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 Peregrine wrote:

 Crimson wrote:

nomotog wrote:
Sisters don't feel like female SM to me. They aren't that similar except that they have power armor.

And bolters, and Rhinos, and are a monastic orders of warriors...

Except that SoB are humans in power armor, while marines are superhuman. SoB are defined by religion while marines are a "secular" army (as much as something like that can exist in the Imperium). SoB are a focused close-range shooting army with huge amounts of flamers and melta while marines are generalists that do a little of everything. SoB rely on limited-use special abilities to boost their effectiveness at key moments while marines are defined by their endurance and durability. Etc.

If SoB and female space marines are too similar then all of the different marine armies are too similar and need to be consolidated into a single codex.

But by that logic you could also make the male variant of SoB if were going for full equality right? I mean if the are so different from existing space marines? There are of course differences between the 4 Imperial forces, but only the IG only stands out with their units. GK, SoB and marines all have quite the same feel to it (rhinos, bolters, power armour) visually. Marines are one of the most cc oriented forces, everything they do is towards offensive engagements on short range. Hence the drop pods, teleporters and loads of transports to get them into combat as close and fast as possible.

 Disciple of Fate wrote:
But by that logic you could also make the male variant of SoB if were going for full equality right?

Equality does not mean "when you have a 90/10 split you should give the same to each side". Fixing GW's gender equality problems by making a male SoB army just doesn't make any sense.

(Of course you could make one, or just alternate SoB models, there's just no compelling reason to do so.)

There are of course differences between the 4 Imperial forces, but only the IG only stands out with their units. GK, SoB and marines all have quite the same feel to it (rhinos, bolters, power armour) visually.

Sure, there's a lot of similarity and I'd love to consolidate all the marine armies into a single book. But adding an army of female marines is just as legitimate as DA/BT getting their own codex instead of just a brief mention in Codex: All of the Marines.

Marines are one of the most cc oriented forces, everything they do is towards offensive engagements on short range. Hence the drop pods, teleporters and loads of transports to get them into combat as close and fast as possible.

And hence the getting slaughtered in close combat by everything besides fire warriors? Marines have dedicated assault units as part of their "a little of everything" concept, but overall they're a shooting army with the ability to assault weakened units and finish them off, not an army that wants to charge as fast as possible.

What is boob plating anyways? I really don't see anything wrong with the SoB armor It covers their bodies like armor should.. I think a better solution would be to make SoB Female Space Marines, with all the glands and stuff.

 Amaya wrote:
You applaud not using every tool available to you in a state of war?

Yes. Chaos is also a tool available, for example.

 Manchu wrote:

 Amaya wrote:
You applaud not using every tool available to you in a state of war?

Yes. Chaos is also a tool available, for example.

And there are these guys called Psykers who use it.

Not to mention the obvious fact that using a double edged sword is stupid. Try harder next time. Honor before reason is a quick way to lose a fight to the death unless you have overwhelmingly superior firepower.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Replace male/man with white/aryan and female/woman with black/negro will show you how bigoted and insane this thread has become.

OK so I have to date never read any GW "story books" and I have by no means read all of this thread.

Now I am all for more female troops, especially standard IG and some IG characters.

The only point I would make and I am probably a mile off so flame away, is.....Space Marines are clones?!!!!! no sex involved, no gender involved, they are manufactured. So you can't have female space marines no more than you can have human necrons,
Just my 2 pence worth.

I vote they just give SoB the implants, it's fair, does the least damage to established lore, and makes sense for the setting. Also you can have human necrons.

 Camkierhi wrote:
OK so I have to date never read any GW "story books" and I have by no means read all of this thread.

Now I am all for more female troops, especially standard IG and some IG characters.

The only point I would make and I am probably a mile off so flame away, is.....Space Marines are clones?!!!!! no sex involved, no gender involved, they are manufactured. So you can't have female space marines no more than you can have human necrons,
Just my 2 pence worth.

Space Marines are not clones. They are genetically altered superhumans that began as simple, average, normal humans, albeit with a bit of a mean streak.

 Camkierhi wrote:
OK so I have to date never read any GW "story books" and I have by no means read all of this thread.

Now I am all for more female troops, especially standard IG and some IG characters.

The only point I would make and I am probably a mile off so flame away, is.....Space Marines are clones?!!!!! no sex involved, no gender involved, they are manufactured. So you can't have female space marines no more than you can have human necrons,
Just my 2 pence worth.

If they have no gender, why do we call them brothers. Maybe we if they didn't have gendered pronouns then you could make that argument, but as now they are called male by every source.

Quote from Choas Codex.
"It is rumoured that Abaddon may have been a clone-son of Horus himself, a direct creation of the Primarch's gene-seed"

They are lab produced "superhuman" testtube babies, produced using the dna of previous superhumans.

They do not have super homes with super cities and super wives and go to super school and play super games to grow up and become super human space marines.

The Chapters are supposed to be 1000 men, when they are killed off, the lab rats produce nice new clone troops to bring it back up to strength. They don't get vacations. They don't get Paterity leave. They don't get anything of what we call a life. They are genetically modified, produced in labs, for one reason and one reason only.SPACE MARINES.

That was always the lore I was led to believe, from many years ago. It has probably changed now. Thus every space marine has a square jaw. LOL

Sorry to have gone OT.

On topicI have seen people doing some amazing work converting female IG and they look awesome. I think there is definately a market that needs exploiting out there.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Oh I meant gender is of no importance, not that they don't have one!!



Automatically Appended Next Post:
Oh again sorry did not know they did human necrons?

Titanicus holds female characters that are importatnt to the outcome of a freaking engine war! I dont think that Female characters are repressed by authors or portrayed poorly in books, that is what the situation of the setting holds for them. It is terrible of course, but true none the less

 Camkierhi wrote:
The Chapters are supposed to be 1000 men, when they are killed off, the lab rats produce nice new clone troops to bring it back up to strength. They don't get vacations. They don't get Paterity leave. They don't get anything of what we call a life. They are genetically modified, produced in labs, for one reason and one reason only.SPACE MARINES.

Err, no. Marines are recruited from normal human populations and given the implants and training that make them space marines. They are NOT lab-grown clones.

 Amaya wrote:

 Manchu wrote:

 Amaya wrote:
You applaud not using every tool available to you in a state of war?

Yes. Chaos is also a tool available, for example.

And there are these guys called Psykers who use it.

Being a sanctioned psyker is about not using every tool available. In fact, we have finally stumbled over the real distinction between a pskyer and a witch/sorcerer.

"Try harder next time" is not an argument.

 Camkierhi wrote:
The Chapters are supposed to be 1000 men, when they are killed off, the lab rats produce nice new clone troops to bring it back up to strength.

This is incorrect. As Amaya (edit: and Peregrine) said, SM are not clones. They are normal humans who receive implants that change them at a genetic level.

Thank you everyone for the info. I was always under the impression that they thought of them selves as a seperate species, and treated all others as sub-species to themselves. This was supposed to even include that they would only under severe conditions work with ogryn and ratlings for instance.

(never seen a female ogryn either!!!!!!!.)

I was truley mis-informed. If this information is correct then there is no reason that there would not be female space marines mixed throughout the various chapters. And indeed why would you bother with a selection process, or an imperial guard, why not make everyone a marine?? Surely you could make power armour for ratlings and ogryn too!!

Hehe I like this silliness. The laziness of games workshop can spark such emotion throughout the whole craft.

IMHO the original question is very valid but I am afraid also never going to be addressed. Yes there should be more female figures and options throught the GW universe. BUT GW will never produce models for it. If you want something other than the straight forward you will have to convert.

 Peregrine wrote:
Equality does not mean "when you have a 90/10 split you should give the same to each side". Fixing GW's gender equality problems by making a male SoB army just doesn't make any sense.

(Of course you could make one, or just alternate SoB models, there's just no compelling reason to do so.)

I was saying ful equility, so every army would at the end have a male and female counterpart. But thats what is was getting at, there is no compelling reason to make female space marines either. We have enough background for the other armies to move towards equality, like Imperial guard and Eldar, without sacrificing too much of it. Male SoB wouldnt be possible with the background they have built up around them, same as with space marines.

Sure, there's a lot of similarity and I'd love to consolidate all the marine armies into a single book.

Agreed on this part though, they should just merge them into a standard 'regular' codex and one for the specials. So that normal marine players wont have to lug around a BRB style codex.

And hence the getting slaughtered in close combat by everything besides fire warriors? Marines have dedicated assault units as part of their "a little of everything" concept, but overall they're a shooting army with the ability to assault weakened units and finish them off, not an army that wants to charge as fast as possible.

But getting slaughtered is not the point, they are still made for close range engagements. They dont man trenches, they attack/charge. Their doctrine emphasises on mobility and attack. Of course they defend, but they arent really meant to do that. They have only dedicated defence entry in the codex is the TFC.

 Camkierhi wrote:
Thank you everyone for the info. I was always under the impression that they thought of them selves as a seperate species, and treated all others as sub-species to themselves. This was supposed to even include that they would only under severe conditions work with ogryn and ratlings for instance.

(never seen a female ogryn either!!!!!!!.)

I was truley mis-informed. If this information is correct then there is no reason that there would not be female space marines mixed throughout the various chapters. And indeed why would you bother with a selection process, or an imperial guard, why not make everyone a marine?? Surely you could make power armour for ratlings and ogryn too!!

Hehe I like this silliness. The laziness of games workshop can spark such emotion throughout the whole craft.

IMHO the original question is very valid but I am afraid also never going to be addressed. Yes there should be more female figures and options throught the GW universe. BUT GW will never produce models for it. If you want something other than the straight forward you will have to convert.

I think some Marines do think of themselves as almost a separate species, but it's an attitude they seem to grow over time. Plus as usual with 40K it depends on the Chapter - Salamanders, for instance, don't forget about about ordinary humans, and once confronted the Marines Malevolent Chapter after they caused a large amount of civilian casualties during a battle with Orks (so I'd guess the MM came under the heading of "Chapters who look down on the puny humans"). Same goes for working with abhumans, some Chapters don't like them, others don't mind (I think in Deathwatch some Chapters get penalties for working with them).

As for Ogryns etc, there must be women as they live in their own communities - Only War lets you play as female Ratlings or Ogryns.

Speaking of Only War, I'll just reiterate what I said on page 2 - it seems a lot of people would like to see more women in the IG, well, if that were ever to happen the Only War book contains heaps of pictures of Guardswomen. They're obviously women without wearing ludicrously tight or revealing outfits - now if GW could just make them into miniatures, problem solved, but like you I don't expect it to happen any time soon.

In the meantime I think GW ought to improve who they've already got - the Sisters! Ideally they'd have plastic kits, more chances to be the hero(ine) in fluff, a proper Codex, and be brought out with the same level of fanfare given to the most recent Codex releases - but again, the question is whether that'll happen.

For converters , Victoria Lamb has hinted in her News and Rumours thread that she has conversion parts for female Guard on the drawing board - something to look forward to.

 Amaya wrote:

Evileyes wrote:
I'm happy there are no female astartes for one very simple reason.



I don't want to play the female version of that. Female badasses? Yes. Fe-men? No thank's, it's not in my interests to play that.

However, I think there is room for female's in the imperial guard army. Or, as called-to-arm's special character psyker's. Or more prevalence in other armies (I loved it when I discovered one of the playable tau commanders was female, you would never know it from the model, it's a battlesuit after all, but it gave me a big smile knowing. Like, a Metroid Samus moment.

They don't need to make female version of other armies. But they could do with finding a way to include them in some armies. Grey knight's did it with inquisitors, but there is only one. There are more orang-utang's than women in grey knight models after all (Literally)

I'm sorry, did someone hold a gun to your head and force you to play female Space Marines?

If that was what I meant, I would have said that. Please do not put word's in people's mouth's.

Fact is, I do not beleive female astartes would appeal to other women. Because when it comes to it, marines are pretty grotesque physically, and if they made female astartes, they would be like female dwarves, physically indistinguisable from the male ones due to all the genetic enhancement.

As I said however, that doesn't mean I don't want us gal's represented in 40k. I just beleive the marine's don't need femarines. Female special characters? Sure. I'd like that.

If someone wanted to play female space marines, i'm not going to stop them. But I would get sad if they came to the table with something like:



Due to the fact that it completely ignores the genetic enhancement side of things. And a female space marine, in space marine armour, would be physically indistinguishable from a male one, unless they took off their helmet. They would not need boob-plates, or any of that, because space marines are barrel chested in the armour.

If you want to play it. go mad. But I'd rather not.

 Evileyes wrote:

 Amaya wrote:

Evileyes wrote:
I'm happy there are no female astartes for one very simple reason.



I don't want to play the female version of that. Female badasses? Yes. Fe-men? No thank's, it's not in my interests to play that.

However, I think there is room for female's in the imperial guard army. Or, as called-to-arm's special character psyker's. Or more prevalence in other armies (I loved it when I discovered one of the playable tau commanders was female, you would never know it from the model, it's a battlesuit after all, but it gave me a big smile knowing. Like, a Metroid Samus moment.

They don't need to make female version of other armies. But they could do with finding a way to include them in some armies. Grey knight's did it with inquisitors, but there is only one. There are more orang-utang's than women in grey knight models after all (Literally)

I'm sorry, did someone hold a gun to your head and force you to play female Space Marines?

If that was what I meant, I would have said that. Please do not put word's in people's mouth's.

Fact is, I do not beleive female astartes would appeal to other women. Because when it comes to it, marines are pretty grotesque physically, and if they made female astartes, they would be like female dwarves, physically indistinguisable from the male ones due to all the genetic enhancement.

As I said however, that doesn't mean I don't want us gal's represented in 40k. I just beleive the marine's don't need femarines. Female special characters? Sure. I'd like that.

If someone wanted to play female space marines, i'm not going to stop them. But I would get sad if they came to the table with something like:



Due to the fact that it completely ignores the genetic enhancement side of things. And a female space marine, in space marine armour, would be physically indistinguishable from a male one, unless they took off their helmet. They would not need boob-plates, or any of that, because space marines are barrel chested in the armour.

If you want to play it. go mad. But I'd rather not.

What about a shorter marine with narrower shoulders, a female head and drastically reduced "God-piece"? No "Boob Armor", when you wear a fridge there's room for a lot of cleavage

(as I am now searching for heads, your argument is invalided - those little B****s are a pain to convert.)

She is wearing a purity seal as a garter.

I think what evileyes is saying is that whether or not Female space marines should be implemented is somewhat irrelevant. The aesthetic results would generally be either too sexualized to be taken seriously as a genetically enhanced super warrior when next to their male counterpart or too masculine to be seen as female. That said there could be more female IG figurines, but fluff wise I would say 40k is nowhere near as negative about women as most fictional settings that are even somewhat similar.

nomotog wrote:She is wearing a purity seal as a garter.

Why did you have to point it out - it looked bad enough already.

That pose alone ...

 Lynata wrote:

nomotog wrote:She is wearing a purity seal as a garter.

Why did you have to point it out - it looked bad enough already.

That pose alone ...

Well we can surely find some good female SM drawings.

nomotog wrote:


Well we can surely find some good female SM drawings.

I'm waiting.


Seriously, even though I've said female SM are not needed, I do not on fundamental level have anything against them. However, I'm not sure what people want when they say there should be female Astartes. Do they want 'realistic' female SM, that would be utterly indistinguishable from males (yes, even the faces, have you seen female body builders that use stereoids?), or do they want 'girlified' version like the picture that was just posted? Or something else? I maybe could see some sort of stylised muscular seven foot amazon look working, but that would require at least some feminisation of the armour to look even slightly distinctive from the males.

nomotog wrote:

 Lynata wrote:

nomotog wrote:She is wearing a purity seal as a garter.

Why did you have to point it out - it looked bad enough already.

That pose alone ...

Well we can surely find some good female SM drawings.

I'll post my WIPs up some time, it took a lot of thinking to get away from "girls head on a marine" and "Triple G boob armor" that everyone is on about.

Good female SM pictures would look almost like male ones. The process in which they are turned into marines changes the body in such a way that they get a much heavier build (bones strengthen). Muscles will expand in such a way that visually they will resemble males except in the cod-piece area. Marines are frequently described as having their facial features stretched to a certain degree because of their proportions. So female faces will also be distorted to some degree.

 Disciple of Fate wrote:
Good female SM pictures would look almost like male ones. The process in which they are turned into marines changes the body in such a way that they get a much heavier build (bones strengthen). Muscles will expand in such a way that visually they will resemble males except in the cod-piece area. Marines are frequently described as having their facial features stretched to a certain degree because of their proportions. So female faces will also be distorted to some degree.

My reasoning is the female marines would be a little smaller and lighter built (maybe 200 -300lbs less) then standard marines, you would also see narrower shoulders and shorter torsos (you already mentioned the God-piece). They would probably be in scouting and assault roles, to take advantage of their better marksmanship and lighter weight (the best way to improve a jump-pack's performance is to reduce weight). Next project, 7+ foot girls to be scouts...

 mad_eddy_13 wrote:

 Disciple of Fate wrote:
Good female SM pictures would look almost like male ones. The process in which they are turned into marines changes the body in such a way that they get a much heavier build (bones strengthen). Muscles will expand in such a way that visually they will resemble males except in the cod-piece area. Marines are frequently described as having their facial features stretched to a certain degree because of their proportions. So female faces will also be distorted to some degree.

My reasoning is the female marines would be a little smaller and lighter built (maybe 200 -300lbs less) then standard marines, you would also see narrower shoulders and shorter torsos (you already mentioned the God-piece). They would probably be in scouting and assault roles, to take advantage of their better marksmanship and lighter weight (the best way to improve a jump-pack's performance is to reduce weight). Next project, 7+ foot girls to be scouts...

But what is the basis of this reasoning. Making Astartes involves taking the best of the best physically. This would lead to recruitment of the strongest and biggest females (just like the male counterpart), as they would most likely fit the Astartes template. Better marksmanship, on what basis? Its already know that some legions produce better marksman due to geneseed then others, why should this be related to gender and/or be a significant difference? It depends on the recuits. Also what use are Astartes in scout roles? We already have marine scouts for that sort of role. Real marines would be expected to fill the roles current marines already do. They would have to adhere in a certain degree to the codex astartes.

Narrow shoulders wouldn't be noticed under the huge shoulder pads. Maybe this isn't a bad thing, if we can make female SM by swamping head that makes the switch over that much simple. All you have to do is set up some female chapters.

I always thought the misogyny is intentional. The Imperium is already psychotic and xenophobic, what makes you think they would be any less sexist than the 21st century? Odds are, they'll be more sexist. And racist too.

Look at how the High Lords of Terra are all old white men. The Emperor was an old white man, and all Space Marines are men. The Ultramarines, the greatest of the Space Marines, are white men. The Cadian Guard, made up of the best Guardsmen, are white men.

The Imperium doesn't pick the best man for the job. That'd be far too sane. It picks the white man for the job.

But I do agree with the OP that there should be more women in Black Library novels. Just because they're discriminated against doesn't mean that they don't exist.

Cadia isn't just men, ALL CITEZENS are REQUIRED to serve,