Armour & weapon designs (part V).

[Merlkir]

What I love the most about that video - the first attack with the sword. Yes, this is exactly what a sword blow does to a person in plate - NOTHING. It doesn't even throw him off balance.

 

If only game developers and movie makers saw this.

[IndiraLightfoot]

Also, walking around in plate mail on any surface sounds like a steam roller crushing gravel, and if you add a stony surface to the equation, it's just a cacophony. CRPGs rarely get the true disadvantage this would entail for your party.

 

Otherwise, a very enlightening video - it's even more mobile and manoeuvrable than I expected it to be.

[Suburban-Fox]

Also, walking around in plate mail on any surface sounds like a steam roller crushing gravel, and if you add a stony surface to the equation, it's just a cacophony. CRPGs rarely get the true disadvantage this would entail for your party.

 

Also true. At least in 2nd edition D&D, you couldn't do stealth with plate armour, but in 3rd edition...if you were amazing at stealth, you could absorb the -5 penalty (or whatever it was)...yeah.

 

It's not a question of being good at stealth, you literally can not do it! The moment you so much as move your arm, the plates make a noise as they clatter against each other. Two guys in full harness fighting is, as you say, a cacophony.

 

eta: Here is a video that shows, briefly, how armour is supposed to be worn: (depicted here is a 15th century harness worn over a mail shirt)

 

 

Edited June 11, 2014 by Suburban-Fox

[Lephys]

Heh... it's kinda like how films and such always have super stealthy people magically walking silently through a forest whose floor is comprised of nothing but dead leaves and sticks. I get learning how and where to step so as to not give yourself away in a regular forest. But, I don't care if you're wearing pillows for boots. Unless you can make yourself not heavy enough to crush dried leaves and twigs, if you're walking on a carpet of them, you're going to crush them. 8P

 

Part of being stealthy is knowing when to not do something or take a certain approach because it makes noise. Not just magically knowing how to nullify noise.

 

 

@Suburban-Fox:

 

Ahh, thanks for the infos! Yeah, I knew that at some point early on, they actually did have those little "bombs" that cartoons are modeled after. I just didn't know when, historically, that was possible and such. I know it took a while to "perfect" the use of explosives, but I figure that it wasn't too hard -- once it was discovered you could fill a metal shell with explosive powder -- to make something you could light, chuck, and just hope it chaotically threw jagged pieces of metal at a high velocity into random people's armor/bodies.

 

Seems like early on, they'd be pretty okay with such an imprecise implement.

Edited June 11, 2014 by Lephys

[quest1on]

Little piece of information I found recently reading about Thirteen Year War between Pomeranian states, Polish Kingdom and Teutonic Order in the middle/second half of 15th century, that has something to do with explosives: one of the key ingredients used in making incendiary missiles was amber, so the fact that this war took place by the coast of Baltic Sea was really helpful for both sides of the conflict.

[Jarmo]

 Speaking of that, I'm now curious about the existence/nature of grenade-type weaponry back then. What kind of stuff was commonly seen, and when did it start showing up, exactly?

 

 

 

 

Hmm...earliest I know of is about 17th century, but they may well have been around a bit before then. They were black and spherical with fuses - a bit like the cartoon bomb we generally see in Loony Tunes animations (you know, the ones that don't actually kill you but just leave you charred a bit and then you're totally fine in the next scene :D ). I know that they had grenadiers in the 18/19th centuries.

 

They also had things like Greek Fire, and Chinese rockets, in the medieval period. Pyrotechnics have been weaponised for a long time, but like everything else, it was refined and perfected over the years. 

 

 

 

That appears to be a thing historians are pretty unsure about. Or maybe they are sure but drowned by internet thought pollution.

 

Firebombs are certainly around well before AD 1000, maybe before AD 800.

Incidentally, flamethrowers were around earlier than that even.

 

But when did the arabs pick that up and are their naptha bombs the same as byzantine greek fire?

 

Gunpowder was used by the chinese in the same era, certainly against the mongols in 1200 or so,

but did the mongols pick it up and use in the west? Dunno. And did they have actual grenade type weapons? Dunno either.

 

Here's a pic where mongols supposedly use bombs against japanese in their invasion attempt:

But is that a grenade?

 

[Karranthain]

One more thing about plate armour: it really should be a pinnacle of personal protection and something we have to actively work towards. Acquiring a suit should be marked as a really significant event, almost akin to finding an artefact.

 

Per Nonek's excellent video and Merlkir's remark - donning it does render you almost invulnerable. Well, unless this happens, that is:

 

 

Or you find yourself on the wrong end of a pollaxe, etc. But I digress.

 

On top of that, plate armour can look really, really nice (which could be considered a reward in itself). The designs can be strikingly diverse too, case in point:

 

 

 

 

I'd absolutely love to see the third one in PE!

[Jarmo]

Did I already mention Byzantine Military History Facebook group has been full of real awesome pics of late.

Like this one, which I probably fail to post because facebook is like eeevil.

 

[Greensleeve]

Love the brigandine on the dude in the foreground. Really happy we'll be getting good brigandine in PoE. 

[quest1on]

 

This piece of anima armour inspired me to make a little informative post about Polish hussars you seem to like so much, but I had to finish my finals session to get to it. So, after 2 weeks, I finally can go with it:

First of all, Polish historians divided hussary's history and developement in 4 phases, depending on their equipment and the place they took in army.

1st phase

Those are pieces of much bigger painting "Battle of Orsha" that took place in 1514. It's the first known Polish depiction of hussars in the so called racki (Serbian) style, useing light, hollow lances and wooden, wing-shaped shields, dressing in the lavish Balkan-Hungarian style influenced also by they mortal enemy, the Turks. They came to Polish service through Mathias Corvin's Black Army in late 15th century (first written source about them in Polish army is from the year 1500). They were used either as a more maneuverable support for the traditional men-at-arms or in the eastern-most steppe part of the country as men-at-arms' cheaper and better suited for fighting the Tatars alternative. There's some discussion at which point they adopted some armour - in 15th century, while fighting under Hungarian command, they still fought in the traditional Balkan way, in padded clothing only, but in the first half of 16th century, in Polish recruitment documents they are shortly described as serving with "p.p.t.d." which stands for "przyłbica" now meaning close helmet in modern Polish, then it probably was applied to the skull cap or secrete helmet; "pancerz", which is haubergeon;"tarcza", the shield; and "drzewo", literally wood, but it meant lance. A saber was considered for them, and soon for most Polish army, a side arm so obvious that it didn't recquire mentioning, although some of them also used pallasches (straigh, wide single- or double- edged swords with curved saber hilt), warhammers and flanged maces. There's some evidence on the Orsha painting that by this time they already, or at least some of them, wore the helmets underneath their fur caps and top hats and mail under the kaftan.

2nd phase

By the late 16th century, hussars replaced altogether men-at-arms as heaviest type of Polish cavalry. During the reign of Stefan Batory, going by current Hungarian standards and some Muscovian influences, they started to wear mainly zischagges (some bourgonets, too) and added on top of mailshirts either anima cuirasses or bechters, which are like the thing in the last picture, armours of small metal plates kept together by mail. Also, use of the second sword, either pallasch or estoc-like "koncerz" became widespread and pistols started appearing amongst them. This phase lasted up to the very early 17th century. What's more, this is the phase during which appeared first evidence for their famous wings, specifically in the Stockholm Roll, where each hussar has a single, black feathered wing mounted to his saddle.

3rd phase

This phase lasted throughout most of 17th century, when hussars where most needed by the Commonwealth. In comparition with previous phase, the armour got heavier by adding pauldrons and "karwasze", oriental style vambraces that reached the elbow with a kind of shalow bowl and the cuirass transformed into half-anima, as the only part of your thorax that moves is your abdomen anyway. The pistols became universal. That's where the most iconic look of a hussar comes from.

4th phase

This is the decline of husaria. In the times when Wettin dynasty was on Polish-Lithuanian throne in 18th century, hussars became unreliable due to changing warfare and social decay of nobility which recruited the ranks of husaria for most of it's existance. It lacked skilled officers, who prefered to express their status by eschewing usual armour in favour of better looking but heavy, unwieldy and less protective scale armour ("karacena"). Another popular trend were scale, turban helmets or zischagges with metal wings on top. Also, from this phase comes most of exisitng specimens of armour with wings mounted on the backplate/straps keeping breastplate in place instead of backplate, which was pretty common in the previous phase.

And, that's all folks!!!

[Karranthain]

Nice post, quest1on, thanks!

 

I've been away for a while, time do some catching up!

 

To start off:

 

http://youtu.be/gd5KE77WbTI?t=1m53s

 

We love you too Josh! I'm really happy about the resurgence of the, as Josh has put it, "more dressed down and practical" designs. It really does make PE look very distinctive, with most recent fantasy cRPGs adopting a fairly similar, exaggerated, art style.

 

 

And here's an interesting quote from an older update:

 

Character Art

 

Our character artists have completed all of the creatures and creature variants we planned for the game (and even a few that we hadn't planned on). They have also created all of the base weapon and armor variants, and now character art is focused on finishing up all of the unique armors and weapons.

Have a peek at one of our unique armors:

 

 

Glad to hear that there has been good progress on the armour & weapon designs front. The unique items are still under development (the leather armour's pretty good too!) - I think those two examples below would lend themselves pretty well to creating those:

 

 

 

[Jarmo]

 

 Speaking of that, I'm now curious about the existence/nature of grenade-type weaponry back then. What kind of stuff was commonly seen, and when did it start showing up, exactly?

 

 

 

 

Hmm...earliest I know of is about 17th century, but they may well have been around a bit before then.    

 

Just came across this in Byzantine History Google+ group.

Nice one-pager, even if there's nothing new and there's still a weird 500 year gap in grenade usage.

 

http://www.thethoughtspot.net/lessonsinhistory/2014/6/28/early-history-of-the-hand-grenade

 

Oh, and a way nice photo from crimean war.

... sigh, which I apparently can't post here because of reasons.

Edited July 14, 2014 by Jarmo

[Jarmo]

 This phase lasted throughout most of 17th century, when hussars where most needed by the Commonwealth. In comparition with previous phase, the armour got heavier by adding pauldrons and "karwasze", oriental style vambraces that reached the elbow with a kind of shalow bowl and the cuirass transformed into half-anima, as the only part of your thorax that moves is your abdomen anyway. The pistols became universal. That's where the most iconic look of a hussar comes from.

 

 

Pistols as part of hussar equipment or in general use by others?

 

Because that was one notable thing I liked about them in Warband: With Fire and Sword.

While others had firearms, hussars just had their lances and those crazy piercing swords, or sabers.

 

Might have been a game design limitation, with the 4 slot system and all.

[ArtB]

 

 

Pistols as part of hussar equipment or in general use by others?

 

Because that was one notable thing I liked about them in Warband: With Fire and Sword.

While others had firearms, hussars just had their lances and those crazy piercing swords, or sabers.

 

Might have been a game design limitation, with the 4 slot system and all.

 

As part of hussar equipment. Pistols were, naturally, not very important to them (not to mention long firerams, although apparently they were used whenever hussars were forced to fight on foot), but they were, as quest1on said, universal. Heck, I think you can even see a pistol in that nice image of a hussar attacking what looks like a janissary.

Edited July 14, 2014 by ArtB

[Karranthain]

Speaking of hussars, here's a Muscovite copy:

 

 

Would also be a great fit for unique armours, I reckon!

[quest1on]

Speaking of hussars, here's a Muscovite copy:

 

 

Would also be a great fit for unique armours, I reckon!

If I remember corectly, first batch of trained Muscovite hussars tried to present themselves to the people on a parade and upon the departure through the city gate broke all the lances.

[Karranthain]

If I remember corectly, first batch of trained Muscovite hussars tried to present themselves to the people on a parade and upon the departure through the city gate broke all the lances.

 

 

They weren't very successful in truth. You can't simply copy the equipment (see legionnaires and hoplites) and expect the same results!

 

Here's another cool piece, maybe a unique armour design?

 

[quest1on]

Altarpiece of Wit Stwosz in Kraków's St. Mary's Basilica. I always liked the two crossbowmen in front, as they show how varied the lighter troops armour could be - from looking almost as full and heavy as man-at-arms' to half-armour with arm defences covering only outside and not surrounding the entire arm. As for the guys in the back, they always were a bigger problem for me. Is the one on the right wearing scale armour or some unnaturally shiny aketon? And why in the late 15th century is he wearing a 14th/early 15th century bascinet? My general conclusion is that the guys in front are Polish, while the back ones are Lithuanian, as they were always the worse equipped half of Commonwealth (although the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth hadn't fully formed until 1569).

[Jarmo]

Speaking of hussars, here's a Muscovite copy:

 

Would also be a great fit for unique armours, I reckon!

 

 

 

If I remember corectly, first batch of trained Muscovite hussars tried to present themselves to the people on a parade and upon the departure through the city gate broke all the lances.

 

 

They weren't very successful in truth. You can't simply copy the equipment (see legionnaires and hoplites) and expect the same results!

 

 

 

My favourite troops in MB: With Fire and Sword.

 

Liked the armor design better than that of Swedish Reiters, and the carbines gave them better long range capability than pistol armed riders.

And they did have armor, unlike many other carbine armed riders. And sabers, almost a perfect set of equipment, too bad if their historic performance didn't match.

(haven't a clue if they actually had carbines, but the pic does seem to have a suitably long saddle holster)

[Karranthain]

Josh mentioned that the 90s fantasy aesthetic was a strong influence on the PE weapon & armour designs. I'm getting a very similar vibe from Michael Komarck's works:

 

 

 

Can't say I like to sword design, but the armour looks fantastic.

[quest1on]

Josh mentioned that the 90s fantasy aesthetic was a strong influence on the PE weapon & armour designs. I'm getting a very similar vibe from Michael Komarck's works:

 

He does like this "girl with raised sword" pose.

[Living One]

[Karranthain]

He does like this "girl with raised sword" pose.

 

 

He does. But wait, there's more:

 

 

 

 

By the way, that's a very cool design, Living One! Somehow reminds me of the Ironborn from the Game of Thrones.

[quest1on]

Munition grade half armour, similar to the one on the altarpiece I posted. It's interesting to note that this cheap, mass produced armour has sliding gauntlet like flaps to make a fits-all size.

[Karranthain]

And some more Komarck: