The worlds of Warhammer are both grim and dark but they are unlike the real world just fantasy ones. As the real falls into dark void of the Corona pandemic and racial violence, Games Workshop stepped up and declared its position.
Personally, I find this great. And I hope that Games Workshop continues to push for a more inclusive and diverse hobby. The real world, in contrast to the oppressive hell of the Imperium, should be a great place for everyone, as corny as that might sound, but it really should. A great place of equal opportunity and equal rights. We all have a responsibility to make that happen. And those who do not want to tag alone on this great journey … well, they won’t be missed.
Take care, everyone!
Azazel's Bitz Box. 
I hope this means GW are intending to make more models of different ethnicity rather than just a token model
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Agreed, though I’ve been seeing more and more of a backlash in different parts of the internet over the past few years when their characters are depicted as female or nonwhite.
I never had a problem with fantasy-Europeans looked like Earth-Europeans (Empire, etc) but it always seemed ridiculous in all aspects of the 40k setting.
I’ve written before about how my own heart bleeds for those who are upset that Warhammer has been becoming less of a boys-only, only-whites-allowed treehouse as they’ve been moving that way, and it’s nice to GW itself finally man up and tell those people to just fuck off. 🙂
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Indeed, when I sculpted my sky surfers I knew I wanted to have multiple ethnicity and gender, whether anybody else thought it was right or wrong
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Yep, I’ve been painting my Imperial Guard in a veriety of skin tones since the 1990’s, and similarly my (unfinished) Digganobs all have dark skin, and I’ve had a pile of heads for a contingent of female Marines(!) ever since Primaris were introduced and threw out/retconned/updated a lot of the pre-existing lore about how Astartes are created. I’d held firm to “no girls” until then, but at that point I felt all bets were off. Naturally, at my glacial pace of actually finishing projects (as opposed to paintng lots of random things) I still haven’t completed a single one of them, but such is life…
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Good to see them doing this! There’s been progress in the past years, and it’s nice that they’re taking an explicit stance here. I’d love to see GW portray space marines, the genocidal, ultra-xenophobic übermensch they are, little more critically. Somehow along the years they’ve become the actual heroes of the setting, instead of the more satirical portrayal of early RT times, and I’ve always found it more than a bit troubling – not least when during the last election I saw 40K Trump Photoshop jobs with all that “suffer not the alien to live” stuff written on it, yeesh.
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That’s really the thing – taking that step to just be explicit about it and come right out and tell all of those butthurt cunts whining about how 40k/GW are SJWs or cucks or simps or whatever fucking idiot netspeak is the insult of the day.
I can’t see them walking back the Marines, though – if anything they’ve 40k-ified fantasy with Sigmarines. I still think it works, though – once you’re able to think critically (and true, some people never develop that skill), you start to see just how fascist and corrupt the Imperium is, and realise that basically *everyone* in 40k are the bad guys… and at best, heavily compromised good guys. Seems familiar to real life, really…
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Well done them, and sod off all racists
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Agreed.
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It’s a sad day when a company feels compelled to publish statements like this.
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Or a good day when they sack up enough to actually do it…
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You’re right mate but I applaud them for doing it. There’s no cure for racism unfortunately but we can make sure the bastards don’t win.
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Nice post Az man. I’ve seen some division on Instagram over this topic. One bloke (Aussie) called The Real Broken Fingers lost 50 followers just because he posted three black squares. Crazy that in 2020 there is still racial conflict. We all bleed the same colour. I try not to get too political in my online hobby world but on something like this it’s worse to be silent. I applaud GW for their message.
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Cheers, IRO. The thing is while it is (technically) political, it really shouldn’t be. Thinking that representing people outside of the very narrow demographic of white male “European” is a problem is firstly dumb and secondly just not realistic. Modern military forces have integrated women increasingly into combat roles – look at the IDF – why would 40k be any different? As for skin colour – again, military forces reflect the diversity of the societies they’re a part of (disproportionately in some as well).
Funny thing is I posted some of my old Necromunda models on reddit and got attacked by a few people for them, since some people felt there were “racist implications”. One guy even called them a “minstrel show”.
Hilarious.
https://azazelx.com/2019/09/09/necromunda-95-catachan-gangers-with-lasgun-meltagun-flamer-michael-perry-1993-4/
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