This week’s blog is on the fighter women of House Clovenshield, mostly because there were some awesome pictures from Pennsic of the group. (This was supposed to post Friday, apparently the auto-poster thing decided not to. Oops!)
While women are of course equally able to fight in the SCA as men, often women fighters are quite outnumbered by their male counterparts, and in some (hopefully rare or apochrophal) groups there is even talk of animosity towards women fighters. Not so for House Clovenshield! There were five lady fighters present in the group at Pennsic.
1 Siobhan an Einigh, right after inspection, Pennsic 2015
This is me in my kit! My persona is of an Irish woman from around 1030 CE, so my kit is mostly Nordic based. Armor wasn’t really a thing for the Irish at the time, and what armor was worn was usually based off of other cultures. I’m wearing a leather coat of plate made in a viking style, with metal shoulder-cops (that I made myself!) Under that is a linen leine, or tunic, which covers my knees. As we don’t actually want to hurt our friends, our swords are made of rattan, a kind of stick, and covered in duct tape. When out in the field, I’m also wearing a helm.
Of particular interest to me, however, is my shield. I finished it just a few days before this picture was taken, and am particularly proud of it. It is a La Tene style Irish war shield, and is made to the exact dimensions of extant pieces. 48" x 24" is quite huge when someone 5’2" is using it! The shield is made of birch and fiberglass, with a canvas cover. It worked quite well throughout the war!
2 Castle Battle, Pennsic 2015
And this is a line of battle. That person in the red circle? That’s me, fighting with my old kingdom of Calontir (the purple and gold folks). As a shieldman, my job in battle is to defend the spears around me, then rush in with other shields to make a hole in the oposing line. Tis quite fun!
3 House Clovenshield Lady Fighters, Pennsic 2015
And here’s a picture of the five lady fighters of Clovenshield, in our armor! From left to right, they are Susan the Irresponsible (archer), Vixi (shieldman), Haelga (shieldman), me (shieldman), and Susan the short (shield sargent). As you might gather, the lady fighters make up most of our shield line!
4 Silliness, Pennsic 2015
And to end with a bit of silliness, here are Susan and I after a battle (or between battles), being mature adults. Hope you enjoyed the pictures!
This week:
Lady Fighters of Clovenshield!
Next week:
A year in Arts and Sciences!
3rd week:
Pennsic recap!
4th week: Tournament of Chivalry Review!
Another example that people in SCA/LARPers all want the same kind of fun, including practical armor, regardless of gender.
This week’s blog is on the fighter women of House Clovenshield, mostly because there were some awesome pictures from Pennsic of the group. (This was supposed to post Friday, apparently the auto-poster thing decided not to. Oops!)
While women are of course equally able to fight in the SCA as men, often women fighters are quite outnumbered by their male counterparts, and in some (hopefully rare or apochrophal) groups there is even talk of animosity towards women fighters. Not so for House Clovenshield! There were five lady fighters present in the group at Pennsic.
1 Siobhan an Einigh, right after inspection, Pennsic 2015
This is me in my kit! My persona is of an Irish woman from around 1030 CE, so my kit is mostly Nordic based. Armor wasn’t really a thing for the Irish at the time, and what armor was worn was usually based off of other cultures. I’m wearing a leather coat of plate made in a viking style, with metal shoulder-cops (that I made myself!) Under that is a linen leine, or tunic, which covers my knees. As we don’t actually want to hurt our friends, our swords are made of rattan, a kind of stick, and covered in duct tape. When out in the field, I’m also wearing a helm.
Of particular interest to me, however, is my shield. I finished it just a few days before this picture was taken, and am particularly proud of it. It is a La Tene style Irish war shield, and is made to the exact dimensions of extant pieces. 48" x 24" is quite huge when someone 5’2" is using it! The shield is made of birch and fiberglass, with a canvas cover. It worked quite well throughout the war!
2 Castle Battle, Pennsic 2015
And this is a line of battle. That person in the red circle? That’s me, fighting with my old kingdom of Calontir (the purple and gold folks). As a shieldman, my job in battle is to defend the spears around me, then rush in with other shields to make a hole in the oposing line. Tis quite fun!
3 House Clovenshield Lady Fighters, Pennsic 2015
And here’s a picture of the five lady fighters of Clovenshield, in our armor! From left to right, they are Susan the Irresponsible (archer), Vixi (shieldman), Haelga (shieldman), me (shieldman), and Susan the short (shield sargent). As you might gather, the lady fighters make up most of our shield line!
4 Silliness, Pennsic 2015
And to end with a bit of silliness, here are Susan and I after a battle (or between battles), being mature adults. Hope you enjoyed the pictures!
This week:
Lady Fighters of Clovenshield!
Next week:
A year in Arts and Sciences!
3rd week:
Pennsic recap!
4th week: Tournament of Chivalry Review!
Another example that people in SCA/LARPers all want the same kind of fun, including practical armor, regardless of gender.
So, I decided to try out @bikiniarmorbattledamage‘s female armor bingo. Here we have Headhunter Nidalee from League of Legends, a purchasable customization for the champion Nidalee (who doesn’t have a single non-sexualized appearance option available). Above is the splash art, and below is her in-game model.
She’s supposed to be a badass shapeshifting assassin, and while her cougar form captures this, her human form most certainly does not.
Note the spine-breaking pose, the ridiculous top, and the loincloth.
(Cue “But it helps with her agility!”)
A perfectly timed reminder of why we’re so excited about the
So, speaking of games that claim questionable links to mythology, War Gods was a game which didn’t even bother to look into mythology during character designs.
Who produced this tacky Mortal Kombat ripoff? Right up to getting the same model as Sonja Blade? Midway, the same major development studio that made Mortal Kombat!
– wincenworks
Posted on
Posted on
I never got around to bingo-ing the Amazon from Dragon’s Crown, seeing as:
a) her anatomy and posing are a MUCH more noticeable issue (hence she’s been featured on @eschergirls frequently) b) her outfit is a very plain (if gravity-defying) scalemail (?) bikini
But seeing as we brought some new attention to that character with a post on a figure that makes all the problems with her design tangible and 3-dimensional, I figured “why not?”. At the very least we’ll learn how much a generic, non-fancy bikini armor scores on average.
I checked “Looks nothing like male version of the same outfit”, because while there are obviously no male Amazons, her male playable equivalent, the Fighter, wears a full suit of armor, including a helmet that obscures his bishounen face. If they were equals, he’d look closer to this:
Last year a How Do I Armor? specifcally on leather armor, this year Skallagrim did a series of videos examining how a sample of the thickest, hardest leather available holds up against a variety of attack types. Including axes:
Crossbows:
Firearms:
Notably this leather he’s testing is extremely thick (6 millimeters, for perspective – leather used for saddles is usually only 4 to 5 millimeters thick). It can be dyed, painted, gilded and embossed, but it certainly can’t be sculpted into skin-tight body hugging fetish attire.
Well not without crushing, pinching and chaffing the wearer to death anyway.
