Wednesday, March 25, 2009

Nice little brush fire on BGG over sexed-up Amazons in the Small World game


Images like this one from the new Days of Wonder game Small World prompted some vigorous discussion on Boardgame Geek about how women warriors are depicted in fantasy wargames.
Of course, the men in fantasy games also tend to have, er, idealized bodies as well.

Of course real-life Amazons tended to show somewhat less skin, at least they did sometimes.

The Dahomey Amazons reportedly often went into battle dressed in similar fashion to this image, but by the time they fought the French they had proper uniforms.

Interestingly, there's an actual example of a Dahomey Amazon uniform on display at the Whitby Museum in England.

The Dahomey Amazons were defeated by the French in 1890 but were lauded by their opponents for their incredible courage. They were the elite of the Dahomey army, a king's bodyguard. Fighting a modern, well-equipped western army, they took very heavy losses and the unit, along with the rest of the army of Dahomey (which was mostly male) was basically destroyed, along with the kingdom.

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