Why do we never see black guys in 40k?
Every picture I've ever seen in Codexes, White Dwarf, Web Sites etc. always shows white dudes in the Imperium. Never, it seems, has anyone ever painted their forces to be racially equal. Come to that, why not Asians? We never see those either.

One of my friends has a 40k IG army using catachan models and some of them are black. Mostly this is because it is a Vietnam War themed catachan army and it looks awesome.

"Every picture I've ever seen in Codexes, White Dwarf, Web Sites etc. always shows white dudes in the Imperium."-Elirinchal El-Gilad

Well the Imperium seems to be the 40k equivalent of the old world empire, and if I remember right the empire is the fantasy equivalent of the Holy Roman Empire.
In addition you forget about all of the other worlds beyond Ultramar, Cadia, Valhallan, etc... Theres probably tons of worlds out there in the 40k universe that correspond to non-White cultures, in fact why don't you go and make/convert one yourself?

Iv seen acouple of Salamanders and Imperial Guard painted black.

hey!
why not some mexican and chinese guys as well! i guess its just a matter of preference. i have seen some IG painted black and a black SoB as well. but i do see your point. everywhere in the fluff is nothin but them white guys.

Both Salamander players at my store, and one of the guys on here(can't remember his id) had black guys in their army, and they all seemed to be Seregants or Chaplains.

Simple answer: White skin's easier to make look good. Although saying that, I've had pretty good results doing some black guys in my Salamanders.

I dont mean to be racist or nething like that, but i do have a feeling that over time one race sort of took dominace over the others thats why most other races on the battlefield are not a very common sight. Possibly maybe an amercian crusade or a racial purging occured at some point maybe year 10 000 or something. But i do notice that their arent many black characters or models in the game. Thats why it shocked me to see a black space marine once. It just seemed really different.

PS: a quick note, in dawn of war Inquisitor toth is black.

There's a black guy on the cover of the catachan codex

And you also have to remember that the Imperium isn't the Tau.

well come on like the whole IG has those black men painted troops, but true it doesnt have that many types of people.. but it kinda depends on how you want o paint it.

Seriously this has been discussed like a thousand times and there's a thousand different reasons for it.If you want to see multi-racial marines,paint them yourself.A white guy is gonna paint white marines simply because it's what he used to.It's the skin tone he sees every day when he looks in a mirror so unless he sits doen and deliberately thinks about his marine's skin colour( which not many people do) he's going to paint them white without really thinking about it.And if you didn't notice,they guys at GW are mostly white (I think there's like a few hispanic guys there too though I dunno)

Hey, I play SM and most of them have helmets on. However, of my scout force, about 50% of them, including the sergent, is black. It actually goes with my fluff. So as far as I'm concerned, roughly 50% of my force is black, you just can't see it because they are wearing helmets.


Of course, if you wanted racial diversity, you could have picked something different than the Eldar. They are like whitey-white.

I think that because throughtout history the white man has dominated every other race he met and is the most aggressive and combat orientated race then it is only natural for people playing a warlike game to choose the race that has had the most aggresive past.

For example...
United States
WWII Germany
British Empire
USSR

People they beat
Jews, Africans, Indians, Chinese, Japanese, Italians, all those S. Pacific guys, and the French

Originally posted by Edicius@Dec 6 2004, 16:49
Seriously this has been discussed like a thousand times and there's a thousand different reasons for it.If you want to see multi-racial marines,paint them yourself.A white guy is gonna paint white marines simply because it's what he used to.It's the skin tone he sees every day when he looks in a mirror so unless he sits doen and deliberately thinks about his marine's skin colour( which not many people do) he's going to paint them white without really thinking about it.And if you didn't notice,they guys at GW are mostly white (I think there's like a few hispanic guys there too though I dunno)
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i agree. dont whine about the skin colour of a model, you cant paint it that good now can you?

and as for bean, re read your sources or find some new ones, all those that we "Beat" almost kicked our ass too.... except the French the French are a bunch of pansies.

Tallarn are Middle Eastern. And a long, long, LONG time ago, Dark Angels were Native American.

my imperial fist master is a black guy 8)

lol
i have no white people in my army cept for the woman.....wait my chaos cant have white peopel they all mutants......
Eldar whole damn rainbow :)
Imperial stuff hmm their black yep
and simply people paint the army of their skin tons i think. thats the only thing i can say its kinda how it is.

Um, I hesitate tpo say this but I don't think there would be black people in the far future, or white people for that matter.
Wouldn't everyone have bred together to be sort of brown and then stayed like that?
I mean look at the current make up of earth, and assume that it went through the changes of the Dark Age of Tech before becoming Terra. If everyone became one planet politically, and technology and the ability to travel was freely distributed, wouldn't you assume that in a few hundred or thousand years everyone would be pretty much asian? Just based on the world now I mean, not trying to be racist or anything.
Uh, I kind of wish I hadn't just written this... It seems to be the sort of thing that people may take the wrong way, but I don't mean anything by it, honest :)
Please don't hurt me...

Originally posted by Elirinchal El-Gilad@Dec 6 2004, 10:34
Why do we never see black guys in 40k?
Every picture I've ever seen in Codexes, White Dwarf, Web Sites etc. always shows white dudes in the Imperium. Never, it seems, has anyone ever painted their forces to be racially equal. Come to that, why not Asians? We never see those either.
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Actually, some of my Wolves are black.
Since it says in the SW novels by William King, that some of them have and old, dark and leathery skin, but I guess they are white anyway.

Um, I hesitate tpo say this but I don't think there would be black people in the far future, or white people for that matter.
Wouldn't everyone have bred together to be sort of brown and then stayed like that?


Hey, thats a damn good point :P
Maybe the world that GW made up had less asians and blacks.

In the Warhammer Fantasy world,
the humans from the old world, Cathay, Ind, and Araby haven't made that much contact yet so there wouldn't be any mixtures there......
In the 40k universe, I think Terra would be dominated by 1 race before they started exploring and populating the rest of the galaxy, apparently the aryan's survived.


Of course they could have a tan, because of the sun or whatever, but they'd still remain 'white'

Ive seen a group of black guardsmen in white dwarf.

Also Salmanders IA & C:SM both have a picture of black salamanders.

Originally posted by Skutch - Space Wolf@Dec 8 2004, 12:37
In the 40k universe, I think Terra would be dominated by 1 race before they started exploring and populating the rest of the galaxy, apparently the aryan's survived.
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GAH! It makes my eyes BLEED! Not all white people are Aryan! The Aryans were an ancient race that explored and lived in alot of Europe (and conqured India). In fact, you technically cannot call anyone Aryan at this time, let alone in the far future. The Aryans just saw themselves above the people they conqured, so Hitler decided to ruin another perfectly good term and kept refering to Germany and Austria as Aryans. The correct term for white people is Caucasian. Ok, rant over.

As for white models, everyone else covered it pretty well. Most GW employees are white, and it's just easier for them to paint. Now black Tau or Orks... that would just be weird.

kay, whatever
caucasian
I'm from the Netherlands, we don't use that term here....so that's why I said aryan
I could go rant about you North-Americans thinking everyone speaks english and uses PC words, but it's al bullshit just like you giving a #\/<< if someone says aryan or caucasian, they're just words.
Words don't hurt, especially not when they're not meant to, unless you take everything so damn serious

Originally posted by Bean@Dec 8 2004, 05:43
I think that because throughtout history the white man has dominated every other race he met and is the most aggressive and combat orientated race then it is only natural for people playing a warlike game to choose the race that has had the most aggresive past.

For example...
United States
WWII Germany
British Empire
USSR

People they beat
Jews, Africans, Indians, Chinese, Japanese, Italians, all those S. Pacific guys, and the French
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lets see... the guy who conquered half the known world at that point... gotten nearly into poland... Ghengis Khan!

the farmers who defeated the american soldiers.... veitcong

the people who defeated the russians... the mujaddin(sp?)

No offence, but when people make statements like that it really yanks my chain.

My Crimson Fists force commander is black, and it looks really good!
I also intend to eventually make a Catachan Vietnam War army, but that will be quite a while away since I ve got like 6 or 7 armies planned for the very near future...

I see "black" armies all the time. Most all scouts and IG at the store i go to are all black people. Just because you don't see them in books don't mean they don't exist.

"lets see... the guy who conquered half the known world at that point... gotten nearly into poland... Ghengis Khan!
the farmers who defeated the american soldiers.... veitcong
the people who defeated the russians... the mujaddin(sp?)"Spleens Inc.

the guy who conquered half the known world... Alexander the Great
the people who drove out the chinese and north koreans from south korea... united states and its u.n. allies
the people who defeated the zulus... the british

I can be a d*ck too

"People they beat
Jews, Africans, Indians, Chinese, Japanese, Italians, all those S. Pacific guys, and the French"-bean

Italians, French, and many Jews are considered white also

Originally posted by Shas'o Moufinn Mian@Dec 8 2004, 16:35
GAH! It makes my eyes BLEED! Not all white people are Aryan! The Aryans were an ancient race that explored and lived in alot of Europe (and conqured India). In fact, you technically cannot call anyone Aryan at this time, let alone in the far future. The Aryans just saw themselves above the people they conqured, so Hitler decided to ruin another perfectly good term and kept refering to Germany and Austria as Aryans. The correct term for white people is Caucasian. Ok, rant over.

As for white models, everyone else covered it pretty well. Most GW employees are white, and it's just easier for them to paint. Now black Tau or Orks... that would just be weird.
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Black Orcs are pretty common in Warhammer Fantasy... =) Orks dressed in black are goffs!

Originally posted by YourHeadASplode@Dec 9 2004, 08:04
Italians, French, and many Jews are considered white also
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French: white
Jews: a lot of them
Italians: latin (just like latin america) = not white

and the Huns & Mongols conquered a lot more that Alexander the Great did with the greeks.....

The only black guys i've seen are Salamanders, anyway, terras population would have become "white" due to the smog clouds blocking out the sun so dark skin wouldn't be need. When the human race moved from earth, and most of the industry was relocated, the smog will have left.

Or, there could have been a mass genocide that we haven't been told off, though that could cause many legal issues....

Or it's because there is only elven flesh and bronzed flesh (yeah and flesh wash but that's an ink and they're used a lot less)
Or have they made 'flesh' paints in darker colors as well?

As black American, this is a stupid topic............

'Blacks' make up 3% of the American population. Having been to Europe, I think it's about the same. So the majority of the population is 'white'. So stands to reason that the majority of fictitious characters would be white as well.

As for the fluff, there are several people of color. Capt. Cortez, Latin. Dorn of the Imperial Fist is mentioned to have had dark skin. The Capt. of the Ultramarine fleet in the Nightbringer novel is black. In the Ragnar novel he falls for a black female inquistitor.

If you want more diversity, paint it. But just let this go.

-Monty

Why this in rumours? I dont y people are worrying hardly anyone complains and I think white people turned out to be more common in 40k. Also white skin is easier to paint.

Originally posted by Skutch - Space Wolf@Dec 9 2004, 11:57
Or it's because there is only elven flesh and bronzed flesh (yeah and flesh wash but that's an ink and they're used a lot less)
Or have they made 'flesh' paints in darker colors as well?
270444

Well I supose they do have flesh paints for other races, but they just don't name them as such. Calling a paint "black guy brown" or something similar would kinda be... I dunno. And Skutch I apologize for being rude about the whole Aryan thing. I admit I could have said that in a more civilized manner. I have a feeling that this thread will be locked pretty soon anyways, so whatever.

black guy brown? they have it! its called dark flesh!

If you are trying to make a point that Games Workshop are racist because they do not depict many of their display models as black people then you have not got your facts straight to start with.

The Salamanders chapter in Codex Armageddon were painted as black, and several of the Catachans are painted as negroes. And as someone has pointed out, Inquisitor Toth in the recent Dawn of War is a black.

Sorry, but your case does not hold water.

Black elves / eldar so not make sense as Elves are a purely western European myth anyway.

well, besides the painting wise "why aren't they black"

this is a kinda hard topic for it inflicts.. with real life... but yeah...

if i say something wrong... im sorry, i do not intend to sound racist.
nothing racist...


i mean i do have tons of black friends heh. Im asian, and there are a few azn people playing warhammer.. or atleast in Washington... or should i say the west coast.
( or is it... because we are close to Vancouver cannada, tons of azn people there.. and a lot of GW stores.. too)

in my truest honesty I HAVE NEVER SEEN A BLACK PERSON PLAYED ANY GW GAME in my whole life, and i've been playing since 2nd edition.

until i recruited my bros friend who is black XD. just last 2 weeks ago.


i've successfully gotten around 30 individuals and growing to play wh40k, only me, my influence XD, hence i run my own clan.

Paint your own space marine army entirely made up of black people. And name your general Jim, because I'm reading Huck Finn and Jim rules you all.

Originally posted by murekhalir
I HAVE NEVER SEEN A BLACK PERSON PLAYED ANY GW GAME

I know this guy who playes WHFB (who's black)
Never actually seen him play though.

Seen black players, I know black players and there are certainly black people in Games Workshops promotional models and publications. If this thread repeats again I will scream!


No need...