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 Pouncey wrote:
The Fantasy and Sci-fi genres in general prove very solidly that humans need to see boobs on a character to view them as female.

Why? Because boobs in real life are a very, very human thing that is a result of runaway sexual selection. Larger breasts don't yield more milk, as breasts are simply sacks of fat dangling off a woman's chest. There is no biological benefit to large breasts instead of a mammary gland that is flat against the torso, like pretty much all mammals other than humans have.

Despite how incredibly unique boobs are to humans and only humans, virtually every humanoid alien and fantasy species we have ever created have women with breasts. Even the ones that are not mammals and do not nurture their young with milk have breasts.

If you look at other mammals, the females aren't necessarily flat against the body.


Yes, female space aliens will have boobs.

 Pouncey wrote:
However, while I recognize that flat armor would be more effective, it's not an appearance I enjoy at all

Define "flat". Because most actual plate armor chest pieces weren't "flat", they were curved. They didn't have boob-cups, but barring certain kinds of Mirror Armor plates that were literally flat, they contained a curve in the chest or belly region that helped deflect arrows, thrusts, and blows. Armor such as this, with a thinner waist and flared chest and hips, would be entirely in keeping with traditional knightly platemail while appearing feminine in modern eyes, and without having boob-cups.

I'm not making advocacy, I just find the vehemence of your objections to be bizarre.

Oh good, boob plate arguments. Let's cover the whole discussion so we can all move on.

Pro: Boob plates look cool/make female characters more attractive or more obviously female and if done in a reasonable way don't detract from the badassness.

Against: Boob plates are unrealistic, not super necessary, and vaguely(sometime extremely, though not with sisters as MODELED) sexist and armor can look cool without doing that vaguely sexist thing we talked about.

There, the basis of both arguments. Please go back to talking about furries.

 Melissia wrote:

 mmzero252 wrote:
The part about the fluff is that GW essentially wrote them into a dead end fluff wise with how they get new leadership then suddenly their only candidate gets lost forever.

The Abbess of the Adepta Sororitas, in the lore, vanished and is unable to be found. It's a lazy cop-out to try to make Sisters more Marine-like because it gives the Abbess similarities to the Primarchs... but it doesn't work because nobody cares who the Abbess is to begin with because she never had any character and was never given any depth before her disappearance, unlike the Primarchs.

She was never even given a name. Just a title and then stuffed right in to the fridge.

Exactly the dead end of lore I was referring to

It's such a terrible cop-out...

 Pouncey wrote:
Plastic Sisters of Battle are not the kind of thing GW should ever be joking about. Not simply that they shouldn't troll people in general if they want to rebuild trust, but plastic Sisters of Battle are a topic that has to be dealt with extremely carefully. Making a casual, off-hand joke is not the kind of thing that should be done. Because a lot of people are taking it as a serious promise.

When you neglect one of your playable factions so severely that World of Warcraft was being called "Blizzard's upcoming Runescape-killer" the time they last received new models, you absolutely should not be treating that neglect as fodder for a joke. It's not god damned funny. There are teenagers on this planet who were born after the Sisters of Battle got their last batch of new models.

You're taking this way too seriously. These are toys you're talking about, not Serious Life Events that people build their lives on. If some people get hyped up about SoB rumors and end up disappointed life will still go on. If GW never releases another SoB model and eventually removes them from the fluff entirely life will still go on for the former SoB players. They might get a bit annoyed and move on from 40k, but this is hardly the kind of abuse that you seem to be presenting it as.

As any thread about Sisters of Battle goes on, the probability that boob armour will hijack the thread approaches 1.

 Pouncey wrote:
I'm sorry for being aggressive in my response. I assumed you were one of the people I have spent months arguing about Sisters of Battle boobplate and whether it should exist or not.

Ah, don't worry about it. Considering how these conversations usually go, like you described, I don't entirely blame you for drawing at the duel too early

I don't actually hate the idea of smooth chest armor for female characters. It would be the way any sane armor designer would create it and it would be way more effective as protection.

However, while I recognize that flat armor would be more effective, it's not an appearance I enjoy at all. I place a large amount of value on the way things look, and without being dramatic, I would no longer enjoy the appearance of Sisters of Battle if they had flat chest armor. It's not that the boob armor is the only thing I like about them, it's that I dislike flat chests on female characters enough that it would overwhelm everything else I like about them, and my sculpting skills will never be sufficient to simply Green Stuff my models into something I like better.

So it's more of a style choice that you like on their chest plate, but it's nothing to do with the boobs themselves and the possible sex appeal?

Well there is the argument that the boobplate is simply a style choice since they'd hardly fulfil a practical use for most females; I can therefore see why one would see it as a potentially important design aesthetic of the Sisters. However, I would say that perhaps you are putting a little too much significance on such a detail in the bigger picture, which if it were lost (not saying it should or shouldn't be) will ultimately have no effect on the general style of the Sisters.

But hey, we all have our very specific tastes

G.A

 Elemental wrote:
As any thread about Sisters of Battle goes on, the probability that boob armour will hijack the thread approaches 1.

If you'd ever jagged your finger on a Canoness, you'd understand.

Seriously those nipplespikes are awful.

 BBAP wrote:

 AnomanderRake wrote:
They don't have Canoness-style boob corsets. The torsos are closer to more subdued Howling Banshees than they are to the current Sisters range.

It's hardly Madonna boob-cones but it's still a bit... much. I don't get the need for boob armour on sculpts at all.

I'm happy they look like they're wearing armour in the first place. The torsos on the old sculpts didn't make a lot of visual sense as armour, these ones do.

 BBAP wrote:

 Elemental wrote:
As any thread about Sisters of Battle goes on, the probability that boob armour will hijack the thread approaches 1.

If you'd ever jagged your finger on a Canoness, you'd understand.

I had to Google this, because my understanding of Sisters is very old school, from when they first came out, and the Canoness looked like this:

Same boob armor as a regular sister.

I see that there's a much fancier kit out now.

No idea how long it's been out, but I'm guessing it's been a while. At only $15, and still metal, I might just get one. Hm.

 Pouncey wrote:
Unlike many, I believe that comment at the end of that video was actually a joke that ended up getting way out of hand, for a couple of reasons that are not really important to this thread, since I'm going to ask a hypothetical rather than convince people of its veracity one way or the other. I am, of course, hopeful that he was telling the truth and plastic Sisters of Battle are on the way in another month or two, but... I mean, what if they're not? So many people are so hopeful and excited for them, and I can't help but wonder what the reaction will be if it turns out that it was just a joke that got taken way more seriously than they thought it would be. How livid and angry are the people who've been looking forward to this for years or even over a decade going to be should it turn out to not actually be happening? Or will it instead be more of a demoralizing depression that could shake people's faith that that update will ever come?

Frankly, the way it has been announced, since there is no real date to wait for, my enthusiasm will just die slowly until I become even more bitter than before, but there won't be any outburst.

 JohnHwangDD wrote:
I had to Google this, because my understanding of Sisters is very old school, from when they first came out, and the Canoness looked like this:

Same boob armor as a regular sister.

I see that there's a much fancier kit out now.

No idea how long it's been out, but I'm guessing it's been a while. At only $15, and still metal, I might just get one. Hm.

Old one is way better imo. I ordered one body along with Kyrinov's Mace of Valaan. Made for a very cool model.

 Pouncey wrote:
Despite how incredibly unique boobs are to humans and only humans, virtually every humanoid alien and fantasy species we have ever created have women with breasts. Even the ones that are not mammals and do not nurture their young with milk have breasts.

Well, except Aliens. They have Queens that don't have any breasts. Unless you count the extra set of arms as breasts ofc!

 Pouncey wrote:
Essentially,what I am trying to tell you is that I need some sort of boobplate to enjoy the Sisters of Battle army. I am malleable on the precise form it takes, bit I need it to be present. Completely flat chest armor would destroy my enjoyment of the army.

What about the uniboob? I think it can make a quite good compromise. While completely unrealistic, it avoids making the armor look like skintight, while also conveying the idea the wearer is female? I mean, boobsocks don't look good, and it's something we barely ever see in real life safe for when people only wear bra...

 JohnHwangDD wrote:
No idea how long it's been out, but I'm guessing it's been a while. At only $15, and still metal, I might just get one. Hm.

I bought mine when 3rd Edition was current, so 9 years ago or something like that. She's been jabbing me with her boob-cones ever since. Woe betide if you drop her and have to catch her.

 Hybrid Son Of Oxayotl wrote:
Old one is way better imo. I ordered one body along with Kyrinov's Mace of Valaan. Made for a very cool model.

They're both really nice models - the detail on the "new" one is fantastic, it's just the unfortunate boob-cones that are a nightmare.

 BBAP wrote:

 Hybrid Son Of Oxayotl wrote:
Old one is way better imo. I ordered one body along with Kyrinov's Mace of Valaan. Made for a very cool model.

They're both really nice models - the detail on the "new" one is fantastic, it's just the unfortunate boob-cones that are a nightmare.

I could do without the monocle and the squint, personally.

Thinking about it, I probably need more of the old ones, simply for the Combi-Flamer... Yeah.

 BBAP wrote:
They're both really nice models - the detail on the "new" one is fantastic, it's just the unfortunate boob-cones that are a nightmare.

I feel like the “new” canoness is way to thick and large, feels completely different from basic Sisters. The old one is just slightly more imposing than a normal Sister.

Yeah, but most of her bulk is in the massive triple-cloak-robe-stole-tabard-thing she's wearing. She's a lot heavier, but she doesn't look too different from the rest of the Sisters models.

Except for those sodding boob-cones.

1: Sisters are coming.
2: They are coming in January 2017.
3: They will go up on pre-order in December 2016
4: Images of the new kits will be shown after we see the whole Thousand Sons release.
5: Thousand Sons kits will be shown within 2 weeks.
6: Sisters of Battle models will be show within 6 weeks.

If you don't like boob armour feel free to use any male models you want and say they are female as long as you stop complaining because you don't like it. No one is forcing you to use boob plate armoured models, there are hundreds of alternative male models out there with "realistic armour" you can use instead and all you have to do is say the models are females wearing "realistic" (in your eyes) armour.

Boob plate does make sense in 40K, it doesn't make sense in our world because our personal protection is garbage. Our best body armor can be defeated with very few shots and restricts movement by allot the heavier armour you wear.
40K armour on the other hand is many hundreds of times better than the best ones we have. The armour in 40k is so good in fact that many are crafted like works of art and almost all power armour is painted in bright colours so you can see the wearer from afar.
No personal armour we have could take a bolt round but 40k armour can to some degrees. In fact the same metric can be used for 40k armour as with our own.

No body armour we have can take a .50 Cal AP around, a few rounds of 7.62 can be defeated before the armour fails.
Name a ballistic round that can defeat Terminator or even Power Armour in 40k. You need to start looking for highly specialized ammunition that is so rare that very few have access to it. I'm taking about weapons that out right defeat 2+ and 3+ armour, not special rules like Rending weapons and such.

Lets switch our technology around. Lets say that .22 cal was the largest and most efficient weapons round we as a species could come up with. With todays technology could we create a boob plate armour strong enough to be "bullet proof" against it?

Saying boob plate armour doesn't make sense or would never work is a pretty shallow point of view. If a space faring alien race came to Earth and declared war on us is there any chance that they could wear what we'd call boob plate and none of our standard issue infantry weapons could defeat it?

What I'm getting at is material, we don't know what kind of material power armour is made out of but what we can 100% say is that the shape of the armour has no bearing if the protection is good enough.

Lets take one of the best armour technologies under development, graphene based armour.
http://www.extremetech.com/extreme/195089-graphene-body-armor-twice-the-stopping-power-of-kevlar-at-a-fraction-of-the-weight
The researchers tested between 10 and 100 layers of graphene — between 10 nanometers and 100 nanometers thick, respectively. They focused a laser on a gold filament, vaporizing it into a projectile bullet that traveled at 3,000 meters per second — or more than twice the muzzle velocity of a high-powered rifle. As the tiny (micrometer-sized) bullets slammed into the graphene armor, it showed around twice the stopping power of Kevlar, or about 10 times the stopping power of steel plate.

What this basically translates to is that if you wore a T-Shirt and was hit by 9mm you'd be perfectly fine.

If we used the strongest material we know of in the form of nano tubes it gets even more ridiculous.

http://physicsworld.com/cws/article/news/2007/oct/31/bullets-bounce-off-nanotubes
Mylvaganam and Zhang found that the nanotubes were resistant to bullet speeds of over 2000 m/s, even after multiple impacts. (For comparison, the speed of rifle bullets can reach 1500 m/s and most gun bullets have speeds of less than 1000 m/s). The centre of a nanotube appeared to be the most resilient.
The duo says that bullet-proof vests could be made by using "nanotube yarn". Here, the carbon nanotubes would be spun into fibres, probably using a technique called electrospinning. The researchers have calculated that body armour just 600 microns thick made from six layers of 100 micron yarns could bounce off a bullet with a muzzle energy of 320 Joules – which is typical of a light firearm.

This translates to you (if my math is right)being able to wear a 0.6mm silk T-shirt and it could stop 9mm bullets. 3mm would be able to stop some 7.62 rounds. 3cm could stop a 15 000 Joule BMG .50Cal.


Then comes force dissipation:
Such vests would be better than existing anti-ballistic clothing, which is usually made of multiple layers of Kevlar, Twaron and Dyneema fibres. Although they stop bullets from penetrating, they do this by dissipating force over an area larger than the bullet, which can still cause injuries known as blunt force trauma. These range from severe bruising to critical organ damage. The high level of elastic storage energy of carbon nanotubes means that such trauma could be avoided.


So if we could mass produce nano tube thread we could create a very light and incredibly strong cloth like material. If we then used it to create a corset it would in theory be bullet proof all the way up the caliber ladder regardless of shape. Hit boob and is redirected towards chest? Doesn't matter if the force dissipation is reduced to almost 0.

Of course you want to whine about it some more but who's to say that Sororitas armour doesn't have a small force field generator built into it giving them their 6++? Then again this doesn't make much sense since Repentia also has 6++.
What if the armour is actually flat on the inside and the boobs are just extra thick layers of protection? They all have the exact same boob size after all?

Boob plate is plausible in our world and makes sense in 40k where intimidation is a greater weapon than your weapon.
I'm willing to bet my life that if you were in the trenches somewhere and a drop pod came down 200m/yards from you and 10 Khorne Berserkers started charging towards your line that you'd poo your pants because your weapons hardly even scratched the paint.

Facing SM with our weapons is like WW1 when the Germans faced tanks for the first time. There is a reason a new mental condition called Tank Shock was coined. So if the Russians invaded the US and they were all wearing boob plate power armour made of Super Secret Stalinium that no US infantry weapon could defeat you wouldn't complain about it being unrealistic but instead ask what kind of material it was made out of.


So in conclusion if you just skipped to the end of my long rant. Shape of armour has no bearing on protection if the material is strong enough. You wont destroy a tank with a 9mm, nor would you defeat kevlar boob plate with a .22 cal if the armour was thick enough.

 MadCowCrazy wrote:
Lets switch our technology around. Lets say that .22 cal was the largest and most efficient weapons round we as a species could come up with. With todays technology could we create a boob plate armour strong enough to be "bullet proof" against it?

.22 cal is 0.223" diameter - same size as what a M16 fires. I'll assume the current M855A1 round fired by a M16 with a 20" barrel, which does penetrate typical body armor.

So, you were saying?

We can't make body armour strong enough to be 'bullet proof' against anything scarier than a pistol, or at least not to the degree power armour is presented as.

The functional issue with boobplate is that armour needs to be shaped to deflect impacts away from the armoured body at least as much as it needs to absorb the impact straight-on. Boobplate deflects impacts to a portion of the torso into this nice convenient channel in the middle, which is going to result in dramatically more stress on a subsection of the armour that isn't well-shaped to handle it, and happens to be in a fairly vital area besides.

To summarize: the issue isn't that boobplate is impractical with our current technology, it's that given our current understanding of physics a boobplate design is always going to be worse at being armour than a more intelligently-shaped design from the same material against the same weapons.

However: The shape of a given suit of armour may be more or less relevant depending on the stage of materials tech/weapons tech around it. If the stuff power armour is made of is strong enough the shape isn't that relevant.

I'm prepared to accept the handwavey explanation that boobplate exists because armour materials are far enough ahead of the guns that people can go make odd ceremonial armour that performs similarly to more practical armour. It doesn't seem very far-fetched in a universe of cathedral-sized spaceships crossing a galaxy-spanning empire by travelling through the Lovecraft dimension while fighting enemies including giant space bugs that treat the laws of thermodynamics as a casual suggestion and artificially-designed aliens that happen to look exactly like skinny humans with pointy ears. Some people are less happy with that explanation and would prefer to point out that the Imperium is deliberately equipping the Sisters with worse armour than it could.

The debate remains eternal, unfortunately.

 MadCowCrazy wrote:
If you don't like boob armour feel free to use any male models you want and say they are female as long as you stop complaining because you don't like it.

That's your point in a nutshell. The other half a page is just drivel.

I understand you believe very strongly that toy soldiers should have boobs on them if they represent female characters. I won't ask why you're so passionate about it, because frankly I'm not sure I want to know. I would prefer they not have them, because it looks stupid, and if they must have them then I'd like them not to be pointed cones that jag me whenever I pick the model up. It's an aesthetic/ practical thing.

EDIT: Please don't use in-universe justifications to explain away a sculptor's stylistic choices. There could be any number of reasons a "real life" set of 41st Millenium power armour might have boobs on it. What we're discussing is the fact that a sculptor somewhere in Citadel HQ has decided to carve little boobs onto the models we use to play 40k, and why that's either a silly thing to do, a sad thing to do, or, apparently, a fantastic idea that must be defended from all possible criticism.

 BBAP wrote:

 MadCowCrazy wrote:
If you don't like boob armour feel free to use any male models you want and say they are female as long as you stop complaining because you don't like it.

That's your point in a nutshell. The other half a page is just drivel.

I understand you believe very strongly that toy soldiers should have boobs on them if they represent female characters. I won't ask why you're so passionate about it, because frankly I'm not sure I want to know. I would prefer they not have them, because it looks stupid, and if they must have them then I'd like them not to be pointed cones that jag me whenever I pick the model up. It's an aesthetic/ practical thing.

EDIT: Please don't use in-universe justifications to explain away a sculptor's stylistic choices. There could be any number of reasons a "real life" set of 41st Millenium power armour might have boobs on it. What we're discussing is the fact that a sculptor somewhere in Citadel HQ has decided to carve little boobs onto the models we use to play 40k, and why that's either a silly thing to do, a sad thing to do, or, apparently, a fantastic idea that must be defended from all possible criticism.

I'm trying to describe the in-universe logic because there are reasonable grounds for both sides (unfortunately, if one side was completely indefensible we'd be done by now).

Out-of-universe logic cuts both ways as well. You could argue that the boob armour happens to be a component of the distinct visual signature of the army, they look silly up close because they're designed to get "this is the female army" across from a distance and are thus exaggerated. You could argue that intentionally scultping sexualized armour on toy soldiers is sad and creepy.

But at the end of the day we're still here because both arguments make sense and people like to get angry about it.

 AnomanderRake wrote:
Out-of-universe logic cuts both ways as well. You could argue that the boob armour happens to be a component of the distinct visual signature of the army, they look silly up close because they're designed to get "this is the female army" across from a distance and are thus exaggerated.

The way I have mine painted (grey/black zenith-lit with coloured robes) the boob armour is barely visible from any distance, and on some of the sculpts it's not even visible at all because of how they're holding their weapons. The pauldrons, greaves, backpacks and helmets are pretty distinctive, as are the fleurs all over everything and the fact the bare-headed Sisters are obviously female. Not to mention the army is called "Sisters of Battle". In light of all that the boob armour seems redundant and silly.

We're arguing about booby plate in an army that mostly doesn't wear helmets?

Anyway. If plastic sisters don't arrive in January I will finish painting my Dark Eldar and Nids in the hope that by the time the plastic nuns are a reality.

If even by then there is no sign I will drag out all the old SM I have from Bloodstorm, Dark, Vengeance, BaC, and Bop to do a Consecrators/Unforgiven army as my third and final 40k force.

I am very hopeful for plastic sisters now, however.

It's not that shocking or new. Sex sells. But I also don't get offended by He-Man's abs.

Little known fact: the 6++ is actually granted by the black carapace thongs.

 deviantduck wrote:
It's not that shocking or new. Sex sells. But I also don't get offended by He-Man's abs.

Little known fact: the 6++ is actually granted by the black carapace thongs.

Ha! You just reminded me that every stormcast eternal has abs in his armor and a pec plate. Now that's what I call gender equality!

We need more enhanced codpieces in AoS!

 JohnHwangDD wrote:
We need more enhanced codpieces in AoS!

Only if they're spiky like that canoness model's breastplate.

Jacksmiles wrote:

 JohnHwangDD wrote:
We need more enhanced codpieces in AoS!

Only if they're spiky like that canoness model's breastplate.

Those are the chaos ones.

Eldar and Assassins have been wearing spandex regardless of gender since the beginning. And Witch Elves out of WHFB are about as exaggerated an example of chainmail underwear as you can find anywhere (and yet, optimistically, they still have an armour save).