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 Pouncey wrote:

 Desubot wrote:
Excuse me sir

please dont put fethin words in my mouth.

there is no real demand for men in sisters of battle.

that is what was being discussed not the whole of 40k.

I was extrapolating from the specific to the general.

If you'd like, we could include the various people asking for female Eldar, female Tau, female Imperial Guard, and I've even heard requests for female Necrons on occasion.

Yet very little demand for more men in the factions, correction, faction, of humanoids where male models do not already have a significant presence?

Maybe people are asking for more female options and not so much male options because there's enough males in the model range to satisfy pretty much everyone looking for them, but a still untapped demand of people looking for female variants of the armies that don't have them yet?

Maybe this means that, since I ascertained this from Dakka and this forum in particular, there actually IS a decent market for diversity in 40k?

What are you even arguing about.

Im one of the people for more diversity in sex and race in 40k

also extrapolating from specific into general is a horrible way to make any sort of point.

however as vvt points out im not going to completly change the decades worth of fluff to shoe horn in female marines. and ONLY marines. dont you dare turn that into a generalization.

 Pouncey wrote:
[

If you'd like, we could include the various people asking for female Eldar, female Tau, female Imperial Guard, and I've even heard requests for female Necrons on occasion.

In order; they have Female Eldar, the have Female Tau, Use Female heads, and Necron bodies aren't explicitly male, they are gender neutral.

If you want Female Marines make them its a game, but the story shouldn't change just because some people are demanding it. GW already has little enough integrity as it is and bending over backwards to support a request from a fairly small group (most women I know into 40k dont care that marines are only men) would be foolish.

Equality is great and I support it, but making demands for the sake of demands is silly.

Pffft, female Space Marines and male Sisters of Battle is not yet diverse enough. I demand transgender Sisters of Battle and Space Marines right now. Also, there should be some who are genderless, trigender or pangender. And some who sexually identify as attack helicopters (they should count as a fast attack choice instead of troops in order to avoid hurting their feelings and rights)

Down with the cisnormativity in 40k!

 Iron_Captain wrote:
And some who sexually identify as attack helicopters (they should count as a fast attack choice instead of troops in order to avoid hurting their feelings and rights)

Down with the cisnormativity in 40k!

Hear Hear

 #1ShieldBrother3++ wrote:
Except everyone asking for female stuff is a minority. GW need to see good, solid, statistics before they spend a lot of money just for diversity instead of the next big model or campaign, which would probably rope them more sales.

Why? GW doesn't do market research of any kind. Presenting them with solid numbers justifying the expense of a more diverse assortment of female miniatures wouldn't make them actually happen since GW doesn't make what's been asked for or what's in demand, but instead what they think is cool.

Female Necrons whaaa?

 Desubot wrote:

 Pouncey wrote:

 Desubot wrote:
Excuse me sir

please dont put fethin words in my mouth.

there is no real demand for men in sisters of battle.

that is what was being discussed not the whole of 40k.

I was extrapolating from the specific to the general.

If you'd like, we could include the various people asking for female Eldar, female Tau, female Imperial Guard, and I've even heard requests for female Necrons on occasion.

Yet very little demand for more men in the factions, correction, faction, of humanoids where male models do not already have a significant presence?

Maybe people are asking for more female options and not so much male options because there's enough males in the model range to satisfy pretty much everyone looking for them, but a still untapped demand of people looking for female variants of the armies that don't have them yet?

Maybe this means that, since I ascertained this from Dakka and this forum in particular, there actually IS a decent market for diversity in 40k?

What are you even arguing about.

Im one of the people for more diversity in sex and race in 40k

also extrapolating from specific into general is a horrible way to make any sort of point.

however as vvt points out im not going to completly change the decades worth of fluff to shoe horn in female marines. and ONLY marines. dont you dare turn that into a generalization.

Sorry, I thought I'd figured out a valid point and the fact you were the one my quote window was open on at the time was only tangentially related.

Also, isn't extrapolating from the specific to the general one of the two methods of reasoning? One's inductive and the other is deductive but I don't remember which is which.

To make a incomplete reasoning sure.

and it never going to mesh with a lot of people unless you use buzzwords and do the thing that a ton of media does to feth with people.

They should make what I want because I want it, and not make what I don't want because I don't want it.

Female IG would be cool. Do it.

Female Space Marines would be dumb. Don't do it.

Male Sisters of Battle would be dumb. Don't do it.

Necrons are gender neutral robots. Keep making them that way.

 Insectum7 wrote:
Female Necrons whaaa?

IIRC one of the named cryptec or a cryptec that was part of a book IS actually a female and identifies as one IIRC. i hear from one of my hardcore necronphiliacs

 VictorVonTzeentch wrote:

 Pouncey wrote:
[

If you'd like, we could include the various people asking for female Eldar, female Tau, female Imperial Guard, and I've even heard requests for female Necrons on occasion.

In order; they have Female Eldar, the have Female Tau, Use Female heads, and Necron bodies aren't explicitly male, they are gender neutral.

If you want Female Marines make them its a game, but the story shouldn't change just because some people are demanding it. GW already has little enough integrity as it is and bending over backwards to support a request from a fairly small group (most women I know into 40k dont care that marines are only men) would be foolish.

Equality is great and I support it, but making demands for the sake of demands is silly.

No, I don't want female Space Marines or male Sisters of Battle. I'm willing to let lore impossibilities stand.

But female Eldar consist of models for only two units, not all of them like they should be, female Tau I'll give you since the new kits have female heads and their bodies don't have much dimorphism, GW should make those heads because we shouldn't have to rely on third-party creators when GW shuts them down at every opportunity, and Necrons are gender neutral already and make sense that way.

 Pouncey wrote:

 #1ShieldBrother3++ wrote:
Except everyone asking for female stuff is a minority. GW need to see good, solid, statistics before they spend a lot of money just for diversity instead of the next big model or campaign, which would probably rope them more sales.

Why? GW doesn't do market research of any kind. Presenting them with solid numbers justifying the expense of a more diverse assortment of female miniatures wouldn't make them actually happen since GW doesn't make what's been asked for or what's in demand, but instead what they think is cool.

So then what is the point of you testifying for more girl stuff if you know GW won't do it?

 Desubot wrote:
To make a incomplete reasoning sure.

and it never going to mesh with a lot of people unless you use buzzwords and do the thing that a ton of media does to feth with people.

Okay, here's an argument with no buzzwords or drama.

The official models are not representing the lore factions they represent.

If your power armored Space Marines or Sisters of Battle wore anything but power armor, you would complain. If your flak armored Imperial Guard wore anything but flak armor, you would complain. If your tank's official model was actually a helicopter, you would complain. Why should the soldiers' physical sexes that are confirmed to be prevalent in the factions and units that are being fielded be an exception?

Good lord this thread is pretty crazy.

First of all, to answer the original post, I would do the following:

1) Have the sculptors create heads for Marines and Guard that are representative of different generalised ethnic groups: European, Asian, African; so that not every model has a White Man Face. If sculptors like Kev White can create figures that are recognisably Black, or ranges like Copplestone's Chinese Warlord armies, or - actually - any 28mm historical manufacturer can produce figures that look like the ethnicities they're supposed to represent, I don't see why Games Workshop's sculptors can't give us African-descent Space Marines or Asian-descent Guardsmen or whatnot.

2) Between 3-4 female torsos and heads in every box of Eldar, Dark Eldar, Harlequins, Imperial Guard and Adeptus Mechanicus.

3) Relaunch the Sisters of Battle with a fully supported range of plastic figures, a new Codex, and so on and so forth.

4) Have the painting team paint the humans in a much more diverse way - I was really pleased to see the Stormcast Questor painted with Black skin.

5) More Xenos species - Hrud, Demiurg, more Kroot, and weirder races like the Bargheesi or the Loxatl.

6) Codex: Enemy Within covering Chaos and Genestealer cults, with male and female cultist models... and Arbites too (also male and female).

And that covers it nicely I think.

In terms of WIMMIN R WEAK LOL...

The YPJ beg to differ, as do the Scythians, the Dahomey, the Soviet Union, Tito's Partisans, the FARC, and pretty much every revolutionary and guerilla army ever, not to mention the operatives of the SOE, the Israeli Defence Force, and so on and so forth. I mean, there's even evidence to show that people like the Vikings had female warriors, while the American Indian tribes had not just female but intersex and transgender warriors; and the Tunisian Berbers who fought the Arab conquests were mostly led by women as they were a matriarchal culture.

Sure, on average looking at a normal distribution curve, men are statistically stronger than the statistical average woman, however, I would not like to try and fight any woman with even a modicum of training in any martial art, and the curves themselves will show you quite clearly that a proportion of women will equal or better the strongest men.

In terms of modern combat, and then extrapolating a mere 38,000 years into the future... 38,000 years ago Humanity was in the early stone age, and Neanderthals had been extinct for roughly 2,000 years. In Rogue Trader, it is explicitly stated that High Gothic and Low Gothic are totally alien languages that bear no resemblance to anything spoken or written today, and they are 'translated' into Latin and English respectively for our ease of understanding as players. To say that we can discuss "average" people in the year 40,000 is nonsensical, as the descendants of genetically enhanced settler peoples from the Golden Age of Humanity would vary so wildly in their genetic makeup as to be wholly new species in many cases.

The fact is, the background of Warhammer 40,000 clearly shows a much more diverse makeup to human and alien societies than is represented on the tabletop; and it would be nice for Games Workshop to produce official models to reflect their own background.

 #1ShieldBrother3++ wrote:

 Pouncey wrote:

 #1ShieldBrother3++ wrote:
Except everyone asking for female stuff is a minority. GW need to see good, solid, statistics before they spend a lot of money just for diversity instead of the next big model or campaign, which would probably rope them more sales.

Why? GW doesn't do market research of any kind. Presenting them with solid numbers justifying the expense of a more diverse assortment of female miniatures wouldn't make them actually happen since GW doesn't make what's been asked for or what's in demand, but instead what they think is cool.

So then what is the point of you testifying for more girl stuff if you know GW won't do it?

Because nothing we ever talk about on this forum makes GW comply.

Talking about how a rule sucks or a model is overpowered is equally fruitless, as GW will not actually fix it based on what we say. Yet we keep talking about it like it'll ever make a difference.

Gen.Steiner wrote:
Good lord this thread is pretty crazy.

First of all, to answer the original post, I would do the following:

1) Have the sculptors create heads for Marines and Guard that are representative of different generalised ethnic groups: European, Asian, African; so that not every model has a White Man Face. If sculptors like Kev White can create figures that are recognisably Black, or ranges like Copplestone's Chinese Warlord armies, or - actually - any 28mm historical manufacturer can produce figures that look like the ethnicities they're supposed to represent, I don't see why Games Workshop's sculptors can't give us African-descent Space Marines or Asian-descent Guardsmen or whatnot.

2) Between 3-4 female torsos and heads in every box of Eldar, Dark Eldar, Harlequins, Imperial Guard and Adeptus Mechanicus.

3) Relaunch the Sisters of Battle with a fully supported range of plastic figures, a new Codex, and so on and so forth.

4) Have the painting team paint the humans in a much more diverse way - I was really pleased to see the Stormcast Questor painted with Black skin.

5) More Xenos species - Hrud, Demiurg, more Kroot, and weirder races like the Bargheesi or the Loxatl.

6) Codex: Enemy Within covering Chaos and Genestealer cults, with male and female cultist models... and Arbites too (also male and female).

And that covers it nicely I think.

In terms of WIMMIN R WEAK LOL...

The YPJ beg to differ, as do the Scythians, the Dahomey, the Soviet Union, Tito's Partisans, the FARC, and pretty much every revolutionary and guerilla army ever, not to mention the operatives of the SOE, the Israeli Defence Force, and so on and so forth. I mean, there's even evidence to show that people like the Vikings had female warriors, while the American Indian tribes had not just female but intersex and transgender warriors; and the Tunisian Berbers who fought the Arab conquests were mostly led by women as they were a matriarchal culture.

Sure, on average looking at a normal distribution curve, men are statistically stronger than the statistical average woman, however, I would not like to try and fight any woman with even a modicum of training in any martial art, and the curves themselves will show you quite clearly that a proportion of women will equal or better the strongest men.

In terms of modern combat, and then extrapolating a mere 38,000 years into the future... 38,000 years ago Humanity was in the early stone age, and Neanderthals had been extinct for roughly 2,000 years. In Rogue Trader, it is explicitly stated that High Gothic and Low Gothic are totally alien languages that bear no resemblance to anything spoken or written today, and they are 'translated' into Latin and English respectively for our ease of understanding as players. To say that we can discuss "average" people in the year 40,000 is nonsensical, as the descendants of genetically enhanced settler peoples from the Golden Age of Humanity would vary so wildly in their genetic makeup as to be wholly new species in many cases.

The fact is, the background of Warhammer 40,000 clearly shows a much more diverse makeup to human and alien societies than is represented on the tabletop; and it would be nice for Games Workshop to produce official models to reflect their own background.

In this post: 40k is a safe space! Chinese people, mexican people, black people! If I don't see a transgender space marine GW is bigots!

 Desubot wrote:

 Insectum7 wrote:
Female Necrons whaaa?

IIRC one of the named cryptec or a cryptec that was part of a book IS actually a female and identifies as one IIRC. i hear from one of my hardcore necronphiliacs

Although I tend to prefer the older Necron lore where they were a lot more faceless, and would rather my galactic killer robots just be robots, I guess if they have personalities now that makes some sense.

 #1ShieldBrother3++ wrote:

In this post: 40k is a safe space! Chinese people, mexican people, black people! If I don't see a transgender space marine GW is bigots!

What does Fulgrim look like these days?

 #1ShieldBrother3++ wrote:
Except everyone asking for female stuff is a minority. GW need to see good, solid, statistics before they spend a lot of money just for diversity instead of the next big model or campaign, which would probably rope them more sales.

It seems that so many company's now day are doing fine with female miniatures, that it really is sort of just odd that GW couldn't make it work.
But if it comes down to minority's, then you have to be carfull as you have no idea what any minority represents.

One of the issues GW has is a lack of females across the board in there model lines, there worlds and storys.
It wouldn't take much to put in a female special character for necrons, and make it makes sense for the necrons to have female charecters.
The IG would have them considering what we get told for cadia and other places.
Demons also are strongly lacking considering what they are in universe.
Tau and elder should have a greater diversity, it's kinda bad how little representation they have.
As well as more diverse aliens that are allied with inquisitors and other factions could be made.
Representation isn't just through miniatures themselves but also within the story's and books, they could release a special charecter for a few army's tomorrow that where female without even creating a model

Methods to do so, which would make the hobby a better place:

-- Mixing in female soldiers in Imperial Guard squads, or having an all-female regiment if the former is too troublesome. Really, the former is a pretty simple thing to do, especially if they're already planning on sculpting new Guard minis for whatever reason, but if they're not, a new regiment (or female versions of old regiments) works just fine.

-- Encouraging their official painters to not paint all their Guard minis the same skin color. Same with their artists. Yeah, they do this to a small extent, already, but not as much as they could be to discourage the notion that this is a white man's hobby. It's a common enough question that the company could very well benefit from dispelling the notion.

-- Learning how to sculpt different facial features. They're already getting better at this really, so they're well on their way if they just keep up the good work.

-- Revamping Sisters of Battle to be something more in depth and competitive. There's so many ideas on how to do this, that I'm just going to summarize my own ideas-- make them in to a professional military that functions as paladins, that work to regulate the worst excesses of the ecclesiarchy and inquisition while simultaneously participating in crusades and purges to remove the taint of Chaos and Xenos from the galaxy. They're pretty close to that already, but they could use more units, more characters, more lore, and so on to make them more of this.

-- Add more non-humanoid xeno creatures, especially to Necrons and Tyranids, but also including a new race of them. Tripods, quadrupeds, snakelike beings, floaters, winged creatures, crustaceans (pls gib giant enemy crab to attack the weak spot of for massive damage ). Releasing new Gaunt and Gant minis to make them less humanoid would be a good start to this for example, and just have them be a slightly different strain with the same stats and maybe a new special rule-- it'd be a neat way to do it, especially if you could include both in the same squad. And of course, new non-humanoid xeno factions would be nice.

 Desubot wrote:

 Iron_Captain wrote:
And some who sexually identify as attack helicopters (they should count as a fast attack choice instead of troops in order to avoid hurting their feelings and rights)

Down with the cisnormativity in 40k!

Hear Hear

Where's my Antisexual Walnut class for Deathwatch?

We need a identity pride parade to storm Nottingham!

 Melissia wrote:
Methods to do so, which would make the hobby a better place:

-- Mixing in female soldiers in Imperial Guard squads, or having an all-female regiment if the former is too troublesome. Really, the former is a pretty simple thing to do, especially if they're already planning on sculpting new Guard minis for whatever reason, but if they're not, a new regiment (or female versions of old regiments) works just fine.

-- Encouraging their official painters to not paint all their Guard minis the same skin color. Same with their artists. Yeah, they do this to a small extent, already, but not as much as they could be to discourage the notion that this is a white man's hobby. It's a common enough question that the company could very well benefit from dispelling the notion.

-- Learning how to sculpt different facial features. They're already getting better at this really, so they're well on their way if they just keep up the good work.

-- Revamping Sisters of Battle to be something more in depth and competitive. There's so many ideas on how to do this, that I'm just going to summarize my own ideas-- make them in to a professional military that functions as paladins, that work to regulate the worst excesses of the ecclesiarchy and inquisition while simultaneously participating in crusades and purges to remove the taint of Chaos and Xenos from the galaxy. They're pretty close to that already, but they could use more units, more characters, more lore, and so on to make them more of this.

-- Add more non-humanoid xeno creatures, especially to Necrons and Tyranids, but also including a new race of them. Tripods, quadrupeds, snakelike beings, floaters, winged creatures, crustaceans (pls gib giant enemy crab to attack the weak spot of for massive damage ). Releasing new Gaunt and Gant minis to make them less humanoid would be a good start to this for example, and just have them be a slightly different strain with the same stats and maybe a new special rule-- it'd be a neat way to do it, especially if you could include both in the same squad. And of course, new non-humanoid xeno factions would be nice.

How can there even be a thing such as "a white-mans hobby"?

 #1ShieldBrother3++ wrote:
In this post: 40k is a safe space! Chinese people, mexican people, black people! If I don't see a transgender space marine GW is bigots!

Are you saying that only white people survived to the 41st Millennium in the WH40k lore?


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 #1ShieldBrother3++ wrote:

 Melissia wrote:
Methods to do so, which would make the hobby a better place:

-- Mixing in female soldiers in Imperial Guard squads, or having an all-female regiment if the former is too troublesome. Really, the former is a pretty simple thing to do, especially if they're already planning on sculpting new Guard minis for whatever reason, but if they're not, a new regiment (or female versions of old regiments) works just fine.

-- Encouraging their official painters to not paint all their Guard minis the same skin color. Same with their artists. Yeah, they do this to a small extent, already, but not as much as they could be to discourage the notion that this is a white man's hobby. It's a common enough question that the company could very well benefit from dispelling the notion.

-- Learning how to sculpt different facial features. They're already getting better at this really, so they're well on their way if they just keep up the good work.

-- Revamping Sisters of Battle to be something more in depth and competitive. There's so many ideas on how to do this, that I'm just going to summarize my own ideas-- make them in to a professional military that functions as paladins, that work to regulate the worst excesses of the ecclesiarchy and inquisition while simultaneously participating in crusades and purges to remove the taint of Chaos and Xenos from the galaxy. They're pretty close to that already, but they could use more units, more characters, more lore, and so on to make them more of this.

-- Add more non-humanoid xeno creatures, especially to Necrons and Tyranids, but also including a new race of them. Tripods, quadrupeds, snakelike beings, floaters, winged creatures, crustaceans (pls gib giant enemy crab to attack the weak spot of for massive damage ). Releasing new Gaunt and Gant minis to make them less humanoid would be a good start to this for example, and just have them be a slightly different strain with the same stats and maybe a new special rule-- it'd be a neat way to do it, especially if you could include both in the same squad. And of course, new non-humanoid xeno factions would be nice.

How can there even be a thing such as "a white-mans hobby"?

Go through the official GW WH40k catalog on their website, and tell me how many of the human models (including Space Marines) with bare skin, displayed on their website to advertise them, are white men, and how many are literally anything else.

Then tie that revelation in with the fact that simply including women in advertisements for a game increases the number of women who buy that game, without actually changing anything about the game itself. Then realize that that doesn't just apply to women. And then come to the inescapable conclusion that GW has been marketing really, REALLY, REALLY hard to white men and almost no one else.

 #1ShieldBrother3++ wrote:

 Melissia wrote:
Methods to do so, which would make the hobby a better place:

-- Mixing in female soldiers in Imperial Guard squads, or having an all-female regiment if the former is too troublesome. Really, the former is a pretty simple thing to do, especially if they're already planning on sculpting new Guard minis for whatever reason, but if they're not, a new regiment (or female versions of old regiments) works just fine.

-- Encouraging their official painters to not paint all their Guard minis the same skin color. Same with their artists. Yeah, they do this to a small extent, already, but not as much as they could be to discourage the notion that this is a white man's hobby. It's a common enough question that the company could very well benefit from dispelling the notion.

-- Learning how to sculpt different facial features. They're already getting better at this really, so they're well on their way if they just keep up the good work.

-- Revamping Sisters of Battle to be something more in depth and competitive. There's so many ideas on how to do this, that I'm just going to summarize my own ideas-- make them in to a professional military that functions as paladins, that work to regulate the worst excesses of the ecclesiarchy and inquisition while simultaneously participating in crusades and purges to remove the taint of Chaos and Xenos from the galaxy. They're pretty close to that already, but they could use more units, more characters, more lore, and so on to make them more of this.

-- Add more non-humanoid xeno creatures, especially to Necrons and Tyranids, but also including a new race of them. Tripods, quadrupeds, snakelike beings, floaters, winged creatures, crustaceans (pls gib giant enemy crab to attack the weak spot of for massive damage ). Releasing new Gaunt and Gant minis to make them less humanoid would be a good start to this for example, and just have them be a slightly different strain with the same stats and maybe a new special rule-- it'd be a neat way to do it, especially if you could include both in the same squad. And of course, new non-humanoid xeno factions would be nice.

How can there even be a thing such as "a white-mans hobby"?

This hobby is a white male oriented hobby. GWs creative team is and has always been primarily white male british people, and their target demographic (see every company mission statement) is young male hobbyists with disposable income. "Disposable income" in the primary places where 40k is sold (canada australia US and western europe) means white.

It really is not hard to tell when something is oriented towards the 'white male with disposable income' demographic instead of the increasingly popular 'everyone' demographic. Look at the characters: if the default is "white male" and any deviation from that is a "trait" that needs to be explained or explicitly called out in the lore, that is the target audience.

In 40k:

-we have an all-female army, and their basic trait is Sisters of Battle. One of their principle lore points is "there was a decree that said we couldn't have men at arms, so we MADE THEM ALL WOMEN!" What else we got? Wytches, female unit name check, explanation for why they're predominantly female check. Howling Banshees, female unit name check, explanation for why they're predominantly female check.
-Any time you have a character whose race is something other than 'generic white', it is their defining trait. See: White Scars, the bike-riding mongolian marines from Planet China, or Captain Al-Raheim's full desert robed scimitar-wielding Arabian guard.

Am I saying GW is somehow unusual? No, they're a company full of primarily british guys. White male and british is their default because that's what they are. There's also the big beardy nordic guys from Planet Viking, and the musclebound rambo americans from Planet Vietnam.

The argument that's being made is this: The current stock of bestselling nerd culture elements (mainstream comics, video games like League of Legends and Overwatch, etc) have made enormous amounts of money by switching from the traditional arrangement described above to targeting everyone, and Games Workshop could open up a larger market by doing the same.

It seems that a common 'counter-tactic' to this is to pretend that either A) this prospective market does not exist, because women would never like comic books/sci fi/video games/wargames...or B ) to pretend that the 'white male as default, deviation as distinguishing trait' paradigm does not exist.

Two points

First the imperium of man is a theological fascist state involved in endless war. What does practically every major religion and most dictatorships push? Traditional human sex roles. While i'd like to see some female guard heads, it makes sense that they would be rare. The IOM needs more people as it's constantly taking casualties on a scale we can't fathom.

Second, several posters have complained that there are not enough female minis in several lines such as eldar or tau. I find this confusing since a helmeted female warrior would look the same as a man. FEMALE does not equal having massive boobs or slender hips. While we could use some more female heads, there is no reason to imagine half your minis are chicks,

the_scotsman wrote:

 #1ShieldBrother3++ wrote:

 Melissia wrote:
Methods to do so, which would make the hobby a better place:

-- Mixing in female soldiers in Imperial Guard squads, or having an all-female regiment if the former is too troublesome. Really, the former is a pretty simple thing to do, especially if they're already planning on sculpting new Guard minis for whatever reason, but if they're not, a new regiment (or female versions of old regiments) works just fine.

-- Encouraging their official painters to not paint all their Guard minis the same skin color. Same with their artists. Yeah, they do this to a small extent, already, but not as much as they could be to discourage the notion that this is a white man's hobby. It's a common enough question that the company could very well benefit from dispelling the notion.

-- Learning how to sculpt different facial features. They're already getting better at this really, so they're well on their way if they just keep up the good work.

-- Revamping Sisters of Battle to be something more in depth and competitive. There's so many ideas on how to do this, that I'm just going to summarize my own ideas-- make them in to a professional military that functions as paladins, that work to regulate the worst excesses of the ecclesiarchy and inquisition while simultaneously participating in crusades and purges to remove the taint of Chaos and Xenos from the galaxy. They're pretty close to that already, but they could use more units, more characters, more lore, and so on to make them more of this.

-- Add more non-humanoid xeno creatures, especially to Necrons and Tyranids, but also including a new race of them. Tripods, quadrupeds, snakelike beings, floaters, winged creatures, crustaceans (pls gib giant enemy crab to attack the weak spot of for massive damage ). Releasing new Gaunt and Gant minis to make them less humanoid would be a good start to this for example, and just have them be a slightly different strain with the same stats and maybe a new special rule-- it'd be a neat way to do it, especially if you could include both in the same squad. And of course, new non-humanoid xeno factions would be nice.

How can there even be a thing such as "a white-mans hobby"?

This hobby is a white male oriented hobby. GWs creative team is and has always been primarily white male british people, and their target demographic (see every company mission statement) is young male hobbyists with disposable income. "Disposable income" in the primary places where 40k is sold (canada australia US and western europe) means white.

It really is not hard to tell when something is oriented towards the 'white male with disposable income' demographic instead of the increasingly popular 'everyone' demographic. Look at the characters: if the default is "white male" and any deviation from that is a "trait" that needs to be explained or explicitly called out in the lore, that is the target audience.

In 40k:

-we have an all-female army, and their basic trait is Sisters of Battle. One of their principle lore points is "there was a decree that said we couldn't have men at arms, so we MADE THEM ALL WOMEN!" What else we got? Wytches, female unit name check, explanation for why they're predominantly female check. Howling Banshees, female unit name check, explanation for why they're predominantly female check.
-Any time you have a character whose race is something other than 'generic white', it is their defining trait. See: White Scars, the bike-riding mongolian marines from Planet China, or Captain Al-Raheim's full desert robed scimitar-wielding Arabian guard.

Am I saying GW is somehow unusual? No, they're a company full of primarily british guys. White male and british is their default because that's what they are. There's also the big beardy nordic guys from Planet Viking, and the musclebound rambo americans from Planet Vietnam.

The argument that's being made is this: The current stock of bestselling nerd culture elements (mainstream comics, video games like League of Legends and Overwatch, etc) have made enormous amounts of money by switching from the traditional arrangement described above to targeting everyone, and Games Workshop could open up a larger market by doing the same.

It seems that a common 'counter-tactic' to this is to pretend that either A) this prospective market does not exist, because women would never like comic books/sci fi/video games/wargames...or B ) to pretend that the 'white male as default, deviation as distinguishing trait' paradigm does not exist.

Racial diversity is actually a lot easier to implement than gender diversity, at least in the short term. Just swap out a few pots of white people flesh colored paint for a few pots of any other race's flesh colored paint every so often.

In a lot of cases, it is literally as simple as a slightly different paint job.


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HoundsofDemos wrote:
Two points

First the imperium of man is a theological fascist state involved in endless war. What does practically every major religion and most dictatorships push? Traditional human sex roles. While i'd like to see some female guard heads, it makes sense that they would be rare. The IOM needs more people as it's constantly taking casualties on a scale we can't fathom.

Second, several posters have complained that there are not enough female minis in several lines such as eldar or tau. I find this confusing since a helmeted female warrior would look the same as a man. FEMALE does not equal having massive boobs or slender hips. While we could use some more female heads, there is no reason to imagine half your minis are chicks,

The Imperium of Man has over 20 quadrillion people, and the Astra Militarum page on Lexicanum mentions taking millions of casualties in one day as the high end of their daily casualties.

Trust me, the Imperium of Man is not having difficulty replacing their losses. In fact their population SHOULD be growing even if they start taking high-level casualties every day. There is no need to start using human women as brood mares since the casualties they take all the time are not serious enough to warrant it.

And regarding the Eldar, I'm going to show you a Dire Avenger, and a Howling Banshee, and I want you to tell me whether you can tell which one is male and which one is female.

https://www.games-workshop.com/en-CA/Eldar-Howling-Banshees

https://www.games-workshop.com/en-CA/Eldar-Dire-Avengers

Because I have ZERO difficulties telling Eldar males from Eldar females, and I'm not sure how anyone possibly could.

You could also look at Eternal Crusade, an officially licensed Warhammer 40k MMORPG which DOES have male and female options for all Eldar classes, and the devs of which have been in close contact with GW to ensure the game's visuals are authentic to the setting, and tell me again that you cannot see any difference between male and female Eldar.

Because it is VERY easy to tell a male Eldar from a female Eldar.

Racial diversity is actually a lot easier to implement than gender diversity, at least in the short term. Just swap out a few pots of white people flesh colored paint for a few pots of any other race's flesh colored paint every so often.

In a lot of cases, it is literally as simple as a slightly different paint job.

Not if you want it done properly.

I wouldn't be surprised if some non-Caucasian people took offence more at that than simply an army of white people.

BossJakadakk wrote:
It's not a dress, it's a robe! A wonderful, flowing robe!

Robe is dress in french. So its a dress either way to me

 Azreal13 wrote:

Racial diversity is actually a lot easier to implement than gender diversity, at least in the short term. Just swap out a few pots of white people flesh colored paint for a few pots of any other race's flesh colored paint every so often.

In a lot of cases, it is literally as simple as a slightly different paint job.

Not if you want it done properly.

It would a small, easy, quick thing they could do. I'm not saying it should end there.

I wouldn't be surprised if some non-Caucasian people took offence more at that than simply an army of white people.

I recall a Hindu religious leader expressing outrage over two different games even having an historically-accurate analog to Kali... So yes, that would probably happen.

But just like with anyone else who's being unreasonable, we don't let them ruin what is ultimately a good thing.

Out of everything that I posted, THAT is what you took issue with?

Geeze.

Besides, if you read my post more carefully, I said "the notion that this is a white man's hobby". Meaning I don't believe it is, or at least it doesn't have to be. You cannot dispute that many people do see the hobby as giving that impression off, even if you cannot fathom why they see it that way.

#1ShieldBrother3++ wrote:In this post: 40k is a safe space! Chinese people, mexican people, black people! If I don't see a transgender space marine GW is bigots!

That... that's not what I said...

I said that to add more diversity to the 40K universe, I would do certain things. Things that other manufacturers do, without any issue or fanfare: make figures from different ethnic backgrounds (including some that no longer exist, e.g. Sea Peoples, Phonecians, and so on), and paint their figures to reflect this; and to make female figures.

In all cases, to do this because it would reflect their own background.

As an added bonus, it would lead to a diversification of gamers, which would mean more people playing, which would mean more money for Games Workshop, which would mean more cooler stuff for us as hobbyists.

Literally no-one loses from adding in extra diversity. Why do you seem to be saying it's a terrible idea "because SJWs"?