Warhammer 40K Fluff Discussion XIII: You Must Smash Additional Pylons!

[Trekkin]

Its not stupid of you only look at it from a practical point of view. As i recall all the elite special forces units in the world are about 100% male. And just in the regular army it were something like 5% girls top last i checked (some years ago).
So men are better suited for war.

Without commenting on the causes of real-world sexism in the military -- or the abuses of causality needed to base an argument thereon -- if your argument that we need to actively reject the idea of a more inclusive Space Marine army is rooted in either realism or practicality, there are legions of flying cathedrals and humongous mecha and psychic wizards and three-eyed mutants who can see into Hell and psychic elf wizard pirate clown ninjas and a species-wide gestalt psychic field that can turn junk into machine guns and the impossible logistics on which the Imperium itself is built that would all like a word with you.

40k makes no sense. It has never made logical sense. Poke any part of it and it disintegrates into dead catgirls and blatant impossibility.

Explain the Hrud or the Orks or the Umbra and then we can talk about realism.

[LCP]

"40K lore reflects the attitudes of the 80s" - yes, so this partial reinvention is a missed opportunity to update them. Adapt to the times and all that.

"The existing background is too entrenched to change/fans would revolt" - it's a work of fiction, GW can do what the heck they like with it. As has been pointed out, the Primaris guys represented a chance to update the fictional 'rules' without overwriting any of the existing backstory. More than that, anyone who gets worked up into a frothing rage about their favourite space dudes no longer being boys-only is probably not an asset to your hobby in terms of selling it to prospective newcomers. I agree that it's taking a risk with their existing fan-base, but GW already showed themselves as being willing to do that to a much greater extent with the WFB/AoS transition. So why is this risk special?

"It doesn't matter that Space Marines are the flagship faction" - it absolutely does. Every starter kit ever has had Space Marines in it. GW shop staff are trained to let beginners play the Marines in those sets, and the models included (in the more recent ones at least) generally give the Marines an edge so that the staff can lose to novices without making it too obvious that they're throwing the game. Space Marines are the first point of contact that anyone who walks into a GW for the first time will have with 40K, and first impressions matter. Up until recently GW had a literal statue of a space marine outside their headquarters. Space Marines represent GW's brand. If Space Marines have an exclusionary image then by association GW has an exclusionary image.

"It's not realistic" - 40K is not a realistic setting. If you can't accept the idea of space marine augmentations producing equally effective female soldiers as male ones, but you are absolutely fine with the idea of ork spaceships being held together with rivets and enthusiasm or galactic wars being fought by guys charging at each other with chainsaws, then your threshold for verisimilitude is extremely warped.

Really I think the missed opportunity point is the biggest one as relates to this discussion, rather than retreading old ground. Primaris Marines as they are are basically just a new-rules spin on the standard cycle of "hey we made a new Tactical Marine kit! We know you've got lots of tactical marines but buy these ones! They're new!". Dr McMechatendrils apparently spent 10,000 years working out how to make them but the end result is marines that are slightly taller and wear different helmets. Making them 50/50 male/female (or even including any women) would have been a much more effective and striking way of making them actually new and exciting - and it would have been a step in the right direction for the game as a whole.

[13_CBS]

I agree that it's taking a risk with their existing fan-base, but GW already showed themselves as being willing to do that to a much greater extent with the WFB/AoS transition. So why is this risk special?

Wasn't the WHFB --> AoS transition one done out of desperate necessity? I recall many posts by Cheesegear asserting that WHFB was pretty much a dead game that GW felt needed a major reboot, which meant being forced to take greater risks.

[LCP]

Probably around those same posts by Cheesegear you'll find my posts about why the evidence for those claims is sparse and highly over-interpreted. WFB sales were certainly languishing, but there are no hard figures as to how badly, and no real evidence that it was due to any inherent problems with the game over simply being starved of attention/publicity by GW. There's no way of testing the counterfactual of "what if GW had sold WFB as hard as they sold 40K/AoS" so there's no way of really establishing whether it's the reboot or simply the attention that has got AoS sales moving.

That discussion's been had though, so we probably shouldn't dredge up old arguments. The main point is, GW are not completely allergic to the idea of alienating some portion of their fanbase in order to expand its overall size.

[Drasius]

That discussion's been had though, so we probably shouldn't dredge up old arguments. The main point is, GW are not completely allergic to the idea of alienating some portion of their fanbase in order to expand its overall size.

So has the female marines/SoB discussion, yet here we go again.

Somebody call me when this stupidity is over please.

[LCP]

Somebody call me when this stupidity is over please.

I find that pretty rude. Just because you're not interested in a discussion doesn't mean you have to call the people having it stupid. This is a discussion about the NuMarines; it's old problems applied to a new context.

[Blackhawk748]

That would help, but are Sisters, the Inquisition (on the tabletop), and Guard the "face" of 40k tabletop? If a woman takes a cursory glance at 40k, will she notice the Sisters models, female Inquisitors, and female Guard? Or will she just see more Space Marines since Astartes are what get advertised outside the already-extant 40k playerbase?

Note that out of the large-budget videogame 40k titles released in the past several years (i.e. 40k marketed to people who don't necessarily play the tabletop), the noticeable bulk of them have featured Space Marines--Dawn of War series, Space Marine, Space Hulk, Space Hulk: Deathwing...heck, even that Regicide game featured Space Marines (and Orks).

That would tie into the "stop ramming Marines down our throats" bit. They could just make the Imperium itself the flagship faction. Hell Guard and Sisters look just as cool in their action poses as the Marines do.

That's fair, but how representative are your buying habits of people who are completely unfamiliar with 40k, or are familiar with tabletop games but not 40k? For the Macragge starter set, I get the impression from lurking on these threads that a lot of 40k players buy starter sets because they're good deals for armies they already wanted to collect, which might not be how a non-40k player regards such starter sets.

Considering Macragge was the starter set that got me into 40k? Id say it was farily common. Then again that starter set was amazing, as not only did it have the small rule book and minis, it also came with a sort of mini campaign to help you learn the game. Those missions were fun, kinda sad they stopped doing it.

[Trekkin]

If Space Marines have an exclusionary image then by association GW has an exclusionary image.

It occurs to me that this might be their reasoning for not changing it, in an odd way: they want to stay as exclusionary as they are now rather than risk the backlash from changing it. Consider the Sisters of Battle, and how every time they're portrayed as suffering losses someone asks why the codex author "gets such a kick out of murdering them." Consider how the fans treat the Dark Eldar, let alone anything to do with Slaanesh.

Now let's imagine what would happen if the Space Marines, the quintessential frat boys with big guns, suddenly have to let girls into their secret clubhouses and their players are handed this with the new edition. The worst fans would instantly start making comments about how "cooties are a gateway to falling to Nurgle" and "I guess the Primaris Marines don't get +1S because they have to account for -4 Str" and start cackling over how grossly they'll model them. Some of this will get picked up by people who want to use these comments to prove something about How Women Are Portrayed In Gaming, and I don't think that's a discussion -- more a commedia dell'arte scenario, really -- in which GW can be portrayed as anything but the soulless regressive old boys' club ripe to be disrupted by more demographically acceptable businesses. Anything they try to do to improve will be dismissed as pandering and reviled by fans; everything they don't do is just more over which they can be pilloried. At minimum, this new edition becomes Warhammer 40,000: Age of Female Space Marines, and everything else falls by the wayside.

I'm not saying I would call any of the above probable. I'm saying that, given the naked contempt they have sometimes had for their players, it's entirely possible that a sufficiently cynical GW could think that their fanbase isn't mature enough for female Space Marines to become anything but an utter disaster, and better the devil they know.

[Forum Explorer]

Female space marines wouldn't even really look that different. Not without making it boob armor. I'd much rather just more female guard, Inquisitors, or hey, maybe even some female Cultists, Genestealer Cultists, or Eldar.

[Blackhawk748]

Consider the Sisters of Battle, and how every time they're portrayed as suffering losses someone asks why the codex author "gets such a kick out of murdering them." Consider how the fans treat the Dark Eldar, let alone anything to do with Slaanesh.

That was specifically in relation to Ward and his stupid Grey Knights Codex, where the Knights covered themselves in the Sisters freakin blood. Also its mostly a gag at this point, the Sisters (like everyone else) get used as Red Shirts to show how amazing the Marines are. It just stands out more cuz the Sisters are also rocking power Armor, so when they die in droves it seems a bit weird.

[Mr. E]

I think it would be great if they made P-Marine models of all genders, but it is probably not going to happen. To my mind it is a missed opportunity on their part, especially if they focus on making chaos vs SM starter sets (that is, exclusively male vs. exclusively male). So much they could have done, but didn't. I mean, even if they didn't fiddle with the Marines, they could have made some of the plague zombies female in the upcoming starter. Really, I suspect that any backlash against including females would have been primarily internet based and not really of any great significance. Of course, there is still time for them to do such a thing in the indexes or Codexes.

In the mean time, I'm most hopeful for small changes they can easily make which have no major risks associated with them. For example: female Guard models and characters in the lore, female Necron characters (they're walking Skeletons, they should look almost identical) more female Dark Eldar/Eldar characters, etc. Maybe if they take enough baby steps, they can change the gender make-up of Marines one day, and no-one will raise an eyebrow.

I suppose the bottom line is: GW may have made 40k in the 80's, but as others have already said, it doesn't have to stay in the 80's.

It would be nice if GW made armies other than SM's the main focus every so often. Spreading the love around, and having something slightly out there (like a Guard vs. Chaos) starter set would be neat. The old WHFB starter sets used to change both armies each time they were released, did they not? Space Marines are the most recognised/most easy to use faction in my experience. Therefore, the SM's are here to stay, so if they want to change the gender balance, they would have to do that inside the SM's. Which they won't, and neither will they change the starter set line-up, so we end up back in the same old place.

[Gwyn chan 'r Gwyll]

To be honest, when they said "Guilliman has new ways of mass producing Marines", the VERY FIRST THING that popped in my head was "does that mean they doubled the recruitment pool?" It's the easiest and best way to show "these new Marines are bigger better and different", and the fact that it either didn't occur to GW or it did and they shot it down speaks volumes to me. I tried getting my girlfriend into the game, and the lack of female representation is specifically the reason she said she could never get into it.

[Renegade Paladin]

To be honest, when they said "Guilliman has new ways of mass producing Marines", the VERY FIRST THING that popped in my head was "does that mean they doubled the recruitment pool?" It's the easiest and best way to show "these new Marines are bigger better and different", and the fact that it either didn't occur to GW or it did and they shot it down speaks volumes to me. I tried getting my girlfriend into the game, and the lack of female representation is specifically the reason she said she could never get into it.

Norn queens. The Tyranids are female. The Hive Mind is love. The Hive Mind is life.

(Seriously, though, the one woman I know who plays, plays Tyranids.)

[DataNinja]

I'd much rather just more female guard, Inquisitors, or hey, maybe even some female Cultists, Genestealer Cultists, or Eldar.

Regarding the Eldar, the current Guardian Kit actually has both male and female Guardian torsos. Not sure about the Aspect Warrior kits (discounting Banshees, obviously), since I don't have much in the way of those.

Though, it's certainly understandable that it's easily overlooked, since not only is it not in your face (actually took me until I was painting to register), but who (else) uses Guardians these days?

[DaedalusMkV]

To be honest, when they said "Guilliman has new ways of mass producing Marines", the VERY FIRST THING that popped in my head was "does that mean they doubled the recruitment pool?" It's the easiest and best way to show "these new Marines are bigger better and different", and the fact that it either didn't occur to GW or it did and they shot it down speaks volumes to me. I tried getting my girlfriend into the game, and the lack of female representation is specifically the reason she said she could never get into it.

Tau are always a good candidate. Their top military commander is female and canonically 50% of the Tau on any given battlefield are as well, beneath their pretty much totally gender-obscuring armour. In addition to Shadowsun, there are at least three other named Tau Commanders who happen to be female (though I'm still a bit bummed that the Eight are all boys, with the quasi-exception of the AI member). There are now female helmetless heads for Fire Warriors and Battlesuit Pilots (albeit only the Ghostkeel, which is the only Battlesuit at this time modeled with the possibility of a visible pilot). Sure, they aren't human and the models don't look feminine because of said gender-obscuring body armour (Note: Real armour for girls looks exactly the same as armour for men, and always has) and/or heavy-duty Battlesuits, but they are 100% gender-equal according to all official fluff since their first release. The only thing they need now is for Aun'va's replacement to be a regal-looking female Ethereal and the whole faction is set. Any or all of the troops in your force can be female, at the player's discretion, and you can show it off on your character-type models with the head bits provided.

Dark Eldar are pretty good about having lots of female minis as well, since every box but the Incubi has at least a couple of female models in it, though obviously all-female isn't very easy for you to do with that setup. And all 'Nid leadership is female, as is the Hive Mind itself, so that's a female-dominated faction as well.

With that said, a "Female Cadians" conversion pack with female heads and legs that fit together with the current Cadian IG boxes would probably be the sort of thing that would be valuable to the hobby as a whole. Though I'm sure people would just complain about having to 'pay through the nose' if you wanted female models...

[hamishspence]

Tau are always a good candidate. Their top military commander is female and canonically 50% of the Tau on any given battlefield are as well, beneath their pretty much totally gender-obscuring armour. In addition to Shadowsun, there are at least three other named Tau Commanders who happen to be female (though I'm still a bit bummed that the Eight are all boys, with the quasi-exception of the AI member).

Subcommander Torchstar is also one of the Eight, and female.

[bluntpencil]

Victoria Miniatures produces amazing Guardswomen.

[Theodoric]

There are now female helmetless heads for Fire Warrior

Really? I knew they'd added a whole bunch of doodads to the new sprues, but I hadn't heard of that before. Too bad I already have 2 whole squads of Fire Warriors, and another unbuilt box of the old models.

With that said, a "Female Cadians" conversion pack with female heads and legs that fit together with the current Cadian IG boxes would probably be the sort of thing that would be valuable to the hobby as a whole. Though I'm sure people would just complain about having to 'pay through the nose' if you wanted female models...

We'd had to wait for years to just get all the special weapons in plastic as part of the Command Squad kit. We'll manage. But yeah, there's no reason why Cadians are all-male in both the models and the artwork, in the fluff it's a culture that literally cannot afford gender discrimination. To bad they had to blow the place up.

[lord_khaine]

Without commenting on the causes of real-world sexism in the military -- or the abuses of causality needed to base an argument thereon -- if your argument that we need to actively reject the idea of a more inclusive Space Marine army is rooted in either realism or practicality, there are legions of flying cathedrals and humongous mecha and psychic wizards and three-eyed mutants who can see into Hell and psychic elf wizard pirate clown ninjas and a species-wide gestalt psychic field that can turn junk into machine guns and the impossible logistics on which the Imperium itself is built that would all like a word with you.

*slow clap* Way to go to latch on to a single sentence and completely miss the entire contect of the ongoing conversation.

"It's not realistic" - 40K is not a realistic setting. If you can't accept the idea of space marine augmentations producing equally effective female soldiers as male ones, but you are absolutely fine with the idea of ork spaceships being held together with rivets and enthusiasm or galactic wars being fought by guys charging at each other with chainsaws, then your threshold for verisimilitude is extremely warped.

The only thing thats actually unrealistic is that anyone who goes though Space marine augumentation would be distinguishable by gender.

[snowblizz]

Regarding the Eldar, the current Guardian Kit actually has both male and female Guardian torsos. Not sure about the Aspect Warrior kits (discounting Banshees, obviously), since I don't have much in the way of those.

They wouldn't be. All Banshees are female (yes even the male ones) as they are modelled on a female Phoenix Lord. In the same way the other Aspects
take after they "head". They take on the apsect of the Phoenix Lord in question, and yes that includes the gender.

Since guardians are really more of a militia and the eldar in it are more themselves it makes sense there are models for both.

As a Guardian you are still yourself, as an Aspect Warrior you essentially leave most of that behind. If you leave it totally behind you'll be an Exarch.

[lord_khaine]

Well.. its not quite that extreme.. i think its more accurate to say that in aspec mode an Eldar dont have a gender identity.. since they more or less puts everything else but their warrior instincts away.

I went and checked my models though, and noticed that some of the Dire avengers are female as well.

[snowblizz]

Well.. its not quite that extreme.. i think its more accurate to say that in aspec mode an Eldar dont have a gender identity.. since they more or less puts everything else but their warrior instincts away.

I went and checked my models though, and noticed that some of the Dire avengers are female as well.

I wasn't sure about the Dire Avengers, they are an Aspect but a more generic one to the other special Aspects.

[hamishspence]

Might that be where Autarchs get their helmet design and weapons from - their time as a standard Aspect Warrior?

That might explain why the "Banshee/Hawk Autarch" looks the way they do - they've done time as both a Banshee and a Swooping Hawk, so they have a Banshee-esque helmet.

[Wraith]

This is exactly what an Autarch is - an Eldar who has walked multiple Aspect Paths and combines those experiences as they become "Exarchs" of the Path of Command rather than any one of the other totemic disciplines.

[Blackhawk748]

Victoria Miniatures produces amazing Guardswomen.

That Aunt Vicky does. Her heads combined with power armor (i forget where exactly) is how many people have been making Sisters for years. Plus she has Beastmen, which look great.

[Pilum]

I went and checked my models though, and noticed that some of the Dire avengers are female as well.

Assuming recent plastics, are you sure you haven't kitbashed with guardian torso's there, Lord? I don't remember any (ahem) 'boobplate' in the boxes I put together. Or have I just been spectacularly unobservant?

[Blackhawk748]

Assuming recent plastics, are you sure you haven't kitbashed with guardian torso's there, Lord? I don't remember any (ahem) 'boobplate' in the boxes I put together. Or have I just been spectacularly unobservant?

I think Lord may have, cuz i just looked at the sprue and all i see is Pec plate.

[Kalmageddon]

Without commenting on the causes of real-world sexism in the military -- or the abuses of causality needed to base an argument thereon -- if your argument that we need to actively reject the idea of a more inclusive Space Marine army is rooted in either realism or practicality, there are legions of flying cathedrals and humongous mecha and psychic wizards and three-eyed mutants who can see into Hell and psychic elf wizard pirate clown ninjas and a species-wide gestalt psychic field that can turn junk into machine guns and the impossible logistics on which the Imperium itself is built that would all like a word with you.

40k makes no sense. It has never made logical sense. Poke any part of it and it disintegrates into dead catgirls and blatant impossibility.

Explain the Hrud or the Orks or the Umbra and then we can talk about realism.

This kind of argument was never, and never will be, ingenious. Fantasy and soft science fiction settings never were meant to be realistic, but that doesn't mean that anything goes. They can still have established rules governing their implausiblities and they can still have internal consistency.

[LCP]

In this case the "realism shmealism" argument absolutely applies. Women not being able to be marines isn't a rule that's interdependent on any other rules that hold up the internal logic of the setting. It's a single, arbitrary prohibition. The only rule that would be broken by ret-conning it (or updating it with NuMarines) would be "the fluff mustn't change" - which isn't a rule that GW have ever held themselves to.

Space Marine augmentations already have no anchor in biological fact. Their implants are basically magic, right up to giving them the ability to gain people's memories by eating their brains. If you can buy that the Emperor's advanced biotech can deliver those sorts of superpowers then it's not any kind of logical stretch to assume that it's also advanced enough to work just as well on women as on men.

[Kalmageddon]

In this case the "realism shmealism" argument absolutely applies. Women not being able to be marines isn't a rule that's interdependent on any other rules that hold up the internal logic of the setting. It's a single, arbitrary prohibition. The only rule that would be broken by ret-conning it (or updating it with NuMarines) would be "the fluff mustn't change" - which isn't a rule that GW have ever held themselves to.

Space Marine augmentations already have no anchor in biological fact. Their implants are basically magic, right up to giving them the ability to gain people's memories by eating their brains. If you can buy that the Emperor's advanced biotech can deliver those sorts of superpowers then it's not any kind of logical stretch to assume that it's also advanced enough to work just as well on women as on men.

No it doesn't. I explicitly said that it's not a matter of realism but of internal consistency. I would also add that women are in fact present in many other factions and that space marines being all male is thematically appropriate. Not every piece of the setting needs to conform to your imaginary representation quota. Over the top heroic manliness is an absolutely appropriate theme to have in the game and the space marines fit that niche. I refuse to feel bad because I can enjoy them for what they are and I refuse to let you demonize or diminish the concept because you can't separate your real life ideology and your escapism.