The Armour Archive

So I was at a soccer tournament this past weekend and saw stuff like this on the ground.



And I thought to myself, why can't we take something like this, or the oval ones, get some made plain, and then paint them to resemble brick or wood or whatever we feel like, and use those for haybales?

They're reusable.
They collapse if you land on them.
They weigh about a pound each.
They're easy to move.

The only downside right off the bat is that they aren't cheap but I bet we could figure out some way to make them cheaply or find them cheaply.

Regards

Jonathan Blackbow

A link would be cool.

What is it? I don't see any pictures...so I'm lost.

oops. I put it in there but it didn't stick.


http://www.displays2go.com/Product.aspx?ID=15818

http://www.displays2go.com/Product.aspx?ID=15820

Oh yeah, that'll hold up great when I fling a 300lb shieldman through it...

your link isn't working for me.. I get a velcro popup banner and a yard sign.

Ashraf: I think he's talking about using it for ground cover, not for battle scenarios.

I believe the velcro popup banners and yardsigns are exactly what he's on about.

They're reusable.
They collapse if you land on them.
They weigh about a pound each.
They're easy to move.

I don't think the items shown in the links would stand up to combat. All too often people are falling against and fighting over our "walls" these items would simply collapse if some one was to bounce off one.

I'd be tempted to think they'd be better than Hay Bales, though.

Hay is a trip hazard of extreme proportions, and it leaves a mess on the field when a bale gets destroyed, and it looks rather like ass.

These may still be a trip hazard, although they'd fall flat, so the guy would just fall on them, and although they'd probably still look suboptimal...from 100 feet away, I think it'd look *bettter*...maybe not *perfect*, but we're not gonna get perfect short of fighting on an actual bridge.

three words... Inflatable, Bouncy, Castle.

I not positive but we use very little hay anymore at estrella. For bridge edges we nail planks to the ground. We have our erector set castle village playset (comes with warriors from all ages lay siege with your friends this weekend) and i think that is it i don't think we had any haybales this last year.

At Trillium War this past summer, Jarl Berus brought plastic barrels which were attacked together to form various structures. That seemed to work pretty well.

Ah, more plastic barrels on the field... (JOKE!)

With all the road construction in Ohio right now, we should use orange barrels... A 9' wide bridge would be like driving down I-75!

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But...but...but, how could you body check anyone over one of those?

You body check people through them.

http://www.sportsgraphicsinc.com/Side-Liners.html

http://wallpaddingsolutions.com/sideline-barriers.php

Eh?


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Reminiscent of a "mine" battle they tried at Blackstone Raids a number of years ago -- a PVC frame with hefty-bag "walls".

When we saw it, those of us who were actually hoping for a real "mine" battle (it was West Virginia... they actually have LOTS've coal mines, right?), simply laughed and made bets as to how long the "tissue paper" would last before fighters would blow through it and destroy the whole shebang.

Nanoseconds was about right.

Max Von Halstern

I would have a few questions:

WHEN the fiberglass rods break, do they have sharp protrusions?

Can the corner pieces that hold it together fall apart when fallen upon?

Can pointy bits get into bargrills?

I would guess they are designed for occasionally being fallen on, whereas in a bridge battle they will be regularly be fallen on. Can they really stand up to our abuse?

If you want to go that route, I'd suggest looking into using siloflex tubing instead of fiberglass. It has a proven track record of standing up to abuse, and is >1" in diameter so can't go into bargrills.

Chris

They used to do the mine at Blackstone with 2x4s and HEAVY black plastic sheeting (like the kind used for landscaping). Stood up reasonably well.

I miss the mine fight. It was fun.

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Diglach mac Cein wrote:http://www.sportsgraphicsinc.com/Side-Liners.html

http://wallpaddingsolutions.com/sideline-barriers.php

Eh?


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Those look like they would work...but at 900 bucks for an 18 foot section...is that justifiable?

MJBlazek wrote:three words... Inflatable, Bouncy, Castle.

But -- NO SPURS.

Or for sure, you'll sink into the swamp.

But where is the fun of the Allergy Attack after you move them?

Out here in the Western US, there would be some weird time paradox where they would get destroyed BEFORE lay-on, due to the ferocity of our fighting styles...

...and we'd end up in some weird parallel universe where Nissan doesn't have a goatee, and Animal Weretiger teaches a graduate course in English flower arrangements of the 19th Century...

ROFLMAO

That is all. XD

The cost is an issue with these, but let me add to the hatred of hay bales. They're no fun to trip over. They're no fun when some 300 pound guy trips over one and falls on me. It sucks to carry them. They're itchy. They fall apart, and nobody ever seems to know whether or not we can fight over them.

Yeah, pricey. Fit the bill though, might give us a starting point on alternatives.
Plus you could get them printed in a "wood" or "stone" pattern to improve the look at a distance.

I recall a couple of Pennsics were the buildings in the town battle had sheet walls - IIRC, the bottom 1/2 of the sheet wasn't attached to the upright, so people falling into them fell through without tearing the whole shooting match up.

Andrew Sterner wrote:

Diglach mac Cein wrote:http://www.sportsgraphicsinc.com/Side-Liners.html

http://wallpaddingsolutions.com/sideline-barriers.php

Eh?


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Those look like they would work...but at 900 bucks for an 18 foot section...is that justifiable?

I can just imagine these getting booted around and scattered on a bridge battle where everyone is trying to cram on it.

actually I don't see a reason why we couldn't use a 4' x 6 ' version of this.

http://www.dormco.com/Pop_Up_Foldable_H ... o-4107.htm

paint the mesh fabric whatever colors you want, brick, stone, haybales, whatever.

edit: looks like it's just four ovals of braided wire held together by the cloth. We shall see.

Blackbow

Honestly, what is needed is a "lego" style set up.
Sections of wall with seperate joining posts.
the Calontir Lilies War Castle:








The hitch is how do you keep them standing?
At Lilies the castle is kept up by drilling holes in the ground and inserting the joining posts. This works pretty well, except that if you want to change the castle configuration you have to add more holes, and then try and fill the ones not used. AND after so many years of doing this, your battle field becomes erroded and filled with potholes.

Now, I think this same system could be modified to use metal plate feet that can be staked down. When moving pull up the stakes and restake in a different place. No holes needed.

Re the original pop-up barriers;

I can't see how they could look anything other than obtrusively modern.

Surely you don't want to litter the field with more blatant modernity if you have any other option?

What would Ursus say?

If you painted them to look like wood/stone/haybales? I thought I mentioned that in the original post but I guess not. My bad. Basically just spraypaint the mesh with a stencil.

Blackbow

Robert of Canterbury wrote:Re the original pop-up barriers;

I can't see how they could look anything other than obtrusively modern.

Surely you don't want to litter the field with more blatant modernity if you have any other option?

What would Ursus say?

blackbow wrote:If you painted them to look like wood/stone/haybales? I thought I mentioned that in the original post but I guess not. My bad. Basically just spraypaint the mesh with a stencil.

Blackbow

What you would end up with is the same effect as painting a stone facade on the side of an RV.

That collapses when someone runs into it.

And? We make allowances all the time for stuff like that and I don't know any better way to get to the point where you can put walls/etc into scenarios. If anybody's got any better ideas, I'm all ears.

Note: "don't do it" is not a better idea.

Blackbow

InsaneIrish wrote:

blackbow wrote:If you painted them to look like wood/stone/haybales? I thought I mentioned that in the original post but I guess not. My bad. Basically just spraypaint the mesh with a stencil.

Blackbow

What you would end up with is the same effect as painting a stone facade on the side of an RV.

blackbow wrote:And? We make allowances all the time for stuff like that and I don't know any better way to get to the point where you can put walls/etc into scenarios. If anybody's got any better ideas, I'm all ears.

Umm, look above at my first post.
It's worked for Lilies for about 10 years now. Solve the hole in the ground problem and you are good to go.