Medieval fighting In real life!

[Ferox]

Hey I know this is the general discussion for M&B and theres no "off topic" forums, so I figured you guys would be interested in this. If you guys feel like this isnt appropriate for the forum please delete.

One of the things I enjoy doing is historical middle ages fighting with a group called the SCA(society for creative anachronism).

This group is approx a million strong with members everywhere from New York to New Guinea. our goal is to recreate historical middle ages life through education, study , and practice. No there are no wizards or elves or any fantasy things.


Here are some pictures, the first bunch is of me in my armor,tabbard, and black cloak, yes its a real one that i have slept in many a cold night, cost me around $130.

http://www.the-inquisition.com/images/sca1.gif

http://the-inquisition.com/jc1.jpg

http://the-inquisition.com/jc2.jpg
http://the-inquisition.com/jc3.jpg

http://the-inquisition.com/jc4.jpg
http://the-inquisition.com/jc5.jpg

http://the-inquisition.com/jc6.jpg
http://the-inquisition.com/jc7.jpg

http://the-inquisition.com/jc8.jpg


here are some other pictures of combat and other things.



http://www.the-inquisition.com/images/sca2.jpg

http://www.the-inquisition.com/images/sca3.jpg


http://www.the-inquisition.com/images/sca4.jpg


http://www.the-inquisition.com/images/sca5.jpg


http://www.the-inquisition.com/images/sca6.jpg

http://www.the-inquisition.com/images/sca7.jpg

http://www.the-inquisition.com/images/sca8.jpg


The fighting is full force , I have a real set of steel armor, and of course we use UNPADDED wood. If we used steel I would not be alive to tell you of the group . it can be dangerous of course, people have been seriously hurt doing this, but it is a extremely rare situation that something does happen because everyone is really a brother even if they are your enemy.

We practice how we know/think that soldiers trained and learned back in the middle ages. The group I belong to is run by a bunch of marines, our leader is actually over in Iraq right now unfortunently. We use wolf pack tactics and are very disciplined compared to most other SCA units. We as a group of 20 can regularly take on groups of 100 men and win to do it again.

here is the link for my House's website. Our leader also makes steel armor, i actually helped make my own armor so it was cheaper then if i would of bought it off his website.



http://www.housebloodguard.com/index.htm

I have been in battles with 5,000+ people.. if you ever saw braveheart, imagine those battles but without the real weapons, that is what i do. When the battle is over we have fun and drink home brewed mead and beer all night and get plastered hehe.

 

[Noneoftheabove]

That looks really fun, and dangerous too I might add!

 

[Nairagorn]

Looks like fun. I'd love to get to shoot a trebuchet. Is that for target shooting or do you fill it with water baloons or somethng and shoot at people?

 

[mulaeeH]

even with waterbaloon i think it would hurt to get one on you because of the massive amount of force used to accelerate the projectile.

 

[SniperGuy]

even with waterbaloon i think it would hurt to get one on you because of the massive amount of force used to accelerate the projectile.

Not if you're wearing steel armor.


Those pictures remind me of LARP'ers. There's a hilarious video on the internet somewhere of a guy throwing ping pong balls at this huge guy with an axe screaming "lightning bolt!" at the top of his lungs.

 

[Ferox]

hehe yeah , except Larp is live action role play, and fantasy. Like i said theres no wizards elves and dwarves in SCA, just historical medieval combat , full force.


It's the closest youll ever get to mount and blade unless you used real fully functional weapons and chopped eachother up.

 

[mulaeeH]

do you use horses when you fight?

 

[Ferox]

I dunno about other places but we wouldnt be able to use Horses by law in america.


The animal people would go nuts and kill us . Plus horses are very expensive to risk being hurt.

 

[NorphTehDwarf]

And horses are a lot more delicate than we are.

 

[mulaeeH]

mmm mcdonalds hamburger norph teh pvk2

 

[NorphTehDwarf]

mmm.... hampvk.

 

[Balor]

Well, I've been in a similar organization, and I agree it's a blast (prepare that you'll have to undergo a rather tedious and intense practice for at least half a year before 'real fun' starts, though).
And it's really safe - much safer then boxing, I'd say... if you will use proper protection. Going against someone with a falchion (even radically blunt one, of course) when all you wear is chainmail + coif and padded armor is asking for heavy bruising at best and broken bones at worst.
If you'll decide to join some historical fencing club (where they use real weapon to fight, of course, I'm not talking about rapiers and wooden-only weapons), and they'll tell you that plate (splint, etc) armor is for wussies - run like hell. We have similar club in our town (there are a few historic fencing clubs here), and they have very high 'rotation' in their ranks, due to constant traumas. Unless you are a masochist, of course .

 

[Ferox]

heh, I stay away from the "fencing" groups, they dont offer what the SCA does imo.



I have only fought full force fully functional(fully sharpened and ready for combat) weapons once... and I'll never do it again haha, I like my life. As far as I know theres not even a "group" that does that, it was just between a friend and myself.

 

[NorphTehDwarf]

Does hitting each other with clubs count as historical? I mean, the club predates even the axe. Also, if it counts, then I have a LOT of historical fighting experience. Me and my friends used to have a bareknuckle boxing league, but it got boring so we legalized clubs, and used 'em till one guy (me) got a concussion.

 

[Penult]

Hey Ferox, greetings from An Tir! Don't forget about Rapier Fighting! The blades may not be sharp but it IS live steel. If you guys are really into getting bruises and don't want to be medieval European you can always go Kendo. But Kendo doesn't do mass combat. War kicks ass!

Pennsic War pics! 10,000 harmless historical nuts!
http://history.westkingdom.org/Year36/Photos/Pennsic.htm

 

[Kevar]

I usually think LARP-esque things are pretty blah but this actually seems pretty cool. Are there any people in your group that are particularly better fighters than the others? And in combat, when does a battle end? When a person gets hit or knocked to the ground (ouch) or..?

 

[Ferox]

of course there are amazing fighters and so so fighters. When I was 19 we had a fighter who ended up being the only one left of our WHOLE ARMY against like 100 of the enemy.


They were nice enough to line up and do 1 v 1 combat against him and he killed like 10 guys before they got bored and swarmed him hahah.


This guy was one of the best, and fastest, fighters I ever saw. He is not with our group anymore though as he became a "knight" and made his own group.


how you become "knight" is that you are trained by another knight as a squire and you become a master of all fighting forms.. then your a knight.

 

[mulaeeH]

of course there are amazing fighters and so so fighters. When I was 19 we had a fighter who ended up being the only one left of our WHOLE ARMY against like 100 of the enemy.


They were nice enough to line up and do 1 v 1 combat against him and he killed like 10 guys before they got bored and swarmed him hahah.


This guy was one of the best, and fastest, fighters I ever saw. He is not with our group anymore though as he became a "knight" and made his own group.


how you become "knight" is that you are trained by another knight as a squire and you become a master of all fighting forms.. then your a knight.

that is very very very amazing. when i grow up ill join a similar group lol it seems sweet.

 

[Penult]

Well, in the Kingdom of An Tir (www.antir.sca.org) where I live you can start fighting when you are 16. As long as you have the permission of your parent or guardian. As far as determining when someone dies it really depends on your honour. Remember that SCA heavy combat is full strength, full speed. So when you get hit you have to decide if that was a blow that would have penetrated if the weapon was a real one.

What does that mean? Lets say I hit you with my weapon. You decide it was not good enough. So what do I do? I hit harder next time!

I do a lot of heralding at tourneys so I get to see a lot of fights up close. I've seen some incredible fights and I've seen some blowouts too. Larps are nice and all but nothing beats actually beating on your opponent

 

[Ferox]

Hail to An Tir !


I know of An Tir very well, and have fought with and against its subjects hehe. What you speak of under age combat is SCA truth, you have to be 18 to fight with the big boys in the heavy fighting. Im not familiar with the fencing but I do know under 18 emulates the regular fighting except the weapons are padded.

I am of the east kingdom and fight with the blood guard, although I was never with them long enough to become a full member, through the years I have always been on and off due to real life(real life sucks, always getting in the way)


The leader of the blood guard is a marine who has been in both iraq wars, we do running in armor and all types of stuff, and take the combat more seriously then most fighters. This allows us to move as a team and regularly fight against units with 10x our number and win. I count myself lucky to have been among the ranks to fight with these guys, and I hope I can do some more in the future.