Culture Warhammer 40,000 has slightly more women in it now and the neckbeards aren't happy - We're still not at "female space marines" but give it time.

(Image credit: Games Workshop)

Since Warhammer 40,000's 10th edition was released last year, each of the wargame's factions has been getting the traditional rules refresh in the form of a new Codex book. The latest deals with the Adeptus Custodes, genetically engineered bodyguards of the Emperor so gigantic they make space marines look weedy. (They also happen to be Henry Cavill's army of choice). There are 10,000 of them and in the past they've only ever been depicted as men. In this latest iteration, shock horror, at least two of the Custodes are women.

Most players seem to have responded to this by shrugging and getting back to arguing about the new rules, but there's always a vocal minority who go on a tear. The Mail Online ran a typically subtle and understated headline that declared "It's Wokehammer!" and the meme community Grimdank has declared posts about "Femstodes" will only be allowed for one week before they join "Female Space Marine posts" as a banned topic. Games Workshop's official response is a tweet that says, "In regards to female Custodians, there have always been female Custodians, since the first of the Ten Thousand were created."

Is this a retcon? Yep, and it won't be the last. Warhammer 40,000 has had fluid "lore" right from the start. The original Custodian Guards were depicted as shirtless hunks who never leave Earth—a long way from the heavily armored galaxy-spanning golden gods they became—to say nothing of tweaks to the 40K canon like ditching half-eldar space marines and rewriting the Horus Heresy from a short story a handful of pages long into a series of 60+ novels.

The Adeptus Custodes aren't 40K's only genetically engineered supersoldiers, of course. The setting's flagship faction are the space marines, who are created differently—where Custodes are enhanced via a unique process begun when they're infants, space marines begin being grafted with a "gene-seed" when they're on the verge of puberty. And while the explanation that space marine gene-seeds are "keyed to male hormones and tissue types" goes back a way, it's not the real reason Games Workshop made a whole army of dudes who are men.

As GW's former head of IP Alan Merrett once explained on Facebook, "The reason there aren't female Space Marines has nothing to do with lore, or background or character of Marines. It's to do with [the] simple logistics of making miniatures and selling miniatures." In the 1980s GW sold miniatures in sets called blister packs, and as Merrett explained "the intention was that upwards of 25% of all models would be female." That didn't last because "retailers kept complaining to us that customers weren't buying the female models and could we not include any in their restocks." By the time Warhammer 40,000 was designed, GW made sure its poster boys were, well, boys to ensure they'd sell. As Merrett put it, "All the background fluff about why there are only male Marines is there to justify a commercial logistics issue."

And the same was true of the Adeptus Custodes, until it wasn't. Though the customers at the average Warhammer shop are mostly men, these days there are usually one or two women as well. And the men are a lot less likely to throw a hissy-fit about having women in their armies than gamers in the 1980s, despite what Reddit and Twitter might suggest. All of 40K's lore and storytelling exists to provide context for selling toy soldiers to people, and as the customer base changes so too will that lore.

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[Fapcop]

There are women who play WH40K and read the books and play the games. I'm also pretty confident that the overlap of these women with the set of women who don't give a fuck about their being female Space Marines is a perfect 1:1.

I’ll believe that there are women who read the books and maybe play the games.

And I suppose there’s a tiny group of women who also play it because their bf or husband are into it.

But come on… It’s a tiny minority that has always been there, and like you say: Irrespective of wahmen space marines.

Personally, I’ve never seen a woman in that hobby, nor scale modeling for that matter.

(Why are women such a rarity in scale modeling btw? You get to paint and make little dioramas. You think it’d be fun for women too?)

There are quite a few of us. But have any of you been a GW store lately? Full of troons and younger men who need to wash more. Sincerely. The stink from my local GW used to be intense. The Manager had to tell some of the regulars to not come in unless they'd washed.

So with that in mind? Like the small subset of women into 40k and Fantasy I know stick to doing it at home (or friends house) and painting the figures. And even saying that, there used to be a god tier painter on /tg/ who got found out to be a woman and they harassed her pretty bad once her dox was found. All she did was post her figures, nothing else.

There’s a weird dilemma with women and hobbies that usually only attract men.. (Like scale modeling!)

All the guys involved would love to see more women involved. Until it actually happens, and it turns out that they’re the worst kind of activist harpies who come walking in hand in hand with troons.

Back in the day, it was so rare with women in tabletop RPGs for example, that any woman playing would get invitations to join other groups because “Oh wow! A woman playing the female barbarian?! Cool!”

Nowadays? There are more woman involved, but it’s also often the kind of women you do NOT want anywhere near your hobby. Activist harpies whose shit hits the fan if they don’t get all of the attention or think a game table is a great place to do trigger warnings or discuss feminist grievances.

I have friends who play still, and heard too many stories about this kind of nonsense. Shit, one of my buddies used to arrange cons and was kind of a big deal (As in: Respected in the local gaming scene had some things published) and a few years ago just kind of gave up on it, because he ran into activist/simp fatigue.

Basically what happened to rpgnet. It got colonized by activist harpies, a shit load of trannies and basement dwelling autistic simps who just go along.

Literally never once in my life have I *ever* known an actual biological woman who was into this goofy shit beyond indulging in the artistic aspect. As others have mentioned, the stench alone makes MTG tournaments seem like a spring rose garden by comparison.

Sigh… Remember back in the day when you’d occasionally see an autistic tomboy into RPGs or MTG or WH?

I miss those chicks. Most of them probably all pooned out.

Fuck trannies and their gender bullshit.

 

[A Sentient Cloud]

Sigh… Remember back in the day when you’d occasionally see an autistic tomboy into RPGs or MTG or WH?

I miss those chicks. Most of them probably all pooned out.

I *was* that autistic tomboy. It wasn't poonerism that drove me out, it's the fact that Warhammer dudes are really fucking unpleasant to be around. Aggressive and condescending but also a little too interested in you for comfort.

 

[Overly Serious]

I *was* that autistic tomboy. It wasn't poonerism that drove me out, it's the fact that Warhammer dudes are really fucking unpleasant to be around. Aggressive and condescending but also a little too interested in you for comfort.

It's the lack of gate-keeping. Same as TTRPG. TTRPGs are a hobby which should be perfect - uses your imagination, your language skills, is a social activity, can appeal to logical or mathematical minds depending on the type of game. Discovering RPGs in my isolated pocket pre-Internet days where American "Geek culture" hadn't reached us yet was a great experience. And poor social skills were not conveyed via Dragon magazine or White Dwarf. It was just numbers and stories and fun.

Why is there so little gate-keeping in these hobbies? I'm thinking this over and I guess it's a perfect storm of a lot of factors:

• There aren't ability requirements. You play on a football team you have to be fit. RPGs and Wargaming do have things you need to be good at them but there seems to be no minimum. Everybody qualifies. I'm not being elitist and calling for it, I'm just listing out factors that differentiate it from other hobbies.
• There is a financial incentive to get everybody into it that you can. Games Workshop have their stores that are the focal point for much of the hobby activity and the last thing they want to do is to keep people out. And if there's some local league, well you're playing with the others who signed up whether you get on with them or not.
• It can be difficult to be choosy if there's a shortage of people - for TTRPGs scheduling five adults together for an entire evening or afternoon. For tabletop war-gaming you normally only need two for an actual game but you still want to play against different opponents over time. People have lives, families, shifts... And often it's the people who are the biggest losers who have the most free time.
• The self-perpetuating nature of groups. I mean I looked at a local gaming group and had reservations - people whom I would not want to see their Discord history. If I was a woman by myself I'd be more uneasy because it would move from mild disgust to mild threat. And threat > disgust.
• Social status. Kind of the same thing as the above but also not. If you're an attractive woman, less attractive women can be absolute fucking bitches to you. Even if you're not, women that are there can be either grateful to find a fellow female face, or they might be jealously guarding their little circle of men who give them attention as "the female". I've seen these kind of bottom-feeding queens. It's tragic and unpleasant. People whose self-image is so low that they actively resent the presence of anybody who has a healthier self-image. That happens with men too, only differently. People with low self-worth are hard to be friends with. They either resent you (often), fawn on you (rarely) or decide that you also must have low worth for hanging around them (the usual end result).

Women tend to reserve their gaming for their personal social circle for the same reasons I do only with an added layer of being more at risk of worse consequences than association embarrassment which is the worst thing most men have to face.

I do agree with @Fapcop that women actually playing the game is a smaller slice than those who paint and / or read the fiction. And that's partly because women on average have more sense than to care about rolling dice, but also because these are the parts of the hobby that are easier to control the social exposure parts of.

Games Workshop should not be trying to encourage more women into the hobby. Not because it wouldn't be nice to have more women in the hobby, but because anything Games Workshop tries will be some boneheaded stupidity that does nothing to encourage new women into it and makes existing women in it uncomfortable / patronised.

"Ladies! Look what we made just for you! We at Games Workshop love our female community members! Please buy!"

 

[ShitLurker]

Literally never once in my life have I *ever* known an actual biological woman who was into this goofy shit beyond indulging in the artistic aspect. As others have mentioned, the stench alone makes MTG tournaments seem like a spring rose garden by comparison.

I have seen a few honest to god women interested in the game part a of the hobby because they ligitimately enjoyed it and not because they were "X's girlfriend" but in wargames it's incredibly rare. Wargame rules for the most part are just materialized tism focused on tactics and optimizing. And it's what usually gets pushed, lots of games have "narrative modes" that might have appealed to a lady or 2 get pushed aside because everybody is playing to compete.

But nerd shit is big and wide. TRPGs I have seen women activelly involved, though a good chunk of them loved the simping above all. Though no women DM, again, avoiding any engagement with the tism that is rules crunching. Few women I've played with have given enough of a shit to understand the system, mostly just said what they wanted to do and the DM would translate it to rolls.

And as of now I'm only focusing on stuff that could interest women, but then the social aspect may kill it outright. The dregs of society are the types to spend hours discussing MTG, D&D and Warhamner rules/tactics. Of course there are functional adults in these spheres, but they ain't the average, I know what I see when I go into the game store.

Thankfully the random nerds I interact with are mostly in the socially inept and overexited spectrum and outside of specific exceptions didn't smell like death, no troons to be had. But even if they don't have ill intent, they can be tremendously abrasive.

In summary, I would kill for an AI I could play all of my wargames with and remove random opponents from the equation...

Why is there so little gate-keeping in these hobbies? I'm thinking this over and I guess it's a perfect storm of a lot of factors:

You are forgetting the biggest part. Most of these hobbies are basically the shelter of outcasts. When you yourself an outcast, you tend to lie yourself into accepting absolute retards because you don't want to exclude anybody like you have been in the past. The most inept ones can even consider having biweekly TRPG sessions as "bonding with friends" when you talk about nothing outside of rules, lore and mechanics. It's why they are horrible at gatekeeping.

Like you said in another post, it's also the perfect storm to atract nutcases because it's full of outcasts that won't tell you to fuck off, as well as everything being about fantasy, imagination and make believe,so suddenly you integrating your headmates into the equation sounds like a brilliant idea. Problems get 20 times worse if the crazy person is a mildly passable woman because again, land of outcasts, so simping is at an all time high as well. And odds are that for every normal woman, you'll get 29 crazy bitches, because again, land of outcasts.

 

[Night Crawler]

There is no female market for this. The largest market is males. It's like trying to sell professional basketball to women. Most women don't want to watch sports of any kind. Men don't want to watch women play sports.

 

[Fapcop]

You are forgetting the biggest part. Most of these hobbies are basically the shelter of outcasts.

Yup. Nerd communities are particularly vulnerable to parasites infestation because: “Heh, I know what it’s like to be an outsider! What business is it of mine if he likes to dress up as a lady, or if this tightly wound chick has some wacky opinions?!”

And that’s how it starts.

I suppose there’s also a difference between what hobbies usually attract men and which hobbies usually attract women.

Women tend to be more social creatures, and their hobbies tend to act like a loose structure in which to center social interactions on. Like say… Book clubs. Or nitting/yarn stuff.

(I know, kinda stereotypical here, but trying to think of some hobbies where you’re less likely to see men participate.)

Men’s hobbies tend to have winners and losers and be more confrontational. (MTG, WH. TTRPGs to a certain extent.)

It’s silly when GW tries to market towards women, because just like the occasional male yarn enthusiast, the women who are interested or attracted to it will invariably come, and it’s unlikely to appeal to more than a small audience.

 

[dumb idiot loser]

Unironically this. I'd imagine actual women are fine with Sisters of Battle and of Silence. Maybe even the Inquisition. Woman space marines are only there for ex-men troons who want their "literally me" to transition with them.

Most women don't give a shit if the characters they play as are male or not. Adding more female characters on the assumption that women will jump on it and buy is stupid. I agree that troons will shit themselves and be more likely to get stuff like that though. Because troons sure aren't insecure and just HAVE to play as girls to let everyone know that they're definitely ladies too!

 

[TowinKarz]

Most women don't give a shit if the characters they play as are male or not. Adding more female characters on the assumption that women will jump on it and buy is stupid. I agree that troons will shit themselves and be more likely to get stuff like that though. Because troons sure aren't insecure and just HAVE to play as girls to let everyone know that they're definitely ladies too!

Women don't really care, troons care too darn much, and companies still haven't learned to not cater to them for it.

 

[Kotol]

There is no female market for this. The largest market is males. It's like trying to sell professional basketball to women. Most women don't want to watch sports of any kind. Men don't want to watch women play sports.

Beach volleyball is the exception for some strange, unknown reason.

 

[majob]

For now.

Correct me if I'm wrong since I'm new to the franchise but can't orks make anything possible if they believe in it enough? All you need is one retard saying orks can be women and making enough of them believe it

 

[cybertoaster]

Trannies don't count...

 

[Spoonge]

One of the strangest things about warhammer is that I've never seen a woman play it nor can I convince my wife to read the Eisenhorn books before the Henry Cavill led 40k show premiers.

All the women I've ever known that got interested in a GW wargame (which isnt many I will admit, but therr were some) went immediately for the Lord of the Rings game.
Which really shows that in this field they have superior taste to men because 40k has been trash for several editions now.

EDIT. I also knew one that played gloomspite gitz in Age of Sigmar. They also tend to enjoy Mordheim. But to be fair most people enjoy Mordheim.

 

[Bulk Bogan]

Men’s hobbies tend to have winners and losers and be more confrontational. (MTG, WH. TTRPGs to a certain extent.)

There are two categories of male hobbies, "football game" and "car restoration". Football games are what you described, winner/loser system, usually active and often violent in some way, if only in theming, and almost always in need of multiple participants. So you have sports, but you also have multiplayer video games. Even something PvE like, say, Helldivers, is a "football game" in this context. Car restoration is things, often but not necessarily solitary, where the man sets an arbitrary goal and works to achieve it, and it's almost always some sort of artisan skill. This includes video games like Minecraft, activities like woodworking, and yes, painting models. The perfect male hobby will have both, so you paint the models for your army (restore a car) so you can go compete against someone else's army (football game).

Both of these hobby-types can involve talking to other men in the same space, but a lot of the focus will by necessity be on tactics and/or technique. Conversation is for hanging out, the beer after the game, hobby time is for the hobby.

It isn't that women aren't invited, it's that all of this just doesn't appeal to most of them, and that's ok unless you're some sort of narcissistic activist.

 

[The greater a'tuin]

All the guys involved would love to see more women involved. Until it actually happens, and it turns out that they’re the worst kind of activist harpies who come walking in hand in hand with troons.

I have never wanted to see more women involved. I wised up early to the fact that attention parasite girlfriends brought into any friend group activity will crash the train with no survivors.

 

[God of Nothing]

It isn't that women aren't invited, it's that all of this just doesn't appeal to most of them, and that's ok unless you're some sort of narcissistic activist.

i'm sure if we just make the savage jungle warriors women we'll benefit from their ridiculous, almost self-destructive money spending habits
what's more feminine to women but hunting and survival?

 

[Meriasek]

(Why are women such a rarity in scale modeling btw? You get to paint and make little dioramas. You think it’d be fun for women too?)

I think the main issues are the market and available models.
What are the most common models? Ships and planes, most often warships and -planes. Tanks, war dioramas, stuff that's either historical or technical. It's not something many women are immediately interested in. Some for sure, but I think the available models just don't have a lot of appeal to the majority of women who might be interested in the hobby in principle.
And then I think there's a difference in decorative tastes. In my experience, women tend to dislike clutter and focus on simpler shapes when decorating rather than the more intricate shapes of scale models. And scale models are not something you store away neatly in a box, they're made to be displayed and take up space. Now that goes a bit against how many women are now into crocheting, often doing quite intricate things, and filling up living spaces with all sorts of crocheted knicknacks, but crochet pieces tend to still be more simple in shape, colorful, soft, generally adorable, and most importantly, easily stowed away. Scale models are fragile, intricate, and depending on model colored in a more subdued fashion. Once you build them, you gotta display them.
There are exceptions to the rule, there are women in the hobby for sure, but I think those are the reasons why scale building doesn't have as much appeal to women as it has to men.

 

[Fapcop]

Beach volleyball is the exception for some strange, unknown reason.

There is the rare sport where women’s physique, or lack thereof, makes it more enjoyable to watch.

Beachvolley and tennis are def two of those. (Aside from the outfits obviously.)

Men have so much upper body strength that Beach volley (and tennis!) with them just turns into smashing serves back and forth, which is kinda boring to watch.

That’s my non-gooner explanation anyways.

 

[Oilspill Battery]

Your close but missing the real point.

It's not about men, it's about You having no refuge from the politics of progressivism. No where to turn to escape the drumbeat of ideologically driven narrative. No hidey hole to enjoy time away from the culture war. Just a constant stream of ideology poured into every facet of life so you can never get away from it

We've always been at war with East Asia.

Except is nobody is shoving men into women's hobbies.

People might be tempted to say trannies but that doesn't count because in the eyes of the progs trannies are women so nothing changes, meanwhile men's hobbies get women outright and get told its a good thing too.

 

[SITHRAK!]

Beach volleyball is the exception for some strange, unknown reason.

Lingerie football and female MMA also.

 

[Overly Serious]

I have never wanted to see more women involved. I wised up early to the fact that attention parasite girlfriends brought into any friend group activity will crash the train with no survivors.

I think the chief problem is the "outcasts" that someone above termed them, are often outcasts at least in part for their behaviour around women. They're the dudes who don't know not to flirt with someone else's girlfriend or who don't have sufficiently developed empathy to understand that their sexual desires aren't inherently shared by the person they're interested in. Their behaviour becomes exponentially worse around women. It's like dropping potassium into water.

I know the sort of woman you mean. They exist. And they get really aggressive to other women who try to enter the group which means they themselves become a reason other women aren't present. But really the group being made up of the sort of dudes that a woman will crash, is the main issue, ime.

I think the main issues are the market and available models.
What are the most common models? Ships and planes, most often warships and -planes. Tanks, war dioramas, stuff that's either historical or technical. It's not something many women are immediately interested in. Some for sure, but I think the available models just don't have a lot of appeal to the majority of women who might be interested in the hobby in principle.
And then I think there's a difference in decorative tastes. In my experience, women tend to dislike clutter and focus on simpler shapes when decorating rather than the more intricate shapes of scale models. And scale models are not something you store away neatly in a box, they're made to be displayed and take up space. Now that goes a bit against how many women are now into crocheting, often doing quite intricate things, and filling up living spaces with all sorts of crocheted knicknacks, but crochet pieces tend to still be more simple in shape, colorful, soft, generally adorable, and most importantly, easily stowed away. Scale models are fragile, intricate, and depending on model colored in a more subdued fashion. Once you build them, you gotta display them.
There are exceptions to the rule, there are women in the hobby for sure, but I think those are the reasons why scale building doesn't have as much appeal to women as it has to men.

Rare disagree from me here. I think the spectrum of tastes and interests is too wide across the sexes for this to be the chief factor. I believe it's largely due to the other factors listed here: poor socialisation of the existing group towards women (primarily in public groups, friends and family groups are fine); a tendency towards non-competitiveness (hence TTRPGs see more female members than TT warggaming groups for example) and some level of greater sensitivity to social status of groups amongst women than men.

I think ascribing this to sex-differences in tolerance to clutter / liking for detail is off-base. There's a reason this meme is funny, after all:


Put most men in a new house unattended and they'll either go years without changing a thing or paint every room in two coats white and a couple of dumbells in one corner.