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I don't have a well thought out statement (maybe because I am now thinking of boobs) but I have a few bullet points:

If they don't have boob plates how would you tell they are an all female army?

My point is in our culture boobs are associated with femininity.

It just doesn't make sense to me to have an all female army in power armor that looks exactly like an all male army in power armor. You might as well make a SM army and say they are all female.

In 28mm you need to exaggerate thing in order to notice it on the table otherwise it will look boring.

 variable wrote:
the motivation for the design of the SoB... was to push the spank factor up as high as they could

What on earth would make you think that? Are they all bending over showing off shapely bottoms? Are they leaning over with giant, heaving, barely constrained bosoms? Are they posed seductively, or suggestively? Are they naked or near naked?

There is quite literally nothing about the SoB range that objectifies women, or sexualises the models. Nothing.

 Kaldor wrote:

 variable wrote:
the motivation for the design of the SoB... was to push the spank factor up as high as they could

What on earth would make you think that? Are they all bending over showing off shapely bottoms? Are they leaning over with giant, heaving, barely constrained bosoms? Are they posed seductively, or suggestively? Are they naked or near naked?

There is quite literally nothing about the SoB range that objectifies women, or sexualises the models. Nothing.

Repentia excused of course. Where the hell are people seeing all these hyper-sexualized SoBs? I don't have a massive Sister's army but I have a decent force and not a single one of them is pole dancing or some thing. They're all pretty serious about killing some heretics, mutants, psychers, or xenos. Cept Sister Bethany but she's never been right in the head since that Chaos Terminator pushed her and said he wouldn't fight a girl and she proceeded to beat him to death with his own leg...

 KalashnikovMarine wrote:

 Kaldor wrote:

 variable wrote:
the motivation for the design of the SoB... was to push the spank factor up as high as they could

What on earth would make you think that? Are they all bending over showing off shapely bottoms? Are they leaning over with giant, heaving, barely constrained bosoms? Are they posed seductively, or suggestively? Are they naked or near naked?

There is quite literally nothing about the SoB range that objectifies women, or sexualises the models. Nothing.

Repentia excused of course. Where the hell are people seeing all these hyper-sexualized SoBs? I don't have a massive Sister's army but I have a decent force and not a single one of them is pole dancing or some thing. They're all pretty serious about killing some heretics, mutants, psychers, or xenos. Cept Sister Bethany but she's never been right in the head since that Chaos Terminator pushed her and said he wouldn't fight a girl and she proceeded to beat him to death with his own leg...

The only one i can think of is saint Celestine, and thats more angelic than sexual... hmm also not sure what people are thinking of.

Celestine's completely covered, more covered then a lot of depictions of angels or goddesses and the like ye olde religious artwork. She's probably more clearly female then even other battle sisters but I still wouldn't call her sexualized.

 Lynata wrote:

AlmightyWalrus wrote:Regardless, the entire point of medieval armour was to deflect enemy blows, not to absorb the energy.

Where did you read that? The preferred weapon against platemail armour was a maul. People didn't stab at knights, they slashed and hoped that the kinetic energy transferred upon impact would bend the armour that badly that the person beneath it would get hurt.

You do realize that you're agreeing with me? Mauls were indeed used, because they're a superior weapon to a sword if you're aiming to inflict blunt-force trauma, the very kind of thing armour wasn't designed to protect from. Swords and axes would mostly inflict glancing blows, whereas a maul would cave in the skull/torso of the guy you smashed.

The stabbing example was only there because having two curved surfaces deflecting blows to the general area of the heart would mean that someone could stab and have the blade deflected into the armour, forcing the armour to take the brunt of the force, instead of simply deflecting it off to the side (as you pointed out medieval armour would indeed do).

We wrote:
I don't have a well thought out statement (maybe because I am now thinking of boobs) but I have a few bullet points:

If they don't have boob plates how would you tell they are an all female army?

My point is in our culture boobs are associated with femininity.

It just doesn't make sense to me to have an all female army in power armor that looks exactly like an all male army in power armor. You might as well make a SM army and say they are all female.

In 28mm you need to exaggerate thing in order to notice it on the table otherwise it will look boring.

I actuly think this is a bit dishonest ( or honest ) but realy, the models look far difernt from space marines that if just changing the chest a little it would still look unique to the theme.
I actuly don't mind the sisters armor, but I do find it silly also and well maybe just making the chest part smaller would make me just happy

Must be something right about Sororitas, when they are among the three most popular army among female gamers.

 variable wrote:


Real men IRL came up with this fluff. I'm casting a particular aspersion on the motivation for the design of the SoB, which was to push the spank factor up as high as they could before they crossed into Robert Howard/Frank Frazetta territory using Nun/Dominatrix fetish.

You say this like it was a bad thing...

 Kroothawk wrote:
Must be something right about Sororitas, when they are among the three most popular army among female gamers.

Or that 40k sorta staving for females in army's and if we want one with lots there isn't realy much choice at this time, at least not easy to do.

:p just had to say it, but where do I find this info. I would be curious to read it :0

 Kroothawk wrote:
Must be something right about Sororitas, when they are among the three most popular army among female gamers.

Just like GW's secrecy marketing must be doing it right if GW is a profitable company.

Guess it would now be the time to mirror some of your arguments from the GW financial discussion that go in the vein of "just because they succeed, doesn't mean they couldn't have done better with a better approach":

 KalashnikovMarine wrote:

Repentia excused of course. Where the hell are people seeing all these hyper-sexualized SoBs? I don't have a massive Sister's army but I have a decent force and not a single one of them is pole dancing or some thing. They're all pretty serious about killing some heretics, mutants, psychers, or xenos. Cept Sister Bethany but she's never been right in the head since that Chaos Terminator pushed her and said he wouldn't fight a girl and she proceeded to beat him to death with his own leg...

They have pointy boob armour and corsets. The fetish influences are pretty obvious. They are clearly sexualised.

However, their poses are not sexualised, and this is a good thing, that would ruin them. They are posed in proper combat poses. They are these crazy fetish nuns that are bad ass killers. This makes them an awesomely crazy 40k thing.

They have pointy boob armour and corsets. The fetish influences are pretty obvious. They are clearly sexualised.

Pointy boob armor? Are you talking about this



Oh god no! Sexualization! I know it's stylized upon old greek armor, but when someone says that, it makes me think more of the Sanguinary Guard rather than SoB



These aren't pointed! Infact the few times you see "Pointed" it's usually because on the breasts they either have markings, the sigil of the the SoB, or skulls.



This one has the Fleur De Lis stylized alongside the breast.

Also Corsets are not Sexualized, there is some for sexual fetishism, but overall it was used in a manner for the body of both men and women, invented by a women in order to keep a proper figure at the time that they would find acceptable.

It is absurd to claim that nuns that wear corsets as an armour are not sexualised. I do not think it is a bad thing, but denying it is silly.

 Crimson wrote:
It is absurd to claim that nuns that wear corsets as an armour are not sexualised. I do not think it is a bad thing, but denying it is silly.

I don't know...I think the corsets fit with the gothic aesthetic, and were chosen more for that reason than for cheesecakery.

 Crimson wrote:
It is absurd to claim that nuns that wear corsets as an armour are not sexualised. I do not think it is a bad thing, but denying it is silly.

Considering that back in the renaissance wore standard attire at the time, under their habits nuns have worn corsets before, and with the gothic feel of warhammer.. It just makes more sense than thinking of them as sexualized to me.

 Crimson wrote:
It is absurd to claim that nuns that wear corsets as an armour are not sexualised. I do not think it is a bad thing, but denying it is silly.

They're fully enclosing ceramite breastplates. Calling it a corset is about as valid as calling a Marine breastplate a corset, or calling the chest armour on a Cadian a bra.

It happens to have boobs, because that helps to emphasise that this tiny armoured figure is supposed to be female. The majority of figures are holding weapons over their chest.

They are in no way sexualised.

Actually I think it was a dust cover over the armour, or at least mentioned something along those lines at some point.

The heels everyone seems to talk about come from one artwork by Blanche. Apparently they're just invisible on everyone else.



I guess marines are over sexualised now, to deny it is just to be silly. I mean look at them. It's just disgusting how blatant it is.

You know, I'm probably the only person who actually liked the heels in that piece of art.
It provides a sort of B-movie, Judge Dredd vibe, you know?

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:
You know, I'm probably the only person who actually liked the heels in that piece of art.
It provides a sort of B-movie, Judge Dredd vibe, you know?

Alotta artwork in 2nd edition was pretty B-movieish to say the least though.

variable wrote:Breasts half the size we are talking about would be plenty visible.

We'll just have to disagree there. One poster already mentioned a father who was unable to discern that a SoB mini was male.
Sure, you could probably find out even at "half size" when you look reeeeeeal close, but that's not the point, is it? One of this army's unique features is that it is female, so the miniatures have to "scream" that as much as the Marine minis have to scream "I'm a maaaan!"

variable wrote:and the designers made damn sure the bolter didn't cover them up to show off how dang sexy they are.

Actually the bolters do, on quite a number of minis - that's why I had to browse a bit to actually find an image that shows that there is something between the breasts providing additional protection earlier.

variable wrote:It doesn't work that way in the real world, so if we are going to use real world ides like mass production I think the idea of OSFA completely falls apart when we are taling about form fitting armour.

Actually it does work like that in the real world, when you are looking at contemporary body armour for military and security forces. We aren't talking custom jobs here - I highly doubt that the Sororitas project their measures to Mars and Ophelia VII via astropathic communication for each and every novice who needs a new set of armour, and then wait 10 years until they get the delivery.
It doesn't have to be one size fits all, but with a series of interlocking plates of, say, three different sizes (S, M, L) they should be able to cover the entire range of their warriors.

variable wrote:Real men IRL came up with this fluff. I'm casting a particular aspersion on the motivation for the design of the SoB, which was to push the spank factor up as high as they could before they crossed into Robert Howard/Frank Frazetta territory using Nun/Dominatrix fetish.

Yet any RL motivations (and like I said, I actually agree with you on this suspicion) do not matter at all.
What matters is if the image they project lines up with their fluff, and in this case it does. The idea that the female form is equivalent to "weakness" and thus needs to be hidden behind gender-neutral armour is 20th century thinking, and whilst it undoubtedly is still propagated to this very day, this must not be the case in the 41st millennium.

I'm against sexualised armour in most settings, but not in those where its design and existence fits in with the rest of the background. This includes Wh40k as much as drow in D&D or the amazons in DSA as well as the night elves in Warcraft.

variable wrote:Fair enough, then no, there is nothing wrong with this because it's not exploitative of men to do so. It gratifies men to be objectified thusly both for the observer and the observed. Objectifying women to appeal to men after the fashion of the SoB is inherently demeaning to men and women because it exploits aspects of women for the sexual gratification of men. It Reduces women from their whole being to a set of attributes that have nothing to do with war and everything to do with Ensign Woody and his little troop of seamen.

Ah, but only because society still differs between man and woman for this very purpose. Why?
Here's a revolutionary thought: Objectification should be okay where it is employed equally. And in fact, I believe this is where society is slowly, very slowly moving towards.

Kaldor wrote:There is quite literally nothing about the SoB range that objectifies women, or sexualises the models. Nothing.

Hmm, I believe there is - but in a limited, "fitting" way. Similar to Space Marines or Catachans. Nothing that really stands out.

Am I the only one that finds it ironic that Sororitas armour is now singled out as being sexualised after all those years it was hailed as "female armour done right" on the internets?

Formosa wrote:The only one i can think of is saint Celestine, and thats more angelic than sexual... hmm also not sure what people are thinking of.

Admittedly, there's a rather thin line between angelic and sexual when you think about it. I have to say it's strange that a lot of people in this thread instantly lean towards the more scandalous, though, completely disregarding the other?

AlmightyWalrus wrote:You do realize that you're agreeing with me? Mauls were indeed used, because they're a superior weapon to a sword if you're aiming to inflict blunt-force trauma, the very kind of thing armour wasn't designed to protect from. Swords and axes would mostly inflict glancing blows, whereas a maul would cave in the skull/torso of the guy you smashed.
The stabbing example was only there because having two curved surfaces deflecting blows to the general area of the heart would mean that someone could stab and have the blade deflected into the armour, forcing the armour to take the brunt of the force, instead of simply deflecting it off to the side (as you pointed out medieval armour would indeed do).

All I'm saying is "people don't stab at other people in armour", so this perceived weakness exists for attack moves that very likely wouldn't even be employed against the wearer. Aside from, as already pointed out, the area you think would "attract" stabbing attacks actually being reinforced.

n0t_u wrote:Actually I think it was a dust cover over the armour, or at least mentioned something along those lines at some point.

That's my thinking as well. There are both artworks as well as miniatures of Sisters without the "corset", where you can see that there's a section of interlocking plates beneath. The corset would merely prevent dust, sand, or fleshy bits from messing with it.

CthuluIsSpy wrote:You know, I'm probably the only person who actually liked the heels in that piece of art.
It provides a sort of B-movie, Judge Dredd vibe, you know?

I actually like most of Blanche's art, in spite of his obsession with high heels. I don't think they fit on Sororitas armour as they have to move in a more basic, military, utilitarian manner. But for assassins dancing a dance of death with power-knives in each hand? Sure, give them heels. In fact, have them be powered heels, with the assassin using them to stab people in the head!

That's the B-movie vibe I can get behind.

Crimson wrote:They have pointy boob armour and corsets. The fetish influences are pretty obvious. They are clearly sexualised.
However, their poses are not sexualised, and this is a good thing, that would ruin them. They are posed in proper combat poses. They are these crazy fetish nuns that are bad ass killers. This makes them an awesomely crazy 40k thing.

QFT

Also, lol @ Sanguinary Guard pics

Great catch.

 Lynata wrote:


I actually like most of Blanche's art, in spite of his obsession with high heels. I don't think they fit on Sororitas armour as they have to move in a more basic, military, utilitarian manner. But for assassins dancing a dance of death with power-knives in each hand? Sure, give them heels. In fact, have them be powered heels, with the assassin using them to stab people in the head!

That's the B-movie vibe I can get behind.

Hah, that actually reminds me of a game I like, Bloodrayne, which also took inspiration from B-Movies and grindhouse.
...Great, now I want to make a DCA based off of Rayne.

You know, I'm probably the only person who actually liked the heels in that piece of art.
It provides a sort of B-movie, Judge Dredd vibe, you know?

Well, I like it, too. It's not the best out there, but I'm a fan of the artwork of that time period of 40K, though some of it had the tendency to get really "messy" with way too much going on for the eye to focus on.

Lynata:

Here's a revolutionary thought: Objectification should be okay where it is employed equally.

Not terribly revolutionary, it was called the Sexual Revolution and the theory goes a lot further back then that. The upshot was that a lot of guys got to party hardy and a lot of girls got called sluts and ostracized because the power dynamic is still ridiculously slanted towards men in our universe, just like in the 40k universe. Unless you equalize before you objectify your objectification is going to have different affects on different groups. Right now, in the real world calling a man a slut and saying "Nice Butt" to him is going to have Zero Negative Affect on him and is likely to build his ego as well as encourage his friends to think highly of him. Say the same thing to a girl and at best you have her friends up in your face for being such a dick and at worst you've stripped her dignity away and left her feeling like an object for you to perv on. This is just the real dichotomy that exists. It's not the way it ought to be, but operating from a place where objectifying women in our wargames is okay because we objectify the men is okay is a false dichotomy.

Am I the only one that finds it ironic that Sororitas armour is now singled out as being sexualised after all those years it was hailed as "female armour done right" on the internets?

This argument has been going on since day one, it isn't just now. You may not have noticed, but the cover of the 2cnd ed codex (posted above) drew immediate criticism for the stripper pose on the cover with all the creepy old men leering in the background.

Honestly I think there's a lot that's right about the Sisters, I just don't think the designers at GW were able to keep the little tropes that keep women so marginalized in fantasy and gaming in general out of the line, though I would guess there were some very sincere efforts to do so. I think there's plenty of art and versions of the sisters where the Problem Areas are really marginalized in favor of the overall aesthetic of Nuns with Guns (Soulstorm comes to mind).

All I'm saying is "people don't stab at other people in armour",

No, but they shoot arrows, they throw spears, they point lances at your chest when you are charging them on horseback. There is, in fact an entire school of swordplay devoted to picking out the weaknesses in plate armor, but the Entire Reason for the crested design of a chestplate is to Defect Blows away from the body and the head. Yes, the Mace and the Flail were innovated during the late medieval period with barbs and flanges to overcome this problem in tandem with the evolution of plate armor, but you are confusing a response to the armor's attributes with some weird design feature.


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n0t_u

The heels everyone seems to talk about come from one artwork by Blanche.

Pop quiz: What was that One relatively unknown obscure piece of artwork from?

variable wrote:I think there's plenty of art and versions of the sisters where the Problem Areas are really marginalized in favor of the overall aesthetic of Nuns with Guns (Soulstorm comes to mind).

If you think it's better in Soulstorm (tbh, I don't see the difference), isn't it likely that the miniatures just differ slightly due to scale, to make them instantly recognizable?

variable wrote:No, but they shoot arrows, they throw spears, they point lances at your chest when you are charging them on horseback.

Not in 40k they won't.
Or rather: Those armies that do probably don't field weapons that would do much harm to power armour. The others? Well ... chainswords and power swords are just "hacked" with. Tyranids probably stab, but I think that'd be lethal regardless where it hits you.

For medieval times you have a point, though I'd only really agree on the lances bit. For arrows and spears, I do think that too much force would be taken out of the initial contact to penetrate the armour on the second. It's not as if an arrow or a thrown spear would not lose any kinetic energy, after all.
But for the hypothetical situation, let's also keep in mind that we are talking about two half spheres here. The angle required for an incoming weapon to be "guided" perfectly between them is so extremely specific that it should not occur very often. More likely the incoming weapon would, yes, indeed be deflected towards the midst - but in such an altered angle that a second deflection (upwards or downwards and to the sides) would occur.

Now I'm rather interested in practical experiments, like in that documentary about longbows... I suppose nobody ever actually did this yet, though?

Also, I think against las weapons the "boob armour" might even offer better protection than a flat plate, simply because you'll have more diffusion in the beam. </nerdmode>

variable wrote:Pop quiz: What was that One relatively unknown obscure piece of artwork from?

That was indeed not a very fortunate choice.
It's rather misleading, too, if you look at all the other images within the book, as well as the actual minis.

 Kaldor wrote:

 Crimson wrote:
It is absurd to claim that nuns that wear corsets as an armour are not sexualised. I do not think it is a bad thing, but denying it is silly.

They're fully enclosing ceramite breastplates. Calling it a corset is about as valid as calling a Marine breastplate a corset, or calling the chest armour on a Cadian a bra.

It happens to have boobs, because that helps to emphasise that this tiny armoured figure is supposed to be female. The majority of figures are holding weapons over their chest.

They are in no way sexualised.

In this context, given that we are discussing the aesthetics of distinctly corset-shaped body armour, calling it a corset is fairly forgiveable. As to whether the Sororitas are (overly? overtly? at all?) sexualised or not... I dunno. They're certainly less so than the token female participants in many other wargames.

 Lynata wrote:
We'll just have to disagree there. One poster already mentioned a father who was unable to discern that a SoB mini was male.
Sure, you could probably find out even at "half size" when you look reeeeeeal close, but that's not the point, is it? One of this army's unique features is that it is female, so the miniatures have to "scream" that as much as the Marine minis have to scream "I'm a maaaan!"

This is probably the real answer, though obviously Space Marines bellow their manliness; screaming would be girly.

So you want them to be in very uncomfortable armor? Because that flat plate isn't going to work very well.


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 MrMoustaffa wrote:
I like it more. Looks like an actual suit of armor. Besides, having a section for each breast just looks stupid. This kind of armor looks a lot better.

Except for the fact that they wouldn't fit into it...

It looks awesome. 40k v. real life. It's intended to look cool.


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If you complain, you should stop, because then these are probably the only boobs you'll ever see.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Interesting point. I was wondering if the Ordo Scharzenkommando should wear black uniforms or dirndls.

Nobody ever said the armor wouldn't be made to accomodate the breasts, it just wouldn't show it outwardly very much.


Having "cups" that protrude outwards is VERY bad. It creates a place where blows can land and transfer energy instead of sliding off(which is what armor is designed to do)

Instead, armor made for women will have an expanded chest area and nothing more. Proportionwise, it will still look feminine but it will still provide actual protection.


The current design is silly and oversexed(although not much compared to other sci-fi/fantesy)

 Grey Templar wrote:
Nobody ever said the armor wouldn't be made to accomodate the breasts, it just wouldn't show it outwardly very much.


Having "cups" that protrude outwards is VERY bad. It creates a place where blows can land and transfer energy instead of sliding off(which is what armor is designed to do)

Instead, armor made for women will have an expanded chest area and nothing more. Proportionwise, it will still look feminine but it will still provide actual protection.


The current design is silly and oversexed(although not much compared to other sci-fi/fantesy)

Pretty much.

People are deluding themselves, or just plain fibbing if they are arguing that the over-large boobs aren't on the models simply because it makes them easily identified as female, and because, well, the fans of sci-fi are mostly male and mostly not getting laid on a regular basis by anything even remotely close to a SoB.

Grey Templar wrote:Having "cups" that protrude outwards is VERY bad. It creates a place where blows can land and transfer energy instead of sliding off(which is what armor is designed to do)

Having a "hollow" abdomen is VERY bad. It creates a place where a lucky hit can lay waste to the internals. -> Necron Lord
Not wearing a helmet in battle is VERY bad. It creates a place where a single shot can kill the unit. -> Every single Space Wolf Thunderwolf Rider
Not wearing body armour is VERY bad. It creates a place where any attack can transfer its entire energy to the target. -> Catachan Imperial Guard

Welcome to 40k.

And again, the blow would slide off anyways. The very fact that the "cup" is protruding outwards and not inwards means that it will deflect, not lead, whatever comes its way. You would have to hit a very narrow area for anything to "glide" directly in-between the breasts. I think people are exaggerating this risk a bit. Take a sheet of paper, draw two spheres and then add a couple lines where you think an incoming attack would come from and how it'd bounce. While doing so, keep the three-dimensional nature of the armour in mind and that deflection would occur horizontally as well as vertically.
The risk would be even smaller for projectile weapons, and against las weapons the cups would actually provide better protection than a flat surface. Whereas the vast majority of melee weapons in 40k is not used for stabbing but for slashing, and I believe chain- and powerswords will "bite" into armour regardless of how it is shaped?