Tyriel and Kai demonstrate how to use a shield as an offensive tool to threaten and manipulate your opponent, in Amtgard and other games. Pardon the snow. Filmed at The Bitter Coast, CCBC Catonsville, Maryland. 2-17-2018
Its easier to win if you stand with your sword leg forward. One of the only times you want your shield leg forward is against of polearm because they can reach your leg from far away.
Easier how? If you stand with your shield leg forward, it allows you to step forward with your strike, giving you more reach an minimising the time your arm and leg is unprotected.
@@TheCraziestFox Your sword arm can defend itself. By having your sword forward, you shorten the path between your weapon and it’s target. Your thrust gets to the target much quicker, and is more balanced. Your shield bash gains much more power when the shield is held with the rear hand. I’m not saying you can’t stand that way. It’s just not as easy.
@@AndrewMilesMurphy Your sword arm is the single juiciest target in the fight. That's why half the treatises end with the arm cut or chopped off. It's half the reason why bucklers are so useful. Shield bash? I have in my four years of fencing never been touched by the opponents shield. If you bash with your shield, you're already well within the range of the other guy's sword and shield. And that's just sword and board. For longer reach weapon, you're simply not getting that close, which is where stepping in with a sword arm is useful; something you cannot do if you stand sword leg forward.
Yeah it's not an unjuicy target. Treatises typically have a strong cryptographic component. It's expected that some people will be smart enough to decipher the images. You can see that the legs are reversed in many images, and there is a corresponding technique for each side. The defensive stance, with shield forward, is not useless, at all. However, you are doing what Lichtenauer and company called "cutting against the leg." It lacks power. You are also forced to take passing steps, which he also taught, but which are brutally vulnerable against tactics which primarily use shuffling steps instead. Again, this is a primary tactic against a polearm, especially when you don't have any armor on the leg. Now by his time armor had overtaken the shield by quite a lot. So you can take it with a grain of salt. You also mentioned shield bashing. If you look up Medieval MMA, or shield knockouts, you will see that a targe can knock someone entirely out very easily. I would even argue that the shield is the mightiest weapon in all of martial arts, certainly the most brutal and damaging. If you haven't been struck with a shield, it's either not allowed, or you haven't fought with someone who knows how to use both weapons.
I'll add, just for clarity, that a larger shield is even *more* vulnerable against my preferred stance as well. The reason is that the lead leg can kick the bottom edge of a big shield, brining the top forward, exposing your enemies shoulder and head. With the sword in back, you can't reach this opening in time. With it in front, you can reach the opening.
Why can 't you run around the wounded in the direction of the shield . covering his legs with a sword. until the knees of a wounded man crawling on his knees fall off?
You're allowed to manipulate equipment with equipment in Amtgard, so most of these shield techniques can still be utilized there. The line for Amtgard is moving someones body, so no big shield checks or duck walks, which, admittedly, are a lot of what I enjoy when I go to Darkon.
