Questions, Chainmail, Warhammer

[Thirsty Viking]

Is chainmail considered a hard armor for the bonus
damage given by Mass weapons?

Using the spike on a war hammer would be a swung
puncture attack right?....  will these charts be in flower
of battle.

[Mokkurkalfe]

Regarding swung puncture attacks.
I use the puncture charts. With a little imagination, it works just fine.

My(non-expert) guess is that any armor that's more or less flexible does not count as hard armor. So, I personally do not call chainmail hard. OTOH, I'm very unsure meself...

[Lance D. Allen]

I likewise do not call Chainmail hard armor. I personally define hard armor as armor designed so that the protective factor comes from the rigidity of it's construction. In that case, only plate, coats of plates, etc. would count as hard armor in my book. Chainmail and some sorts of leather (I'm dubious about Cuirboulli, as I've never actually seen a piece of Cuirboulli, and do not therefore know how rigid it actually is) would not count, due to their flexibility.

[Durgil]

I'm dubious about Cuirboulli, as I've never actually seen a piece of Cuirboulli, and do not therefore know how rigid it actually is

I've read that leather boiled in wax is very close in weight and in its protective ability to metal plates and was probably used quite a bit in training and tournements due to its much lower cost and ease of fabrication.  I would also suspect that due to it being an organic material that none of it would survive to the modern day.

[Lance D. Allen]

I do know that modern techniques are pretty close to duplicating what they had back then. I imagine that they had various tricks that have yet to be rediscovered, but I know those armorers who do Cuirboulli are working on improving their understanding of how this armor was made during the period.

[Valamir]

Jake was counting chain mail as Hard for purposes of the damage bonus for a pole axe in the game I played with him at Gen Con.

I would imagine that a hard swung spike would be rather effective at bursting through the lightly riveted rings.