Should new Sisters of Battle models/depictions be 'Sexy'?

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**Chongara**

Witzkatz wrote:
Well, I don't know about the rest of the world, but a person clad in heavy plate armor blasting away with automatic grenade launchers and flamethrowers is male as a default, yes. Am I prejudiced now?
!

The answer to this question is far beyond the scope of this thread. Simply put, there are very strong arguments for why that perception is problematic. Simply Google "Male as Default" if you want to get started on exploring the issue.

**Manchu**

Their armor is unrealistic.

It's 28mm; exaggeration is necessary.

But it wouldn't stand up to actual combat.

It's 28mm; exaggeration is necessary.

She'd sprain a boobie trying to fight in that!

It's 28mm; exaggeration is necessary.

Well, you're a skeevy perv then.

It's 28mm; exaggeration is necessary.

Also, it's totally sexist.

It's 28mm; exaggeration is necessary.

These models promote unhealthy body image to young girls everywhere.

It's 28mm; exaggeration is necessary.

This is why there's still a glass ceiling in America!!!

It's 28mm; exaggeration is necessary.

You see, we can dispense with all of the agruments above EXCEPT the one about the scale. This is not about designing armor for an actual woman to wear into an actual battle. This is not about womyn's liberation, either. This is about a product range of scifi miniature toys for a setting that intentionally eschews realism and political correctness in favor of gothic horror and black humor.

And let me go ahead and say it: The new Lelith Hesperax model is HORRENDOUS. It looks feminine in the same way that a slightly pretty tranny looks feminine. In fact, it's even worse than the last Lelith model. If old Lelith was wearing sexy but impractical metal underwear, new Lelith is wearing frumpy, impractical pajamas. That's NOT an improvement. Modeling the SoB after this failure would be a huge mistake on GW's part.

**skrulnik**

So it obviously has never entered into any of your minds that the Corset armor is the equivalent of the SM Imperial Eagle?
I'm willing to bet that the SOB are all strapped down under the armor.
I don't think the armor is formed to the individual woman.

I think the Corset look is their identifying feature.
As said, at 28mm, you need an identifier, and across a table, nothing else will tell you that a model is female.
Hair length doesn't do it.
Bodyshape can do it, but any decent armor, at 28mm, will remove that aspect as well.

Some of the better done female armored figures I have seen were in the old VOID line.
Lots of females mixed throughout their armies.

BTW, the jumppack SM Chaplain has garters on his armor as well, so its not a SOB thing, its a 40k thing.

**Kilkrazy**

Seaward wrote:I have to agree that the tiny-waisted female Marine is way worse than the standard SoB sculpt. If that's what the anti-bewb brigade is arguing for, their argument is ironic.

As far as the Arbites go, that's perfectly fine - for a picture. As others have said, on a 28mm model, sculpting it that exact way would just leave you with a dude. And no, "smaller hands" and other feminine attributes don't really show up all that well at that scale.

Also, as far as I can tell, there is no modern day analogue for a futuristic non-Christian battle nun devoted to a corpse god who wants to take over the galaxy. In other words? I'm pretty sure GW is the only one who can tell us how Sororitas dress.

Lady Gaga fans?

This thread isn't divided into a bewb brigade and an anti-bewb brigade. By characterising the posters as such you polarise the debate and reduce the chance of people coming up with any reasonable conclusions.

The Marine pic I posted above does have a thin waist, however the overall impression is feminine owing to a combination of factors including the pose and these could easily be carried into a beefier model for a Sister.

**Renbags**

I think the miniatures range for SOB is fine as it is. Most women have breasts, who cares about the size and how the armour is adapted to them, Manchu is completely right in saying that the miniature range is meant to be exaggerated because it's never gonna happen!

**Kilkrazy**

Example of female Tau armour.

Another example of female Tau armour. This suit needs to do away with the bare midriff to make it "realistic".

A different version of female human armour. It could use less obvious boobage.

However the basics are there.

**gendoikari87**

Melissia wrote:But not canon.

I saw this pic and it made me facepalm.

Sexy but I'm fairly certain that girl does not digest well with her intestinges squeezed like that.

**Manchu**

Kilkrazy wrote:The Marine pic I posted above does have a thin waist, however the overall impression is feminine owing to a combination of factors including the pose and these could easily be carried into a beefier model for a Sister.

Her boop-boop-bee-doo pose is very, very cute but I'd guess that would only further displease those who are already displeased. I really like that sculpt but the concept would make more sense on the nose of a thunderhawk than as a model line. Similarly, although SoB may already have unrealitic proportions, making them cuter ("cutsier"?) would not be an improvement IMO.

**theocd**

Having read through all 8 pages (and regretted it) it seems that people are almost arguing the same point.

It is Fantasy and 28mm scale so definition is needed for male/female and it doens't need to be practical like real armour. Whilst at the same time remaining modest and focussing on the female form rather than its 'extras'.

Can't everyone sit happy in the mid-boob/shaped hips/waist camp?

The OC-D

P.S. This is the only time I'm posting here.

**CT GAMER**

As someone who has been a huge SOB fan and who has collected them since 2nd edition these are the things/themes I want emphasized( in no particular order):

1. Fire/flames/braziers
2. relics/religious symbolism/books/icons/regalia
3. zealous/holy warriors
4. robes
5. pageantry
6. martyrs
7. Acts of faith

I want to play zealous flamer-wielding warrior nuns. Period.

I want their rules/codex to embody these themes and their models to exude this vibe.

I don't want cheesecake

I don't want T&A

The last thing i'm looking for is "sexy"...

I want an ultra-gothic, somewhat dark army of religious loonies that take the extremes of the Imperial faith to heart and want to purge things with fire. Period.

**Witzkatz**

I think the volume and shape of cleavage on that left lady might be a good amount to make Sisters of Battle discernable on the table without being overdone. Take that chest armour and build some fulll plate on arms, shoulders, abdomen and legs around it and around the female proportions below that and I think I'd be happy with those new SoB.

I know that those bewbs are still quite large, but again, exaggeration, tabletop, viewing distance, etc. pp.

**skrulnik**

ok. say that is the starting size of a SOB.

Now thicken up the torso to rep the Power Armor and see how that grows the size of her chest.

You have to consider the body under the armor, then lay the armor over top.
PA is thick, and contains muscle-bundles and other systems.
Its not just plate armor.

**Witzkatz**

I'm not sure if I get your point. Are you saying the bewbs will be lost under the power armour or that the power armour will exaggerate them even more?

**Manchu**

DE on the left looks pretty butch to me. Another dude with boobs, really. (From which fault the Sisters are not totally exepmt.) Eyeshadow on a DE really isn't enough to mark it out as a lady.

My fiancee always says the girls in the videogames I play look like men. Much of the time, I don't see it. Maybe we need a woman sculptor to work on the female model's faces?

@CTGamer: How do the current models stack up (no pun intended) against the list you just made?

**Witzkatz**

For GW 28mm miniatures, I think the female DE wyches look quite feminine. They're more brutish than your average girl on the street, but hey, they are alien space gladiator women, so they'll be a bit more butch. (But this would probably also be the case for Sisters of Battle.) Her face is not the epitome of feminininity, I'll agree on that, but it's supposed to look a bit alien anyway, being a Dark Eldar face. I guess for Sisters of Battle, the sculptor should put even more work into the faces to make them look really like women's faces.

**Manchu**

Brutish is a good word for it but I'd say masculine-leaning androgyny fits the bill more closely. Looking at the DE above, it seems much easier to make a make male model seem feminine ("Elven") than it is to make a female model feminine. Could the females be intentionally "brutish" to show dominance? Evaluating androgyny in this case is difficult because (1) all elves (even evil space elves) are portrayed as somewhat androgynous and (2) DE are supposed to be super-depraved and gender deviance, whether it's politically correct to say so or not, is still looked on as somehow vile. One also wonder if the current Sisters were made intentionally butch. If anything, I could see complaints that they are not feminine enough but the opposite arguments (as presented ITT) strike me as inappropriate to judging SoB.

**Seaward**

Kilkrazy wrote:
The Marine pic I posted above does have a thin waist, however the overall impression is feminine owing to a combination of factors including the pose and these could easily be carried into a beefier model for a Sister.

I may be understanding your argument incorrectly, but you seem to be saying that a female model firing a plasma pistol in a hand-on-one-hip Sisters of Coquettishness pose is far less offensive than having power armor with boobs.

If so, we're never going to get together on this.

**Lucid**

SaintHazard wrote:
Jayden63 wrote:But show me just one 28mm model.

How many times do I have to say this?

What are those, A cups? Is there a cup size lower than "A"?

Can you not tell she's female? It's fairly obvious from over here.

David Bowie could have pulled off that look back in the day . . .

**Witzkatz**

I actually think the sculptor of Lelith Hesperax did a very good job. She is - to me - obviously female. Yeah, she is not pretty and she isn't the stereotypical pretty elf woman. But, for feth's sake, she is Lelith Hesperax! She is probably one of the most skilled gladiators in the known galaxy and has probably killed hundreds of beings bare-handed and by blade. Being female isn't the primary aspect of her character, being deadly is. She wouldn't look very convincing to me as a rock-hard stone-cold killer if she had soft skin, C-cups and a nice smile.

**Phloop**

Right, from Lexicanum

The Adepta Sororitas date their founding from the 36th millennium, and more specifically from the later events of the Age of Apostasy. The majority of their initial influx was recruited from the pre-existing Brides of the Emperor, the all-female bodyguard force employed by Goge Vandire. Loyal to the Emperor, the Brides (initially called the Daughters of the Emperor, but renamed by Vandire) were misled by the insane Vandire into fulfilling his own designs. When the truth of the matter, and Vandire's corruption, was revealed, the leader of the Daughters executed Vandire in his own audience chamber. The Daughters of the Emperor were at a loss after this event, and so the Ecclesiarchy took the opportunity to recruit and indoctrinate them into the newly formed Adepta Sororitas, the Ecclesiarchy's all-female military, circumventing the Decree Passive's strictures against the Ecclesiarchy possessing an armed force.

The Adepta Sororitas has its origins on the world of San Leor. An order known as the Daughters of the Emperor, an all-female cult dedicated to worship of the Emperor, had been discovered there by members of the Ecclesiarchy. Goge Vandire, the High Lord of the Administratum (and also Ecclesiarch of the Adeptus Ministorum), decided to pay a visit to San Leor and recruit the Daughters into his own private army. The Daughters, at first, refused to accept his authority. Vandire decided to show them that he was blessed by the Emperor - he instructed a soldier in his entourage to shoot him, which after a brief hesitation, he did. However, thanks to the protective field generated by the Rosarius of the Ecclesiarch (which no one but Vandire himself was aware of), Vandire was not harmed. The Daughters took this to be a sign, and swore allegiance to Vandire virtually on the spot. They became the Brides of the Emperor, and were Vandire's most loyal followers.

During the Siege of the Ecclesiarchal Palace, the Adeptus Custodes, the praetorians of the Emperor himself, tried to approach the Brides and convince them of Vandire's treachery. In a last ditch effort to convince them, the Custodes took Alicia Dominica, leader of the Brides, and her chosen bodyguards deep into the Imperial Palace where they stood before the Emperor himself. What happened there remains unknown - Dominica and her companions were sworn to secrecy - but it became clear that the Brides, who reverted to the title of Daughters of the Emperor, had been awakened to the evil that Vandire represented. Marching into his audience chamber, Dominica paused only to condemn Vandire for his crimes before she beheaded the power-crazed dictator. Reportedly, Vandire's final words were "I don't have time to die - I'm too busy!"

After this episode, the Decree Passive was proclaimed by newly appointed Ecclesiarch Sebastian Thor. Under the literal interpretation of the decree however, the Adepta Sororitas were not obligated to disband because the decree made only explicit mention of "men under arms." Thor, recognizing the need for the Ecclesiarchy to have some kind of force and internal regulator, allowed them to remain, even if the spirit of the decree was rather blatantly disregarded.

The female aspects are exaggerated to set them apart from the men in power armor by necessity. Fluff-wise and tabletop-wise. Not to be sexy, or pretty, or ladylike. These are power-feminists to the power of a bazillion.

**Witzkatz**

Very good point, Phloop, I had completely forgotten about that part.

**Chongara**

Phloop wrote:Right, from Lexicanum

The Adepta Sororitas date their founding from the 36th millennium, and more specifically from the later events of the Age of Apostasy. The majority of their initial influx was recruited from the pre-existing Brides of the Emperor, the all-female bodyguard force employed by Goge Vandire. Loyal to the Emperor, the Brides (initially called the Daughters of the Emperor, but renamed by Vandire) were misled by the insane Vandire into fulfilling his own designs. When the truth of the matter, and Vandire's corruption, was revealed, the leader of the Daughters executed Vandire in his own audience chamber. The Daughters of the Emperor were at a loss after this event, and so the Ecclesiarchy took the opportunity to recruit and indoctrinate them into the newly formed Adepta Sororitas, the Ecclesiarchy's all-female military, circumventing the Decree Passive's strictures against the Ecclesiarchy possessing an armed force.

The Adepta Sororitas has its origins on the world of San Leor. An order known as the Daughters of the Emperor, an all-female cult dedicated to worship of the Emperor, had been discovered there by members of the Ecclesiarchy. Goge Vandire, the High Lord of the Administratum (and also Ecclesiarch of the Adeptus Ministorum), decided to pay a visit to San Leor and recruit the Daughters into his own private army. The Daughters, at first, refused to accept his authority. Vandire decided to show them that he was blessed by the Emperor - he instructed a soldier in his entourage to shoot him, which after a brief hesitation, he did. However, thanks to the protective field generated by the Rosarius of the Ecclesiarch (which no one but Vandire himself was aware of), Vandire was not harmed. The Daughters took this to be a sign, and swore allegiance to Vandire virtually on the spot. They became the Brides of the Emperor, and were Vandire's most loyal followers.

During the Siege of the Ecclesiarchal Palace, the Adeptus Custodes, the praetorians of the Emperor himself, tried to approach the Brides and convince them of Vandire's treachery. In a last ditch effort to convince them, the Custodes took Alicia Dominica, leader of the Brides, and her chosen bodyguards deep into the Imperial Palace where they stood before the Emperor himself. What happened there remains unknown - Dominica and her companions were sworn to secrecy - but it became clear that the Brides, who reverted to the title of Daughters of the Emperor, had been awakened to the evil that Vandire represented. Marching into his audience chamber, Dominica paused only to condemn Vandire for his crimes before she beheaded the power-crazed dictator. Reportedly, Vandire's final words were "I don't have time to die - I'm too busy!"

After this episode, the Decree Passive was proclaimed by newly appointed Ecclesiarch Sebastian Thor. Under the literal interpretation of the decree however, the Adepta Sororitas were not obligated to disband because the decree made only explicit mention of "men under arms." Thor, recognizing the need for the Ecclesiarchy to have some kind of force and internal regulator, allowed them to remain, even if the spirit of the decree was rather blatantly disregarded.

The female aspects are exaggerated to set them apart from the men in power armor by necessity. Fluff-wise and tabletop-wise. Not to be sexy, or pretty, or ladylike. These are power-feminists to the power of a bazillion.

I really don't see how that makes boob cups a necessity. It's a loophole that says "No Men" not a loophole that says "Madonna Only". It's what inside the armor, not outside what counts. You could easily put a man in the boob-cup armor if it was the deciding factor.

**CT GAMER**

Manchu wrote:

@CTGamer: How do the current models stack up (no pun intended) against the list you just made?

Personally I think the models have aged fairly well considering how long they have been around and that they originated in the Andy Chambers "heavy metal is cool" era of GW/Citadel.

I don't really see them as highly sexualized, especially by today's standards.

Main dislike: I wish they had less of a "cloned" look (the hairstyle being mandatory it seems) though the reason they got this was to play up the Joan of Arc reference.

IF new models come about I would rather see more bling/iconography/relics/regalia/robes be added to them then them becoming more sexualized. I'd also like to see a little physical variety.

I'd also like to see a little more of a mix of these vibes:

basically I want them to play up the religious overtones and regalia,( more robes, braziers, bling, etc.) but still pay homage to the classic look that the above pic represents...

I

**Kilkrazy**

Witzkatz wrote:For GW 28mm miniatures, I think the female DE wyches look quite feminine. They're more brutish than your average girl on the street, but hey, they are alien space gladiator women, so they'll be a bit more butch. (But this would probably also be the case for Sisters of Battle.) Her face is not the epitome of feminininity, I'll agree on that, but it's supposed to look a bit alien anyway, being a Dark Eldar face. I guess for Sisters of Battle, the sculptor should put even more work into the faces to make them look really like women's faces.

Fair point. I think we all can recognise that GW aren't very good at sculpting. Maybe they could get someone from Hasslefree to do the heads.

**Alpharius**

Kilkrazy wrote:

Fair point. I think we all can recognise that GW aren't very good at sculpting. Maybe they could get someone from Hasslefree to do the heads.

Ultimately THIS is probably the only way to go to get 'good' looking models.

**Manchu**

Good call on Hasslefree.

Now this looks like a woman.

**Iur_tae_mont**

ISn't the whole BIGTITTEH! thing what people want to avoid though, Manchu?

I've never noticed the problem on the Sisters until someone pointed it out, but I don't go out of my way looking at the Sister models/Pictures/Ect because they don't intrest me.

**Witzkatz**

Apart from her well-endowed chest... I think her face is sculpted very nicely. Having faces like this on Sisters of Battle would help underline their feminininity greatly without the need for overly exaggerated boob armour! If Hasslefree can do this, I hope GW will be able to do this, too.

**Manchu**

That pic could use a caption saying "eyes up here, buddy."

But I was primarily posting because of the face. Clearly, she is all woman but I think if I you just saw the face you'd have no trouble identifying it as a she. This is defnitely NOT the case with the new DE. After painting Sisters, I think I'm too biased to judge them in that light.

That is an awesome model, however. If anyone knows a good way I can get Hasslefree stuff without paying in sterling, please PM me.

**gendoikari87**

Manchu wrote:That pic could use a caption saying "eyes up here, buddy."

But I was primarily posting because of the face. Clearly, she is all woman but I think if I you just saw the face you'd have no trouble identifying it as a she. This is defnitely NOT the case with the new DE. After painting Sisters, I think I'm too biased to judge them in that light.

That is an awesome model, however. If anyone knows a good way I can get Hasslefree stuff without paying in sterling, please PM me.

I used good ol american cash... if you use electronic forms they automatically do the conversion.