Why folks hate the Stormcast Eternals...

[Xaric]

what about sisters of sigmar?

[Cutter]

what about sisters of sigmar?

Or Chromecast Eternals?

GW are all about brand synergy.

[Morgrim]

Or Chromecast Eternals?

GW are all about brand synergy.

I hear "Chromecast Eternals" and immediately think of the warboys from Fury Road.

And now I am wondering which army could best proxy that.

[nsc]

Gorkamorka orkz

"female wargamers are very few in number"

See, I don't think is really accurate

Well, I do? I don't see them at the historical wargaming events, I don't see them in the communities, I don't see them at the FLGS, They're not attending the magic tournies I'm attending. I don't see them at big conventions dedicated to board game tournaments/championships. I don't see nearly as many women playing tabletop rpgs as men.

Obviously as you skew to board game and video game conventions in a more general sense the female footprint becomes better and better and more realized. However all of my female friends don't see the appeal of violence, they're not watching the action movies, they're not playing wargames. The biggest "gamer girl" I know plays tons of games, on her 3DS. She's a gamer, but she's not a wargamer by any stretch of the imagination, similarly all the ladies I know who like board gaming prefer the Euro style with very little competitive interaction between the players. They're gamers, but they're not about to play games about little soldiers killing each other.

If they're not a small minority then why are they not present at these larger events that I'm attending? Is there some underground wargamergirl community where they only play in basements? What anecdotal data do you have Erik where "it's GW's fault that there are no girls wargaming, other games have much more" (loosely paraphrasing, forgive me :P).

Because I'm not seeing them playing Kings of War, I'm not seeing them play Infinity, I'm not seeing them play Battlelore, C&C, Kemet or Wallenstein. I'm not seeing them playing Battleltech, Axis & Allies, or 1812. I do see more women coming out for One Night Ultimate Werewolf, Lords of Waterdeep, King of Tokyo, Dead of Winter, Ticket to Ride, Suburbia, Castles of Mad King Ludwig and Arkham Horror.

What are these wargames where there are a lot of female wargamers since you seem to think they refuse to play wargames because of male models?

[Erik Setzer]

Okay, so because you personally don't see or know many, you think they don't exist? I mean, we have more than one female posted on BoLS, but clearly they're fictional and not real.

I see different at tournaments and game stores. I see women of varying ages (mostly young, but then, most of the guys are also young) playing not just board games but also card games, miniatures games, RPGs. On Saturday when I go to play D&D with friends, there's a table right next to ours with a female GM and a couple of other women playing.

These are the same kind of arguments used to push only male protagonists in video games. "Girls don't play video games! I don't know of any, I've never seen one! So why do anything they'd like?" Ditto for comics, too. But hey, look, in both of those cases people were proven wrong, and companies reaped the profits from coming out of the All Boys Club.

You're not going to see many women if you argue in favor of all male models with the occasional for-sex-appeal-only female models. A lot of male gamers turn off women by acting like women shouldn't be anywhere near their precious models, too (especially as it means that model companies might be more inclined to put out decent female models and not fantasy fodder for "men"), and that's not going to help the situation. Making sexist, obnoxious, and/or insulting comments about women doesn't make them want to spend time around the people doing so, which might keep women out of certain stores and communities.

But no, it's clearly that they don't want to belong to the community. I mean, why wouldn't you want to join a club full of people who are going to make horrible comments about you, and the models you can best "relate" to are sexed-up because your gender is only good for satisfying the clearly superior other gender?

[Morgrim]

If they're not a small minority then why are they not present at these larger events that I'm attending? Is there some underground wargamergirl community where they only play in basements?

Actually yes, generally.

On BoSLs we're mostly hiding the in the Oubliette. Elsewhere a lot of women play in groups with other women or in places that have proven to be accepting of women, because being verbally attacked in a lot of gaming clubs is quite tiring. Did you know there are entire blogs dedicated to listing which gaming stores are and are not considered 'safe' to play in? In this case 'safe' is defined as able to play a game without being told you don't belong, being treated as a strange alien being, being constantly hit on by people you wouldn't date under any circumstances but they refuse to get the message, being told you have to be present for dating because 'girls don't play games', or being around obnoxious arseholes who keep making rape jokes.

From my rough reckoning I'd say women make up about 10% of wargamers, with a lower representation in historical wargaming and a higher representation in casual gaming in general. My personal experiences with tournaments has been pretty unpleasant because they seem to concentrate the worst of the local gaming community, so I'm not surprised others have also decided to avoid them.

[Ray Rivers]

Actually yes, generally.

On BoSLs we're mostly hiding the in the Oubliette. Elsewhere a lot of women play in groups with other women or in places that have proven to be accepting of women, because being verbally attacked in a lot of gaming clubs is quite tiring. Did you know there are entire blogs dedicated to listing which gaming stores are and are not considered 'safe' to play in? In this case 'safe' is defined as able to play a game without being told you don't belong, being treated as a strange alien being, being constantly hit on by people you wouldn't date under any circumstances but they refuse to get the message, being told you have to be present for dating because 'girls don't play games', or being around obnoxious arseholes who keep making rape jokes.

From my rough reckoning I'd say women make up about 10% of wargamers, with a lower representation in historical wargaming and a higher representation in casual gaming in general. My personal experiences with tournaments has been pretty unpleasant because they seem to concentrate the worst of the local gaming community, so I'm not surprised others have also decided to avoid them.

Thanks for that response. I guess I'm naive on the subject, but I had no idea.

I'd also like to make a clarification to something I wrote here concerning female Bloodbound mini's. I was not referring to sex dolls with big weapons ala Conan. What I was imagining were huge female barbarians, rippling with muscles and able to swing an axe and cleave someone apart just as easily as their male counterparts. Mini's which, when mixed, would blend in so well folks would take a double take and say... "Hey, those are women!"