Arms get hit fairly rarely in SCA - I would say 30% of shots would hit
the head, 40% the legs, 20% the body and 10% the arms. 2 reasons for this
(1) heads and bodies are kills, and (ii) most styles are "square" is
sheild in front, body at 90 degrees and arm tucked near the ear pointing
the sword back or down. Most SCA fighters dont wear much arm armour -
just an elbow
cop, because less weight on the arm is less heavy, leading to higher tip
speeds. Definitly, have most sheild-arm hits hit the sheild - all except
a parry fumble I'd say. Sword arm I'd reduce to a 1 in 20 chance - weight
the rest to the head, which tends to be easier to hit than RQ rules
indicate.Penetrate, maybe not - I would certainly wear the best head
armour I could get if fighting for real (specific area armour enchantment
maybe ?). I would definitly allow specials to hit anywhere the roller
wants them to - a good fighter can land a shot inside a 3" slot, and the
best can hit a 1.5 inch gap with a 1.25 inch diameter rattan sword.
Mongols and Couched Lances : Couched lances(is tucked under the arm) was a Frankish thing - according to what evidence exists, even the Franks used overarm styles often (eg Bayeaux tapestry). At a rough guess, nobody else needed that level of impact - an overarm jab didnt risk leaving the damn thing stuck in your enemy, leaving you off your horse and/orshort a weapon (maybe a riding roll if more than x damage is done ?). Remember, armour was *rare* on the plains, and charges-to-impact are not as important with light cavalry unencumberted by infantry.
Prax and couched lances : I believe couched lances to be used in the West
( charging horse + lance + damage boost 10 - I dont wanna think about the
damage). I do not believe that Praxians could make strong enough spears,
or would wear enough armour (even with Protection etc) for the extra
damage to really count. Pentans wouldnt need to develop the techniques
for similar reasons. Lunars, maybe, but their armies dont appear to use
cavalry as a shock weapon - just scouting and covering the flanks. The
Black Horse (and indeed White Horse) Troop definitly couch lances.
Ian Whitchurch
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