Games Workshop’s new Ultramarines upgrade kit includes head bits that look surprisingly feminine; could it be a tease for female Space Marines?
Games Workshop dropped a surprise this week with a closer look at the new Space Marines Ultramarines Upgrade Kit, and the community’s reaction was… fast.
Within minutes of the official post, hobbyists noticed something strange: a few of the unhelmeted heads in the kit looked very feminine.
Not just androgynous, not just stylized, these are straight-up giving “female Space Marine” energy. And yes, the memes are already piling up faster than a pile of discarded sprues.
Bald, Beautiful, and Battle-Ready?
The kit comes packed with a mountain of new heads, 50 in total, giving players tons of customization options for their Primaris Marines. But tucked in there are several bald and certain hair-styled heads that caught everyone’s attention.
The sculpting is delicate, the facial structure softer than the usual square-jawed grimdark standard, and it’s got people asking the same question: is GW hinting at female Space Marines?
Now, this isn’t confirmation of anything official, but the timing feels odd. After all, this is the same company that gave us the infamous Space Wolves dog-head helmets, which got meme’d into oblivion within hours of release. So why risk another internet roasting unless they were testing the waters for something new?
Female Space Marine Head Bits: Photoshop Slip or Marketing Move?
One of the more eyebrow-raising details came from a promotional image where a Sternguard Veteran model appears to have one of these new “female space marine heads” photoshopped on.
It’s not even a repaint (at least not to us, look at the shadows), but instead just a straight digital edit onto an existing model.
Usually, they showcase actual painted examples from the kit, not quick compositing jobs. That’s not standard GW procedure, but who knows anymore now that they are putting out barely edited AI-slop for articles lately.
The Hellblaster they showed looked much more natural.
So, was this a hasty Photoshop mix-up or a deliberate choice? Maybe someone in the marketing department hit “publish” before editorial could take a look.
This wouldn’t be the first time Games Workshop’s editorial and marketing departments felt slightly out of sync. Between the dog-head debacle and the Photoshop swaps, it’s fair to wonder who’s steering the promotional ship.
Or maybe, and this is where things get spicy, it was done on purpose to stir up conversation. If that’s the case, mission accomplished. The community is already split between calling it a blunder or a bold marketing play.
Lore Hints and the Female Custodes Precedent
Let’s not forget that GW recently slipped a quiet lore bomb into the new Adeptus Custodes Codex. A tiny bit of text confirmed that female Custodes have technically existed all along, even if we’ve never seen a model.
If they were willing to retcon that with a single line, who’s to say they won’t do something similar for the Adeptus Astartes?
It’s not impossible that this new upgrade sprue is laying the groundwork for a lore update down the road, possibly in the rumored Ultramarines Supplement. Imagine the reveal: “By the way, there have always been female Space Marines… here’s the proof.”
The internet would melt.
The Meme Storm Begins
Predictably, the memes came flooding in. From jokes to side-by-side comparisons of the new heads, the community wasted no time.
If nothing else, this upgrade kit proves one thing: Warhammer fans have lightning-fast reflexes when it comes to memes.
Female Space Marines Heads: A Curious Move from GW
If Games Workshop is teasing a shift toward female Space Marines, this would be a monumental step for the lore, but an awkward way to announce it. Dropping subtle Female Space Marine head sculpts in an upgrade kit is hardly the grand reveal fans would expect.
Still, given how GW handled the Custodes update and the Terminus Decree, it wouldn’t be shocking if a small lore snippet in an upcoming codex “confirmed” what these bits seem to have already implied.
On the flip side, this could just be another case of artistic interpretation gone awry. Maybe someone on the design team sculpted a few softer features and didn’t expect them to ignite a debate across the hobby.
But considering how quickly the conversation exploded, it’s clear this isn’t just a random detail. Whatever this is, it was deliberate AF.
Whether it’s intentional marketing or an oversight that slipped through the cracks, this feels like another classic GW moment, the kind that fuels days of online debate and speculation.
If they truly wanted to avoid controversy, these heads would never have made it past design review… Or maybe GW isn’t reviewing much anymore, who knows?
See the Current State of Female Space Marines
