Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

 Lathe Biosas wrote:
Without burning down the company as if Heath Ledger's Joker was at the helm, there is an easier female Space Marine Retcon, that people would accept.

Remember the two space marine legions struck from the history books?

Make one of them have a female primarch and dump them in the Pacificus region where not much happens.

Now you can come up with a nifty reason for her return and maybe have a new faction of the Imperium, maybe a new civil war to further break down the Imperium.

There are countless, but fun, and not universe destroying ideas that could be unleashed.

Why would the introduction or retconning in of female Marines burn the company down?

Because the flames that erupted after one Custodes female was introduced, make me fear the backlash of thousands of basement dwellers whose cry of terror would rival those of Alderaan when the Death Star came to town.

 Lathe Biosas wrote:
Because the flames that erupted after one Custodes female was introduced, make me fear the backlash of thousands of basement dwellers whose cry of terror would rival those of Alderaan when the Death Star came to town.

I don't much mind if people who are afraid of women's cooties decide not to play.

 Lathe Biosas wrote:
Without burning down the company as if Heath Ledger's Joker was at the helm, there is an easier female Space Marine Retcon, that people would accept.

Remember the two space marine legions struck from the history books?

Make one of them have a female primarch and dump them in the Pacificus region where not much happens.

Now you can come up with a nifty reason for her return and maybe have a new faction of the Imperium, maybe a new civil war to further break down the Imperium.

There are countless, but fun, and not universe destroying ideas that could be unleashed.

Yeah, no, the people who raged about the women in custodes wouldn't accept that either.

The irony is that genetically its easier to make the organs usable by all humans than try to chemically restrict them to only one (I assume) chromosome.

Human organs are cross sex transplanted now, there's nothing intrinsic to their makeup that make them incompatable from a sex/hormone/gene perspective.


The emperor hated girl cooties and spent 50% of his actual development time trying to build chemical locks on his organs so they didn't (somehow) work inside humans that, again I assume, lack a Y chromosome - and the SRY gene that is 90% of what makes things genetically male - which can actually transpose onto other chromosomes during division so you can have XX people with the 'male' SRY gene anyway...

So all Cawl had to do, was put gene regulators into the organs that suppress these weirdly specific anti non-Y chromsome gene codes...


You have to twist the genetics in crazy loops to make organ transplant compatibility reliant on sex determining genes. All humans generate varying levels of androgens and gynogens(?), testosterone is an integral hormone in the menstrual cycle (peaking at ovulation) so it's a real cirque de soliel of 40k apologising to come out claiming with a straight face that the space marine organs just can't work in women.

Modern organ transplants require only a few things to determine compatibility:

HLA match - determine how many of the 6 key antigens that interfere with organ transplants you have

Blood Type - must have compatible blood type (doesn't have to match, there's a matrix)

Crossmatch - they mix both people's blood together to see if they Fight! Pretty crude but it's effective.


At no point do they need to check for pe pe

This is probs skewing too far off topic, but as someone who encourages diversity and representation and cheered femstodes and fembretonnian knights and femcast eternals, etc im also ok with astartes staying male (though id welcome transtartes - anyone can be a space marine, but the geneseed makes you male-ish as you surrender your humanity anyway in the process), for the same reason that im ok with sisters of battle staying female. If you have a lore based reason for it, then that artistic choice is valid. I dont necessarily need to like it or agree with it to respect it.

chaos0xomega wrote:
This is probs skewing too far off topic, but as someone who encourages diversity and representation and cheered femstodes and fembretonnian knights and femcast eternals, etc im also ok with astartes staying male (though id welcome transtartes - anyone can be a space marine, but the geneseed makes you male-ish as you surrender your humanity anyway in the process), for the same reason that im ok with sisters of battle staying female. If you have a lore based reason for it, then that artistic choice is valid. I dont necessarily need to like it or agree with it to respect it.

I have more respect for the lore restriction on sisters than marines. one is a cultural/political choice that can be revoked at any time, the other is pseudo biology that's so obviously designed to be exclusionary and *shrugs* what can we do when it's the genes that say no? The marine one abrogates creator responsibility by erroneously laying it on nature.

Move the rules to an online format. Codexes would still exist but only as premium lore and art books. Great to have but not needed to play.

Also greatly increase the amount of lore and art in codexes while at it.

 Lathe Biosas wrote:

Make one of them have a female primarch and dump them in the Pacificus region where not much happens.

Now you can come up with a nifty reason for her return and maybe have a new faction of the Imperium, maybe a new civil war to further break down the Imperium.

There are countless, but fun, and not universe destroying ideas that could be unleashed.

Any solution that involves fleshing out the Lost Legions is not a good solution, sorry. That's one mystery that GW really need to leave alone... but whatever else happens, they're not going to magically reappear from anywhere. That's one thing the Horus Heresy did make clear.

And 'female marines, because female primarch' would be a lazy and disappointing road for them to take, given that the whole 'only works with male hormones' thing never actually made any sense to begin with due to their being no such thing as 'male hormones'.


Given a day to implement it, the easiest and best approach is to have a Chapter try the Marine-creation process on some female recruits out of desperation following some major battle losses, have it work unexpectedly well, and reveal that the whole thing about it only working on men was just the personal preference of the Emperor rather than an actual limitation of the process. Some Chapters would start recruiting women to widen their recruit pool, others would refuse because the Emperor said 'no'... and as a nice side effect, those gamers who want them could use them, and those who don't could not.

And yes, parts of the the internet that pretend to be invested in the hobby would melt down for a while, and then, like with the female custodes thing, they would eventually move on to the next thing that acting outraged about might generate engagement.

Rules/codexes are free and updated online. Print copies still exist for collectors. This will lower cost of entry for new players, and remove a barrier for older players wanting to branch out to something new.

NMNR goes out the window. Go back to an armory wargear upgrade system (and more modular points). Let people kitbash Their Dudes. Promote the modeling side of the hobby.

Work on making more options in kits, and make it so kits within a range can swap parts.

Focus on updateing old kit instead of new ones. Finish the purge of finecast.

OK. You all make excellent points.

Maybe it could be a Fabius bile, dark mechanicum thing.

Have female Chaos Astartes...it seems odd that Chaos is primarily an all noys club... besides the daemonettes.... and the sinister "She Who Thirsts" Slaneesh.

 Lathe Biosas wrote:
Would you dig put all the FW units that were put out to pasture and bring them back into the fold... and I don't mean through the Legends rules?

Rolling made to orders on the discontinued lines.

And then i'd fire myself with a golden parachute large enough to buy a couple of the models without remortgaging my house.

Oh, and if I wanted to break the internet and have the community break out the pitchforks and torches, I would simply make two online announcements and then slip quietly out the back door.

1. Why, yes, Sigmar is a missing Primarch.

2. Starting tomorrow, Mat Ward will be in charge of all 40k Lore and Codexes.

Let the Galaxy Burn

 Lathe Biosas wrote:
2. Starting tomorrow, Mat Ward will be in charge of all 40k Lore and Codexes

At least it isn't CS Goto

 Cap'n Facebeard wrote:

 Lathe Biosas wrote:
2. Starting tomorrow, Mat Ward will be in charge of all 40k Lore and Codexes

At least it isn't CS Goto

He wouldn't have time as he would be in charge of Black Library.

 Lathe Biosas wrote:
Oh, and if I wanted to break the internet and have the community break out the pitchforks and torches, I would simply make two online announcements and then slip quietly out the back door.

1. Why, yes, Sigmar is a missing Primarch.

2. Starting tomorrow, Mat Ward will be in charge of all 40k Lore and Codexes.

Let the Galaxy Burn

Sigmar being a Primarch wouldn't be particularly controversial, since it's something that was widely discussed as a possibility for decades before GW finally gave it a definitive 'nope'. It was never a good source of outrage bait because it made sense and wouldn't necessarily actually have any particular impact on either setting.

As for Matt Ward... I doubt most people currently in the hobby even know who he is. But his 'dial it all up to 11' codex style would honestly seem to fit right in with current 40K.

Gah, fooled again.

"They were there all along" is a fine enough answer for me. I can call a sister my brother just fine. Since they've actually made a stink of it not working in the past though, I'm fine with the "desperate attempt" angle if that's what's needed to make it happen.

The 'they were there all along' approach was an acceptable way if introducing things back when the setting was a bit more fixed in time, as it was the only way that you could introduce something new without advancing the clock, and when most of the fluff was still not so fleshed out.

People have always disliked it, though, and the more developed the background gets, the more nonsensical it is to present something as having always been there despite never having been mentioned before.

 Hellebore wrote:

chaos0xomega wrote:
This is probs skewing too far off topic, but as someone who encourages diversity and representation and cheered femstodes and fembretonnian knights and femcast eternals, etc im also ok with astartes staying male (though id welcome transtartes - anyone can be a space marine, but the geneseed makes you male-ish as you surrender your humanity anyway in the process), for the same reason that im ok with sisters of battle staying female. If you have a lore based reason for it, then that artistic choice is valid. I dont necessarily need to like it or agree with it to respect it.

I have more respect for the lore restriction on sisters than marines. one is a cultural/political choice that can be revoked at any time, the other is pseudo biology that's so obviously designed to be exclusionary and *shrugs* what can we do when it's the genes that say no? The marine one abrogates creator responsibility by erroneously laying it on nature.

"Warp magic from the emperors bargain with the chaos gods prevents the gene seed from successfully implanting in women, as the pact meant that the Emperor could only ever create sons"

There, pseudoscience handwaved away - honestlybthe pseudoscience was a failed attempt at lore justifucation to try to placate both halves of the community which backfired. Shouldve just stuck with "attempts at producing marines from female stocks have failed for reasons unknown to the adeptus mechanicus, through some inexplicable biological mechanism, female candidates have a 100% rejection rate of the implanted organs. Belisarius Cawl has continued experimentation to try to identify the means by which chances of success may be improved, but thus far the effort has been fruitless."

I figured it out!

Leman Russ returns with a new Space Wolves unit: Valkeryies... no not the IG planes.

Everyone loves Cool Space Viking Women.

chaos0xomega wrote:

 Hellebore wrote:

chaos0xomega wrote:
This is probs skewing too far off topic, but as someone who encourages diversity and representation and cheered femstodes and fembretonnian knights and femcast eternals, etc im also ok with astartes staying male (though id welcome transtartes - anyone can be a space marine, but the geneseed makes you male-ish as you surrender your humanity anyway in the process), for the same reason that im ok with sisters of battle staying female. If you have a lore based reason for it, then that artistic choice is valid. I dont necessarily need to like it or agree with it to respect it.

I have more respect for the lore restriction on sisters than marines. one is a cultural/political choice that can be revoked at any time, the other is pseudo biology that's so obviously designed to be exclusionary and *shrugs* what can we do when it's the genes that say no? The marine one abrogates creator responsibility by erroneously laying it on nature.

"Warp magic from the emperors bargain with the chaos gods prevents the gene seed from successfully implanting in women, as the pact meant that the Emperor could only ever create sons"

There, pseudoscience handwaved away - honestlybthe pseudoscience was a failed attempt at lore justifucation to try to placate both halves of the community which backfired. Shouldve just stuck with "attempts at producing marines from female stocks have failed for reasons unknown to the adeptus mechanicus, through some inexplicable biological mechanism, female candidates have a 100% rejection rate of the implanted organs. Belisarius Cawl has continued experimentation to try to identify the means by which chances of success may be improved, but thus far the effort has been fruitless."

Sure, but that's not what they did. And the geneseed isn't particularly warpy anyway. No more than twins are naturally soul bound warpy - sharing genes seems to allow some psychic connection without the need for geneseed.

But they've now clarified (because unlike marines none of the language around custodes creation said that being a man was necessary for it to work, only that that's who they recruited) that the custodes genetics aren't sex linked, so the idea that the most exclusive and hard to make gene monsters can be girls but marines still can't just looks more silly....

chaos0xomega wrote:

There, pseudoscience handwaved away - honestlybthe pseudoscience was a failed attempt at lore justifucation to try to placate both halves of the community which backfired.

The pseudoscience wasn't intended to placate anyone, as it was from a time before there was multiple halves of the community. It was an in-universe explanation for the models all being male, which was driven by sales in a market where the vast majority of their customers were adolescent males and the few existing female models were terrible.

 Lathe Biosas wrote:
I figured it out!

Leman Russ returns with a new Space Wolves unit: Valkeryies... no not the IG planes.

Everyone loves Cool Space Viking Women.

I mean, yes, female Space Wolves would be great... but that only 'solves' the problem for the Wolves, not other Chapters, and, frankly, Russ should never return. The whole 'The hero strides off into the sunset, vowing to return in his followers' hour of greatest need!' trope works best when the hero never returns. That keeps them as a symbol of hope, while also being a secret tragedy (because, in reality, they just didn't come back because they're dead...)

As soon as they come back, they become a harbinger of the story's end instead, because their return 'at the hour of greatest need' suggests that this, right now is the worst it will ever get. There's nowhere to go from here.

chaos0xomega wrote:

Spoiler:

 Hellebore wrote:

chaos0xomega wrote:
This is probs skewing too far off topic, but as someone who encourages diversity and representation and cheered femstodes and fembretonnian knights and femcast eternals, etc im also ok with astartes staying male (though id welcome transtartes - anyone can be a space marine, but the geneseed makes you male-ish as you surrender your humanity anyway in the process), for the same reason that im ok with sisters of battle staying female. If you have a lore based reason for it, then that artistic choice is valid. I dont necessarily need to like it or agree with it to respect it.

I have more respect for the lore restriction on sisters than marines. one is a cultural/political choice that can be revoked at any time, the other is pseudo biology that's so obviously designed to be exclusionary and *shrugs* what can we do when it's the genes that say no? The marine one abrogates creator responsibility by erroneously laying it on nature.

"Warp magic from the emperors bargain with the chaos gods prevents the gene seed from successfully implanting in women, as the pact meant that the Emperor could only ever create sons"

There, pseudoscience handwaved away - honestlybthe pseudoscience was a failed attempt at lore justifucation to try to placate both halves of the community which backfired. Shouldve just stuck with "attempts at producing marines from female stocks have failed for reasons unknown to the adeptus mechanicus, through some inexplicable biological mechanism, female candidates have a 100% rejection rate of the implanted organs. Belisarius Cawl has continued experimentation to try to identify the means by which chances of success may be improved, but thus far the effort has been fruitless."

An excellent justification. I was thinking that myself.

Altenative pseudoscience: The Emperor was in a big rush and is a lazy son of a . Instead of taking the time and effort have the Astartes Geneseed insinuate itself into a X chromosome, it merely attaches itself to the much shorter Y chromosome. From there, it generates the changes to the body that turns a male into an Astartes. BTW, Astartes don't have a sex and have AX chromosomes. They are simply Astartes and are incapable of sexual reproduction. A genetic dead-end that can only reproduce via surgical transplantation of the scarce geneseed. They just all refer to themselves as male since that was what they were before being converted.

It's always been amusing the blood angels geneseed calls out how good it is in turning malnourished mutants that fall over from a stiff breeze into ubermensch adonis's and yet, somehow it's girls becoming marines that's just too far...

The power fantasy is literally 'get roided, be gods', which would apply to any body it happened to, especially the blood angels.

i've definitely heard the idea that the space marine making process forcibly transitions any girls picked into men. would be in line with the imperium, sure, but i'm not sure it's the trans representation anyone really wants out of 40k

i've had the opposite idea myself, tho. if space marines really need to be AMAB individuals, then what's stopping them from transitioning. there's all the indoctrination, sure, but space marines still have personalities. i see no reason why that wouldn't happen

not all that great, but i find it a bit funny

A) fire everyone involved in the thought process for warhammer +.

B) bin warhammer+.

C) free rules on a free app, for feths sake. They make like 90% straight dosh on each kit they personally sell that's made back it's mold cost, they don't need to grift more money off players to just play the damn game.

D) set up real bargain boxes (feth off push together bs, save that trash for launch boxes and promotional gak) at the 50% savings, and the 150$ price points (this may make the number of models per box smaller, I don't care - 150$ is much more approachable on literally every level for the consumer).

E) mandate "your guy" design going forward vs the current stupid ass "get your (required) primarch here." People's "stand ins" should be leading their armies (instead of named characters), and armies should actually feel different instead of 30 armies that all have the same two named feth-wads as HQ.

F) Female space marines would be a thing on the spot, I dont care the in-universe reason, but I would be sure to have a nice and clear public announcement that anyone that has a problem with that is no longer welcome anywhere in the GW ecosystem.

G) if I have time, I would mandate a freeze on SM model range additions, and put all that effort into reworking the factions to actually feel like supported factions instead of NPCs. I'd start by rolling together codex's - SM would be one codex, Eldar would be one codex, chaos SM/deamons would be one codex, genestealers and tyranids would be one codex, IA can stay it's own codex but needs to be binned and rewritten to not suck (add grey knights to this one). Suspect I would add a Admech + IK + guard codex to that, but I would have to look those over more to be sure before I would say so. Then I would have them sit down and determine which books are too skinny, and plan out waves for bunch of new (or old, if applicable) releases to compensate. Before anyone rages, I am *not* saying "make these factions the *same*, I am saying "enough with the bloat to sell paper" ex. blood angels would still have blood angels units, they would just be keyworded to "blood angels" - things like IK (which could be still taken alone) should have an additional keyword so they can be taken together in real TAC lists with AdMech and Guard sort of thing.

H) oh right, and failcast can be binned too, those models deserve better.

If I only have a day, price slashes! Back to 2000 prices, $30 for 20 models and such! Characters no more than $10.

If it's more 'what would you put in motion that would be carried out' then Imperial Guard, so, so much Imperial Guard. I realize it might be the #2 faction after marines but there's so much more to do.

(and obviously we're renaming them the Imperial Guard dang it)

First off do several regiments, aim for a 1 sprue per regiment ala the Necromunda Gangs. Each regiment would have two builds, a standard squad - 10 rifles, sarge, special and heavy weapon (did I mention we're going back to points for wargear? we're going back to points for wargear!). And the box will have one of each special and heavy.
Then a second, regiment specific, build. Catachans get Catachan Devils (flamers, poison knives, infiltrate), Tallarn get Desert Raiders/Sappers (demo charges, melta guns, infiltrate), Mordians get Honor Guard (pistols and power weapons) you get the idea. Enough extra heads to kit out the various tank and command squad bodies.

Secondly, Lost and the Damned, Chaos Cults, Traitor Guard, it is LONG PAST time. I know WGA have it covered, but there's always room for more.

Third new kits:
plastic Thunderbolt/Lightning/Avenger kit (I believe it can be done, look at the fantastic Dakkajet kit!).
Plastic Conscripts, 30 to a box, monopose, good diversity of body types, ages, genders. Make them look like a bunch of civilians/reservists/rear echelon types who've been issued their one-size-fits all coveralls, their caps and their las guns about a half hour ago and sent to the front.
A jeep
A troop truck, especially if it looks like a de-Orked Ork Trukk. Alternately a troop trailer for the jeep (q.v.)
The return of the Necromunda Spiders, ala the regiment kits above. Make them the new poster boys!

Finally, the return of multipart, modular character kits. Things like the Marine Captain that let you make your own commander would be mandatory for all factions. Several heads, lots of body options, every legal weapon, all on a sprue for $15-20.

I think this modest plan can be done with no more than 20 or 30 new kits, easily knocked off in an afternoon.

 insaniak wrote:
I would make a whole slew of new product announcements - new games, new models coming for existing ranges, re-release of all classic rulebooks, revile the Pan Fo, a return of the original Skullz program, a worldwide GT taking place on a cruise ship over the course of 18 months... none of which would actually happen, because I'm only there for a day.

I support all of these. I will buy my tickets now.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Lathe Biosas wrote:

chaos0xomega wrote:
Im glad im not the only one who remembers the pan fo

The wha?

When will GW revile the Pan Fo!

 CynosureEldar wrote:


F) Female space marines would be a thing on the spot, I dont care the in-universe reason, but I would be sure to have a nice and clear public announcement that anyone that has a problem with that is no longer welcome anywhere in the GW ecosystem.

G) if I have time, I would mandate a freeze on SM model range additions, and put all that effort into reworking the factions ~~

So how exactly do your F & G combine???

Seems like anyone who'd have a problem with F wouldn't really have anything to worry about....

 StudentOfEtherium wrote:
i've definitely heard the idea that the space marine making process forcibly transitions any girls picked into men. would be in line with the imperium, sure, but i'm not sure it's the trans representation anyone really wants out of 40k

I 100% support this.

But personally I kind of like the idea that the Emperor and the Imperium he created are sexist SOBs and could not (and still cannot) imagine the idea of women super soldiers. They're basically like the 40s comic writers who decided the Wonder Woman (a literal champion of the Greek gods) would be the Justice Society SECRETARY and not a full member. Unlike say Wildcat who was a dude with a good right hook and a leather suit.

I realize this sort of sexism hits a bit too close to home, unlike the Gothic evils of Inquisitions, Crusades, lobotomized cyborg slaves and Exterminus, but I mean the Imperial are not the good guys.