Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

Does anyone know what happened to the black people in 41st millennium? I know salamanders technically are black but not in the context i mean. All the models shown are all white and the only time I've come across black skinned models are in a racist fashion such as panal legion in the old imperial guard book and a guardsmen army based on a foreworld based around cotton picking where the sgts and high ranking people were all white

There are black people. What you see on the table is not indicative of the background, especially as you can just paint them however you want.
Also, you should pick up the 4th ed rulebook. There is a black catachan guardsman.

When you look at any of the many pictures offered there is none, aswell as in painting guides where only tutorials on how to paint white people are present?

Again, not indicative of the background. There are no official pictures of the caradochians, nor the Old Ones, and they certainly exist.

Also, Games Workshop's painting tutorials are lacking in variety.
You might as well say that there are no Vosytroyans, as there has not been a painting guide in about 4-5 years.

Because Games Workshop are incapable of imagining anything other than white males. Even the aliens are almost exclusively white and male.

Ignore it. 40k as a universe only works if you have your own interpretation of it, in which you can have as much diversity as you want.

 Frozen Ocean wrote:
Because Games Workshop are incapable of imagining anything other than white males. Even the aliens are almost exclusively white and male.

Ignore it. 40k as a universe only works if you have your own interpretation of it, in which you can have as much diversity as you want.

Salamanders and Tau are white?
It's more of a case of laziness than willful ignorance or bigotry, really.
When you have to paint 100 guardsmen on a deadline, changing the scheme every few models or so is a bit of a chore.

Did you play dawn of war at all? Literally the first person you run into is a colored individual, an inquisitor to be exact, wielding a thunder hammer to help you fight the Eldar.

And yeah, my entire chapter, (Salamanders) are colored.

Tyranids... all white males he says..... hahahaha

 BladeTX wrote:
Did you play dawn of war at all? Literally the first person you run into is a colored individual, an inquisitor to be exact, wielding a thunder hammer to help you fight the Eldar.

Yep. Toth was a pretty cool guy.
Also, in DoW2 they introduce a Blood Ravens librarian. Who's black.

I stand corrected then :p, i havent played the game and only went on what I'd actually seen in books and on the table :p

 BladeTX wrote:
Did you play dawn of war at all? Literally the first person you run into is a colored individual, an inquisitor to be exact, wielding a thunder hammer to help you fight the Eldar.

His name is Toth, and he'll crush any heretic he comes across under his inquisitorial boot! Best DoW character 10/10.

Commissar Tionenji in Honour Imperialis is Black, he comes from a world which I can only assume is mostly black, judging from what is written, and this is not the only world with a large black population, as the Cadian Warden Captain mistakes him as being from a different world because he is black and has a certain accent.
Also, there is an interesting meeting that you can interpret how you like (I thought it was perfectly fine).

“Squad Leader Kel,’ Tionenji flicked gore from his chainsabre. ‘Never seen a commissar before?’
‘No, sir. Never, sir.’ This was a lie. Kel had seen plenty, but this was his first time off-world. He was staring because he’d never seen a man with black skin before. ‘Courage: Broken, sir,’ Kel added.”

Excerpt From: Aaron Dembski-Bowden, Rob Sanders, Steve Lyons, Braden Campbell & Chris Dows. “Honour Imperialis.” Black Library, 2014-03. iBooks.
This material may be protected by copyright.

Check out this book on the iBooks Store: https://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewBook?id=848912536


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Frozen Ocean wrote:
Because Games Workshop are incapable of imagining anything other than white males. Even the aliens are almost exclusively white and male.

Ignore it. 40k as a universe only works if you have your own interpretation of it, in which you can have as much diversity as you want.

Really, Shadowsun, Sisters of Battle, Dark Eldar and Eldar, Tau, Salamanders?
You, sir, are an idiot and if I met you IRL I'd probably feel an urge to hit you.

(minor edit, a comma after sir)

You just don't see any Green Skined people in any GW game. A disgrace I say!

Can't we leave real politics out of Warhammer? Isn't it enough that I get into a lore debate about whether the Space Wolves were justified in attacking the Thousands Sons EVERY SINGLE time I go to my local Games workshop store? Isn't it enough to debate whether or not Chaos be allowed to exist? Or whether Horus was justified in his rebellion? Or the Ultimate question; Does Humanity deserve it's place in the stars 41st Millennium?

I mean hey the whole universe is afire with war but yeah lets worry about the assortment of skin-color amongst our troops! All may serve the Emperor and may die for him too.

Salamanders, Vitrian Dragoons (Gaunt's Ghosts), a few in Horus Heresy books. Deathwatch books or other multi-Astartes chapter books make darker skin very obvious. They're not uncommon.

But Tyranids are generally white nowadays. (White and Purple) I miss the days of our black brothers... Old One Eye looked so much better as a black man. Actually, that entire black paint scheme from 3rd was really good.

Well I wonder where all the Asians are. I mean almost 1/2 the planet is asian.

That said, GW went backwards IMO with the retcon of Salamanders from having black features in artwork (as in facial structure) to being literally pitch black but with Caucasian features. The other clear real world ethnic references I can think of offhand within the loyalist Imperium are the White Scars and the Attilans who are clearly a Mongol and Hun expy respectively. There are some Chaos references but that's another story.

Ultimately the Imperium as a whole is an exaggerated vision of the Dark Ages/Middle Ages mixed in with some steampunk/Victorian themes and Roman themes. The xenos serves the role of the foreign culture from outside this system. For example, the Eldar are an amalgamation of various historical inspirations, including Chinese, Japanese, Celtic, and ancient Egyptian. Each of these cultures served as epitome of alien, inscrutable menace to one of the component influences on the Imperium. The Imperium is, obviously, part Roman, part-medieval and part-Victorian. Romans were simultaneously fascinated and repulsed by the Greeks and Egyptians, medieval western Europeans by the Byzantines and the Victorians by the Chinese. Fu Manchu, the quintessential inscrutable "Yellow Peril" villain is pretty much how the Imperium pictures Eldar Farseers.

Iracundus wrote:



That said, GW went backwards IMO with the retcon of Salamanders from having black features in artwork (as in facial structure) to being literally pitch black but with Caucasian features. The other clear real world ethnic references I can think of offhand within the loyalist Imperium are the White Scars and the Attilans who are clearly a Mongol and Hun expy respectively. There are some Chaos references but that's another story.

Ultimately the Imperium as a whole is an exaggerated vision of the Dark Ages/Middle Ages mixed in with some steampunk/Victorian themes and Roman themes. The xenos serves the role of the foreign culture from outside this system. For example, the Eldar are an amalgamation of various historical inspirations, including Chinese, Japanese, Celtic, and ancient Egyptian. Each of these cultures served as epitome of alien, inscrutable menace to one of the component influences on the Imperium. The Imperium is, obviously, part Roman, part-medieval and part-Victorian. Romans were simultaneously fascinated and repulsed by the Greeks and Egyptians, medieval western Europeans by the Byzantines and the Victorians by the Chinese. Fu Manchu, the quintessential inscrutable "Yellow Peril" villain is pretty much how the Imperium pictures Eldar Farseers.

That's a fascinating interpretation. It does make a lot of sense.
One could also consider the Tau; they could represent the emergent power of the east and it's rivalry with the old western superpowers.

to quote Terry Pratchett

From Witches Abroad

'Black and White lived in perfect harmony and ganged up on Green.'

There was also an Imperial Army Lord Commander in charge of an entire expeditionary force in "Legion"

Shortly before the great dispersal one person had to go and spoil it for the rest:

 SilverMK2 wrote:
Shortly before the great dispersal one person had to go and spoil it for the rest:

Funnily enough, in the 4th BRB there was a Catachan mister T conversion.
It was cool.

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:
There are black people. What you see on the table is not indicative of the background, especially as you can just paint them however you want.
Also, you should pick up the 4th ed rulebook. There is A black catachan guardsman.

I suppose there's also the worry that if they do in fact model a distinctly black guy's head, they could feth it up and cause a furore over it.

real answer.

the painters are white, so they paint "themselves" if this game was made up of a majority of black players and run by black guys then people would be asking where all the white guys are.

in universe, there are, I mean there are massive amounts of other cultures, even albinos, centaurs (yep) and all sorts of other stuff.

I think that's GW official line as to why all models have Caucasian features: They were afraid that if they tried sculpting anything else they'd come across as racist caricatures. I think this is BS but w/e. I paint my own Marines to be predominately black.

Salamanders
Celestial Lions
Various gaurdsmen
Worldeaters from a jungle world.
At least one rememebrancer from the horus heresy

Several remembracers if I recall correctly, one of which is massively important

I think the problem lies in political correctness, there is afaik no black painter working for GW HQ, I think white British people would worry about being perceived racist by painting miniatures black if they are white themselves. (I do not think this I'm just commenting on political correctness in the UK.)

I'm pretty sure Salamanders used to be black in the modern sense but GW felt it might be racist so started painting them completely black instead. I really dislike the idea of pitch black Salamanders I much prefer it when I see them represented as black ethnicity.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Formosa wrote:
Several remembracers if I recall correctly, one of which is massively important

Mersadie Oliton I think you mean, she was Loken's personal remembrancer.

Yeah. The fluff and black library books have a ton of characters with different skin tones, including ones we don't see on earth today. Mostly these are forgotten about as novels don't really lend themselves well as reminders of skin tone, and in the 41st millennium skin tone is pretty irrelevant.

In-game, the majority of 'regular humans' we see are guardsmen, and many of the guard concepts are based off 20th century European armies (steel legion, vostroyan, mordian).

Plus, of course, a lot of the subtle differences in human skin tone get lost at model level. Unless you're paining your guardsmen really pink, that generic 'flesh' colour could easily be Caucasian, Hispanic, Middle Eastern, Asian or North indian.

I can also see GWs point that they don't want to risk appearing racist be releasing the token 'black' regiment. Though they could solve this problem pretty easily by sculpting a wider range of heads in general.

 ArbitorIan wrote:


I can also see GWs point that they don't want to risk appearing racist be releasing the token 'black' regiment. Though they could solve this problem pretty easily by sculpting a wider range of heads in general.

Or just paint up a unit of black Cadians to use in WD occasionally. There was a black guard regiment in First and Only who fought alongside the ghosts I'm trying to remember what they were called.