Amazon Brigade



The Squad, with about four liters of estrogen added, and little to no loss in testosterone. Alternately, the Lovely Angels after a recruitment drive.

The Amazon Brigade is an elite fighting unit, often the best of the best or damn near close to it, that is composed entirely of women. This being about fiction, they're usually at least moderately attractive. Naturally, they should never be underestimated, for they can and will kick your ass, potentially easily.

Common with Humongous Mecha anime, and Science Fiction in general, especially if they use fightercraft in their universe. Occasionally show up in Fantasy works as well, usually as the personal guard of a wealthy and powerful ruler.

In a Bishoujo Series, they are probably the main characters, their existence in this case due to the Fundamentally Female Cast policy. May include The One Guy for good measure.

Not to be confused with Estrogen Brigade.

Contrast The Smurfette Principle. If the entire world is an Amazon Brigade instead of a single squad, then you have a World of Action Girls.

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 * The trio in this commercial for ProteinOne snack bars.

Anime and Manga

 * Most Magical Girl series are likely to be this.
 * The AMP in Silent Moebius
 * Zahard's Princesses in Tower of God.
 * The Shrike Team in Mobile Suit Victory Gundam
 * The three test pilots for the Astray mobile suits in Gundam SEED.
 * The Treue (German for "loyalty") Unit in Super Robot Wars Original Generation and it's not just "coincidence" like many others; the unit is, for some reason, for females only.
 * The titular character of Sailor Moon and her Sailor Senshi.
 * As well as many of their villains. The Ayakashi Sisters, The Witches 5, the Amazoness Quartet, and the Sailor Animamates.
 * The titular Otome of Mai-Otome, although there is a Techno Babble explanation for their powers being exclusive to female virgins. While an Otome usually works alone, doing her Master's bidding, the Five Columns (who have no Master) are an actual team.
 * Much of the Gall Force OVA series, since the original series revolved around a One-Gender Race.
 * The Build Angels from Koutetsushin Jeeg, a Revival of Go Nagai's Kotetsu Jeeg.
 * The crew of the Nirvana and its predecessor in Vandread, by necessity.
 * The entirety of the alien group trying to capture C-ko in Project A-ko ("Now call off your men!" "Men?").
 * The Knight Sabers in Bubblegum Crisis.
 * Team Warrior from the various incarnations of the Burn Up anime franchise.
 * Fanon in regard to the Dirty Pair frequently implies, for reasons we can only guess at, that the entirety of the 3.W.A.'s field-agent personnel are female.
 * Integra, Accela, Sylvia and Celica make up the R.U.C.'s PROCEED squad in Solty Rei.
 * Simoun (They are technically not female, being "maidens" lacking a permanent sex, but they look the part.)
 * The three female pilots on the Nadesico worked as an Amazon Brigade (Amazon Flight, really) before joining the crew, and usually act as a unit while Akito or Akatsuki are off doing their own thing during the series. The ship's bridge crew is a couple of non-commissioned adjutants and one girly XO away from this trope as well.
 * The team of robotic killer loligoth maids in Coyote Ragtime Show. A lot more awesome than it sounds.
 * Justified in Claymore where the "Silver Eyed Witches" are all female. Infusing Yoma flesh into guys... did not work out.
 * Hitomi Landsknecht's unit in ICE. Well, she doesn't have much choice, ever since all men of Earth died out...
 * Even though they were hastily formed, the titular android Sentai Koi Koi 7 (there are only six members, though...), fulfill this trope.
 * The 6th Mobile Division of Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha StrikerS definitely qualifies, as an archetypal military unit in a Fundamentally Female Cast (although they do have two guys and a dog-boy, technically.)
 * The "villains" of the previous season probably qualify too, consisting of an Ill Girl, a female-anthropomorphized Weapon of Mass Destruction, The Three Faces of Eve, and The One Guy.
 * Jail Scaglietti's "Numbers" in StrikerS count as well. (no pun intended)
 * The Bridge Bunnies aboard the Macross.
 * And the Meltrandi units, for that matter; notably Klan Klein and her Pixie Squadron.
 * The 501st Joint Fighter Wing, a.k.a. the Strike Witches from the show of the same name.
 * Reportedly "inspired by" the Real Life WWII Night Witches (see below) The character of Sanya Litvyak is even "based on" Lilya Litvyak. Or so we are supposed to think.
 * The Valkyrie Team on the Brittanian side in Code Geass, although they didn't get much screentime before
 * In the Nightmare of Nunnally manga: The Irregulars.
 * The main characters of Burst Angel form one of these.
 * Pretty Cure is always either this or Lovely Angels. Futari wa Pretty Cure Splash Star, notably, featured a four-woman Amazon Brigade made of two pairs of Lovely Angels.
 * All these examples, and not a single mention of the Delmo Corps from Agent Aika?!
 * Halibel from Bleach has all-female fraccion.
 * The Galaxy Railways has the all-female Spica Platoon.
 * Mahou Sensei Negima has the War Maiden Brigade of the Ariadne Magic Knights in the Magic World.
 * Negi's True Companions also fit, especially in both anime series, where Kotaro doesn't exist.
 * Fate's all-female group of partners also counts.
 * Simeon's girl squadron in NEEDLESS, consisting of Setsuna, Mio and Kuchinashi. Don't be fooled by their cuteness.
 * The Red Tails Gang from Beelzebub are an all female gang of Japanese Delinquents known as the strongest ladies of Kanto, and for good reason too! Their leader Kunieda Aoi, nicknamed the Queen, is responsible for keeping the men's "grubby hands" off the other girls. Their weapons range from guns, to baseball bats, to bokken.
 * The Uruha Oto from Flame of Recca.
 * Kyrie's group in Crystal Blaze.
 * In Sound of the Skies, the Helvetian Army fields all-female tank crews, the main characters being the 1121st tank platoon.
 * In Sekirei we have, well, most of the Sekeirei. Of 108 reported Sekirei, we have seen three, maybe four males. While most Ashikabi have only one Sekirei, the most powerful Ashikabi if the North, East, West and South all have more than one. The Main character, Minato of the North has five female Sekirei, and one that's between the two genders.
 * Fairy Squadron in Macross II.
 * A whole island in One Piece.
 * The Pandora's of Freezing.
 * The Pleiades Saints in Puella Magi Kazumi Magica.
 * The various teams, starting with the Hanagumi, in the different installments of the Sakura Taisen franchise.

Comic Books

 * Birds of Prey, although Hawk of Hawk And Dove served as the team's first male member.
 * A villainous example: Darkseid's Female Furies in the DC Universe.
 * Any armed group by default in Y: The Last Man. The best example is probably the IDF special forces led by Alter; the actual Daughters of the Amazon are fairly disorganized and gang-like.
 * The Amazons in Wonder Woman, natch.
 * And their Alternate Company Equivalent, the Coda warriors of Wildstorm Comics.
 * A short-lived offshoot of Marvel's The Avengers, the Lady Liberators; but they were secretly being manipulated by the Enchantress.
 * Another Marvel group, the Femizons, from a future militant Lady Land society. When that timeline was erased, a present-day misandrist named Superia tries to create her own Femizons a few centuries early by gathering supervillainesses and female Mad Scientists to repopulate the world, right after she sterilizes everyone else, of course. The team she put together was likely the largest team of villains in Marvel's history (at least 45 members) but all but two of them deserted Superia once they learned her true goal; clearly, she overestimated how many female villains shared her man-hating ideals.
 * The Grapplers were super-strong wrestler/criminals.
 * Femforce from AC Comics, which seems to exist mainly as an outlet for its creators' and readers' fetishes.
 * The Sisterhood Of Steel, from the comic of the same name.
 * The Black Panther's Royal Guards, the Dora Milaje.
 * The Star Sapphire Corps from Green Lantern.
 * Subverted in the fact that the Star Sapphire's version of Ion or Parallax, Predator, is male.
 * The recently formed Sisterhood of Mutants in X-Men
 * The Black Dahlias from The Order, who Veda described as "Tim Burton sponsors a women's golf team."
 * Katarina Dante's pirate crew and Monique le Fanu's vampires (who now presumably follow Lulu Romanov) in Nikolai Dante.
 * In the "X-Tinction Agenda" crossover storyline Uncanny X-Men books, artist Jim Lee depicted the law enforcement of Genosha as being mostly female and incredibly hot.
 * The The Man from U.N.C.L.E. comic book had an unrelated backup feature, Jet Dream. Gender-flipped Expies of Blackhawk, Jet and her international teammates Marlene, Petite, Cookie and (sigh) Ting-a-Ling were Hollywood Stunt-Girls who also moonlighted as a crack team of all-girl aviators, spies, and commandos.
 * Battlefields: Night Witches, by Garth Ennis, is a fictionalized account of the USSR's "Night Witches" (see Real Life, below) during World War II.
 * Sin City has the Old Town girls. They've teamed up a lot with the male protagonists but there are male-less Old Town stories out there. Also keep in mind that these girls are tough enough that both the cops and the mafia are afraid to mess with them.
 * The Airmaidens, the elite personal squadron of Valkyrie in Airboy.

Fan Works

 * The Replica Elite from Aeon Natum Engel, although their femininity is only skin-deep; they act no different from F.E.A.R.'s male Replica Elite.
 * The Wei Family in A Gift of Love.
 * The Keepers in Keepers of the Elements.
 * Clan Falzen in The Tainted Grimoire.
 * The Mirage squadron in Ace Combat: The Equestrian War.
 * Although not technically a separate group from/within the larger Warriors organization, the "heavy hitters" that Douglas Sangnoir summons in chapter 12 of Drunkard's Walk II still fit the bill -- the four most powerful members of his world's counterpart to the Justice League or The Avengers, all women.
 * The so-called "Sisterhood of Doom" form Desperately Seeking Ranma (even though one of them is a guy part of the time).

Film

 * Missy, Chrissy, Justice and Sissy in Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back. Of course, they're more a band of sassy jewel thieves.
 * Fembots attack!
 * In Star Wars, we have the Mistryl Shadow Guard, a group of whip-wielding mercenaries from a doomed civilization.
 * Also in the EU, the Hapes Consortium, an interstellar cluster of Amazons whose (formidable) army and navy was solely composed of females.
 * Mia Wallace in Pulp Fiction talks about a TV pilot she shot called Fox Force Five. Her character's specialty was knives.
 * Angels Revenge, a movie lampooned on MST3K, was Quentin Tarantino's inspiration for this.
 * Also, in Kill Bill, 4/5 of the Deadly Viper Assassination Squad is female, 4/6 if you count Bill.
 * Pussy Galore's Flying Circus from the James Bond film Goldfinger.
 * Also, Octopussy's circus troupe in Octopussy.
 * Also, May Day and her group from A View to a Kill
 * Mrs. Smith's agency in Mr And Mrs Smith.
 * The St Trinian's' field hockey team.
 * The title group in D.E.B.S.
 * Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen features the Arcee Sisters, consisting of Arcee, Chromia, and Elita-1. Though they have minimal screentime, they only ever appear as a unit.
 * Canon, different writers, etc. differ on whether she's three individuals or one with three bodies.
 * In Shrek Forever After, Rumpelstiltskin's entire standing army is made up of Wizard of Oz-style Wicked Witches.
 * In Hop, we have the Pink Berets, a squad of female bunnies described at one point as "the Easter Bunny's royal guards".
 * The girls from Sucker Punch.
 * Admiral General Aladeen's bodyguards in The Dictator. They also serve as sex slaves.

Literature

 * In Marion Zimmer Bradley's retelling of The Iliad, The Firebrand, from the perspective of Kassandra, we have...well, the real Amazons, insofar as they can be called real. By the end of the book, they more or less die out, logical with the feminist bent of the novel and the way that the cult of patriarchy was sweeping the nation.
 * The Fish-Speakers in God-Emperor of Dune. Later, the Honored Maitres appear in Heretics of Dune. Although it's not their main purpose, when necessary the Bene Gesserit can fight with nearly superhuman capability. Justified in the first case by Leto II's belief that the maternal instinct would prevent the Fish-Speakers losing themselves to bloodlust and quests for power.
 * Moreover, Leto intends them to be a temporary army, he wants them to basically cease to matter once he dies, as part of his larger plan, the Golden Path. The Fish Speakers are all about him, absent Leto, they have no unifying force.
 * The Maidens of the Spear and Elayne's personal bodyguard in The Wheel of Time books.
 * The Discworld novel Monstrous Regiment features.
 * Although the first clue is right there in the title:
 * The protagonist of The Assassins of Tamurin is recruited for a secret organization of this type.
 * Isaac Asimov's short story "Shah Guido G." features an all-female police force known as the Waves. However this really had nothing to do with the plot, being part of a clumsy and long-drawn-out build up to a punning punchline.
 * In the Larry Niven novel The Integral Trees, the Triune Squads are made up of women who refuse to marry, women who love women, or those who are "women" by courtesy only. They are sent to patrol the Trunk, a hazardous and seemingly pointless duty, to make up for not doing their "real" duty to the tribe by providing children.
 * The Chicks In Chainmail comedy-fantasy anthology series has numerous stories of all-female military units and warrior societies; along with stories of Sweet Polly Oliver, the lone Action Girl, Little Miss Badass, or Mama Bear, with nary a Mary Sue or a Red Sonja in sight-- unless it's funny, of course.
 * In The Stainless Steel Rat's Revenge Special Corps agent James Bolivar "Slippery Jim" DiGriz lands on a planet once run by women (until they were usurped by a male revolutionary party working in cahoots with galactic invaders). He teams up with the resistance – former members of the military who are of course fit, shapely young amazons – much to the annoyance of Jim's lethally-armed and dangerous wife.
 * The shrykes from The Edge Chronicles. Not quite a One-Gender Race, but the ladies hold the upper hand in... well, everything.
 * The Mord-Sith from Sword of Truth, who are the sworn protectors of Lord Rahl, as well as his expert torturers. They perform ... other services for him, they bodyguard him, are capable of beating up squads of elite soldiers without breaking a sweat, have a magical torture device / weapon / awkward phallus thing called an Agiel, they're made via a truly horrifying Break the Cutie indoctrination process, are probably the second most feared thing in all of D'Hara, only behind the Lord Rahl himself... oh and they can capture your magic and use it to torture you. They've driven one member of the main cast insane.
 * The Longwing dragon captains in the Temeraire series could be a sort of Amazon Brigade—Longwings almost exclusively select female captains (it is implied that on occasion one will accept a male grudgingly, but none have been shown yet).
 * In China several centuries before the events in the books, women were permitted to serve as combat dragon riders by Imperial Decree after a Sweet Polly Oliver enlisted to spare her father and stopped an invasion after bonding with a dragon. Between conscription and the willingness of families to get rid of daughters, by the time Cpt. Laurence and Temeraire arrive the Chinese government had long since thrown up their hands and made their Dragon Corps an exclusive female preserve.
 * Percy Jackson and The Olympians has the hunters of Artemis, a group of girls that travel with the goddess Artemis and are allowed to live immortally without aging as long as they remain maidens for ever. They happen to be extremely handy with a bow, and are strong fighters all around.
 * The Heroes of Olympus reveals that the Amazons themselves are still in business,.
 * The Queens' Wing can be a pretty effective Thread-fighting force in the Pern novels, particularly once they caught on to how easily a queen dragon can boss around any other color.
 * Thandi Palane's self-styled Amazons (descendants of genetically engineered Ukranian supersoldiers) in the Honor Harrington universe.
 * Much like in Ursula Vernon's webcomic Digger, her Black Dogs series contains a race of matriarchal hyena people. Their appearance is more brief and their role much less pivotal, but from what is seen of them, their warriors and hunters are all female. It is also observed by the protagonist that the females are larger and more physically intimidating than the males.
 * In Sewer, Gas & Electric, a female Royal Navy officer averted an assassination attempt and, in return, asked Queen Elizabeth II for command of a submarine. When the navy brass told Her Majesty that having a woman take charge of a sub was unthinkable due to conditions on board, Her Majesty got peeved; four years later, the H.M.S. City of Women was launched with an all-female crew.
 * Friday by Robert A. Heinlein. The Private Military Contractors in the Divided States of America. It's not quite clear if they're a literal Amazon Brigade (only one actual mercenary is seen) but the title character mentions that most of the others are "untrained farm girls".
 * In Chronicles of Chaos by John C. Wright, the Maenads and later the Amazons themselves show up. The Amazons, by the way, are Spy Catsuit-wearing ninja femmebots. On Cool Horses.
 * A rare non-Fantasy or Sci-fi example: thriller writer Brad Thor created a "detachment" of all-female Delta Force members for his most recent Scot Harvath novel Foreign Influence, and has a sequel/spinoff based on these female Deltas coming in November 2010, dubbed The Athena Project.
 * Neal Stephenson's Science Fiction novel The Diamond Age has Nell's "sisters", or "Mouse Amy", a group of soldiers/engineers/political leaders that finally becomes a new sovereign.
 * The soldiers of the Hames in Jane Yolen's Great Alta Saga. Before the invasion, they were among the most honored warriors in the Dales, and not a male in sight.
 * David Weber's WarGod series has a couple of different examples. The most detailed example are the Sothoii War Maids. Free towns administered by women in the very patriarchal Sothoii society they are required to supply levies in times of war under the Kingdom's feudal military structure and by tradition they field all female fighting forces. Considered outcasts by Sothoii society as a whole but supported strongly by the Wind Riders, the elite of the Sothoii military.
 * The Amazon Legion focuses on one of these.
 * In the Aubrey-Maturin novel The Far Side of the World, Jack and Stephen are rescued/taken prisoner by the all-female crew of a Polynesian twin-hulled craft. They also have an extreme case of Does Not Like Men, apparently castrating their male captives as a matter of course.
 * The Marvelous Land of Oz features Jinjur's army. A revolutionary army composed entirely of young girls dressed in World War 1 era uniforms. This being one of the Oz books, they're about as deadly of a fighting force as a kindle of kittens..
 * Sisterhood series by Fern Michaels: The Sisters, Sisterhood, or Vigilantes (whatever you like to call them) can be considered this - as long as you don't include Charles Martin and the Big Five or the Five Musketeers. The last book Home Free subverts this trope by having the Vigilantes recruit male members into their ranks at the end.
 * The eponymous Bunch in The Bad Bunch by J. T. Edson; an all-female gang of outlaws as dangerous and ruthless as any men.

Live Action TV

 * The three main members of Charlie's Angels, in either the TV series or the movies.
 * Another villainous example: The Hanarangers of Kakuranger
 * Before that came the Zero Girls of Taiyou Sentai Sun Vulcan.
 * The Slayers after season 7 of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Justified, as slayers seem to be Always Female.
 * A recent episode of Stargate Atlantis featured an Amazon Brigade as most of the muscle in the episode.
 * Perhaps this refers to season 5: Whispers?
 * Star Trek: Enterprise was the first to reveal that the Orion women, far from being the slaves portrayed in the other series, actually control their civilization with a male-attracting pheromone that gives other women headaches. The only one unaffected by them is.
 * I'd have believed that if they'd shown the Orion male captain doing the laundry.

Music

 * Emilie Autumn's riot grrl-esque band The Bloody Crumpets (or at least their stage personas). Even Aprella. Hell, their catchprase is "Fight like a girl!" As a phrase of empowerment, that is.

Myth and Legend

 * The White Tights of urban legend, a group of blonde, white-clad sniper women with a hate-on for the Russians. Allegedly formed of women from Eastern European countries such as Estonia and Latvia, where hating Russia is a national pastime. According to rumors, they fought in Chechnya on the Separatist side.
 * In Chinese folklore, the widows of the Yang generals during the Song Dynasty. When most of the Yang menfolk were killed defending a fort from Liao invaders, the women of the clan took up arms to confront the Liao army. This has been dramatised in films such as The Fourteen Amazons and The Legendary Amazons.
 * Although the Valkyries of Norse Mythology mainly merely collected the dead, there were plenty of attestations of the female bands fearlessly engaging in battle.

Newspaper Comics

 * Sala and her Sky Band, an all female band of Sky Pirates, from The Phantom.

Tabletop Games

 * Warhammer 40,000,
 * Pictured above, the Adeptas Sororitas ("Sisters of Battle"), a Church Militant force consisting largely of Girls with Psycho Weapons. In a slight subversion, many of them are unattractive, particularly the higher ups (battle in the 41st millennium does horrors for your complexion... and facial structure... and general health, really). The setting's Howling Banshees are also examples... mostly.
 * Of note: they're an Amazon Brigade because after the Age of Apostasy - a massive civil war in which High Lord Goge Vandire became head of both the Administratum and the Ecclesiarchy - the Ecclesiarchy was forbidden from keeping "men under arms".
 * According to one of the footnotes in Sandy Mitchell's Ciaphas Cain series, while mixed-gender regiments do exist the majority of women who make up about 10% of the Imperial Guard's fighting forces serve in all female units.
 * For further note, mixed-gender regiments are even rarer than all-female regiments, as footnotes in the Ciaphas Cain series describe that such regiments are formed from several combined regiments of different genders, such as both the Tanith First and Only and the Valhallan 597th. Which worlds are recruited from may also matter in the issue, since Vostroyan firstborn regiments are exclusively male, and in fact only recruits first-born sons.
 * The mixed-gender regiments being a rarity are actually a justified phenomenon. Ciaphas Cain mentioned that the Imperium has segregates male and female regiments largely for pragmatic social reasons. Those reasons being that the troops in the Valhallan 597th have naturally fraternized much more than many other regiments, and sometimes results in unforeseen complications. The Tanith First and Only being mixed is logical since they're the only survivors from their planet and they naturally would not like to split apart the remains.
 * This seems to vary with writers, as the general consensus is that Regiments (with exceptions such as the Tanith's First and Only and the Vostroyan Firstborne) never recieve additional recruits. The only possible newblood would be those born to couples within the regiment.
 * In the spinoff game Necromunda, this is House Escher's hat.
 * Upon first glance the Dark Eldar Wych Cult seems to be this, but then you realise not all of the models are female. Wyches, however, do take pride in their appearance, as their beauty is considered just as important as their technique in the ring. As for their elite-ness, while they do occupy the Troop Choice, they were originally an Elites Choice, in addition they fight almost exclusively in close combat, have stats (at least in the two Skill stats) that rival Space Marines, and are good enough that they wear anti-clothing and have an invulnerable save to represent their darting around.
 * The Wyches' role outside of raids is to provide a bloody entertainment for other Dark Eldar by fighting as gladiators in the arenas; a wych's job is essentially to fight and kill anything the Dark Eldar can get their hands on, and look good doing it. Enemies that are too tough for the average wych are fought by their seniors, the hecatrices, or finally by one of the three "succubi" heading the wych cult itself. In a setting full of daemons, genetically engineered monsters, omnicidal ubertechnological robots, and worse, there are very, very few things a succubus cannot kill, while managing to also look awesome.
 * The cults have males, actually, but they are usually not advanced in the ranks simply because they are considered to be less stylish than their female counterparts. Simply being able to kill a Tyrannid warrior or a Space Marine sergeant is not enough; you need to do it with "grace and poise."
 * From Warhammer Fantasy, the Witch Elves certainly qualify, being all-female, attractive, chain-mail bikini wearing, deadly fighters. Of course the fact that they are also completely insane genocidal drug-fuelled maniacs is just the icing on the cake.
 * Dark Elf Sorceresses also qualify, given that due to a prophecy that a male sorcerer would kill the Witch-King only women are allowed to practice magic among the Dark Elves. According to the fluff, there are male sorcerers, but they keep their heads very far down.
 * The High Elf Everqueen is protected by the Maiden Guard.
 * Deadlands - even In a World with The Masquerade running full steam (replete with The Men in Black), Mina Devlin calling her shocktroops the "Wichita Witches" raised a few eyebrows. Of course, only women need apply.
 * Rifts Free Quebec has mastered the creation of the uber-powerful Glitter Boy powered armour. Female pilots lobbied for years to get their own distinctive style of armour. Enter the Glitter Girl recon/special forces unit. More dangerous than the male variant due to the pilots being older and more experienced. Notable squads inclued the Harlots, the Harpies, the Vixens, and the Riot Girls.
 * And don't forget the Blind Warrior Women, who look simply irresistible.
 * And the city of Manoa in South America, with literal Amazon brigades.
 * Talislanta has the Danuvian warrior-women.
 * Werewolf: The Apocalypse had the Black Furies, a tribe made up entirely of female Garou who worshipped Artemis as an aspect of Gaia. Of course they'd associate with men for production of new children, but male offspring were passed on to other tribes. There are male Black Furies, however; Metis (deformed children of werewolf-werewolf matings) born to Black Fury mothers are accepted into the tribe regardless of their gender.
 * The Sisters of Mercy from the Feng Shui supplement "Glimpse of the Abyss" are a convent of Nuns With Guns based in the Netherworld who hunt down and kill those whom their Mother Superior deems to be deserving of the respite of death from the suffering the Sisters believe that life is. Of course, those whose names end up on the Rolls of Mercy and are targeted for "deliverance" often aren't so keen on dying. Also from "Glimpse of the Abyss" are the Shiva Squadron, a band of distimed eight-armed warrior women who have made it their mission to hunt demons.
 * Legend of the Five Rings has two examples in the matriarcal Utaku and Matsu families. The Utaku family (formerly known as the Otaku family) has the Shiotome, or Battle Maidens, an elite unit of shock troops that ride into battle on horses the size of Clydesdales. The Matsu family's elite Lion's Pride is an all-female unit of samurai women that specializes in finding and killing the enemy general and his command staff.
 * Exalted has the Brides of Ahlat, the Southern God of War. Completely female, sworn to remain virgins, and symbolically wed to Ahlat himself. They're consider to be Elite troops and thus not to be messed with.
 * Exalted also has the Tya, a group of women in the West who reject the usual gender roles for the region to take on male ones-which is more than symbolic, as the ritual wards away the spiteful goddesses known as the storm mothers (they hate any woman prettier then they are, which includes everyone that is not a storm mother). They are treated in society more as men than women, actually.
 * In 2nd Edition Dungeons & Dragons, several of the "Complete Class" supplements included an Amazon character kit.
 * Mage Knight included a subset of Amazon figures in one of its more Steampunk factions, the Black Powder Rebels. They weren't necessarily more powerful than any other group or faction (except for the Amazon Draconum, which was borderline broken.)
 * In Mutant Chronicles, at least three factions have Amazon Brigades: Bauhaus has Etoiles Mortant, Imperial has Mourning Wolves and The Brotherhood has Valkyries and Vestals. Mishima was supposed to have an elite unit of female warriors, the Kikigomae Sohei, as well, but Publisher Existence Failure caused them to be limited only to a concept drawing and a mention in the rulebook for Warzone: Universe Under Siege as no figures were produced.
 * Dungeons & Dragons: The Tome of Battle has lots of fluff about secret organizations of Walkers of the Sublime Way. One of which is the 80 Empresses.
 * The Amazones of Bloodlust, called Sekekers, are used to mutilate themself and are thus quite ugly. However, some beautiful young girls form a elite unit called the Chrysalides, and are trained to fight half-naked.
 * Shadowrun has the all-female street gang Desolation Angels that are active in many American cities. The gang is known to hunt bug spirits with great enthusiasm for some reason.
 * The Amazoness archetype from Yu-Gi-Oh, naturally, losly based on the Trope Namer.

Theatre

 * You better not forget those flying horse-riding shieldmaidens in the winged helmets from Die Walkuere.

Video Games

 * The various incarnations of Team England (later simply renamed the "Women's Team") in The King of Fighters.
 * The Night Elf Sentinels in Warcraft 3 take it one step further by having their entire military composed of women. The male elves pursue study and druidism, and act only as support units in-game (Until they turn into bears.). This is due to all the Night Elven males being asleep in the Emerald Dream in the game's storyline and are woken up within it. It's axed in World of Warcraft, with gender making no implication on what class a Night Elf may be. The example in 3 is due to all the women being militarily trained to have a military in the first place with all the men being asleep, so when they were woken up, they fulfilled a supportive role while the women, who were already trained for it, took the frontlines, rather than it being a cultural value. However, it's worth noting that there are few if any NPC male Sentinels in the game and only one male night elf priest, at Uther's tomb.
 * Also as probably an inverted reference to this, the Blood Elf guards are all male.
 * World of Warcraft d20 mentions a group called the Sisters of Steel, a faction of warrior/blacksmith women who spend so much time at the forge that they become immune to fire and can transform themselves into stone or metal. Unfortunately, this faction didn't see any screen time in the game.
 * In Return to Castle Wolfenstein the SS has an all-female force called the Elite Guard.
 * In Spellforce, all elven units are female.
 * Except Titans, who are ents. Apparently their treemen aren't different.
 * Pegasus Knight armies in the various Fire Emblem games.
 * The Knives of Artemis from City of Heroes.
 * In Final Fantasy IX, Alexandria's army consists almost entirely of women. The only males are the Knights of Pluto, a squad consisting of a mere 9 men, including playable character Steiner, who serves as their captain.
 * The military of the city of Toroia in Final Fantasy IV likewise consisted entirely of women.
 * Metal Gear Solid 4 has two Amazon Brigades:
 * And the Beauty & The Beast Corps, a quartet of Super Soldiers with PTSD who wear Powered Armor, serving as the Quirky Miniboss Squad.
 * "Quirky". Yes, I suppose that's one way to put it.
 * Also the FROGS, Ocelots personal troops who are Elite Mooks in full power armor who are several steps above the regular troops he rents out.
 * The Legend of Zelda's Gerudo have all-female fighting forces - mostly because bar Ganondorf their entire race is nothing but women.
 * The Mosu Ninja from Shinobido are composed only by kunoichi.
 * Xenogears has Dominia's all-girl robot pilot squad.
 * Final Fantasy X-2. Your party is one.
 * Some players (like me) try to get one of these going in any game that gives a party, whether one you fill with your own rolled characters (Wasteland), or with a cast (Final Fantasy XII. Some games make this easier than others.
 * Luna's subordinates in Soul Calibur 3's Chronicles of The Sword (while there name is never stated, one of the chapter name implies they are the "Guardians of the Moon") are 4 elementally themed female minions (Luna is obviously female as well).
 * They're called the Klessirpemdo. Lupi (Fires of Hell), Heal-Do (Water of Origin), Elua (Wind of Creation) and Aege (Earth of Foundation), plus their leader Luna who is probably meant to be Spirit/Aether or something.
 * Any unit led by a female in Yggdra Union.
 * Unreal II the Awakening features such a brigade in the form of the Liandri Angels, an all-female "mercenary" cyborg squadrons, the game's toughest Mooks. An in-game dialogue maintains that females are naturally ruthless and that that has been the reason behind the creation of these squadrons.
 * Diablo II starts the player out in the Rogues' camp (a reference to the female-only Rogue class from original Diablo). Everyone permanently living there is female, from the blacksmith Charsi to the matronly high priestess Akara to the guard captain Kashya. They're staying in the camp because they had been evicted from their monastery after Diablo's minions took over and mind-controlled half their numbers, whom you fight throughout Act I, and who are also all female.
 * The Blood Roses, an order of female knights, in the PC adventure game Siege of Avalon.
 * The Aeon military in Supreme Commander comes very close-game background states that Aeon women are just plain better at battlefield command, with very few males qualifying for command. Possibly a coincidence, but the foremost commanders of the UEF and Cybrans are women as well.
 * In the first Knights of the Old Republic, an away team composed of a female player character, Bastila Shan, and Mission Vao. In the second, a female player character, Mira, and Visas Marr (especially if you have progressed far enough to make Mira a Jedi).
 * Mass Effect - The asari are a One-Gender Race of women, and due to their extremely long lifespans (upwards of a thousand years) asari commandos train for a hundred years before they go on active duty. In addition, the asari are also natural biotics. The warrior turian race (where military service is the entire society and military service is directly responsible for citizenship) have a saying: "The asari huntresses are the best warriors in the galaxy. It's a good thing there aren't that many of them."
 * Additionally, a field squad composed of a female Commander Shepard and any two of Ashley Williams, Tali'Zorah nar Rayya, or Liara T'Soni also qualifies as an Amazon Brigade, particularly at higher levels. And in the sequel, Female Shepard with Jack, Kasumi Goto, Miranda Lawson, Samara, Tali,, and Liara T'Soni (in DLC) counts.
 * And in the third game, Female Shepard with Ashley, Tali, Liara and.
 * In Mass Effect 1, should you refuse to recruit Garrus,  as a Femshep, an Amazon Brigade squad will be your only option.
 * Clan Ritz from Final Fantasy Tactics Advance consists of all vieras and Ritz.
 * Prima Donna from Final Fantasy Tactics A2 has 2 vieras and 2 grias, and all of them are female.
 * Ratchet and Clank Future: A Crack in Time has the Valkyries, an army of ace pilots and shock troopers comprised entirely of female aliens. Despite the name, male versions exist but, according to a piece of Galactic Trivia, were banished after failing to ask for directions during their pilgrimage after their home colony was decimated by a supernova.
 * The are apparently all female as well, although whether that's correct or simply the squad leader unnecessarily taking the Mickey isn't explained.
 * Project Justice has the Seijyun High trio of Akira, Yurika and Zaki. Closer to the definition of this trope is Zaki's gang, the Ladies Team, though a good number of the gang's members may not meet the "be at least moderately attractive" description.
 * Crimson Skies has the Medusas; an all female pirate gang.
 * Dragon Age has the dwarven organization The Silent Sisters, a group of dwarven women who cut out their own tongues and devote themselves completely to martial training.
 * You can also assemble your own all-female team with any combination of Leliana, Wynne, Morrigan and.
 * Dragon Age II - female Hawke and any three of Isabela, Merrill, Bethany, Aveline or Tallis (Mark of the Assassin only).
 * In Baldurs Gate II: Throne Of Bhaal, one of the three guardians for the final seal is an entirely female group composed of Y'tossi (a marilith), Nalmissra (a succubus), The Hive Mother (a beholder), Amerilis Zauvwir (a drow cleric), The Huntress (an archer) and Xei Win Toh (presumably a kensai).
 * Also possible for your own party: in BG1 you have a female PC and (depending on your alignment) any combination of Alora, Viconia, Dynaheir, Imoen, Jaheira, Branwen, Faldorn, Shar-Teel, Skie and Safana. BG2 and ToB feature the return of Imoen, Viconia and Jaheira, along with new characters Aerie, Nalia and Mazzy.
 * Interior Union in Armored Core, every one of the Lynxes for hire is a women, and unlike Bernard And Felix, more than willing to let you use them as consorts.
 * Mortal Kombat Mythologies: Sub-Zero features Quan Chi's trio of leather-clad demonic assassins; Kia, Jataaka, and Sareena. Of the three, Sareena is a bit of an Ensemble Darkhorse, and has appeared in subsequent games, undergoing a Heel Face Turn.
 * Cassandra Devries' bodyguards from Perfect Dark.
 * The Amazons of Kurkum from Drakensang. In both games you have to fight a band of Dark Amazons.
 * The Bratgirls from Crash Of The Titans and Crash: Mind Over Mutant.
 * Solatorobo has the Pink Peaches Sky Pirates. Naturally, their robots are all pink as well.
 * Two of the gangs in the Jet Set Radio games are all-female: The Love Shockers, and Rapid 99.

Webcomics

 * In El Goonish Shive, Ellen, Grace, and Nanase form a temporary Amazon Brigade during the Painted Black arc.
 * The entirety of Earth's military in Angels 2200. (A plague having wiped out most of the male population, there are no adult males on Earth or most of Earth's colonies.)
 * The Amazons of Chasing the Sunset. Their foremothers were ordinary women who took up combat to save themselves: by the time we meet them in the comic, they are blue-skinned warriors who reproduce asexually.
 * An internet offshoot of Marvel UK's Warheads series, Loose Cannons tells the tale of an experimental all-female group of Warheads (paramilitary units sent through spacetime wormholes to gather technology and magical artifacts for the Corrupt Corporate Executive leaders of the sinister MysTech; think Stargate SG-1 as mercenary raiders hired by a cabal of evil sorcerers) called the Virago Troop—who bring back more than they bargain for from an After the End future.
 * Haven's Guard in Earthsong form an Amazon Brigade, including The One Guy, Zaebos.
 * And one Hermaphrodite Tengu... :S
 * Jewel Vixens
 * Completely justified in Digger. The hunters and warriors of the hyena tribe are all female because they, just like real-life hyenas, are larger and stronger than the males.
 * The Amazons of Amazoness! To be expected, since their whole population is female.
 * Outsider has the Loroi, a species of space elves with an all-female military. Justified, since only one in eight Loroi are born male, which they consider a basic adaptation for a warrior species, since it allows them to create some massive population booms where necessary, or avoid overpopulation by restricting access to males.
 * Further justified by the fact that Loroi females are actually the bigger and stronger members of the species. The males are child-sized.
 * In Erfworld, the Archons of Charlescomm. Yes, that makes them Charlie's Archons.
 * The Remix Comic version of Jet Dream recasts the girls as an all-transgender Amazon Brigade.
 * Illyra, Elysia, and Occela form the basis of a budding Amazon Brigade in Rumors of War. Given that the setting is based on Greek Mythology, one or more of them may actually be Amazons.
 * Though not a brigade specifically, the female cast members of Something*Positive are both more violent and most of the time, stronger than the male cast members (although how much the male members are willing to fight in general may have something to do with it). The basic rules seems to be that if somebody has a pair of breasts and is reasonably intelligent, she can probably kick your ass.

Web Original

 * The Killer Bunny Assassination Squad from v2 ofOpen Blue. If you're wondering why they're called that, it's because they work for The Caligula.
 * v2's Pirate Lady Alexandra Dinse leads an all-female crew.
 * Disney Princess: Ten princesses, some exceptions.
 * Team Kimba of the Whateley Universe is really close, considering that their one 'boy' was born a girl named Hannah. The Whateley Academy Martial Arts Cheerleaders are all-girl but not tough enough to be a true Amazon Brigade.
 * The Entire Nileniran Military in The Movolreilen Saga, but especially the Swordcheeks, woman who completed a nine-year Training from Hell.

Western Animation

 * The Angel Squadron from Captain Scarlet And The Mysterons.
 * The Warrior Maidens from Thundercats.
 * The Bayville Sirens from X-Men: Evolution
 * The Kyoshi Warriors of Avatar: The Last Airbender.
 * Also Ozai's Angels, the trio of Azula, Mai and Ty Lee.
 * The Girl Racoons in The Angry Beavers Episode: "The Mighty Knothead".
 * Villainous example: Turmoil and her all-female squadron of fighter pilots from the Swat Kats episode "Cry Turmoil".
 * Elita One and the Female Autobots in Transformers Generation 1.
 * In the 1979 animated Flash Gordon series from Filmation, Princess Aura had an elite guard of female warriors under her command known as the Witch-Women.
 * The five title characters of WITCH are five Magical Girls in the vein of Sailor Moon. As they work for a Guardian of the Multiverse in the series and the original comics they are frequently dispatched as a squad to deal with the occasional Dimension Lord and other threats.
 * The Screaming Queens from Storm Hawks.
 * The Galafems in Aladdin. They also kidnap and forcibly-induct women into their numbers, making their army stronger.
 * In The Legend of Korra, the Rabbaroos are an all-female Pro-Bending team.

Real Life

 * [[media:Green Nuns.jpg|The 40-woman Amazonian Guard]] of Muammar Gaddafi (may his spellings be many) Officially they're known as the Green Nuns, but western media tends to refer to them as the Amazonian Guard as something of an invocation of this trope's imagery.
 * Not to mention the famous Dahomey Amazons, or Mino, who composed a third of the Dahomeyan Army in the 19th Century. Fanatically dedicated and intensively trained, they were nearly unbeatable for three and a half centuries, until the invention of the machine gun made industry more important in war than bravery.
 * Not sure if this one is Mythology or Real Life or if this really counts as an Amazon Brigade since they were never recorded as seeing combat; When military genius Sun Tzu was trying to sell Helu, the King of Wu, on hiring him as an advisor, the King put a group of his concubines under Sun's command to train as a test of his skill. He split them into two teams, assigned each team a captain (His Nibs' two favorite concubines) and explained the commands, but they laughed and didn't take it seriously. So he tried again, repeating the commands and explaining what they mean. Still nothing but giggles. So he beheaded the two team captains. The ladies immediately obeyed every command and ran through every drill perfectly. When the King complained at losing his lady loves, Sun Tzu snarked in his face about the costs of real warfare. He got hired anyway. (Technically, they lost members in action, while under military command, so they might be considered an Amazon Brigade)
 * The story states Sun Tzu faulted himself first, saying that if the orders were unclear, the general was to blame. The second time, he stated that if the orders were clear but not obeyed, it was clearly the fault of the officers. When the king protested, Sun said that when in the field, there are orders from the regent that the general does not obey. This principle is stated in the Art of War, the original Big Book of War. When the ladies began to comply (much to the relief of the next two commanders), Sun stated they were ready to face fire and death and be used however the king saw fit. Not bad for someone who may never have existed.
 * If we're counting nonhumans, bees. The nonbreeding female workers sacrifice their lives with a sting, so that the vital Queen and her male consorts can survive.
 * Bees don't die if they sting other insects. But if they sting mammals (humans frex), their sting sort of sticks in the skin, they can't pull it out again, and thus have to die.
 * Some aphids have a similar system to bees, in which a single female aphid gives birth to dozens of clones of herself. While a few later produce sons and breed sexually, the majority of the clones are cannon fodder: either actively fending off predators from the colony, or just surrounding the breeders so they'll be eaten in their stead.
 * Also, spotted hyenas are Nature's version of this trope.
 * There were three all-female combat Soviet Air Force units in World War Two, which together flew a total of 30,000 combat sorties, produced 30 Heroes of the Soviet Union (the highest honour available) and 2 fighter aces (the only recorded female aces in history). The most famous of these was the 588th Night Bomber Regiment, nicknamed the Night Witches by the Germans. Not only did they fly over 23,000 sorties and is said to have dropped 3,000 tons of bombs, it was also the most highly-decorated unit in the Soviet Air Force at the time, receiving 23 Heroes of the Soviet Union awards. Not only that, they flew horrifically out of date, wood and canvas bi-plane bombers originally constructed for training and crop dusting - and these planes proved excellently suited for precision night bombing, the reason this regiment was called Night Witches. Weak engine means a quiet engine, plane designed for trainees must have a low stalling speed, reducing noise even more, and low speed gives you an excellent bombing accuracy.
 * The Soviets also fielded several all-female anti-aircraft regiments. Most of these, however, were completely wiped out when deployed against infantry in the Red Army's desperate attempts to stall the German advance.
 * There were also numerous female Soviet snipers (one, Lyudmila Pavlicenko got 309 confirmed kills before being pulled off the front line and used for propaganda purposes), and occasionally tank crews. Let's also not forget the Israeli armed forces. However, both are cases of desperation in a way; the Soviets mobilized almost totally to repel the Germans, while the Israelis are surrounded by hostile neighbors, against whom they have a demographic disadvantage, having a smaller population and significantly lower birthrate; it's also a heavy-militarized country in general. (Fun fact: If China maintained an armored corps that had the same ratio to the size of the general population as Israel, it would have more than a million tanks.)
 * Lyudmila Pavlicenko was so awesome that Woody Guthrie actually wrote a song about her shooting Germans, she was that cool.
 * This troper recalls hearing a story about an all-female paratrooper unit of the Israeli Army that did very well in action, not least because the Arabs refused to shoot at them.
 * During World War I there was a battalion made up entirely of women, led by a woman named Maria Bochkareva, who personally petitioned the Czar to be allowed to serve in the Russian Army to escape her abusive husband. Towards the end of the war, she was put in charge of the Women's Battalion of Death. It was something of a publicity stunt to try and raise morale in the Russian Army. It failed, and about eight months after they were formed Lenin overthrew the Russian Provincial Government and the rest is history.
 * During the Russo-Japanese War there was an all-woman cavalry regement. The officers were daughters of the country nobility who from hunting could ride and shoot as well as their brothers; the enlisted women were recruited from a Central Asian tribe with a strong Amazonian tradition.
 * The United States Marine Corps developed the "Lioness Program" for use in Iraq and Afghanistan. Lioness is an all-female team meant to conduct culturally-sensitive searches, but in practice have done much more. The Lionesses have proven extremely useful for building rapport with the locals and gathering intelligence. (And should it come to that, "Every Marine is a Rifleman," even if she's not a man.)
 * During the Mexican Revolution there were Las Soldaderas: active female soldiers fighting hand-in-hand with their fathers, sons, and brothers. When their husband died, they wouldn't cry, they'd say "Dame la pistola!" and ride off into battle.
 * Women in ancient Iranian cultures, such as the Scythians, the Sarmatians, and even the Persians, frequently fought alongside the men. Archaeologists have found many tombs where women received a warrior's burial.