[OOC] Formaroth: Battle for the Throne

[Klomster]

Obviously Lycaon is not wearing "boob armor." I did mean that it was minor injury insofar in that it did not limit him in the future in any way, although it seems we've run into another problem. I'm not an expert on medieval warfare, so I was not aware of how powerful plate actually is.

@ZB1996

Don't worry, few know how powerful plate really is.

The best ways to counter plate (based on common equipment from the war of the roses, where foot knights were common) is with professional troops with anti-armour weapons.
The most common was knights and men-at-arms armed with pollaxes, a mix between dane axe and an halberd battle-axe.org/rpg/images/pollaxe.gif it is a powerful weapon.
With the rondel on the handle to protect the hand, reinforced hardwood handle and a specially designed striking head, this is an halberd on steroids.
A weapon for the elite troops.

The tips of the axe head have a higher chance to strike through plate, since it has an easier time to bite into plate. But it is the hammer side that is primarily used to fight plate armoured opponents.

However, plate armours primary weakness is its mobility, which surpases that of the human body (if it's well made).
It was common for men-at-arms to end up wrestling, since if you bend the arm of a plate armoured man it is about as easy to break it as if he didn't have the armour.
The joints have no extra protection from plate, the fact is that all the extra weight makes joints the biggest weak points.
And not the joints in the plate, the joints of the body.
Since the armour moves more than the body.

So pollaxes were often used with the end spike pointed towards the foe, one would engage with the spike to make the foe open their guard and then follow up with a hammer strike with the head.
Cross-checking and tumbling the foe using the pollaxe as a staff was also common, to throw the opponent to the ground where the ground can be used as an anvil as you speak.

Contrary to popular belief, you can easily get up from prone in plate armour. However you are still thrown prone and your opponent can take advantage of your predicament faster than you can get up.

Reason i nerd down so hard on this is i fight in SCA heavy fighting, and is an avid armour nerd.
Sorry if i'm annoying :P

Also, @Ellri the link you posted doesn't work.

[Ellri]

heh. Indeed.

oh, and now the link works... we had forgotten the = in url=yaddayadda...

[Klomster]

Oh, now that i can see the link.

I agree, Tobias Blackwells armour is basically the most sexy armour worn today.

Another cool one is Ugo Serrano's armours.
ugoserrano.com/my-work/armour/repousse..

Or just some Greenwich armoury stuff if you are feeling particularly aristocratic and rich.

[TheDuncanMorgan]

@PhoenixWhite Sorry to keep nagging, but when will the first part of the collab be up?

[Ellri]

We've been keeping Echo busy. That may have delayed that.

Seeing how we're very close to relaunch of Coruscant Sacked: Aftermath.

[TheDuncanMorgan]

@Klomster As you seem very knowledgeable about medieval Armour perhaps you can answer this question for me. In a well funded and well armed army how many soldiers would wear plate Armour? Would foot soldiers be wearing it or would it only be the knights?

[Ellri]

Plate armor is like luxury cars... only the rich have them. Where chain mail can to a large degree fit anyone, a suit of full plate is custom-fit to its user.

Not sure about nuances with armors like scale mail or such, though. Developments in weapon tech also affect things. and in a fantasy setting, magic will no doubt be involved too.

[TheDuncanMorgan]

@Ellri To avoid complications I have made it so that only living things can be infused with magic. Therefore magic can't be used for the enhancement of weaponry or Armour (otherwise everyone would be wearing enchanted Armour and everyone would be OP).

I ask because the De Reimer forces are going to be involved in combat in the near future and I was wondering what type of Armour their foot soldiers would be wearing. Though the De Reimer's have the smallest military of all the kingdoms, the relatively small size of the army and massive wealth of the De Reimers means they have extremely good training and Armour.

[Ellri]

oh, we know. we referred more that armor designs might be affected by the role magic plays in war. Its a nice simple rule. Prevents a lot of potential OP.

The key factors for what armor they might be wearing are (we think):

• Funds available
• Army size
• access to raw materials and smiths to use them

The cheapest armor that isn't cloth is boiled leather, studded leather or (if category three is good above) mail of some sort.

[TheDuncanMorgan]

@Ellri

Funds available: De Reimer family is the richest family in Formaroth, enough said :p

Army size: Like all other armies it's only the trained soldiers that will have access to metal Armour. The militia will at best have leather Armour, spears and shields. As I mentioned before Cawanor has the smallest military with around 8,000 soldiers. In comparison to Uzgob which has the largest military with 18,000 soldiers.

Access to raw materials and smiths to use them: Considering Cawanor's main industry is mining and has a large number of skilled smiths (due to smithing being a large part of Cawanor's industry). So Cawanor has plenty of access to both.

[ZB1996]

@Ellri

I understand your concerns, though they worry me, and will try my best to make it so Lycaon is without any considerable narrative inconsistencies.

[Klomster]

There is also plate armour and plate armour.

The armour i envision the steel fist wearing is often referred to as munitions plate.
It's a cuirass, often with tassets (the things hanging unto the legs) that is made in bulk. Either it's the training pieces of armour apprentices, or the actual thing a foundry produces.

One of the most expensive parts of armour is actually the polish, so if you want to show off, have the troops sport armour with a literal mirror polish.
Other nobles will be mad envious.
So seeing that the force is small (compared to other in world forces) and the family is very rich and on top of this see it worthwhile to spend on its army, i say that a large portion of the troops can have plate armour. If the family invest heavily in the army, it can give fitted field plate to basically everyone.

The usual way to get troops though in the middle ages was through the feudal system though, where landed knights where duty bound to show up with at least himself in a certain degree of wargear.
Knights being sensible, they wanted to live afterwards, so they often invested in plate armour. (I'm thinking of the 1400's ish here.)
Technology has advanced so much, that large steel plates are easier to make and the steel production is larger so it is not as expensive as before to have plate armour.
It was still expensive though.
Some landed knights however, had very wealthy land, or felt that they REALLY wanted to invest in troops, and elite troops at that.
They got hold of a few men-at-arms, basically people the knight found interesting for the task, they fund their gear and make sure they are trained. Then these men-at-arms, whom could be better at fighting than a knight, they are career soldiers after all, joined their lord in combat. Often they all had horses ass well.

Based on the info blurb on the perry miniatures men-at-arms boxed set (whom go for a very historical approach) about 4 men-at-arms to every knight in service at the time of 1400 ish. In french and english armies.

All of which wear plate armour.

Thing is, the De Reimer is the richest noble house in the setting, its army is comparably small but well trained.
When the investment has been made to have well trained troops, it only makes sense to go all the way and give them the best armour as well.

Sure, when it comes to plate armour, there is almost no upper limit to cost, but plate armour with a regular polish (satin, it looks almost white, but doesn't mirror well) will cost a bunch, luckily for the De Reimer, they have several bunches of money available.

So if you want them in plate, give them pate. Foot knights are a good indication. I use the war of the roses as an info source since it was a period in time where plate armour was common on the battlefield. In contemporary paintings the entire armies were depicted in plate.
While this is silly, there was a lot of plate armoured men in those wars.

I am rambling!

Btw, regarding the battle which Claus was in, there is a reason why i felt that as long as he got out quick, 5 enemy troops couldn't take him down. Claus wears high quality plate armour, and is literally a demigod of battle (ok, jokes aside, but he's darn good).
Plate armour is very good, against poorly trained troops with improper weapons it's OP as shit.
You need good wrestling skills, or armour piercing weapons to properly take down knights or men-at-arms, failing that you need to literally drown them in troops, throw the to the ground and stab them to death with knives.
All the while suffering horrendous losses.

Also, firearms didn't kill plate armour, economy and training time did.
Early firearms won't penetrate good plate armour unless it is weakened first. Unless we're talking about cannons, then this happens.


Rambling over, if you want i can keep rambling.

[TheDuncanMorgan]

@Klomster You can continue rambling if you want, I do very much enjoy learning about this :) . In which case I imagine they will be all in plate Armour (the soldiers anyhow). Though I don't think they will be polished, Patrick would likely see it as a waste of money.

. Fortunately for the De Reimer family, Formaroth has yet to discover gunpowder let alone cannons...

[Klomster]

Some degree of polish is of course standard. And after all, wouldn't your army look unprofessional if they had rough steel armour?
I've got the feeling that Isabel would feel the troops looks far too unimpressive if they didn't at least have a satin polish.

We can't go around and look like filthy mercenaries now, can we?
It's the personal troops of the De Reimers we are talking about here. They need nice shiny armour, impressive capes, fancy swords, and probably some training as well...
:P

However you could have it that they are in unpolished gear as a thing, to look more intimidating.
Do note however, that steel keeps from rusting better, the more polished it is. Just a thing.
But regular maintenance with oil will also remedy rust. So the intimidating thing can easily be done.

However troops in shining plate is also intimidating.

On a sidenote, here's an example of satin polished armour, with latten decor.
s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/564x/00/4..
Satin polish doesn't take too much effort to get going, and the polishing students need to train anyway.

Also, an example of munitions grade armour. This one is kinda high end of them though, with arm guards.
s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/564x/d7/2..
Incidentally the same kind as the Steel Fist wears.
Here's another one.
myarmoury.com/talk/files/harquebusier_..
Note the rough surface of the cuirass.

[Ellri]

@ZB1996

That is more than fair. The best way to get things right is to read and practice writing. With writing, it almost is true with "practice makes perfect."

We've done ridiculous amounts of research for characters at some points. Delving into deep lore for minor traits that would have zero effect upon IC. So we think we're kinda guilty of going too deep at times.

We've also seens sheets far more horrible than yours. Probably made some of those ourselves too, back when we were our age.

[Ellri]

you know... cannons actually came before smaller firearms... Mind you, the earliest cannons had a 50/50 chance (or so) of being more lethal to their crews.

Shiny armor. Check
Impressive capes. Check
Fancy swords. Check.
Training. Why? aren't they impressive enough already? Do they really need this?

---

On a more serious note...
Anything happening in the capital anytime soon? Spmething that can get Urd's attention, for example.

[TheDuncanMorgan]

@Ellri There may be a major plot point that would be a very good way for Urd to get introduced into the story. However I am waiting for a response from fox before I can confirm it.

[Ellri]

Fair enough, @TheDuncanMorgan. We've got plenty to work on with Aftermath currently in any case. Soon there'll be a lot of sheets to review there.

thats one nice thing about Formaroth... It doesn't demand n posts per week.

[TheDuncanMorgan]

@Ellri Indeed, I prefer people to take a more casual pace when it comes to posts. That way people don't feel rushed and they can get the required detail into their posts.

However having said that; after this round is finished I will have to have to ask everyone to speed things up a bit. I meant I am not going to ask for everyone to have a post weekly for reasons I mentioned before, but things are starting to get a bit too slow. This round and last round in particular. For example it has been two months since this round started! I will probably ask for people to aim for three weeks at the latest because at this rate it is going to take years before the story finishes.

[PhoenixWhite]

@TheDuncanMorgan

I'll have it up before Monday, I said my initial time of 'soon' at a tentative moment. It'll be up before Monday, verified.