The Armour Archive

Counted Blows, Sword and Shield event for the HCS at Pennsic

I’m considering adding another event to the HCS this year Weapon & Shield with counted blows. I would probably run it on the first Friday, Saturday, or Sunday. Anyone interested?

There is no appearance requirement for these combats.
Recreating foot combats with sword and shield based on written accounts from the 12th and 13th centuries. Combatants will be assumed to be wearing mail armour.

A combatant who is struck by 4 telling blows will be considered unable to continue and will have lost.

A combatant who has received a thrust to the open face of a helm will have lost.

A combatant who retreats from the bounds of list will have lost.

A combatant who falls to the ground and cannot recover before his opponent can touch him with his sword will have lost.

A combatant who becomes disarmed will have lost.

A single elimination or round robin list will be used depending on the number of participants.




You have until 10pm eastern to voice opinions.

Sounds fun!

My only advice would be to make it so that the fighters "reset" after a good blow - it'll keep people from turning into a cusinart and throwing stupid/wild combinations, as well as keeping the fights clean.

-Loegaire

I respectfully disagree. I prefer counted blows in which you can keep the pressure on. "Resetting" after each good blow just seems to throw a wet blanket on the fun. The ability necessary to keep fighting after being struck is a different skills set that counted blows rules can help you acquire. We've always had good luck with counted blows, and the crowds at tourneys love them.

I tend to agree with Noe. I don’t find evidence of a “resetâ€Â

Oh, you want to do a period tourny? Why are you using sword and board then rather than a period style? (Not trying to start a pissing match, just curious). Why not do it right and use pole axes or something?

Anyway, the reason we reset is because when we do a counted blow tourny, any dude that's fighting two-stick/saber & madu/etc can easily beat a fighter he normally couldn't touch by letting the S&S guy get a shot in, then closing and pummeling him with a rain of shots while ignoring the 1-2 the opponent might get in. IMO that takes no skill whatsoever, as well as being just ugly to watch.

-Loegaire

Not precisely, I am trying to recreate foot combats from the 12th and 13th century using sword and shield. I don’t have any evidence that these were regularly done in a formal setting (tournaments at this time would have primarily done on horseback, I know of only a few examples of tournament type combat occurring on foot in this time frame). However, the literature of the time includes descriptions of such individual combats occurring on foot, just once again not in a formal setting. Rather then go through an elaborate artifice to justify such combats, I’m using a modern competitive format (round robin or single elimination) to organize the series of combats and to satisfy the modern need for a clear “best of the dayâ€Â