I seized the castle. It's mine now.
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I seized the castle. It's mine now.
a non-exhaustive list of things I have noticed about wearing and fighting in 14th-century** style armor once a week for a year:
surprisingly easy to build up the strength to wear and exercise in it. Even only getting into armor once a week, I was very sore after the first two weeks, but markedly less sore after that unless I take two weeks+ off
That being said, you really notice the extra weight on your arms and legs when you’re wearing metal. as a still relatively noodly person, holding my arms over my head to fiddle with my helmet fastenings is particularly annoying
Cuisses and greaves (thigh and leg armor) is held up with suspender-like cords from an arming belt that rests under the breastplate (with my setup, I have to put on my leg armor first because of that)
wearing a helmet feels like putting on horse blinders. The ones I have worn all rely on internal chinstraps to stay in place
It’s fucking hot under all that padding. Folks who have linen gambesons probably fare better, but the padding of the gambeson still makes it hot
You quickly learn the practical utility of squires and such. There are only two pieces of my armor I can't get into alone (my breastplate fastens in the back, and my arms tie at the top in such a way I would have to use my teeth to fasten them if I wanted to do it alone) but armoring goes so much faster with another pair of hands to do the fiddle-y clasps at the back of your greaves and cuisses and helmet clasps
Wearing armor can be a constant barrage of sensory information; you heat up quickly in a helmet, anything ill-fitting can pinch and bruise when you start fighting
Doing precision tasks (like fiddling with the clasps and straps) is hard to do with any speed
Consequently, people who hang out in armor are pretty casual about touching each other to fiddle with bits of armor
** my kit still is not entirely metal yet, so it is in imitation of 14th-century armor, not entirely historically accurate
2022 Ukraine-Russia War
Ukrainian solders in the trenches fighting against Russia invaders.
One of the most impressive videos of the war.
Demo fighting at the Renn Faire
“There’s no question about it - he was always meant for greatness. People want to follow him.”
ArmStreet’s newest set of armor, The Kingmaker.
The Field of Chivarly at Gulf Wars XXVI.
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