Female Stormcast

[OlDirtyCosta]

On page 13 of the SCE Battletome, it mentions the Daughters Draconia.  Could these be female Stormcast? I haven't noticed them before in any of the lore I have read.

[GreenMarine]

Yeah, almost certainly. It's a new mention, but it probably is implying there are either all-female chambers or there are females mixed into existing chambers. GW has been moving very stepwise recently in including women in broader roles (sisters of silence, etc). (I know the sos aren't new, but they are getting more attention.)

[OlDirtyCosta]

I think its great.  I know a few females that are interested in the game but, are turned off by the boys club.  

[tolstedt]

I am painting a female chamber at the moment and look forward to sharing it soon.

[Aezeal]

5 hours ago, GreenMarine said:

Yeah, almost certainly. It's a new mention, but it probably is implying there are either all-female chambers or there are females mixed into existing chambers. GW has been moving very stepwise recently in including women in broader roles (sisters of silence, etc). (I know the sos aren't new, but they are getting more attention.)

I just hate the thought of all female chambers or hosts.

[MacDuff]

4 hours ago, tolstedt said:

I am painting a female chamber at the moment and look forward to sharing it soon.

There are lots of nice female head sculpts out there and they'd really help make a female chamber work visually.

[Durant]

Sadly there are very few female sclups bodys, exept the naked of nearly naked ones. My wife always gets pretty irritated when she see's that. 

Its like in South Park https://www.google.pl/search?q=łowickie+wycinanki+kubek&sa=X&biw=1262&bih=611&noj=1&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&ved=0ahUKEwi1wsb588PSAhXla5oKHcnoAHUQsAQIKA

It's sad if you ask me...

But if GW makes a female army for AoS that is not naked but properly armored I may buy it. 

[Kramer]

24 minutes ago, Aezeal said:

I just hate the thought of all female chambers or hosts.

Why?

[Aezeal]

4 minutes ago, Durant said:

Sadly there are very few female sclups bodys, exept the naked of nearly naked ones. My wife always gets pretty irritated when she see's that. 

Its like in South Park https://www.google.pl/search?q=łowickie+wycinanki+kubek&sa=X&biw=1262&bih=611&noj=1&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&ved=0ahUKEwi1wsb588PSAhXla5oKHcnoAHUQsAQIKA

It's sad if you ask me...

But if GW makes a female army for AoS that is not naked but properly armored I may buy it. 

Females would probably fit very well in the big regular sc armor unless sigmar also magically over increased chest dimensions in females. No need for special armor.

[Aezeal]

2 minutes ago, Kramer said:

Why?

I think sc should be above the mundane sex differences. They are elite magic super knights and most male urges that give problems for mixed sex armies are (well at least imagine) burned out of them in the forging.. I mean those traits are basicly coming from chaos anyway. Do we even know if sc keep their genitalia?

Not to mention they have firm righteous leadership (which is what makes mixed sex armies (somewhat - there are incidents ofc since we humans stille have the aforementioned urges) possible in current armies) . 

So 2 reasons (possibly 3 if they are all male/female eunuchs, though considering the masculine majority under players and the aversion most boys have against playing a eunuch army - pure pw ulation but pretty sure I'm right - I don't think gw will make that official) I think females should just be everywhere in all chambers and hosts. Sadly I fear gw will see the mostly adolescent (irrespective of age mind you) begging for sisters in 30/40k and do it anyway.

[Nubgan]

24 minutes ago, Durant said:

Sadly there are very few female sclups bodys, exept the naked of nearly naked ones. My wife always gets pretty irritated when she see's that. 

Its like in South Park https://www.google.pl/search?q=łowickie+wycinanki+kubek&sa=X&biw=1262&bih=611&noj=1&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&ved=0ahUKEwi1wsb588PSAhXla5oKHcnoAHUQsAQIKA

It's sad if you ask me...

But if GW makes a female army for AoS that is not naked but properly armored I may buy it. 

I have always thought Diablo 3 did a good job with the Female Barbarian in the game, not in the slightest over sexualised and looks pretty bad ass in fairness.I do wonder whether one day they will do a mix gender box for one of the human factions one day, but then it will probably add to production costs because of the body and heads being a different cast.

Problem is, even in human history their have been very few female frontline troops, the trend of which carries on today. Whether its an unintentional trend that carries over into Warhammer I am not sure. But in fairness to GW, look at Sisters of Battle they wear a butt tonne of armour and kick ass, so at least they have done something that isn't naked so its not completely stereotyped.

[Durant]

The problem with mixing genders in army is not only the urges but, and i think it will be more powerful in case os SC, a male need to protect female even when it is wrong in the point of strategy and survival. A SC hero that once protected damsels in distress may not send his female team "mate" for a suicide mission.  Even if she is best fitted for the job.

That being said it shows that we male have a problem not that there is a problem in females in the army.

1 minute ago, Nubgan said:

I have always thought Diablo 3 did a good job with the Female Barbarian in the game, not in the slightest over sexualised and looks pretty bad ass in fairness.I do wonder whether one day they will do a mix gender box for one of the human factions one day, but then it will probably add to production costs because of the body and heads being a different cast.

Problem is, even in human history their have been very few female frontline troops, the trend of which carries on today. Whether its an unintentional trend that carries over into Warhammer I am not sure. But in fairness to GW, look at Sisters of Battle they wear a butt tonne of armour and kick ass, so at least they have done something that isn't naked so its not completely stereotyped.

+1 on the Diablo, also if you look at male Barbarian he is equally undress and sexualised, as opposed to Templars who are both fully armored.

Still would love to see a female non sexual objected army, perhaps amazons in body armor.

 

[Kramer]

23 minutes ago, Aezeal said:

I think sc should be above the mundane sex differences. They are elite magic super knights and most male urges that give problems for mixed sex armies are (well at least imagine) burned out of them in the forging.. I mean those traits are basicly coming from chaos anyway. Do we even know if sc keep their genitalia?

Not to mention they have firm righteous leadership (which is what makes mixed sex armies (somewhat - there are incidents ofc since we humans stille have the aforementioned urges) possible in current armies) . 

So 2 reasons (possibly 3 if they are all male/female eunuchs, though considering the masculine majority under players and the aversion most boys have against playing a eunuch army - pure pw ulation but pretty sure I'm right - I don't think gw will make that official) I think females should just be everywhere in all chambers and hosts. Sadly I fear gw will see the mostly adolescent (irrespective of age mind you) begging for sisters in 30/40k and do it anyway.

Got it! Your first comment made it seem like you were against female stormcast all together. But if I understand you right, you mean to say they should be in every chamber as the sex of the reforged hero should lose all value during the reforging? instead of a single different chamber?

I can get behind that. I think in general that should be more of the attitude. I love the fact that my dark elves have female warriors in the basic units. The daughters of Khaine are very much sexed up so that is stereotyping a bit again. But every one in five dreadspears/dark shards/ bleakswords is female. It's very naturally done and fits the fluff. Don't see why that couldn't be with other armies as well. 

But I will say that if the background for an all female group of warriors is fitting for the AoS setting I don't mind that either. 

[Noctus Cornix]

Personally, and this is just me, I rather imagine a 'female' Stormcast Liberator, warmask on and all, would look no different from 'male' Stormcast Liberator. Maybe a bit smaller, a tad bit slimmer on average (though of course height and width would vary for both) but still all the same, a warrior reforged into something beyond the mortality they were plucked from, flowing with blood of living lightning and cast in armor made in the image of the judging God-King who forged them.

 

I swear to the Dark Pantheon, I see Stormcast with boob plates I'm gonna give someone a boot to the head.

[Noctus Cornix]

29 minutes ago, Durant said:

The problem with mixing genders in army is not only the urges but, and i think it will be more powerful in case os SC, a male need to protect female even when it is wrong in the point of strategy and survival. A SC hero that once protected damsels in distress may not send his female team "mate" for a suicide mission.  Even if she is best fitted for the job.

That being said it shows that we male have a problem not that there is a problem in females in the army.

Wouldn't that be rather trivial when it comes to Stormcast? All Stormcast are forged from Heroes, one and all. War without end should have no place for such tripe as gender roles. I mean, it's not like Stormcast are really even humans anyway.. Not anymore atleast. Can't imagine it being an issue for them... or any of the Factions in AoS/Warhammer40k

[Turragor]

I'd say they are more warrior monks than eunuchs.

I don't buy the 'sexuality is bad and chaos' idea. It's human and can be just fine. Murder is also pretty chaotic but the SCE love murdering chaos cultists and the like.

You can represent them without sexuality without discussing it at all. They can all be pure of heart and innocent in the lore in that regard.

A Eunuch would be super interesting maybe as it'd be new territory for GW and you're getting some unsullied from GoT vibes. I just dont think that needs to be a thing for Stormcast specifically.

I'd actually think it makes much more sense as a faction of free peoples who have that practise. Even the elves perhaps.

[Turragor]

I think I want them freely mixed in the stormhosts and not set aside apart from chambers where they've been forged as a 'whole' or from a 'theme'- like victrarians and tempest lords and a few others.

So you could have pure female stormhosts only because sigmar saw the bravery of a female tribe yada yada.

On the subject of armour and the fact that 'anything could be inside the stormcast armour' - The armour itself is hella manly. It's almost saying 'for a woman to be strong she must have a male form'.

I don't really care enough to go into it further - this debate always causes frazzled hair in the participants on each side - but I think female stormcast need their own armour form. Not boob plate at all but a more androgynous platemail format - remove the pecs!

[Chris Tomlin]

So I'm the only one who wants to see an army of sexy female Stormcast in gold bikinis, Princess Leia style?!

[Turragor]

23 minutes ago, xking said:

I think there are some  female stormcast, but they are not common and most likely a tiny minority. They call stormcast the "sons of azyr" in the new white dwarf, stormcast always call each other brothers in the campaign books. Then there is stuff like "warrior brotherhood" , You even got product descriptions like " Watching over their Stormcast brothers with the guiding light of their warding lanterns spilling a glorious, warm glow over everything nearby, the Lord-Castellants are masters of defensive warfare".

And every time GW brings out a new stormcast hero they always refer to them as male. I think stormcast were mostly designed to be male from the start.

I wouldn't worry about GW being restricted by words GW has used in the past. They can do whatever.

So long as whatever is more profitable (or leads to some kind of gain in good will without much investment).

Equality doesn't really factor into it.

So in short:

Adding a line or two in the fluff or asking a black library author or two to include mentions to female stormcast (or even entire storylines) - very low cost (if the stories are being done anyway), net gain.

Doing new sculpts and launching them as part of an existing box (50/50 or even just 1 token form factor in each stormcast trooper box) - high cost, very little benefit. Great big loss.

Doing new sculpts as whole new boxsets, doing new heroes, doing a full addition (sacrosanct chamber shall we say?) to stormcast consisting of female only SC that you can mix as you wish - very high cost, possibly decent benefit. Difficult to call the loss or gain factor here.

EDIT/

The best way (potentially) to add a physical product would be appealing to those who want female heads and doing a little accessories sprue (like tempest lords and celestial warbringers icon clampacks)

 

[MrCharisma]

I have a few Statuesque female heads spare from Froatgrave and plan to convert my Prosecutors up as female 

[CoffeeGrunt]

Mmm, but conversions involve buying parts from non-GW sources, which just loses GW money in the long run. Imagine how much money they'd have made if the Cadian sprue came with female heads years ago, for example. Now there's a good few sellers capitalising on that market gap.

Personally I don't see why women would be exempt from serving in Sigmar's armies, and it always saddens me when people are able to accept the most fantastical things: Grot Sky Pirates, Ogres riding giant death mammoths and lightning warriors twice the size of a normal human, but can't reconcile with a setting where women are equal to men.

Plus to note real world analogues, there are the Massegatae and the WWII-era Red Army who both used significant numbers of female troops, as well as women being moved into high risk roles in Britain during WWII, or fighting in resistance cells in Europe. People said women would never handle land work, factory work or even air raid warden work, but our ladies showed they could, and damn well at that.

But even putting aside that, real world analogues shouldn't be considered in AoS. AoS is the Hairmetal Mountain of settings, it's a ridiculous, over-the-top fantasy setting where literally anything is possible. So perhaps, insanely, it's also a setting where female warriors can be equals?

If you disagree that women can fight, you'd best say it to Valkia's face.  

[J-P]

Firstly, I'd like to say that I can't express my feelings of this topic to the excess I would like to - in fear of triggering another massive Internetz-warz. Sadly this kind of topic has been proven time and time again that it magically draws every social-justice-terrorist from all the vitriol-filled corners of the web and plunge whatever constructive ideas formerly said into a political hate-fest without reason.

That being said, I find the lack of female SC to be one of the many plot fallacies that (despite some awesome models) makes that faction a real no-go for me. It just doesn't make any sense. The only way it would make sense was if there was a gender difference in AoS worlds in regards to: heroism, devotion, or physical strength:

Heroism is definitely not tied to gender - there are just as many (if not more) female heroes in the real world. So, is the AoS world different in this aspect?

Devotion to Sigmar is as far as I can tell another prerequisite of becoming a Stormcast - is there a gender difference in that aspect? 

Regarding physical strength and combat prowess - sure, one could make a reasonable argument about physical strength, except for a few vital points: combat prowess and effectiveness is not particularly tied to physical strength (although some aspects of it still applies in edge cases). There are a lot of women serving in armed forces across the globe, recently Kurdish women in Syria, US Ranger ops in Afghanistan where female soldiers are required because of cultural reasons, intelligence operatives, and a dozen more examples. During my own training I had a female Lt as CO, and she could put any of us men in our place... Same goes for my martial arts trainer, also a woman (and a bit scary sometimes - but in a good way). Training and experience far outweighs physical strength.

Added with edit: Also, don't forget the Storm pew-pew. Who needs physical stature and strength, when you can shoot Lightning-pew-pew and Thunder-Storm-pew-pew from your hands, like a glow-in-the-dark heavy metal singer?

I would love female models. I bought some third-party because for my AoS armies because I loved the models. I bought 40k Canoness Veridyan just because of the Blancheness of it. I love the new 30k sisters of silence. I love the new 40k witch hunter female model, and the flappy-gal. I'll buy those next paycheck.

I do not, however, intend to buy the Troll Hag model, because I don't feel it's aesthetics is pleasing in the same way. Feel free to call me misogynic - but if we have bare-chested beefy guys running around in their leather spandex (Bloodreavers), why can't we have females in steel corsets? I'd buy an army. 

PS. 

If anyone would point out that it would be hard to write female heroes into the setting, I would gladly point out the heresy/40k novels/audio dramas by Aaron Dembski-Bowden - in particular "Betrayer", "Butcher's Nails", "Helsreach", and the Night Lords books (get the omnibus). He makes human female heroes kick ass, even besides the Astartes! But, that should come with a warning: I compare all BL/GW fiction nowadays to the standard he has set, so I'm almost always disappointed with other works, in particular SC stories. They're just so bland. Black and white, good vs. evil disney ****** that is entirely unrelatable to me; I would like to see more grey-ish viewpoints, more what-if-they-are-not-the-uber-white-knights we thought they were? Flip the viewpoints around. Too much "har, har, I'm evil because of... reasons" right now. 

[AAL]

5 hours ago, Durant said:

Sadly there are very few female sclups bodys, exept the naked of nearly naked ones. My wife always gets pretty irritated when she see's that. 

Its like in South Park https://www.google.pl/search?q=łowickie+wycinanki+kubek&sa=X&biw=1262&bih=611&noj=1&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&ved=0ahUKEwi1wsb588PSAhXla5oKHcnoAHUQsAQIKA

It's sad if you ask me...

But if GW makes a female army for AoS that is not naked but properly armored I may buy it. 

Interestingly but maybe off topic. The old plastic Dark Elf troop units had armored female sculpts and is the only example I can think of.

[Turragor]

5 minutes ago, AAL said:

Interestingly but maybe off topic. The old plastic Dark Elf troop units had armored female sculpts and is the only example I can think of.

I think the glade guard sprue was mixed. Pretty subtly too.

[Criti]

42 minutes ago, J-P said:

 

If anyone would point out that it would be hard to write female heroes into the setting, 

Speaking as someone with a degree in writing who also spent a number of years teaching writing, I will add this: writing female characters into any setting is as easy as writing male character.

Frankly, if a character is well written, that character's gender should be interchangeable.

If a character is written in such a manner that he or she absolutely cannot be swapped - a character with whom gender is so deeply engrained that changes to the gender destroy the character, then the character was poorly written to begin with.

Obviously, some plots may require certain genders - it'd be hard to writte a story about a male going through the biological changes of pregnancy, for example.  But for the most part, this is true.