New Chaos Marauders for Warhammer: The Old World have a disappointing lack of women

On Monday, Games Workshop announced a surprising new addition to the Warhammer: The Old World Warriors of Chaos range — brand new Chaos Marauder and Marauder Horseman kits. GW hasn’t been in the business of refreshing old kits for TOW, and so far, the range has consisted of rereleases of old Warhammer Fantasy Battle miniatures, new units for the various factions, or, in the case of Grand Cathay, entirely new factions. That’s a large part of TOW’s appeal — it's as much about the classic miniatures as it is the square-based, rank and flank rules.

The miniatures themselves look fantastic, if a little packed with detail for rank-and-file horde units. Chaos Marauders are the fighters of the barbarian tribes living in the North of the Old World, and have traditionally drawn inspiration from a variety of medieval and earlier Northern European and Asian people. These new miniatures are explicitly from Norsca — Old World Scandinavia — and are essentially Warhammer Vikings. It’s a smart move that differentiates them from the classic fantasy barbarian look of their Age of Sigmar counterparts, the Darkoath Marauders.

The reaction to the reveal from my usual wargaming haunt was one of instant excitement, followed by harsh disappointment. Why? All of the miniatures in the two kits are men.

Over the past few years, GW has made great strides in increasing representation and diversity in its miniatures. It’s something that may not be immediately apparent to the casual observer, as Warhammer is still mostly associated with space marines who are, at the time of writing, canonically all men. Even then, there’s a noticeable effort to sculpt and paint marines representative of a variety of ethnic groups, which can easily be seen in a recently announced set of space marines heads.

In fact, if you discount space marines and units without any kind of sexual dimorphism, the last core unit kit released by GW that only consisted of men was last year’s Warriors of Rohan for the Middle-Earth Strategy Battle Game, which had to adhere to the on-screen appearance of the Rohirrim who are, with one notable exception, all men. We have non-binary characters who are absolute badasses with minis to match. The Adeptus Custodes, the most powerful warriors fielded by the Imperium, were revealed to contain women in their ranks all along, and one of them was given her own cartoon episode. There have even been attempts to increase body diversity within a single kit, something that is hard to achieve without losing a lot of customisation.

It’s safe to say that broad miniature representation has become the rule within Warhammer games, rather than the exception. And the reality is that it’s really easy for miniature companies to do. At the 28-32mm scales commonly used for gaming miniatures, there’s not a lot of visual sexual dimorphism in human bodies, especially if they’re wearing armor, or even heavy clothing. The differences certainly pale in comparison to variances in height, weight and build, and everyone seems to be fine with every mini in a unit being identical in that regard. All that’s required is a few alternative heads on the sprue, something that’s the norm for a lot of plastic miniature manufacturers, GW included. The new Chaos Marauder kits definitely fall into this easy alternate head category, layered up with heavy cloth, leather, and fur as they are.

It’s an odd misstep for GW, a stumble that puts a stain on a record that has been largely impeccable for some time. I only surround myself with the finest of wargamers with generally good takes, but the immediate disappointment from people of all genders was noticeable and telling. My hope is that this is a blip. Progress isn’t linear, and the GW ship is slow to turn — I remember first noticing the move towards more diverse representation with the 2016 release of Warhammer Quest: Silver Tower. I’ll be watching future TOW reveals, plus the upcoming teased Custodes reveals for The Horus Heresy, with a sceptical eye.