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You don't do cheap. Cost-effective yes; cheap no. We're talking about keeping your skeleton intact, here.

In seriousness, if you're not up to making some of it yourself, your best bet is probably to see what you can get second-hand off of the fighters in your area. I've had some luck and even some free stuff going that route. I actually recently got a good helm that way, for less than half of what I paid for my fencing mask. And as long as I'm posting here, I'm going to show it off.

What Rogue 9 said. Don't go for "Cheap". I'm not saying buy the 700 dollar Ice-Falcon helm. But expect to spend 250-400 for a good helm (depending on style. My roman styled helm ran 275 if I recall right). I'd go to Iron Monger Armory for a helm. He does custom fitting.

As far as body gear, how much effort do you want to put in and how "period"? Don't care about period? Go for a set of plastic Dark Victory armour. If you want to put some effort in, and still don't care too much about period. Go to plastic lamellar.com.

I wear plastic lamellar body, field hockey elbows (with metal cops attached), catchers knee-shin guards(with metal cops), and ice-hockey gloves. My gorget and helm though are serious armour since I am not going to mess around with head or upper-spine trauma

I was at the first annual Constellation Academy of Defense regional rapier collegium last weekend, and the keynote address over lunch concerned the proposed fourth peerage. I have the speech by Don Warder (yes, he holds both the White Scarf and the Bronze Ring) Michael St. Christian on video, as well as all the knights and assorted old-timers weighing in after he was done. I'll post it here after I get it edited and uploaded to YouTube.

Very cool. I look forward to hearing the speech. Most of what we've heard around tehse parts is "Yeah, probably if it was just rapier but including siege, archery, et al... no."

Well, I have it posted up on YouTube, but I'm awaiting Don Michael's permission before I set it to public and plaster his face all over the Internet. He says it's probably okay, but he wants to see it first; I sent him the link and I'm waiting until he gets back to me before posting it elsewhere.

The commentary has been deemed too much of a mess, because it refers to too many people. However, I may post the speech, so here it is.

Rogue 9 wrote:The commentary has been deemed too much of a mess, because it refers to too many people. However, I may post the speech, so here it is.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Wlo6wkZhu0

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NNX4AErjE88

Either my browser is odd or these don't work in OT. Either way...links for the rest of us.

Your browser is odd. It's working fine for me.

and me too.

nice comments.

Rogue 9 wrote:Your browser is odd. It's working fine for me.

Yep, it was something with YouTube not wanting to load for me at all. Works fine now.

So what was the gist of the comments?

Anyway, I'm for it, for rapier, siege, archers, etc. I think if you want to play the game and all, you shouldn't be denied a peerage because picking up rataan just isn't your thing (or washing dishers, singing songs, whatever). That's basically the short version of it because I'm not exactly feeling verbose tonight, but it gets my general point across (I hope).

And on the slightly unserious side, having archery (especially combat) be included in some peerage would certainly ruin the days of the Super Duper Arch Dukes who hate archers. Heck if it were up to me I'm make it similar to Knighthood (but seperate, since they'd never be voted in) and still have them addressed as Sir and Dame.

Well, the reason the comment videos had to be taken down was because a knight who shall remain unnamed decided to speak about the selection process for new knights, openly saying that he's well past the point where anyone expects confidentiality from him. I left it up to Don Michael, though, and he told me to take them down for the knight's sake anyway.

The general gist was that the old guard is coming around as heavy fighting becomes too hard on their joints and they switch to fencing. There was mention of some Western king whose name I'd have to watch the video again to remember (he was referred to as the Once and Every Other King, if that helps) is taking to the field with a rapier at every event he goes to in support of the rapier community, which he himself banned once many years ago. Also, apparently Calontir is actually looking into side-sword fighting (i.e., as far as I can determine, cut-and-thrust fencing), although otherwise they're being their usual dick selves about it.

RogueIce wrote:
Anyway, I'm for it, for rapier, siege, archers, etc. I think if you want to play the game and all, you shouldn't be denied a peerage because picking up rataan just isn't your thing (or washing dishers, singing songs, whatever).

I think Rapier should have it's own peerage. I think Archers should be able to get a Laurel. Siege is a Heavy list activity so they already have a peerage.

Plus, Rattan is only 1 of the peerages. There's 2-3 others (depending on Kingdom). Laurel, Pelican and some kingdoms utilize The Rose. Adding in one for Rapier as a distinct martial Activity from Rattan makes sense. Archery really is more an A&S thing since it's not done as a martial activity (ie you shoot targets for a score not at other people). And Rose you can get just for being the person that the person who wins crown selected to be their consort.

Siege and combat archery don't have their own peerages, because while they're a heavy list activity, the knighthood is limited to prowess in tournament weapons, which combat archery and siege engines are not.

And the knights will never support a peerage encompassing combat archery, because almost everybody who isn't a combat archer hates them due to not liking to die before even getting to engage the enemy. Word is that if you're a combat archer who's unfortunate enough to plug someone important, you'll be a bloody peasant for the rest of your career.

Which should make this Pennsic interesting, because the Midrealm queen is a combat archer, and is assembling her own combat archery unit.

Speaking of Pennsic, I'm going this year. Time to get to work memorizing the old war songs again.

Rogue 9 wrote:Siege and combat archery don't have their own peerages, because while they're a heavy list activity, the knighthood is limited to prowess in tournament weapons, which combat archery and siege engines are not.

This is true. However, it's also worth noting that they are also activities which can ONLY be done in melee. Siege is even done only in teams I believe. You'll likely be hard pressed to find a large contingent of people who feel ther are peerage level activities. They should try and introduce local kingdom level armigerial awards forst and see how that goes over.

Rogue 9 wrote: Word is that if you're a combat archer who's unfortunate enough to plug someone important, you'll be a bloody peasant for the rest of your career.

Nah, not in the East at least. We're not big on Combat Archery but there's any number of people who do it and have high awards. A lot of the sagitarians cross over to do CA. The head of my household does CA and he has a Grant of Arms. My Local Baroness does it as well (Though she mainly does sword and board).

Rogue 9 wrote: Speaking of Pennsic, I'm going this year.

Sweeet. Come to the House Three Skulls party on Tuesday night. W07 block.

can we ask said combat archer queen to rework the battle of agincourt speech after drubbing someone with her archers?

Also, as an aside.

As an Eastern fighter, thanks for the heads up in what we can expect. A unit of royal combat archers. Should be easy to conscript a few poles and shields to run that down

Mobiboros wrote:Also, as an aside.

As an Eastern fighter, thanks for the heads up in what we can expect. A unit of royal combat archers. Should be easy to conscript a few poles and shields to run that down

It's only been in our newsletter every month since she ascended the throne; if your generals didn't know by now, they haven't been paying attention.

Rogue 9 wrote: It's only been in our newsletter every month since she ascended the throne; if your generals didn't know by now, they haven't been paying attention.

They probably do, but I'm not important enough to have the ear of any of them.

In Heavy List I just get on the field and do what I'm told. It's only in Rapier that I have any command authority.

Well, for you Rapier-fans, here's an Event Teaser:

6th Annual WickerMan Festival
Once again, this is the Southern Æthelmearc Rapier Muster.

Mobiboros wrote:

Rogue 9 wrote: It's only been in our newsletter every month since she ascended the throne; if your generals didn't know by now, they haven't been paying attention.

They probably do, but I'm not important enough to have the ear of any of them.

In Heavy List I just get on the field and do what I'm told. It's only in Rapier that I have any command authority.

Just remember there is the Agincourt defense.....

Mobiboros wrote:

Rogue 9 wrote: It's only been in our newsletter every month since she ascended the throne; if your generals didn't know by now, they haven't been paying attention.

They probably do, but I'm not important enough to have the ear of any of them.

In Heavy List I just get on the field and do what I'm told. It's only in Rapier that I have any command authority.

Heh. I'm the command sergeant for my company. In reality what this means is that I have a louder voice than the captain, so I stand next to her and shout her orders over the din.

Rogue 9 wrote: Heh. I'm the command sergeant for my company. In reality what this means is that I have a louder voice than the captain, so I stand next to her and shout her orders over the din.

I'm just a spear. When they call for people to do something stupid, they mean me. That's pretty much my job on heavy list.

Rapier I'm unit Captain. However, in reality that pretty much means the same as your position with the added "honor" of having to be the bodyguard to my baroness

No bigwigs to protect for me, unless our unit is charged with covering someone else's advance, of course. The captain and I formed our unit (which is actually still unnamed) this year as a region-wide vehicle to organize and train fighters who aren't in a preexisting company; the only entry requirement is authorization, but you're expected to drill at events. The goal is to get people to be actually competent at melee, and for the ones whose baronies and shires host elite units, to get them to the point where they can realistically hope to join their local company. She's got an AoA, I'm a bloody peasant, and we're surrounded by n00bs. I fully expect to get drubbed on the actual battlefield, at least this year; we'll see how it's going in a year's time.

Rogue 9 wrote:The captain and I formed our unit (which is actually still unnamed) this year as a region-wide vehicle to organize and train fighters who aren't in a preexisting company;

Very nice! My Rapier unit is composed of the household I'm in (Three Skulls) and our local barony (An Dubhaigeainn). We'll probably fight as part of the larger Wetlands Alliance. Which was formed for much the same reason as your group. To provide a group and structure to those not affiliated with Ducal households.

See, this is why I love the Dragon Army's unified command structure. There are all kinds of companies that aren't affiliated with households at all, and rapier captains can talk to armored officers and actually be listened to. That, and our company aims to be integrated heavy/light, with crossovers encouraged (try getting away with that with a segregated rapier army), but so far we've only gotten fencers. We'll see how it develops.