I think the intentional vagueries (vagueities?) exist not so much to refrain from addressing issues such as this, but to allow players the freedom to come up with their own interpretations and thus "change" the fluff. I didn't mean official declarations of fluff change as much as when it becomes player-property it inherently warps and absorbs those ideas and a "new" conclusion is reached.

I didn't know that older versions had more female minis! That blows my mind. I attribute that solely to Ripley.

Also, As the Social justice warriors on this forum delight in reminding us; I doubt you could actually tell a male guardsman from a female in 28mm scale! If you really wanted to differentiate the minis (And you're good enough) Paint their lips red. It's not really accurate, (I doubt many women in combat bother with lipstick!) but it will get the point across.

I wish this forum had a "dislike" button.

What's with the hate? I wan't disrespecting anyone! BTW Lynata, I haven't seen a female guardsman mini. Where are they found?

I didn't know that older versions had more female minis! That blows my mind. I attribute that solely to Ripley.

Given that one of the old minis was a Catachan that looked suspiciously like Vasquez, there might be some truth to that!

Come to think of it, there hasn't really been a popular/influential female action heroine in the past two decades, was there? The closest may have been the various roles Milla Jovovich got typecasted into, but Resident Evil's Alice still comes across as mainly eye-candy for a male audience, in spite of the tough attitude. A better example could be Rhona Mitra in Doomsday , but unfortunately that movie never really became widely known. Hmm, perhaps the Hunger Games trilogy?

I think movies have generally made a step back, though not only in roles but also storytelling. Ironically, TV series seem to have overtaken the medium. You still have a couple gems every now and then, but I can't remember when a movie has truly excited me as much as the original(!) Total Recall or Robocop. Today it's all looks and no depth. Maybe it's a generational thing...?

What's with the hate? I wan't disrespecting anyone!

I assume that comment was directed against the pejorative use of the "social justice warrior" term (I find it interesting how this is being used as an insult nowadays, as if equality was a bad thing), or how you hinted at the people you seem to apply this term to supposedly spamming the entire forum with posts about their agenda, or maybe just because you were advocating for red lipstick on military minis.

BTW Lynata, I haven't seen a female guardsman mini. Where are they found?

1 was a metal Catachan from their original box - it disappeared for no apparent reason when they changed to plastics

1 was a Games Day-exclusive female Commissar - has not been produced again since

1 was a Tanith infantryman - the box is OOP, afaik

1 is a weapons specialist (albeit heavily preferring a missile launcher) in Schaeffer's penal unit

1 is a warrior from the Xenonian Free Companies, also a member of the penal unit

The latter two you can still get as part of the Last Chancers box. But here's a picture of these five rare minis:

Holy crap she IS a dead ringer for Vasquez!

Thanks for the info! I'll try to track down some more details.

According to fluff, about 10% of the IG is female

Which fluff, precisely? I've never seen any hard number like that - especially as the background likes to diverge a lot depending on the exact source and the respective authors' personal take on the setting..

It was from one of Inquisitor Vail's annotations to a CC book. I forget which one, but since afaik it's the only statement ever made on how many women serve in the guard (overall, which still means billions upon billions of women serve).

In the misogynist darkness of the far future, there is only sausagefest.

Mostly because GW has a terrible time finding sculptors who can make female faces worth a **** in 28mm 'Heroic' and the ones they do find leave to other companies fairly quickly.

Awesome, Lynata! Milla has been my #1 since I was ten and saw The Fifth Element in theatres. My love of zombies + her was a recipe for ultimate fanboydom and then... well, let's just say those movies were like a swift kick in the sack to everything I hold dear.

I assume that comment was directed against the pejorative use of the "social justice warrior" term (I find it interesting how this is being used as an insult nowadays, as if equality was a bad thing), or how you hinted at the people you seem to apply this term to supposedly spamming the entire forum with posts about their agenda, or maybe just because you were advocating for red lipstick on military minis

Yes. As though being an advocate of equality and/or social justice is in and of itself a bad thing. The terrible grammar and punctuation can be forgiven as many on this site are English-second-languagers, but the sophomoric stab at "applying red lipstick" was the icing on the cake. I can understand making off handed jokes like that with a group of close friends who may understand or even appreciate the ironic humor of someone they have a lot of experience with; on a website full of strangers it comes off as unecessary and trite.

Back to the topic at hand, as to the strong female action leads, I am having trouble thinking of something in the major motion picture arena. Two that I would point out that don't quite fit the bill are "Let the Right One In" and "The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo," and even then those two heroines come with severe character flaws that are pretty glaring given the context of the films.

I am going to keep thinking on this. I'll get back to you!

Holy crap she IS a dead ringer for Vasquez!

She even has the heavy weapon. Her face is practically screaming, "LET'S ROCK!!!"

Also, As the Social justice warriors on this forum delight in reminding us; I doubt you could actually tell a male guardsman from a female in 28mm scale! If you really wanted to differentiate the minis (And you're good enough) Paint their lips red. It's not really accurate, (I doubt many women in combat bother with lipstick!) but it will get the point across.

Well, actually, it depends on the armor and how it's fitted. I've met real world female soldiers in body armor. Some you could tell, some you couldn't.

Victoria Lamb did some very nice 'not Cadians' who are female.

Notice that the female is identifiable, and not because of her armor having an oversculpted 'breastplate'.

I can point to at least one front line detail that women can easily outpace their male peers at: operation of armored vehicles. Since being large, burly and over muscled is a negative thing when having to move around in a tank. And it's not one's personal physical strength that makes you a threat to the enemy in one, so that argument has no weight here.

Don't worry, Baron. To be fair, it was a really, really stupid argument to begin with.

Excellent post.

Don't worry, Baron. To be fair, it was a really, really stupid argument to begin with.

Excellent post.

I actual;ly ordered several of the torsos to combine with greatcoat bits to try and make some female steel legion vets.

Metal as hell.

I am running on OW game and one of my players likes the regiment so much he said he was going to start creating 7th squad (the squad the PCs are apart of) and I am going to point him that direction in order to create the female soldiers.

Holy crap she IS a dead ringer for Vasquez!

yep, I have 1 of those that I was using in a Necromunda Gang.

It was from one of Inquisitor Vail's annotations to a CC book.

Oh, those books. Well, just as valid as an interpretation of the setting as GW's own studio material - though it should be mentioned they deviate from Games Workshop's own fluff on more than one detail.

Though come to think of it, I could see the 10% work out in my vision of the 41st millennium as well. It's important to keep in mind that such a number, whilst possibly applying to the Imperial Guard as a whole, would fluctuate heavily - between 0 and 100% - between the individual regiments depending on where they're from. As you said, there are billions upon billions of Guardsmen all over the Imperium.

Thematically, I do not consider sexism, racism or religious intolerance (etc) wrong, as long as they are inserted with a modicum of care and somewhat counter-balanced by related elements and thus do not come off like some wackjob's creepy personal fantasy. Used correctly, they serve to support the tone of a grimdark, dystopian atmosphere. And with 40k, the balancing aspect is that you'll have Imperial worlds that can be an oppressive patriarchy, or an oppressive matriarchy, or anything in-between up to perfect equality. "The Imperium" isn't sexist - it just has member worlds that are. And since everyone is given their own space, nobody should feel offended.

Well, the miniature design shouldn't have anything to do with the studio fluff or the artworks. It's probably just a very serious case of "defaulting" - even if stuff like the female Catachan disappearing from the box may seem a bit suspicious if viewed in context with the rest. One of the questions I'd really like to ask one of the writers/designers if I'd ever meet one, but until then .. well, as they say: "do not attribute to malice what can equally be attributed to ..."

Well, actually, it depends on the armor and how it's fitted. I've met real world female soldiers in body armor. Some you could tell, some you couldn't.

Perhaps the differences may become more obvious in the future as this sort of equipment spreads, though I reckon there will always remain a certain potential for mis-identifications, simply because humans come in all sorts of sizes and shapes, and armour always adds a bonus on Disguise checks.

Fighters spring to mind, too. Smaller bodies mean shorter circulatory systems, which means greater tolerance for G forces before blackout.

Interestingly, in every Battletech book, if there was a picture of a fighter pilot, it was always a woman . Talk about evolution of stereotypes!

That being said, I'd still rather avoid such general classifications. Whilst there are obvious differences in the averages between the sexes, there is enough overlap that we should never prioritise gender over unbiased examination of the individual recruit. Just adding this for emphasis, ofc; not suggesting that you'd advocate anything to the contrary.

Here's a picture of a fanmade conversion kits for female Cadians, btw.

I really need to take some pics of my finished minis beyond the old ones that are on Dakka, since I've done a bunch of those.

They were sculpted by DarkSoul for the Phoenix Wargaming Club, and it was not GW that shut that down, but the fact that DS had a tendency to not deliver the product after the initial batch for PWG. Very, very rarely, a few turn up on ebay.

Well, the miniature design shouldn't have anything to do with the studio fluff or the artworks. It's probably just a very serious case of "defaulting" - even if stuff like the female Catachan disappearing from the box may seem a bit suspicious if viewed in context with the rest. One of the questions I'd really like to ask one of the writers/designers if I'd ever meet one, but until then .. well, as they say: "do not attribute to malice what can equally be attributed to ..."

Shouldn't, but does in a huge way. Remember that GW treats the game as a vehicle to sell minis. That's all it is to GW management (and explains quite a bit, if you think about it). Having worked on GW products, I can tell you that it's all about minis, and if there's a rule in a game for a mini they don't produce, there was a problem with producing it that didn't come to light until after the book went to print.

I really need to take some pics of my finished minis beyond the old ones that are on Dakka, since I've done a bunch of those.

They were sculpted by DarkSoul for the Phoenix Wargaming Club, and it was not GW that shut that down, but the fact that DS had a tendency to not deliver the product after the initial batch for PWG. Very, very rarely, a few turn up on ebay.

Ooh, that's good to know - thanks for setting the records straight.

It's a shame, the pictures I saw looked really promising! If you ever get around to take those photos and post them somewhere, gimme a poke.

Shouldn't, but does in a huge way. Remember that GW treats the game as a vehicle to sell minis. That's all it is to GW management (and explains quite a bit, if you think about it). Having worked on GW products, I can tell you that it's all about minis, and if there's a rule in a game for a mini they don't produce, there was a problem with producing it that didn't come to light until after the book went to print.

That's a good point. Though I'm not even referring just to specific fluff pieces, but fairly minor annotations not directly connected to a miniatures range. For example, I think in all the books from all editions I've read so far, only once or twice have I read "the men and women of the Imperial Guard", whereas 99.9% it's "the men of the Imperial Guard" (notably referring to the Guard as a whole in all cases, not individual regiments).

It's almost like some writers need to have a guy standing behind them whispering "don't forget about the girls, don't forget about the girls" in their ears - to paraphrase that tradition with the Roman generals when they got to go on a triumph.

I didn't know that older versions had more female minis! That blows my mind. I attribute that solely to Ripley.

Given that one of the old minis was a Catachan that looked suspiciously like Vasquez, there might be some truth to that!

Come to think of it, there hasn't really been a popular/influential female action heroine in the past two decades, was there? The closest may have been the various roles Milla Jovovich got typecasted into, but Resident Evil's Alice still comes across as mainly eye-candy for a male audience, in spite of the tough attitude. A better example could be Rhona Mitra in Doomsday , but unfortunately that movie never really became widely known. Hmm, perhaps the Hunger Games trilogy?

I think movies have generally made a step back, though not only in roles but also storytelling. Ironically, TV series seem to have overtaken the medium. You still have a couple gems every now and then, but I can't remember when a movie has truly excited me as much as the original(!) Total Recall or Robocop. Today it's all looks and no depth. Maybe it's a generational thing...?

What's with the hate? I wan't disrespecting anyone!

I assume that comment was directed against the pejorative use of the "social justice warrior" term (I find it interesting how this is being used as an insult nowadays, as if equality was a bad thing), or how you hinted at the people you seem to apply this term to supposedly spamming the entire forum with posts about their agenda, or maybe just because you were advocating for red lipstick on military minis.

BTW Lynata, I haven't seen a female guardsman mini. Where are they found?

1 was a metal Catachan from their original box - it disappeared for no apparent reason when they changed to plastics

1 was a Games Day-exclusive female Commissar - has not been produced again since

1 was a Tanith infantryman - the box is OOP, afaik

1 is a weapons specialist (albeit heavily preferring a missile launcher) in Schaeffer's penal unit

1 is a warrior from the Xenonian Free Companies, also a member of the penal unit

The latter two you can still get as part of the Last Chancers box. But here's a picture of these five rare minis:

I had never seen them before! Those are definately cool! And Vasquez was always my favorite character from the original aliens so yeah, she's definately a look alike! (Although the actress was actually NOT spanish at all! look it up! )

As to the social warrior stuff, my opinion is long and doesn't really belong on this forum! Suffice to say, I am all for equality! My comment on painting the lips was NOT sexist! (I even mentioned that IRL it wouldn't happen!) It was simply a modeling tip to differentiate minis that are otherwise indistinguishable! This is where I do get offended! There have been numerous examples of people ambushing certain posters on this forum for a deliberately (IMO) misperceived comment. I have actually met a number of women are professional soldiers and/or law enforcement! At a distance you would have trouble distinguishing them in their combat gear! So yes Lynata, I do get offended with certain individuals who make it a point to troll the forums looking to stir up controversy where none exists! The counter to their argument that I or others are against equality is that simply, they have no idea what they're talking about. The "Subtle underlying message" I keep hearing about is nothing more than an attempt to shut down a rational conversation by screaming discrimination in many cases!

In any case, I have a lot of respect for you so I guess it kind of hurt to see you pile on with some of the trolls!

For what it's worth, I think most of these arguments are just a result of misunderstanding and people jumping to conclusions, which can happen easily as we are unable to see one another's body language or tone in their voice, and thus may not always correctly discern if some comment was just made off-hand, half-jokingly, in jest, or in conviction, etc.

Whilst I feel that, yes, there may be some few extremists from both sides of the argument in this community, most fall somewhere in-between, but still tend to jump into a debate because they feel a comment that wasn't even directed at them rustles their jimmies. Regardless of the subject, the greater a community, the more difficult it gets to talk about something without pushing someone's buttons and having them jump into the debate believing their opinion was attacked, so one has to exert great caution if they wish to avoid entanglement entirely.

In this sense, it probably just wasn't very clever to randomly throw that "SJW" comment into the thread, because this triggered the minefield.

Hell, I consider myself a "SJW" too, simply because I don't shy back from discussing these things and consider it pursuing an ideal when I promote equality through debate, so inevitably that remark applied to me, too, even if you may not have intended it. See where I'm getting at?

I like to think we'd all get along better if we were sitting on a table having a drink, but for what it's worth, I also believe that things around here are quite friendly anyways, which is probably a result of the community being smaller than in other forums where I've witnessed way more strife and interpersonal conflict. I'm sure we can keep it that way if we all maintain respectful interaction, even where we don't agree with someone's opinion.

You said it Lynata! You should see the X-wings forums. (And i didn't exactly help either )

Now me personally I think that games should just be games and not be some type of overly political correct media, because it will end with people yelling racisim over the colors of chess pieces.

On the other hand, i do wish that there were more female imperial guard (and other) characters and figures in 40k.

Umm, could someone explain me what's the problem with Only War in terms of "man/woman balance" (it is mentioned in core rb that both serve in Guard) or "balance of ethnicities"? Only War is not a game played with minis, your characters exist only inside your head. You want to play negroid female space samurai? Then go ahead and play it, there is nothing in the rules prohibiting that.

Its more to do with Imperial Guard in the tabletop wargame than Only war. GW stated that there are women soldiers in the guard and some of us feel it would be nice if they had made more than FIVE *models of them, in the 25* years 40k has been around.

And why just the IG and not space marines and sisters of battle? because those have are canonically always been male and female and there are "reasons" in teh fluff why that is so. (SM genemodification is keyed to only the Y chromosone. And Sisters have to be woman because the eccelsiarcy isn'tt allowed to have "men under arms")

* give or take

For tabletop wargame, please send your complains right here .

This, however, is a forum about tabletop RPG, where

SERIOUSLY? you ask for an explanation about the male/famle guard thing, and then u start b*tchin about the answer?

This forum is NOT just about the RPG!

This a topic about the BACKGROUND, wich it CHARES with the MINIS game and a lcg and a few computer games for that matter, It's entirely ok to discuss this here!

I'm afraid I have to agree. The two are intrinsically linked, even if only going so far down as to say "Well I'd like a female miniature to represent my female guardsman character when I play on a TacMap."

Robin and Sgt. are right on the money.

Differentiating one from the other in terms of fluff would, on some level, force players to ignore them entirely when it came to ideas, questions, comments and concerns about their game - be it RPG or Tabletop. And since this community does a good job about giving in-depth responses based on everything that has been provided by the developers, then we can't simply produce answers by ignoring where they come from. This is called "proof" texting - or only using the sources you personally agree with rather than all of them as they have been given to us.

The RPG is directly tied to the tabletop. That does not mean that you have to be restricted in your own personal regiment creation ideas or play style, etc. etc. but the facts bear mentioning regardless.

And what exactly is there in GW's codexes that prevents you from playing what you want in an Only War game? Is it the fact that female models, which are just that - pieces in a game - are scarce?