I thought that I would share with you an interesting article that my Girlfriend found on gender equality in the model range of 40k.
I found it to be a very good discussion on the lack of female models in much of the 40k range and how Sisters of Battle are largely neglected. I would recommend that you give it a read.
The lack of diversity in the range may not be too surprising given the demographics of the player base for 40k (based on my own experience, not any hard data), but the background does have some great female characters.
I don't read too much of the Black Library material, but I love the Gaunt's Ghosts series of novels. These feature some great female main characters that could easily be added to the current Tanith 1st range.
This could be a double-edged sword, as I can't be the only player who sees the older Daemonettes, Wyches and Dark Elves ranges and cringes.
My girlfriend has had no interest in playing 40k. She fully supports my love of the game, even allowing me to take over the larger of the spare bedrooms in the house to devote to my massive collection of terrain, armies and random polystyrene, and is perfectly happy for me to disappear once a week to go gaming without too much complaint. However, she is an amazing artist and would probably paint miniatures to a far better standard than I am capable of if she wanted to. After reading the article, she claimed that she would love to spend a fortune on a Sororitas army.
Unfortunately, a fortune would be accurate, with many of the models in the range being metal and a severe lack of plastic kits. Sisters of Battle are one of the most neglected armies currently in 40k. I have seen countless players bemoan the lack of support in the form of a new Codex or models. From what little I know of them, they have a decent background and some really nice figures that are generally non-sexualised.
I wonder how many new players GW could bring in to 40k by making Sisters of Battle one of the premier armies in the current game? I know of at least one who would be interested.
I think that a new Sister of Battle Codex and miniature range would fly off the shelves and might even be able to bring in some new players and diversity to the 40k universe. Would you agree or is this just a pipe dream?
I would certainly buy into a reinvigorated sister army. I fully intended to start one a few years back just before the line got pulled, but obviously once things got less available and more expensive I concentrated on other things.
ReplyDeleteI can understand why we don't see quite so much variety elsewhere - the cost of re-tooling kits is considerable so unless there's a real groundswell of opinion wanting them to introduce that then it's going to remain pretty niche I'd think. Perhaps they might introduce so female heads when the guard kit gets re-done - I don't think you'd need to add much to the kit to be able to produce a few female models, which in fairness to them they have done with the Tau recently - Shadowsun has always been the poster-girl, but the Ghostkeel has a female pilot option (even though the pilot isn't 'on display'.
I think the biggest reason though is that there isn't a clamour for it.
I've known women who play computer games, board games, role-playing games, who read comics and manga and love sci-fi. I have never met a woman who plays warhammer or 40k in my 17 years of playing. I don't know why there is such a disparity when it comes to wargaming.
DeleteI'm not sure if more female models in the 40k range would bring in more players (both male and female), but I'm sure that GW don't purposefully neglect 50% of the population and would love to bring them in to the game.
If you look at the website now, a Sisters of Battle squad costs almost twice the price of a tactical squad, so it would be hideously expensive to make an army out of them.
I've known a handful of women who play 40K, but it's probably the most unbalanced of any sub-genre of gaming.
DeleteHonestly, I think a lot of the issues from GW are that the core group there are basically all white dudes who are only good friends with other white dudes. Circles like that set up this self-perpetuating insulating system, to the point where they don't even consider viewpoints and preferences other than their own. Not out of any kind of intention, but just because nothing ever makes it cross their mind.
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/loudnraging/tgg2-light-and-darkness/
ReplyDeleteJust go there.
Thanks for the link. Some of the sculpts and images lower down look pretty good. That main image looks pretty ridiculous though. What is that figure on the right doing?
DeleteKickstarter and 3rd party companies seem to be embracing more female sculpts into their ranges.
Yeah, the shieldmaiden kickstarter is pretty good too. https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1273312680/war-is-coming-shieldmaidens-vs-orcs/description
DeleteOh shi-
Some of the shieldmaiden models are really nice. If it wasn't for some of the stupid exposed midriffs on a few of them, I would say they were almost perfect.
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ReplyDeleteWhy so censorship?
DeleteI felt that you comment was deliberately inflammatory. I try to keep the comments civil and gay slurs are not acceptable on my blog.
DeleteIf you want to make your point again in a more civil fashion, I will happily include it in the discussion.
DeleteI don't see anything wrong.
DeleteI definitely want more female representation in 40K. More non-white people would be nice, too. And please, no crappy boob-plate armour. That shit's possibly more dangerous than not wearing armour at all, since it channels force directly in toward the heart and sternum.
ReplyDeleteIt's one of those things that really doesn't show, but my personal canon is that roughly half of my IG are female. With the old metal Cadians I use, the helmets and flack jackets are bulky enough that gender differences would be essentially impossible to discern.
Also, given GW's stated disregard for canon, it would be so, so easy for them to retcon in female Space Marines. I don't think there's even anything in the currently published material that talks about why SM are exclusively male anymore.
Thanks for your comments! I agree wholeheartedly with them.
DeleteI honestly thought I'd already commented! I agree that there should be a higher levels of ethnicity and gender diversity. There are girl gamers at my club but it's never more than 2-3
ReplyDeleteInterestingly, I'm reading a scifi series by Stephen Baxter, and as soon as thier warship is in space there is a very blaise observation that they deliberately 50/50'd the gender so that people would be able to hook up on the long space voyage, without fear of supply and demand. But I agree. It's definitely marketed at its target audience.