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.

So what's to stop them from harvesting their own victory points?

John, sorry this posted twice, see my post below so this doesn't become annoying. I did respond thoroughly to your post as to why I find it dismissive and short sighted.

 Gamgee wrote:
So what's to stop them from harvesting their own victory points?

if this is in response to my faction I would add, only 3 points to the opponent not the ai player.

 JohnHwangDD wrote:

Herecomesyourman wrote:
I would introduce one of the lost Space Marine chapters struck from Imperial records ,

only it would be revealed to be all women

On a personal level I feel the lore has needed a soft reboot to make most human factions unisex, including space marines and the imperial guard unisex for a good long while now,

Yes technically there are the Sisters of Battle, but part of the reason they never sold well to start is that they just weren't actual space marines. Women gamers don't want to feel segregated and they are the fastest growing group of gamers these days. But well made female Marines and Imperial Guard in plastics would bring a lot of new players into the game if it was handled with taste instead of overt sexualization (no need for boostiers, just make them look a bit more like real people/empowered women instead of tiny cartoon sex objects.)

... we've seen this before. Astral Claws...

... OMG, no. We don't need (or want) girl SMs - that's what Sisters fill in for.

... and no. Guard is already integrated in many regiments, including Catachan and Tanith, along with the Commissar corps. It is canon that there are all-female regiments as well.

For something new, perhaps not. But upending the 40k background isn't the place to fix this. Tell me, how many female pilots are in the hot, new X-wing game?

No clue how many, but my GF who is a publishing agent who pitches to TOR and the like is putting together an An X-Wing army. Also that's ships, NOT figurines of men and women. And again, she'll tell you that post hunger games women have become the fastest growing group of gamers in all genres.

As I stated above, Sisters are explicitly NOT Space Marines. And women don't like to feel segregated. In reality the best thing would be to soft reboot out any 1980's nonesense which stated they couldn't make daughters of the Emperor in the lore. They only wrote that because they couldn't resin cast good looking female models in space marine armor at the time.

The fact is 40K has had just as many good writers when it comes to lore as gakky ones, and it is a bit sexist to leave things where they currently lie forever. So from what I understand you would bring a lot of women unto war gaming/modeling, the industry would thrive, and the IP would be much more likely to be developed into movies/television formatted shows.

By making the the distinction that "this is what sisters are for" you're telling women gamers that Space marines are a boys only club, and segregation like that is turn off for women gamers.

Stars Wars had had female characters introduced as the years roll on, Rebel One will star a female pilot. In real time we are seeing what I'm talking about.

Lastly while females exist in the guard, there are no plastics. It's time to change that and make that unisex option accessible to women gamers.

The necrons unfortunately kind of hjave the AI concept on lock down. They are essentially that.

Adeptus mechanics kind of maybe also? i dunno thats a stretch but it seems maybe too similar.

And remember it was the Age of Technology that the Imperium forsook so completely, so i could see the possibilities of an AI but the Imperium so thoroughly irradicated those things that there is no real infrastructure for it to make use of.

It's a cool idea but I am not so sure it would be able to get much purchase in the grimdark. Maybe a creation of the Tau Empire but then the Tau territory is certainly not large enough to spawn a second threat great enough to make it on the radar.

tough one.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Herecomesyourman wrote:

 JohnHwangDD wrote:

Herecomesyourman wrote:
I would introduce one of the lost Space Marine chapters struck from Imperial records ,

only it would be revealed to be all women

On a personal level I feel the lore has needed a soft reboot to make most human factions unisex, including space marines and the imperial guard unisex for a good long while now,

Yes technically there are the Sisters of Battle, but part of the reason they never sold well to start is that they just weren't actual space marines. Women gamers don't want to feel segregated and they are the fastest growing group of gamers these days. But well made female Marines and Imperial Guard in plastics would bring a lot of new players into the game if it was handled with taste instead of overt sexualization (no need for boostiers, just make them look a bit more like real people/empowered women instead of tiny cartoon sex objects.)

... we've seen this before. Astral Claws...

... OMG, no. We don't need (or want) girl SMs - that's what Sisters fill in for.

... and no. Guard is already integrated in many regiments, including Catachan and Tanith, along with the Commissar corps. It is canon that there are all-female regiments as well.

For something new, perhaps not. But upending the 40k background isn't the place to fix this. Tell me, how many female pilots are in the hot, new X-wing game?

No clue how many, but my GF who is a publishing agent who pitches to TOR and the like is putting together an An X-Wing army. Also that's ships, NOT figurines of men and women. And again, she'll tell you that post hunger games women have become the fastest growing group of gamers in all genres.

As I stated above, Sisters are explicitly NOT Space Marines. And women don't like to feel segregated. In reality the best thing would be to soft reboot out any 1980's nonesense which stated they couldn't make daughters of the Emperor in the lore. They only wrote that because they couldn't resin cast good looking female models in space marine armor at the time.

The fact is 40K has had just as many good writers when it comes to lore as gakky ones, and it is a bit sexist to leave things where they currently lie forever. So from what I understand you would bring a lot of women unto war gaming/modeling, the industry would thrive, and the IP would be much more likely to be developed into movies/television formatted shows.

By making the the distinction that "this is what sisters are for" you're telling women gamers that Space marines are a boys only club, and segregation like that is turn off for women gamers.

Stars had had female characters introduced as the years roll on, Rebel One will star a female pilot. In real time we are seeing what I'm talking about.

You may be going a bit deeper into this than i would. I really dont think sexism is what keeps female gamers at bay. i think it's that they just dont get invited to the hobby often enough and it isnt as if they hide all the boxes when girls are in the shop. Lol.

I also don't think you have to be a girl to like Sisters of Battle. its my most successful tournament army! So Adepta Sororitas isnt just for girls. Space marines aren't just for guys. I played against a univorn and pegasus festooned Space Wolfs army at Annihilation 4 though, complete with glitter. So, a woman who wants to can get creative and make whatever army she wants work.

so yeah Im not buying into sexism as a reason. But i will buy that they arent as often inivited to join in. maybe we assume they wont want to, but my daughter liked Warmachine. I suppose you can argue that there are more girl figures for it but she played menoth.

 Jancoran wrote:
You may be going a bit deeper into this than i would. I really dont think sexism is what keeps female gamers at bay. i think it's that they just dont get invited to the hobby often enough and it isnt as if they hide all the boxes when girls are in the shop. Lol.

I also don't think you have to be a girl to like Sisters of Battle. its my most successful tournament army! So Adepta Sororitas isnt just for girls. Space marines aren't just for guys. I played against a univorn and pegasus festooned Space Wolfs army at Annihilation 4 though, complete with glitter. So, a woman who wants to can get creative and make whatever army she wants work.

so yeah Im not buying into sexism as a reason. But i will buy that they arent as often inivited to join in. maybe we assume they wont want to, but my daughter liked Warmachine. I suppose you can argue that there are more girl figures for it but she played menoth.

War Machine has many female commentators on youtube, and a much larger female fan base because of its intentionally unisex army options and strong, prominent female characters.

There is such a thing as systemic sexism. It's not overt and often not intentional. Bad writers were told to spin why girls couldn't be made into Marines...so the lore changed. It wasn't some great Author like Robert Heinline or anything making this choice. They couldn't manufacture female figurines to the same quality at first.

They soft reboot the rules all the time; and retcons DO exist already in the lore. I think in 2016 we can accept that more women would like this hobby if there were plastics that represented women on the table top.

This is not me calling anyone here an OVERT sexist. I'm making that distinction here politely because as a man it took me a long time to understand the difference well as I do. I'm not a woman, and I don't think about how women would feel at first glance. However, I have talked to many women gamers over the years whin play Magic, or D&D, including my current girlfriend. All of whom have expressed they would love to play as space marines if it wasn't segregated.

Every time I mentioned sisters, but explained that they were not actual Marines they all found it to be placating and offensive to different degrees. Many were very vocal about it.

I've had a game store owner tell me primarily men were targeted with Sisters of battle, so Games Workshop openly discussed with store owners how they would be "sexed up a bit." To put it in his words. It was a product made to target men featuring women...and while I hope the rumored new line will change that, it's still not the same thing I'd hope would be available to young female gamers like your daughter. =)

Those X-Wing ships are piloted, and there are pilot cards. From what I recall of the original movies, NONE of the pilots were female. Neither Rebel nor Empire. Although there was that one old, fat dude (Porkins!).

The fact is, the 40k Universe does not have female Space Marines, any more than the Star Wars universe had female Jedi or female heroes of any sort. At least, not until Lucas was removed. There is a deliberate, overt sexism that pervades both 40k and Star Wars and that is both part and parcel of the IP. It is part of the game, in the same way that Nazis are part of Flames of War, and Confederates are part of any ACW game. For how terrible of a game that 40k has become, it is better that it not become more inclusive simply to hasten its replacement with something else.

I don't think that women are well-served playing 40k Space Marines as any sort of proxy for themselves. But rather as a statement of how stupidly brutal (or brutally stupid ) the males of the 40k universe happen to be.

Finally, the case may be made that all of the Cadian plastics are female. Under all that the heavy armor and cloth, they might as well be female - you can't tell at all.

 JohnHwangDD wrote:
Those X-Wing ships are piloted, and there are pilot cards. From what I recall of the original movies, NONE of the pilots were female.

And there were no female Jedi in the original movies, either. Your argument is ridiculous and you know it.

Star Wars prequels have Ayla Secura as a female Jedi. She was also in the not bad clone wars kids show. Which is still canon. We also have Rey from the new movie obviously. There's 2!!! Haha.

 Gamgee wrote:
Star Wars prequels have Ayla Secura as a female Jedi. She was also in the not bad clone wars kids show. Which is still canon. We also have Rey from the new movie obviously. There's 2!!! Haha.

Neither of which were the original three movies, though. Basically, John Hwang sees Lucas' lazy casting and assumes that it was a conscious decision, which is silly, but pretty much par for the course for him.

 Melissia wrote:

 Gamgee wrote:
Star Wars prequels have Ayla Secura as a female Jedi. She was also in the not bad clone wars kids show. Which is still canon. We also have Rey from the new movie obviously. There's 2!!! Haha.

Neither of which were the original three movies, though. Basically, John Hwang sees Lucas' lazy casting and assumes that it was a conscious decision, which is silly, but pretty much par for the course for him.

+1 Totally concur. =/

Oh, I'm sorry that I merely stated the obvious, and apologize that you reacted by getting your panties all twisted up.

In any case, GW has already settled the female Space Marine question, and I don't see the old men in charge of the property going back on their decision. But go ahead and bark at that wall for all the good that it does you.

I'm out, good luck.

 JohnHwangDD wrote:
Oh, I'm sorry that I merely stated the obvious, and apologize that you reacted by getting your panties all twisted up.

In any case, GW has already settled the female Space Marine question, and I don't see the old men in charge of the property going back on their decision. But go ahead and bark at that wall for all the good that it does you.

I'm out, good luck.

John, talk like THAT above ^^^ is sexist when talking to a woman, and really sexist in general when talking to anyone.

what you don't understand is that times are changing. Hunger Games and Game of Thrones in particular have shifted things. The decision to cast a Female lead in both the new Star Wars, and the Rebel One spin off are directly a result of women revitalizing sci and fantasy audiences. The same can be said for Super Hero movies moving closer to Female leads in recent years (which I suspect will catch up to Sci and Fantasy soon.)

This isn't something that will remain the same. The "lore" for Space Marines will stay all male until there is a financial reason to embrace this sort of change in terms of potential audience and customers. War Machine was developed with these very thoughts in mind, since it's both financially sound, and the right thing to do in terms of the current civilized society we live in.

I grew up with a bunch of male nerd friends, gaming in basements, and I treasure those friendships and that time in my life. But I sincerely wish gaming had been more of a unisex acceptable activity in the 90's. I think female friends of mine would have totally joined in the fun in High School, but stigmas existed then which are being torn down now.

What would it matter if we finally got real imperial guard plastics with women that looked the part? Not sexualized, but empowering? That matches the current fluff as you pointed out.

And what would a retcon focusing on making Space Marines Unisex, or at the very least making a lost legion all female really hurt? A couple gakky novels where Fabious Bile created Female Space Marine monsters get retconned? GREAT. After that maybe we can get a few good writers who have actually seen or had a vagina to rewrite that lame and offensive part of 40K novella history.

Star Trek/Dr. Who style interlopers.

Think "Captain Picard and the crew of the USS Enterprise."

Not particularly strong weaponry, but interesting movement mechanics.

"Beam Me Up, Scotty: During the movement phase, you may elect to return a unit with this special rule back to ongoing reserves. It auto-passes the reserves roll on the following turn and enters via deepstrike."

Blasters that fire at S2 or 3, but have concussive.

That sort of thing.

We can call the faction "The Observers." Time traveling humans from another time period.

Please take the "what is sexist" debate elsewhere (feel free to start a thread in Dakka Discussion if there isn't one currently).

On-topic: I think I would get fired from this hypothetical job because I would simply explain that not only is adding a new faction unnecessary but also that doing so would be terrible for the brand. Fired or promoted, I guess. I read through all the ideas and the closest thing to something that could work is "make a new marine factions somehow" (Stormcast Liberators!) - although "make SM but have them be women" is also terrible.

If I had to create an ALL NEW army, I think I'd create a XZenos Race and call them when explaining the concept "the sorcerer kings" and basicly make it a army of chaff backed up with psykic support. maybe borrow from the 1k sons marines where the squad sergent is a psyker.

to play right though you'd need to ensure this new race wasn't battle buddies with anyone.

BrianDavion wrote:
If I had to create an ALL NEW army, I think I'd create a XZenos Race and call them when explaining the concept "the sorcerer kings" and basicly make it a army of chaff backed up with psykic support. maybe borrow from the 1k sons marines where the squad sergent is a psyker.

to play right though you'd need to ensure this new race wasn't battle buddies with anyone.

See the bolded. That gives me a hilarious idea.

Zeno's race:

All of the rules would be a parody of Zeno's parodoxes.

Basically, all of the models would be unfinished depictions of greek men holding scrolls and wearing togas.

The relic wargear would be "The 40 paradoxes of Zeno." (I forget how many there actually were.)

"Any unit within 12 inches of this model, before it moves the full movement distance, must move half that distance. But before it moves half that distance, it again must move half of that distance. Etc. If more than 3 units are within 12 inches of this model, reality breaks down and the game ends."

 Manchu wrote:
Please take the "what is sexist" debate elsewhere (feel free to start a thread in Dakka Discussion if there isn't one currently).

On-topic: I think I would get fired from this hypothetical job because I would simply explain that not only is adding a new faction unnecessary but also that doing so would be terrible for the brand. Fired or promoted, I guess. I read through all the ideas and the closest thing to something that could work is "make a new marine factions somehow" (Stormcast Liberators!) - although "make SM but have them be women" is also terrible.

I'm actually not fine with that.

I feel I've been on topic. It WOULD grow the brand to make Space Marines and Imperial Guard inclusive to women gamers. You WOULD make more money, and it would probably be successful.

However the deeper problem I have here is your comment. Why exactly would a Female Space Marine Chapter representing one of the two lost chapters be terrible?

OR, more to the point, why would making Space Marines Unisex be terrible through retcons? Women have been included in the American Draft recently. I don't see why this fantasy sci fi setting couldn't adapt to the times since major retcons have occurred before.

I am going to make that thread you suggest, but I ask you as a moderator to really think about the post you just made. It doesn't feel all that inclusive to me.

My GF just read your post...and her reply to it was this was: "Wow." in the most flat sarcastic tone you've ever heard. Pfft.

Very quick aside to clarify for other readers (all further comms on the point should be via PM or you can start a thread in Nuts & Bolts) - Dakka Dakka moderators have no duty to push an ideology, whether "inclusiveness" or whatever else.

Now back to posting on the topic of miniatures ... "take X but make them women" is simply dumb. In fairness, I guess you are more interested in co-ed Chapters, a la some Imperial Guard regiments. But this would require overhauling SM fluff. The current brand is heavily anchored in the iconic imagery of medieval Christian militant religious orders. Adding women, by itself, would dilute rather than strengthen that brand. By contrast, the opposite is true (IMO at least) of Imperial Guard. But I think the main issues there relate to producing the models.

And mate, please don't bother to tell me what your GF thinks of my posts, I don't care.

 Manchu wrote:
Very quick aside to clarify for other readers (all further comms on the point should be via PM or you can start a thread in Nuts & Bolts) - Dakka Dakka moderators have no duty to push an ideology, whether "inclusiveness" or whatever else.

Now back to posting on the topic of miniatures ... "take X but make them women" is simply dumb. In fairness, I guess you are more interested in co-ed Chapters, a la some Imperial Guard regiments. But this would require overhauling SM fluff. The current brand is heavily anchored in the iconic imagery of medieval Christian militant religious orders. Adding women, by itself, would dilute rather than strengthen that brand. By contrast, the opposite is true (IMO at least) of Imperial Guard. But I think the main issues there relate to producing the models.

And mate, please don't bother to tell me what your GF thinks of my posts, I don't care.

Have to agree with Manchu here. It's not about not having women, it's about "take X but make them women" being a dumb idea. Do it to Necrons or Chaos or Tyranids, guess what, it's still dumb. Why not make a cool new faction with women?

In case it wasn't clear from my last warning, I will be deleting further off-topic messages.

 jreilly89 wrote:
Why not make a cool new faction with women?

Or just include more female models in factions that already are supposed to include women? (IG, Tau, Eldar, DE, Mechanicus, Inquisition, Necrons?) That would actually strengthen the existing brand.

Funny thing the Tau Ghostkeel has options for a female Tau. It's hard to spot the difference though because you know aliens.

Ah yes, female Necrons with metal boobs even though they're supposed to be skeletal.

For all we know, the models could be female. Whether you try to make it obvious by greenstuffing boobs is up to you. Anrakyr already comes with a skirt sooooooo...

It's been a while since I read the 5E dex ... are Necron's bodies literally a metal-infused Necrontyr skeleton? Or are they robot bodies that kinda sorta look like skeletons?

Robot bodies that look like skeletons.

So I guess they could have boobs then. (Not saying they should - not even sure if there are male and female Necrontyr, much less whether potential female ones would have had boobs in life.) In any case, there are plenty of 40k factions that already do include women and yes it would be nice to have some female models of them ... just hard to incorporate them into multipart plastic sprue where the intent is to have as much customization possibility as you can. I guess you could have, for example, a box of Dire Avengers and one sprue would be male Eldar and the other sprue would be girl Eldar. But it sounds expensive to me, someone at HQ would have to run the numbers on whether this would actually make people buy more of 'em in the long term.

There is a lot more that GW could do with their existing 40k factions before even thinking of starting a new one up ... and I just don't see any room for a new one. Alternatively, I would like to see more aliens in the Tau list.

 Manchu wrote:
So I guess they could have boobs then. (Not saying they should - not even sure if there are male and female Necrontyr, much less whether potential female ones would have had boobs in life.) In any case, there are plenty of 40k factions that already do include women and yes it would be nice to have some female models of them ... just hard to incorporate them into multipart plastic sprue where the intent is to have as much customization possibility as you can. I guess you could have, for example, a box of Dire Avengers and one sprue would be male Eldar and the other sprue would be girl Eldar. But it sounds expensive to me, someone at HQ would have to run the numbers on whether this would actually make people buy more of 'em in the long term.

There is a lot more that GW could do with their existing 40k factions before even thinking of starting a new one up ... and I just don't see any room for a new one. Alternatively, I would like to see more aliens in the Tau list.

So was my last post deleted just now? Because I'm pretty sure I wasn't offensive towards you "Mate".

As for running the numbers. The manager of the GW store near me even recently admitted there's more new female gamers than men almost three to one in sci-fi and fantasy post Hunger Games when we had this talk two days ago.

The brand would in fact expand, and there's been much bigger retcons than just making unisex marines. It happened with Magic...it happened with D&D. Women gamers are a paying audience.

Not to mention, again, as a guy who has to listen to talk of fictional universes and their potential branding all day (*since that's my GF's job as an agent who works with major publishers)...she could probably run those numbers for you if you wanted to see what properties are adapting to other mediums while making a profit in YA, Sci-Fi, Urban Fantasy, and High Fantasy.

I get the customizing argument...my answer to that is make most regiments unisex 50/50 in armies that have that established in cannon. You don't have to add more sprues or anything, and your options would be about the same honestly if you don't make all the girls scantily clad.

The funny part was I was following your instructions and writing a larger intro post to the thread you advised I make, and I'm seeing you edited a few of your posts, so I'm not sure why mine was deleted.

Manchu wrote:Now back to posting on the topic of miniatures ... "take X but make them women" is simply dumb.

I was under the impression that this is basically what Adepta Sororitas is.

Last warning:

 Manchu wrote:
(all further comms on the point should be via PM or you can start a thread in Nuts & Bolts

As to your on-topic points:

Herecomesyourman wrote:
I get the customizing argument...my answer to that is make most regiments unisex 50/50 in armies that have that established in cannon. You don't have to add more sprues or anything, and your options would be about the same honestly if you don't make all the girls scantily clad.

But that doesn't address the issue at all. IG with female headswaps look ridiculously bad. Even if IG were done to have more, well, human proportions, I don't think that would make a male body anymore fungible with a female one. But as for having a female sprue in the box along with a male sprue, I'd be most excited to see it with IG.

Herecomesyourman wrote:I get the customizing argument...my answer to that is make most regiments unisex 50/50 in armies that have that established in cannon. You don't have to add more sprues or anything, and your options would be about the same honestly if you don't make all the girls scantily clad.

As a consumer, I don't want female space marines. My armies are manly clubs for men. No girls allowed.

Female space marines, for me personally, would ruin the aesthetic.

Finally:

I wish to note this entire discussion is off-topic. Even if you added female space marines, in what respect would this be the creation of a "new faction"?