Bastard sword and shield

[Poleaxe]

Ralph wrote:

"Ok...except that all shields above a buckler give a CP penalty, the larger ones -2 or more. Well, 10 dice vs TN 6 gives 5 successes. 8 dice (10 -2 die penalty) vs. TN 5 gives 4.8. This is worse than simply using a sword to parry. "

Actually, from what I remember, the buckler is NOT the only shield without a CP penalty.  A small round shield also does not have a CP penalty, but it may have a move penalty.

You could rule that shields don't give full AV on a partially succesful block, just a point or two.  Experiment and see what happens.

I am curious to see how much and what changes for shields in TFOB.  I don't think the shield rules are perfect, but they seem (like just about everything else in TROS) to be easily tweakable.

-Alan

[Lance D. Allen]

I can't speak with a *lot* of real world experience.. But about the only way I know to take down a shieldman is to *not* hit the shield. The SCA has essentially unbreakable shields, but so does TRoS.

There is a reason why most SCA fighters start out "sword and board" It's a highly defensive style, and a highly effective one.

Jake would probably be better able to tell how realistic this is, but it mirrors my experience pretty damned well.

I would probably also add the caveat that this rule does not take effect if you feint (because the shield isn't really where the attack is going to be..), and it also allows for shields to be bound, or double strikes, etc.

[Valamir]

Good points Lance.

However...and this is just the mental imagining of how it would work in play...not actual play.

It's a highly defensive style

I'm thinking this rule might turn sword and shield into a highly offensive style, by allowing you to use significantly fewer dice on defense and leaving more dice to attack with.

But perhaps that additional offensive capability can be viewed as an abstraction of the many offensive uses for a shield that aren't specifically modeled with maneuvers.


Is Brian or Jake willing to weigh in on what the proposed shield changes are for TFOB?  Might render the speculation moot.

[Drifter Bob]

I think the deal with this is that most Fechtbuchs don't teach much if anything about the shield, (in fact really only I33 focuses on them and then only bucklers) and as a result, the Fencing schools which are the source of real life information for this combat system do not really empahsise them.

I am probably one of the few people who does WMA these days that has a lot (more than 10 yrs) of experience with the shield in full contact WMA sparring, and I can say for a fact, you can indeed use them in a very offensive manner, utilizing the bind and strike particularly.  

On the other hand, you still do lose initiative to an opponent with a longer reached weapon, and it takes a lot of experience to be really effective with the shield.  In the hands of someone fairly new, it can be worse than useless, because it grants a false sense of security and also blocks your vision of your opponent to some degree.

As for coverage, generally when facing a large shield you can only strike at their head and shoulders, their lower legs and feet, or wait for them to strike and catch them with a counter on their attacking arm or their body.

One of the other standard techniques is to feint high and attack low, or the other way around.

This is born out by forensic / archeoligical evidence.  For example the majority of the skelletons on the Wisby battlefield had injuries to their lower left legs.

JR

[Drifter Bob]

Example of aggressive use of the shield against a longer weapon

http://bellsouthpwp.net/d/e/deodand23/shield2.mpg

[Hereward The Wake]

Certainly sword and shield is highly offensive style. In fact if you become defensive with it you will be in more problems. It is then easy to get in on them and use the shield to tie them up. Another tactic is to grab their shield to help push or pull them off balance. Even when a centre grip shield, you find that people don't want to let go of it even when they feel themsleves being pulled around by it.

One can use the shield to redirect attacks while moving inside the range of an opponents weapon, as shown in the clip. You can use it to hit with, using edge, flat, and boss if a centre grip shield.

Talhoffer shows the use of the judicial dueling shield in combination with a sword, and their it is used pretty offensively. The main reason for it not being more featured, is that by the time most of the manuals are being written, the shield is not really being used by the classes, at whom the manuals are being aimed.

All the best

JW

[Drifter Bob]

In fairness to wolfen though, re: the SCA practices he mentions, it is easier to parry or deflect a blow with a shield than it is with a sword, which is indeed why many SCA fighters start out with sword and shield.  It is of course doubly so when fighting by SCA rules which I believe prohibit attacking the lower legs!

It's also similarly skewed in LARP where you cannot attack the head.

JR

[Lance D. Allen]

I was actually going to mention that, Bob. That is one of the aspects that makes SCA heavy fighting more "sport" than martial art.

But even so, I think you're definitely underestimating the value of a defensive style. In a style where the only parts you're available to be hit are the legs, head and one arm until you extend yourself, it's fairly easy to defend until your opponent gives you a proper opening for a counter. There are definitely weaknesses to such a strategy, but there are weaknesses to any strategy.

You should also consider that a lot of SCA techniques are more geared toward melee combat. What works in one-on-one dueling doesn't work nearly the same way in the press of melee. Even a longsworder, or someone with a lighter shield doesn't have the easy mobility to take advantage of the shieldman's defensive tactics. Additionally, it's more difficult to even get close because of the spearmen, and if you were to drop your sword to go for a lower leg, you'd be breaking the line between your own body and your opponent's weapon.

[Hereward The Wake]

Where the tactics of a melee change the situation, some of the thinsg I have mentioned workery well with the shield. Drivong my shield into my opponents works btter here as they are less able to move with it and then often find themselves restricted and blocked by their own shield, leaving them easier to thrust at or hit. Grabbing and pulling the shield top down works very well to. This is a tactic described by Tacitus, as being used by Germanic tribesmen, when attempting to break the roman formations.

[Jake Norwood]

I'm gonna pop in for a minute...

The original (like, 1999) shield rules for TROS were written to discourage shield use, because they're not as glamorous. For the first printing I tried to remedy that, and again even more in the second, but I have to agree that shields are much more useful IRL than often pans out in TROS.

But not as much as some would propose.

First, ditch the CP penalties for heaters and smaller. Using the shield is part of your Proficiency, and you shouldn't be penalized for it.

Second, there's a set of "favoring" rules coming out in TFOB which will account more for what your shield defends at any given time.  I like them.  What's funny is that Brian wrote them for shield and I wrote them for swords and the like, and the two rules ended up being almost identical.

Third, I suppose that you could drop the DTN to 4, but I'm not going to.  In TROS (even as it stands), the big advantage to the shield isn't its defensive properties, but the maneuvers that it opens up--simultaneous blocking and striking, bind-and-strike, etc.  

Jake

[Drifter Bob]

How about instead of a CP penalty, force the player with a shield to reserve a minimum amount of CP on Defense?

JR

[toli]

Second, there's a set of "favoring" rules coming out in TFOB

What exactly do you mean by favoring.  Do you mean preferentially defending certain body areas more than others?

[[MKF]Kapten]

[...] This is born out by forensic / archeoligical evidence.  For example the majority of the skelletons on the Wisby battlefield had injuries to their lower left legs.

JR

Just a minor nitpick: The town's name is Visby with a "V". It still exists (with the same ringwall as the one the battle was fought outside intact).

[Jake Norwood]

Second, there's a set of "favoring" rules coming out in TFOB

What exactly do you mean by favoring.  Do you mean preferentially defending certain body areas more than others?

[slaps forehead for saying to much]

Yeah, something like that...

Jake

[Lance D. Allen]

How about instead of a CP penalty, force the player with a shield to reserve a minimum amount of CP on Defense?

..I think this idea has merit, but as I'm not a shieldsfighter, I can't speak as to how accurate it would be.