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Male and female representation in GW models


zilberfrid

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1 minute ago, shinros said:

Thing is most coperations are using it to fill a quota and will remove it for the sake of more money. Aka wizard coast, a female had interest in both sexes, that was quickly changed in a novel to appease China she now only likes big muscled men. A novel that was also available in the west now people are in an uproar over twitter. They even remove black characters or altar them for their Chinese game client aka blizzard Diablo 3 and even star wars when it comes to finn. Now GW aren't like that(thankfully), but most are. Hence why I'm cynical whenever I see it.

It's why whenever I see companies pushing that angle hard I just roll my eyes. I mean you heard of the China Blizzard situation right? That's basic human rights. I'm just really jaded, don't let me pull down your excitement. 

None of that means representation and diversity aren’t good things though. Just it hasn’t been done well in those cases. 

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For centuries, in almost all cultures of the world, men performed war-related functions. There were exceptions to this, but they were exceptions so unique that legends arose around them (see Amazons).

If for someone the game is an extension of the perception of current reality, then in fact the lack of diversity can be a shock, a proof of all the worst blasphemies to the current social paradigm. However, I think that most people play to escape reality even for a moment, to move to another world rather then contemplate the shortcomings of their own.

And just as killing in the game does not make us psychopathic killers, the expectation that knights are men does not make us sexists. 

That said, just as women in barbarian teams from Warcry look completely natural and cool, women in the ranks of a freeguild regiment or women chaos knights would look like pretentious quota fillers. Heck, there is a whole women faction of DoK which looks terrific given their lore and fluff. Where is diversity in that? 

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5 minutes ago, Still-young said:

None of that means representation and diversity aren’t good things though. Just it hasn’t been done well in those cases. 

I agree with you completely. But most companies aren't doing it because they are altruistic, if they don't think it will earn them more money they will drop it in a heartbeat. That's already been made clear enough as it is. As I said I'm extremely jaded. 

Edit:As I said GW are one of the better companies handling it, I just think some people are kinda scared that GW will fly off the handle. I personally don't think they will. 

Edited by shinros
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4 minutes ago, JPjr said:

I can hear a honking in the distance so before the clown car pulls up and dumps all its occupants into this thread...

Coming out with stuff like Orruk armies are gender neutral is clearly nonsense and every single person knows it, or at least really should. I've almost certainly never seen an explicitly gender neutral pronoun used in conjunction with them in any official context, the models there release and the characters they feature in fiction and fluff are all explicitly as well as implicitly coded as male.

Or something like Skaven, why not introduce female characters, you don't have to stick ****** on a rat to make it female. And before anyone drops some ****** about skaven brood mares or whatever that's a ****** awful thing that they can easily just excise from the lore. It's a fictional magical world, keeping stuff like that in is an active choice.

If it hasn't come up already I'm sure we'll get some chirruping about 'forced diversity' or some other incel nonsense. Funny how for these people nearly always 'don't have a problem' with diversity it's just when it's "forced", except weirdly it turns out that 99/100 it just happens to be "forced" in their view and for some reason their view is the one that counts on these issues.

Or how 'they don't mind female models' (oh how generous sir!) but this is one is too ugly, mannish, or otherwise doesn't serve to act as an object of arousal for them. Is that how you judge male models? I'm not saying female models can't be 'good looking' (in whatever way you judge the looks of a 2" high piece of plastic) but representation is about body shapes, ages etc too. No one blinks an eye if GW release a grizzled silver fox Stormcast like Stormsire, because it's just accepted that male models can come in all different shapes and sizes and we're not judging them on their bonerability.

And stuff like this. Even people that see it's a problem and do want more representation are happy to limit that to a 1/3 minority, and this isn't an attack on @zilberfrid, when you're starting from close to zero in most cases then I agree, 33% would be nice and the part of me that is a terrible ally would see that as a victory of sorts too, when any female player would be more than entitled to roll their eyes at this.

As said this is an entirely fictional world suffused with magic, everything that features or doesn't feature in it is an active choice and one that can be changed at any point. What we cling on to tells us everything about us and not the world we're playing in.

And the thing is it doesn't really affect people at all.

In an RPG then you may want to explore issues of racism, sexism etc through the game, and whilst a lot of people will tell you they play these games to get away from that (that is actively having to spend every minute of their life in a world that discriminates against them in some way not being someone who is oh so tired of having to respect others) it at least has the potential to be explored in an interesting and possibly cathartic manner.

But more often I hear people saying you know what perhaps at the end of the day I dont want to have to deal with fantasy racism, sexism or whatever.

And if a few things need to be changed in a setting well why not. I grew up in the 80s, I don't think the people that designed RPGs and war-games back then were racists or sexists at all, in fact certainly on the British side most would have been, or considered themselves to have been, left wing and anti-discrimination. But cultural attitudes were not as sensitive (in a good way) as they are now, so baked into the core of the genre are a lot of problematic things, we do not have to keep them.

Just because something seemed ok in 1983 that doesn't mean we have to cling on to it in 2019. We don't have to burn all our books and defenestrate our past, but we can simply acknowledge things have changed and we can be better now.

Especially with a Wargame? It makes zero difference on the table, there's no special rules for gender, you're not dealing with social interactions or issues just trying to kill what's opposite you. But it makes the game more accessible and tells people who aren't white boys that this is something they can be involved in too. Representation matters.

Seeing how many people seem to be worrying about how to build up and maintain gaming groups you'd think anything that made the game more open to new people would and should be welcomed.

GW are doing a hell of a lot better than they used to, and for that I congratulate and applaud them, but they're still a long, long, long way off from achieving anything even vaguely close to parity. The new Chaos Warriors look absolutely fantastic, I'd love to have seen how they could have adapted that aesthetic to a few female sculpts, they actually made an effort to include more in the Warcry warbands so it's a shame not to develop that.

This isn't just me 'virtue signalling' or whatever ****** someone's learnt by rote on a reddit forum to immediately spout in situations like this, I'm being selfish here, I'd love to see what they could make if they tried. I want more people from different backgrounds involved because it makes it more interesting, it makes it more welcoming, it makes it better.

I want more people to play the game, because the more people that play the game the healthier it is, the more interesting it is, the more toys we get. Right now there are huge demographics that could be brought into the game and showing them through artwork, models, stories that they're welcome in the, not our, hobby helps that.

Please, for both sides of the fence. No need for insults. Let me rephrase that. No insults at all. It does not help the discussion.

My remark about 50/50 was more that every set having as many males and females is not neccessary and could feen unnatural. Some having a 6 in 10, some having 4 in 10, some 5 in 10 etc would work well.

But a start with 100% female characters would be best, to round out existing collections.

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20 minutes ago, JPjr said:

Just because something seemed ok in 1983 that doesn't mean we have to cling on to it in 2019. We don't have to burn all our books and defenestrate our past, but we can simply acknowledge things have changed and we can be better now.

Especially with a Wargame? It makes zero difference on the table, there's no special rules for gender, you're not dealing with social interactions or issues just trying to kill what's opposite you. But it makes the game more accessible and tells people who aren't white boys that this is something they can be involved in too. Representation matters.

Seeing how many people seem to be worrying about how to build up and maintain gaming groups you'd think anything that made the game more open to new people would and should be welcomed.

GW are doing a hell of a lot better than they used to, and for that I congratulate and applaud them, but they're still a long, long, long way off from achieving anything even vaguely close to parity. The new Chaos Warriors look absolutely fantastic, I'd love to have seen how they could have adapted that aesthetic to a few female sculpts, they actually made an effort to include more in the Warcry warbands so it's a shame not to develop that.

This isn't just me 'virtue signalling' or whatever ****** someone's learnt by rote on a reddit forum to immediately spout in situations like this, I'm being selfish here, I'd love to see what they could make if they tried. I want more people from different backgrounds involved because it makes it more interesting, it makes it more welcoming, it makes it better.

I want more people to play the game, because the more people that play the game the healthier it is, the more interesting it is, the more toys we get. Right now there are huge demographics that could be brought into the game and showing them through artwork, models, stories that they're welcome in the, not our, hobby helps that.

Very good points!

GW still have a way to go on acheiving parity, so one good thing to discuss might be good sources of compatible 3rd party models. I've seen Frostgrave Soldiers brought up, and didn't know they did an all female kit, so I'll have to check them out! I play the game, but tend to use lord of the rings models, so I should probably see what they have to offer.

I know that raging heroes is a thing, and while their sculpts are amazingly dynamic, and you have to admire their artistry, I find the overly skimpy attire of their figures off putting. I don't want to say that there is anything inherently wrong with that, but it certainly isn't for me.

Obviously the big RPG lines do plenty of female models. I've got a lot of heroes from Reaper and Wizkids, who sometimes get used as leaders, or unit champions. 

What else would people suggest? If we want more female models, then a good way to get them is to show the various companies making them that we're willing to buy the kits!

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42 minutes ago, shinros said:

My opinion is I don't really care as long as it makes sense. 

Sense is relative. With things like fishpeople on giant sharks flying above dry land and magically resurrected superhumans in huge gold plate and such, bar for 'sense' is remarkably low in AoS, especially if we understand it as 'historical accrucacy', the favourite term of people liking to claim that women were invented in XX century.

Army of half naked warior priestesses with knives makes sense in AoS, but I can't see them fare particularily well on medieval battlefield. Especially without magic. Because through magic, all the craziness is possible, and as long as authors put some effort into explaining how it works, everything can make sense. Even flying sharks.

But putting those things aside - anyone who has ever tried to kitbash multiple women will confirm - we need more female models. Because right now, despite GW getting way better in this departament in recent years, the choice is terrible. Choice for *human* women is even worse and like 90% of it comes from warcry, that came out just a few months back. I'd like more diversity, and I mean it in 'diversity in availible plastic parts' way before anyone's hurt feelings descend upon me for using a forbidden word.

Elves are mostly set for now and I don't expect future aelf armies to be different. Also, let daugfhters of khaine serve as an example - if they managed to squeeze men into the faction that's remarkably sexist in lore, there should be no problem with finding the place for women in the others.

Stormcast are getting there, and if they contine in the same direction, problem will solve itself. Cool.

Duardin are lacking. The novels clearly mention female Kharadron fighters and, really, the only thing there's different about them is that their heavy pressurised suits covering the entire body have beardless masks. Because there would be no way to tell otherwise. So, just put some masks with female faces on them in future boxes and we're cool (more or less how it was done with Tau in 40k. most of their infantry wears armour and helmets anyway, but some of the helmetless heads are female. Which you'll know only if you have some knowlege in Tau gender characteristics :D)

Fyreslayers - I honestly don't know enough about their fluff to know if they currently admit women in their ranks or not, but if they hypotethically would - less beard, even more crazy hair, design wise it's not a problem, It could probably be squeezed as some optional parts into a unit box. Different face, different torso front, rest equally axe-y and bodybuild-y. Doable. And, honestly, fun and original, we don't see many dwarf berserker women around.

Order Humans - we're at legacy models only now, so no wonder the situation is dire. If new models ver come, there better be women in there.  Both as characters and among the regular units. There's no reason for them not to.  Does that make sense, historical accuracy wise? There's an answer to that question, and it's 'who the hell cares?' They're fighting demons who want to replace your skin with concept of trauma, every single human in history would fare equally bad against it. But these humans are supported by equipment made from magical materials, magic, and faith that actually works wonders. They'll manage, despite being frail m'lady females and not strong manly men. Of course, those female models could've been grizzled veterans and exceptional fighters as well, and if they were I'd take some oy in reading all those hurt comments from people for whom some sisters of battle being old was a personal attack ; )

So, that was order.

Death... honestly, death is dong great recently. Nighthaunt have some of the best designed women in the game imo. Who would claim that Lady Olynder or the Briar Queen look bad. Plus, we even got a female ghoul, who looks creepy enough and I wouldn't mind more of those if basic ghoul resculpt ever comes. Hunger doesn't discriminate by gender.

Destruction: Troggoth Hag mentioned here is a great example of how this can be done right. It would be cool to see more of those female mosnter archetypes show up in game. All the Baba Yaga's, Grendel's Mothers and such. So much potential here. Some Ogre women wouldn't hurt as well, by the way.

Chaos: Warcry has done some great service to them in that departament. So did Godsworn Hunt. I wouldn't mind seeing warrior women similar to Jagathra in future marauder resculp. Same with Kairic Acolytes - woman from Eyes of the Nine is a great example of how it could be done. Some female demons of gods other than Slaanesh would be nice to see - Valkia was a great concept, I'm curious what they could do with, say, an old nurgle'y witch. Also, it would be cool, if new Warriors and Knights come in multipart eventually, to have some helmetless heads female. Like a dark mirror of Stormcast.

 

In general, I see progress and I'm happy GW is ignoring all the reeeee'ing caused by it and continues in its set direction. And thanks to that, some of us get extra fun with reading how making fanatical-chainsaw-repentants less sexy, and giving their leader wrinkles is the end of western civilisation. ; )

EDIT:

Also, what @JPjr said. 

 

Edited by dekay
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While I see quite a few calls for female beastmen models, this is one area where GW could actually get away with almost nothing.  Goats aren't very sexually dimorphic (having physical different sexes) so any of the existing models could be female; they are universally hairy, dirty and smelly creatures! 

All this would need to change the perceptions would be an equal number of named characters of each gender for the faction.  Conveniently, BoC have a single named character, so one more release would wrap this up. 😉

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5 minutes ago, EccentricCircle said:

What else would people suggest? If we want more female models, then a good way to get them is to show the various companies making them that we're willing to buy the kits!

I personally like frostgrave line, very oldhammer, but with lotsa charm. Metal models have some interesging choices, Soldiers 2 are surprisingly unversal set and we'll be getting Wizards 2, this time with women.

Shieldwolf has some nice kits as well.

By the way, Mantic, of all places, has made northern alliance clansmen set with choice of male and female heads that would make for some really nice marauders and such.

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18 minutes ago, dekay said:

Sense is relative. With things like fishpeople on giant sharks flying above dry land and magically resurrected superhumans in huge gold plate and such, bar for 'sense' is remarkably low in AoS, especially if we understand it as 'historical accrucacy', the favourite term of people liking to claim that women were invented in XX century.

Army of half naked warior priestesses with knives makes sense in AoS, but I can't see them fare particularily well on medieval battlefield. Especially without magic. Because through magic, all the craziness is possible, and as long as authors put some effort into explaining how it works, everything can make sense. Even flying sharks.

But putting those things aside - anyone who has ever tried to kitbash multiple women will confirm - we need more female models. Because right now, despite GW getting way better in this departament in recent years, the choice is terrible. Choice for *human* women is even worse and like 90% of it comes from warcry, that came out just a few months back. I'd like more diversity, and I mean it in 'diversity in availible plastic parts' way before anyone's hurt feelings descend upon me for using a forbidden word.

Elves are mostly set for now and I don't expect future aelf armies to be different. Also, let daugfhters of khaine serve as an example - if they managed to squeeze men into the faction that's remarkably sexist in lore, there should be no problem with finding the place for women in the others.

Stormcast are getting there, and if they contine in the same direction, problem will solve itself. Cool.

Duardin are lacking. The novels clearly mention female Kharadron fighters and, really, the only thing there's different about them is that their heavy pressurised suits covering the entire body have beardless masks. Because there would be no way to tell otherwise. So, just put some masks with female faces on them in future boxes and we're cool (more or less how it was done with Tau in 40k. most of their infantry wears armour and helmets anyway, but some of the helmetless heads are female. Which you'll know only if you have some knowlege in Tau gender characteristics :D)

Fyreslayers - I honestly don't know enough about their fluff to know if they currently admit women in their ranks or not, but if they hypotethically would - less beard, even more crazy hair, design wise it's not a problem, It could probably be squeezed as some optional parts into a unit box. Different face, different torso front, rest equally axe-y and bodybuild-y. Doable. And, honestly, fun and original, we don't see many dwarf berserker women around.

Order Humans - we're at legacy models only now, so no wonder the situation is dire. If new models ver come, there better be women in there.  Both as characters and among the regular units. There's no reason for them not to.  Does that make sense, historical accuracy wise? There's an answer to that question, and it's 'who the hell cares?' They're fighting demons who want to replace your skin with concept of trauma, every single human in history would fare equally bad against it. But these humans are supported by equipment made from magical materials, magic, and faith that actually works wonders. They'll manage, despite being frail m'lady females and not strong manly men. Of course, those female models could've been grizzled veterans and exceptional fighters as well, and if they were I'd take some oy in reading all those hurt comments from people for whom some sisters of battle being old was a personal attack ; )

So, that was order.

Death... honestly, death is dong great recently. Nighthaunt have some of the best designed women in the game imo. Who would claim that Lady Olynder or the Briar Queen look bad. Plus, we even got a female ghoul, who looks creepy enough and I wouldn't mind more of those if basic ghoul resculpt ever comes. Hunger doesn't discriminate by gender.

Destruction: Troggoth Hag mentioned here is a great example of how this can be done right. It would be cool to see more of those female mosnter archetypes show up in game. All the Baba Yaga's, Grendel's Mothers and such. So much potential here. Some Ogre women wouldn't hurt as well, by the way.

Chaos: Warcry has done some great service to them in that departament. So did Godsworn Hunt. I wouldn't mind seeing warrior women similar to Jagathra in future marauder resculp. Same with Kairic Acolytes - woman from Eyes of the Nine is a great example of how it could be done. Some female demons of gods other than Slaanesh would be nice to see - Valkia was a great concept, I'm curious what they could do with, say, an old nurgle'y witch. Also, it would be cool, if new Warriors and Knights come in multipart eventually, to have some helmetless heads female. Like a dark mirror of Stormcast.

 

In general, I see progress and I'm happy GW is ignoring all the reeeee'ing caused by it and continues in its set direction. And thanks to that, some of us get extra fun with reading how making fanatical-chainsaw-repentants less sexy, and giving their leader wrinkles is the end of western civilisation. ; )

EDIT:

Also, what @JPjr said. 

 

When I'm talking about sense, I mean the levels female Space Marines. My whole outlook is that companies don't give a flying monkies about representation, that's my stance and why I don't really care. Blizzard the company that cares so much about it seems to be okay with removing the witch doctor for China and banning a guy for campaigning for basic human rights. Wizard of coast are okay with changing a character's sexual orientation to appease china. To get money. 

Hence why I see it largely as a farce. 

Edited by shinros
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19 minutes ago, Armoured said:

While I see quite a few calls for female beastmen models, this is one area where GW could actually get away with almost nothing.  Goats aren't very sexually dimorphic (having physical different sexes) so any of the existing models could be female; they are universally hairy, dirty and smelly creatures! 

Less horns and beards, more braids, a bit rounder features. The torso is mostly human, so ******. Would have to be subtle to avoid unintentional comedy, but could work.

(..really? 'b.reasts' get censured? :D Isn't that, like, a normal body part? :D)

Edited by dekay
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Just now, shinros said:

When I'm talking about sense, I mean the levels female Space Marines. 

Alright, I'll bite. I'm one of those people who think that when Primaris showed up, it was a moment where female space marines could've been safely added without violating prior role. They're a product of extreme technoheresy anyway, They're meant to remove some problems with creation of the originals and 'emperor has forbidden it' doesn't seems to be a thing that Cawl was particularily concerned about - he creates new things without proper procedures and not only doesn't hide it, he slaps his name on every single design he puts into production. One paragraph about him wanting to broaden the recruitment base and figuring out how to make geneseed work with female organism would, for me, solve the matter. The whole biology side of geneseed and astartes creation process makes zero sense scientifically anyway, so it wouldn't be in any way worse than it is now. :D

However, if one day GW just randomly decided to add women to SM sprues and start telling us they've always been there, including inserting them to novels happening in earlier time periods to justify that claim, yeah. That would be deeply unsatisfying sense wise.  I'd get used to it some time later, though, as I did to all the new vehicles and equipment that GW have 'always been using' that was added in my memory ; ). Because the concept of female SM is ok with me and would, again, give me more parts for future conversions.

Luckily, AoS has no such problem - setting is still extremely malleable and basically all lore requires a lot of fleshing out.

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Honestly, I find it far more interesting when different cultures within the universe have different parity (or lack thereof) between the genders. There's something that just feels more 'real' about different nations, faiths, races, whatever, having different norms from another. Having some armies with much more gender diverse ranks makes them feel more unique when put next to an army that almost entire consists of one. 

Would Sisters of Battle and Daughters of Khaine feel as special if every army on the tabletop/lore had an equal distribution of Men:Woman anyway? How different would a mostly female Valayan-themed Dwarf army be when compared to the sausage fest of Dispossessed/Fyreslayers compared to if they just got a load of new female models? One thing that always stood out in WHFB was how many female models the elven armies had in the rank and file compared to the others. If every army is like that then quite a bit of character is lost.

 

Edited by Clan's Cynic
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Just now, dekay said:

Alright, I'll bite. I'm one of those people who think that when Primaris showed up, it was a moment where female space marines could've been safely added without violating prior role. They're a product of extreme technoheresy anyway, They're meant to remove some problems with creation of the originals and 'emperor has forbidden it' doesn't seems to be a thing that Cawl was particularily concerned about - he creates new things without proper procedures and not only doesn't hide it, he slaps his name on every single design he puts into production. One paragraph about him wanting to broaden the recruitment base and figuring out how to make geneseed work with female organism would, for me, solve the matter. The whole biology side of geneseed and astartes creation process makes zero sense scientifically anyway, so it wouldn't be in any way worse than it is now. :D

However, if one day GW just randomly decided to add women to SM sprues and start telling us they've always been there, including inserting them to novels happening in earlier time periods to justify that claim, yeah. That would be deeply unsatisfying sense wise.  I'd get used to it some time later, though, as I did to all the new vehicles and equipment that GW have 'always been using' that was added in my memory ; ). Because the concept of female SM is ok with me and would, again, give me more parts for future conversions.

Luckily, AoS has no such problem - setting is still extremely malleable and basically all lore requires a lot of fleshing out.

See I think female stormcast are fine, male Space Marines are ingrained in the setting. Don't get me wrong I like representation, Iove my female and Male Magus in my GSC. I'm just a jaded individual, I've seen time and time again companies showing that they don't actually care about representation at all. It's why I now mainly shrug at it. 

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Pretty sure about 60% of people don't care, 10 to 20% really want GW to actively pursue diversity and 10 to 20% don't like it. 

Here is what sums up the issue to me. 

Until 2017 there were no female stormcast. In 2018 suddenly 1 in 3 are female. There was no explanation for this. It just happened.

Secondly, Warhammer previously had a fairly dark fantasy vibe. Archaon for instance was born as a result of a chaos warrior raping a nord woman. Other than elves in WHFB armies were male dominated, which particularly made sense due to the fact men are biological stronger and tougher than women when it comes to warfare. This reflected and mirrored real world history to an extent. 

Now you have brutal chaos hordes who we are meant to think are completely barbaric and depraved, except they would never do anything bad to women, be racist or sexist. In fact they are completely happy with a woman in charge. It doesn't even come up as an issue. 

To me there hasn't been any real explanation as to how we got to this point. It just appeared overnight. This makes it look like its a marketing decision to be more diverse, rather than a natural part of the setting. 

I also have personal beliefs about the hobby as being a traditional male space for guys to bond, much like a rugby or football team. But that has been mentioned before so I won't raise it again. 

 

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1 minute ago, HollowHills said:

Pretty sure about 60% of people don't care, 10 to 20% really want GW to actively pursue diversity and 10 to 20% don't like it. 

Here is what sums up the issue to me. 

Until 2017 there were no female stormcast. In 2018 suddenly 1 in 3 are female. There was no explanation for this. It just happened.

Secondly, Warhammer previously had a fairly dark fantasy vibe. Archaon for instance was born as a result of a chaos warrior raping a nord woman. Other than elves in WHFB armies were male dominated, which particularly made sense due to the fact men are biological stronger and tougher than women when it comes to warfare. This reflected and mirrored real world history to an extent. 

Now you have brutal chaos hordes who we are meant to think are completely barbaric and depraved, except they would never do anything bad to women, be racist or sexist. In fact they are completely happy with a woman in charge. It doesn't even come up as an issue. 

To me there hasn't been any real explanation as to how we got to this point. It just appeared overnight. This makes it look like its a marketing decision to be more diverse, rather than a natural part of the setting. 

I also have personal beliefs about the hobby as being a traditional male space for guys to bond, much like a rugby or football team. But that has been mentioned before so I won't raise it again. 

 

See here's the thing, I don't entirely agree but I understand your point. I don't think people should of jumped you for it either. Honestly I think this topic was rather helpful in clearing the air than clogging the rumour thread, but I suspect the mods are going to lock this up. 

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35 minutes ago, PaniuBraniu said:

(...)

And just as killing in the game does not make us psychopathic killers, the expectation that knights are men does not make us sexists. 

That said, just as women in barbarian teams from Warcry look completely natural and cool, women in the ranks of a freeguild regiment or women chaos knights would look like pretentious quota fillers. Heck, there is a whole women faction of DoK which looks terrific given their lore and fluff. Where is diversity in that? 

This is a very well said and reasonable point, thank you. 

23 minutes ago, xking said:

We already had this thread and discussion. 

Yes. And to think those kind of discussions didn't existed a few years ago (thank you Disney and Marvel).

I find it tedious, and a source of animosity in between us of the community, like how @Kirjava13 jumped at @HollowHills throat with ad hominem.

It has nothing to do with the Hobby. Mods should act now. 

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8 minutes ago, shinros said:

See I think female stormcast are fine, male Space Marines are ingrained in the setting. Don't get me wrong I like representation, Iove my female and Male Magus in my GSC. I'm just a jaded individual, I've seen time and time again companies showing that they don't actually care about representation at all. It's why I now mainly shrug at it. 

Don't get me wrong, I agree with you in large part - companies don't do *anything* altruistically. Every single change they make is meant to generate more money for them. However, they generate this money by making us liking what they do, and therefore, may change for the better as a side effect ; )

Luckily GW doesn't seem to bow to China the way, say, Blizzard does, so let's hope this lasts.

As for ingrained in the setting - yes they are, here we agree. However, several other things, like Sanguinary Guard, Grey Knights in power armour, Chaos Knight houses, Hive Guard, Wraithknights and entire faction of Tau are ingrained in the setting as well. While I remember the time where they either simply weren't there, or we were *explicitly* told they don't exist (out of mentioned here, non-terminator GK and renegade knights. But there's more of those!). Basically, around 15 years ago, the box of GK strike squad was as strong violation of the lore as box of female SM would be now. And no one cares anymore. I think the same would happen if suddenly women started showing up in SM kits with no word of explanation ; )

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1 minute ago, HorticulusTGA said:

This is a very well said and reasonable point, thank you. 

Yes. And to think those kind of discussions didn't existed a few years ago (thank you Disney and Marvel).

I find it tedious, and a source of animosity in between us of the community, like how @Kirjava13 jumped at @HollowHills throat with ad hominem.

It has nothing to do with the Hobby. Mods should act now. 

Honestly I think this is one of the first times I have seen on a forum where people are largely being adults in this discussion actually. Made me actually quite happy to be fair and brightened my day. 

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Just now, shinros said:

Honestly I think this is one of the first times I have seen on a forum where people are largely being adults in this discussion actually. Made me actually quite happy to be fair and brightened my day. 

Its true for the most part, your posts most of all. 

But there ALWAYS a way it will derail, as the mods already said. And I didn't have to scroll one (1) page in the rumor thread to start to read personal attack. 

No, suggesting one poster has "issue with women" for a simple comment on Warhammer design is NOT okay, not here, nor anywhere else. 

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1 hour ago, zilberfrid said:

They already exist, the cheerleaders from Blood Bowl.

Which is actually the place where we can also find order human females. The cheerleaders, at 29 euro per set of 4, are the cheapest source of human females GW offers.

I am only satisfied once they come in units of 30!

They shall be the Daughters of Gorkamorka.

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2 minutes ago, HollowHills said:

Until 2017 there were no female stormcast. In 2018 suddenly 1 in 3 are female. There was no explanation for this. It just happened.

see this I really don't get. what should they have introduced one female model that year, maybe 2 the next, keep it at that for a few years and then maybe in 4 or 5 when the hobby world has calmed down slowly introduce a few more, until what's acceptable 10%, 20%? And as for the explanation, what you want them to do a special campaign and expansion pack to hold people's hands and gently welcome them into a world where female models can be a small but just about noticeable minority?

coming next summer! 'Malign Genders', a campaign book and 50 short stories introducing the idea of women in fantasy games who aren't chained naked to posts for giant beasts to consume or be rescued and segueing neatly into the 'Forbidden Genitals' box set.

6 minutes ago, HollowHills said:

Secondly, Warhammer previously had a fairly dark fantasy vibe. Archaon for instance was born as a result of a chaos warrior raping a nord woman. Other than elves in WHFB armies were male dominated, which particularly made sense due to the fact men are biological stronger and tougher than women when it comes to warfare. This reflected and mirrored real world history to an extent. 

The second you don't explicitly make your game a simulation of the real world then all that goes out the window. It's a fictional world and a choice ,i just do not get how you can, with a straight face, accept a world with dragons, undead catapults, fungoid rage beasts, flying turtles but draw the line at say thinking in such a world sexual or racial differences might mean less or just not be a thing at all.

who knows maybe the magic space dust that powers dragon flight also makes X chromosomes a bit stronger in this fantasy world.

now not to say that things like sexism, racism can't be addressed, there's plenty of SF/F works that do and do so in interesting  ways, there are definitely interesting ways of handling it in RPGs and fantasy settings that allow us to look at real world events and issues through a metaphorical lens, but then sorry you're injecting politics into fantasy spaces, and we all know how that upsets people.

as for things like rape, well maybe we can be a bit more inventive in creating motivations for our heroes (and villains) than falling back on that. again can it be handled in a sensitive way? yes. will it? well you're really rolling the dice and hoping it comes up sixes here.

low end estimates put it at around 1 in 5 women will be the victims of sexual assault in their lives (the true figure is probably higher), just maybe they don't want their trauma to be something for blokes to use to make them feel like their game of toy soldiers is really, super dark, edgy and grown up.

Maybe they worry that a culture that forefronts stuff like this is the kind where people casually throw around terms like rape during games in their 'safe space for males'. And if thinking about how it may affect women is to alien a concept what about the 5% of men who've suffered sexual assault, or whose friends, family or partners have. 

I know personally I wouldn't want to play in such an environment and after a friendly warning would probably greet repeat offences by throwing them through the shop window.

19 minutes ago, HollowHills said:

Now you have brutal chaos hordes who we are meant to think are completely barbaric and depraved, except they would never do anything bad to women, be racist or sexist. In fact they are completely happy with a woman in charge. It doesn't even come up as an issue. 

why should it be an issue? if your goal is to see primordial ruinous forces consume the universe and all the souls within it's pretty pathetic to limit your antipathy to people with a slightly higher melanin count.

of course there's a certain level of double standards/hypocrisy here. reaving warbands enslaving populations and sacrificing them to dark gods is clearly NOT A NICE THING.

so yeah sure you can say why can they do x but not y, and there's no easy answer but then just because something's difficult it doesn't mean it's not worth grappling with. and perfection is the enemy of good.

I often struggle with the idea of playing these games AT ALL in a world where I'm casually sat here in relative comfort painting blood onto axes whilst vast numbers of people in real life face the absolute ****** horrors of real war on a daily basis. 

if I'm honest there's really no easy answer here and I totally understand why people would be happy to brush it under the carpet or get angry instead at people that raise these issues, but it's better to confront them head on.

at the same point though if I thought my gaming group included people who had fled from war zones and the like, maybe I'd talk with them or understand that certain things might be triggering. if I want my gaming groups to include women, people of colour, people with disabilities then why not do what I can to make it more accommodating for them.

does it REALLY ruin my enjoyment to decide that, fanciful and utopian as it may be, rape doesn't exist in my fantasy world? if it does then maybe I need to examine why.

28 minutes ago, HollowHills said:

To me there hasn't been any real explanation as to how we got to this point. It just appeared overnight. This makes it look like its a marketing decision to be more diverse, rather than a natural part of the setting. 

as said before what do you want? do you want an official announcement that ok for 40+ years this has been a bit of a boy's club, so we're going to very very slowly introduce female models, but only one or two, and over a 10 yr period. 

if you've been waiting for 30+ years for this then maybe you'd be fine with them just ripping off the bandaid quickly and, shock horror, introducing 33% female sculpts in one particular faction.

and of course in a way it's a marketing decision, that's not the GOTCHA people think it is. everything we see from models to box art to lore is in a sense driven by marketing, what people want, what kind of people they want top appeal to and attract.

this 'oh it doesn't feel organic' is such humbug and it comes up again and again, every single thing that is made and produced for this hobby is a deliberate choice, GW didn't employ a team of geneticists to develop the background to orcs & goblins, they decided on something that sounded fun & cool in the 80s or 90s and it stuck.

 

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2 hours ago, Eevika said:

But most skeletons are wearing male armor which would indicate they were male when alive

Or female that disguised themselves as male warriors😉😋.

As for the skaven I am rather happy with the few possible female or feminine models and lore wise existing things (I guess) we have.40A4DC76-00A4-4748-B5AA-4A24F801818D.jpeg.173d5b0b0ee0183773772538b26a7b88.jpeg
Just look at this beauty.

It’s so cute!!😍😍

Edited by Skreech Verminking
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