The LAF Games Workshop Discussion Thread

[Elbows]

Hey now...most of the best things come from accidents (original Golf GTI for example)

[Andrew Rae]

True. Though I hope that whoever spotted the potential of the push-fit figures at least gets a raise!

[mcfonz]

Bit late to the show, but my god - 8th ed 40k is really anti combat isn't it? Literally can't run a combat focused nid army, you need to have guns.

[Chico]

Bit late to the show, but my god - 8th ed 40k is really anti combat isn't it? Literally can't run a combat focused nid army, you need to have guns.

I haven't found that myself, I found there tends to more combat this edition and it's from turn 1 with so many units now able to arrive from reserve/deep strike ect 9" away and first turning charging

What I have noticed though is combats isn't quite as bloody as you now have the option to disengage so you need to hit units with overwelming force to kill it in one combat phase.

[nic-e]

So someone on the old social media wrote an open letter to GW, a very polite one, asking what their current stance was with regards to better gender representation in their games.

Games workshop , seeing this potential grenade of outraged defensive man babies , answered with tact and clarity.

GW's answer :




just putting the core issue aside for a second, Can you imagine GW even thinking of taking a stance like this 5 years ago? let alone doing so after prompt from a players letter? sure, it's an easy PR goal to say "hey, we don't hate women" , but it's also gotta be a nice thing to see for new female players who might be put of by the outwardly exclusionary seeming hobby.

[Andrew Rae]

Unfortunately, the replies from the player base still feature an alarming number of frightened, angry men ranting against what feminist40k (they posted the question that this answers) are trying to achieve.

[nic-e]

Unfortunately, the replies from the player base still feature an alarming number of frightened, angry men ranting against what feminist40k (they posted the question that this answers) are trying to achieve.

Yeah I read through the comments... But then I remembered working in a store and know that these players are just the very vocal minority who normally don't paint their armies and think terrain gets in the way of the game, and as such they deserve only to be shunned 

I mean hell, The 40k universe was given it's style by John Blanche, a man who if he could would play entirely with female armies.all of them with badass hair.
Then again I once saw someone on dakkadakka claim with utter authority that john blanche had nothing to do with giving 40k it's style, so lord knows what goes in in the minds of 40k players.....

[Elbows]

We had a brew up about this earlier in the thread, personally I think it's a bad business decision - but only their sales numbers will answer the question at some point.

[Cubs]

I think it's entirely appropriate to have more 'normal' female models in both fantasy and sci-fi gaming. Why not? It helps to reflect what a growing proportion of gamers want to see and it also follows with where our society is right now, with more women taking combat roles in the military as opposed to just women-only units. It's not about being politically correct, so much as pulling the hobby along with a changing market.

Dare I say it, it also helps the hobby to evolve, mature and shed its clichéd old skin. The cheesecake chainmail bikinis still have a place in the tongue-in-cheek style fantasy models, as do the over-muscled barbarians in fur pants. We can still enjoy the fun without taking it seriously, just now we have a better variety of styles to choose from. 'Calamity Jane' Deadwood style, or 'Calamity Jane' Doris day style, if you will.

[Jagannath]

The majority of my project fall in to pseudo-RPG, small, roleplaying adventure encounters and I'm actively put off by mini collections that don't have some women in them - it's weird. Doesn't mean I want PC weirdness (I've warrior bands of raiders that are all male because their tribe is classically patriarchal, for example) but I just think that with no women on the table the make-believe world seems a bit gray.

[Vladimir Raukov]

I personally love that there's more options for ladies with not-chainmail-bikinis out there to choose from. Could you imagine the chafing?

[Lovejoy]

... It's not about being politically correct, so much as pulling the hobby along with a changing market.

Hit the nail on the head there, Cubs! At Derby over the weekend, there was a notable increase in the number of female attendees, and a quick check shows our FB page has 13% female 'Likes' now. It's definitely a shifting market, and GW would be mad not to take advantage of it.

I can see it being difficult to integrate them into the Guard though, unless they resculpt the Cadians altogether. Without boob-plate, it'd be down to proportions to tell them apart. And the current male models don't look much like humans, really.

[FramFramson]

As many people have pointed out, people have been clamouring for things like plastic Sisters or female IG for nigh-on 20 years now, with so many fans resorting to conversions or not-figures.

Easily a dozen minis companies have taken advantage of this demand over the years and made money that GW could have been making all along.

[Kommando_J]

Having been at the 'coal face' so to speak the thing that people are worried about isn't more female minis of 'boobplate', its the message, if you look at videogames companies once you start that whole route where you are trying to appease peoples PC demands it can go from reasonable to lynch mob very quickly,.

For example, the company that makes the witcher video games series coming under fire for not having any non-white people...despite the fact its made in Poland by an all white team and and based on a property based on Polish mythology, they stood their ground but other companies have folded.

The thing about SoBs is the demand has been vocal but that does not necessarily mean popular, people are vocal about squats but most I know don't care about them and don't miss them.

I can see 40k being particular vulnerable i that many aspects are ''problematic'' and some are being removed, look at slaanesh,, I reckon that the whole 'mystery' is really just GW unable to decide what they want to do(cut or keep?) because let's be honest, age of sigmar is warhammer with lots of the 'adult' aspects shed away.

I would point out though that GW has said the pc thing...but given release schedules etc, it will be another few years before we actually see it in action(the pc bubble could well have burst by then).

[nic-e]

For example, the company that makes the witcher video games series coming under fire for not having any non-white people...despite the fact its made in Poland by an all white team and and based on a property based on Polish mythology, they stood their ground but other companies have folded.

But we're talking about 40k, a universe where women do in fact exist.

I can see 40k being particular vulnerable i that many aspects are ''problematic'' and some are being removed, look at slaanesh,, I reckon that the whole 'mystery' is really just GW unable to decide what they want to do(cut or keep?) because let's be honest, age of sigmar is warhammer with lots of the 'adult' aspects shed away.

Slaanesh hasn't gone anywhere, after the fall of the old world it gorged on the souls of the elves and then in its exhaustion was captured by the elves and chained up in the mortal realms. It's power is still in the realms, its followers still active , even more so ast hey search for it and fight to take its place, and many have directed their worship onto archeaon as a proxy slaanesh, giving him power over its followers.

slaanesh was put on ice because they're doing the gods one at a time. Honestly slaanesh needs a rethink not because its unfriendly to kids, but because the people who whinge about it are the same people that stick half a barbie doll on a defiler and call it a masterful work of art, then spend the whole game making sex jokes, or put greenstuff dicks on their rhinos because to them "Excess" translates as "chance to express my unevented sexual frustration in increasingly worrying and socially inept ways whilst making others worry about my personal tastes and hygiene"

Slaanesh, cool idea, awesome potential, terrible fans.