The Armour Archive

Asbjorn Johansen has started several threads about the Historical Combat Series. I'd like to lay out my proposal for a counted blows melee with no acting out of injuries. One of the reasons people oppose counted blows is the belief that it can't work in melee and they don't want two sets of rules (though we already have them).
In an attempt to overcome this objection I would like to conduct a counted blows melee as an experiment and demonstration. The idea is to base it on the Battle of the Thirty fought in 1351 in Brittany. The battle was fought as an arranged combat between thirty English and allied knights, squires, and men-at-arms and thirty from the French faction in Brittany.
I believe that fighting with this number of warriors is large enough to get a feel for the way counted blows will work in melee. The prevalance of transitional armour will hopefully allow us to field 60 people in nice harnesses. I don't want to emphasize the armour aspect as strongly as in the plate and maille tourney, I'd just like to see everyone in passable mid 14th century harnesses

Here are the proposed rules, I'm sure your suggestions will help me tweek them into a workable set.

14th Century weapons styles only, including spears, poleaxes, warhammers, falchions, and bastard swords, daggers, and one handed sword with shield. (all are mentioned in the primary source)

Fighters will yield and leave the field when struck five good blows. Strikes with two handed weapons will count as two good blows. Face thrusts to an open visored helm force an immediate retreat from the field.


The rules could be made more complicated to cover many of the incidents (deaths, breaking parole after yielding) that occured but I think for a first attempt the KISS principle should apply.

This is a link to a primary source description of the battle.
http://www.nipissingu.ca/department/history/muhlberger/chroniqu/texts/AINSWORT.HTM


Theodore of Haddington

I think this is a great idea, and I hope it works. The Company of St. Michael has experimented with the use of counted blows in melee combat, and, frankly, have never been satisfied with the results. The best way of handling it we've found is to have each fighter retire to his side of the lists each time he's struck. That way you can have someone keep track of the overall number of hits or the number per specific individual (although that's cumbersome). It turns out to be surprisingly difficult to keep track of the exact number of times one has been struck unless you do something like leave the field and come back in (even if people just count their own hits).

Some additional rules I might suggest:
-Touching the ground with any part of your body other than the soles of your feet counts as a hit.
-Being knocked into the lists (if you plan to enclose the battle) or outside of the boundaries (if not) counts as a hit.
-Plate is proof against thrusts; any other thrust ends the fight.
-Dropping your weapon counts as a hit, and there is no requirement that you be allowed to re-grab your weapon.


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Hugh Knight
"Welcome to the Church of the Open Field: Hunt hard, kill swiftly, waste nothing, make no apologies"

I think its a great idea. We have done counted blows over the barrier with 5 or so to a side with no problems.I think it really depends a great deal on the honesty of the combatants.....Otto

Each fighter could be given 5 ribbons or how ever many and each time he is struck he must retreat to the side of the list and give the ribbon to his lady or a lady that he deems worthy.
I also think if a fighter is driven from the list he can not return.

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sic locus dignum, sic dignus placitum http://brennus.stormloader.com/interkin.html

If you wish to get people to be excited about this then drop the face thrust thing taking you out of the lists. Plus I fear you may have some rhinoing involved if one shot will end the bout to the face.

fighters wont do anything but thrust at eachothers faces generally since that equals 5 hits.

Id suggest trying it first without thrusting then with thrusting counting one hit and then introduce the face thrust as the end shot.

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR><font face="Verdana, Arial" size="2">Originally posted by Samuel:
<B>If you wish to get people to be excited about this then drop the face thrust thing taking you out of the lists. Plus I fear you may have some rhinoing involved if one shot will end the bout to the face.

fighters wont do anything but thrust at eachothers faces generally since that equals 5 hits.

Id suggest trying it first without thrusting then with thrusting counting one hit and then introduce the face thrust as the end shot. </B></font><HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

The point of this tournament is to simulate medieval combat. The source material we have tells us that face thrusting and pushing people were very common (albeit not universal) tactics in late-period dismounted tournaments.

If that drives people away, good: There are plenty of D&D games that need players!

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Hugh Knight
"Welcome to the Church of the Open Field: Hunt hard, kill swiftly, waste nothing, make no apologies"

If i'm at Pensic

I'm there.

Sounds like heaven armour as worn
(sorta) counted blows, Real armour.

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR><font face="Verdana, Arial" size="2">Originally posted by SyrRhys:
<B> The point of this tournament is to simulate medieval combat. The source material we have tells us that face thrusting and pushing people were very common (albeit not universal) tactics in late-period dismounted tournaments.

If that drives people away, good: There are plenty of D&D games that need players!

</B></font><HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

This last little part surprises me Sir, Id thought better of you. One of the things I was told on vigil was " watch to keep your nose from getting to high, you'll fail to see who you step on." If my Humor level is low from being up early and I missed the joke. then I apologize.

I dont know but excluding the field with " you people who cant throw a shot but can poke like a fencer will win this" gives a bad mentality to many average Joe stickjocks. but if you like poking at faces all day with a crowd who know one shot is equal to five thats fine, I hear Fencing is fun too.
Personally Im not happy with the Elitist, Exclusion of 70% of the fighters, I think it helps promote if you introduce things slowly to them not stab them all in the face and soldier on.

Really, Does anyone Honestly believe having a tourney like this and killing half the bargrill crowd with thrusts in the first five seconds is going to promote them getting closed face helms? not no but hell no. BUT if you introduce them to the fun to be had in fighting a more period format slowly you will see many of them making new armor to fit in better with the theme.

Im saying something becuase if seen things like this fail to gain one person to the Fray. and Ive seen an Entire kingdom Freak out over single sword at the barrier because the time was taken to let it sink in what was to be done. Once you give a taste and people find it sweet not bitter they'll seek you out for more.




[This message has been edited by Samuel (edited 02-01-2002).]

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR><font face="Verdana, Arial" size="2">Originally posted by Samuel:
<B> This last little part surprises me Sir, Id thought better of you. One of the things I was told on vigil was " watch to keep your nose from getting to high, you'll fail to see who you step on." If my Humor level is low from being up early and I missed the joke. then I apologize.

I dont know but excluding the field with " you people who cant throw a shot but can poke like a fencer will win this" gives a bad mentality to many average Joe stickjocks. but if you like poking at faces all day with a crowd who know one shot is equal to five thats fine, I hear Fencing is fun too.
Personally Im not happy with the Elitist, Exclusion of 70% of the fighters, I think it helps promote if you introduce things slowly to them not stab them all in the face and soldier on.

Really, Does anyone Honestly believe having a tourney like this and killing half the bargrill crowd with thrusts in the first five seconds is going to promote them getting closed face helms? not no but hell no. BUT if you introduce them to the fun to be had in fighting a more period format slowly you will see many of them making new armor to fit in better with the theme.

Im saying something becuase if seen things like this fail to gain one person to the Fray. and Ive seen an Entire kingdom Freak out over single sword at the barrier because the time was taken to let it sink in what was to be done. Once you give a taste and people find it sweet not bitter they'll seek you out for more.


[This message has been edited by Samuel (edited 02-01-2002).]</B></font><HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

First, the D&D remark was supposed to be humor; note the emoticon immediately following it.

Second, There's nothing wrong with elitism; we're supposed to be recreating *knights* for heaven's sake! As for being exclusionary, well, I just don't mind being so. I see no reason to just let everyone play. Anyone who makes a good effort is welcome (in general, not just to this tournament), but anyone who refuses to accept what we know about medieval tournaments *isn't* making a good effort. We are *way* too tolerant in the mainstream SCA, and the result is a group with little relevence to it's supposed purpose. We should take a lesson from that.

As for putting out people with bar grills, the *regular* SCA rules do that already; fighters should be used to it. The real change here is that those who *aren't* wearing grilled visors can withstand a blow to the face. And I would agree with your concern if we allowed touch kills to the face; that's reducing fighting to mere fencing.

When face thrusting came into the East, one of the worries was that that was all people were going to do. Well, it turned out not to be the case. Yes, if face thrusting becomes a more deadly attack we will certainly see a rise in its use, but frankly that seems to match medieval practice, so that's not a bad thing. And it won't be as bad as you think; people will either get solid visors or learn to block.

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Hugh Knight
"Welcome to the Church of the Open Field: Hunt hard, kill swiftly, waste nothing, make no apologies"

Just adding a few more comments.

The idea behind the face thrusting rule is simply following with the ideas developed by the tourney companies to bring a disadvantage to those who chose vision and breathing over the protection of a closed helm. The major turning point in the historical battle was a face thrust that killed Pembroke the English commander, it hurt the English morale and three French prisoners rejoined the fight because they "believed" they had yielded to him and his death freed them from their vow of parole.
I would like to take it farther and make all good blows to unarmoured (no maille or plate) areas require a combatant to retire, but I figured that would be too restrictive. The melees will be fairly short so we could fight several under different rules.

As for retreating after each good blow, I would like to avoid that because it essentially becomes a resurrection battle not a counted blows melee. This is all meant to be an experiment and hopefully we can learn how to make counted blows work between honorable combatants. If we cannot get a small group to successfully fight with counted blows we will never be able to expand it through out the society.
Without acting out injuries we must fight with one blow "kills", counted blows, or just beat on each other until someone yields (which could be fun among friends). I think the only workable alternative is some system of counted blows, but it is going to take several years of experimenting to find a workable system. I essentially believe that we are stuck with kneeling, and other problems until an alternative set of rules is workable for both tourney and melee. I doubt we can get major rules changes if we conceded that the current rules are the only ones that will work in a melee.

I think we should be trying to show the rest of the SCA that alternatives can be found if we try.

Theodore of Haddington


[This message has been edited by Theodore (edited 02-02-2002).]