clear the whole way through this thread that this is not what I am asking for, and I've said what I have been looking for quite specifically numerous times in this thread, and talked about it at length with people who actually bothered to read my posts.

If you think I'm asking for female Space Marines, you are wrong.

We should probably skip past the whole "female space marines" debate in general. This has been discussed ad nauseum on this fora before and it's not like anyones ever going to convince anyone else to change their minds on it anyway, so no point in rehashing it again.

I think female guardsmen are the better argument anyway.

Discussions about ‘realism’ are all very well and good but I think it’s worth looking at the nature of hobby. Regardless of whether it’s fantasy or historical wargaming, it’s still about the recreation of battle for fun. You will never hear any handwringing over games based around colonial conflicts and most gamers won’t think twice about collecting armies whom historically fought on behalf of barbaric regimes and committed some incredibly inhumane acts.

By its very nature the hobby will never be a bastion of political correctness and it’s attitude to the fairer sex is going to reflect that.

 Melissia wrote:

 hammeyaneggs wrote:
b) Continue whining about it

Right, because any time someone asks for something you don't care for, it's whining. And stop acting like petitions are relevant.

 hammeyaneggs wrote:
Contrary to your opinion, mini companies I would bet are not sexist; they are capitalist.

Since capitalism is imperfect and has failed innumerable times over the course of history, what makes you think that this makes any difference?

Capitalism hasn't actually stopped anyone from being misogynistic in the past. "Oh, we can't hire her, she's a WOMAN, and ignore her competence and capabilities, we just don't like women here!" was a thing which actually happened, AND STILL DOES.

I never accused GW of being actively sexist, myself. But they're still for the most part a bunch of old white heterosexual males, the most privileged class in modern society.

Some petitions are relevant, some aren't... They aren't perfect, nothing in the world is. Stop trying to play the victim card. Is capitalism perfect? of course not, nowhere did I ever come close to saying that. Again, you are putting words in someone else's mouth to attempt to play the victim with no recourse.

If you are unwilling to make an honest attempt at changing what you see as an imperfection in the system, then you are part of the problem not part of the solution. You are no different that the thousands(or more) black people who sat in the back of the bus annd complained to friends before Rosa Parks DID something about it. Whining about it on the Dakka forums is not going to change anything. (no matter how much I may like the forums)

Your comment about "the most privleged class in modern society" comes across as though you don't have an open mind... Is this the image you wish to convey?