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Doc, as a french citizen, and some of my friends being upset and standing on one side or another, I think it boils down to this:

We are constantly bombarded in our everyday life with subject about LGBT, women represention, racism, etc... In our context, wherever you look, in whatever circumstances, someone is going to spit you this subjects in the face. Most of us who are not into journalism or the administration are actually at such a point of fed up that the mere mentions of these topics spark almost epidermic reaction of "I've had enough".

While it may be totally unrelated, I feel that given the current context, this particular retcon may be too easily linked with what daily life debates you are hammered at. That the crons come from soulless to somewhat sentient, shadow sun from nobody to puretide.protege, even that the galaxy should be torn in half and Abaddon gone from ridiculous to genius all of a sudden - all of those things are only concerning the lore and hobby in and of itself.

Now, that one comes at a very bad time and has drifted from a lore question to a political one, about a let's.say "societal topic" and the question of how much these topics should or could encroach into the hobby that, probably, was a place of evasion and relief from everyday life not so easy things. With supporters on both sides.

I can't say if the situation is the same out there for you Anglo Saxon folks, but from what I see in my own context, this one retcon carries too much undertone to not create unnerved arguments.

The rage economy of social media doesn't help either deflate it, and so we end up with what should be a nerdy discussion about toy soldiers becoming an all out political question...

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Fun thing in that post?

The Imperium….isnt misogynistic. Nor is it inwardly racist. Yes most if not all planets have a pretty feudal class system. But that’s not presented as being say, based on how light or dark you are, or what you’re packing in your pantaloons, or who you prefer to cop off with

the Imperium is large, like planets forget the Imperium exists because they are not visited by anyone for several 1000 years (and there can happen a lot on a planet in 2000 years)

so whatever the Imperium is, are the central structures implemented and hardly changed over time
of course there is no "internal" racism, because people one don't like the appearance, skin colour or whatever, you are influenced by chaos and must be removed
that Marine recruits are all male and SoS all female is "tradition" while that the Army takes everyone being more about that regular humans are not worth anything rather than a sign of equality

being traditionalists with gender separation is part of the wider fascist theme

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
I’m still awaiting explanations as to why, of all retcons great and small over the past 37 years of the game and background’s existence, this (which is relatively minor) is the step to far.

Because if some ragebaiter on youtube shouts 'woke pandering' it has wide market appeal.

If they shout 'sudden primaris!'... not so much.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:

Sgt. Cortez wrote:

 A Town Called Malus wrote:

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
And nobody seemed to be upset by that one.

I’m guessing you’re just adding to the general list of ‘stuff that got changed and nobody cared’ though

Yep, just adding to the list

In 6th edition we learned that ackshully all Black Crusades were at least partially successful. I guess if Fabulous Bill had also created female CSM that would have brought more debate than the far more impactful change of "Failbaddon" not actually failing .

That one I actually liked. In one stroke, it added to Abaddon’s ability to see the wider picture, and The Imperium’s inability to do so.


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It’s akin to the Eldar and Necron outlook.

Eldar have foresight to see a given action *right now* bear fruit at some point.

Necrons? Are functionally immortal and, for Lords and above? Pretty much invincible. And so they can draw up plans that are intended to play out across millennia. A span of time so colossal even the Eldar would struggle to see what every apparent failure was building toward.

Yeah, as a Chaos player I liked that, too. Made the whole faction more relevant and not just a punching bag. Overall retcons aren't inherently bad. If GW said one day: Oh, btw., there aren't just 1000Marines per chapter, it's actually 1 million. And you have to add 3 zeroes to every account of Space Marines and Chaos Space Marines from HH to M42 I'd be like: Well, finally that most stupid part of 40K lore is done away with.

 kodos wrote:
just because Games Workshop calls their marketing channels "Warhammer-Community" does not mean those are community channels, these are the official GW channels and whatever those write/post/say is official content

This started because people posted the passage from the Codex on various social media outlets, so no it wasn't from "official channels" at all. GW put a tweet up about pre-orders and by that point, the right-wing reactionaries had already been drawn in thanks to the clickbait "news" channels and they dog piled onto a tweet about pre-orders to demand GWs explanation.
It took less than a day from the pre-order tweet for this to turn into a huge conspiracy because right-wing reactionaries spent 24 hours finding every possible reason they could to blame this on "woke globalists" who are trying to kill "true Warhammer fans".
Take a seat and try again.

The starting point was that Warhammer-Community posted the "there have always been female Custodes" answer
Before that there was not much going on about that outside the usual talking

Which is clarifying we’re not to expect a development in the lore (ala Primaris), but that it’s now, in-universe, always been an equal opportunity force.

I still don’t get why “you mean some of my models might now have boobies” is so upsetting.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Which is clarifying we’re not to expect a development in the lore (ala Primaris), but that it’s now, in-universe, always been an equal opportunity force.

I still don’t get why “you mean some of my models might now have boobies” is so upsetting.

It's because you haven't based your entire societal outlook on women being inferior to men. The reactionaries driving this are the kinds of people who would pay money to watch Lady Ballers and try to argue it is actually funny.

 kodos wrote:
The starting point was that Warhammer-Community posted the "there have always been female Custodes" answer
Before that there was not much going on about that outside the usual talking

Dude that's complete BS. The posts on Reddit and Twitter were up long before GW posted the tweet about pre-orders and the discussion/rage had already started. That tweet added to it but the first reply on the day for the tweet about pre-orders was from someone demanding to know why there were now female Custodes.
You are objectively wrong in saying this was caused by the reply to a reply to a tweet about pre-orders. It was already happening, then what happened is the same as it ever is when people who are outside the normal circle pick it up from their bigot friends in the circle.
Also, the idea that Warhammer fans can't be bigots is absolutely tripe as well because they out themselves every single time something like this happens. Black Space Marine on a novel cover. Outs the bigots. Non-binary Mechanicus character. Outs the bigots. Female guard models. Outs the bigots. "Warhammer is for everyone" statement. Outs more bigots than in any other event.

Its probably a bigger retcon that Custodes wear armour rather than just oil

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:

 Manfred von Drakken wrote:

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Yet why it’s such an alleged controversy? I need the detractors to provide clarity on it. Because so far, I’m afraid it’s kind of feeling like they don’t actually know why they don’t like it.

They won't be able to answer without admitting they're afraid big, strong women.

"But... Sisterz!"

But they're still just average humans, aren't they? Guardswomen, Eldar of all stripes, T'au... none of them really fit the 'big and strong' archetype, do they? Getting shot by a girl is one, but getting punched into the dirt by one is whole other issue.

Again, I don’t want to put words in the mouth of others, or make such assumptions.

That nobody who claims to be upset by this retcon has answered is however perhaps telling.

ok, i'll try to tackle this. i'm logicly minded and so will attempt to use logic to present my argument

the issue is, why are castodes now including females when they already have female squads called sisters of silence, which in my opinion, is in the same army, but filling a different role.

for augment sake, why did the emperor only make male astartes, if he could already successfully make female custodes first? i don't see the logic. i have nothing against retcons, but i feel fundamentally changing what makes armies like custodes unique disrespects the lore, the fans, and the emperor, for now they are just Stormcast Eternals in space. (hyperbole)

in my head canon, and i acknowledge that its only in my head, the emperor would want the best for of the best in terms of raw strength to protect himself, and in his misogynist views, thought that women could never compete with men. no matter how powerful he could enhance a woman, a man would still be better when equal enhancements are applied. but maybe he isn't a misogamist, for there is a role for women among his bodyguards. can someone explain to me why the emperor's pariahs are only female if there are also male pariah in the galaxy?

in conclusion, i see warhammer 40000 to be a cautionary tale that we as a society should never emulate, like for example books like 1984 and the handmaid's tale. and the more people try to mainstream this lore, the more it loses that cautionary aspect that is warhammer 40000. to clarify, my view only applies to the lore and the fiction, as for plastic models, i don't care. do with what's yours as you please

i think (and hope) i've successfully got my point across without myself sounding like a misogynist

Because the Sisters of Silence are not custodes. They are blanks, custodes are not.

then lets call the custodes and sisters of silence the Talons of the Emperor. i see they are both featured in the same box set

I for one would have preferred more Sisters of Silence support than for Custodes to suddenly have women in their ranks and get yet another update, even though they are supposed to get their recruits from noble sons.
For such an important order of warriors they don't seem to receive as much love as the oiled banana boys.

On the various post-human weirdos.

Astartes were a bodge job, and by no means the intended outcome of the Primarch Project. With the abduction of the Primarchs, it’s clear the original plan went out the window. We’ll never know if there was originally an intention to adapt the process so it could be performed on either sex. But as I mentioned, they were a bodge job in the end. Cawl’s work is refinining, not reinventing that process.

Sisters of Silence we just don’t know a whole lot about. We know they’re all-female. But nobody seems to have written why. However, given Blanks are stupendously rare, any fighting force comprised entirely of blanks is highly suspicious as it is, without adding in all one sex thing. I suspect, but of course cannot prove, the Sisters of Silence come about through some form of Cloning, or similar tech. And because that organisation holds that tech, there’s nothing and no-one to challenge their recruitment/manufacturing preferences, even if it is just a tradition and not, like with Astartes, an integral requirement.

Primarchs were made from the ground up. Utterly unique, and peerless. Again, thanks to the abduction we don’t know if there were plans to create further Primarchs. All we know is when it happened, The Emperor couldn’t simply start again (if memory serves, some of the necessary tech wizardry was purposefully destroyed?). Had it not happened, it’s entirely possible a hypothetical second batch could’ve been made female. But, as partial clones of The Emperor, starting with males was probably the easier route.

Custodes? Well….we again don’t know a whole lot about the process, other than unlike the mass produced Astartes, it’s a tailored upgrade, and clearly comes to a better overall result. Whether that’s because the tailoring ensures peak efficiency in every convert, or because whatever it is that gets stuffed in is just Better? Who knows. Not us. No bugger has ever written about it in-depth. But seemingly, whatever is done doesn’t depend upon the sex of the candidate. And that may very well be down to the confirmed tailoring,

This leads to an interesting hypothesis that, with sufficient skill and effort, a female candidate could become an Astartes. But when compared to “pick the best, stuff it all in, hope they don’t explode” current technique provides the recruits Astartes Chapters need….why bother with the extra work, especially if the net result of said tailoring is…..just an Astartes, that happens to have female reproductive organs. As in, a poo load of extra effort and risk (get it wrong, and you’ve wasted time, geneseed and a candidate) for absolutely no additional gain.

shadowsfm wrote:
the issue is, why are castodes now including females when they already have female squads called sisters of silence, which in my opinion, is in the same army, but filling a different role.

Sisters of Silence ARE NOT Custodes.

for augment sake, why did the emperor only make male astartes, if he could already successfully make female custodes first? i don't see the logic. i have nothing against retcons, but i feel fundamentally changing what makes armies like custodes unique disrespects the lore, the fans, and the emperor, for now they are just Stormcast Eternals in space. (hyperbole)

How does being all-male make Custodes unique, when all-male Marines are a thing?

in my head canon,

You can just stop right there, since you admit it's literally just in your head.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
I’m still awaiting explanations as to why, of all retcons great and small over the past 37 years of the game and background’s existence, this (which is relatively minor) is the step to far.

It hasn’t fundamentally changed what the Custodes are, or what they do.

Why has this caused the sky to fall for some?

AntiWoke has become a "thing on the internet" in the last few years.

Heck head over to steam forums and a good many channels there now have "is this game woke" as actual legitimate threads started by people on all manner of games. Some are caught up in it all whilst others are openly pushing "antiwoke" as an agenda. They'll also typically post "pro woke" comments too under other accounts just to keep stirring the pot.

Throw in a few who do it purely to troll because they are bored and you've got yourself a whole internet "FAD".


So for some this is just another "woke thing" which they will ride. Youtubers and content creators will made content for it because woke is a hot term and because any drama feeds the algorithm.Though at least that group will mostly quieten down once more AoS preview stuff comes out and the marketing for that gets serious.




So a not insignificant part of this is sadly those from "outside" the hobby looking to make drama. You can oft notice this because smaller hobby groups (that don't get targeted) and fan clubs and such are almost silent on this subject. Groups that might get a flurry of "Oh cook thing is happening" are silent on this topic or not really paying much attention.

What a load of absolute tripe. Official Channels? Are you actually joking? There are no "official channels", any channel that produces "news" content is in it for the money and to get the money they need clicks. Rage generates clicks.
You type in Warhammer on YT and go to the most viewed videos for the last week and it takes seven videos to reach something that isn't a continuation of this nonsense.

This is why I appreciated Bricky's vid- he came off as "Well, gotta do this" and said he piece while addressing the fact other on YT would run with it for drama and clicks. Glad Ad Ric is not making a 'stodes episode and continuing to do 1k Sons.

kodos wrote:But in times of crisis and change people search for stability and if someone finds this in a hobby because they were told this is a stable for decades now and become fanatics, a small official change is enough to break it

And it just so happens that the change happens to be "women can be Custodes"?
I'm sorry, but I just don't buy it.

If there's been some sort of mass influx of people who were sold on "40k has 30+ years of established lore", unless they'd literally joined up only a month or so prior, they would almost CERTAINLY have seen previous retcons and other additions. And, more importantly, those who are REALLY getting in a twist about it, the ones who are pulling all these sources out to say "nuh uh, in this book it says XYZ", are clearly dedicated enough about 40k's lore to know that *there's already been plenty of retcons*.

I really don't buy into this idea that there's legions of very new fans who don't know anything about the retconned past of 40k, but *do* know obscure bits of lore from old codexes and books since before they were playing, and it's nothing to do with the fact it's a woman which has got them posting screenshots of the old codex.

Like the Necron change was not a retcon because it was never officially confirmed to be one but just unreliable imperial narrator in the previous books

Necrons literally lost whole units - Pariahs, for example. C'tan lore changed drastically as well.

But, sure, we could call that an unreliable narrator. What's to say that the Custodes situation isn't as well - after all, they are a secretive organisation.

But the initial unrest was not done by bigots but fans following the official channels

I think it's a little naive to assume that they can't be both. Bigoted fans of 40k, unfortunately, exist.

Maréchal des Logis Walter wrote:We are constantly bombarded in our everyday life with subject about LGBT, women represention, racism, etc... In our context, wherever you look, in whatever circumstances, someone is going to spit you this subjects in the face. Most of us who are not into journalism or the administration are actually at such a point of fed up that the mere mentions of these topics spark almost epidermic reaction of "I've had enough".

I, as an LGBT person, have also had enough.

I've also had enough of being marginalised, or that simply existing visibly is "spitting the subject" in someone's face. Me existing isn't bombarding. Women, people of colour, gays, lesbians, asexuals, pansexuals, non-binaries, agenders, transgenders, etc - isn't bombarding you. We simply exist. But when we exist in fictional worlds, worlds that in the past *did not fairly reflect that we even existed*, people claim that it's "bombarding" them, or "spitting the subject" in their face.

And unfortunately, we can't even exist in forms of media without being called "political" for doing so.

So yes, I've also had enough. We've had enough.

kodos wrote:The starting point was that Warhammer-Community posted the "there have always been female Custodes" answer
Before that there was not much going on about that outside the usual talking

I'm sorry, but that's also incorrect. Twitter, Reddit, and other boards were already reporting and ablaze with "debate" about this before GW's response.

In short, I don't think that it's fair to blame this on GW's "there have always been women Custodes" - and, as both I and Mad Doc have repeatedly asked: to those people who *were* bothered by that, what should GW have written instead?

shadowsfm wrote:the issue is, why are castodes now including females when they already have female squads called sisters of silence, which in my opinion, is in the same army, but filling a different role.

Your opinion is not supported by fact.

Factually, the two groups are distinct and separate. Custodes are genetically enhanced bodyguards, confidants of the Emperor, massively powerful in combat, and some are almost on the same tier as Primarchs. Sisters of Silence are (IIRC) not genetically enhanced, wear very different armour and carry very different weapons, are all psychic Blanks, which is the main focus of their role as anti-psychic defence - not single combat bodyguards and confidants like the Custodes are.

Hell, just look at their stats in game!

for augment sake, why did the emperor only make male astartes, if he could already successfully make female custodes first?

Huh?? The Custodes were a massive time and resource sink - it was far cheaper and simpler to make Astartes (and even then, they were technically incomplete without the Sangprimus Portum). Being able to make women Custodes wouldn't change that making Custodes in general was massively costly.

in conclusion, i see warhammer 40000 to be a cautionary tale that we as a society should never emulate

Agreed. But the Imperium having women soldiers doesn't suddenly turn them into the good guys. The Imperium being uncaring about sex, gender, sexuality, ethnicity, etc *doesn't make them good*.

Or, to put it another way, I support women's rights, and also women's wrongs.

 Overread wrote:
Heck head over to steam forums and a good many channels there now have "is this game woke" as actual legitimate threads started by people on all manner of games.

These are not legitimate threads, they are astroturf reactionary bait. Scratch the surface presentation and see; it's social landscaping for the hard of thinking.


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 Sgt_Smudge wrote:
...we can't even exist in forms of media without being called "political" for doing so.

So yes, I've also had enough. We've had enough.

Solidarity. The best thing about the faux-outrage is that we can see it happen, and thus the bigot audience shrinks every time.

 Sgt_Smudge wrote:
In short, I don't think that it's fair to blame this on GW's "there have always been women Custodes" - and, as both I and Mad Doc have repeatedly asked: to those people who *were* bothered by that, what should GW have written instead?

as I said several times, I don't know I just can guess
and I doubt that we will get an answer here
for GW, well htex have not really acted on political problems in the past to avoid of making anyone angry and may lose in sales, so certain groups felt home and see 40k unironically as utopia, while at the same time there is a large "GW never does anything wrong" groups around and niche groups found a welcome home in the mini-painting space online
and when you have nazis, white knights and LGBTQ+ in the same group it does not take much for it to explode

and given that I was correct and the gak did not start boiling with GWs response but already before that, I honestly blame GW for just giving a gakky response that added dynamite to the fire instead of giving a proper response (like: we decided to make a change for the better, this is the new fluff because reasons")

I really don't buy into this idea that there's legions of very new fans who don't know anything about the retconned past of 40k, but *do* know obscure bits of lore from old codexes and books since before they were playing, and it's nothing to do with the fact it's a woman which has got them posting screenshots of the old codex.

they don't need to know, they just need to open a 40k wiki and copy&paste whatever fits their argument

not saying that all of them are, specially as soon as news sites coming up with "first woman in 40k, fans go crazy" this was all about (US) politics and not about 40k any more, from both sites

and as both sites are now political I don't really care or support any of that, because 40k is the wrong universe to debate those things

Regarding retcons - I am an RT veteran who is well aware of GW’s retconning stuff. I still get annoyed when GW do it.

 kodos wrote:
...when you have nazis, white knights and LGBTQ+ in the same group it does not take much for it to explode

Any group that contains nazis should get rid of the nazis, right?

to be fair most of the retcons are not retcons and are just expanding the lore or focussing in on it, things like Newcrons are a Retcon, Tau are not.

Large scale changes like Newcrons are rare, for the most part it has been remarkably consistent since 3rd editon with rogue trader essentially being its own prototype universe.

This custodes thing is a "slight" retcon in the grand scale of things.

as for the political stuff, nah not buying it, the people that have a core tenet that "everything is political" do not get to claim others are politicising their "struggle" or whatever, you did that yourself and others reacted, its why you call them "reactionaries" after all.

As this thread is just mirroring the other one (https://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/0/813538.page) it is now done. Please continue the polite and civil discourse there. If you cannot do that expect to be ejected rapidly.