Our Friend: The Buckler

As I mentioned last year, the buckler is not the normal off-hand choice in Artemisia. Most people, it seems, prefer to go with the additional offensive capabilities found in either a dagger or a second sword. And while it's true that bucklers do not have any offensive capabilities at all, their incredible ease of use more than makes up for it. I mean, you can't get much simpler than a buckler to use. You want to know the secret to using a buckler effectively? Here you go:

Punch the other guy's sword.

That's it. You don't get much simpler than that. Even my two-year-old has figured it out - although he still tends to shield-bash. Oh, and don't hold it flat against your arm, hold it perpendicular to it. That's Using A Buckler 101 & 102.

Of course, that still leaves the question of what type of buckler to use. The standard seems to be an 8" to 10" (50 to 78 square inches) round, but it's not your only option. Artemisia does not have any size or weight limits on bucklers - either minimum or maximum (although I have been advised that shields should be period appropriate, so no scutums if you're Elizabethan). I've seen as small as a 6" (28 square inches) round and as large as a 24" (452 square inches) round (it was actually an armored fighting shield). The smaller bucklers have the advantage of speed while the larger ones are slower but offer more protection. Because of this, the smaller bucklers are better suited to to the speed and skill required of tournament fighting while larger bucklers are best suited for the simpler staying alive of melees. For myself, I have two bucklers: an 8"x16" (call it 140 square inches) mini-kite for tourneys and an 18"x24" (about 350 square inches) oval for melees.

If you want to get a buckler for tournament use, I'd recommend either a 10" (78 square inches) or 12" (113 square inches) round. If you want one for melees, I'd recommend something in the 14" to 18" (153 to 254 square inches) range. If you're looking at getting a single buckler for both tournaments and melees, I'd recommend getting a 12" to 16" (113 to 201 square inch) round. They're not as fast as the smaller ones and they don't offer quite the protection of the larger ones, but they're still quick and will still offer good protection.

But what about fancy shapes, you're asking? For the most part, shape is a matter of preference: it's surface area that matters. For example, my mini-kite comes in at about the same surface area as a 13" round. Where it starts to matter is when the buckler is corrugated, dished, curved or has wings. Corrugation and wings are designed to direct blades into the buckler, making it easier to "hold" your opponent's blade on the buckler. Dishing or curving around the hand has the opposite effect. A dished or curved blade will redirect your opponent's blade off your buckler and the more dished or curved, the more it redirects the blade. My mini-kite is curved just like a full-sized kite shield, but I got around the problem of it pushing blades off by wrapping it in a fairly soft leather. When an opponent's blade strikes the buckler, the leather compresses, "grabbing" the blade. Likewise, if your buckler has a rolled edge or has an edge that's wrapped in leather or hose, that will help keep the blade from sliding off the buckler.

Now while I realize that off-hand weapon choice is a matter of preference, just remember how hard it was to get pasts those two honking-big bucklers in the front row at last Uprising's gate battle.