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I was surprised when I saw the new DE Cauldron of Blood as one build has a topless Medusa on it. From what I can recall GW went away from the more sexualised themes to focus more on the 10-12 year old. One of the reason the plastic daemonettes dont show boobs like the metal ones before them did. But now with the DE release there seems to a more adult theme going which I find great! Guess GW has seen all those kickstarters with models showing boobs and how they reach hundreds of thousands in backing in very short times

http://www.games-workshop.com/MEDIA_CustomProductCatalog/m3470268a_99120212009_2013CauldronOfBlood10_873x627.jpg

Heck even the limited edition cover seems to have a topless elf on it.
http://www.games-workshop.com/MEDIA_CustomProductCatalog/m3470384a_60040212001_DELtdEdnArmyBook03a_873x627.jpg


I really hope this is a sign of what's to come...

Hey, I love women and I love breasts!

queue all the haters...

The WF troll mother has promient nipples, too.

Nothing new here. I remember the Dark Elf army book having a lot of boobies in when i was younger. Good times.

A welcome change, not because I particularly want to see lots of breasts on war-gaming miniatures, but because for some armies darker more 'adult' (which doesn't just mean nudity) aesthetics are entirely supportive of their fluff.

Chaos in particular could benefit from this, but given that their last release was the Lord Of Skulls I wouldn't hold my breath.

xruslanx wrote:
Nothing new here. I remember the Dark Elf army book having a lot of boobies in when i was younger. Good times.

That's why the OP said "going back"....

xruslanx wrote:
Nothing new here

I've been in the hobby since 5E 40K launched and I've never seen a boobie launch from GW. So in the last 5 years or so GW has released no boobie models.
Can you point me to any model GW currently has on offer that shows female nipples?

It's funny, i thought the same thing a month ago when there were rumors going around of exposed breasts. Looks like it. I mean, if there's an army where it makes sense past Slaaneshi daemons, it's Dark elves.

Still surprising though. And on the Medusa of all things.

Fiends of Slaanesh have quite a few boobies all on show

Yes please to more adult themes, grit, sex, and violence.
It's realistic.

 Overread wrote:
Fiends of Slaanesh have quite a few boobies all on show

Yup, Fiends and the Seeker mounts are the only thing that comes to mind. The former just sneaking in the 5 year mark with an early 2008 release IIRC.

OP, I think you'll get a much longer and more constructive discussion if you stick to your opening question of "GW going back to more mature themes?" rather than getting fixated on boobs.While female nudity might be part of that, solely focussing on it will just lead to this thread devolving into two fairly distinct and opposing sides who will not be convinced of the other position.


I'd rather a return to maturity and adult themes means more realism and grit in the models as well as accepting the twisted nature of Chaos. I don't think they've ever done a possessed/mutated model that hasn't looked silly and cartoony. The Chosen from DV are a step in the right direction.

 Alex Kolodotschko wrote:
Yes please to more adult themes, grit, sex, and violence.
It's realistic.

Makes you wonder if they've gone back to saying Malekith is sleeping with his own mother (Morathai) and Shadowblade is their offspring. They cut that out of the last few DE books, or at the very least made it *very* subtle.

To me it is a bad reputation for the hobby. It's a twelve plus game after all. What need is there for it?

sockwithaticket wrote:
rather than getting fixated on boobs.

That's the problem isn't it, where do you draw the line between a Teen and an Adult theme? No matter how much skin you show you will never go above a Teen rating as long as there is a tiny bit of clothing.
Show 1 nipple and it's suddenly adult themed. You can show a female boob without a nipple (daemonettes) or male models with nipples and it's still a teen rating. But a female boob with a nipple and it becomes adult themed.

Lets face it, GW will never make models that are anatomically accurate below the waist (those are reserved for the Japanese PVC model market), the most adult theme GW will ever do is an exposed breast or two.
I do however think it will be a very long time before GW does a model with 2 bare breasts and if they did will would be similar to the River Troll Hag. Why? Because people can't complain about them being sexist if the model isn't "sexually attractive".

As for GWs model range there are only a few where it would make sense to have a more mature theme. Slaanesh, Dark Elves and Dark Eldar would be the main lines due to their fighting nature (they rely on speed and grace instead of heavy armour).
The only human models I can think of would be the Sisters Repentia from the SoB line.

 Grimtuff wrote:

 Alex Kolodotschko wrote:
Yes please to more adult themes, grit, sex, and violence.
It's realistic.

Makes you wonder if they've gone back to saying Malekith is sleeping with his own mother (Morathai) and Shadowblade is their offspring. They cut that out of the last few DE books, or at the very least made it *very* subtle.

I honestly doubt that will return.

 MadCowCrazy wrote:

Lets face it, GW will never make models that are anatomically accurate below the waist (those are reserved for the Japanese PVC model market), the most adult theme GW will ever do is an exposed breast or two.
I do however think it will be a very long time before GW does a model with 2 bare breasts and if they did will would be similar to the River Troll Hag. Why? Because people can't complain about them being sexist if the model isn't "sexually attractive".

Not entirely true. IIRC the FW baggage Knarloc has a decapitated body that is obviously male.

Spoilered as it may also be NSFW.

forgeworld's new troll hag has boobs showing if that counts?

http://www.forgeworld.co.uk/New_Stuff/GIANT_RIVER_TROLL_HAG.html

 MadCowCrazy wrote:

sockwithaticket wrote:
rather than getting fixated on boobs.

That's the problem isn't it, where do you draw the line between a Teen and an Adult theme? No matter how much skin you show you will never go above a Teen rating as long as there is a tiny bit of clothing.
Show 1 nipple and it's suddenly adult themed. You can show a female boob without a nipple (daemonettes) or male models with nipples and it's still a teen rating. But a female boob with a nipple and it becomes adult themed.

What I'm trying to say, maybe not particularly well, is that mature/adult = nudity/skin on show is a false premise to work from. Yes those terms incorporate it, but it covers so much more.Things like mutilated and tortured corpses as trophies, twisted daemonic armour etc. The problem with a focus on nudity is that all you do is bring out the 'Yay, boobs' crowd and the puritanical 'There should never be nudity ever' crowd. It is perfectly possible to do something like the old metal daemonettes without exposing their flesh, but still making them look infinitely more seductive than the current plastic monstrosities.

Like I said earlier, that discussion's been done. But the question of a return to more mature themes (where we consider that as more than just nipples) is interesting. There's a guy on Bolter & Chainsword who has put a skinned space marine on the front of his rhino as a blood aquila. That's what I mean by adult and more mature, it's also completely fluffy. Other examples would be that in the art Possessed look like this:


but the models look like this


It's not an awful representation, but if they were more mature then they would be as twisted looking as the artwork.

I agree sockwithaticket, the problem I see though is that people are more accepting of violence than sex. It's ok to have Flayed Ones carrying around skinned humans than to give Daemonettes a nipple.

I like 40K because of it's gritty nature but some people dont.
Matt from MWG for instance once said that he didn't like the game Space Marine because it was too violent.

I thought it was really funny that he likes the game of 40K but doesn't like the violence of Space Marine, a game I think portrays the 40K universe in a pretty accurate way (Orks killing unarmed women and children for instance, it wasn't shown but it was suggested through vox recordings and interactions with your 2 squad mates).

What is tasteful and what is not, that is a very hard line to draw as it varies allot depending on where you are. In America violence is more ok than nudity, in Europe nudity isn't a big deal at all. In Japan...well... they just like different things...


Maybe GW are testing the waters, having a bare breast on a demi-female is probably a safer test than just putting out a bare chested model.

 MadCowCrazy wrote:
the problem I see though is that people are more accepting of violence than sex. It's ok to have Flayed Ones carrying around skinned humans than to give Daemonettes a nipple.


What is tasteful and what is not, that is a very hard line to draw as it varies allot depending on where you are..

Fair enough and that in an of itself is a really interesting thing to consider. I think graphic violence is easier to stomach in the 40k setting because the universe and it's events are largely driven by war and conflict. It makes sense for that to occur, if anyone's read a history book we know that war breeds atrocity and that this is amplified the longer war goes on and after propaganda has had a chance to take root. Similarly the 'older' fighting of fantasy is inherently brutal, medieval weapons and through to 19th century records show us that even conventional warfare in these periods was horrific. So again, it makes sense for the graphic violence to occur in a GW setting.

When it comes to nudity, I think it just seems incongruous to such settings. For me it's like Space Marines on the front line not wearing helmets: bizarre.

 MadCowCrazy wrote:
In Japan...well... they just like different things...

This did make me chuckle and also really emphasises different cultural norms that dictate acceptability. As a Brit I feel I should be inherently uncomfortable about the idea of nudity, let alone in my game of toy soldiers - that's just a residual legacy of centuries of repression and purity movements (Catholic Church, puritanism etc,), but violence is fine given that hopping the channel to kill some Frenchmen was practically a national past-time.for centuries!


So, yeah, basic point is I think it's easier to accept horrendous violence in a wargame setting than it is nudity, but you do make a really good point about us being more tolerant of one than the other and the way cultural relativity can have an impact on our feeling towards both.

The thought just hit me on who GWs main market it. From what I've read on forums etc it seems to be kids between the ages of 8-12. They tell their parents what they want and the parents buys it.
Now the interesting question pops up when a parent sees their kid playing with a model that has a boob exposed. I dont think many parents know much about 40K at all, they just see it as a game with plastic men.

I've never heard a parent say "-But why not Dark Eldar? They kidnap members of other races, put them in slave camps to work until they die, in arenas to fight to the death, become depraved sex slave objects, are tortured until there is nothing left of their sanity and experimented on just for the hell of it."

A mom buying her 8 year old son the Dark Eldar codex is sorta the same as a dad buying his 12 year old son a porno mag.
One is just graphic in text for an under aged mind, the other shows pictures for a more mature mind.

Then again when are you mature enough to know the difference?

A comedian made a great point when he was talking about that R Kelly peeing on a 15 year old.
He simply asked "How old is 15 really?".

When it comes to sex 15 is apparently too young, I think 15-16 is the legal age in Sweden and Finland. I believe it's 13 years old in Japan, not sure about the US.

I'm sure you are saying holy gak?! Just 13 years of age in Japan?! That's way too early!

Then just as the comedian asked, what about in the case of murder? In the US it's not uncommon for people to cry out about it being to early for teens aged 12-15 having sex yet at the same time they are willing to try out the same age group as adults in court. In a legal system where you can end up spending the rest of your life in prison.

If I'm not mistaken the age at which you can be tried at as an adult in the UK is 10.

Found the Dave Chappelle show:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=75XKGVwGEt4


The point I'm trying to make is that perhaps GW are considering changing their focus to a bit more mature audience, like 15+ or something. Perhaps an age group with more disposable income.

Then again I could be wrong and they just didn't want to put a bra on the medusa..

Could it also be that GW have some market research and found that WFB is played by an older generation than 40K?

Daston wrote:
Could it also be that GW have some market research and found that WFB is played by an older generation than 40K?

^ we have a winner ^

Daston wrote:
Could it also be that GW have some market research and found that WFB isn't played?

Fix to be closer to the truth.

I'd be happy if they found a way to make anything that both looks good and is female. Their attempts at female faces still creep me out.

 Scott_K wrote:

Daston wrote:
Could it also be that GW have some market research and found that WFB is played by an older generation than 40K?

^ we have a winner ^

I think there might be some truth to this one

Daston wrote:
Could it also be that GW have some market research and found that WFB is played by an older generation than 40K?

I think if that were true - we'd have had topless Witch-Elves. Of course then they'd have been $80 a box instead of $60 ...

Daston wrote:
Could it also be that GW have some market research

Nope.

 MadCowCrazy wrote:
The thought just hit me on who GWs main market it. From what I've read on forums etc it seems to be kids between the ages of 8-12.

The kids you know can afford 40k? Jesus.

 Overread wrote:
Fiends of Slaanesh have quite a few boobies all on show

... The plastic ones don't show any nip though right ? Side boob isn't exactly NC17 material. That's more what i meant.


EDIT: yup, totally forgot about fiends and seekers. Mammaries a-plenty there. Fair enough.