Sukubus Team

[inkpwn]

Absolutly hate them. Shit like this makes me want to quit the game entirely.

??? You don't have to look at them or buy them!!!

Why wanna quit the game entirely???

This sort of shit was showing up every couple months, with this, the bondage team, Warlord female dwarf team and the like on the market this game is starting to feel more and like an issue of Viz/Nuts and I'm not comfortable with that.

[Vanguard]

It's the poses I object to more than the clothing. At least make them look like they're playing Blood Bowl. If you want to do pure cheesecake, then do cheerleader models.

[Dust]

I like them, and I think the issue of 'sexist mini's' is generally blown way out of proportion. There are some pretty 'hunky' male mini's out there as well; GW Norse for one, Gaspez Norse and Chaos Dwarfs, Greebo Norse (pretty much any Norse team, really). Besides, most women I know do have a sense of humour and don't take it so seriously.

Just because a woman has a sense of humour doesn't stop these minis being sexist, or offensive. Make no mistake, sexism is serious, regardless of whether you think it's important or not.

[MattDakka]

Out of curiosity, for you marble statues of antiquity with naked female (and male) subjects are sexist?
The paintings as well?
Because art history is full of naked female subjects, they are showed in museums and I think nobody considers them "sexist".
We should close museums I guess...
by the way, a personal observation: why the succubi have no wings?
That is a great lack in my opinion.

[Wifflebat]

It's a question of intent, style, and in this case, of venue. Renaissance nudes were not created with the intent of erotic stimulation, and they presented the human form as exalted, noble, even divine. I'm sure they were titillating, of course, but they were presented in a tasteful and restrained way. And they hang in art museums. While a lot of us wouldn't be uncomfortable seeing Michelangelo's David on the side of a bus, there are people who might think that inappropriate, and while it may seem a little silly, it's actually not wrong to consider those people.

The Sukubi are overtly sexual, tit-grabbing and all. They are women as sex objects, period. (I understand, they're Succubi and that's thematically appropriate.) And while I'm fine with that in our culture (I'm a heterosexual male and a love a good image of a naked woman as well as most of my ilk), we should consider who who else will be affected by it. I'd never get this team because I wouldn't want an opponent who was a woman to have to sit through a game with me thinking that I'm evaluating her solely as a sex object based on the kind of team I bring to the pitch. I wouldn't want anyone to bring it to my home because I don't want to give my four-year old daughter the idea that this kind of sexuality belongs in a sports board game.

I'd feel similarly about, say, a Nazi theme (yeah, I'm Godwining the thread)--I can imagine a well-designed and beautiful team based on Gestapo Orcs, and it might seem like a good idea until I played an opponent who lost family in the Holocaust. It might just be a question of degree. I love Gaspez' Pigmy team for Halflings, but I have reservations about putting such a team on the field. And these things aren't black and white--I wonder whether others find the Pigmies offensive, but finding a few who don't (as I don't) doesn't mean it's automatically all right. I think we do have an obligation to consider the feelings of others. Not to allow them to dictate what we do, but to always take them into account and make decisions that are kind and compassionate based on them.

And, outside of all this, one needn't be "offended" by a team like this to dislike it. I have an underdeveloped sense of outrage, so I'm rarely offended. But I am able to think that a lot of gaming and niche art is unoriginal, adolescent, and cringe-worthy from an aesthetic point of view, and I find myself dismissing a lot of gaming art because of it.

I'm actually sorry that this thread has so much dislike for this team, and I don't like to pile on, but when people use the same justifications over and over for why art like this in our hobby is OK, I can't resist. I hope your friend keeps making art and keeps an open mind to any critiques he gets of it!

[bound for glory]

Absolutly hate them. Shit like this makes me want to quit the game entirely.

A VERY BIG +1.

[Heff]

Don't help that they cannot spell succubus

[Wifflebat]

I'm surprised they didn't go with with Suckubus. Y'know, for subtlety.

[bound for glory]

LOL!

[burgun824]

People being offended about anything that is not overtly criminal will never cease to amaze me. What are you attempting to accomplish? Are you trying to shame others into feeling the same way you do?

This, to me, is no different than porn or nudie mags. If you don't want to look at them, then don't look. If you don't want to own them, then don't buy them. It is that simple. And you're not wrong for not liking it. You don't have to and you're welcome to your opinions. However, there is a line to be drawn between dislike and offensive.

There is no issue with stating, "I don't like this kind of thing. It doesn't appeal to me, I don't understand it, and I'm not going to buy it." However, comparing this to atrocities of humanity like the holocaust and others that are implying that this is somehow morally wrong need to climb down off the high horse they mounted. These figures and their provocative poses are not harming anyone. They are not breaking into your home, they are not stealing your property, they are not physically assaulting your grandmother, and they are not raping your sister. They certainly are not murdering hundreds of thousands of people in a religious genocide (although I do appreciate the self proclaimed notice of Godwining ).

These are simply models of naked fantasy creatures and there is nothing criminal about them. Potentially distasteful...yes, but not criminal.

All of that being said, in the interest of fairness I would add the following:

1- I would never bring a team like this to a public tournament. If you choose to own a team like this it should be reserved for private league play barring nobody else in the league takes issue with it. That's just being a decent human being.

2- It should be treated like porn and stamped with an 18+ age limit to purchase. I don't personally agree with people getting offended about things like this, but I also don't think that those people should be subjected to changing their parenting views either. To each their own.

[Tempest]

Lunchmoney spotted this and asked me to come on to give my perspective as a female gamer. But I can only give my opinion and plenty of women may disagree.

I don't like them. It's boring to see female characters almost always modelled in ridiculous, scantily clad poses. It's just damn boring. And tiresome. And tedious. And unoriginal.

Look, I have a 'sense of humour', but I still don't like this. It wouldn't matter so much if just once in a while it was possible to buy a full team of female models who look tough and powerful rather than sexy. The comments on the scantily clad male models? At least they look fierce and strong - like the sportsmen they are meant to be. Not like sex objects waiting to be pounced. It's tiresome. I'm very quickly going to link y'all to the Hawkeye Initiative in case you still don't understand the difference in the way male and female models are posed.

It can be alienating: I went to the Amsterdam World Cup and there were, out of 480 players, 3 women. 3. And then you look at the models and all the female models are there more to look sexy and you wonder if maybe that's how the BB community sees women in general: as meat. As only there for sex. [[[I know it isn't, but it can get in your head sometimes]]]

And that's not a nice feeling and I know women who've been put off table top gaming because this is what they see.

And your female friends with a sense of humour who don't mind the models? I used to do that - pretend I wasn't bothered, I wasn't 'one of those women' but the truth is it bothered me nonetheless and these days I'm more vocal about it.

Get your mate to do an Incubus team of male models in stupid poses - arses in the air, bent in such a way that they'd break if they actually tried to throw a block. Then do a tournamenet where all the players have to use similar models. Still feeling comfortable with it? No? Then make me a bloody team of women that I want to use. Be exciting. Be original.

/soapbox

[nazgob]

And Tempest's post sums up why I have yet to buy and Amazon team even though I love the playstyle.

[spubbbba]

But I am able to think that a lot of gaming and niche art is unoriginal, adolescent, and cringe-worthy from an aesthetic point of view, and I find myself dismissing a lot of gaming art because of it.

This is the salient point, the reaction when I saw this team was not or due to it offending my sensibilities but and as I've seen this exact same type of female model done 1000 times before.

It's a real shame as these are technically well sculpted, a lot of fantasy football models really mess up on the basics. The poses on most of them are dynamic and appropriate as players. I don't even think they'd need much work to turn them into a proper team as detailed in my last post. Unfortunately sculpting clothes is pretty tricky so it would be tough to convert them as is, adding extra armour is easy enough but replacing the thongs with shorts and adding more substantial tops is beyond me.

*edit* Just saw Tempest's post and she puts it much better than me.

[Wifflebat]

I agree with everything that you've said, burgun, with a couple of things that I'd clarify on my behalf:

1) I would never compare anything related to playing board games to the Holocaust (and of course, you never said I was). I'm just suggesting that, just as almost anyone would carefully consider how using even very tasteful and artistic imagery from that period might affect your fellow players, degrading images of sexualized women deserve the same consideration.

2) Absolutely nothing criminal here. I would never state that this team should be banned, or even that the guy who's making them should be forced to change them one bit. But I agree with you that playing them in a public tournament would be in very poor taste. And I do think it would be harmful to play them in certain situations--not in a physical or legal sense, of course, but in creating an unwelcome environment for some women who might be made uncomfortable by playing an opponent who'd show up with a team like this. As a guy, I'm not "offended" or wronged (okay, maybe in an aesthetic sense ), but a woman new to the game could hardly be blamed for being very creeped out if her first tournament opponent were sporting a team of naked sex objects. Again, I think we agree here, except maybe on the definition of "harm." [EDIT: Tempest nailed this while I was typing out this post.]

You said you wouldn't bring this team to a tourney and, thus being a decent human being. That's all I'd ask from anybody--that if somebody said, "hey, somebody might be uncomfortable with that," you think "Oh--really? I'll consider that," instead of, "#%$^ them! I can do whatever I want!"

Nobody's done this in this thread yet, really, but there's a tendency to paint people who call this kind of sexism out as crybabies or overly sensitive, and I object to that. I'm not a whiner or a White Knight, but I recognize unimaginative crap that makes board gamers look like adolescent social misfits. Bringing your soft-porn to your board games is one of them.

[burgun824]

Devil's Advocate:

And I am making an assumption here, but there has got to be a market for this type of figure if these types of models keep being made, right?