But realized it's probably a topic that deserves its own thread.
Amazons are only really mentioned in passing in the Iliad. But associated texts place them at Troy fighting as Trojan allies. Most famously Achilles slays the Amazon Queen.
The Amazons have a few notable traits. They are considered fierce fighters. Some at least fight from horseback. The only combatants at Troy to do so?
I'm not an ancient art expert, but it seems actual ancient Greek art depicts them thus:
Indicating that women's obsession with yoga pants and leopard print began far earlier than initially suspected.
I believe a plastic Amazon kit would be well received by the gaming community. They work for any historical Greek game with a side of myth (like Mortal Gods) They work nicely in fantasy... picture plastic WGA Amazons battling plastic WGA skeletons. They are potentially useful to all but the most hidebound historical gamer. And you know, Deathfields Amazons sound pretty cool.
An interesting take. I think they tried to get that Scythian feel. They don't float my boat but if you like them you like them.
For the sake of completeness its probably worth mentioning the old, no longer in production Wargames Factory Amazons. They were just not very good. Unless you wanted to field a regiment of bobbleheads.
The little leather apron groin guard and bare ass is just kind of weird.
Thoughts on Amazons? What direction would you like to see WGA go with them if they did a kit?
I think I'd most want to see female "classic" hoplites with linothorax (one bronze "muscle" cuirass pers sprue) and Corinthian helmets (many pushed up).
Somewhere in here between pretty realistic and semi fantasy:
I will say if you can't tell their female when looking at the tabletop what is the point?
In metal there are a lot of them, they lack in plastics, so Frostgrave-like range would be welcome, with different bodies and armour types, as in the pool I think that figures as depicted by classic greek art would be apt to most of fantasy scenarios. A sprue with 5/6 bodies and choice of weapons could be good as base set, then a cavalry sprue, similar to RGD's one, but only female.
I really like the RGD set (probably going to be my next set of theirs that I pick up), but, when I think Amazon I think Wonder Woman and crew with a more Greek Hoplite feel. As an added bonus it would go with the Atlantic Digital set.
Because the RGD set now exists I'd rather WGA focus on other things, but as the RGD ones are not the pinnacle of sculpting greatness, if they really wanted to make an Amazons set I'd rather they tie them into their upcoming Trojan War line, as the Amazons did fight in the Trojan War allegedly. Thus I voted for Trojan War style.
And I'd rather that they are suitably well-dressed, so that:
They are not simply eye candy - we have enough of that already
They are potentially inspiring for more female gamers to dip a toe into the hobby - it's every gamer's dream to get his girlfriend or wife involved after all, so that it becomes a shared pastime that can foster a greater connection between a man and his woman
They have greater conversion potential as female warriors in other Ancients factions and fantasy gaming.
Suitably well dressed and the ancient world are SEMI-incompatible. People showed a lot of skin. All the time. Why are you in combat naked? It's disturbing. Why they showed more skin than my local college campus in the summer ... And that is saying something.
Note I said semi. You're probably never going to avoid a lot of naked limbs though.
I think this idea is better pitched at the fantasy end, though using Grecian style elements. It would denitely benefit from having science fiction options. Placing it in Classic Fantasy would likely be best.
The RGD Amazons are almost as irrelevant as the old (even uglier) Wargames Factory ones. It's not a great sprue. As soon as anyone puts out an attractive Amazon frame, they'll become the default.
@JTam They are supposed to be, and to be honest a lower "zeroish" amount of hellenist elements and even greater focus on the steppe nomad aspect would make me happy. Same deal if we are going to do them as fantasies chicks since sexy steppe nomad warrior fantasy chicks are all around more useful than some dead Greek dude's fetish fantasy in boobed hoplite armor (rather have later platearmor female knights for that):
@Mark Dewis The most important thing (at least for me) should be realistic proportions, female bodies are normally shorter than male ones, so these hypotethical minis should be a little smaller than human males' ones.Naturally we can also consider a difference in race and alimentation, but doing some giantess as the Wf did it's a little exagerated.
P.s. the Dahomey amazons were so frightening for their africans neighbours, when the french army arrived, they were slaughtered relatively easyly by modern firearms.
@Alessio De Carolis Yeah Dahomey would actually make great villains. Especially the evil amazon elite. I mean, they kind of remind me of the Warhammer Dark Elves since they were slavers who held little regard for their captives. The guys they fought against in that travesty of a movie were actually a kingdom of refugees who survived Dahomey raids and decided to fight back. Why couldn't the movie be about them and their fight against the slave empire?
@Alessio De Carolis I am not an expert on African warfare but the wiki would suggest it was French successes with bayonet armed melee fighting that decided the battles... not “modern firearms.”@Charles Tottington I have not seen the movie you mention but from what little I understand of the movie and the conflict, the movie is a pretty disingenuous and therefore distasteful film which will misinform yet more people about African history.
For historical Amazons, I would like to see what academics currently think “Amazon” involvement in the Trojan War would have looked like. I think a Trojan War line of minis would sell really well if only Brad Pitt could make a new sequel...
@Charles Tottington Until two days ago I didn't knew about this terrible movie, but I knew about Dahomey's amazons ferocity and cruelty, plus they were the slavers in that region, but logically from Horrywood you can't ask for historical realism.
Cool kitbash. Nice to see what the two kits together look like. I'm not sure there is much difference between the "male" and "female" Cannon Fodder arms. I know they all interchange between the bodies.
@Alessio De Carolis the height thing is a bit of a straw man argument. Yes, the average woman is shorter than the average man, but only within a given population. The average female height in the Netherlands (currently the tallest general population in the world) is 5'7", taller than or the same as the average male heights of Afghanistan (5'6"), Mexico (5' 7") or South Africa (5' 7") (among many other countries). They tower over men from the Philippines and Nepal (both 5'5" on average). We KNOW that a lot of this has to do with diet - Asian rice diets produce smaller people than meat heavy western (or North Asian) diets, but immigrant kids that go from one to the other are often different heights than their parents.
If we're talking amazons as a distinct population, even "historically", it is not unreasonable for them to be a tall group. We would expect Amazonian menfolk to be even taller... except they either get kept home as breeding stock or are slaughtered after they've been used (depending on what version of the legend you go with).
Finally... even within a population, when fighting women are not the norm, you can expect that those that do so are not average. It is again not that unreasonable that a woman who who is a bit taller than average - i.e. the height of an average male - might pick up a sword and fight, if that is an option. Individuals are not populations.
(Insisting that the heroine Atalanta should be 5'1" because she's a bronze age Greek woman is just silly)
It's only really when dealing with civilian populations, or modern military and paramilitary where the couple of mm average height difference for 28mm really comes into play.
@Mark Dewis For the height you're right, I was only speaking about a bit of realism in proportions, it's perfectly logical that a warrior race would feed their proles with the best of the best(spartans were a silly exception) so their females would be taller than their neighbours. I was only saying that WF amazons were ill proportioned, at least from the comparison photos. An amazons' plastic set would be welcome, as I just said, for the infinite possibilities of kitbashing, as long these minis will be compatible btw different producers, as WGA or NorthStar are.
@Alessio De Carolis oh, the old Wargames Factory Amazons are horrible. It's not even "proportions" - the poses are stiff and the armour manages to somehow miss both historical and fantasy use. I have a box and I've barely been able to use them for any project for a decade. They are just out and out ugly.
The RGD Amazons are little better from what I've seen, although someone got okay results using arm and headswaps (Geoff? William?). One of the bodies is a bit better than the others on the sprue. The arms on that kit appear to be pretty short though.
My favorite design so far is from Crocodile games, followed by McDougall's fantasy/comic book amazons. I'd also be interested in the leopard-print amazons and the other Scythian type (I already have some RDG amazons).
but I dislike depictions of them as female hoplites--if that's what you want, then it should be it's own thing. Calling them fantasy/historical fiction allows for that.
@BS Kitbasher Crocodile Games' Amazons are really well done, plus there are a lot of female characters in the same range that could be inserted in their army, Lucid Eyes' are also well done, with the advantage of having either "civilized" Amazons(Ziggurrat) and "savage"(Savage Core) ones, as if there were different tribes. Therefore I think that for a plastic set, the producers should take inspirations from greek jars, so surely they wouldn't do anything wrong.
@Alessio De Carolis I have some of the savage core "savage amazons" done by Lucid Eye, they are exactly what I would like see for fantasy female barbarians in plastic and they would be far more useful than “Hellenist armored” anything for general fiction gaming (Pulp, fantasy, SciFi, etc.). Heck doing them that way not only could you get archers, swordswomen, and spear maidens out of the way, you could even do parts for a spell caster and rogue, leaving out only the heavy armored options for general fantasy adventurers.
@Grumpy Gnome Yeah, the Dahomay had Krupp cannons, Winchesters rifles and machine guns so yeah they had "modern firearms" as well as older guns, but for some reason it ended up as melee probably meaning both sides failed their logistics dice rolls for their fire arms munitions or something equally dumb but realistic (of course, it could be that French loses are greater or Dahomay loses smaller than actually reported to, which does seem a bit much though the wiki article seems a bit too reliant on a second hand account made in 1998 for my tastes).
@Charles Tottington Well its probably because the movie is feminist propaganda first and foremost and MCU Wakanda is based in part on the Dahomay (meaning the fools in Hollywood actually knew they existed, the other groups not so much). Also the slave trade was a much larger part of Africa’s economic support back then than one would think, like to admit or even be able to talk about in polite modern conversation. (ie, a lot of those "other tribes" where also likely from other slaver kingdoms in real life, I believe this was the case for at least one of the Dahomay’s enemies).
I found another one, with a larger selectionThose with a sort of skin tight dress could pass also for female atzec warriors, with a bit of GS for the heads
Those with a sort of skin tight dress could pass also for female atzec warriors, with a bit of GS for the heads
