AoS - Would you like to have female orc models in your greenskin horde?

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**greatbigtree**

NinthMusketeer wrote:
Skaven females aren't capable of a combat role--they are large grotesque breeders continually birthing more Skaven.

Which, again, is simply a fluff-adjustment away.

"Hi Folks! With the success of our Lady-Orcs, we've decided to introduce Lady Skaven! No, not the sort-of-offensive baby mills they used to be, but current, bold, ruthless rat-beauties doing their part to climb the horrible ladder that is Skaven politics. Hope you like them!"

**Overread**

And AoS lets them make a lot of fluff adjustments. And yet at the same time in Heart of Winter the Scourge Privateers are still sailing around the seas in huge Black Arks (powered by mighty krackens underneath).

Plus Skaven shifted from being warpstone users to having the Great Horned One as full blown Chaos god so that can bring with it all kinds of change.

That said they don't have to make female skaven the same as males; they can still have the huge bloated mother-rat beast approach!

**Big Mac**

No, look how ridiculous the female orc is in the WoW movie, we would try to make the orc appealing, keep them savage as they are. No need for a male-female mechanic on every race.

**Mr Morden**

There is room in AOS for sexy daring rat girls and monster mothers - and lots in between.

Although it is also nice that there are absolutely no redeeming features about any Skaven ever

**greatbigtree**

They’d be my second choice army, after Orcs and Gobbos.

Mostly the zany weapons. The mutants and plague stuff never piqued my interest... but those war machines!

**Grey Templar**

I don't recall if Fantasy orcs were ever stated to have females or not, and the models that were sculpted were most definitely joke models for Blood Bowl.

Most likely, Fantasy Orcs are androgynous beings that are either hermaphroditic or the same as 40k orcs being a fungus.

**Charistoph**

I think it is amusing that people are assuming the gender of the orcs we see in Fantasy. In order to be male, there needs to be another gender to work with.

Being asexual, there is only one gender, so there is no more "male" than "female". Mammary glands are only necessary for a species which suckles their young. Orcs do not suckle their young, so no need for breasts. Heavy bone and muscle structure is needed for fighting, so their physiology more closely resembles a sex whose reproductive contribution is minimal. I wonder if they have their spore pods under their loin cloths instead of the sperm-positors that humans have.

If you really want to have an interesting read on how an assumption of sex is handled, read up on the Mardukans of the Empire of Man series starting with March Upcountry by John Ringo and David Weber. Let's just say that the ovipositors of the assumed males are rather impressive, except they don't deliver sperm.

**CthuluIsSpy**

Charistoph wrote:
I think it is amusing that people are assuming the gender of the orcs we see in Fantasy. In order to be male, there needs to be another gender to work with.

Being asexual, there is only one gender, so there is no more "male" than "female". Mammary glands are only necessary for a species which suckles their young. Orcs do not suckle their young, so no need for breasts. Heavy bone and muscle structure is needed for fighting, so their physiology more closely resembles a sex whose reproductive contribution is minimal. I wonder if they have their spore pods under their loin cloths instead of the sperm-positors that humans have.

If you really want to have an interesting read on how an assumption of sex is handled, read up on the Mardukans of the Empire of Man series starting with March Upcountry by John Ringo and David Weber. Let's just say that the ovipositors of the assumed males are rather impressive, except they don't deliver sperm.

Apparently Orcs / Orks constantly release spores throughout their lives, and release a lot of spores when they die.
So I guess they have spore pods everywhere.

**Grey Templar**

Such a question came up in a Dark Heresy campaign I did. My explanation was that 40k Orks had a large urinary tract depositor that appeared similar to a penis. But nothing else down there. Which caused confusion when the group was trying to explain to some ork sentries why they should be afraid of Big Boss Big Nutz.

**Xenomancers**

Ummm - orks don't have a sex. So suggesting they have a sex is quite....sexist? Wouldn't you say? The ork model currently in line aren't actually males...Just because their name is name are often (----)Boyz - it doesn't make them male. It's just what they call themselves.

You know there are species on earth where females have larger stature....
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anglerfish
The male in this species is quite literally a sperm delivering mino type parasite. Only the females in this species have actual lives.

Plus there are many species which display 0 sexual dimorphism. Orks could easily be like that. Since we know they don't actually reproduce sexually - they have no need for male or female models.

**NinthMusketeer**

Big Mac wrote:
No, look how ridiculous the female orc is in the WoW movie, we would try to make the orc appealing, keep them savage as they are. No need for a male-female mechanic on every race.

TBF the main character girl is only half-orc and the full orcs are less human looking. But honestly GW is one of the one companies I would trust to be willing to make non-sexy females. Look at the female maneater, or the troll hag, or valkia.

**Groo_The_Wanderer**

Fluff be damned, I want the most model variation possible for a horde army. Painting boyz is tedious.

My concern is that GW loves to make their few female models dainty as hell, e.g. Celestine. I just finished up set of Escher Gang and they looked a lot more bulky in pictures than real life.

**CthuluIsSpy**

Except you already have a lot of variation though?
No 2 orks are the same in my army.

Unless you're talking about AoS orcs. In that case its a failure of GW for not adding enough options.

**deotrims 16th**

as a spore orks can't be male or female but you can have more female looking ones but I would also equally be as happy with them how they are as we call them male because in general men are more muscular than females. If it were the other way around we would say orks looked female
list of female species for models why or why not
space marines NO come from emporer emps was a guy simple as
dark eldar already a thing with over 50% of them being female model wise
eldar could be who knows mabye the ones with a helmet are female just are smart and want to live
tau same as normal eldar
orks already explained
guard don't know would change so much from world to world do whatever you want.
necrons are male and female but all put their souls into identical robot things so no new female models needed
nids ? heck it seems the birthing things are female and hourmagaunts are male but who knows
demonds they are gender neutral only rpresenting their gods emotion
skitari you cant tell as they are more robot than man
genestealercults can be wahtever as its a cult of dudes( sorry people) worshiping a genestealer

**Charistoph**

Xenomancers wrote:
Ummm - orks don't have a sex. So suggesting they have a sex is quite....sexist? Wouldn't you say? The ork model currently in line aren't actually males...Just because their name is name are often (----)Boyz - it doesn't make them male. It's just what they call themselves.

Well, they tend to spawn more spores in a combat environment, so for Orcs/Orks, combat is literally an orgy of destruction...

**Pandabeer**

Niiai wrote:
Thadin 40K orks are indeed fungus and grown. That being said they are definetivly based on males and are quite maskuline. In their defense the 40K orks veru eraly took inspiration from american football and rugby player in their appearance and army design. While I am a big fan of female models, I think orks is the one place there are strong cases for not doing it.

I would like to se female necrons, tau (some are already) imperial guard, space marines (retcon it or introduce it in the fluff, some head swaps would be enough as space marines are post human) and eldar. Interestingly the two races that do gender representation very well are dark eldar with multiple genders within each unit, and tyranids that are gender neutral (with the exception of the termagon baby mashine.)

But, this is the Fantasy Forum and the original poster asked about fantasy. The awnser is whole heartedly yes. I would like to see more female models. I do not remember if a lot of female orks existed in Warcraft 3, but by the time world of warcraft (2004) comes out you have gender options for all races. Including the tauren female cow with udders and all. I really liked that.

Contrast that to some GW licened computer game that never came out. I remember reading the question about gender where they said "All races will have both gender options. Except ogres. Nobody want to play a female ogre." Contrast this to Wow, where you get udders. Not only do you get udders, but you have armour that have the equilant of boob armour for the udders. It is a glorius example of representation.

Most age of sigmar armies could do with more female representation. (Preferably not with boob armour.) It should be mentioned this is hard to do with undead skeletons. I should know, I kitbashed a Khemri blood bowl team with 5 females on the team. :-(

Or simply introduce females in your own lore

I'm using a Khinerai as a valkyrie for my Space Wolves (used as a Rune Priest with jump pack). Probably going to make a Wolf Lord (err, Lady) with jump pack out of one as well.

**Desubot**

Charistoph wrote:

Well, they tend to spawn more spores in a combat environment, so for Orcs/Orks, combat is literally an orgy of destruction...

Thinking about all the people breathing in the spores....

im surprised warriors or guardsmen dont explode into orks after a battle.

**NinthMusketeer**

We inhale something like an average of 7 fungal spores with every breath. Being adapted to grow in moist ground and being adapted to grow in lungs are very different. Unless the spores have some sort of toxin or are in massive quantity there would not be a serious health concern. Tyranid spores, on the other hand...

**MothCult**

So has there been any female conversions of WFB/AoS orks that we can see? I'm not talking about slapping some tits on them and calling it a day, full on conversion.
I don't own any fantasy orks to test this myself (might have a few 40k boyz laying around somewhere), but I'd love to see if its been done.

On the subject of non-breeder fem-skaven, sure, I'd love my own little Ink-Eyes style assassin running around.

**Charistoph**

I haven't seen any but the aforementioned Orc cheerleaders from Blood Bowl.

**Grey Templar**

Charistoph wrote:
I haven't seen any but the aforementioned Orc cheerleaders from Blood Bowl.

It is fortunate they were not included in the BB computer game

**Voss**

CthuluIsSpy wrote:
Inquisitor Gideon wrote:
exliontamer wrote:
There's no reason for orks to be "male" or "female" since they are fungus people. As someone mentioned above the reason we even read them as "male" is because they are somewhat based off of male gorillas. It could be fun to have "female" presenting orks, no doubt, and the "fluff" of AoS is such a hot mess anyway I certainly wouldn't care less if they changed it or came up with a fun reason why they existed. They did as much with why some orks have "hair."

That being said I think they would do better to focus on the races that do have sexual dimorphism to have more variation in model lines and respresentation. The Stormcast females so far are pretty bad ass...though I wish the ratio was closer to 50/50. Seems like they will continue this trend on newer kits and I love it.

As has already been stated, the fungi thing is 40k only. It's never been like that for Fantasyor AoS. And how is the fluff a hot mess?

Wrong
159 of the 8th ed BRB explicitly states that the orcs came to the world as spores, heavily implying that greenskins in both 40k and WHFB are the same.
If the orcs from AoS are the same as the ones from WHFB, then logically they would be fungus based too.

That was an 8th edition only thing. It has zero bearing on Warhammer Fantasy as a whole since 8th only existed to kill the property, and little bearing on AoS.

Orcs in other fantasy editions definitely had genders.

**CthuluIsSpy**

Voss wrote:
CthuluIsSpy wrote:
Inquisitor Gideon wrote:
exliontamer wrote:
There's no reason for orks to be "male" or "female" since they are fungus people. As someone mentioned above the reason we even read them as "male" is because they are somewhat based off of male gorillas. It could be fun to have "female" presenting orks, no doubt, and the "fluff" of AoS is such a hot mess anyway I certainly wouldn't care less if they changed it or came up with a fun reason why they existed. They did as much with why some orks have "hair."

That being said I think they would do better to focus on the races that do have sexual dimorphism to have more variation in model lines and respresentation. The Stormcast females so far are pretty bad ass...though I wish the ratio was closer to 50/50. Seems like they will continue this trend on newer kits and I love it.

As has already been stated, the fungi thing is 40k only. It's never been like that for Fantasyor AoS. And how is the fluff a hot mess?

Wrong
159 of the 8th ed BRB explicitly states that the orcs came to the world as spores, heavily implying that greenskins in both 40k and WHFB are the same.
If the orcs from AoS are the same as the ones from WHFB, then logically they would be fungus based too.

That was an 8th edition only thing. It has zero bearing on Warhammer Fantasy as a whole since 8th only existed to kill the property, and little bearing on AoS.

Orcs in other fantasy editions definitely had genders.

Also wrong.
Look on page 124 of the 7th ed rulebook. It was not only in 8th ed.
Please point out where they "definitely" had genders. Because I looked through earlier editions, and I could find nothing of the sort.

**Eldarsif**

As an answer to the original post:

Why not.

**Hanskrampf**

I really don't understand the reason to change fluff just so some people can have female models for their army.
There are tons of armies that either already have female models or would deserve some as it just would make sense with the fluff as it is.

I hear no one complaining about only female SoB (or DoK to keep with fantasy). What if I want a Battle Brother? After all, "no man in arms" was meant to be "no human in arms", so the church is already ignoring the RAI. Just change the fluff.

But after all, it's your army on the table and if you want female orcs, just go for it. But don't expect GW to change existing fluff, produce model kits for your fantasy or every opponent to understand your desire despite the fluff.
Fireforge has a mixed gender orc kit in the line, but it could be a while before it's available, as the stretch goal wasn't met in the Kickstarter.

**Niiai**

You are building a straw man of people who wants female models in their army. It is not just the odd person who wants a female model, quite many want them. Also, this thread is a bit of a self selective audience because we already play the game. And even hang out on the forums.

Do not make it out like there is a big change in setting introducing female orks. Of course in the fantasy/age of sigmat and 40k we would be talking about femenine and maskuline takes on the models as all the models are sexually neutral, but gender maskuline. (Sex being the genetic sex and gender being the social representation of the percieved sex.)

It is not like changes are never introduced in the setting. (Introduction of AoS, neew factions deepkind, new models withing excisting ranges. Or the 8th edition jump in 40k, factions jumping inn and out of excistence (genestealer cult) races (squats or zoats.)) Changes happens all the time, no one bats and eye.

Nobody would bat an eye if there are female models, or in the gender neutral race, femenine models.

**EnTyme**

Hanskrampf wrote:

I hear no one complaining about only female SoB (or DoK to keep with fantasy). What if I want a Battle Brother?

This stupid argument again? Every word in that last sentence is a link to a different male model from the SoB army list.

**CthuluIsSpy**

There are also males in Daughters of Khaine, iirc.
Still, those miniatures aren't formally Sisters of Battle, are they? They just are in the SoB army, doesn't mean they are SoB.
It's like Canoptek units; they are in the necron army, they have the necron keyword, but they aren't really necrons.

**Hanskrampf**

EnTyme wrote:
Hanskrampf wrote:

I hear no one complaining about only female SoB (or DoK to keep with fantasy). What if I want a Battle Brother?

This stupid argument again? Every word in that last sentence is a link to a different male model from the SoB army list.

How is this stupid? The thread is literally about wanting to add females to a race of genderless asexual mutated fungi when there is no fluff justification at all.

**exliontamer**

Hanskrampf wrote:
EnTyme wrote:
Hanskrampf wrote:

I hear no one complaining about only female SoB (or DoK to keep with fantasy). What if I want a Battle Brother?

This stupid argument again? Every word in that last sentence is a link to a different male model from the SoB army list.

How is this stupid? The thread is literally about wanting to add females to a race of genderless asexual mutated fungi when there is no fluff justification at all.

Nah, they were right. Your point was pretty silly and they were highlighting why. In fact your own argument here is exposing why your Sisters comment was ill-advised...

SISTERS of Battle, a force of highly trained human female fighters is supported by male units in the fluff, and there are plenty of ways to include or model those units in the game. There would be no real fluffy (or logical) reason to have a male human battle "sister." Trans woman, sure, knock yourself out on that one.

This of course has nothing to do with:

ORKS, a genderless race of barbaric warriors who have all sorts of bizarre physiology and fluff (including why their race adopted "hair") and could have any number of convincing reasons for having Orks who appear "female" to other races. It would have no bearing on their tactics, history, fluff, etc. It could literally be done with a hand-wave precisely because of the nature of their fluff. Gretchin, Boyz, why not Galz? It's all made up.

I agree with you that Orks don't NEED "female" minis. Just arguing from a "fluff" perspective, or using the "why not male Sisters?" argument are both foolish.