Goonhammer Historicals News You Can Use: Bad Squiddo Games Community Miniatures Project

Bad Squiddo Games, long known as the premier source for Believable Female Miniatures, is now venturing out to crowd-sourcing miniature sculpts, involving the community from start to finish.

Bad Squiddo Games started as a small business for The Dice Bag Lady, who hand crocheted tons of dice bags then branched out into making minis and other hobby items. Annie Norman, proprietor, states the goal up front on the website:

The number one aim for Bad Squiddo Games is to create and supply the miniatures that would have made the hobby far far better for my 10 year old self. To welcome more young girls and women into wargaming and miniature painting, as well as providing diverse options to the entire gaming community. And yeah – cool toys!

Many wargamers will recognize Bad Squiddo for their work creating tons of believable female miniatures – minis that you can use in your army and not feel gross because they’re ill-clothed, ill-equipped, caricatures, or in suggestive poses. Currently they have minis for the following categories:

• • • Shieldmaidens
    • WW2
    • Feudal Japan
    • Horror
    • Ghosts of Gaia (Post Apoc)
    • War Peegs (& Chums)
    • Ancients & Amazons
    • Fantasy
    • Monarchy
    • Modern
    • Baggy the Bag
    • Animals
    • Busts

Bad Squiddo’s minis have been pretty popular for years, especially finding their ways into WW2 and SAGA armies with their very extensive collection of sculpts. More recently I  had to pick up these Kitties to paint with my daughter:

According to the About page, BSG wanted to be able to crowdsource new mini sculpts but not have to go through Kickstarter every time they wanted to do so. The process for funding new miniatures starts in their Facebook Group, Baggy’s Cave, where they put up a poll with the names of various historical figures and find the next mini to be sculpted. Then everyone sends money to the BSG Ko-Fi and once the goal has been hit to get the mini sculpted, everyone cashes out their Ko-Fi money for a copy of the mini.

Here’s a more in-depth step-by-step from the website:

1. 1. 1. Join “Baggy’s Cave” on Facebook
      2. Vote in Round One. This is where you can add your own suggestions – as many as you like!
      3. Round Two will be the winners from round one with one “Annie’s Choice” propelled up. The winner will be the next miniature made on the Community Project. Sometimes we will make this the “top two”.
      4. Pop some money into the pool on Ko-Fi (£5 will cover one mini)
      5. Wait til the goal is reached!
      6. Hooray! The mini will be made. Wait til it’s made. Help us design it!
      7. When you’re ready – (can be after several minis are made if you want) contact us for the money you put in to be swapped out for a Bad Squiddo voucher of the same value.
      8. Go get the mini/s from the store, yay!
      9. Repeat forever and ever and ever.

Here’s a list of the most current nominees (descriptions credit Bad Squiddo Games):

1. 1. 1. Ada Lovelace (1815-1852) Mathematician and Scientist, considered to be the first computer programmer.
      2. Audrey Hepburn (1929-1993) British citizen born in Belgium, a fundraiser and supporter of the resistance in the Netherlands, as well as well known performer and actress.
      3. Caroline Amelia Nation AKA Carrie Nation AKA Hatchet Granny November 25, (1846 – 1911) Women’s Rights Campaigner & radical Temperance member. Known for refusing to wear a corset against the standard of the times & for smashing up establishments that served alcohol with a hatchet in the name of the Temperance movement.
      4. Charlotte de la Tremoüille (1599 – 1664) Famous for her robust defence of Lathom House (late February to late May 1644), and the subject of the song “They called her Babylon” by Steeleye Span, which appears on their 2004 album of the same name.
      5. Clémentine Delait (1865 – 1939) “the most illustrious and celebrated bearded lady in France”, icon and feminist
      6. Cleopatra (70-30BCE) Queen of the Ptolemaic Kingdom of Egypt from 51 to 30 BC, built up the economy establishing important trade deals, personally commanded fleets, and much more.
      7. Eleomore Prohaska (1785 – 1813) A German soldier who fought in the Prussian army with the Lützom volunteer Jaegers disguised as a man. Honoured as “Potsdam’s Joan of Arc”
      8. Emilia Plater (1806-1831) Polish–Lithuanian noblewoman and revolutionary, national heroine in Poland, Lithuania and Belarus
      9. Fu Hao (1240-1200 BCE) Royal consort, military general and high priestess of the Shang Dynasty. Buried in her own grave (unusual for royal wives) with both precious goods and 130 weapons including two (or more) massive bronze axes.
      10. Henrietta Maria (Queen) (1609 – 1669) English Civil War provocateur, nicknamed the generalissimo by Charles the 1st, got up to some shenanigans both useful and hurtful to the royalist cause.
      11. Jean Ross (1911-1973) Journalist and political activist. Remembered as the inspiration for Caberet’s “Sally Bowles”, which she was not fond of. She was a journalist in the Spanish Civil War from 1936 – 1938.
      12. Hypatia (Between 350 and 370 to 415) Alexandrian philosopher, mathematician, and astronomer. Teacher, editor, commentator (not sports), and counsellor to the powerful. Though a pagan Neoplatonist philosopher, she taught Christians including a future bishop but was murdered and torn to pieces by a Christian mob as (probably) part of a political conflict.
      13. Jeanne d’Arc (1412 – 1431) More or less got France back into gear to kick out the English in the Hundred Years War. Got captured and executed in the end. Patron Saint of France as a result of all that.
      14. Jeanne Laisné “Jeanne Hachette” (1454 to ?) Axe-wielding peasant heroine of the siege of Beauvais
      15. Kate Ter Horst (1906-1992) The “Angel Of Arnhem Her house was used as a regimental aid station, and she helped out nursing and scrounging potable water.
      16. Kenau Simonsdochter (1526-1588) Folk hero defender of Haarlem, later led an army of 300 women against the Spanish.
      17. Khutulun (1216-1306) Great-great-granddaughter of Genghis Khan and first cousin once removed of Kublai. Noblewoman of the Chagatai Khanate. Renowned athlete, archer and warrior. Accrued a herd of more than ten thousand horses in competitions and by defeating suitors in wrestling matches. Was her father’s chief advisor and preferred successor but this was prevented by her male relatives. Still became the army’s commander on his death. The probable basis for the character of Turandot in various Western works of art.
      18. Lady Hester Stanhope (1776-1839) She was a British woman who travelled widely in the eastern Mediterranean, the Levant and the Middle East, usually wearing male Turkish/Ottoman clothing. She was an archaeologist, an antiquarian and and explorer. She lived in what is now Lebanon for many years until her death. She was the first person to carry out an archaeological dig in Palestine, at the site of Ashkelon, although she was probably trying to find a legendary treasure that didn’t actually exist. Her narrated memoirs were published after her death by her physician Dr Charles Meryon.
      19. Lucy Parsons (1851-1942) Anarchist, labour organiser, founding member of the Industrial Workers of the World, called “more dangerous than a thousand rioters” and an active writer, editor, orator and firebrand right up until she died in a house fire aged 91.
      20. Madam Yoko (1849–1906) Madam Yoko was a leader of the Mende and was also a member of a secret women’s society which provided her with access to a whole load of traditional knowledge. A few marriages later, she became essentially a tribal chief and was negotiating with the British in her late 20s. She trained young women as influencers and wives and so was able to make and maintain alliances. Unfortunately seems like she got a bit too cosy with the Empire types and she ended up rich but seemingly not happy.
      21. Maria Bochkareva (1889-1920) WW1 Russian army officer, formed the 1st Russian Women’s Battalion of Death. She was the first Russian woman to command a military unit.
      22. Mary Fields “Stagecoach Mary”, (1832-1914) First black postwoman in the USA, carried multiple firearms, most notably a .38 Smith & Wesson under her apron to protect herself and the mail from wolves, thieves and bandits.
      23. Mary Smith (1862-1946) A famous East End ‘knocker-up’, used a pea shooter to hit windows and wake people up early.
      24. Nadezhda Durova (1783 – 1866) Born in an army camp at Voznesenskoe, Ukraine, her father was a major. Disguised as a man, she joined the Russian army in 1807 as a lancer and later became a lieutenant of Hussars. She survived the Napoleonic wars and later published her biography.
      25. Nicola de La Haye (1150-1230) Defender of Lincoln castle against TWO seiges
      26. Nzinga Ana de Sousa Mbande (Queen) (1583-1663) Queen Nzinga was an emissary to Portugal and eventually queen. She was very firm about presenting the Kingdom of Ndongo as an equal player in negotiations with the Portuguese, using her linguistic skills, wealth, and opulent clothing to prove a point. When she turned up to a negotiation and found chairs were provided for the Europeans and a mat for her, apparently she had one of her attendants go on hands and knees so she could sit on him and talk eye-to-eye. She rose to power and led a series of military campaigns against the Portuguese.
      27. Rosalin Franklin (1920-1958) Discovered critical information about DNA that led to the famous double helix model, largely uncredited.
      28. Taytu Betel (1851-1918) Empress Taytu Betel was essentially the person in Ethiopia who said, “Pull the other one,” when the Italians tried it on. She noticed that the treaty they’d been given to sign in Amharic didn’t quite match the one the Italians were scrutinising in Italian, in which Ethiopia would have become an Italian protectorate. So she hard-noped them, and saw them off.
      29. Tomyris (?-520 BCE) Queen of the Massagetae (a Saka-Scythian tribal confederation). Cyrus the Great of Persia sought to acquire her kingdom through marriage but she was having none of it. So he attempted it by invasion. The tribes routed his army so he set out a great banquet with lots of wine. When the pursuing warriors found this and got drunk, the Persians ambushed and slaughtered them. Tomyris swore vengeance and led her army to crush the Persians in battle. She sought out the corpse of Cyrus, cut off his head, and shoved it into a bag filled with his soldiers’ blood, proclaiming ‘Drink your fill of blood!’. Which was nice.
      30. Wu Zetian (624 – 705) personal name Wu Zhao, was the de facto ruler of the Tang dynasty from 665 to 705, ruling first through others and then (from 690) in her own right.

This project has been going since early 2021, so we’re a little late to the party here at Goonhammer, but wanted to share this anyway because we want to present the positive forces in historical gaming, as well as champion diverse voices and alternative model lines.

The current list of minis that have been chosen to be made:

• • • Zenobia
    • Eleanor of Aquitaine
    • Julie d’Aubigny
    • Black Agnes
    • Ching Shih
    • Harriet Tubman
    • Ada Lovelace
    • Audrey Hepburn
    • Mary Fields
    • Jeanne d’Arc

The last four were decided May 14, 2023. There was a short lull in the production of the minis as the volume was a bit overloaded, but BSG is back at it now. Overall, this is a very interesting method of creating new minis that seems to be evolving as it goes. More importantly, it’s targeting a currently under-served market that will definitely please new and veteran hobbyists alike.