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And there are no longer Vect's slave girls or Daemonettes with their (uhhh... breasts, can I say that here?) flying freely.

There has been some steps to improve things.

 Lathe Biosas wrote:
And there are no longer Vect's slave girls or Daemonettes with their (uhhh... breasts, can I say that here?) flying freely.

There has been some steps to improve things.

There definitely are bosoms amongst the Slaaneshi models, but the more prominent ones are generally on models that ALSO have male aspects. (No, not that male aspect! At least not visible. )

Like the Fiends of Slaanesh have, on their right side, a rack of feminine breasts, and the other side a more masculine chest. They're also horrific centaur-like monstrosities, so I'm not super worried about them being sexualized.

 Lathe Biosas wrote:
And there are no longer Vect's slave girls or Daemonettes with their (uhhh... breasts, can I say that here?) flying freely.

There has been some steps to improve things.

Or Morathi, with one boob hanging out.

 BorderCountess wrote:

 Lathe Biosas wrote:
And there are no longer Vect's slave girls or Daemonettes with their (uhhh... breasts, can I say that here?) flying freely.

There has been some steps to improve things.

Or Morathi, with one boob hanging out.

Ok... so baby steps then...

(BTW I am not going to tell Morathi to cover up... I am not that stupid)

 PenitentJake wrote:
While I won't dispute that SoB are sexualized models, I do think credit should be given to GW for the improvements they've made in that category- alternate hair, including bald, scars, eye patches, cybernetics; far less sexualized repentia, and characters like Aestrid, the Dialogus and the Dogmata that have less feminine silhouettes or present as older, more experienced and battle hardened women.

Again, I'm not denying that the models are still sexualized, but modern Sisters are neither classic Repentia nor AoS Witch elves.

The shaven headed sisters of battle look great, but boob plate armour is not.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
And…morathi’s boobs are covered nowadays.

The boob plate, corset waists, high heels, skin tight leg armour, it all has to go. It's just awful. I feel actual embarrassment about liking a universe where it exists.

Its been part of the 40K universe since it started 40-50years ago. More to the point it was part of the inspirations for 40K long before that.

At some point you've got to accept that the fox isn't going to change into a deer just because you want a deer not a fox

That's kind of a strange outlook. I shouldn't be disappointed something hasn't improved in 50 years?

I'm saying 40K has a creative and artistic style. At some point you either have to accept that style and go with it; use proxy models from 3rd parties (there are utterly masses of choices now and growing); or try a different game with a different style.

 Cap'n Facebeard wrote:
The boob plate, corset waists, high heels, skin tight leg armour, it all has to go. It's just awful. I feel actual embarrassment about liking a universe where it exists.

The who what now?

I think the sisters having heels nonsense predates rogue trader in some kind of weird temporal paradox it's so old and tired now. One sister has heels, as Blanche put heels on everything.

 Overread wrote:
I'm saying 40K has a creative and artistic style. At some point you either have to accept that style and go with it; use proxy models from 3rd parties (there are utterly masses of choices now and growing); or try a different game with a different style.

That's pretty much the same argument being used to deny female space marines though. It's just the 40k style to not have it and people should play something else if they don't like it...

 Hellebore wrote:
That's pretty much the same argument being used to deny female space marines though. It's just the 40k style to not have it and people should play something else if they don't like it...

For the past 28 pages it has been the exact opposite - "Adding female space marines doesn't take anything away"

As opposed to - "Sisters of battle need to be completely changed from the ground up to have an appearance that bears no resemblance to their current one".

A.T. wrote:

 Hellebore wrote:
That's pretty much the same argument being used to deny female space marines though. It's just the 40k style to not have it and people should play something else if they don't like it...

For the past 28 pages it has been the exact opposite - "Adding female space marines doesn't take anything away"

As opposed to - "Sisters of battle need to be completely changed from the ground up to have an appearance that bears no resemblance to their current one".

Whilst I will gladly acknowledge that Sisters are in a better place than they were 10 years ago, I also think they can still get better. Each individual Sister doesn't need fully sculpted DD-sized power armor. See: Captain Phasma.

A.T. wrote:

 Hellebore wrote:
That's pretty much the same argument being used to deny female space marines though. It's just the 40k style to not have it and people should play something else if they don't like it...

For the past 28 pages it has been the exact opposite - "Adding female space marines doesn't take anything away"

As opposed to - "Sisters of battle need to be completely changed from the ground up to have an appearance that bears no resemblance to their current one".

Not sure I see the relevance. There are plenty of people saying that marines are male and they shouldn't be female and that's just the style of the faction.

Arguing that female marines doesn't change anything or take anything.away in that context is pointless - them being girls IS the change.

I'm saying it's a bad argument whether it's for the absence of women or the presence of bondage imagery and you can't argue for the change of one faction and turn around and deny the change in another using the same argument.

You're welcome to use a different one, but in a thread specifically where changing a faction is the point it's not particularly useful to try and deny it to another.

It is absolutely true that SoB are crazy BDSM nuns.And I love them for it, and I don't want them to be changed.

However, them being that is an issue in a context of them being such a substantial section of female representation in the game. More female representation there, is and more diverse it is, less of an issue any individual presentation not being appealing to everyone is.

Let's have female marines with similar armour than the men. Then people who do not like SoB aesthetic have that as an option for their power-armoured female warriors.

(Personally I like both. They're just different flavours.)

 Hellebore wrote:
I'm saying it's a bad argument whether it's for the absence of women or the presence of bondage imagery and you can't argue for the change of one faction and turn around and deny the change in another using the same argument.

You are conflating two very different changes in hobby terms.

Female space marines are a lore change - nothing changes from a hobby perspective except perhaps a new head sprue comes out.
'Captain Phasma-ing' the sisters is killing the model line and replacing it with a very different line, irrespective of whether the lore changes or not.

 BorderCountess wrote:
Whilst I will gladly acknowledge that Sisters are in a better place than they were 10 years ago, I also think they can still get better. Each individual Sister doesn't need fully sculpted DD-sized power armor. See: Captain Phasma.

Phasma was played by a man half the time. I'd be willing to be at least some of the background extra were women.

Ties in to something that came up earlier in the thread about female eldar aspect warriors not having boob plate, and therefore being an all-male line by assumption. Someone mentioned wanting female krieg as well - which any of them could be under the lore, the masks and armour yet the demand for more visibly female models exists.

As for 10 years ago the only models that changed were the repentia - who ironically got their bondage nun look from having clothes added. In old imagery they were as horrifying and mostly naked as their male flagellant counterparts but modesty demanded that they cover themselves up before release.
On the flip side the current repentia have to little clothing IMO - they would have looked much better with tattered robes instead of tennis shorts. The middle ground is rarely visually interesting, much like Phasmas armour.

 Cap'n Facebeard wrote:
That's kind of a strange outlook. I shouldn't be disappointed something hasn't improved in 50 years?

No, you should, as I suggested earlier, look at classic metal repentia, then at plastic repentia...

And then apologize for lying to us all when you said there's been no improvement, because there very, very obviously has been. You can apologize for the high heels lie while you're at it- I just checked five of my girls and their feet look pretty flat.

There’s nothing inherently wrong with feminine armour. The execution, that’s where it can get silly.

The same can be said of specifically ethnic sculpts. Even well meaning ones can turn out overly stereotypical.

And there can be at least an attempt to justify some stuff. For instance, Wyches and Witch Elves, in-universe, eschew armour and covering up to show they’ve never been injured, that they’re Just That Good.

Now, whether you accept that as a good enough justification is not for me to say. And even if you do, that doesn’t necessarily justify stuff like Battle Thongs.

The Repentia are an interesting example. The originals? Kinda kink wear. The suggestion of basques and hold ups. The new/current ones? More gym clothes. Tight fitting, yes, but not intended to titilate.

That the new ones are a marked improvement in realism? Doesn’t mean they’re beyond all criticism. And as earlier? It’s not for me to tell anyone what their opinion should be.

A.T. wrote:
...yet the demand for more visibly female models exists...

...The middle ground is rarely visually interesting, much like Phasmas armour.

You can have visibly feminine models without ridiculous boob-plate; see Stormcast Eternals. And the point of armor is to protect the wearer, not get thirsty dudes excited. You can have visually interesting armor on a woman without going overboard with the boob-plate.

I feel compelled to disclose that, yes, I personally enjoy the general aesthetic of the female form; I've always been attracted to women, and that hasn't changed in light of my transition. But I'm also able to recognize how and why people find a particular aesthetic offensive and/or problematic, and overly-sexualized miniatures in a wargame can fit into that category.

Yeah please don't change the bdsm nuns with guns look. Add some sexualized monk sculpts if you have to, but the theme should stay. It's peak 40k, in the same way practically any art of an imperial cruiser is.

The repentia are a weird one though. I found the nude ones distasteful. The modern ones are far worse though: they're boring. Ugh.

 BorderCountess wrote:
But I'm also able to recognize how and why people find a particular aesthetic offensive and/or problematic, and overly-sexualized miniatures in a wargame can fit into that category.

The problem with heading down the offensive pathway is you can use that to shut down the entire of Warhammer. Some people find boobplates and high heels offensive; some find exposed wounds, growths and sores; some the very notion of guns as toys or the hyper muscled presentation of men. At some point a line has to be drawn in the sand and people have to make the choice on if they enter the hobby or not and accept that there will be parts they like and some parts they don't.

You can try to remove all the potential problems, sources of offence, risks and everything but what you'd get out at the end of that process would not be Warhammer 40K. It would be something else entirely.



Alongside this you have to consider that over the last 40years these designs and themes have remained broadly constant within the game and the setting. Furthermore the game has grown vastly in popularity.



Now I'm all for taking down barriers of entry and making something more welcoming; however I tend to view a LOT of those barriers as being things that are more person to person elements as having the greatest impact. Coupled to that is presentation of the hobby to others. Eg going back again to the fact that if you've got more people of X group in the media; in the community; being community leaders and so forth them you're VASTLY more likely to attract the interest of more people of group X. Conversely if there's hardly any to no people of group X present then its a lot harder even if the group itself is very welcoming and puts up no direct boundaries.

However I'm also all for a thing being basically what it is in a creative sense. 40K has lore, stories, visual and creative styles. These things that drew all of us here to the game (some greater, some lesser, a few we might not like too) and kept us here. I'm cautious about throwing that out the window because as I see it that's just trying to create something different entirely.

I think it gets caught up in good intentions; but also from old fans who need a breath of fresh air and something different, but don't want too/feel like/can't get players outside of the Gw franchise system.

Not sure I agree with all of that.

Somethings are utterly intrinsic to the game, or a given range’s aesthetic.

For instance, it’s a wargame, so violence is going to be involved.

Diseased and rotting bodies are Nurgle’s thing. And to some extent, you can’t do away with that without fundamentally changing the aesthetic of that range.

But. And a but of a scale that risks attracting Sir Mix-a-lot’s attentions? There are degrees. Especially when it comes to race, sex, and religion.

For instance, an Imperial Guard Regiment themed around Colonial Era Africa, where all the top brass are white, and the rank and file portrayed as thicko, backward natives is too far. But. An Imperial Guard Regiment from a world where all the humans are dark skinned isn’t necessarily offensive.

Likewise, armour forming to the feminine body is different from Battle Lingerie.

So asking that some stuff be toned down is not the same as asking for it to be removed entirely.

Where that line might or should lie, I can only speak for myself, and frankly it’s not worth the bother.

But I’m not accepting a slippery slope argument here.

 BorderCountess wrote:
And the point of armor is to protect the wearer, not get thirsty dudes excited.

I mean the point of armour "on a miniature" (or in a game, film whatever) certainly isn't to protect the wearer.
Its an aesthetic choice.
How far you go down that line can be debated - but in this case its about getting someone somewhere at least sufficiently interested to buy the models.

The problem I think is, as others have said, that different people will have different limits on when something is offensive or problematic.

I mean I'd never really considered the old Repentia to be sexualised - although on consideration they clear are. I just thought they were kind of bad models. Maybe its hard to achieve that sort of paint job in real life, and they don't look the same on table as a result.

Are Wych Elves (which I actually own, and kind of like - or at least did ten years ago)? Kinda - but not really.

Then you have the infamous Juan Diaz Daemonettes that are explicit - and I think that's a major cause of their popularity. Although you could argue there's something to them even aside from the nakedness - they are smaller, somehow more precise models versus the current plastics.

 PenitentJake wrote:

And then apologize for lying to us all when you said there's been no improvement, because there very, very obviously has been. You can apologize for the high heels lie while you're at it- I just checked five of my girls and their feet look pretty flat.

I was responding to someone else's comment about the range being similar to 50 years ago. The fact that the fetish nuns are marginally less fetishy doesn't really overwhelm me.

I think you also need to look at it in relation to female miniatures in general. Ever looked for female miniatures on Etsy? Kingdom Death? Any of the inevitable 'pin up' models?

I'm disappointed Gw haven't taken greater steps to improve things. We could have cool warrior women, instead of a fan service caricature

 Cap'n Facebeard wrote:
I think you also need to look at it in relation to female miniatures in general. Ever looked for female miniatures on Etsy? Kingdom Death? Any of the inevitable 'pin up' models?

Let me be the first to say that I don't want Poots anywhere near Warhammer. That dude's clearly got some issues.

That said: I'm not saying there shouldn't be a market for certain things, and that people can't like whatever they want. I was in the minority defending Manufaktura when the whole NSFW debate went down. If you want pinup Nuns with Guns in your Sisters army: go for it. If you don't want girls with cooties in your Astartes army: fine by me.

But when you're talking about the flagship faction in the most famous (and most profitable) miniatures wargame on the planet, I think better representation can and should happen.

 Cap'n Facebeard wrote:


I was responding to someone else's comment about the range being similar to 50 years ago.

Interesting. Because if I had been responding, my comment would have been: "No, it's not similar, because a tank top on a repentia is far less revealing than a band around the breasts that covers only the nipples, and SoB don't really wear heels anymore."

 Cap'n Facebeard wrote:

The fact that the fetish nuns are marginally less fetishy doesn't really overwhelm me.

See previous comment RE: tank top vs. nipple bands.

 Cap'n Facebeard wrote:

I think you also need to look at it in relation to female miniatures in general. Ever looked for female miniatures on Etsy? Kingdom Death? Any of the inevitable 'pin up' models?

Yup- Wargames Exclusive, Raging Heroes, Manufaktura Minis... Even Hasslefree.

But that proves MY point about modern sisters being relatively conservative, not yours or the other dude's that the SoB is just as sexist and objectifying as it ever was.

And again, for those who won't go back and read my original post, my point wasn't that SoB aren't still sexualized (they are)- my point is that this is getting better in the modern era, and to claim otherwise is dishonest. Sure, GW could go further- bring the mainline SoB armour more in line with femmecast eternals. But there can't really be any denial that GW has made some representational improvements to the range.

 Cap'n Facebeard wrote:

I'm disappointed Gw haven't taken greater steps to improve things. We could have cool warrior women, instead of a fan service caricature

As I said above, they could have gone further. I'm content with where we're at, but I acknowledge that's subjective, and your opinion here is valid even if I don't personally agree with it.

 Crimson wrote:
It is absolutely true that SoB are crazy BDSM nuns.And I love them for it, and I don't want them to be changed.

However, them being that is an issue in a context of them being such a substantial section of female representation in the game. More female representation there, is and more diverse it is, less of an issue any individual presentation not being appealing to everyone is.

Let's have female marines with similar armour than the men. Then people who do not like SoB aesthetic have that as an option for their power-armoured female warriors.

(Personally I like both. They're just different flavours.)

This was where we were at. My wife wasn’t into the very religious SOB, so she had no other options.

It feels like…. If you go to a party and there are a couple people in bondage gear, that’s a fun party. If you go to a party and everyone is only wearing bondage gear, you back out (assuming you’re not into the sweet agony).

 BorderCountess wrote:

 Lathe Biosas wrote:
And there are no longer Vect's slave girls or Daemonettes with their (uhhh... breasts, can I say that here?) flying freely.

There has been some steps to improve things.

Or Morathi, with one boob hanging out.

I mean, Morathi uses her sexuality as a weapon as much as her magic and Heartrender. Her showing a ton of skin could also be seen as mocking Hellebron and flaunting her status as a favourite of Khaine's Hags by showing off her ageless body that Hellebron is denied.

If there was one Elf in warhammer that would go into battle basically nude, it would be Morathi.

She's more in the realm of Bayonetta, owning her sexuality and femininity and using it for her own benefit.

 Lathe Biosas wrote:
And there are no longer Vect's slave girls or Daemonettes with their (uhhh... breasts, can I say that here?) flying freely.

I take it you haven't seen the Age of Sigmar range recently?

I mean I think it's a fair argument that some of the sisters art has trended more towards tight leather power armour rather than the tank with novelty tits of some 3e stuff but the female heavy sigmar factions these days are... well they are a choice.

A.T. wrote:

 Lathe Biosas wrote:
And there are no longer Vect's slave girls or Daemonettes with their (uhhh... breasts, can I say that here?) flying freely.

I take it you haven't seen the Age of Sigmar range recently?

I mean I think it's a fair argument that some of the sisters art has trended more towards tight leather power armour rather than the tank with novelty tits of some 3e stuff but the female heavy sigmar factions these days are... well they are a choice.

Nope. I haven't looked at AoS at all... what should I look for?