The Armour Archive

Richard Blackmoore

Hi Animal. When I used to camp far from the main battlefield, I used a leather strap, I believe it was called a "Guige" that allowed me to carry the sheild slung to the side or on my back for transport. It worked out well but sometimes got tangled up when I was actually fighting with the shield. Now...

Richard Blackmoore

Hi Jean Paul. I was trying to give you my thoughts and put them in context, I was not trying to start the whole do we do wars or not controversy and hijack your thread. I could sit here and post why some think we do wars, why some think we do melees only and the pros and cons of each. But I did not ...

Richard Blackmoore

If you mean that you fall into the camp that thinks the SCA should do wars, as opposed to grand melees between nobles, I'd say the following. Combat archery, siege weapons and other activities found in war often add to the effort in a positive way if done well. I have seen siege weapons that in term...

Richard Blackmoore

Hi. Sir Lothar wrote what I was thinking. I have no problem with someone yielding to a leg shot if that is their choice and they do not give me the impression that it is in response to something they think I have done wrong (such as a perceived insult). I did not know about the Meridian rule that sa...

Richard Blackmoore

Everybody is different. I authorized the first time I ever put on armour. Some people take months or years. Read a current set of the rules in advance and know what they are in case you have a marshal with a clue who actually asks you about a lot of them. In the SCA East Kingdom, demonstrating that ...

Richard Blackmoore

I don't think the archive is representative of the SCA at all. The archive has a much higher percentage of educated, literate, well mannered, properly armoured and attired Tuchux then the attendees of a typical Pennsic war are ever likely to encounter. The typical archive Tuchux engages in high brow...

Richard Blackmoore

Hi Maeryk. I was knighted a while back, during Sir Timothy's 1st East Kingdom reign. I don't remember you getting hurt fighting with me, sorry about that. I hope your shoulder is OK. Could you refresh my memory on what happened? Richard Blackmoore KSCA East Original: I have seen: broken arm, (blocke...

Richard Blackmoore

Target archery with bow or crossbow is a noble pursuit and as Logan described, there are many avenues available to you where information can be garnered. Medieval hunts included nobles with bows and I suggest you consider study of that aspect of archery as well. Combat Archery is, in my opinion, not...

Richard Blackmoore

P.S. We made our own caparisons. I generally designed the heraldry but suck at sewing so others did that. For saddles my favorite was an Aussie saddle, other than that I used English saddles. We had intended to get medieval replica's made but never got that far. We generally rode with jointed snaffl...

Richard Blackmoore

Hi Bascot. I jousted with several organizations. We generally used solid lances but had to purposely avoid knocking each other off by carefully glancing the shots off the shields and pulling the blows or by whacking each other full force but with breakaway/shattering type lances fitted with balsa or...

Richard Blackmoore

As usual, Vitus managed to write what I was thinking and in a much more dignified manner. I was thinking more along the lines of "At the start of every Pennsic battle we should kill the Tuchux, then the mercs not fighting for their own kingdoms for free, then the combat archers, banish their support...

Richard Blackmoore

I personally am more worried about the recent trend towards LOTR Gimli sized chivalry that make tiny shields appear to be of normal size. If we would simply stop knighting people who are too short to ride a roller coaster safely, we would not have this problem. Vitus' admittedly small shield, if siz...

Richard Blackmoore

I think it needs work, but it is an excellent start.

Richard

Richard Blackmoore

I meant no insult and also tried to make it clear than generalizations about entire kingdoms can be difficult. Most of my experience with Trimarins has been at Pennsic. All too often for my liking, I was hitting them with shots that they took that simply would not have been accepted by most of the f...

Richard Blackmoore

Size, power, reach, strength and endurance can make a huge difference in your success ratio.

Then again, having been bested by enough short, thin, fat and out of shape people, physical size and conditioning are no guarantee of success.

Richard Blackmoore

Richard Blackmoore

Good to see that Microsoft Nochux2003 works at least part of the time.

Richard

Richard Blackmoore

Calibration is unfortunately largely only able to be discussed in generalities in terms of kingdoms. From my interactions with other kingdoms, primarily in the East (including what is now Athelmearc), Atlantia and the Middle and with other kingdoms at Pennsic/Kingdom Crusades, etc., I feel that the ...

Richard Blackmoore

OK. How do you respond to the poll?

My vote is that you don't have to own it, but I like the one where you wear armour with no obvious mundane pieces, historically based, no exposed plastic etc.

Richard

Richard Blackmoore

Now I would like everybody to say "Thank you Sir Rhys"...

And mean it.

Richard Blackmoore
East Kingdom KSCA

Richard Blackmoore

The King I believe would be an unbelt named King X because the old college of arms was insane and would not pass his chosen name. Later he became Earl Shannon (Au Chasur?)and was knighted in the East Kingdom. He was also know as the bush king for his propensity to be with any one of a number of youn...

Richard Blackmoore

I think it is the same thing. It basically helped me get going on days where I had no energy and get a really intense workout on days when I was already doing well. Like I said, I stopped because there were too many reports that it could be dangerous. Granted, most of the reported fatalities or seri...

Richard Blackmoore

Alfred said: "...You and what army? If the ships don't sink trying to ferry your phat old arses over here, ..." East Kingdom ferris don't sink, we ram them into piers at full speed and they still float! We'd come over, but your castles are so poorly maintained, they'd probably collapse as the mighty...

Richard Blackmoore

Irish, your points on problems at Pennsic are valid. I however think that you can have truly hard fought competition without creating real enemies. If anything, I am typically inspired at Pennsic by the fact that there are a significant number of quality opponents there from a variety of kingdoms th...

Richard Blackmoore

Hi Valstarr. Good points. But our tournaments are supposed to be based on chivalric combat between nobility. If I chose to portray a pre-chivalric persona, which the SCA clearly does allow for even though I never thought it made much sense (though it is fun), I would not participate in our tournamen...

Richard Blackmoore

Tristan's list of muscles is correct. In particular the triceps in SCA fighters tend to be underdeveloped leading to premature fatigue, lack of control/aim/speed. There are plenty of tricep exercises you can do with dumbells or an EZ curl bar and a bench if you don't have access to a gym.

Richard Blackmoore

I always found that sparring and training with newbies using two sword was a wonderful way to get bruises and stupid injuries. I was never good at going slow with them without screwing up what I was doing. This is partly because my two sword was very offense oriented, so slowing down exposed gaps in...

Richard Blackmoore

Pennsic always was and always will be, the East Kingdom's way of retaining our God Given Sovereignty over all of our native lands. In the old days we only had to contend with the poor misguided Middle Kingdom's claims, and crushing them once a year seemed to be all that was needed. Lately we have to...

Richard Blackmoore

You made very good points on the intelligent use of supplements. I was taking two forms of the whey powder, one that was designed to be taken with meals or during the day, another that was synchronized to the workouts. While 1 year is hardly enough time to make a scientific analysis, I felt it was v...

Richard Blackmoore

Several people have brought up the topic of getting back into shape for fighting. Below is a rather unscientific write-up of what I tried to do back in 2001. I stuck with it for the most part, for about a year with what I thought were rather impressive results. Then, due to insane working hours, per...

Richard Blackmoore

I too am in the East Kingdom. While I personally can't stand my armour, it still tended to be better than much of what was around me. The southern region is my home, but I have friends in the north too. One Pennsic years ago, I decided to go fight with the northern region army guys for a couple batt...

Richard Blackmoore

I avoid difficult balancing by finding sword rattan that is as close to 1 1/4 as possible without shaving, by using basket hilts that don't weigh a ton that fit clost to my hand to reduce the effort needed to rotate the mass of the basket and finally by securing the hilt end of the basket with a lag...

Richard Blackmoore

Am I the only one who saw this and thought someone wanted to outfit drunks with bows?

Richard Blackmoore

Hi Vitus. I respect and understand your positions. I agree with many of them. However, I don't think it has to be so complicated. The SCA combat environment is supposed to be based on what nobles in Medieval Europe do when fighting each other and participants are to act in a knightly and chivalrous ...

Richard Blackmoore

Hi. For me personally, a decent appearance and armour that looks and moves and feels like real armour in the lists is important in order to feel like what we are doing makes sense. I go out of my way to offer positive encouragement to people that wear non-sport armour. And as far as the 14th century...

Richard Blackmoore

Richard-you mention that you have played with groups that did recreate social classes. How was it instituted? Did it cause problems? Does the SCA already have social classes? What do you think would change if they were introduced? Alfred any thoughts? Hi. It was good in the sense that it was more re...

Getting Back Into Fighting Shape - Long 2001 Document