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]

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.

Meh… While you do have your occasional car chick and female autist who’s really into trains, it’s kinda true that machinery, in particular war machinery doesn’t broadly appeal to women in the same way it does to men. The only example I can think of where there may be some modeling overlap between the sexes is the Titanic.

But yeah, it’s very rare to see even a car chick sperg out about the lines of a Tiger tank, or the 88mm main gun, the Maybach V12 engine, etc etc.

 

[Overly Serious]

Meh… While you do have your occasional car chick and female autist who’s really into trains, it’s kinda true that machinery, in particular war machinery doesn’t broadly appeal to women in the same way it does to men. The only example I can think of where there may be some modeling overlap between the sexes is the Titanic.

But yeah, it’s very rare to see even a car chick sperg out about the lines of a Tiger tank, or the 88mm main gun, the Maybach V12 engine, etc etc.

I'll concede that. I just don't think it's down to aesthetic feelings about clutter / detail / interior design. But maybe one of the women in the thread should give their take on that.

 

[Chunky Salsa]

When a hobby becomes more welcoming to women, it becomes more welcoming to normies because women lack the right sort of autism to enjoy the hobby; and normies ruin everything and make it more normie. There is no solution to this, and no one who actually likes the hobby in its current or previous - better - state wants there to be, because it inevitably means changing the hobby, not changing the normies.

This of course, is a problem when the hobby is ran by a company looking to maximise profits. So inevitably, 40K will continue to get shittier and more normie friendly. Joy. If anyone disagrees with this, they are talking about their one friend that actually does have that tism; and are therefore spastic retards because no one cares about the one person that does, we're talking in general group trends.

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.

"The chief problem of the hobby is the people that already like the hobby."

Mike the social retard with bad breath, and an inability to read the room, can also tell me 40K lore in exhausting, cripplingly precise detail, he knows weird niche humour, and has memorised all the rules. He spends hours and hours a day painstakingly making sure his collection is lore accurate and is literally always down to play; which is what I want from 40K. I don't give a shit about casually hanging out, popping open a brew, destressing after work or having some light banter.

That's what having more normal and casual people in the hobby devolves it into, always and without fail. Someone above thread mentioned that the hobby should be gatekept from the weird socially retarded people, no absolutely not. Those are the gatekeepers. They keep out the people that aren't going to autistically commit every detail to memory, or take it all so seriously that they blow a gasket when they lose an apocalypse game.

It's like how D&D got turned to absolute shit because normies got involved. TTRPG's have been getting more and more accessible over the years, and also they've been getting worse and worse in an overlap so strong that if you drew it on a graph, the Y axis would be 'How well we kept out the non socially retarded' and the X axis would be 'How wank everything has gotten.' It would form a line like this "\". Same thing for boardgames now as well, which as a result of getting more mainstream, have become gay; shitty, and massively overpriced.

The last boardgame group I became part of, stopped playing things like BSG, or Oceans, of Escape from Colditz and switched to party games, because some faggot invited their buddy from work, who found the rules too complicated, but like the social aspects of it. So my once every two weeks night of doing a hobby I like, died a death because a retard that couldn't be bothered to just read some rules (WHICH AREN'T EVEN THAT COMPLICATED REEEEEEEE!!!!) bitched and whinged until all we play are normie friendly starter games. My 40K group is going the same way literally because one of the guys girlfriends wanted to join in, and four times now she's gotten bored, and put the TV on while we played, and then kept asking people their opinions on the show. I despise normies getting into my hobbies.

EDIT: Wew, I really sperged here lmao.

 

[Meriasek]

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 don't know, it's just my immediate observation. I don't put a cause to this gender difference, it's just that I feel like women tend to be less fascinated by machinery in general.
Model building is for the most part pretty non-competitive, so that shouldn't be a factor.

I'll concede that. I just don't think it's down to aesthetic feelings about clutter / detail / interior design. But maybe one of the females in the thread should give their take on that.

That was just a spur of the moment observation. Clutter itself isn't a factor, women can go hard on clutter when it comes to collections of things that interest them. I just noticed that that clutter is often somewhat different than the decorative clutter of having intricate models of planes or ships around. Probably doesn't mean anything.
I agree that scale model building also has a sweaty autistic smell to it and it's seen as a nerdy hobby, but I think the general lack of interest in machines and their details is more important here. So if more models of whatever more women would be interested in were available, maybe it'd be more interesting.

 

[Fapcop]

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.

It usually IS a shitshow.

1: Autistic men, who have no idea on how to act around women turn the creep up to the max.

2: Nerds whose heart flutter at the thought of a woman who shares their interest, to the extent that they don’t care what she looks like, suddenly dealing with regular looking women entering their spaces.

3: The reaction from the homely girls who formerly ruled the roost as the one of the only chickens, surrounded by autistic roosters, suddenly dealing with what they see as COMPETITION.

4: The reaction of normies who have never spent much time in an insular herd of nerds.

Still. I’ve usually enjoyed having you know… NORMAL women in my hobbies.

 

[God of Nothing]

Still. I’ve usually enjoyed having you know… NORMAL women in my hobbies.

The vast majority of women don't have hobbies, if you don't count TV and social media. It's rather irregular.

 

[SITHRAK!]

When a hobby becomes more welcoming to women, it becomes more welcoming to normies because women lack the right sort of autism to enjoy the hobby

Okay now I have to drag out the ancient wisdom.

 

[HOMO FOR LIFE RETURNS]

South park did an episode about this and I was not pleased.

 

[ShitLurker]

Mike the social retard with bad breath, and an inability to read the room, can also tell me 40K lore in exhausting, cripplingly precise detail, he knows weird niche humour, and has memorised all the rules. He spends hours and hours a day painstakingly making sure his collection is lore accurate and is literally always down to play; which is what I want from 40K. I don't give a shit about casually hanging out, popping open a brew, destressing after work or having some light banter.

Good summary. I want to play a wargames, not make friends. If I could play against an AI that played competently I would just pass on Mike outright, but since we aren't there, Mike is how I can get my fix. I don't give two shits about Mike's life, just that he knows how to play the game and isn't so much of a spaz to make it a chore to play.

Same deal with lore and rules chat, I'm more than happy to keep that stuff online for the most part.

This is one of the really big differences in the genders. Women are a LOT less likely to meet up with someone purely for the activity.

 

[Ishtar]

You all say this, but what if GW just want to market 40K to female thirsting over Dark Eldar and Konrad Kurze? If you want to make 40K female friendly-magnify the gothic romance aspects of it.

Brooding villains that were abused as children and yet have castles of skinned children. Women absolutely love this.

Games Workshop could even add romance to their black library novel line up-lesbian Sororitas, rape fantasies(I mean rough sex with hot brooding dark guys)-with everything from night lords to dark Eldar.

You’d have to change the lore to make space marines capable of romance and sexual attraction-but…female interest would skyrocket. Also add the gay Yuri shit women love for some reason. Make war and suffering a backdrop to doomed romances and unfulfilled lust.

Women love broody men, that would flay them from the inside out-that shit is catnip to women. That’s why I shit you not-Dark Eldar and Night Lord artwork/fan discourse is filled with women.

 

[God of Nothing]

Women love broody men, that would flay them from the inside out-that shit is catnip to women. That’s why I shit you not-Dark Eldar and Night Lord artwork/fan discourse is filled with women.

are they the knife-earing loving cucks who can't keep going on about how superior they are to humans?
imagine simping for a fictional race

 

[Ishtar]

are they the knife-earing loving cucks who can't keep going on about how superior they are to humans?
imagine simping for a fictional race

Most species in 40K are superior to humans in some, most or all capacities. That’s…partly why 40K is so grimdark.

Why do you care about maintaining some illusory “human superiority” in science fiction?

 

[God of Nothing]

Most species in 40K are superior to humans in some, most or all capacities. That’s…partly why 40K is so grimdark.

Why do you care about maintaining some illusory “human superiority” in science fiction?

humans but weird looking and with super powers is lazy and gay
and sucking them off is gayer

that is all

 

[Meriasek]

I think architectural models, monuments and nice buildings and such would appeal to women more than tanks and battleships.
I know quite a few women who, despite not being into LEGOs at all, like LEGO Architecture.

 

[Chunky Salsa]

are they the knife-earing loving cucks who can't keep going on about how superior they are to humans?
imagine simping for a fictional race

Dark Eldar skin babies, and torture people to death for months, and then get off on their suffering. The Night Lords are a terror legion, that exists solely to sow fear. They do this by torturing people and broadcasting their screams, skinning them, mutilating them, defacing and destroying everything about the person. Neither of them are 'broody'. They are insane murderous lunatics. The Night Lords were so evil and cruel, that their primary homeworld of Nostromo had suicide as one of its most common causes of death; until Konrad Kurze became the Night Haunter. Konrad dropped the suicide rate to basically nothing, because you see suicide is a crime, and Konrad did not like crime.

Konrad would see the future that someone is going to kill themselves, show up, violently and sadistically torture them to death for the crime of suicide, and then broadcast it around the place. Ensuring people knew that there was no true escape from their suffering when Konrad and his legion were about. The Night Lords are made up of rapists, murderers, abusers and dregs of society, real subhumans.

The Dark Eldar are significantly worse, and anyone who wants to make them 'husbando bait' or romantically gothic, does not belong in 40K and needs to keep their fucking hands off my hobby. The Night Lords are a psych warfare unit, who don't commit mass baby rape only because they actually lack the proper genitals for it. But they would have no issue eating babies. The Dark Eldar do commit mass baby rape, while eating the babies however.

Most species in 40K are superior to humans in some, most or all capacities. That’s…partly why 40K is so grimdark.

Orks are superior to all species in all capacities. For them, the great struggle is over. They already won.

 

[Ishtar]

Eldar are space elves. Orks are self explanatory. Elves in fantasy and sci fi have always had some or another advantage over humans. No 40K source says otherwise.

I think the Eldar are elegant and cool? Then again I do love elves?

You seem more upset over this than me though.

The Dark Eldar are significantly worse, and anyone who wants to make them 'husbando bait' or romantically gothic, does not belong in 40K and needs to keep their fucking hands off my hobby. The Night Lords are a psych warfare unit, who don't commit mass baby rape purely because they actually lack the proper genitals for it. But they would have no issue eating babies. The Dark Eldar do commit mass baby rape, while eating the babies however.

You say this like it’s a deterrent for women who like the gothic romantic at all.

 

[Chunky Salsa]

You say this like it’s a deterrent for women who like the gothic romantic at all.

"The women liked it when Konrad at those babies."

Cracked me up not gonna lie.

 

[God of Nothing]

Eldar are space elves. Orks are self explanatory. Elves in fantasy and sci fi have always had some or another advantage over humans. No 40K source says otherwise.

I think the Eldar are elegant and cool? Then again I do love elves?

You seem more upset over this than me though.

I mean, they go off on tangents about how eldar were basically gods and made psychic portraits and how humans are like cattle and how they shouldn't even think about talking to filthy things like us

like, what the fuck
bitch, they're a fantasy race
i just made up a people of super gods who created gods that created demi gods that created humans in my head

 

[Ishtar]

Women love attractive monsters. I saw a women commenting on the scene where Konrad killed that woman who wanted to commit suicide-she said it was “erotic”.

There is A LOT of dark Eldar fanart. That treats them as husbando sexy vampires.

So it already does happen.

 

[Chunky Salsa]

I mean, they go off on tangents about how eldar were basically gods and made psychic portraits and how humans are like cattle and how they shouldn't even think about talking to filthy things like us

Well yeah, that's because the Eldar are very arrogant as a character flaw; and they are a deeply flawed race. The Eldar that talk all that shit, are the surviving ones from when they murder-fucked a deamon god into existence because of how gross and NSFW they were being. The Eldar are responsible for pretty much all the bad things that happen in 40K. They are psychically and physically superior to humans; their technology is more advanced, and they are pretty much better than us. They were still such shitty people that they caused Slaanesh to be born.

Women love monsters. I saw a women commenting on the scene where Konrad killed that woman who wanted to commit suicide-she said it was “erotic”.

There is A LOT of dark Eldar fanart. That treats them as husbando sexy vampires.

So it already does happen.

These people should be gatekept away for sure. But also I get it. I knew a girl that was super into Tyranids eating people, odd girl. I shudder to think what her search history looks like.