discussion Female model representation in Age of Sigmar

[Enoby]

5 minutes ago, HollowHills said:

Teclis has a cat which is both named and female.

I appreciate your comments

I just wanted to check this one though; I thought Celenar was female too, but from what I can gather from the battletome they're agender. Do you have any lore saying they're female (I'm genuinely curious, it doesn't matter much either way)?

[HollowHills]

2 minutes ago, Enoby said:

I appreciate your comments

I just wanted to check this one though; I thought Celenar was female too, but from what I can gather from the battletome they're agender. Do you have any lore saying they're female (I'm genuinely curious, it doesn't matter much either way)?

I sold my battletome, but I'm sure she is described as female when Teclis goes to the moon. Maybe I'm being assumptive based on the face though? Someone with the book can probably chip in and confirm.

[Overread]

English doesn't really do agender all that well. It can do it with terms like "they" but we don't really have the word structure for something of no gender. So chances are even if the character has no fixed gender one will be assigned to it by those who interact with it. 

Terms like they, it, etc... can also sound very impersonal, like talking about a machine or object rather than a living creature. Again part of "humanising" things is often denoting it as male or female so that the rest of the language builds around it more easily. I believe its something that there has been some pressure on to change and introduce new words to allow for a seamless means to describe and interact with genderless creatures, but its not a high priority. 

[sandlemad]

Just checked the book and Celennar is generally referred to by name or as "the moon spirit" with the occasional use of "they" as a pronoun, so yeah, agender.

Would have liked to see that sort of approach to the chaos gods as well. Slaanesh was emphatically referred to as "Neither male nor female" but then received male pronouns throughout. Same with the other gods tbh, they're all beyond gender and flick between them e.g. Nurgle being referred to variously by the usual 'grandfather' appellations but also in the aspect of "Mother Mort", Khorne being both the Axe Father and the Brass Belladonna. That was a good part of the StD battletome so flopping on the pronouns was sort of a little failure of evoking how they're beyond mortal concerns like that.

Also worth remembering that "they" as a singular gender-neutral pronoun has a long and well-established history in English, going back to the 14th century as a common term. There was some pushback in the 18th century but it's not like it's a new or weird affectation.

Edited September 8, 2020 by sandlemad

[The Red King]

I don't know if its necessarily related but I would actually prefer if I could get a box of only the female sequitors just because I find male stormcast just a little comically over proportioned wheras the female stormcast fit right into the range of super human that I'm looking for.

[Overread]

Interesting note - Slaanesh is typically refereed to as male in AoS and female in 40K

[Enoby]

6 minutes ago, The Red King said:

I don't know if its necessarily related but I would actually prefer if I could get a box of only the female sequitors just because I find male stormcast just a little comically over proportioned wheras the female stormcast fit right into the range of super human that I'm looking for.

I fully agree here - nothing based on gender, but the female proportions of Stormcast armour look much better imo, mainly because the male proportions look a bit like little people trapped in massive armour. I think Liberators came off the worst in this regard.

I hope when SCE get their next release, most of the models are proportioned more similarly to female Sequitors. 

[sandlemad]

17 minutes ago, Overread said:

Interesting note - Slaanesh is typically refereed to as male in AoS and female in 40K

I think this is down the eldar-specific context of 'She Who Thirsts' pushing it that way, which AoS doesn't quite have, but there's no real reason for Slaanesh to be consistently either.

[amysrevenge]

I wish there was a reasonable way to package models so that for armies where there could be two genders, you could do an all-female, or all-male, or 50/50, or any other deliberate ratio for your army.  But I can't really think of one, within the current scheme of multi-part models on multi-model sprues.  I have a hilarious picture in my mind of an add-on kit, with.... girl bits you could glue on to male models.  But it takes more for a female model than just.... girl bits.

Also, I came in here hot, ready to breathe fire, but everyone is having a grown-up discussion!

[Lord Krungharr]

Well I didn’t read all of every post in this topic.....but for any Daemons and Nighthaunts and beasty looking models.....why do we have assumptions that they have intended gender at all?   They’re emotions made corporeal, or everyone who has died and their skin fell off, or goat and cow beings, respectively.

Based on what Gimli said in The Two Towers about dwarf ladies, I imagine that many Duardin females and Ogors are scarier than the males and force them to go out and take care of business, so they do; because it’s more pleasant  than being at home.   Like real life    

its actually strange that there is a Troggoth Hag, as I thought all grots and orruks were made from spores.    But that’s an anomaly for the Gitz, and perhaps just has three specialized squigs to make it appear what we would stereotypically female.  

While I tend to favor nonhuman armies like Daemons and Beasts of Chaos (another ‘how can we tell their gender?’ army) , if more female models gets more players playing then it is only a good thing!   

[PlasticCraic]

13 hours ago, RuneBrush said:

I've a feeling based on social media and talking to people that there are a lot more men who sculpt than women throughout the hobby.  It would be quite interesting to know if this also applies to 3d sculpting in other industries (e.g. film and tv) or if it's peculiar to miniature sculpting?

Within GW, generally a lot of the initial miniature concepts come from artwork created by the likes of John Blanche, Jes Goodwin, Mark Bedford, etc and then expanded by the sculptors themselves.  Some of this artwork may be decades old too - Kharadron are a good example of this as the initial concept of steampunk airship dwarves was done by John Blanche years ago!

Thanks for the reply @RuneBrush.  I'd love to think that applications from women would be strongly encouraged next time the team expands or someone retires / moves on. 

[zilberfrid]

1 hour ago, Lord Krungharr said:

Based on what Gimli said in The Two Towers about dwarf ladies, I imagine that many Duardin females and Ogors are scarier than the males and force them to go out and take care of business, so they do; because it’s more pleasant  than being at home.   Like real life    

The female dwarves GW depicted are all quite distinct from males.

Tolkien is referenced for the bearded female dwarves, but in the book that line is vague, saying that females dress in a manner similar to male dwarves, so as not to rouse suspicion.

[Grim Beasties]

I think we will be seeing more female representation throughout all GW systems, especially in the troops choices and the specialist games. In the BL books we are getting better female representation and actually some see non human and Aelf a Female characters, such as a Mournfang rider in the short story Strong Bones, an Icebrow Huntress and female Beasts of Chaos in the beast grave book. 

[Kramer]

15 hours ago, sandlemad said:

Would have liked to see that sort of approach to the chaos gods as well. Slaanesh was emphatically referred to as "Neither male nor female" but then received male pronouns throughout. 

Well that’s a weird one. But Ben Johnson explained on a livestream that in aos he’s the dark prince and as such is mostly ‘he’. 
In 40k it dpends a bit on the source but for the space elves (cant remember the name) it’s ‘she who thirsts’ and is named as ‘she’. While mankind knows it as they dark prince’ again. 
And what Im not 100% sure about anymore is if they originally started with 40k as female, fantasy as male. But I think that’s what he said  

The pronoun depending on the source,  I like best. Because Slaanesh should be fluid according to the lore. So different tribes/countries/realms knowing them as agender, male, female, hemaphrodite etc is really cool. Although I understand if GW just said let’s be consistent and the whole of the mortal realms knows him as the dark prince, so he. 

Edited September 9, 2020 by Kramer

[EccentricCircle]

I would love to get effectively add on kits for the all male units. Just a sprue of all female soldiers, with potentially some bits that vcan mix ane match between the kits. ( although GW are moving away from interchangeablilty, so that might not work).

Either way, it wouldn't need to be a full second kit like Frostgrave do (though that would be great), just a sprue or two, like the underworld warbands that gives you ladies to mix in, or if you were very dedicated the option to build just with the add on kit.

I'm sure it would take a lot more work than I'd like, but its quite sad seeing my one lone female Kairic acolyte from underworlds net to the otherwise entirely male unit. Just a few more sculpts would go a long way.

[Kadeton]

On 9/8/2020 at 3:37 PM, Enoby said:

A bit to the side of the main topic, one thing I have noticed is that a good chunk of female units (non-hero, multiple models) tend to have a title that references their all-female status, but this is not the same for most of the male units.

(Dreadscythes do not)

The unit name is Dreadscythe Harridans, no? That's a strongly gendered term.

[Enoby]

3 minutes ago, Kadeton said:

The unit name is Dreadscythe Harridans, no? That's a strongly gendered term.

I will admit I had no idea that was a real word - thanks for the correction

[Frowny]

Nighthaunt are a preplexing one.... There is nothing inherently gendered about chainrasps, reapers, revenants etc. Quite asexual. But then by creating banshees and Harridans as female they almost seem to imply that all those other ones are male. So it goes from a totally or nearly gender neutral faction to a gendered one that is biased toward male.

[shinros]

1 hour ago, Frowny said:

Nighthaunt are a preplexing one.... There is nothing inherently gendered about chainrasps, reapers, revenants etc. Quite asexual. But then by creating banshees and Harridans as female they almost seem to imply that all those other ones are male. So it goes from a totally or nearly gender neutral faction to a gendered one that is biased toward male.

I don't know how you get that impression, it's made quite clear in the battletome that Nagash reforms the souls to represent their sins. In the case of harridans they're female hospice workers who kept people from dying.

Myrmourns are female wizards who don't pay nagash his due. 

So a knight of shrouds for example can be male or female. Plus if we follow thr soul wars book, the executioner is female. 

The forms of the nighthaunt is based entirely on Nagash's mood and warped idea of punishment.

[Skreech Verminking]

Well For goblins and orks, we’re basically clueless if this guys are fe- or male.

as for skaven, well The only represented female models in their range was discontinued.

poor Brood horror😢😭😭

[Overread]

Brood horrors weren't females. If I recall right they are simply moulder mutated horrors from the depths. No Skaven would ride the birth mother of legions into battle. That said they are the sort of shape that we expect the brood mothers to be. At least from what descriptions we've got (barring the fact that the actual ones likely have rows of teats to feed the young rats before they are unleashed to fend for themselves). 

[Kadeton]

6 hours ago, Skreech Verminking said:

Well For goblins and orks, we’re basically clueless if this guys are fe- or male.

We don't know the details of their biology, but that doesn't matter. Gender is a social construct, not a function of sexual organs.

Orruks are very strongly male-gendered in their presentation. Goblins somewhat less so, but still don't use female pronouns or titles.

[Grim Beasties]

Don't know how many people consider these models "canon with Orruk lore" but they look awesome so that's all the excuse I need to use them for converting.

 

Edited September 10, 2020 by Grim Beasties

[Vasshpit]

4 hours ago, Grim Beasties said:

Don't know how many people consider these models "canon with Orruk lore" but they look awesome so that's all the excuse I need to use them for converting.

 

Need more of this. 

[silverstu]

9 hours ago, Grim Beasties said:

Don't know how many people consider these models "canon with Orruk lore" but they look awesome so that's all the excuse I need to use them for converting.

 

Those are excellent, I was wondering how well they could do female orcs/orruks -these type of sculpts with added axes/choppas and armour would be ace- the pointing one would make a cool leader model. 

I really think why there hasn't been as much female representation is probably for some factions it hasn't been asked ="what would females in these societies do? How would they appear on the battlefield ?".

Returning to dwarfs -females not appearing on the battlefield is not an intrinsic feature of dwarf culture, its been mentioned possibly in passing in the lore but not to the extent that its part of the defining feature of the race. Even if it was the benefit of AoS is that it is a progressing story so things can change. Dwarf culture could see the rise of the Cult of Valaya which female dwarfs take to the battlefield to protect their holds/home/honour/profit. 

Again I'm all for it, I think GW are well capable of doing a good job of it - it needs to be done well, but if done well I think it deepens factions individually and the setting as a whole.