The Armour Archive

Not to derail the baskethilt thread:
viewtopic.php?f=2&t=139034

What is the legality of using a Buckler for extra hand protection while using a Great/Bastard sword?
Can you pull the buckler away and use it as a shield? Can you block with it while holding the sword with the buckler hand??

My understanding is that while you are gripping both the buckler AND the weapon, the buckler becomes a passive defense and any shot taken to the buckler that would normally have hit a legal target must be taken as such.

However, if you release the weapon with the buckler hand, the buckler then becomes an active defense and is thus a shield/buckler like normal.

The catching being that the buckler must be controlled by the hand. You can not strap a buckler to your forearm and call it a shield. At that point it is passive defense only.

A bit like the finger-bucklers some people wear over their finger gauntlets, then. Just a bit bigger and more useful as a standalone shield.

Items like finger bucklers, that only cover the fingers/hand are passive defense, but since the hand is not a legal target it is a mute point.

I GUESS an arguement could be made that if someone were to remove a finger bucklered hand from the weapon and proceed to block shots with the finger buckler, it would be legal. But, they would have to be DAMNED accurate with it and not get their hand hit as that would be target substitution.

Speaking from the Midrealm:

Yes it's legal

Yes, you can block with it away from the sword

Yes, you can block with it while holding the sword.

As long as it's big enough to not be considered part of your gauntlet, and actively controlled by your hand, it's a shield. And 'big enough', in this case, ain't very big. I've seen them as small as 8 inches or so in diameter. The tiny finger bucklers (4" dia.) are too small, I believe.

In our kingdom, it is hand protection if you have a weapon in your hand. It isn't terribly workable with our rule set.

Legal in the East.

InsaneIrish wrote: a mute point

Yes, very quiet.
Also MOOT.

-Tegan
Yeah, I hate grammar nazis but everyone has things that push them over the edge and this is one of mine. Taking up space on a thread without contributing to the conversation is another.

Oh. Damn me.

Oh, good. I'm not the only one whose brain twitches at mute/moot.

Keegan Ingrassia wrote:Oh, good. I'm not the only one whose brain twitches at mute/moot.

This.

There IS one case of the use I appreciate, though. During a rather heated discussion, one party declared, "It's a mute point!"

"Don't you mean a moot point?"

"No, I mean a mute point. I don't want to talk about it anymore!"

Wouldn't controlling a Buckler and Greatsword with a thrusting tip constitute basically a Madu which is legal?

Rey

Thinking about it, since the hand is not a legal target area anyway, a buckler that doesn't cover much more than the hand and wrist wouldn't add that much coverage when the hand is gripping the sword, but would be of sufficient size to give some parrying ability. I used to have a flat buckler that I carried on my off hand when fighting with a spear, and I never had any marshal caution me about it being in any way improper.

I know several people who fight Spear and shield. As Long as you have a hand controlling the Shield (ie a strap/handle in your hand) then it's considered a shield not a passive piece of Armour.

InsaneIrish wrote:Items like finger bucklers, that only cover the fingers/hand are passive defense, but since the hand is not a legal target it is a mute point.

MOOT POINT, not freaking MUTE POINT!!!!!

Gosh that's a pet peeve of mine.

Sorry.

g-

Join the club, your Grace.

We're thinking of making t-shirts.

Tegan wrote:

InsaneIrish wrote: a mute point

Yes, very quiet.
Also MOOT.

-Tegan
Yeah, I hate grammar nazis but everyone has things that push them over the edge and this is one of mine. Taking up space on a thread without contributing to the conversation is another.

Oh. Damn me.

Did anyone else just get a mental flash to an episode of friends?

"It's a moo point."
"Don't you mean a moot point?"
"No a moo point. Something that only cows talk about."

Did the SEM ever issue a final ruling on this? I asked him about it and he was, at that time, still undecided but leaning towards the view of a hand can only control one item at a time so it's passive. If you look at the marshals handbook it is undefined. (Which to me means that it's legal, though some folks go a bit cheesy with it and have a long narrow "buckler" covering their forearm, which I personally don't like)

There's a guy from up Endless Hills ways that fights great sword with a big ole shield on his left arm. the shield moves with his every swing as the shield is strapped to his left hand as well. This in effect makes it a working shield..

There's a knight in my area (East Kingdom) who uses an L shaped shield on his left arm when fighting 9 ft spear. I believe it straps to his arm and I'm certain that it has a handle.

-Tegan

What an intensely SCAdian question...

Isn't the sword in two hands enough? If you can't defend yourself with that, why do you bother using it?

I never could understand the desire to hold a two handed blade upside down in the left hand and a single handed sword in the right. Watching people fight with it is like watching two walruses try to mate. Every so often you flip the long thing up there and jab it out in the hopes it lands somewhere but it often just sags down limp in dissapointment.

Leo Medii wrote:...it often just sags down limp in dissapointment.

That's what she said...

-Tegan

#SomeoneHadToSayIt

Kel Rekuta wrote:What an intensely SCAdian question...

Isn't the sword in two hands enough? If you can't defend yourself with that, why do you bother using it?

+1

Keegan Ingrassia wrote:Oh, good. I'm not the only one whose brain twitches at mute/moot.

Sorry my bad, my brain said moot, my fingers said mute. I'm lysdexic....so seu me!

I once posted a pic from a fectbuch where one of the combatants was holding his longsword Madu-style with another weapon in his off hand. That made people shut up for a couple of years...I got it on the ARMA site.

There is a style I have rarely seen employed that has re-emerged here in my Barony. The first person I ever saw fight this way was Sir Michael the Quiet. Anyway, he used a sword about a yard long that had a crossguard on it and a low-profile pommel made from a pipe cap. The handle was probably long enough to leave about two inches between the hands. The trick is making the pommel NOT bulge out at all, so that you can hold the bottom of the handle in the palm of your hand. On his left hand he had a buckler about ten inches wide that was a slightly-dished and had a rolled edge. It must have been 12g steel. I made mine out of a aluminum disc that had a leather covering. The trick was to make sure the buckler didn't stick out too far past your hand.

He would fight two-handed with that thing. Then, without any warning at all, he could one-shot you or leg you with that thing by reaching out with the pommel in his palm, effectively hitting you while you couldn't hit him. He could grab your sword handle and wrap you with ease.

I did it for so long (and I got so strong) that I was eventually using a five foot sword in this fashion. I could reach out and tag a guy when he was ridiculously far away. I could wrap a guy with a five foot greatsword with ease back then. My arms were twice the size they are now.

There are two guys in our local group that have been fighting two-handed with crossguard swords that are under a yard in length. Talk about brutal- somebody's hand is gonna get munched, and soon.

http://www.thearma.org/Manuals/Gladiato ... atoria.htm

There ya go- inverted sword used madu-style.

Rey wrote:I know several people who fight Spear and shield. As Long as you have a hand controlling the Shield (ie a strap/handle in your hand) then it's considered a shield not a passive piece of Armour.

I used to fight this form alot at Pennsic, using a heater with a slight lance cut out just so the hand would not stick out beyond the edge of the shield. It has to be controlled by the hand so one strap on the arm and one across the hand. I haven't used it in ages, because when they began allowing face thrusting at Pennsic the shield no longer provided much defense like it did when the body was the prime target. Used to go into banner guard with the spear and shield in the left hand and a sword in the right and block while the poles in support would slaughter the shieldmen bouncing off me.

Vitus von Atzinger wrote:http://www.thearma.org/Manuals/Gladiatoria/Gladiatoria.htm

There ya go- inverted sword used madu-style.

Inverted sword yes, "madu-style" no.

These images portray techniques from the spear/longsword/dagger judicial duel.



Note that the dude on the left is holding his inverted sword by the grip rather than by the ricasso as is usually done in the SCA-created 'Crusader style".



Inverted grip with the right hand, and yes, it looks like he's going to thrust with it. He's going for the groin, that's the only remotely vulnerable opening besides armpits and eyeslots on these harnesses.

However, I'm not arguing that an inverted grip for parrying or thrusting is not an historical style, just that it in no way translates into justification for a double-ended-stabby-thing-with-a-buckler-in-the-middle for use by armored knights.

I guess to me, there is a right way to use a sword, and a wrong way to use one. If you want to thrust with it, thrust with it and make it count. Don't flick it out like some horny frog on PCP with your wrist like a 12 year old with his first Playboy and a tissue.

Both of these thrusts are lame, be they to the face or a 2 hander upside down.

Leo Medii wrote:Don't flick it out like some horny frog on PCP with your wrist like a 12 year old with his first Playboy and a tissue.

Both of these thrusts are lame, be they to the face or a 2 hander upside down.

Heh. I need to dig out Tom Leoni's translation of Fabris and email you the part where Fabris rails against crappy thrusts, and the mechanics that make them crappy and contemptuously slapped aside.

Therion wrote:Inverted grip with the right hand, and yes, it looks like he's going to thrust with it. He's going for the groin, that's the only remotely vulnerable opening besides armpits and eyeslots on these harnesses.

However, I'm not arguing that an inverted grip for parrying or thrusting is not an historical style, just that it in no way translates into justification for a double-ended-stabby-thing-with-a-buckler-in-the-middle for use by armored knights.

He'd sure as hell stick that pommel in your eye if he had the chance, though.

YES!

Hello all,


<<<<Leo Wrote: I guess to me, there is a right way to use a sword, and a wrong way to use one.>>>>

Not to derail your topic here but a better weapons combination can be found in “Gladitoria” also employing a great sword (with a loose pommel). Simply unscrew the pommel and attempt to bean your honorable opponent in the grill ala “magic missile” style and then run the other direction when your sword falls all to pieces…LOL…

Odeane…

Done it. At a LARP game my padded pommel fell off in my hand and I threw it at my opponents head. As he reacted to the thing flying at his head I half-sword thrusted him in the upper chest and ran.

InsaneIrish wrote:

Keegan Ingrassia wrote:Oh, good. I'm not the only one whose brain twitches at mute/moot.

Sorry my bad, my brain said moot, my fingers said mute. I'm lysdexic....so seu me!

Do you have anything I'd like? It'd be a frivolous suit if I couldn't get something decent from it...

-Tegan