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Andykp wrote:

You insist on it being a harmless fraternity that you are very neutral about but when I ask you give an example where the “fraternity” actually has any real bearing or relevance to the story you use mock indignation and hurt to avoid the question.

So I will try again. I assume you are not a sexist, a bigot or a misogynist. I imagine you are actually a reasonable and pleasant person. As such please give an example where the idea of “fraternity” and marines male exclusivity is even relevant to the story or narrative or arc?

I don't recall discussing harmfulness or harmlessness. Other than it does not seem obviously abhorent for a fraternal order to exist in a company's product / fiction profile. Now when you say "relevance to the story", I'm going to asssume you mean the general 40k universe and space marines in particular, please correct me if I take that incorrectly. It seems from the fiction and asethetics that the Astartes are something like an order of warrior monks, who constantly say "brother" to each other as a fraternal order. Other than that seems to be the historic and current setting and structure of Astartes, I don't reguard it as otherwise critical or important.

I also don't view it as neccessary for it to be critical to any story, narrative or arc. Just as I don't view it as neccessary for it NOT to exist. I'll try to make it clear again. It strikes me as I read through the thread, that the demand to affirm female space marines really has much less to do with the game and the story in general, and more to do with a desire to dismantle popular literary or game instances of any sort of fraternal orders, with the general implications that such dismanlting is a moral and historic imperative for a better social order. At least that's a general outline of what I surmise from the comments. I don't happen to believe that it is neccessary for a better world for GW to alter their fiction. I don't really see such it as having the meaningful social change some seem to feel it would. I may not be right, but I do wish people wouldn't equate that opinion with mysogny etc. Its that latter part I object to.

One thing that dawned on me. Sisters of Silence. What's currently the point of them? Their stat lines and abilities basically make them the same as the Sisters of Battle. Their addition seemed more like an after-thought.

Maybe we could make them the 2 wound elite female army? The Sisters of Battle would be the 1 wound elite army. Then expand the other Imperial factions Guard, Ad-Mech & Inquisition with more female support. Lets look into more Imperial Agents, we could add Rogue Traders to it. Not just assassins. Starting with characters like Elucia Vhane, Neyam Shai Murad, Knosso Prond, Sanistasia Minst, etc.

Jarms48 wrote:
One thing that dawned on me. Sisters of Silence. What's currently the point of them? Their stat lines and abilities basically make them the same as the Sisters of Battle. Their addition seemed more like an after-thought.

Maybe we could make them the 2 wound elite female army? The Sisters of Battle would be the 1 wound elite army. Then expand the other Imperial factions Guard, Ad-Mech & Inquisition with more female support. Lets look into more Imperial Agents, we could add Rogue Traders to it. Not just assassins. Starting with characters like Elucia Vhane, Neyam Shai Murad, Knosso Prond, Sanistasia Minst, etc.

Sisters of Silence, as far as I know, came out of nowhere from the Horus Heresy novels, themselves fairly recent as far as 40k is concerned.

Sisters of Silence have four units (one HQ, and three troops that may as well be a single troop choice with multiple heavy/special weapons).

Custodes have 15 entries, including multiple HQ's, a couple vehicles, jetbikes, etc.

Space Marines have more subfaction codexes than Sisters of Silence have units. Space Marines make up at least half of the the game, model wise. In marketing and literature, they make up almost all of it. In other entertainment media such as (fan) films or video game, Space Marines are usually the focus but are at the very least present.

So when people ask for inclusion for women, they're not asking for token representation then be shuffled off into the corner. They want to be represented in the flagship faction. For all intent and purpose, Space Marines are 40k and everyone else exists to be an opponent crushed beneath them or to make them look better (if not both, usually at the same time). As said repeatedly in this thread, when your sole flagship product is male only, that sends a message of non-exclusivity.

Which most of the people in this thread understand, even the opponents of including female space marines. They've been pandered to for literal decades and can't stand the thought of an extra head sprue might make their lumbermen a little less special and make them feel conflicted feelings.

But you're also correct that in addition to female space marines, the other imperial factions also need to up their game as far as including women.

Sisters of Silence were part of a HH plastic box, just like the HH era Marine units loyalists (-.-) can field. GW just wanted to make more profit from that box so they added them to 40K, too. They still ARE an afterthought, maybe GW at some point decides to make more out of them but I think for now they won't be more than two entries in the next Custodes or Talons of the Emperor Codex.

Altima wrote:
[[…]
Which most of the people in this thread understand, even the opponents of including female space marines. They've been pandered to for literal decades and can't stand the thought of an extra head sprue might make their lumbermen a little less special and make them feel conflicted feelings.
[…]

Are you sure about what you have written?
Because if there is a recurrent complain about W40k, is that the Space Marines are too overpowered to make the game really satisfactory for every player (trust me: I played the Eldar) and the idea to create a line of female space marines models wouldn't solve that issue in any way. If the purpose is improve the game experience, the solution is to create better rules and more balanced armies, not to create a new line of models which wouldn't change anything about the game experience.
Obviously my answer is valid if those "pandered lumbermen" of whom you are talking about are the Space Marines: maybe I've misunderstood what you have written.

Yeah you misunderstood. We're not talking about the SM fatigue here, and neither how to solve that. None is proposing to add new SM units or stuff like that

We're asking to solve another problem (related to representation) with a simple additional sprue and a negligible change to a lore that is already changed with Primaris introduction.
At this point I think the thread is more about understanding who have some problem with it (and why).

This really is a difficult thread to comment on.

On one hand, there's no reason why there can't be female marines if people want it. An easy headswap from a sisters sprue would do it without anything else needed. But the issue isn't the ability to make it, it's whether it's presented in the Canon.

It is worth remembering that the imperium of man is quite categorically evil. The people are heavily repressed, generally overpopulated, and space marines represent such a small proportion of humanity as to be negligible. The entire galaxy is existing in a post-apocalyptic wasteland style theme, and humanity is held ruthlessly under the Emperor by inquisitors who are willing to wipe out entire planets to drive out heresy.

It just seems in direct conflict of the theme for this immensely oppressive military-fanatic organization to consider gender equality in any way.

Also, no-one has answered whether we can expect male sisters of battle.

Altima wrote:

Which most of the people in this thread understand, even the opponents of including female space marines. They've been pandered to for literal decades and can't stand the thought of an extra head sprue might make their lumbermen a little less special and make them feel conflicted feelings.

But you're also correct that in addition to female space marines, the other imperial factions also need to up their game as far as including women.

In my very first post in this thread I had said I agree to the addition of female space marines, with the reminder that the level of modifications they would receive would be almost indistinguishable to their male counterparts.

My entire point that Sisters of Silence as they are currently implemented aren't mechanically different and their statlines are too similar to the Sisters of Battle. GW do seem to be pushing the Sisters of Battle to be a major player in 9th edition. I would love greater diversity and flushing out of the Sisters of Silence. They should completely be their own faction and not just essentially a sub-faction for Custodes. One lore friendly thing you could do for Sisters of Silence is allow them to take Astra Telepathica units without breaking their detachment, then obviously give them more of their own units.

You implied people who want female SM are religious extremists who are going to destroy humanity. Like it was really funny because its so clearly you just being reactionary without any actual argument but it's still pretty rude.


Oh nice, we're going back to how SM straight up aren't monks? Let's go!
They aren't a religious order, 90% of SM aren't religious in the way the wider Imperium is, most pay some lip service and get on with the killing. They don't live ascetic lifestyles by choice and some there are some that go in the opposite direction (Space Wolves, Blood Angels). They aren't celibate by choice because as far as we know SM don't have reproductive organs. They call each other "brother" because they literally are brothers thanks to the gene-seed implant that links them to their Primarch fathers.
The only thing they come close to monks with is that they live in Fortress-Monasteries but even then the name is swapped about with Chapter Keep/Fortress or a the Chapter might not even have a FM and instead have a flagship like the Phalanx.
TLDR, SM are not monks.


When the current world gives -heads on the internet and in real life a ready made excuse to be misogynistic, gatekeep women out of the hobby or push it into scum territory and harass/send death threats to women hobbyists, then I'm going to say I view you opinion as wrong.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

The Prospero box was definitely a weird one and the fact GW shoehorned SoS into 40k and didn't actually do anything with them didn't help. The biggest issue is they are an elite order of anti-psyker warriors in a game where most of the factions don't use magic as their gimmick. Most armies have psykers but other unit options are usually superior.
I like the SoS, I think their lore is cool but the current state of 40k means they're less than unusable.

 Cybtroll wrote:
Yeah you misunderstood. We're not talking about the SM fatigue here, and neither how to solve that. None is proposing to add new SM units or stuff like that

We're asking to solve another problem (related to representation) with a simple additional sprue and a negligible change to a lore that is already changed with Primaris introduction.
At this point I think the thread is more about understanding who have some problem with it (and why).

If the introduction of the female space marines is a negligible change, why be so upset if some people thinks it isn't necessary?
I would be upset if we were discussing about changes able to make the game more balanced and enjoyable, but someone opposed to it in order to protect the unfair advantage the rules give to his army, not about a negligible change.

The_Grim_Angel wrote:

 Cybtroll wrote:
Yeah you misunderstood. We're not talking about the SM fatigue here, and neither how to solve that. None is proposing to add new SM units or stuff like that

We're asking to solve another problem (related to representation) with a simple additional sprue and a negligible change to a lore that is already changed with Primaris introduction.
At this point I think the thread is more about understanding who have some problem with it (and why).

If the introduction of the female space marines is a negligible change, why be so upset if some people thinks it isn't necessary?
I would be upset if we were discussing about changes able to make the game more balanced and enjoyable, but someone opposed to it in order to protect the unfair advantage the rules give to his army, not about a negligible change.

Because the change is negligible but needed as currently the flag ship faction excludes women and the community (vocal parts of it anyway) echo that exclude women from the hobby. Very few women are out of the hobby due to the of internal balance. Very few of anyone is, it’s the biggest TT wargame out there and has been unbalanced as frick for ever. I get upset when people say it isn’t necessary because that will continue to exclude women and continue to protect bigoted and misogynistic views. That’s the whole point. It’s a small change that could make a lot of people feel welcome and safer. The status quo does the opposite. Balance is a different issue all together. Apples and oranges again.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 RegularGuy wrote:

Andykp wrote:

You insist on it being a harmless fraternity that you are very neutral about but when I ask you give an example where the “fraternity” actually has any real bearing or relevance to the story you use mock indignation and hurt to avoid the question.

So I will try again. I assume you are not a sexist, a bigot or a misogynist. I imagine you are actually a reasonable and pleasant person. As such please give an example where the idea of “fraternity” and marines male exclusivity is even relevant to the story or narrative or arc?

I don't recall discussing harmfulness or harmlessness. Other than it does not seem obviously abhorent for a fraternal order to exist in a company's product / fiction profile. Now when you say "relevance to the story", I'm going to asssume you mean the general 40k universe and space marines in particular, please correct me if I take that incorrectly. It seems from the fiction and asethetics that the Astartes are something like an order of warrior monks, who constantly say "brother" to each other as a fraternal order. Other than that seems to be the historic and current setting and structure of Astartes, I don't reguard it as otherwise critical or important.

I also don't view it as neccessary for it to be critical to any story, narrative or arc. Just as I don't view it as neccessary for it NOT to exist. I'll try to make it clear again. It strikes me as I read through the thread, that the demand to affirm female space marines really has much less to do with the game and the story in general, and more to do with a desire to dismantle popular literary or game instances of any sort of fraternal orders, with the general implications that such dismanlting is a moral and historic imperative for a better social order. At least that's a general outline of what I surmise from the comments. I don't happen to believe that it is neccessary for a better world for GW to alter their fiction. I don't really see such it as having the meaningful social change some seem to feel it would. I may not be right, but I do wish people wouldn't equate that opinion with mysogny etc. Its that latter part I object to.

So I think hidden amongst all that is an answer to my question. It doesn’t matter at all that space marines are all men. So why object to changing that. I get that you don’t see the need for change, but why object to that change if it doesn’t bother you either way? Why so passionate about it, because that is how you are coming across? (Again working for the same assumption as before and no accusations of misogyny etc, just genuine curiosity as to this issue is important to you).

 some bloke wrote:
This really is a difficult thread to comment on.

On one hand, there's no reason why there can't be female marines if people want it. An easy headswap from a sisters sprue would do it without anything else needed. But the issue isn't the ability to make it, it's whether it's presented in the Canon.

I mean, MY main issue is the ability to make it.

I don't collect sisters of battle, but I have collected 5 armies that are supposedly, within current canon, mixed-gender. And in my bits box I have ended up with a total of...I think about five normal female human heads. A couple from the escher kit that had hair that wasn't so wild as to be super distinctive, one sisters of silence head because the box came with optional bits for the sarge, and that's basically it.

none from my guard, none from my tempestus, none from 3 of my necromunda gangs...and yet, amazingly, I've got probably hundreds of different dude heads. so when I went to biuld my Deathwatch army, I had tons of choices for how to make male marines, and almost none for female marines.

Great for people who collect specifically that one army that gets to have women in it that they can convert them from there, but it sure would be nice if there was just women in the kits like there are in basically every age of sigmar army that exists.

 the_scotsman wrote:

 some bloke wrote:
This really is a difficult thread to comment on.

On one hand, there's no reason why there can't be female marines if people want it. An easy headswap from a sisters sprue would do it without anything else needed. But the issue isn't the ability to make it, it's whether it's presented in the Canon.

I mean, MY main issue is the ability to make it.

I don't collect sisters of battle, but I have collected 5 armies that are supposedly, within current canon, mixed-gender. And in my bits box I have ended up with a total of...I think about five normal female human heads. A couple from the escher kit that had hair that wasn't so wild as to be super distinctive, one sisters of silence head because the box came with optional bits for the sarge, and that's basically it.

none from my guard, none from my tempestus, none from 3 of my necromunda gangs...and yet, amazingly, I've got probably hundreds of different dude heads. so when I went to biuld my Deathwatch army, I had tons of choices for how to make male marines, and almost none for female marines.

Great for people who collect specifically that one army that gets to have women in it that they can convert them from there, but it sure would be nice if there was just women in the kits like there are in basically every age of sigmar army that exists.

I'm 100% for female imperial guard models, because that fits the current canon. To me, the fact that imperial guard is exclusively male is a far bigger problem than space marines, because marines have canonical reasons they are all male, and guard do not.

I would look to have a "Female Guard" version of all the guard kits, as opposed to additional options, as their bodies will be different shaped as well. That, to me, is a far bigger step in the right direction.

On one hand, we have "include women in the army made of normal humans!", and in the other, we have "rewrite the lore of this army for the sole purpose of including token female marines to appease those people claiming it's sexist not to!"

Seriously, if you add female marines but not female guard, you're making the problem worse - it becomes an obvious token offering to appease people instead of an acknowledgement that the models are 95% male, where applicable, in 40k.

Nobody is disagreeing that AM should be getting a better mix of male/female models. What people are saying is that not a single mixed army comes close to the marketing weight and indeed marketability of SM. Even if GW made sure that every single mixed faction got a 100% 50/50 split of male/female models, the range would still be overwhelmingly filled with male models due to SM.


Again, nobody is saying no to female AM models. Have you actually read the thread? The goal of the representation of women in SM armies is to present the flagship faction as a product that isn't targeted to any sex/gender and to try and to reduce or eliminate the people in the hobby who use "but muh lore" to attack people (overwhelmingly women) who do make female SM. People have shown they have no problems with hobbyists making female SM anyway so why are you still arguing against their inclusion in a new set of background?

 some bloke wrote:

 the_scotsman wrote:

 some bloke wrote:
This really is a difficult thread to comment on.

On one hand, there's no reason why there can't be female marines if people want it. An easy headswap from a sisters sprue would do it without anything else needed. But the issue isn't the ability to make it, it's whether it's presented in the Canon.

I mean, MY main issue is the ability to make it.

I don't collect sisters of battle, but I have collected 5 armies that are supposedly, within current canon, mixed-gender. And in my bits box I have ended up with a total of...I think about five normal female human heads. A couple from the escher kit that had hair that wasn't so wild as to be super distinctive, one sisters of silence head because the box came with optional bits for the sarge, and that's basically it.

none from my guard, none from my tempestus, none from 3 of my necromunda gangs...and yet, amazingly, I've got probably hundreds of different dude heads. so when I went to biuld my Deathwatch army, I had tons of choices for how to make male marines, and almost none for female marines.

Great for people who collect specifically that one army that gets to have women in it that they can convert them from there, but it sure would be nice if there was just women in the kits like there are in basically every age of sigmar army that exists.

I'm 100% for female imperial guard models, because that fits the current canon. To me, the fact that imperial guard is exclusively male is a far bigger problem than space marines, because marines have canonical reasons they are all male, and guard do not.

I would look to have a "Female Guard" version of all the guard kits, as opposed to additional options, as their bodies will be different shaped as well. That, to me, is a far bigger step in the right direction.

On one hand, we have "include women in the army made of normal humans!", and in the other, we have "rewrite the lore of this army for the sole purpose of including token female marines to appease those people claiming it's sexist not to!"

Seriously, if you add female marines but not female guard, you're making the problem worse - it becomes an obvious token offering to appease people instead of an acknowledgement that the models are 95% male, where applicable, in 40k.

I mean, they did add female guard heads, just recently with the new sprue which also finally added a few more special weapon options to the guard sprue.

Part of the reason people are getting on this "well, we gonna do space marines now too?" kick is that gw has actually started adding female sculps in to new kits for all those factions that fell under the category of 'we never said they were all male, but they ended up all male just, by accident.

You've got the new wave of GSC, the new guard troop sprue, Orlock and Goliath and Escher and Van Saar necromunda second gang kits that all added in sculpts of the opposite sex (yeah, there is now a male escher, which is rad) and the new BSF chaos cultist stuff all includes female sculpts as well.

I, and I think most people who'd like to see it, acknowledge that in a couple of places in 'the holy canon' it does say only men...our main point is just that it doesn't seem to add any value that they be only men, and in some cases (cough cough chaos warp magic that transforms marines into fething bird men and tentacle demons) makes absolutely negative sense, and the space marine canon has more recently changed far more drastically with the introduction of primaris anyway.

if you actually read the posts from the people arguing for this stuff, nobody is saying that people are being sexist or gakky just for 'not thinking its necessary' to change and make space marines of either sex. They're saying people are being sexist or gakky when they're saying things that are sexist or gakky, like 'mehh but theyve had to change the physical entrance exams in the military because they were difficult for people who otherwise easily met the qualifications to be a fighter jet pilot but couldn't do that many sit-ups and chin-ups' as if that has any bearing, whatsoever, on a setting where prepubescent children are genetically crafted into 8ft tall superheroes. It's also just hilariously ignorant of how the modern military actually works. I swear between the attitudes people have about female soldiers and stuff like providing soldiers with mental healthcare, viagra and elective surgical procedures that people think modern militaries still operate like world war 2 where they bring 10,000 soldiers up through like 2 weeks of boot camp, hand them a helmet a rifle and a backpack and throw them out onto the field.

just being like 'i dont care, I don't think it's necessary' is fine. if they don't, you don't care. If they do, you don't care. Even 'they shouldn't put in extra effort (i.e. make new sprues that they wouldn't otherwise make) to add them' - honestly, that's my stance. If I was gonna add female space marines I'd just do it in the inevitable next primaris wave when tehy do like, the primaris jump pack assault units that dont exist yet.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Also, calling something 'an effort to appease people" like that's a bad thing is a little bit funny, I'm sorry.

Its like everything done by a company that wants to sell things to you isn't exactly an effort to appease people.

The point is that you're looking too small. Your considerations applies only once you're already part of the hobby. That's not an expansive and proactive action.
Someone else (I think the Scotsman) already discussed at length how Guard and Space Marine are entire different categories, so much that some supposed remedy by expanding secondary ranges is an afterthought without real impact (case in point: Sister of Battle haven't expanded the player base towards women. And let's remember that for 20+ years GW literally abandoned the only prevalently female faction).

Potential changes to Space Marine instead applies ALSO to people that are not even in the hobby yet and that are just starting to interact with it (marketing material, poster, videogame and such).


All that said, it will be probably very easy for everyone of us to force GE fixing this problem:
1) go to a GW store with some female version of a model (Anvil Industries does pretty good Mechanicus and also a Sammael female on bike)
2) wait until the staff -as for GW policy - forbid to use such miniatures.
3) made a mention of the fact that GW offers no female model at all for that character/role and ask to be able to play anyway.
4) if the answer is still "no, can't play with that model here" (as I would expect knowing how policies are managed in such companies) publish everything on Reddit.
5) optionally, short some GW stocks. Because, why not?

I think that even GW do not realize how precarious their situation is (by their own hand: no third party policies, underrepresented ranges and a smiling marketing that want to be cool).
They're literally only a shitstorm away from being forced into revamping some ranges with better representation.

The only real way to effect change is to be an investor, whatever that means. GW listens to whoever these investors are and pretty much jumps when they say jump.
I assume it means majority shareholders or board members because as long as you have the cash you can just buy some stock in GW (maybe not now cos it's hella expensive but you get the idea).

For what I know (a few friends invest in GW) it is not really the case...
GW stock are marketed and perceived in the stock market essentially as gold or commodities: safe investment that produces constant revenue, so perfect for safer investors or to mitigate the risk of an otherwise very volatile portfolio.
It's a reputation built during (and even after) Kirby management, very stock-market focused.

It is more of a co-dependent relationship (or a symbiotic one if you prefer to spin it positively)

GW's stock are somehow "set and forget". They have a reputation for NOT being volatile. There are no internal reason for volatility (company is solid, don't have debt, don't have comparable competitors in their market and regularly provide dividend).
If the stocks became volatile due to external reasons and for something as stupid as being not-inclusive that's a real danger.
Reputation are difficult to build, but easy to lose.

I guess the majority of my feelings is that if they just give you different heads for one specific army and they don't add women to armies which don't need a lore change, it's literally going to sound like "we made this army have girls in it so that girls can play the game too".

That, to me, is far more sexist and problematic than saying "they're all men, because the story says so, so that's what they are".

Would people want historic games based on WW1 and WW2 to have mixed frontline soldiers? no, because they weren't - the "story" says so (inverted commas because, you know, it's not a story, it's true)

Would people want sisters of battle to include men? No, because the story says they don't.

Why is it different with space marines?

 some bloke wrote:
I guess the majority of my feelings is that if they just give you different heads for one specific army and they don't add women to armies which don't need a lore change, it's literally going to sound like "we made this army have girls in it so that girls can play the game too".

That, to me, is far more sexist and problematic than saying "they're all men, because the story says so, so that's what they are".

Would people want historic games based on WW1 and WW2 to have mixed frontline soldiers? no, because they weren't - the "story" says so (inverted commas because, you know, it's not a story, it's true)

Would people want sisters of battle to include men? No, because the story says they don't.

Why is it different with space marines?

Space Marines aren't a real thing-so whereas it'd be odd to have women in a WW1 game, because that actually occured and didn't feature women on the front lines, Space Marines have no historical precedent.

And Sisters of Battle are not the faction that's on all the marketing, and in every starter set, and gets the lion's share of releases.

I definitely agree that other factions should have more equal representation-but Space Marines should have that too.

People need to stop bringing up historicals as reasoning. They operate on a completely different axis to SciFi/fantasy.

And once again for the people in the back:
NOBODY IS SAYING "NO", TO FEMALE GUARD/AELDARI/T'AU

The "why no male SoB" argument is completely disingenuous, since the reasoning for the Sororitas being exclusively female (barring priests, flagellants, crusaders, missionaries), is that they exist to skirt around a poorly worded law that was deliberately broken to allow the Ecclesiarchy to have some power and agency in the Imperium. Despite the Sororitas being exclusively female, they still have male models in their range/army due to their role as the Ecclesiarchy's branch of armed forces.
SoB have only been prevalent in marketing in the past year and it took 20 years for their range to get plastic models outside of a Rhino.

SM are male because thus far the Emperor was an egotist who wasn't good enough at gene science that he could make both sexes into SM. The Imperium is not a patriarchal empire and women can hold numerous instances of high office, except in one place, the Adeptus Astartes.
SM have got more plastic kits in the last 20 years than half the game put together.

 the_scotsman wrote:
(yeah, there is now a male escher, which is rad)

That seems to have passed me by - got a link?

 some bloke wrote:
I guess the majority of my feelings is that if they just give you different heads for one specific army and they don't add women to armies which don't need a lore change, it's literally going to sound like "we made this army have girls in it so that girls can play the game too".

That, to me, is far more sexist and problematic than saying "they're all men, because the story says so, so that's what they are".

Would people want historic games based on WW1 and WW2 to have mixed frontline soldiers? no, because they weren't - the "story" says so (inverted commas because, you know, it's not a story, it's true)

Would people want sisters of battle to include men? No, because the story says they don't.

Why is it different with space marines?

I guess what I'm not understanding is the inherent value of something remaining the way it is.

The jetbike that Sammael had was the only imperial jetbike in existence, by the lore. He found the very last one, that was the lore of him.

That ceased to be the case the second GW added a new model for an imperial jetbike, used by the custodes, because they looked cool as feth, and had cool lances and allowed the custodes to have a unit that wasn't just 'a space marine thing, but with golden armor and slightly bigger'.

The value of lore that limits what you are allowed to do and make within the game is, in my opinion, the least valuable type of lore detail that exists. And almost all of the time, it's just an arbitrary restriction that exists to reflect the way the model range looks, and preclude third party miniiature makers from making a thing. "Chaos space marines don't use loyalist equipment because it breaks down in the warp" really? five minutes after a chapter of space marines goes renegade, their Hunter and Stalker and Razorback tanks all break down, crumbling into dust and blowing away in the breeze like Thanos snapped them, but their Vindicators and Predators and Rhinos are all fine? all their centurions instantly say 'mr. chaos lord, i dont feel so good...' There's no additive value to any of it. it's just silly IP puppyguarding.

I view space marines being all male as the same thing. And yes, it's not a gotcha, sisters of battle being all female as the same thing. But sisters of battle being women does actually serve as a defining attribute of the army. So change the lore to make them exactly the same as the eldar aspects - any aspirant can be called by the Emperor to become a member of the Adepta Sororitas, where they don the blessed armor and wield the blessed weapons and fight as one of the emperor's favored daughters. The grim darkness of the 41st millennium with its servitors and arco-flagellants and servo-skulls and servo-cherubs and techpriests does not appear to be a place where minor details of one's anatomy are considered to be particularly sacrosanct or even set in stone. Besides, an individual born less...naturally disposed towards serving in the role of one of the emperor's blessed daughters comes with but one more ready-made sacrifice by which to prove their unwavering devotion.

beast_gts wrote:

 the_scotsman wrote:
(yeah, there is now a male escher, which is rad)

That seems to have passed me by - got a link?

 Gert wrote:
People need to stop bringing up historicals as reasoning. They operate on a completely different axis to SciFi/fantasy.

And once again for the people in the back:
NOBODY IS SAYING "NO", TO FEMALE GUARD/AELDARI/T'AU

The "why no male SoB" argument is completely disingenuous, since the reasoning for the Sororitas being exclusively female (barring priests, flagellants, crusaders, missionaries), is that they exist to skirt around a poorly worded law that was deliberately broken to allow the Ecclesiarchy to have some power and agency in the Imperium. Despite the Sororitas being exclusively female, they still have male models in their range/army due to their role as the Ecclesiarchy's branch of armed forces.
SoB have only been prevalent in marketing in the past year and it took 20 years for their range to get plastic models outside of a Rhino.

SM are male because thus far the Emperor was an egotist who wasn't good enough at gene science that he could make both sexes into SM. The Imperium is not a patriarchal empire and women can hold numerous instances of high office, except in one place, the Adeptus Astartes.
SM have got more plastic kits in the last 20 years than half the game put together.

I'll admit I'm playing devils advocate here to a large extent - I don't feel strongly for or against female SM. But:

Sisters are only women because >insert lore here<.
Space Marines are only male because >insert lore here<.

The exact extent of that lore is irrelevant. We agree that a small change to the lore is all it takes for >insert lore here< to be come >insert new lore here<.

It's also worth considering an alternative reason for SM to be male - there was no need to put in the work to create female ones.

Let's say you make a super-soldier-serum, and it takes 1000 years (for all I know, I don't know the SM lore off by heart) to perfect it. When used, it turns males into huge super soldiers, and it kills women.

Why, in a galaxy rife with overpopulation and beset by enemies, would they spend more time and resources making this serum, which already makes perfectly functional super soldiers, so that it can also make perfectly functional super soldiers with slightly different facial features?

Furthermore, it's probably an aspect of Jurassic Park in here. If you created a race of human who were genetically and physically superior to humans in every way, you would not want to make both genders of this race, which if it shook off the shackles of human control and started populating its own worlds, would probably wipe out humanity. The reason they made all the dinosaurs in Jurassic Park female is probably one of the reasons for making super soldiers all one gender.


As for people saying "it's the flagship of the game, so it needs to include everyone" - This is a weird way to think. Because space marines are popular, let's change them to be more inclusive, but not do so on the less popular races? Regardless of whether people are against it (which I acknowledge that they aren't), this thread singles out space marines, specifically, because they are popular.

The problem is, you're going to get to a point where the game and its stories are sacrificed for the sake of appeasing the outspoken, despite all the thousands (or even millions) of people quietly enjoying the game and not giving a rats arse that the marines are all male, including women who don't feel that just because the models are all men they aren't allowed to play.

At risk of sounding like some crazy extreme type, the fact stands that a lot of outspoken people (as in, the ones who enjoy shouting about how offended they are and not the ones who actually are getting offended by it - the shouters, not the victims) are not happy unless they have something to shout about being offended by. They feel that being offended gives them power over the person who they consider offensive.

Women can be space marines - no problem there.
Then Women can be heroes - again, no problem there.
Then women can be Primarchs - well, we already have them, but if you really need a female one we can add a lost one...
Then "half of the Primarchs must be women or it's not equal" - seriously, the world doesn't work like that...
Then "There should be an Empress as well as an emperor", and this is where all those years of carefully crafted lore crumbles into a politically-correct grey powder.

I know this sounds extreme, and it's not a call to not include female space marines. The concern is whether this is actually an issue that is affecting people, or if it is an issue which people are choosing to shout about so that they can feel powerful.

I honestly thing an army of female marines would be very cool to see. But the reason for doing it has to be to add to the game, not to appease the outspoken shouters of the internet age.

....I would propose you undertake a little experiment. Dig a little bit online and find a picture of a basic converted female space marine headswap that's not painted to any kind of 'museum quality paintjob' or conversion or whatever, and post it up online somewhere like I guess reddit with a neutral title like "painted a marine."

Then, do the same thing, but grab a quick picture of a unit of space marines where every marine is male. Just like, 10 intercessors or something. Post it up to the same place, with a neutral title like 'painted some marines.'

My guess is, given my own experience with posting pictures of my deathwatch, which have names and include some helmeted models with names like "Sister Artemis - Huntresses" alongside "Brother Invictus - Sons of Ultramar" that a small minority of people are going to come along, and exercise a degree of power by being offended and sending you anonymous hate over the internet.

I would hypothesize, just again, based on experience, that you would get absolutely zero of that minority of people getting offended and sending you anonymous hate for not including any women in your squad of all-male space marines, and you could get 100% of that minority sending you anonymous hate because of the post you put up of a space marine who happened to have a female head, or in my case, name.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Your hypothetical, of 'outspoken offended people that exist on the internet' is obviously and self-evidently true for the world as a whole, but in my own experience the people most eager to insert their 'outside world culture war vindictiveness' within the 40k community are the exact opposite of the 'social justice warrior' stereotype.

I've posted up most of my deathwatch to reddit, at this point, and of the squads/kill team specialists I put up, the only responses positive or negative I got that you could consider 'political' are ones from more of a right wing reactionary perspective, and reddit is not exactly known to be a bastion for that broad political side.

I got a couple comments on 'cool custom chapter' or 'cool paintjob' or 'cool how theyre all named' on every post, but a ton of positive comments on the post that included Brother Jethro of the 2nd Amendment Chapter (a little joke because at least at the time, you could not in any way by the rules take away the completely useless bolt pistol from a Deathwatch Intercessor model, and he had to pay an additional 2 points for it, so I gave him with a good old boy looking Orlock head, an american flag shoulder, and modeled him holding and firing his bolt rifle and pistol akimbo) and a ton of 'heresy' and 'that's the one inquisitor' and similar jokes on any post that included the models named 'sister' instead of 'brother' as well as a couple of anonymous hate messages through PMs with each post.

SM are constantly shown as a dying breed, the "last line of defence that wears thin". If someone like Cawl found a way to stop this why would they not implement it? They already did with Primaris.


SM are easier to control than animals. Also, it's a pretty consistent thing that they don't have the capability to reproduce and SM don't use frog DNA so they can't just evolve into the opposite sex.


Show me where anyone said the other factions that have mixed armed forces shouldn't get better representation. Oh yeah, you can't because nobody said that.


Lmao, that's literally never happened before. Did Marvel, DC, Star Wars, or Star Trek lose their entire fanbase because they added more women/LBGT+/non-white characters? No, they didn't. How do you know said "silent majority" won't react positively to female SM? It gives them more modeling options, stories to tell, and a chance to introduce female partners/friends/family to the hobby without relegating them to religious fanatics or BDSM space elves.


If it's extreme and not part of the discussion why make the point? "Slippery Slope" is the dumbest and most worthless argument ever made because it never takes into account anything but hyperbole.
As for the issue of misogyny/sexism/harassment and threat towards women hobbyists, yes this is absolutely a real issue that shouldn't have to be explained every 3 days because someone didn't actually read the thread.


First off 40k isn't just a game, it's a hobby with multiple facets. Someone can be into 40k and never touch a mini or play the game. The reason is to make the hobby more accessible and indeed safe to women hobbyists. How is that not adding to the hobby?

 the_scotsman wrote:
....I would propose you undertake a little experiment. Dig a little bit online and find a picture of a basic converted female space marine headswap that's not painted to any kind of 'museum quality paintjob' or conversion or whatever, and post it up online somewhere like I guess reddit with a neutral title like "painted a marine."

Then, do the same thing, but grab a quick picture of a unit of space marines where every marine is male. Just like, 10 intercessors or something. Post it up to the same place, with a neutral title like 'painted some marines.'

My guess is, given my own experience with posting pictures of my deathwatch, which have names and include some helmeted models with names like "Sister Artemis - Huntresses" alongside "Brother Invictus - Sons of Ultramar" that a small minority of people are going to come along, and exercise a degree of power by being offended and sending you anonymous hate over the internet.

I would hypothesize, just again, based on experience, that you would get absolutely zero of that minority of people getting offended and sending you anonymous hate for not including any women in your squad of all-male space marines, and you could get 100% of that minority sending you anonymous hate because of the post you put up of a space marine who happened to have a female head, or in my case, name.

I mean that's hardly a sample size that's conclusive and indicative of the instant persecution you seem to imply posting pics of female marines would bring.

Doing just a cursory search I could find one relatively recent Reddit post of female Primaris and there's little to no negative response to it.

https://www.reddit.com/r/40k/comments/ggni37/a_little_showcase_of_my_growing_army_of_female/

 the_scotsman wrote:

beast_gts wrote:

 the_scotsman wrote:
(yeah, there is now a male escher, which is rad)

That seems to have passed me by - got a link?

That's an Escher Matriarch. Not a male. Looks quite masculine from the front, but looks more feminine from different angles. Still a butch "lady".

 Grimskul wrote:

 the_scotsman wrote:
....I would propose you undertake a little experiment. Dig a little bit online and find a picture of a basic converted female space marine headswap that's not painted to any kind of 'museum quality paintjob' or conversion or whatever, and post it up online somewhere like I guess reddit with a neutral title like "painted a marine."

Then, do the same thing, but grab a quick picture of a unit of space marines where every marine is male. Just like, 10 intercessors or something. Post it up to the same place, with a neutral title like 'painted some marines.'

My guess is, given my own experience with posting pictures of my deathwatch, which have names and include some helmeted models with names like "Sister Artemis - Huntresses" alongside "Brother Invictus - Sons of Ultramar" that a small minority of people are going to come along, and exercise a degree of power by being offended and sending you anonymous hate over the internet.

I would hypothesize, just again, based on experience, that you would get absolutely zero of that minority of people getting offended and sending you anonymous hate for not including any women in your squad of all-male space marines, and you could get 100% of that minority sending you anonymous hate because of the post you put up of a space marine who happened to have a female head, or in my case, name.

I mean that's hardly a sample size that's conclusive and indicative of the instant persecution you seem to imply posting pics of female marines would bring.

Doing just a cursory search I could find one relatively recent Reddit post of female Primaris and there's little to no negative response to it.

https://www.reddit.com/r/40k/comments/ggni37/a_little_showcase_of_my_growing_army_of_female/

Just from the comments (don't see this person's PMs, which was where I got the "kill yourself t****y" "slit your wrists" "F*** like you have no place here" comments)

"Actually, within the fluff, yes there is a reason. I mean, if you want to make female Marines, hey, more power to you, but yes, there is a reason they can’t go through the process."

"While i'm all for the female space marines. Unless some of the original 18 primarchs were female all space marines are men.

What i'm saying is create your own 2nd/eleventh primarch who's female."

"But is it not that a problem that a woman have a smaller brain than a man?"

Some Bloke's post was talking about a small minority of people who exercise power in a community by acting offended at something. What I have never seen, is that, when someone posts up pics of all-male space marines.

What you do see - like in this post - is a small minority of people exercising power in a community by acting offended at the existence of someone else's models being female whenever that gets posted up. And my own experience is that that offense is pretty minor on the actual comments of the actual post, and then you get several much nastier hate PMs from sock puppets afterwards.