Women Of The Guard

Is there anyone besides me who feels that GW stinks at making and representing female characters? If all of Cadia is mobilized, are all Cadians men and boys? Is Cadia secretly Kamino, making clones of Jango Fett? I can't believe they lock their women up into harems or birthing communes (a la The Giver)

So, I know we have women on this site. Especially one who's particularly upset with me. Any ideas for creative female characters? Not saying make Tank Girl but something fluffy and in the mood of 40K and IG. Feel free to make special rules up.

Go.

Cuz I already did. You and Mo said so.

SO, I got another spot to post up about Lily and her tank, eh? Okay.

Here's her backstory/special rules.


51st Cadian Commander Lilith “Lily” Icaeria, commanding the Leman Russ Vanquisher Grymnir
Lilith Icaeria’s origins are not known to anyone. Much like Ursarkar Creed, Lilith was found unconscious inside a battered Leman Russ Vanquisher within the ruined city of Joramir on the planet K’het as the 51st Cadian Armored took the city. Along with her were four individuals who claimed Lilith had rescued them from a nearby slave camp and had stolen the old Vanquisher when she learned it would be deployed against the advancing Cadians. Though the tank was originally used by a traitorous cult sect on K’het, Lilith and the “crew” had removed or de-faced the chaotic icons and painted Imperial Aquilas over them. Of their service, the 51st Cadian had no doubt. They took the unconscious woman and her crew into their medicae facilities, and refurbished the Vanquisher for immediate service. It is said that as soon as the repairs were made to the tank, Lilith awoke. A concussion, according to the medicae officers, was the reason that Lilith could not remember her origins or place of training. After rigorous psychic probing by the Primaris Psyker of the 51st, Lilith was deemed pure and righteous – a shining flame burning within the heart of the dreadful, bloody coup. Lilith, the Vanquisher and her crew were immediately inducted into the regiment and placed into the 3rd Armored Company and it was not long after that Lilith proved herself an aspiring commander. A master of warfare and a brilliant tactician, she climbed the ranks from Sergeant to Lieutenant Colonel in a short span of years. Now she leads a re-organized 51st Cadian, and is still the same shining beacon of the Emperor’s light, never afraid to prove her skills in the fire of battle.

Spoils of War
Lilith knows how to acquire what she needs for the task at hand, and is not afraid to take useable weaponry or other systems from destroyed enemy tanks.
The Vanquisher may take one of the following for free, and any other options at normal cost:

Dozer blade, rough terrain modification, camo netting

The Vanquisher may take one of the following for 10 pts and any other options at normal cost:

Pintle stubber, Pintle Stormbolter, Hunter-Killer missile, Hull lascannon.
The Vanquisher may take any Sponson weapon options at the cost listed in Codex: Imperial Guard

Hardened Crew(1)
Icaeria knows her way around a battlefield, and her trophies prove it. If they've tried it, she's seen it and blown them to pieces all the same. Consequently, she's happy to take Grymnir forward, trusting her head for tactics (and lightning-fast gunnery sergeant) to keep her safe. Her crew have ridden to war with her for years, and seen their share of troubles to the point that none but the largest and most devastating hits on the tank hull rattle them, such is the faith they have in the ancient Grymnir.

When fired on, Grymnir cannot suffer the Crew Stunned result, and instead treats it as Crew Shaken. A normal Crew Shaken result is treated as nothing.

Commanding Presence(2)
Lily has a firey spirit and despises cowards and would rather shoot them than see her command dishonored. Infantry and Tankers that are familiar with her know better than to cross her, and greenhorns fear her sheer skill and rock-hard attitude. Lily counts as a Commissar if the owning player chooses to use her as such, and she will have the same presence on the battlefield as one (This means, she will occupy the place of ONE Commissar).

Skilled Crew

The Vanquisher’s weapon stats are raised one mark.

(1)These traits do not apply when Lilith Icaeria is used in an Armored Company. They do apply if she is chosen as a special character in a normal Guard army.
(2) This rule can be used in an Armored Company if the owning player chooses.

This post has been edited by LoneSniperSG on Nov 3 2009, 05:17 AM

You're thinking too literally Sigma! Women exist in modern armies, but rarely find their way to the front line intentionally. The Guard must surely maintain a significant support element above and beyond what the Depmartmento Munitorum provides, ie someone has to cook the squaddies' food, wash their clothes, nurse the important ones back to health, put pins on a map for the general, paint the teeth on the Valkyrie nose, sweep out the bunker, bury or cremate the dead, bring up the spare ammunition and so on. There are hundreds of tasks a military needs carried out to support a single company of soldiers in the field. If I remember correctly, the US Army has a ratio between 10:1 and 20:1 of support staff to combat soldiers.

That all being said, it would be nice to see GW produce a handful of female Cadian and Catachan sculpts. The female sculpts they HAVE produced (I'm thinking of you, Bolter Bitches) look like men with Xena-style haircuts and "fantasy boob armour". It can't be THAT hard to sculpt a female face and body, surely?

Yes, but those "Behind the Lines" jobs aren't exclusively women either.

I think part of the thing is that since the IG is so heavily based on WWII, female soldiers will be few and far-between. I had to MAKE two of mine, and the third (so far) is the Metal catachan lady with a grenade launcher.

The one thing that really cheeses my gears is that they took out the female Tanith from the Gaunt's Ghosts Tanith Squad.

I don't know about anyone else, but I do like seeing a female presence in the front lines, and in any other combat role (I hear women make kickass jet pilots). It looks diverse, as the Guard should be. It looks realistic, and I want to include fighting women since I know several ladies who were in the armed forces, including two that were cheated out by fate.

Anyway let's see some more characters. I can't be the only person who has one.

This post has been edited by LoneSniperSG on Nov 3 2009, 06:18 AM

You see, if we consider that (wo)manpower is the Imperium's most expendable resource, the difference between male and female front line soldiers is negligible. As we saw in WW2 and up until today, women fight just as effectively as men. I honestly doubt the Emperor was that stupid as to reduce his fighting troop recruiting pool by 50%

The Imperium may be backward like Russia in WW1 compared to other nations. But its hardly stupid when it comes to mobilizing men and women. Further, we need look no further than Gaunts Ghosts for women in the Guard.

That said, I don't want to get off topic by discussing women in the military. I deliberately did not use it as a discussion topic for my seminars. Female Guard characters, combat or support or whatever. A trophy wife who gives the CHQ officer a LD re-roll a turn through moral encouragement?

This post has been edited by Sigma on Nov 3 2009, 06:15 AM

I don't have a character in mind, but as far as models go, I did find this picture. Not sure how many of these are femal guard, but I recognize at least the rare Female Commisar, one of the Col. Shaffer's Last Chancers, I think its a catchacan on the far right, and it looks like a female Tanith Ghost on the far left.

If all of Cadia is mobilized - who is looking after the kids??

In most warrior races (Vikings, Spartans) the women stay behind. Warrior nations have never pushed women into the front line unless they were invaded and protecting their own soil with every last person. Even today women make up very little if any of front line forces.

Also if the whole of Cadia is mobilized, I'd expect their to be a high birth rate on Cadia. Surely the women WOULD be at home, bringing up the children and running the Home Front. If they weren't then they'd have no more meat for the frontline.

Anyway, when Cadians get home, they expect their dinner to be on the table.

True but let's remember that this is 40k we are talking about here. Insanity and waste of life is as common and needed as breathing air in the real world.

As for the Kamino reference, that would be Krieg.

On a planet where the enlistment rate and the birth rate were one and the same, it would stand to reason that, yes, more females would be on the front line. However, as some might have mentioned, there would be no one on the rear line to support operations and take care of the youngest of children (as most kids ages 10 and up, if I recall correctly, are put into the Whiteshield program, which are your Cadian Conscripts). However, just because they're in support operations doesn't mean they can't fight. Especially in the Kasr's, Cadian men and women devoted to rearline and support operations would likely perform hit-and-run, ambush, and other such tactics if/when the enemy broke through a particular defensive line.

Now, most of what I'm saying is what would happen on Cadia itself, not any of the other Cadian Regiments deployed elsewhere in the galaxy.

Just because we don't see them on the tabletop doesn't mean they're not there in the fluff. Every man, woman, and child on Cadia knows how to use a rifle, and its likely they would make full use of it during an invasion of somekind.

Okay guys, this thread isn't for debating the presence of women in the Guard.. This is about making sure we see them there. Sig asked to see female characters, and I kindly posted up mine, so let's see some more before this thread becomes a waste of Sigma's time and we all get stuck with extra kitchen duty.

This post has been edited by LoneSniperSG on Nov 3 2009, 10:22 AM

Right, my apologies.

Here's what I was able to come up with:

Upgrade Character for Veterans

Sergeant Victoria Constantine

-Life on Armageddon isn't an easy one. Originally brought up as one of the many workers that toil the hot forges of industry on the planet, Victoria was drafted into the Steel Legion in the beginning of the Third War for Armageddon. While the transition from a simple welder to guardsman was as difficult as can be imagined, Victoria's hatred of the greenskins only flourished on the battlefield, driving most of her actions through sheer bravado. After successfully holding an ammo depot from an Ork advance, she was soon promoted to Sergeant, mostly for her bravery and the fact that she was the last of her squad alive when reinforcements arrived. Victoria learned quick how to utilize any weapon her squad might carry with them in the event that she would be the last sole survivor again. In fact, during her time with the Steel Legion, she learned the intricacies of how certain weapons were built and learned how to duplicate them.

-A Veterans Squad with Victoria can be armed with a fourth special weapon (Flamer, Meltagun, Plasmagun, Grenade Launcher) in place of a heavy weapon (Heavy Bolter, Autocannon, Missile Launcher, Lascannon)

-If a Veteran Squad with Victoria chooses not to use the above option, they may take two Heavy Weapons (Heavy Bolter, Autocannon, Missile Launcher, Lascannon) in place of any special weapons (Flamer, Meltagun, Plasmagun, Grenade Launcher, Heavy Flamer)

-For the purposes of "Fire on my Target" and "Bring it Down" Orders, A veterans squad with Victoria is assumed to automatically pass the leadership test required.

because then GW would have to produce more models to represent them, and that would be too intelligent for them.

I agree that GW has missed out, on the female aspect of 40k. Granted there is still a presence if you will with Sister’s of Battle and Dark Eldar to be specific. Aside from the two special characters from the Last Chancers and the female Commissar everything else is pretty much open to conversion.

I’ve seen people use the Necromunda Escher gangers as IG vets in the past. There is someone that sculpted female Cadian torso and heads as well. There is another company that is selling female Amazon torso and heads in resin also that look like they would fit on a pair of Cadian legs pretty easy.

For my army, I plan to include the two Last Chancers with my wife’s Escher gangers to make extra vet squads for larger games. My main focus is that I picked up about 45 of the female Mordheim Amazons with no heads, I managed to acquire the weapons sprues and some pistol sprues from Necromunda, along with some leftover IG packs and rifles…granted I’ll likely need more IG bits. I am about to order those Amazon heads to start work on my all female company of “She Devils” as I call them.

People, don't forget a small detail: GW and it's games was founded in the UK, at a time in which there were no women "up forward" in the UK military. Not only that, the whole idea was anathema to everyone. That pretty much set the tone. Even today, how many women are there in the UK military "up forward", and how visible are they?

Also, if I remember correctly, there are at least 2 IG novels with women in combat: one which features a squadron of Thunderbolts, another with Guant's Ghosts.

And now my contribution (with an "In honour of" - our own (Portuguese) paratrooper nurses, who went into combat with our troops in our colonial wars):


Chief Combat Medicae Lara Markov

A member of a family of local aristocracy, Lara Markov gratuated with honours from a Medical Colegium and was assigned to a local PDF regiment, for basic hands-on experience, after which she was supposed to join the ranks of her family's businees and political activities. Instead, a few weeks into her tour, the entire regiment was called to IG service, with only a few days warning. Rather than use her family's political ties to avoid this, young Lara decided to stay with the regiment.

Upon arriving at the war zone, the poorly trained and equiped regiment was fed into a disastrous battle against hard-core cultists, sufering over 50% casualties in the 1st week alone. In merelly 2 weeks, Lara was forced to take command of the regiment's field hospital after all the senior medics were killed and, with close to 400 wounded and medical staff, along with less than 50 guardsmen, undertook an epic forced march over 100 miles of mountain and forest territory back to friendly lines. Upon arrival, the survivors were added to a new brigade, formed with the remnants of half a dozen regiments. In recognition of her deeds, Lara was offered leadership of the new Phoenix Brigade's hospital services, but she refused, choosing instead to go back to the front, to help the troopers in the fight

Gear: cammo cloak, flak armour, laspistol.
Lara has "Deep Strike" and "Move Through Cover" Also, Lara is always the last to die.
Lara can join a veteran, Stormtrooper or HQ squad. Any squad she joins:
-gains "Feel no pain";
-all members of the squad are imune to the "instand death" kill on a roll of 4+;
-becomes stuborn
-call always test for regrouping even if it's bellow 50%; if it IS bellow 50% and passes the test, it will go to ground and stay that way till the end of the battle.


Medicae squad
Lara's example has led other women medicae to volunteer for forward duty.
Lara can bring a squad of 2-4 medics with her. These medics are spread out over infantry squads (1 per squad). A squad with medic:
-gains "Feel no pain";
-becomes stuborn
Gear: cammo cloak, flak armour, laspistol.
Medics have "Deep Strike" and "Move Through Cover"

This post has been edited by hammerbolt on Nov 3 2009, 04:55 PM

I managed to get my hands on some custom sculpted female Guard, and they have rather prominent places in my Guard army. Two of my officers are female, a female Commissar leads one of my big 30 man squads of doom, and I've got female Guardsmen scattered amongst the rank and file. Two or three of them are Sergeants.

I've also got female Marines too (just some of my leftover heads on Marine bodies). Fluff-wise, they're just really tough female warriors in powered exo-skeletons hidden underneath the power armor. They recieve regular Juvenation treatments to keep looking and acting young.