Women have traditionally been handled poorly when it comes to portraying them as warriors. No matter the artist, the game, the TV programme there is a problem and the problem is, that they all have tits. Not demure boobs, big strapping tits. Even when they’re wearing armour. That, or they have amazingly toned stomachs bared for all to see and slash, stab and gut. I won’t bore you with details on how the boobs in armour defeat the purpose of armour and create massive weak points that any trained soldier would be more than happy to exploit in the visceral sense.
Take example one below. It’s a bikini. She must be extremely good with a sword.
This armour is even worse. It’s probably some sort of spell caster dominatrix. Either way it’s shit.
Even when the armour is reasonable, there are still boobs and midriff (look carefully). Utterly, utterly pointless.
Some even have high heels. And boobs. These are the Adeptus Sororitas, as produced by Games Workshop.
For years players of Warhammer 40K have been asking for female figures to be produced. For years there has been absolutely no response from Games Workshop on this. The biggest games company (actually they claim they’re model makers now), refused to produce female figures that weren’t the Adeptus Soriritas (try saying that fast when drunk). However, as the title of this blog suggests, women warriors are finally getting their chance to fight on the front line with the Imperial Guard in armour that doesn’t feature any sexy bits at all. And yet the models still look amazingly cool.Victoria Miniatures has produced what they call ‘Arcadians’.
Not only are they cool, they are beautifully sculpted and capture the strength of women warriors perfectly. Hopefully this will herald a change in wargaming for the good and see other companies producing figures that actually do women warriors justice, rather than giving people something to wank about.
It does beg the question. If a company as small as Victoria Miniatures can produce such high-quality miniatures, why can’t the bigger companies? As my eight year-old daughter just said, “That is a bit shameful.”
I wouldn’t really use the Sororitas as an example- the Space Marines are pretty hyper-BS too with a lot of their armor designs, which is ultimately the point. I mean sure we can argue the whole male marketing thing all day but, at the end of the day, everyone except the Imperial Guard are ridiculously over the top with their designs and stuff. Which.. Is part of why I play Guard. That and because they are Joe and Jane Average Human Soldier (professional or otherwise) in a universe of ludicrous BS. That said, yaaay female IG! I like ethnic and gender diversity in an army that is supposed to be literal untold billions strong from a million worlds.
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Addendum: if we’re gonna complain about the Adepta Sororitas, let’s complain about the freakin Repentia. Christ what a stupid and absurd thing… Even if they DO get Eviscerators.
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