In military training, we will start you off with a 9 foot spear and padded boffer "sword". Just to begin with, of course.

Very quickly you'll progress to "real metal weapons", such as spear, axe, knife and eventually sword. But even our "real metal weapons" are designed for safety; they are display props made of hardened EN45 steel, and have blunt edges. We don't actually want to maim and kill.

Archery

Whoosh-thunk-aaaaargh-chery. The art of death from 90’ away!

At most training sessions, we do some archery practice and there is usually archery ranges at the shows we go to.

If you’re very good, there is even the chance to train up as a combat archer and be one of the elite allowed to use a bow in the battles

(relax, they’re rubber-tipped! Honest.)

Many of our shows have Viking longship funerals and some archers get to shoot fire arrows into the boats to set them alight…

Examples of our war gear can be found here.

Types of warrior

Peasants

Initially you’ll start out as a peasant levyman – basically a farmer who has to turn up to fight when his noble lord needs to raise an army to defend the land.

You’ll be equipped with weapons that you’ll find in any village of the time, used for fighting off wolves and predators of the 2-legged variety.

The main weapon you’ll use is the 9-foot spear – a weapon used by peasants and knights alike – which is a great weapon as it has:-

* a massive killing range to keep those pesky swordsmen 9’ away from you where you can kill them and they can’t reach you.
* a large killing arc in front of you and
* can be used in a large team of spearmen

Knights would use it as their main weapon in battle before dropping to their swords in the same way that a modern soldier would use artillery bombardment before running in with his rifle.

You can also carry a scramseaxe (food knife) in your belt – all men when they reached maturity carried a sharp utility knife for eating, cooking and as a last-ditch weapon.

You will also have a round shield to keep yourself alive on the battlefield.

Militia / Soldier

Once you’ve passed your speartest, you can start to move on to short weapons. As your kit is likely to be peasant-type, you’ll need some weapons which are in keeping with your status as someone who is starting out in the military.

First of all, a helmet. No matter how good your war-gear is, a professional solder wouldn’t go into battle without a lid on his head – all it would take is for 1 lucky shot to the head from a bad guy to make you loose all interest in the battle. Although our Society’s fighting style forbids any kind of head-shot, you’ll need a helmet to play the character of a Militiaman, a professional soldier.

Hand Axes are a good 2nd weapon. They’re cheap to buy and authentic for any level of society as everyone would have owned an axe for chopping wood. In an age where good-quality metal cost a lot of money, axes have a very thin sliver of good, sharp edging metal encased with cheaper bog iron.

Axes allow you to do all manner of neat tricks such as hooking enemy spears and opening opponent’s shields. After you pass your axe test, you can move onto the 6’ dane-axe (or great axe) which is an anti-cavalry weapon (see the size of the dane-axe head opposite compared to the hand axe)

Langseaxes (“Long blade”) are a poor man’s sword, a longer version of the scramseaxe. Like the wood chopping axe, they encase a long sharp edge along the longer side of the blade with cheaper iron. They lack quillioms (cross-guards) of a sword and are very tip-heavy, but they have more reach than an axe and are the kind of thing a wannabe soldier would want to get his hands on.

Finally, some sort of leather-faced padded body armour, or gambeson, can be worn. This is worn under mail (see below), but can be worn on its own if faced with leather. Again, as a professional soldier interested in returning home alive, but not being able to afford mail, this is the kind of thing you’d go for.

Warrior

At last!”, I hear you cry – swords. Swords were very expensive and, to own one, you needed to be a landed knight with tenants paying you money to afford one.

Warriors would be full-time professionals and own a set of chain (mail) armour and a helmet, in the same way that a modern career soldier would have a set of body armour and a Kevlar lid.

Your soft-kit (tunics, cloaks, etc) should also reflect your status as a Warrior as a man’s wealth was displayed in his kit. Any scummy-looking peasant carrying around a sword is likely to be suspected of looting !

If the battle we’re fighting at a Regia show is 1066+ AD, then Warriors would have a tear-shaped Kite shield which was developed for use on horseback and came into use around this time.