User blog:Jed Revenant man/Female Space Marines, or, "Can of Worms, opening."

Yes, I’m opening a can of worms, and no, I don’t know if this is the right place for it, but hey – it’s a blog. I’m allowed to. I hope.

Brief disclaimer – I’m about to discuss one of the thornier subjects of the 40k modelling and fluff verses. I might offend you with my opinions, because lord knows it’s happened before. If you are offended, well, this isn’t meant to do so, and I can but apologise for it.

Anyway.

I got cottoned on to the fact that Female Space Marines are something of a thorny issue when I looked up “female space marines” on google for a laugh and found a dissertation on why they should be canon and a counter dissertation on why they weren’t. I hadn’t had cause to think about it before, but now I did and decided to tear into the subject like a bull terrier.

I’ll bottom line you – I don’t believe there’s any point to having Female Space Marines and I am never going to be in favour of them being included in the official canon. Why? Well, it’s really quite simple. They don’t fit the fluff, and as an army, that’s what the Sisters of Battle are for (sort of).

There are a lot of arguments to go through, But I’ll try to approach the points I have through the three areas – Gaming, Modelling, Audeience Denies! and Fluff, in reverse order.

Fluff
The one with the most to be said IMHO.

Apparently, according to some quarters, it is sexist for there to be no Female Space Marines, and it cuts off half the audience or whatever (see Audience Denies). Erm. No. Let’s try this from a counter perspective, firstly the purely fluff POV. I think it’s absolutely sexist for there to only be female Sisters of Battle. How dare they. It’s an outrage. Etc. Therefore I demand there also be Brothers of Battle. Hang on… Battle Brothers… that sound awfully familiar… Similarly, a female Space Marine would be a Battle Sister… a Sister of Battle? The logic is undeniable. Ostensibly.

Let’s face it, the Sisters of Battle in fluff purposes, while admittedly not being augmented, are glorified female Space Marines. Religious? Check. Devoted? Check. Bolters and Power Armour? Check. Ten troop squads? I think so. Different colour schemes and a million possible extra ones just waiting for someone to come up with them? Heck yes. Jump pack assault troops? Never played S’sOB, but those damn look like Jump Packs to me. Crazy ass machine walker things? Yup. Celibate? Dunno but I reckon the Sisters are and I’m not certain the Marines can have sex anymore so we’ll count that as a check.

I personally think the only reason they exist is for there to ‘’be’’ female Space Marines, and they do look very stylish I might add. No idea why the male version is augmented and the female model isn’t, but that’s Games Workshop for you.

To those who say “just cos there haven’t been any doesn’t mean they don’t exist…” well it’s never said there are Female Space Marines and it’s mentioned that they can’t exist, so… plus, every single opportunity that the Fluff has had that I have seen to show the female of the species in Marine colours has so far come out with naff all on that count.

Point is, people complaining about lack of female Space Marines in the ‘’fluff’’ should just look at the Battle Sisters, cos to all intents and purposes that’s their purpose. And if you really can’t stand there only being male Space Marines in the Space Marines army then maybe you should examine why, because it sounds sexist to me that no one’s ever complained about there not being a male Adeptus Sororita (and yes I know Sorority and all similar words is Latinate or something for Sisterhood) but plenty complain about there being no female Marines.

Audience Denies!
As said earlier, some say it’ll turn off half the audience. Erm, no it won’t. Women most likely ain’t half the audience. Now, I’m not one of those nerds who says “GET THE GIRLS AND THEIR COOTIES AWAY!!!!” (I’m getting engaged this year, but don’t tell her I said that ;-) ) but fact is fact, I have seen three people of the fairer sex who game. One a Games Workshop staff member. One a independent stockist. One my girlfriend, and she’s only vaguely into it. Seen maybe three or four female White Dwarf peeps (though I haven’t read White Dwarf in a while). Yeah, not really half the audience. No doubt if they really were half the audience, the great corporate beast would have already made female Marines, but they aren’t so they didn’t.

Frankly, if any woman is so shallow as to say “I won’t play with model men, only model women” then I’m sorry, grow up. Plenty of blokes play SOB’s. If you can’t do the opposite, you’re as sexist as you claim the GW is being.

Modelling
I don’t see any problems here. So many people model female Space Marines anyway, so if you wanted to play them go ahead. Yes it’s more effort but hey, what can you do? There probably will be plastic SOB’s one day too so that’ll help. I see no difficulty here, unless you’re lazy or complaining for the hell of it.

Games Workshop likes telling you that it’s your hobby – you want female Marines, go for it! I’ll play you. It’ll be some fucked up parallel universe as far as my personal fanon goes but I’ll still play you, and you’ll probably beat me too.

Gaming
Well, as I said, no problems with playing a female Space Marine army, but to be honest don’t expect me to take your force seriously; to me, that kind of army would always be some kind of novelty army. Fun yes. Fluffy no. As I said, fucked up parallel universe. Plus side, no one’s ever demanded I recognise their army as fluffy before so I’m cool.

Thing about the female Marines is, if you make them all female, you can have them double as a SOB army. Now that’s value for money.

Conclusion
Anyway. They aren’t fluffy, but you can make them and I’ll play against them, I just won’t enter it on the official records of the Chapter, as it were.

Female Space Marines. Not canon, easy enough to make if you can gather the bother and gaming viable.

Anyway. Opinionated rant over. Sorry if I have offended you, and by all means, try and convince me otherwise.