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hahah Original Post was amazing. I laughed.

 Troike wrote:
Could I get a source on that?

On 10-year-old quotes from studio guys? Not really. They were just comments made at Games Days over the years.

All the comments I've seen from GW staff have pretty much put it down to issues with making models.

That was the issue with turning them into plastic, not the problem with doing anything at all with them.

 Lynata wrote:
Eh, if you really want to take him on in that argument, I'd simply point out how women were indeed fighting in WW2, instead of confirming historical revisionism.

I gave a few pointer of women that could be inspiration for a WW2 movie.

 insaniak wrote:
That was the issue with turning them into plastic, not the problem with doing anything at all with them.

Their lack of plastics is what's largely holding them back. They can't really get a release. A big update, without new models. And that obviously has a knock-on effect.

But it would be incorrect to say that GW is doing "nothing at all" with them. Of course, we have e-codex, and a continued presence in the fluff. Yeah, it could be a lot more, but they still get some stuff.

 Veteran Sergeant wrote:

Frozen Ocean wrote:

As far as the female models thing, it's a wargame. Saying "why aren't there more girls" is like complaining "Why aren't there more female leads in WW2 movies?"

WWII had a lot of females on the front lines. Many of the top Russian and Finnish snipers were women.
As far as the rest of history, there were a lot of females in warfare. I can go through a long list of them, but I'll spare you.
Let's just say that I wrote the book about it.
http://www.amazon.com/Fearless-Powerful-History-Minimum-Historian-ebook/dp/B00DTAGTLM

However, this isn't history. It's a fantasy game where anything is possible. For example, the fluff itself says that there are many women in the Imperial guard, yet so few female guard models exist. Why?
Same with Eldar. Why the sausage fest?
Why make Knights exclusively men? Female psykers? Tech priests? Female Tau?
That's one of the reasons I like (other games) so much is because women are much better represented.

My SOB-related holiday wishlist?

RH to jump forward a few years in time and release their Order of Eternal Mercy line.

 Lynata wrote:

Maybe SoB are to tabletop what female protagonists are to Assassin's Creed.

#2hard2render -> #2hard2sculpt

Well, I think that was true some time ago. Looking at the old GW female sculpts, how can I put this, they were horrible. And SoB has at least one of them, don't you dare forget about the black hole with legs.

But nowadays? With the Dark Eldar's Lelith, the Dark Elves, the female High Elf units and heroes, probably some of the Dark Eldar, well, I think GW has at least got the hang of it by now.

Honestly, you think GW would look at the fangasms over Raging Heroes [EDIT: or every anime ever] and realize an entire army of kickass females with big guns and severe psychosexual repression could be a license to print money.

I think that these have potential

http://www.ragingheroes.com/

Wow, we actually made it to three pages without the pinup priestesses being mentioned...

MWHistorian, is there much in your book about ladies in world war one? If I can justify it as a class expense, I can buy it.

 SisterSydney wrote:
Honestly, you think GW would look at the fangasms over Raging Heroes [EDIT: or every anime ever] and realize an entire army of kickass females with big guns and severe psychosexual repression could be a license to print money.

All I know is that Kingdom Death : Monster pulled a LOT more money than Raging Heroes did, that I backed KD:M, and that I've sent more money to KD:M than any other KS I've backed out of the gate.



GW should learn from KD:M being an even bigger success by sculpting their females with much more generous derriere's, and much skimpier clothing.

Follow the herd and learn the exact wrong lessons of why something was successful!

 MWHistorian wrote:

 Veteran Sergeant wrote:

Frozen Ocean wrote:

As far as the female models thing, it's a wargame. Saying "why aren't there more girls" is like complaining "Why aren't there more female leads in WW2 movies?"

WWII had a lot of females on the front lines. Many of the top Russian and Finnish snipers were women.
As far as the rest of history, there were a lot of females in warfare. I can go through a long list of them, but I'll spare you.
Let's just say that I wrote the book about it.
http://www.amazon.com/Fearless-Powerful-History-Minimum-Historian-ebook/dp/B00DTAGTLM

However, this isn't history. It's a fantasy game where anything is possible. For example, the fluff itself says that there are many women in the Imperial guard, yet so few female guard models exist. Why?
Same with Eldar. Why the sausage fest?
Why make Knights exclusively men? Female psykers? Tech priests? Female Tau?
That's one of the reasons I like (other games) so much is because women are much better represented.

Your quote is totally broken! I'm credited with Veteran Sergeant's post, which is the opposite of what I said.

As for fighting women in WW2, it's a factor but it wasn't my point. Ultimately society was pretty sexist and unequal back then, and still is. It's hard for women to get into such positions, and when they do, it's even harder for them to get recognised for it. The Imperium doesn't have that issue at all. The Eldar and Necrons certainly don't. So where are all the ladies?

And that's the thing. Sure there have been a few female characters here and there, but they're gone, now. You'd think that we'd see more female representation in the 7th edition of the game, in 2014, than decades prior. Instead we have less.

Let's not even get started on the only black humans in the setting being "obligatory Predator reference Catachan" and "coal-black mutants with burning red eyes who used to be African stereotypes".

Lynata, it's exactly the same as Ubisoft. They said that they couldn't sculpt plastic sleeves. So it really is "2hard2sculpt".

Let's just hope GW can do better than this:


Gorgeous.

 Frozen Ocean wrote:

 MWHistorian wrote:

 Veteran Sergeant wrote:

Frozen Ocean wrote:

As far as the female models thing, it's a wargame. Saying "why aren't there more girls" is like complaining "Why aren't there more female leads in WW2 movies?"

WWII had a lot of females on the front lines. Many of the top Russian and Finnish snipers were women.
As far as the rest of history, there were a lot of females in warfare. I can go through a long list of them, but I'll spare you.
Let's just say that I wrote the book about it.
http://www.amazon.com/Fearless-Powerful-History-Minimum-Historian-ebook/dp/B00DTAGTLM

However, this isn't history. It's a fantasy game where anything is possible. For example, the fluff itself says that there are many women in the Imperial guard, yet so few female guard models exist. Why?
Same with Eldar. Why the sausage fest?
Why make Knights exclusively men? Female psykers? Tech priests? Female Tau?
That's one of the reasons I like (other games) so much is because women are much better represented.

Your quote is totally broken! I'm credited with Veteran Sergeant's post, which is the opposite of what I said.

As for fighting women in WW2, it's a factor but it wasn't my point. Ultimately society was pretty sexist and unequal back then, and still is. It's hard for women to get into such positions, and when they do, it's even harder for them to get recognised for it. The Imperium doesn't have that issue at all. The Eldar and Necrons certainly don't. So where are all the ladies?

And that's the thing. Sure there have been a few female characters here and there, but they're gone, now. You'd think that we'd see more female representation in the 7th edition of the game, in 2014, than decades prior. Instead we have less.

Let's not even get started on the only black humans in the setting being "obligatory Predator reference Catachan" and "coal-black mutants with burning red eyes who used to be African stereotypes".

Lynata, it's exactly the same as Ubisoft. They said that they couldn't sculpt plastic sleeves. So it really is "2hard2sculpt".

Let's just hope GW can do better than this:

Spoiler:

Gorgeous.

I know it's broken, but every time I try to fix it, nothing happens. I hate quoting. Sorry!

And sadly, my book doesn't have any WWI women. :(

I think you want:

[quote=Veteran Sergeant]As far as the female models thing, it's a wargame. Saying "why aren't there more girls" is like complaining "Why aren't there more female leads in WW2 movies?"[/quote] WWII had a lot of females on the front lines. Many of the top Russian and Finnish snipers were women. As far as the rest of history, there were a lot of females in warfare. I can go through a long list of them, but I'll spare you. Let's just say that I wrote the book about it. http://www.amazon.com/Fearless-Powerful-History-Minimum-Historian-ebook/dp/B00DTAGTLM However, this isn't history. It's a fantasy game where anything is possible. For example, the fluff itself says that there are many women in the Imperial guard, yet so few female guard models exist. Why? Same with Eldar. Why the sausage fest? Why make Knights exclusively men? Female psykers? Tech priests? Female Tau? That's one of the reasons I like (other games) so much is because women are much better represented.

Exalted the first post +40,001.

 SisterSydney wrote:
Honestly, you think GW would look at the fangasms over Raging Heroes [EDIT: or every anime ever] and realize an entire army of kickass females with big guns and severe psychosexual repression could be a license to print money.

The money pledged to the Raging Heroes Kickstarter represents 0.3% of Games Workshops' yearly revenue for their 13-14 FY. So minus production and stocking costs, not really printing a whole lot of money.

You need to begin to look at these things in the bigger picture. One of the most often overlooked realities (not opinions, realities) is that in business, everything comes with an economic opportunity cost. If you make one thing, the resources used to make that one thing cannot be used to make something else. So it's not a question of "What will simply turn a profit", but instead "what will turn the best profit. Consider the fact that the Eldar still don't have plastic Aspect Warriors (other than DA), and yet they've had 4 hardcopy codex books and 2 supplemental codex books. Why aren't GQ making plastic Howling Banshees or Fire Dragons? Given the fact that the Eldar are a flavor of the month army right now, it would be pretty much a license to print money, no? So obviously other products have taken precedence over plastic Aspect Warriors when Games Workshop evaluated the opportunity costs of developing new models. And if Aspect Warriors which have been in a hard copy codex for twenty five years are still Finecast, you can only imagine what is happening to an army that hasn't had its own codex since 2nd Edition (you didn't even need any Sisters to play Codex: Witch Hunters) and hasn't had a single new model release or even recast in over ten years.

Frozen Ocean wrote:
Other people with history with this topic are talking about it better than I could.

A lot of people talk. Very few of them make any sense.

Without phrasing this as an insult, just a simple fact, there are really two camps. There is a camp that allows sentimentality to color their judgement, to the point where they ignore all the facts and historical evidence, basing their arguments solely on what they want to happen. The other camp are the people with business experience who look at the historical actions of GW and relate them to experience which points to business behaviors consistent with certain models. I work in marketing. My company has a single brand that pushes more than twice the yearly revenue of Games Workshop, and across the whole company's portfolio of brands pushes many multiples. I can tell you that when people argue nonsense like "Oh, if Games Workshop just promoted them more" or use false equivalencies like "Look at the Dark Eldar!", I just kinda chuckle. Mostly because the arguments are constructed around what they have in common, and ignore what makes them entirely different case studies. Literally, the argument everywhere else is "Games Workshop is so greedy!" and with many Sisters of Battle fans it's suddenly "Games Workshop is too stupid to see they could make easy money!" So you can argue I'm wrong. But your argument needs to be based on intelligent reasoning and solid business logic rather than the same half-thought maxims that get bandied about.

Because there are very clear patterns to the history of the Sisters of Battle model line that tell a very clear story about Games Workshop's idea of where the Sisters of Battle sit in their growth-share matrix. No new products for ten years, but they remain available for sale at inflated cost, and their last two codex books have been low-cost production, zero carrying cost. This tells you that: Games Workshop doesn't care if the models sell, but they want to retain the IP. They don't see any growth potential in the Sisters that justifies significant investment. But, they've realized that they can sell digital products to the players they already have by releasing new rules in an ebook format. An ebook format which cost almost nothing to make (the fluff was already there from the WD codex but left out for space reasons, and the art is all recycled as well), and almost nothing to stock (it's electronic). Now that's printing money.

So you can want something. Heck, i think plastic Sisters would be cool. I love converting models. But I also think new plastic Squats and new plastic Genestealer Cult would be cool too. But I'm also extremely realistic about the chances of that happening.

I won't delve into the idea of historical examples of women in combat that have been provided. We've done that to death and it never goes anywhere positive and only ends up with hurt feelings.

Veteran Sergeant wrote:I work in marketing. My company has a single brand that pushes more than twice the yearly revenue of Games Workshop, and across the whole company's portfolio of brands pushes many multiples.

I'm going to add this to the growing list of stuff you supposedly did, Mr. US Marine/writer/model-dater. You must lead an incredibly exciting life; it's a wonder you still find time to post on a forum about toy soldiers.

Also, I'm not sure how you think claiming an insult is a fact somehow stops making it an insult. That's ... not how debates between opposing viewpoints work, and this too does not add to your credibility.

It's almost as if you don't understand how calendars work.

Now, you know I've been playing since the early 90s. That makes me potentially over 30 years old. Now, if I did ten years in the Marines, it's almost as if there was time for me to go to college at some point, and to have left the Marines and done something else.

Just saying, lol. It's not my fault that you can't picture a world where somebody accomplishes things.

Aaaaand let's leave the issue of Veteran Sergeant's resume there before we all descend snarling into a flame war that gets the thread locked, please please please.

Let alone Lynata's strange forum creeper behavior. She's a weird one.

This is the internet. The more people claim they've done/have/are, the more sceptical I get. I consider this level of caution to be normal and warranted.

It's not that I doubt such people do exist - I do doubt, however, that they would frequent dakka, and that they would follow your behavioural pattern, both in regards to dealing with other people as well as what looks like a need to flaunt their supposed accomplishments. It's just ... too weird a combination, and an insistence on non-verifiable personal experience as a sort of "trump card" is quite simply too commonly a tool used in lieu of better arguments.

Not that I would disagree with all of them, as occasionally you do provide what I regard as valid points, and ironically enough we are of one opinion when it comes to assessing GW's stance in regards to the SoB product line. But the way you sometimes convey those arguments is ... well, shall we say "tempting interference", which I suppose you are fully aware of, given that you are already on record for stating that you enjoy to deliberately taunt SoB players. If you'd just step down from that high horse and dial it back a little, and accept that on this forum we are all equally unimportant, ...

I consider any expectations regarding Games Workshop utilising the potential of this faction to be wishful thinking, as such a step would require too much a deviation from what I'd deem their traditional approach to handling their IP. But there's no need to rub it into their fans' faces with a condescending tone. They've certainly deserved better, and in the end, we should be united at least in appreciation of a common hobby. Though now I actually am a bit curious how you would expect the 40k IP as a whole to develop if GW kept their current course and their focus on Space Marines. I know they have and probably always will be their biggest seller, but do you really think this is the right thing to do, given long-term effects?

(okay, that veered off into the "does 40k need more armies" topic a little)

I think he just made a forum search to find out quotes about what he remembered you saying. I remembered you saying all those things too. Does that make a me creeper?

 Veteran Sergeant wrote:
or use false equivalencies like "Look at the Dark Eldar!", I just kinda chuckle. Mostly because the arguments are constructed around what they have in common, and ignore what makes them entirely different case studies. Literally, the argument everywhere else is "Games Workshop is so greedy!" and with many Sisters of Battle fans it's suddenly "Games Workshop is too stupid to see they could make easy money!" So you can argue I'm wrong. But your argument needs to be based on intelligent reasoning and solid business logic rather than the same half-thought maxims that get bandied about.

Leaving the issue of internet credentials aside, you haven't actually given a reason why Sisters of Battle are so drastically different from Dark Eldar, from a sales perspective. Unless you're arguing that Dark Eldar were actually popular enough, before they got their big update, with their outdated models and rules, that GW knew that they were a guaranteed money maker, which simply isn't true. Heck, a lot of people gave a big "meh" even after they first heard that DE were getting updated. It wasn't until they SAW THE PRODUCT that people realized the update was legit and got excited about it. So why is it a false equivalency? You can't say they're entirely different "case studies" with out pointing out why they're different, and expect us to just take you at your word. If anything, the SoBs require less of an investment, since their vehicles don't need to be updated and there are fewer models overall to convert to plastic.

And I don't think GW is too stupid to see they could make easy money. I think GW has grown so complacent and completely averse to taking any kind of risks with their business that they're going to keep taking the "safe" road of price hikes and dataslates until they either force themselves out of business or realize they're about to go out of business and drastically change their business model. Plastic SoBs do represent a potential moneymaker, but also require a fair amount of money and effort invested in them to make it work, hence they're a risk, hence GW won't give them a proper update.

That sounds sadly plausible. A friend of mine who has more business sense than I do (not saying much) has told me GW is a perfect model of a company going down a dead end road: instead of taking risks and trying to expand their customer base, they're content to raise prices and try to get more juice out of a shrinking customer base.... which responds by shrinking a little further, provoking GW to squeeze a little harder, rinse and repeat until no one's left.

Does that sound about right to the more knowledgeable people on this thread?

 SisterSydney wrote:
That sounds sadly plausible. A friend of mine who has more business sense than I do (not saying much) has told me GW is a perfect model of a company going down a dead end road: instead of taking risks and trying to expand their customer base, they're content to raise prices and try to get more juice out of a shrinking customer base.... which responds by shrinking a little further, provoking GW to squeeze a little harder, rinse and repeat until no one's left.

Does that sound about right to the more knowledgeable people on this thread?

One can't say that is the case unequivocally, but it is very, very easy to make the facts fit that particular theory.

I've often stated my belief that GW are risk averse, they don't resculpt kits/models, even when the fans/customers seem to passionately want it when they can release something new which doesn't carry the risk of people seeing it and saying "meh, I'll stick with the one I've already got."

The only time we've seen re-releases has been to transition to a different material (which is more to do with what works for GW, I suspect any preference from the customers is coincidental.)

I think the only exception to that recently has been the SM Tac squad, which as their biggest seller bar none, carries no risk in recouping the development costs.

To be fair, if I were Lynata, I'd be obsessed with me too. I mean, after all, since he/she's been stalking all my posts, then he/she knows I'm well-spoken, intelligent, a pretty fit guy that lives right by the beach and is a former Marine and I drive a Corvette (all these pics have been posted here before). I'd have a crush on me too. Heck. I already kinda do. Here's one of the ladyfriends who was around for a while when I was still a Marine, with her face blacked out because it wouldn't be polite to post her picture here, lol. And mine because, well, I think Lynata already has enough stuff for the VS shrine.

As far as "haven't actually given a reason why Sisters of Battle are so drastically different from Dark Eldar, well, I haven't done it in this thread because that's a waste of typing given the prevailing mindset that never changes. But I've explained it in detail before. I'm sure Lynata can link you to it. I'm not here to give Intro to Marketing for Dakka, because most of the replies are defiant (but substanceless) naysays, and more of the aforementioned refusal to accept facts and business logic (notice I posted the link to the growth-share matrix, a first semester marketing topic, I might add, and nobody's even addressed the idea). But the gist of it is that GW knew there was demand potential for Dark Eldar, it was only their subpar models and rules that were holding them back. Dark Eldar only came into existence because players had demanded them, and Chaos Eldar conversions had been commonplace. Dark Eldar also sold really well upon their initial, before people realized they were crappy. Thus GW had a reasonable expectation that if the model line was revamped, there was (that magic word) growth potential.

Again, this isn't about complacency. It's about basic economics. While there's a point that GW has made bad business moves, it's entirely tangential to the idea of plastic Sisters and risk aversion. What you're describing isn't a "risk". You take a "risk" on a radical product that you're not sure might work or not. Logancart was a risk, lol. Throwing more money a product line that has failed to meet whatever goals it had set for it twice already isn't a "risk". A business puts its resources towards what will return the best profitability, not just simple profitability. They may make mistakes along the way, and GW definitely has (which is a different story altogether). Not revamping the SoB isn't one of those mistakes. That model line was just a casualty of the evolving 40K product line that no longer had room for a pet/dog project.

Azreal13 wrote:I've often stated my belief that GW are risk averse, they don't resculpt kits/models, even when the fans/customers seem to passionately want it when they can release something new which doesn't carry the risk of people seeing it and saying "meh, I'll stick with the one I've already got."

That actually makes a lot of sense, too. Personally, I find their new "Militarum Tempestus" quite lame to the original Storm Trooper minis, and their oversized snowmobile does not help either. Likewise, I like the old DE and 'crons more than the new ones. It's hard to put my finger on it, but I feel like there is a subtle shift in artistic direction at work that slowly pushes the various armies more towards an even heavier focus on what used to be just an underlying theme. It's like ... a mini with too thick a coat of paint. It feels too crude, too obvious, and too simplified, slowly eroding the traces of "fantastic realism" that kept a semblance of seriousness in the design, and replacing the much-vaunted grim darkness of the 41st millennium with a comic book universe full of skulls and spikes. Yes, even more skulls and spikes.

Certain GK and Space Wolf models suggest that this approach has also carried on to entirely new releases for existing armies.

I'm rather conservative when it comes to settings I've grown to enjoy the way they were as I first experienced them, which is one of the reasons of why (in addition to occasional, veiled rants regarding third party fluff) I'm cautioning against a revamp of the existing SoB minis, instead advocating the continued use of the metal minis - if only they'd be sold at a price comparable to IG metals.

I suppose there is a chance I'm being overly negative here, but then again, as per the Kübler-Ross model aka the Five Stages of Grief, it could just be that I've been waiting too long for GW to disprove my fears. I kind of envy and pity those who still manage to keep the faith, but ultimately I just found it easier to dial back my involvement/commitment and look for alternatives. Always maintaining fond memories and occasionally discussing them, though, or providing input if someone is interested in any of the sources on background information I've collected over the years.

Veteran Sergeant wrote:I mean, after all, since he/she's been stalking all my posts

Heh, I wouldn't exactly call it "stalking" - the Hybrid Son had guessed correctly. Even with my scrambled, disjointed memory I noticed a pattern in your posts throughout various SoB threads which I found ... suspicious, so some day two or three years ago when you sounded particularly condescending, I sat down and used a combination of dakka's search engine and google to look up and archive these gems in an attempt to make a notepad-list of your various claims to fame and experience.
It was a childish and petty thing to do; but then again, this is dakka, and as you know we all have our silly moments on this forum.

 Lynata wrote:
This is the internet. The more people claim they've done/have/are, the more sceptical I get. I consider this level of caution to be normal and warranted.

40k is an expensive hobby. Why wouldn't people with good income and fair amounts of leisure time be on Dakka?

Also, referencing Kubler-Ross suggests that Sisters will have been Squatted, versus still being on life support... Do we want GW to pull the plug?

 Veteran Sergeant wrote:

Spoiler:

[stuff, things]

 SisterSydney wrote:
Honestly, you think GW would look at the fangasms over Raging Heroes [EDIT: or every anime ever] and realize an entire army of kickass females with big guns and severe psychosexual repression could be a license to print money.

The money pledged to the Raging Heroes Kickstarter represents 0.3% of Games Workshops' yearly revenue for their 13-14 FY. So minus production and stocking costs, not really printing a whole lot of money.
.....
Because there are very clear patterns to the history of the Sisters of Battle model line that tell a very clear story about Games Workshop's idea of where the Sisters of Battle sit in their growth-share matrix. No new products for ten years, but they remain available for sale at inflated cost, and their last two codex books have been low-cost production, zero carrying cost. This tells you that: Games Workshop doesn't care if the models sell, but they want to retain the IP. They don't see any growth potential in the Sisters that justifies significant investment. But, they've realized that they can sell digital products to the players they already have by releasing new rules in an ebook format. An ebook format which cost almost nothing to make (the fluff was already there from the WD codex but left out for space reasons, and the art is all recycled as well), and almost nothing to stock (it's electronic). Now that's printing money.
...

I finally read the article about "Growth-Share Matrices." Interesting -- especially the part about how the model can be misapplied to certain markets. I am NOT a business person, but from my knowledge of geek culture, I'd guess the post -Buffy, post-Firefly/Serenity, post-American embrace of anime, post-Lara Croft/Bayonetta/etc., post-Toughest Girls of the Galaxy, etc. ad infinitum gaming community would be a lot more receptive to "hot girls with guns" that it was the last time GW tried new Sisters models. You might even get some more female players and expand the market, not just market share. Based on that admittedly highly subjective, qualitative, and unprofessional analysis, I think GW is under-estimating the growth potential in the Sisters line. I may be wrong.

JohnHwangDD wrote:40k is an expensive hobby. Why wouldn't people with good income and fair amounts of leisure time be on Dakka?

Oh, I didn't mean disposable income, but 40k is also a very geeky hobby, so I just don't expect us to attract the sort of people he tries to make himself sound like - and even if we do, I'd expect them to behave .. differently.
Now, of course neither of us knows what the other actually does, so I could be totally wrong here, but imho it's still a pretty silly thing to claim some sort of authority because of something they're inherently unable to prove, and expect everyone to believe it just like that, as if nobody would lie on the internet. It just ... adds nothing to a debate. I could just as well claim that actually I'm Gav Thorpe.

JohnHwangDD wrote:Also, referencing Kubler-Ross suggests that Sisters will have been Squatted, versus still being on life support... Do we want GW to pull the plug?

The answer to this will probably depend heavily on one's individual situation, so I'm not sure there can be a "we" as our situations will be different. For me, personally, I do not see much of a difference between this sort of life support and actually being squatted - right now, it just feels as if the entire army floats in a sort of limbo, neither dead nor alive, and the "life support" merely prolongs a suffering and makes it harder to let go of something that will never again be as good as it used to be.

On the other hand, I'm sure there are still players who genuinely enjoy actively playing this army, in spite of the hardships, simply because they're an established player in their local club/community, and I wouldn't want to see them lose the sort of official backing that their army still has. Although GW would probably tell SoB players they could just use Codex Space Marines to field them, similarly to how they told Squat players to field them as IG.

It's a tricky situation where nobody is really happy, and whatever you do will make it worse for one party. And the only one who could improve their situation doesn't seem to have any interest in doing so.

To expand on the "life support" metaphor, as an army, the SoB are less the comatose patient on a hospital bed waiting for someone to "pull the plug", but more like a poor dog suffering from a painful illness, where it'd be the humane thing to just put them down, but their owner - in this case referring more to the players rather than GW - loves them so much that they cannot bring themselves to do it.

SisterSydney wrote:You might even get some more female players and expand the market, not just market share. Based on that admittedly highly subjective, qualitative, and unprofessional analysis, I think GW is under-estimating the growth potential in the Sisters line. I may be wrong.

But Sister Sydney, didn't you learn from the video game publishers that games with female protagonists don't sell?!