The Armour Archive

This is in regards to SCA melee combat. Is it permissable to use the spear/polearm to trip you opponent? Or is this frowned upon?

Seved Ribbing wrote:This is in regards to SCA melee combat. Is it permissable to use the spear/polearm to trip you opponent? Or is this frowned upon?

Trip? I'd say no. Drive it haft-first into his shield and lever him off the side of the bridge? Go for it!

Pushing his shield around, go ahead.

Jamming it through his legs like the spokes on a bike, nope.

Straight from the Marshall's handbook
"11. Intentionally tripping an opponent is prohibited."

just kill people with it

look straight ahead



kill the guy on your 45' angle who's not looking at you

The reason I was asking was that I was charging a bunch of spears and I was suddenly tripped and my direction of travel was altered by 90 degrees. As I fell I was wacked numerous times. All in all, I thought it was funny because it was so sudden and unsuspected. But doing an after action review, I thought it was odd that I went down like that since the entire day was spent dealing with spears and polearms.

Edit - Not crying about it, just want to be aware of potential tricks.

So many things that can cause you to trip when rushing a spear unit and not necessarily intentional. Fighting for years with a great weapons unit, you see a lot of them. Spear shots falling low as someone moves into it, tangling their legs, etc.

Most commonly though, some spearmen will stick their spear out in front of them, but a few feet out to create an obstacle for rushing shieldmen to give them time to grab their secondary. Every now and then legs get tangled.

Sounds like you were tripped however a common defense for a spearman when charged is to drop the point of the spear to the ground and hold the bottom end of the spear almost in a swordlike high guard position when retreating which makes it easy to trip on a spear if you are not careful.

There is no rule about accidental tripping other than don't hit the guy who fell down so be careful when charging spearmen.

Murdock wrote:just kill people with it

look straight ahead



kill the guy on your 45' angle who's not looking at you

To quote Sir Michael AuCluin
"In melee, if I am lookng at you, I prolly ain't killing you"

Line engagment is a lot different from tourney fighting.

Naughty spear fighters trip (deliberately). It happens, but if you watch the spear carefully during the rush, it is avoidable, although usually at the cost of taking the spear out. I don't like the practice because it can cause unpredictable falls that seriously strain knees and ankles. And it's rude. There's a 'lifting move' which doesn't actually trip but causes the rusher to lose balance. This is usually more comic than harmful. The other way, there's a mean level of tripping the completely sets me off (before I became my new, unflappable, self ) and has no place on the field.

Regards

Avery

Not something I support, but I have seen people intentionally put the spear between the legs of a charging shieldman, and then lift the butt of the spear high. The shieldmen usually stop their charge about halfway up the pole. Either cause they realized it happened, or their feet are coming off the ground. Funny to watch, but I am not sure how legal or chivalrous it is.

Cheers,

Dietrich von Stroheim wrote:

Seved Ribbing wrote:This is in regards to SCA melee combat. Is it permissable to use the spear/polearm to trip you opponent? Or is this frowned upon?

Trip? I'd say no. Drive it haft-first into his shield and lever him off the side of the bridge? Go for it!

That's not really such a good idea




B

Bah! Either don't assume the skinny little spearman is easy to bowl over or ya better learn to land dude.

Bastior wrote:

Dietrich von Stroheim wrote:

Seved Ribbing wrote:This is in regards to SCA melee combat. Is it permissable to use the spear/polearm to trip you opponent? Or is this frowned upon?

Trip? I'd say no. Drive it haft-first into his shield and lever him off the side of the bridge? Go for it!

That's not really such a good idea




B

grounding my spear into the ground and using it as a lever is something i do commonly, but you can be assured that it's coming into contact with the front of your shield (followed shortly by a hip-check), not between your legs.

tripping is lame, stopping a pulse charge with your spear haft is epic.

Milan H wrote:Not something I support, but I have seen people intentionally put the spear between the legs of a charging shieldman, and then lift the butt of the spear high. The shieldmen usually stop their charge about halfway up the pole. Either cause they realized it happened, or their feet are coming off the ground. Funny to watch, but I am not sure how legal or chivalrous it is.

Cheers,

I do this.

Nissan Maxima wrote:

Milan H wrote:Not something I support, but I have seen people intentionally put the spear between the legs of a charging shieldman, and then lift the butt of the spear high. The shieldmen usually stop their charge about halfway up the pole. Either cause they realized it happened, or their feet are coming off the ground. Funny to watch, but I am not sure how legal or chivalrous it is.

Cheers,

I do this.

And rather quickly, too!

Bastior wrote:

Dietrich von Stroheim wrote:

Seved Ribbing wrote:This is in regards to SCA melee combat. Is it permissable to use the spear/polearm to trip you opponent? Or is this frowned upon?

Trip? I'd say no. Drive it haft-first into his shield and lever him off the side of the bridge? Go for it!

That's not really such a good idea




B

actually, it works rather well!

T

That's a lot of styrofoam.

Bastior wrote:

Dietrich von Stroheim wrote:

Seved Ribbing wrote:This is in regards to SCA melee combat. Is it permissable to use the spear/polearm to trip you opponent? Or is this frowned upon?

Trip? I'd say no. Drive it haft-first into his shield and lever him off the side of the bridge? Go for it!

That's not really such a good idea




B

HAHAHA.... when I first saw this, I wasn't able to check the link, so I was pretty confused... now that I see it.

Nissan Maxima wrote:

Milan H wrote:Not something I support, but I have seen people intentionally put the spear between the legs of a charging shieldman, and then lift the butt of the spear high. The shieldmen usually stop their charge about halfway up the pole. Either cause they realized it happened, or their feet are coming off the ground. Funny to watch, but I am not sure how legal or chivalrous it is.

Cheers,

I do this.

I think I've had it done to me. I went down. My scutta shield edge landed on the spear. The back end came down like a whip with a cracking sound. It also cracked at the shield edge. Spearman couldn't pull the fragment out and got killed by a shieldmate. I got up and kept going. I expect to fall in a melee, no biggie. The spearman didn't expect to walk back to camp without a weapon. I consider it a win for my side.

If it became a popular tactic I would consider it unchivalrous.

Sean

Nissan Maxima wrote:

Milan H wrote:Not something I support, but I have seen people intentionally put the spear between the legs of a charging shieldman, and then lift the butt of the spear high. The shieldmen usually stop their charge about halfway up the pole. Either cause they realized it happened, or their feet are coming off the ground. Funny to watch, but I am not sure how legal or chivalrous it is.

Cheers,

I do this.

I also do this, and it's not really a tripping tactic. I do not intentionally trip people. That just begs to actually injure one of your friends and put them out of playing.

I am still frequently amazed by the fact that many shieldmen when charging a spearman will run straight toward him with their guard down, stop at arm's length, and shoot repeatedly for the head. I can block a headshot all day long with my spear held vertically and the attacker held at sword range.
For this very reason my shield brother Sir Roger will run right up to whatever spearman he's charging, reach right around the spear and wrap the spearman in the kidneys.

When I used a spear, I once managed to trip myself. Not sure if that's specifically prohibited.

Adriano wrote:When I used a spear, I once managed to trip myself. Not sure if that's specifically prohibited.

Most Fechtbooks do not endorse it, but I can't see a rule of ours that prohibits it... probably the first time that sentance has ever been written.