Amazon horse archers

Just painted up these Casting Room mounted archers. I wasn't thrilled with them when they arrived because there was substantial breakage in the bows and horses' tails. But some glue, some paint, some love and I've got some Amazon horse archers I'm really happy with.

If the Amazons were real, they were probably culturally related to the Scythians, and mounted archery was their military strategy. And as I think about it, if I were going to raise an army with women warriors, this is probably their best combat role. She's going to be lighter than her male counterpart, which will be less taxing on the mounts -- these aren't huge medieval warhorses; they're basically ponies in the Bronze Age. I think a woman's low center of gravity and thigh muscles are going to help her stay in the saddle and control the horse when her hands are occupied with shooting. A Bronze Age bow would not have required tremendous upper body strength like a Welsh longbow or Mongol recurve bow. I'd think a trained woman would be able to shoot one until she ran out of arrows. 

 Greeks suggested that Amazons cut one breast off to use the bow more effectively. This sounds like nonsense to me. I think it's a metaphor, the Greeks' way of saying "they have forsaken their womanhood by taking on the masculine role of a warrior". I conversed with a woman who has substantial boobs and shoots a bow, and she told me that they do not get in the way. And if they did, wouldn't strapping them down be easier than slicing one off?

I didn't give them nipples! Nancy says I should. I didn't paint nipples on them because a) I don't paint nipples on my male minis and b) I don't want to make them seem sexualized. But then, why should nudity, especially female nudity, automatically mean sex? Maybe I should start a sociology blog.