The Armour Archive

Richard Blackmoore

When I was a squire, Sir Jehan was my knight. I will concede that he has many, many, many more years of experience in these weighty matters than do I.

Richard Blackmoore

Richard Blackmoore

"Did this guy understand the concepts of Honour & honesty at all? " No. He only understood winning and taking advantage of every perceived loophole in the rules. In this case fortunately there was no actual loophole. He was just plain cheating and even after we explained the rules to him, he still t...

Richard Blackmoore

You are required to call shots based on your real joints, not the joints of your armour. About 15 years ago, we had a rules lawyering moron locally who was always looking for an edge within the letter of the rules but not within the spirit of them. His legs did not hang low, he actually tried hiking...

Richard Blackmoore

Singles combat. It is a better crucible in which to test and measure your personal ability in many ways, as you can reduce outside factors to a minimum. That being said, melee has a totally different set of factors which one should make pains to acquire the requisite skill set in order to deal with ...

Richard Blackmoore

"And I think that it's worth re-iterating, that anyone of such renown that they would be thought worthy of such a combat, if they were to besmirch themselves by sullying such a deed, it would be very foolish. One can see that such a deed is at once both attractive to those who desire to participate ...

Richard Blackmoore

I am always too warm, whether I am in armour or not. My idea of perfect weather is low to mid 70's with low humidity, maybe upper 70's at most. Yet in armour, I would often be on the field for many hours more than younger or more fit opponents. While I might have sweat pouring off of me, I attribute...

Richard Blackmoore

The above rant is for two reasons: 1) I am having a very bad day and am more than a little annoyed that I probably can't go to Pennsic this year and that I have not fought in a while. 2) I suscribe to the SCA concept that all fighters on the field are nobles in a tournament or 'playing at war'. As s...

Richard Blackmoore

I really hate death from behind. I can understand the desire to avoid hitting people in the back and injuring them when an engagement goes badly for them, but frankly it seems all too often instead to reward people who frankly don't want to engage in actual combat. It rewards those with an assassin ...

Richard Blackmoore

I think this sounds like a great idea and a lot of fun. There are two points which I was not happy with. 1) If I understand the rules correctly, the back of the knee is a legal target in this engagement. Since few fighters have armour or even padding there, this seems like a remarkably bad idea that...

Richard Blackmoore

Unfortunately, things have probably gotten too bad for any compromise to be acceptable, and certain persons will have nothing but complete removal of CA from the field, however reasnable they might try to seem to be. You can kill an elephant one thorn at a time. I will confess that I never thought ...

Richard Blackmoore

Just for the record, I was not very concerned about bows and crossbows exploding, my major safety gripes were with the arrows themselves. Though I will admit I am annoyed that heavies' weapons have to meet the 1.25" rule and archers bows and crossbows were exempted. Oddly, the 'dangerous' exploding ...

Richard Blackmoore

Hushgirl said "Yes, they disassemble explosively under the right conditions--which why you're not supposed to be an ASS and HIT THEM. Do you hit marshalls? Chirurgeons? Some things the rules say you AREN'T SUPPOSED TO HIT. Is that just too complicated a concept?" That was not only insulting, but you...

Richard Blackmoore

As a teaching tool to show historical moves at much less then full speed to the uninitiated, it certainly was better than many I have seen. Logan, I don't think they tried to present this as full speed, deadly combat in earnest. If they had, I would agree with your analysis regarding 'fake fighting'...

Richard Blackmoore

Well said Owen, but it points up one of the main reasons having peasants, archers and other non-noble persona's doesn't work under the current SCA structure: If we are as you properly noted, to treat all others as nobles, it makes no sense whatsover to do that if they ARE NOT NOBLES!!! It just makes...

Richard Blackmoore

Posted: Fri Jun 25, 2004 4:25 am Post subject: Nachebon said: "If a knight is killed 20 times in a battle every time he ressurects as mentioned by someone in this thread, doesn't that mean the knight is doing something wrong? Shouldn't he have learned after the first time it happened?" In general we...

Richard Blackmoore

Owen, you highlighted one section of a document and also left out key parts. As you know, other documents posted do indicate that we are all presumed to be nobles and nobles did not use arrows to shoot each other (at least not 99% of the time even if we believe some of the reported exceptions are ac...

Richard Blackmoore

I highly recommend steel baskets over plastic. Plastic simply cannot look right and some plastics can crack in cold weather or flex. At least SCA baskets can look like a Schiavona or a later cup hilt. Plastic hilts usually look hideous. To be fair, I am in the camp that thinks all plastic should be ...

Richard Blackmoore

Hi Owen. Suggestion for your black gauntlets. If you want them to look like a Roman's uncovered hands, instead of painting them, maybe you could fasten flesh colored leather to the outside of them with glue/rivets/string/etc? Just a thought. My squire has a set of the same or similar black plastic g...

Richard Blackmoore

Much of the advice you have received is excellent. One warning though, someone suggested grappling. While this works great, for SCA combat (which is what I thought you are doing) very little that is considered grappling is legal under the current rules of the list, at least in the East Kingdom. Rich...

Richard Blackmoore

And just to be clear, you can't see the tops or sides of the sneakers at all under the maille or metal sabatons, only the bottoms if I am on my knees.

Richard

Richard Blackmoore

Interesting idea. I never thought of putting modern cleats on medieval boots, maybe that would work. Then again, the cleats might be even more noticable as modern than the sneaker soles would. I think Vitus or someone thought of making turnshoes but with a modern ribbed sole, I rejected that for sim...

Richard Blackmoore

Be faster. Seriously? Technique can overcome superior speed. Try counterpunching while maintaining control of the distance in the fight. Try lateral movement to take him out of his planned attack sequences and to increase the chance of him giving you a better target to strike back at. Try to force h...

Richard Blackmoore

In the interest of full honesty, I used to fight in leather boots only. Then I purchased steel sabatons and switched to wearing modern leather shoes or medieval leather boots/turnshoes underneath them, which led to a number of minor ankle and foot injuries mainly due to a lot of slipping around on c...

Richard Blackmoore

I can testify that from medium to long distances Owen's footgear solution gives quite a good impression if your goal is to look like a Roman in sandals. Up close, they don't look so good as is obvious from the picture, though he can argue quite honestly that they look less modern than many other fig...

Richard Blackmoore

Well Glen that may be part of the problem. Carolingian soldiers on horseback in service to my distant ancestor in real life, Charlemagne and lords under him, are considered by many to be proto-knights. They had many of the same chivalric attributes that knights had in the middle ages, they just did ...

Richard Blackmoore

I always thought that knights were Christian, or at least pretended to be Christian, period. But this came up a year or so ago on the archive, and someone, possibly Norman or someone from Red Kagnate (sp?) I think posted that I was incorrect. I think the reference was to early Medieval Spain, possib...

Richard Blackmoore

BUMP!

Richard Blackmoore

Hi. Someone posted information regarding Spain having medieval knights that were openly Jewish and Muslim a while ago, where even their regalia displayed this in some way. Could anyone provide me with documentation/references/clarification on this? My 7 1/2 year old daughter is in an advanced Biling...

Richard Blackmoore

Nicely said TBob.

Richard

Richard Blackmoore

Hibernicus, the documents posted do not preclude other cultures and allow for personal research into them. They do however mandate that if you recreate these other cultures you must do it in the European Medieval/Renn environment described and only as a guest to that environment, conforming to that ...

Richard Blackmoore

Asbjorn Johansen & T Bob have summed up the main part of my argument quite correctly and referred you the the primary governing documents that I base them on. The second part of my argument, is that those that argue that the SCA's current practices are not based on these are largely incorrect and th...

Richard Blackmoore

Hi Animal. I think only a small minority wants the SCA to go to just the 13th century, that certainly is not what I want. In my opinion, our combat is however based on what nobles & knights did in Medieval/Early Renn Europe. This does indeed limit it, but hardly to a single century, you are talking ...

Richard Blackmoore

I meant no disrespect to Ix and like Alfred, have not posted anything here that I have not posted on forums he partakes in or that I would not say to his face. I like the guy a lot. I also dislike his portrayal and think it violates basic SCA tenents, guidelines and the spirit of the group. Why is t...

Richard Blackmoore

Well frankly I get worked up, because as time goes on more and more people stopped following the guidelines, now they justify it by saying 'look how many people don't follow the guidelines, the SCA has changed'. Especially since they apparently don't give a damn that the majority of the SCA still be...

Richard Blackmoore

Talan, the nuclear arrow and a lot of other really annoying CA problems are either eliminated or reduced a bit under Tessa's guidelines, which is why I in general support them and hope they are put in place, retained and enforced. Alaric, I met Darius when he was still Johann. You are correct that h...

Spanish Non-Christian Medieval Knights. Fact or Fiction?