Well I think there will be no problem with this, I mean your problem can be solved, not at the start but sooner or later it will. The players are mostly guys, but hey girls its cannot be a problem, they are just... you know, guys My opinion is that they should add the Inquisition as a new faction (or sub faction) where both of the two genders represent themselves too (so there you will have the chance to serve the Emperah both of you). At the start everything the players need are given, the four base race. I can understand your problem, because my boyfriend is a SM fan too and I am a loyal servant of the craftworlds... but still, we'll enjoy the game and I will slaughter him all the time (He will play as an eldar sometimes sure) About the SMs asexuality: I don't think that the psychological training would make them totally asexual, of course they will always see the Emperor before there eyes and their honour is before their sexuality, but for a guy pumped up with testosterone and other hormones cannot be truly asexual. (So their loyalty controls their carnal desires that's all). I give my trust to the developers, I think they can handle these topics pretty well, for example they can add females to the chaos (or at least slaanesh marines with dual gender XD) but I have the daemonette in mind. Every MMO have their life cycle and I do hope that the Eternal Crusade will be Eternal - and there will be enough time to add new races and classes to the game later. But I think I didn't wrote anything new to you so For The Craftworlds! *^.^*
If you doing it for role play, you should be able to ignore the gender. I play with my husband and some friends the Deathwatch P&P. There is also not the possibility to play a female character, because just SM are playable, but where is the problem? I play (and love) my Raven Guard charakter! When I play the table top, I play Orkz, so I play mushrooms. OK, I suck at it, but that has nothing to do with the mushroom-thing I can understand, that some women might have problems to play a "guy", but I also guess, that this would not be the majority of the female W40k fans. At the moment, we just have 4 factions, so women have to arrange themselve with this. So if somebody is really just able to play a female character he/she (yes, also he, because there are enough guys, who prefer to look the complete day at a female butt ) should play at release Eldar. If the Adeptus Sororitas (as part of Imps/Inquisition or so) will be added later, you can change to your beloved SoB or something else. To be honest, for most people there is not problem with the gender at the table top, also there is not problem with the gender at the Deathwatch P&P and nobody crys, because the protagonists in the books are mostly *guys*... so why crying now? (sorry, I'm not a mothertongue, I hope my points where neverless understandable)
Wow...a couple of hours not online and suddenly there is a whole book to read^^ Guess I have hit a point somewhere with this discussion! Nice to see so many points of view. Finally I hope that as much as possible will be put into the game after release to have the best out of the whole w40k universe in conformity with the lore. At least I would love to see the Inquisition, the Adeptus Mechanicus and everything else.
I'd rather they didn't bend lore just to allow player options, such as adding female marines/orks. If they added Imperial Guard or the Sisters of Battle then we'd be sorted I should think! But we have to bear in mind that the majority of players are male, and I know it sucks but the fact remains that it's better they get the popular races out first THEN focus on the more niche factions while keeping everything lore-accurate.
Gene-seed is the main one. There's a lot of stuff involving how most feudal worlds are used as recruitment grounds, the level of endurance required to withstand the changes brought on by organ implantation, but a big one is the gene-seed. One of the reasons the space marines don't have a higher recruitment rate, besides obvious reasons, is that asperants need to have a relatively high degree of comparability with a primarch's gene-seed. This has gotten more difficult in some cases due to degeneration and other issues, but apparently switching gender is a stretch too far. Also, Kor Phaeron was an exception using likely quite advanced or expensive methods to enhance his body to reach space marine levels and fallen Sisters do not suddenly count as space marines no matter who leads them. Also, given how heresy happy the Imperium is, I doubt the Ordo Hereticus would like their militant arm experimenting upon the Emperor's designs if they were to try and make them compatible.
"Good" that still 2 Primachs are missing *edit* But technically it is makes no sense, if they were women. Men are more capable for such physical things like muscle growing etc. When I know such things, the Emperor must have known it too. *just kidding*
