Will Female Dwarfs be inevitable? Or still taboo for GW?

[kenshin620]

So warhammer elves have always had a decent sprinkling of female figures (even if sometimes it was limited to a different chestpiece on the old spearmen), and while technically their humans have almost never had non-bretonnian damsel female figures (outside of the Sisters of Sigmar Mordheim warband or bloodbowl cheerleaders) the newest Stormcast range has a pretty good amount so I count that.

This got me thinking, are female dwarfs/duardin a future possibility? With 2 AoS dwarf factions that will inevitably be updated (why can't they be updated faster!) would any new kits from them be like the stormcast and have a few figures for females? Other than lacking a beard and a different chest, I think they rest of the parts can easily be the same so they can even avoid the stormcast issue of completely different arms/shoulders (I'm sure female duardins are just as muscular as their fellow men!).

Or do you think that given the history and nature of warhammer dwarfs that GW would stick to what works? Especially since all their dwarfs have to sport pretty significant beards!

 

[Kramer]

Not my paintjob (as I'm too lazy to start digging) but this has been, and still is, the champion of Hammerers of Warriors depending on the list but always has a place in the line up!

So in response to your question, depends if they fit into the lore. I expect Dispossessed not to get a revamp. So I don't expect them to but they definitely could (and did)! 

[Crashnarf]

I don't know if this is a possibility but it would be great even if making a dwarf woman is hard (I speak about the style).

But I've seen some dwarves ladies at atlantis miniatures:

Or at Scibor miniatures:

Maybe I will order somes at Atlantis miniatures to see how they look in "real life"

 

[Ragnar Alpaca]

I think female dwarfs would be cool additions, but I don’t see it happening. Also I don’t think Dispossessed models really need a revamp, we need a battletome definitely, but I like all the current models. The only ones I could see needing a redo are the warriors and thunderers/quarrellers, which if they redo could definitely add a couple of female dwarfs into those new kits.

[Overread]

But Dwarves have always have females on the battlefield! It's not GW's fault that biology means that their beards are just as bushy as their menfolk and that telling male from female - for humans at least - is a near impossibility. Dwarves have always been ahead of the curb in this regard, its just many of the other races who are spending time catching up

 

 

This is commonly known and there is plenty of evidence of this; from original sources such as the mighty Discworld (where it is mentioned several times) through to more modern stories such as the Rat Queens comic series. 

 

 

 

More seriously not every faction has to be politically correct. Daughters of Khaine have only one male model and its supposed to an enthralled male, whilst the rest of their range are, ahem, rather skimpily dressed females and harpies and snake women (one of which has a fully exposed breast). So dwarves can keep their menfolk attitude if GW thinks it suits their lore. Heck orks have never had any females until the Cheerleader trio appeared. 

Personally I'm not fore nor against, I just love good models and insane epic fantasy lore and am just as happy with an army of amazons as one of brutish no-shirt wearing barbarian men. 

[Deepkin]

Warhammer Dwarf women don't have beards though. That was always an annoying trope IMO. I hope we do get some female dwarf models at some point. It would make sense, since we have new dwarf factions that are not bound by the old lore where Dwarfs had super strict gender roles (which kinda got ignored when convenient anyways). I don't have any motives for this other than wanting my dwarfs to pal around with their ladyfolk

[DanielFM]

5 hours ago, Crashnarf said:

I don't know if this is a possibility but it would be great even if making a dwarf woman is hard (I speak about the style).

But I've seen some dwarves ladies at atlantis miniatures:

 

Those look awesome!! Gw, take cues from them!

[Cerlin]

I would hope it only happens as a in lore logical add on not a virtue signal. So priestess of Valya or some such. In the old books the Valya temples had warrior maidens, which were like dwarf Valkyries.

Why do many people like myself want it to be logical? Simple. Women did not and do not often fight in war, at any level near the percentage of men? Why not? In violent times (the AoS world) a nation, city, or tribe could lose half its men and repopulate. If you lose half your women in combat, you are doomed. You cannot come back from that.

The counter some internet folk like to say is "but this is fantasy." Yes it is. But it has to be believable for most people to get into it and buy the justification. 

So back to the original question, I do not know if they are coming, but I would not mind them in a plasuable way and limited scope.

[kenshin620]

11 hours ago, Cerlin said:

The counter some internet folk like to say is "but this is fantasy." Yes it is. But it has to be believable for most people to get into it and buy the justification. 

 

I mean to be fair warhammer is pretty illogical, especially the dwarfs and their never ending grudges. Like the War of the Beard. Hundreds of thousands of lives lost both in the war between high elves and dwarfs and the ensuring later wars with the other races. And this could have been all avoided if they sat down and talked about "hey I think theres this shadow faction of dark elves trying to pose as high elves to drive a wedge between us!"

 

BTW I was mostly referring to Kharadron Overlords and Fyreslayers. I kind of doubt dispossessed will get updated.

 

Oh and I really should remember to mentioned this since this is the internet and people can get the wrong impressions. This is in no way a SJW wishlist or anything. I'm completely fine with 80% of warhammer being male/genderless (I do sort of scoff at the idea of female orcs for instance outside of bloodbowl or maybe some other gag model). I was just curious if gw may start to move in this direction. Though they really need to get some female 40k guardsmen first.

[Morglum StormBasha]

As posted above warhammer fantasy did have dwarves and I also still have the queen Helga model from the 1990s campaign set sitting on my shelf. I’m sure that any new duardin faction could include a dwarf character who was female. Honestly I’m expecting females models for almost (not every) faction release from now on. 

With kharadron and their masks And pressure suits id say it’s impossible to tell. 

[Overread]

@Screwface I think @Cerlin's point is similar to what several others, myself included, have aired which is that provided it fits with the lore of the faction (baring in mine GW can change this or adjust it esp right now) and has a legitimate reason to happen he's fine. It's when its just done for "cause we can" and there is no story to back it up. 

Heck Daughters of Khaine are almost an entirely female army who turn heads over tails on the whole male to female situation (males are stay-at-home slaves kept meek and weak and even those who rise to the level of Doomriders have to drink a potion that lets Morathi kill them at a whim if she deems them too strong or opposed to her ideals and plans). There's a lore, story and history as to why this faction is as it is and that's fine.

 

Like I said earlier I'd rather seen a dynamic display of factions of all kinds - female, male, whatever the heck you are when you're a skaven et c.... so long as the models look great and there's a decent story and lore behind it. Heck Dwarven women, the widows of fallen dwarf men number in their hundreds from all the powerful wars fought. With no means to secure a new mate within strict darven society they have struck out to end their lives upon the same battlefields that took their husbands. Throwing themselves into battle with an insane fever of bloodlust and a total lack of self preservation they prove to be deadly adversaries who fight to the very last. 

One paragraph or two of story and there you have it - a reason for a female group of dwarven fighters. 

[Cerlin]

11 hours ago, Overread said:

@Screwface I think @Cerlin's point is similar to what several others, myself included, have aired which is that provided it fits with the lore of the faction (baring in mine GW can change this or adjust it esp right now) and has a legitimate reason to happen he's fine. It's when its just done for "cause we can" and there is no story to back it up. 

Heck Daughters of Khaine are almost an entirely female army who turn heads over tails on the whole male to female situation (males are stay-at-home slaves kept meek and weak and even those who rise to the level of Doomriders have to drink a potion that lets Morathi kill them at a whim if she deems them too strong or opposed to her ideals and plans). There's a lore, story and history as to why this faction is as it is and that's fine.

 

Like I said earlier I'd rather seen a dynamic display of factions of all kinds - female, male, whatever the heck you are when you're a skaven et c.... so long as the models look great and there's a decent story and lore behind it. Heck Dwarven women, the widows of fallen dwarf men number in their hundreds from all the powerful walls fought. With no means to secure a new mate within strict darven society they have struck out to end their lives upon the same battlefields that took their husbands. Throwing themselves into battle with an insane fever of bloodlust and a total lack of self preservation they prove to be deadly adversaries who fight to the very last. 

One paragraph or two of story and there you have it - a reason for a female group of dwarven fighters. 

I love it. Take the viking inspiration of old dispossessed, write some good lore, then bang! You have Wall Maidens who are baddass hybrid dwarf units.

[Screwface]

Ah I get it, you need a logical reason to bring in an all or partially female force just like people would demand a set of logical reasons to bring in an all male... oh wait.

Mod Edit:  Please don't tell people they're posting drivel.  If you have nothing constructive to bring to this thread don't contribute

[RuneBrush]

+++MOD HAT+++

Not impressed with how quickly this thread has gone off the rails.  I have tidied up and so that you can all get back on track.

[Bellfree]

 

11 hours ago, Overread said:

@Screwface I think @Cerlin's point is similar to what several others, myself included, have aired which is that provided it fits with the lore of the faction (baring in mine GW can change this or adjust it esp right now) and has a legitimate reason to happen he's fine. It's when its just done for "cause we can" and there is no story to back it up. 

Heck Daughters of Khaine are almost an entirely female army who turn heads over tails on the whole male to female situation (males are stay-at-home slaves kept meek and weak and even those who rise to the level of Doomriders have to drink a potion that lets Morathi kill them at a whim if she deems them too strong or opposed to her ideals and plans). There's a lore, story and history as to why this faction is as it is and that's fine.

 

Like I said earlier I'd rather seen a dynamic display of factions of all kinds - female, male, whatever the heck you are when you're a skaven et c.... so long as the models look great and there's a decent story and lore behind it. Heck Dwarven women, the widows of fallen dwarf men number in their hundreds from all the powerful wars fought. With no means to secure a new mate within strict darven society they have struck out to end their lives upon the same battlefields that took their husbands. Throwing themselves into battle with an insane fever of bloodlust and a total lack of self preservation they prove to be deadly adversaries who fight to the very last. 

One paragraph or two of story and there you have it - a reason for a female group of dwarven fighters. 

 K, but why? This setting is a lot like 40k and old WHFB in that the average person will spend more of their life either fighting or running away from fighting than they'll spend SLEEPING. It's weirder for someone to NOT fight than TO fight. I could accept an entire faction of geriatric lepers riding into battle without blinking but if there's ANY group of people who DON'T fight, THEM f***ers need to explain themselves because that makes NO sense.

[Overread]

Actually the vast majority of people in 40K are not fighting. 

The Imperium stretches across a whole galaxy and the wars and battles that dominate the lore take place on only a tiny fraction of those worlds. They are VAST battles and huge events, but the vast majority of the Imperium is living within cities. They get up, go to work, worship the Emperor, keep an eye out for the malcontent, chat at the Holy Server of Water and generally get on with life. They have kids, raise a family, grow old and die.

Same goes for Tau and Eldar - Dark Eldar kind of but their idea of a relaxing evening is a bit different. Orks, Necrons and Tyranid are the only ones where the whole race is focused purely upon war and even then there are Orks who focus more on building than on fighting; Tyranid who have purposes beyond combat.

 

In fantasy there are whole cities of people who will never go to war and who will only fight or die if their city becomes invaded (and even then many will hide or run). Accountants, traders, fishermen, farmers, the people who sweep the streets (in the posh places) etc... It's nearly if not totally impossible for a whole living faction to be at war. A good example is in Malazan Book of the Fallen where one entire people are taken to war and the country dies as a result - nothing to till the land, no people to do anything. 

 

Going to war is actually very difficult if you don't have a good economy and farming base because all those soliders need equipment, food and supplies. In fact in the past in the real world many wars would end or grind to a halt over the Fall and winter months as much of the army would head home to aid in the harvest; whilst winter was just deadly to both sides to be cowering in camps. Those that didn't go home for the harvest could risk losing a portion of the harvest.

Now in Sigmar we must assume that there are populations way in excess as such as there are many spare to go to war and the seasons are likely a bit jumbled and made due to the realms.

 

 

So in general any living faction actually has to have more reason to go to war than they do to not go to war. Now Sigmar's own still live and breath even though they are reforged so they will rely heavily on other races to provide them with food and supplies. Most of the humans and aelves are the same in that they need food and supplies and resources to be worked whilst the army is at war. I'm sure even in the military world of the Daughters of Khaine there are women in places of power who have nothing to do with war and instead focus on managing building firms; running banks; balancing books and ensuring that their men-folk behave themselves. To say nothing of diplomats and traders. Dwarves in all their form would also rely on many at home to keep the world ticking over for when the warriors return.

Orks are much the same and will, again require some level of basic support even if they gain much through raiding and fighting. 

Seraphon even require some basic support for their living Slaan mages, though they are different in that most of their combat warriors are summoned from the ether. Chaos are similar to orks in that the living component of their army requires support even if they gain much through raiding; whilst the pure chaos part is different. 

Even the Ioneth require that basic level of food and fishing to be performed - heck to them the warriors that strike at villages and ships for souls is part of their harvest. 

 

So to my mind most factions actually need more reason to go to war than more reason to not go to war. However the lore and the way the game is twists the perception we get of the world into focusing on the military affairs more so than anything else. That isn't a bad thing, but it does gloss a little over the cities and rich world around them. The Warhammer RPG setting is the ideal kind of game that presents the other side; of taverns, bars, houses and quests; with fat merchants, criminals, smiths and odd mages in towers. 

[MacDuff]

Reading the above post made me wonder if there are female Seraphon. Lizardwomen? 

[Mark Williams]

Speaking as a Stormcast Eternal player, it actually bothered me a little that there were no female models prior to AOS 2, as the lore seemed to support the notion that the eternals had essentially been given god-like bodies to fight with, and what determined them becoming an eternal in the first place had more to do with their character and how brave they were in the face of Chaos. It stands to reason that your moral character and strength of conviction would matter more than your gender in that situation, as the body that gets constructed for you in the afterlife would essentially be strong enough to serve and essentially completely equal regardless of secondary characteristics.

This seems to have been rectified with all of the new boxed sets having a good mix of different body types, and I've tried to incorporate as many female models into my army as possible when building the new kits.

I think that this philosophy should spread to the other armies, in cases  where it wouldn't oppose the lore. As someone pointed out, Daughters of Khaine seem like  an example of the polar opposite, and that's ok too.

Speaking towards the state of the world populations in a world that would be at total constant war... I actually wonder based on the descriptions in the texts how there are even enough population left to exist. It's heavy implied that during the time of chaos, entire worlds were conquered and essentially just fell into senselss murder and slaughter. It seems to me that even a few generations of this and you'd literally start running out of people.... and the time of chaos lasted... centuries? World War II barely lasted a decade and sent the entire world's population into serious decline. Centuries of that and you'd think the worlds would just be barren wastelands and small pockets of nomadic tribes, if anything at all.

[Kramer]

11 hours ago, Mark Williams said:

Speaking towards the state of the world populations in a world that would be at total constant war... I actually wonder based on the descriptions in the texts how there are even enough population left to exist. It's heavy implied that during the time of chaos, entire worlds were conquered and essentially just fell into senselss murder and slaughter. It seems to me that even a few generations of this and you'd literally start running out of people.... and the time of chaos lasted... centuries? World War II barely lasted a decade and sent the entire world's population into serious decline. Centuries of that and you'd think the worlds would just be barren wastelands and small pockets of nomadic tribes, if anything at all.

That's also my objection to the it should be 'realistic' argument, and men are more 
1. if it's all doom and gloom and every battle is a last stand. You're not busy saving the women for the longterm succesion of your city/tribe. So fluff wise perfectly reasonable. 
2. In a larger setting (Hammerhal city style) the whole city isn't marching out only parts of the population. So why no female specialists? In regards to Dwarfs, a priestess of Valaya unit would be perfectly acceptable and cool! And when you have them, why not an army of them? For the times they march out for their own purposes. 

3. In our society there are plenty of women who choose to join the army or police. So a similar balance in human (based) armies would be cool, always!

So although all slaughter and war is more featured because that's a cooler focus for the fluff... I still feel not every square off realm was war during the age of Chaos all the time. Also I think Sigmar closed a whole realm (heaven) during that time and the people expanded from there into the realms in the age of Sigmar. 

Just my two sense.

[Overread]

A lot of the AoS lore is VERY light. Even the manual only basically provides a very brief overview of what is going on at any one time; as such it decently  covers a very long period of change in the world, but at the same time doesn't really satisfy any level of detail in any of those periods; plus it focuses on the war elements which significantly alters our perception of the world

40K does hte very same, only it has the fallback that it only covers a tiny smidgen of worlds and that htey can have whole planets making food and shipping out food whilst others are total produces of people for the legions etc.... Ergo it can patch its gaps by introducing a new world; or system or body of worlds as it got millions to play with. 

 

 

The way I read it there was a Grand Age where most were at peace and where Sigmar was building and the various peoples built huge cities and founded their nations. It basically was the settling and founding and formation of empires. Wars and hostilities happened, but nothing on a vastly grand scale.

Then the Age of Chaos came and Sigmar withdrew his forces against a tide of defeats. The various kingdoms were left to fend for themselves and most lost significant, but not all ground. Chaos warped large regions of the world, but not all. There were basically bastions that held out and continued to, if not thrive, at least survive. People still made buns and tilled the land; people still fell in love and worshipped their gods. But the wars being fought were being lost more than won on the grand scale and the fracturing and sealing of the gates limited trade. 

When Sigmar returned he smashed Chaos back; reopened gates, resumed trade and essentially started a renaissance and reubilding coupled with a large war effort to push back the Chaos incursion. The tide of war shifted, but so too have alliances and we see Destruction and Death break out of the pact and form their own agendas (not forgetting that even within Order there are personal agendas of each race).

 

Idoneth need sea settlements to raid which suggests thriving populations and large numbers of people along the coastlines that they raid. Enough that they can be raided without attracting the full attention of their host nations. There are cities in the world full of people who will never go to war; rural towns where people will be born, marry, have kids, grow old and die without going to war, seeing chaos warp beasts or possibly even seeing Stormcast. 

 

 

 

 

Within this rich variety there are social structures, hierarchies, nations and different attitudes. Some, such as Sigmar's Stormcast, appear to have little to no normal social order or structure due to their very nature and thus there is no gender, or birthright class system. Others like Daughters of Khaine clearly have both a class system and a gender bias built into them. Slaan are just unknown (and honestly considering both their lizard anatomy which might hide what humans would consider male and female traits; the vast majority of them are akin to ghosts given form for battle at the powers of mighty toad-god-mages). 

I've personally a view that any faction should have lore and logic behind it and thus, some should be totally against the idea of their females fighting. Some should have slaves and serfs who are little more than fodder for arrows; they should have upper class who are noble and fight for the cause of good and defending fair maidens in castles; they should have armies of powerful independent women who fight alongside their men for just cause or just for the joy of fighting; etc.. etc.... 

 

I don't think we should ever reach a point where we try to dilute the richness of a fantasy setting by making every faction follow the same ideals of society, gender, identity etc....