try dwarves.... they seem so look like man, its easy for you to give a bit more variety on the field :P

Most likely the Shield maidens would have been protecting the children and homes not marching around the battlefield. I'll reference the japanese before the introduction of the Bushido Code, in which the　daughters of the Samurai where taught to fight. Most of the time they did not leave the homes but guarded in case of an attack. Yes there are examples of women who lead armies in the past as well such as Empress Jingu and Tomoe Gozen but they are rare.

In the book Eowyn was left in charge of Edoras and she might have had some Shield Maidens called up to protect the country side during the battle of Helm Deep but they wouldn't have been called to the muster as it would leave the country completely unprotected.

in the entire history of middle earth you could only name four women. All strong, powerful, shining examples, but not a good selction from the point of view that they are so few in number.

There were ancient grave sites uncovered in Russia (i think it was russia) of battle dead buried with their weapons. they estimate 20% were female. That's just one example.

Becareful in trusting recorded history. History is written by the victor who tends to destroy records that they don't like.

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Your correct but also keep in mind one more very important thing when it comes to biology. Women have children men don't, if you lose the majority of your men in war the population can still be rebuilt as you can have men take multiple wives. However if most of your women are killed the population can't be rebuilt as multiple husbands gains you nothing. Even today women die in child birth and it was more common in the past. As such necessity would have kept many of the women from marching out to war but they would still be there to protect their children should a raid happen.

You forgot Lobelia

So you're saying that only the armies without women in them were ever victorious? lol. Besides, that's Russia, there's a difference between women fighting in revolutions and in full out wars. I also said there were few recorded battles with female warriors, not that there weren't any.

To add to Curufinwe, not only were women left behind for childbearing and last line of defense reasons, but they were also left behind to tend to the farms/stores/households. Look at WWII, America filled valuable (but non front line) positions with women, like the WASPs, who flew planes across the Atlantic.

To Whafrog and rumtap, I only mentioned those because they are the only ones that came to mind, I would definitely add Lobelia, as well as Varda and the other female Valar and some of the women of the First Age, like Aradhel, Morwen, Elwing, Idril and Haleth. Those last five were all courageous females who were incredibly important to the history of Middle-Earth, and not only because they gave birth to the likes of Turin, Earendil and Elrond, but they had their own roles to play. Yet only Haleth ever really went to war.

Pretty much, you don't have to be on the battle field to be a courageous or important person. How many soldiers would be very effective if they knew that their wives were on the battlefront with them? Not many.

Also, there have been studies of modern day soldiers that deal with women on the battle field. They have found that men would put there own lives in unnecessary danger to protect a female soldier, or a medic would attend to a female first even if they weren't that badly injured. It's the way men are (supposed to be, at least) wired. Even if the female is more than capable of handling herself, she would still be a liability. And then you get into the problems of having women among large numbers of (quite potentially drunk) men in between battles, but I won't get into that.

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"Leave Sauron to me."
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The Russian graves i mentioned were thousands of years old and not from the revolution. My point is that women fighting in battles is more common then we assume.

As for how modern soldiers are wired, I'd argue that it is not how they are wired but how they are trained by the society they are raised in. As our society grows more aware and broadens its view of women both in the military and in the world in general, then equality culturaly becomes the norm. In a couple of generations time it stops being an issue as people have grown up with it.

Anyway this has become far more deeper (although more interesting) topic then i intended. I just wanted to create an army with a theme, that being the strong women in middle earth!

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Just my two cents, but when I read Tolkien, whether LOTR or other work about middle-earth, I tend to find he actually puts women on a pedestal. He gives women some of the most important roles in the tales, if you think about their role, influence and what they achieve.

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Glad to see you dropped the cloaks...they really are of limited and specific use. And I can suggest you drop all throwing daggers from your WE w/ spear. The reason being is you will find you often can't make proper use of them. Spear armed models typically support if the option is available. Throwing weapons however cannot target a model already engaged in combat. This means if you want to throw a dagger at someone you have to charge into base contact with that model if you fail to kill it. So you'll either end up charging spears into direct combat or else not using (and thereby wasting points on) daggers for those models. Keep them with the Elf Blades though. That works well.

Eowyn will prove more effective mounted. The cavalry rules give her decent combat capabilities. And giver her a shield for some survivaability. Convert her warband to all RoR w/ shields, 100% bow armed.

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Beowulf

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Women fighting in battles is more common, indeed, than we assume.

The western aversion to women fighting comes form monastic Ireland - a saint walking through the aftermath of a battle came across a beheaded woman, dead baby in her arms, and her sword fallen beside her. Quoth he: women will no longer fight, its not done. But there was enough of it going on in Celtic societies for it not to be that much of an eye opener.

(So there's your Dunlendings covered)

Saxo Grammaticus spoke of epic battles in which shield maidens died in droves. The thing was, he was probably lying to shock his Roman audience with tales of the wild north. But the lie had to start somewhere.

The story of Eowyn is based on someone from Germanic sagas (the original woman is found dead in a battle against easterlings by her horse-lord brother - sound familiar?).

And then there's the actual historical easterlings - the Turkic steppe tribes - they have quite a number of high status graves of women, surrounded by the tools of their trade.

Back in Britain, we have Boudicca, who burned London to the ground. Later medieval Ireland gives us Grace O' Malley, pirate queen, aristocrat, warrior woman and guest at the court of Queen Elizabeth. (Serious historical determination: I think Queen Bess was way to fond of her rebellious Irish mad git subjects)

So, no, its not obvious, natural or correct to assume that women did not fight. I think its considered a bit sub-optimal, societally, but unless your ancient Rome, you do what you have to, and that includes learning to fight.

Besides, if you get yourself perforated by arrows courtesy of some steppe-warrior woman, you can complain about violated societal norms as you bleed out.

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Yes, but very few of those situations are in the cultures of the nations that Tolkien based his work off of. I also find it funny how you all keep quoting "women died", which seems to me that even if they were semi common, they were only ever noticed when they were dead. Also, it's not about societal norms, most men are wired the same way to start with, it's society that trains it out of them. In this current feminist culture, the role of men is being dumbed down, so of course men won't be willing to sacrifice themselves for a woman in a generation or two when they keep getting told there isn't any difference between men and women, even though that is completely not true.

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"Leave Sauron to me."
If you're in the Raleigh, NC area, let me know.

Thanks Beowulf03809, yes I will keep the daggers for the warriors with Elven blades and drop it for those with spears, that will give me the points for Eowyn's shield.

I would like to get the Rohirim mounted but only have the Eowyn on foot model at this point, so infantry it is for the moment.

All good examples aelfwine of women in our history.

To Draugluin i disagree with your last post to the point of being offended. Rather than retaliating and ending up in a long argument about gender equality, i feel it is best that we drop the subject. After all this is not the correct forum for such debate. I believe people know where we both stand on the subject so let's leave it at that.

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They also got remembered for the whole living business.

Especially amongst the Celts - lots of high class burials from pre-written history time, a bunch of named chieftains who were large, in charge and female. Thems be the Dunlendings.

And then about half of all the norse sagas. (Rohirrim) Brunhilde's feud with Attilla the Hun, anyone? The Heruvor saga (Goths, Eotheod) is about a famous female warrior defending her people. She dies tragically but, hell everyone does.

How about the world changing Empresses of Constantinople? (Gondor) Or female Pecheneg warriors (Wainriders)

The list kinda goes on. and on. and on. Nothing to do with dumbed down feminist society (and really, met any? They'd eat half of us for breakfast).

So, no. It's not a defensible assertion.

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Thanks to rumtap for dealing with the side-issue of this thread gracefully. Please keep the rest of the posts on topic, which, in case anyone forgot, can be found in the title.

Thanks whafrog.

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I think a drug habbit would be cheaper...

I don't see what everyone getting so upset over. All I said was that it wasn't that common in the real world region/time period that LotR is based on for women to march to war. I even pointed out that women had led armies, like Joan of Arc, but that isn't a particularily common case. And I never said that femminist society had anything to do with history, I said it has to do with the mindset of men nowadays. Please, read what I have been saying before you jump on me like this. If something I said offended you, I didn't mean it that way.

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"Leave Sauron to me."
If you're in the Raleigh, NC area, let me know.

Well, as a man I'm offended by that.

Enough. More on this subject, and the thread will be locked. Take it to another site.