RingoI’m still working through the all the data collected in January’s survey and in the process of that and discussing it with Ahser, a data crunching professional and newer fighter from Memphis, came up with the idea of proposing experimental rule sets here that people can take and try in their local practices or events. While Covid is still killing the majority of travel and gatherings I’m going to try to release at least one proposed experimental rule or rule set a month, that will be easy to try in a backyard with a few buddies and limited equipment.
So for the first rule set I want to see Mixed Weapon Dueling!!!! Both WMCF Profights and Knights Hall Knight Fights have variants that allow fighters to take different weapons when competing. So you could theoretically see a Longsword vs a Polearm match, though I’ve yet to see anything like that. There are no duels rulesets that allow for mixed weapons though. I want to see what that would look like.
The major hurdle to this is trying to make weapons have a somewhat even ground. The natural advantages of each form in real use are limited by our edging requirements and lack of thrusting. Thrusting is the primary way of keeping an opponent in armor at range, using the point to force them to be wary of a charge. With no thrusting it becomes much easier to close range giving an extra advantage to sword and board, over the advantage that comes with having a separate implement for defense and offense.
To counteract this in profights, pole arm hits are counted as greater than sword hits. In Knight fights, heavy blows are rated higher than light blows and the bigger the weapon the eaier to land a heavy shot. So we’ll try using something similar here by giving longsword and polearms each more points for a strike.
The rules: Each round a combatant picks their weapon and informs the marshal, who after both fighters have picked, informs the opponents of each others choices.
Weapon rules follow the same as published duels rules in your league of choice. No bringing in short axes and pretending they are polearms.
Counting: Counters should count each blow as a single strike, the way they would at any other duel. After a round has ended simply multiply by the value of the weapon. Arming sword 1, LongSword 2, Polearm 4.
Use Longsword rules for allowed strikes and grappling. In other words punching the face as long as quillions are short enough and kicking are legal.
If anyone tries this let me know how it goes. Please record it if possible. Would love to see how this changes the game