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Yeah I guess that was a bit wrong however but then look at the huge selection of regiments on p28-29 of the old codex- very few of them are camo

Quite a few of them do seem to be primitive dressed or in a WW1 / WWII dress uniform

I'd like to see more females in the game, but I don't feel that sticking some female heads into the Guard sprues would be a good solution. In the case of hive gangs and other non-professional fighting forces, I think it's pretty cool to have mixed sexes. For Guard, though, they're an actual army, and it's been found in real life that mixed forces don't operate terribly well on the front lines. Given that Guard are often deployed in forces comprising multiple regiments, even an all-female regiment wouldn't be practical (although, of course, in 40k there's always space for corner cases).

As well as that, there's the basic reason humans have always sent men to fight: They're more expendable. Manpower is the Imperium's greatest resource, and sending legions of women into battle isn't good for the numbers game. If a Guard levy takes away a large percentage of males from a society, the population can recover within a few generations. If the same percentage of females leave, it may never recover. Why would the Imperium want to cripple its manpower in that way?

I'd like women to be better represented in the fluff, but I think the reasoning behind them not showing up much on the tabletop is sound.

ntw3001 wrote: In the case of hive gangs and other non-professional fighting forces, I think it's pretty cool to have mixed sexes. For Guard, though, they're an actual army, and it's been found in real life that mixed forces don't operate terribly well on the front lines.

Actually, it hasn't.

And besides, Guard regiments are often enough recruited right out of the very "hive-gangs and other non-professional fighting forces" you mentioned. Never read about the 8th Necromundan Spiders, I presume? Or the Asgardian Rangers? Not every world that tithes regiments to the IG has a PDF as professional as Cadia - which, ironically, recruits both males and females into its military by the way.

ntw3001 wrote:Given that Guard are often deployed in forces comprising multiple regiments, even an all-female regiment wouldn't be practical (although, of course, in 40k there's always space for corner cases).

Such as the Xenan regiments referenced in the 3E Guard 'dex.

ntw3001 wrote:As well as that, there's the basic reason humans have always sent men to fight: [...]

And women.

ntw3001 wrote:If a Guard levy takes away a large percentage of males from a society, the population can recover within a few generations. If the same percentage of females leave, it may never recover. Why would the Imperium want to cripple its manpower in that way?

Because it is overpopulated anyways?

... sheesh.

ntw3001 wrote:
I'd like to see more females in the game, but I don't feel that sticking some female heads into the Guard sprues would be a good solution. In the case of hive gangs and other non-professional fighting forces, I think it's pretty cool to have mixed sexes. For Guard, though, they're an actual army, and it's been found in real life that mixed forces don't operate terribly well on the front lines. Given that Guard are often deployed in forces comprising multiple regiments, even an all-female regiment wouldn't be practical (although, of course, in 40k there's always space for corner cases).

As well as that, there's the basic reason humans have always sent men to fight: They're more expendable. Manpower is the Imperium's greatest resource, and sending legions of women into battle isn't good for the numbers game. If a Guard levy takes away a large percentage of males from a society, the population can recover within a few generations. If the same percentage of females leave, it may never recover. Why would the Imperium want to cripple its manpower in that way?

I'd like women to be better represented in the fluff, but I think the reasoning behind them not showing up much on the tabletop is sound.

Nothing that you've written here as any actual basis in fact, even historical fact, excepting very short snippets of time. The Imperium also doesn't care about the population of a given Hive World. If, say, they somehow inducted 75% of its population into the IG (impossible, as most won't meet the minimum requirements, but bear with me).... 75% of the planet goes away never to be seen again. The IoM taps the populations of 5 other Hive Worlds and ships them to the first Hive World. Now the population is back up, and things can move right along.

ntw3001 wrote:
For Guard, though, they're an actual army, and it's been found in real life that mixed forces don't operate terribly well on the front lines.

That is not true.

 Lynata wrote:
]Actually, it hasn't.

Fair enough. I'm speaking from discussion with UK military personnel, an army in which women are still ineligible for front-line combat roles, for fears that female casualties would compromise decision-making amongst male troops on the ground. On further reading, it looks like a number of countries are ahead of the UK in terms of offering combat roles to women. Nonetheless, it appears that mixed units are not common and are typically assigned to lower-risk posts.

 Lynata wrote:
]And besides, Guard regiments are often enough recruited right out of the very "hive-gangs and other non-professional fighting forces" you mentioned. Never read about the 8th Necromundan Spiders, I presume? Or the Asgardian Rangers? Not every world that tithes regiments to the IG has a PDF as professional as Cadia - which, ironically, recruits both males and females into its military by the way.

I'm familiar with the Spiders, not with the Asgardians. A quick browse of Lexicanum shows that there's no extra detail added on the former beyond the snippet in Codex: Imperialis, and very little at all on the latter. They're both recruited from hive world gangs; that's scarcely conclusive. And in any case, while I'm in favour of mixed gangs for Necromunda, there's no canon supporting it and the chap in the Spiders article definitely isn't an Escher. And if the gangs are mixed (and despite the miniature ranges, there's no reason they wouldn't be), it still doesn't mean the recruitment process is obliged to bring all the buddies together.

That said, I don't imagine the governor of Necromunda fusses too much about exactly who goes into his military tithe. I think it'd be down to the assigned commander of the regiment. So yeah, I'll concede that it's feasible.

 Lynata wrote:
]

ntw3001 wrote:Given that Guard are often deployed in forces comprising multiple regiments, even an all-female regiment wouldn't be practical (although, of course, in 40k there's always space for corner cases).

Such as the Xenan regiments referenced in the 3E Guard 'dex.

ntw3001 wrote:Nonetheless, it appears that mixed units are not common and are typically assigned to lower-risk posts.

Depending on the nation.
There's a huge degree of variety concerning the role of women in the armed forces ranging from totally barred to noncom only to rear line support all the way to full frontline combat duty and special forces. It's an ever-changing environment influenced by the respective country's history and gender politics.

ntw3001 wrote:They're both recruited from hive world gangs; that's scarcely conclusive.

The Asgardians are actually feral worlders. But I wasn't bringing them or the Necromundans up as examples for female-inclusive regiments, actually, just to show that the IG does recruit from these sources. The reason for the Imperial Guard being so diverse isn't just because of varying tech levels between the individual worlds, but also because some are the pride of the planet's PDF, whereas the regiment right next to them could be a bunch of thugs recruited right out of the prison, or some feral world barbarians tithed from some clan. It all depends on the planetary governor, and as long as the quotas are fulfilled the Imperium cares little about the quality of the troops.

ntw3001 wrote:When? I'm not familiar with any sweeping armies of women (feel free to correct me). I'm not claiming there are no situations in which women have ever fought, but I'm not aware of any historical precedent for female or mixed armies, bar modern examples.

Well, the most obvious example would be the Soviet Red Army in WW2 - which is actually the basis for the Valhallan regiments in 40k. But it goes back in history much further, and not just for Russia (where women were already employed as frontline troops in WW1). The UK Royal Armouries is in possession of a historical document called the "Bridport Muster Roll" from 1457, and the peasent levy listed there includes 5 women (complete with arms and armour) amongst the 174 names to join the Lancastrian army. Or how about the crusading Order of the glorious Saint Mary, which included female knights (later suppressed by the pope). Thanks to old judicial documents only recently discovered, we also know of a woman called Claude de Armoises, who first fought in the army of the Papal States and later became a mercenary captain. Then, going back further in history, we have many, many accounts of the Roman Legions fighting male and female warriors in Europe. Why do you think the pope later had to issue an edict to ban women from bearing arms? And lastly, archaeologists have uncovered quite a number of ancient burial sites containing skeletons with arms and armour, where analysis of the bone structure indicated that a number of them were women. Oh, and just because I'm such a weeabo, I will also mention the Japanese onna bugeisha. Or did you ever hear about the Mino regiment?

Barring a few exceptions such as the Mino, these are not "sweeping armies of women", of course - but still perfect examples for mixed formations.

Really, the participation of women in warfare stretches throughout human history. There have just been eras of time where a male-dominated society tried or succeeded in barring women from participating in such activities as part of a wider effort to marginalise their participation in overall society, hence it becoming an oddity or even ceasing to exist at all in most parts of the world. Only now has society started to undo this.

A big problem of today's world seems to be that very few people are aware of the historic bits and pieces mentioned above. It isn't really common knowledge, which is a bit sad. When I was in school, we were all taught that only men could become knights. Imagine my surprise when reading about the all-female Catalonian Order of the Hatchet.

ntw3001 wrote:I don't think the Imperium has ever shown too much concern over population control. But I really don't imagine the Imperium see 'more meat for the grinder' as a problem ('less meat for the grinder', though, would probably be met with less enthusiasm). They certainly aren't worried overmuch about preserving quality of life for the citizenry.

Oh, what I meant is just that the issue of "less meat" doesn't even come up. Human lives are cheap in 40k, so much so that the gear they are issued is considered less expendable.
If the Imperium would have to worry about a steady supply of men, they wouldn't let guys like Chenkov march entire battalions over a minefield to clear a path for the tanks. Or send an entire planet's population into death camps because they might've seen a daemon (First War of Armageddon).

ntw3001 wrote:I think there's every reason for the general policy of the Guard's recruitment officers to take males where possible.

Now you're making stuff up. The Munitorum does not have any such policy - at least not in GW's fluff.

When? I'm not familiar with any sweeping armies of women (feel free to correct me). I'm not claiming there are no situations in which women have ever fought, but I'm not aware of any historical precedent for female or mixed armies, bar modern examples. In those cases, I'd argue that the lower casualty rate of modern war, compared to historical war, is what makes it a workable prospect, and 40k's approach to warfare has more in common with the Battle of the Somme than anything from today.

Sweeping armies? No. However, the idea of a "sweeping army" is a relatively modern concept. In ye olden days, you had a handful of knights (usually no more than a few hundred, though exceptions exist) surrounded by peasant levies or mercenaries (especially in Italy.... Italy loved its mercenary armies...)

... though it bears noting that modern warfare inflicts far more casualties in its course than historic warfare did.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Knight#Women_in_orders_of_knighthood

http://www.heraldica.org/topics/orders/wom-kn.htm

That doesn't sound like a terribly economical decision. Why deplete one world and ship in people from others when you don't have to do either? If a regiment is hastily raised in response to some emergency I see it, but that would be one of the aforementioned corner cases. I think there's every reason for the general policy of the Guard's recruitment officers to take males where possible.

Because, as you said, the one thing the Imperium doesn't lack is warm bodies. If you have 6 Hive Worlds, and one of them has a reduced population (for whatever reason) you can take some people from the other 5 (thus slightly reducing over-crowding there) and ship them by bulk transport to the other. Now you have 6 fully-functional Hive Worlds, rather than 5.25.

Yes, the Imperium treats people as numbers. It does not treat men as superior or inferior. Men are just another number in the system. It does not treat women as superior or inferior. Women are just another number in the system.

The Imperium's most abundant resources are human bodies. And it also believes in the philosophy of "they wouldn't call them human resources if they weren't meant to be strip-mined."

Of course some individual planet and its culture could very well treat women as inferior. Just like it could treat men as inferior.
Which is how we might well get most of those mono-gender regiments, be them male or female.
Either way, the Imperium does not care as long as it gets its tithe.

Even if you don't want female soldiers in your IG army, with them released as separate purchases, conversion packs, and special characters (or just variations on generic characters even!), you are really under no obligation to purchase them or include them in any way.

So it's a bit silly to argue that your not wanting them in YOUR army means that they shouldn't be included at all. I don't want soldiers riding horses while wielding spears in my army, but that doesn't mean that roughriders have no place in 40k

 Melissia wrote:

ntw3001 wrote:
For Guard, though, they're an actual army, and it's been found in real life that mixed forces don't operate terribly well on the front lines.

That is not true.

Yeah, it is.

Regardless, Black Library fluff has made it abundantly clear that women serve in line regiments, so there's no reason not to do it.

Aside from the fact that the overwhelming majority of the 40K playerbase is male, doesn't care overly much about feminism, and stamping out some new sprues would cost money that GW's clearly loathe to spend.

 Seaward wrote:

 Melissia wrote:

ntw3001 wrote:
For Guard, though, they're an actual army, and it's been found in real life that mixed forces don't operate terribly well on the front lines.

That is not true.

Yeah, it is.

Regardless, Black Library fluff has made it abundantly clear that women serve in line regiments, so there's no reason not to do it.

Aside from the fact that the overwhelming majority of the 40K playerbase is male, doesn't care overly much about feminism, and stamping out some new sprues would cost money that GW's clearly loathe to spend.

The fact that the Israeli military has used women in front-line roles, including their elite Mossad units (a group with which it decidedly unwise to feth with), and has done so for a rather long time now, rather puts the lie to that viewpoint. The US military has also recently begun opening combat-arms roles to qualified female soldiers, including our various Special Operations Groups.

Being male, or pro-feminist, has nothing to do with the argument for or against. I'm male, and I want female IG units, female Commissars, female Inquisitors, female Tech-Priests, more female DCA, female Vindicare, and more female miniatures in the GW line in general. I can, of course, go third-party or do conversion work for such minis, but would GW not rather that I give them my money?

 Psienesis wrote:
The fact that the Israeli military has used women in front-line roles, including their elite Mossad units (a group with which it decidedly unwise to feth with), and has done so for a rather long time now, rather puts the lie to that viewpoint. The US military has also recently begun opening combat-arms roles to qualified female soldiers, including our various Special Operations Groups.

Responding to this - beyond saying you're conflating a lot of apparently half-heard-correctly information - would take this wildly into off topic territory, so I'll refrain.

Being male, or pro-feminist, has nothing to do with the argument for or against. I'm male, and I want female IG units, female Commissars, female Inquisitors, female Tech-Priests, more female DCA, female Vindicare, and more female miniatures in the GW line in general. I can, of course, go third-party or do conversion work for such minis, but would GW not rather that I give them my money?

I'm sure they'd like your money, yes, and as long as you could guarantee them that they'd actually make a profit on sprues of that sort, they'd probably even do it. The trouble is, you can't guarantee that profit, and they've evidently decided that their target market - young males - are not likely to be any more inclined to purchase female models than not. Perhaps even less so, if SoB sales are any evidence.

 Seaward wrote:

 Melissia wrote:

ntw3001 wrote:
For Guard, though, they're an actual army, and it's been found in real life that mixed forces don't operate terribly well on the front lines.

That is not true.

Yeah, it is.

Aside from it not being true, I suppose it might be true, when it isn't busy not being true (which is never).

Seriously, there have been no reputable reports of a reduction in fighting capability due to integration.

SoB sales aren't good evidence though, because on the one hand you're talking about very expensive, old metal models suffering from limited availability and on the other you're talking about recutting an already successful line of plastics that line the shelves.

As noted, getting SOB models *now* isn't an easy feat. Shoot, if they made a 1000 point army of Sisters cost less than a decent used car, they might be the most popular army of all time, who knows?

Also....
http://www.timesofisrael.com/what-the-mossads-female-agents-do-and-dont-do-for-the-sake-of-israel/
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/features/7280625/Mossad-the-elite-women-who-work-for-the-family.html
http://www.forbes.com/sites/crossingborders/2012/09/30/why-the-best-spies-in-mossad-and-the-cia-are-women/
http://www.globes.co.il/serveen/globes/docview.asp?did=1000786218&fid=1724

... some news articles on the role of women in the Mossad. Obviously, most of their missions and the roles they perform are considered Top Secret, so information on them is scant.

http://nation.time.com/2013/01/25/women-in-combat-vive-a-difference/
http://www.theatlantic.com/sexes/archive/2013/01/the-most-counterproductive-policy-in-the-us-army-servicemembers-on-the-women-in-combat-ban-20-years-ago/272460/
http://greatist.com/fitness/military-women-combat-012413

... and a few articles about women entering combat arms roles in the US military. Not sure I "half-heard' anything.

 Psienesis wrote:

... and a few articles about women entering combat arms roles in the US military. Not sure I "half-heard' anything.

The roles have been opened, but as of yet no women have taken them, in large part because Big Military's trying to decide if it's going to lower physical standards or not for combat arms jobs. Also, special operations units have not decided whether or not they're even going to allow women to try it out. I'd say they probably will not, though it wouldn't surprise me if Ranger School allowed females. For what it's worth, the Marines have tried pilot programs for things like this a few times now, and so far they've been unable to get even carefully selected women successfully through Infantry Officer's Course down aboard Quantico. What Israeli spies have to do with combat roles in the military, I have no idea.

None of that matters to the issue at hand, though, which is whether or not female Guardsmen sprues would be profitable for GW. You say they would, Games Workshop seems to think otherwise, and I tend to agree with them on the matter. People around here like to pretend that what range sells and what doesn't is a chicken/egg question - i.e., Space Marines are only the most popular because they get the most support, and they get the most support because they're the most popular - but that's not really the case.

 Furyou Miko wrote:
What logical arguments? I was ignoring the crap you wrote about how women were inferior.

You'll notice that the part I replied to wasn't actually you being sexist, just you stating that feminism didn't exist in 40k, which (I suppose) might be a reasonable assumption if you've just read the first few posts of this thread.

You seem to have done a complete 180. The post I quoted had you saying there was no such thing as feminism, while now you're saying there's no such thing as misogyny, which is the opposite of feminism.

No it's not.
Misoginy is Artifical putting the women down; feminism is Artificially uplifting them.
A society can lack both of these artificial social limitations.
Don't confuse them with patriarchal/matriarchal, now these are opposed.
Oh and BTW in my I post I didn't say women are inferior - I said they are different from men and as such are better suited for different jobs.
Being "tolerance and diversity" type you are, you should know by now that being different is NOT the same as being inferior.

 Ratliker wrote:

Oh and BTW in my I post I didn't say women are inferior - I said they are different from men and as such are better suited for different jobs.

All men are suited for certain jobs and all women are suited for certain different jobs?

 The Airman wrote:

 Melissia wrote:
I'm not really certain what you're responding to.

Although I'm not likely to care, given how dismissive you are of the entire topic it makes me wonder why you're even posting? It's not like I go around saying "marines suck" in every single thread about space marines.

Because it's entirely fair to say 40K, its creators and/or its fanbase hates women. The topic's already been debunked in previous posts (I bothered to read ten or so pages before giving up), so right now I'm stating how baseless the topic is to begin with. Hopefully that's okay with you, I wouldn't want to appear misogynistic myself.

Though marines do suck when you realize they're genetically-modified, hyper-genocidal and ultra-religious space monks/knights -- but that's another topic for another time.

It's easy: the ladies get the attention they lack and a chance to crusade for feminism
And we get the food .
Everyone is happy


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Crimson wrote:

 Ratliker wrote:

Oh and BTW in my I post I didn't say women are inferior - I said they are different from men and as such are better suited for different jobs.

All men are suited for certain jobs and all women are suited for certain different jobs?

As a generalized groups - yes.
Individuals may vary and show traits more common in the other group (awesome male hairdresser for example, or brawler female), but i was speaking in general from the start min you.

This looks like it's getting into territory it shouldn't. I'm nothere to insult anyone, so if you take this as an insult,then you're just being childish and I'll ignore your immaturity.

A difference in roles for men and women isn't something new, many countries and cultures institute these and none of their people (or very few) have complained. They seem to be doing just fine. Do I agree with how Iraqi and Iranian women are treated as a whole? No, but that's their culture and I respect that.

As far as females in 40k being viable: by all means go right ahead. Every able-bodied man, woman (and child) would be pressed into service should the need arise. And let's face it: there's always a need in the 41st millenium.

 Ratliker wrote:
Misoginy is Artifical putting the women down; feminism is Artificially uplifting them.

This is stupid. Society is entirely artificial, therefor yes, all of it is artificial, and your point is nonsense.

 Ratliker wrote:

As a generalized groups - yes.
Individuals may vary and show traits more common in the other group (awesome male hairdresser for example, or brawler female), but i was speaking in general from the start min you.

And that's my point. You're not recruiting groups, you're recruiting individuals.

I read this on Facebook and thought of this thread:


Aaron Dembski-Bowden -
"Who do I have to sleep with for them to make new Sisters of Battle models?" -- Katie Dembski-Bowden"

Amazing how, what are probably, perfectly decent people, fall to this level when they talk about emotional topics.

"You talk s@**"
"No you talk s@**"

That is all this has become.

Instead of calling eachother stupid, why not just agree to disagree. You will never accept eachothers opinion.

As myself and others have said GW will not change, I agree it is possible to make the changes desired, but not finacially viable, I also know they could just make heads? These are currently available from others, I wonder how many they sell?

Is the world fair? NO.

 Camkierhi wrote:
As myself and others have said GW will not change, I agree it is possible to make the changes desired, but not finacially viable, I also know they could just make heads? These are currently available from others, I wonder how many they sell?

Actually I think it would be financially viable. Many players of either gender would like to add female heads or torsos as conversion pieces to their IG armies, and female characters like Lelith can be pretty popular regardless of their gender.

Actually I think it would not. I myself would buy female models and will be probably buying the ones available to convert existing models. But I dont think that many people will buy them in enough quantity to warrant outlay.

And you have yet a again proved my point, you say, i say, but you say, but i say blah blah blah........pointless.

 Camkierhi wrote:
Actually I think it would not. I myself would buy female models and will be probably buying the ones available to convert existing models. But I dont think that many people will buy them in enough quantity to warrant outlay.

They're a very popular request amongst guard players.

 Camkierhi wrote:
And you have yet a again proved my point, you say, i say, but you say, but i say blah blah blah........pointless.

This is a forum, used for discussing topics. If you don't like discussing the topic, you are free to stop.

"Vandal waits for the Inquisitor to finish, as he takes a look at his new squadmates. Judging by the equipment and posture of the dark-haired male, Vandal can only assume that he, much like Vandal himself, prefers seeing his enemy fall in close quarters, blade to blade. The man with the sniper rifle is obviously a guardsman, likely a marksman. The figure with the gas mask is likely also a guardsman, albeit one whose specialty eludes him. The woman of the Ecclesiarchy is clearly a filthy, vain, man-hungry whore, scheming to backstab the rest of the party to squeeze their manhoods and souls between her legs, devouring both."

Courtesy of Void__Dragon in a Dark Heresy RPG.