Some Russian's fighting with steel swords...

[Damion]

[BigMac]

[Victorius]

[Colin]

At some point, Victor, I really need to clear up your mechanics if you truly believe what you just wrote. Do you have any plans to be in Wellington (like the NZ WMA Convention) at any point in the future?

[Victorius]

[stefano]

Regarding http://youtube.com/watch?v=SjwZO9gd_Ow&feature=related

I agree with Damion, this is a mixture of competent, if not experienced, and less experienced fighters.

I also agree with Inigo, the rules they are using apparently prohibits thrusts, which makes it a bit safer at the expense of that dimension of real combat.

None of them seem terribly experienced at melee team work tactics, but perhaps that's part of the game they are playing. They are certainly generally taking high body positions into charges and weapon range, none appear to be trying to repel opposition charges, and the resultant melees are almost if not always scrappy free-for-alls.

Their armour seems to be pretty solid, even compared to SCA heavies; even the ones with what appear to be relatively thin helmets. Most however have solid helmets, and really quite serious armour.

As for the actual combat, there is no doubt in my mind its rougher than SCA. Many of the blows are only delivered with the arm, true enough, but also on the step forwards. Some of the gravity/crown shots, particularly by the two-hander, appear at least as strong as a high-end-of-good SCA blow.

So no, what I have seen of NAAMA combat does not do this at present at all. SCA combat is closer but a tad more genteel - SCA doesn't allow powered, or indeed unpowered shield-to-person contact, only shield-to-shield or shield-to-weapon. (Boy, it looks fun though! Perhaps a bit dangerous too? At the very least it would train people not to open their guard to a shield!)

I admit only that we could do this, but we don't at present.

If *I* wanted to do this, for instance, I think I'd fit right in skill-wise.

But I'd need:
- more complete shoulder and torso armour (for instance full shoulders and upper arms, and full torso armour, including the gap between their thigh/knee armour and their torso armour, none of which I generally wear for SCA heavy combat - as an aside, my kidney and abdomenal armour is substantial, but I wear no more than a padded jack over my ribs),
- perhaps be a bit fitter,
- and grow a pair! ;)

Cheers

Alistair aka Stefano


Damion wrote:

Their fighting skills are variable, some have really bad footwork, some don't. One tripped over a body and decided that made him dead, another fell over after charging into the other side and over balancing. Those shots did not look that hard and many were rotated from the elbow only.

Kills seemed to be any shot that landed and might have bitten if real force had been applied. A lot of the shots started from the back (what someone reckoned was people carrying the swords on their shoulders), but there wasn't much in the way of force behind them from what I saw. There were no thrusts and no shots at the neck or side of the head.

Why that man was limping I have no idea, maybe he was injured in the fighting, maybe he pulled a muscle or twisted his knee; it's pointless speculating on that as we don't know.

They're not amazing, but they're making a good job of it and look better than we do in the main. Fighting wise I reckon most longer term naamarites would give them a run for their money provided the gear level was similar.


Inigo wrote:

Those Russians look like they're fighting to me. I believe the rules are "stop hitting them when they go down", which is certainly a more medieval rule set than either the SCA or NAAMA use.

They're not using thrusts, which is probably pretty sensible and, unless I'm mistaken - a reasonably period "rule" for a tournament fought on foot.

There are a few people on this forum, perhaps not used to heavy armoured combat, unjustly critisizing the footwork. But I think, for the most part it looks pretty sensible to me. They're keeping stable body positions and using their armour as armour. They're happily ignoring solid blows that they know their armour can absord. They are using charges and body position in conjunction with solid blows to knock people over.

Aside from the mish-mash of period of armour, I can imagine a foot tournament 600 years ago looking pretty similar to this.

Admit it, they're doing it better than we are.

[Oskar der Drachen]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=76rQv6Emaf4&NR=1

I think I'm more impressed with this link

"Heavy Metal Combat" links, there seem to be several of them. Not only steel weapons, but some serious attempts at grappling, and hand to hand combat as well.

I've played at Grappling in the SCA in our Academy, but nothing like this seems to be. I **LIKE** it! Do any of the NAAMA systems use methods like this?

http://www.youtube.com/profile?user=HeavyMetalCombat for all the posts under this name

[stefano]

Regarding http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=76rQv6Emaf4&NR=1

Um... I have to say I'm not so impressed with this link... not exactly sure why... I think its the showboating :|

Still, grappling, hey? Yes, it would definitely be more fun, and more dangerous, to have grappling.

I can recall several instances where I have seen or used grappling allowed in WMA stuff in the past. Inigo and I did a demo at a big dance party many years ago where we, er, 'played fast and loose' with the SCA combat rules for the crowd - I think I headbutted him as we grappled?

I've seen this style of thing where two fighters who are experienced, and experienced at fighting each other, go mano-a-mano; and where the two fighters are experienced, and experienced at fighting each other, it is probably pretty safe.

I think the most spectacular of this that I can recall would be two guys from Brisbane, Cornelius and Sebastian, at Abbey Museum festival one year, where they went from spear and shield to sword and shield to sword to grappling to rolling on the ground fisticuffs. This wasn't necessarily free sparring, but it certainly wasn't controlled either.

On the other hand, I also recall playing 'deathball'. What is 'deathball'? Village football between two teams of regenerating SCA heavy combatants. Well OK, we played on a hockey field (the goals were the regeneration points), and I think we used small soccer ball. Many of the combatants were fighting single sword so they could pick the ball up in their off hand.

I recall doing quite well myself, being that I played schoolboy soccer for years, and I did a beautiful flying headbutt at Cornelius that knocked him over, boy that was fun. (Yes, I daresay I have a thing for headbutting.)

Less fun was the two big guys who fell over each other and sustained a fractured skull and a fractured collar bone respectively, or the two or three other minor injuries - I think there were two further sprained ankles and a sprained or broken finger before we called it a day and *never played deathball again.*

Yes, it would definitely be more fun, and more dangerous, to have grappling.

[Oskar der Drachen]

There is a bit of showboating, but these guys do seem to have a compensating sense of humor.

I really like the Florentine Frying Pans vs. Great Crutch and Folding Chair.

It reminds me of a tourney we had once where you were allowed to bring invented weapons. The winner of the day was Robert, using short double bitted axe and Hostage. Said Hostage being a blond braided life sized "tied up" stuffed woman-doll with an impressive clevage. He strapped a handle to the middle of her back and used her in "offensive shield" fashion.

[Bogue]

And Oskar der Drachen did put forth this;

[BigMac]

[Damion]

[Scott]