why are there no black people in 40k?

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**Mr Morden**

Melissia wrote:
CREEEEEEEEED wrote:
Sisters of Battle
Whom GW tends to prefer to pretend doesn't exist.

not recently - Shield of Baal is full of great Sisters stuff - no rules but really great fluff and images.

the simple answer is as some have said - Everything in 40k (books, comics, comuer games) is full of people of men and women of all colours - GW just don't paint them or indeed make them - see female Imperial guard - or rather don't.

Maybe some one should ask why in the "Ask the White Dwarf" bit

**Wyzilla**

Ratius wrote:
3.3%

http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/dcp171776_290558.pdf

Wow.

That is incredibly low. America has a percentage of 14% or so, and as for my home state, California, is incredibly diverse with whites IIRC now being a minority.

**Psienesis**

... that's because England ended slavery before the US did, and didn't buy or breed them in the volumes the States did.

**WellSpokenMan**

Psienesis wrote:
... that's because England ended slavery before the US did, and didn't buy or breed them in the volumes the States did.

England Abolished Slavery in the 1830s and actually ended the practice in the 1840s. Those 20-30 years are hardly justify the disparity. Economics was the main factor. The US had a high demand for slaves, the British did not.

**Mr Morden**

Psienesis wrote:
... that's because England ended slavery before the US did, and didn't buy or breed them in the volumes the States did.

Even before then legally you were not allowed to have slaves in England or at least as I understand after helping on some research projects in this area at work.

**Crimson**

Mr Morden wrote:

Even before then legally you were not allowed to have slaves in England or at least as I understand after helping on some research projects in this area at work.

Since Somersett's case in 1772. Not that it has anything to do with this.

**Veteran Sergeant**

shingouki wrote:
Formosa wrote:
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.

THIS^^^^

Exactly. This topic comes up from time to time, and the answer is always "Games Workshop is a company full of pasty white British guys."

**Las**

It's dumb. The lack of female and non-white representation is imo the big reason that most gamers are pasty white boys like me.

**Ashiraya**

I wonder how different 40K would look today if the genders of SM and SoB were swapped from the very beginning.

Assuming said SM would not wear boobplate or armour bikinis or similar, of course.

**Avatar 720**

Ashiraya wrote:
I wonder how different 40K would look today if the genders of SM and SoB were swapped from the very beginning.

Assuming said SM would not wear boobplate or armour bikinis or similar, of course.

Na, Brothers of Battle get to keep the boobplate. See what sort of reactions they get.

**Crimson**

Veteran Sergeant wrote:
Exactly. This topic comes up from time to time, and the answer is always "Games Workshop is a company full of pasty white British guys."

It is really not a valid reason.

**angelofvengeance**

Las wrote:
It's dumb. The lack of female and non-white representation is imo the big reason that most gamers are pasty white boys like me.

Lack of female representation eh?

Only got Dark Eldar, Tau, Craftworld Eldar, Sisters of Battle...

**Ashiraya**

angelofvengeance wrote:
Las wrote:
It's dumb. The lack of female and non-white representation is imo the big reason that most gamers are pasty white boys like me.

Lack of female representation eh?

Only got Dark Eldar, Tau, Craftworld Eldar, Sisters of Battle...

Try counting the models and draw conclusions from that.

**CREEEEEEEEED**

Da Butcha wrote:
However, GW doesn't go out and say that. Even if it did, then it might make sense to also introduce worlds that were predominantly black, or of some other ethnicity.

You clearly haven't read the first page, when I said that in one of the BL novels, two such worlds are mentioned.

Automatically Appended Next Post:

jareddm wrote:
Forget about the Salamanders.

Celestial Lions are legitimately sub-Saharan African and yes they still exist and are rebuilding.

Really? Man those guys are awesome.

**Hubris**

It is something GW need to consider at the very least before it has the potential to offend by the lack of options.

They could easily start to solve the potential issue in a small way by maybe sculpting a couple of the unhelmeted marine heads as other races in their next new kit.

Hopefully when/if they ever do another plastic Guard kit they will put a few females in too, in the style that Victoria Miniatures manages hopefully rather then the style of female models so many other companies go for.

It does not need to be a massive deal or about political correctness, just to represent a bit more of the diversity, then the current policy(although i doubt GW has thought about it too much) of nearly nothing.

As a Black Templar collector i would love more options since the Templars recruit from so many planets, it just makes sense and i like unhelmeted heads, it shows those filthy Xenos/Psykers just how angry you are.

**CthuluIsSpy**

Yeah, female guardsmen would be nice. There are female torsos in the eldar kits, so I don't see why it's impossible for IG.
The IG are meant to recruit from everyone, after all.

**angelofvengeance**

CthuluIsSpy wrote:
Yeah, female guardsmen would be nice. There are female torsos in the eldar kits, so I don't see why it's impossible for IG.
The IG are meant to recruit from everyone, after all.

Except the AM women don't need boob shaped armour lol. I doubt there's many super chesty women in the armed forces in reality(that don't have a boob job at least) Maybe some slightly slimmer torsos to differentiate guys from the girls?

**ArbitorIan**

Wyzilla wrote:That is incredibly low. America has a percentage of 14% or so, and as for my home state, California, is incredibly diverse with whites IIRC now being a minority.

We should point out that in the UK, the racial categories are slightly different, with 'Asian' meaning 'Indian' rather than 'Far-Eastern', and 'Caucasian' and 'Hispanic' both just considered 'White'. Most of my spanish friends (as in 'from Spain') would just tick the 'White' box. Given that difference in measurements, California might not be a great comparison.

angelofvengeance wrote:Except the AM women don't need boob shaped armour lol. I doubt there's many super chesty women in the armed forces in reality(that don't have a boob job at least) Maybe some slightly slimmer torsos to differentiate guys from the girls?

Yeah, there's a few good images that always do the rounds in these threads about how you can't really tell under Flak Armour. If they ever result Cadians, I imagine they'll make them a bit less chunky (which seems to be the trend with some of the new plastics). The only real difference is slightly smaller upper torsos and shorter. I'd quite like them to do a box where the models vary in height by a few mm.

**Khonsu**

Pre-Heresy World Eaters had many black people amongst them.
Theres that Mortifactor dude from the Uriel Ventris novel he's also black.

**angelofvengeance**

ArbitorIan wrote:
Yeah, there's a few good images that always do the rounds in these threads about how you can't really tell under Flak Armour. If they ever result Cadians, I imagine they'll make them a bit less chunky (which seems to be the trend with some of the new plastics). The only real difference is slightly smaller upper torsos and shorter. I'd quite like them to do a box where the models vary in height by a few mm.

All they'd really need to do is sculpt Lt Mira from WH40K: Space Marine. Boom! Done.

**WellSpokenMan**

angelofvengeance wrote:
CthuluIsSpy wrote:
Yeah, female guardsmen would be nice. There are female torsos in the eldar kits, so I don't see why it's impossible for IG.
The IG are meant to recruit from everyone, after all.

Except the AM women don't need boob shaped armour lol. I doubt there's many super chesty women in the armed forces in reality(that don't have a boob job at least) Maybe some slightly slimmer torsos to differentiate guys from the girls?

This is where the Heroic scale becomes an issue. If someone is buying a female torso, they are probably going to want to be able to tell that it is female. So the bust is probably going to bigger than on a realistic model. Also, a lot of people base their notions of what a woman in combat will look like in 38k years on what western female solidiers look like now. Particularly in the US, effort is currently made to hide female gender because it is percieved as a weekness. I hope that this will not always be the case. I'm OK with boob armor as long as it is tastefull. I prefer it to exposed boobs anyway. What really annoys me are high heeled combat boots.

**Melissia**

Mr Morden wrote:
Melissia wrote:
CREEEEEEEEED wrote:
Sisters of Battle
Whom GW tends to prefer to pretend doesn't exist.

not recently - Shield of Baal is full of great Sisters stuff - no rules but really great fluff and images.

I did say "tends to prefer", not "always prefers".

Also no new models, still using basic metal infantry from 2nd edition, hell, only have a single forgeoorld unit after the exorcist got taken down there. A pity, kind of liked the FW exorcist.

Automatically Appended Next Post:

angelofvengeance wrote:
All they'd really need to do is sculpt Lt Mira from WH40K: Space Marine. Boom! Done.

+40,001 upvotes.

**CthuluIsSpy**

angelofvengeance wrote:
ArbitorIan wrote:
Yeah, there's a few good images that always do the rounds in these threads about how you can't really tell under Flak Armour. If they ever result Cadians, I imagine they'll make them a bit less chunky (which seems to be the trend with some of the new plastics). The only real difference is slightly smaller upper torsos and shorter. I'd quite like them to do a box where the models vary in height by a few mm.

All they'd really need to do is sculpt Lt Mira from WH40K: Space Marine. Boom! Done.

I would not be against that.
It would be a hell of a pain to get right at 25mm, but it may be doable.

**King Pariah**

Hybrid Son Of Oxayotl wrote:
All my Sisters are black. And blonde. I know… but come on, it is the future!

And like that I suddenly had an image flash in my head of 1,000's of clones of Nicki Minaj in power armor.

And now that image is in your head.

I'm not sorry.

**Vermis**

Did anyone point out Victoria Miniatures in this topic, yet?

IMO it's a much greater contribution to diversity in gaming than "GW are totally woman-friendly! There was one in this BL book once, IIRC..."

**angelofvengeance**

Oh I was definitely aware of Victoria Miniatures. I was talking about GW in general though lol.

**Frazzled**

Its your fluff and paintjob. There is as many as you want.

My Vallhallan pattern IG are pasty, but the few unhelmeted marines I have are dark like cherry oak (because that was the color I had closest to me at the time). I hate painting flesh, unless its green.

**Lord Blackscale**

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.

I thougth of the same thing! One of my all time favorite TV quotes!

**nomotog**

angelofvengeance wrote:
Las wrote:
It's dumb. The lack of female and non-white representation is imo the big reason that most gamers are pasty white boys like me.

Lack of female representation eh?

Only got Dark Eldar, Tau, Craftworld Eldar, Sisters of Battle...

I am a little bothered that the tau only have one Female SC in the codex. It wasn't annoying back when they had like 3, but now they have more and it's kind of annoying that the ratio is so off. It's not like it's hard to make a female tau. It's more or less a differently shaped head slit. (and not even that depending on some interpretations.)

It's better when you look at more fluff though. Outside of the models, you get better diversity among all of 40k.

**Dark Apostle 666**

I can't speak for GW's lack of variation among the example models, but I found it pretty hard to get brown skin actually looking like skin (I've been painting kroot recently) That could just be down to me being more used to painting pale skin though.

I do seem to remember an 'Eavy Metal tutorial/workshop at the back of an old White Dwarf issue on painting flesh which did cover how to do paint dark skin properly. So obviously they can do it - I couldn't say why they don't though.

On the sculpting side of things, I don't see that there's any reason you'd need to sculpt for different ethnicities - frankly, at that scale, for the differences to be noticeable you'd end up making caricatures - better to rely on the paintjob, IMO.