Here's a nifty little video showing you a light play with folks fighting with different weapons between one another:
Longsword VS Sword and buckler (& VS Sword and Shield)
Before getting critical on the video, note that this is light play and not something super intense (I'll post one later once they've been uploaded from the recent Longpoint tournament).
Something that folks should pay attention to is how with a sword and buckler, the first line of defense is still the sword and not the buckler first. This changed when the fighter started using a heater shield. Another note is how much faster a "longsword" is compared to misconceptions viewed on television and other media. Probably the biggest take away from this though, the position of the shield when they were fighting. It's almost always in front, possibly extended, and not tossed to the side like in other games. Even with the bigger heater shield, the fencer kept the shield forward to protect against that line of attack. The same is especially true with the buckler as it was constantly shifting to protect the sword hand and to suppress his opponent.
Anyway, I'd hope this video will help influence some of the animations in CoE as well as maybe switch things up and break from the norm on what shields do in combat and maybe have a sub category for bucklers.
Bonus video: Themed Sparring - Montante These big swords weren't just used in the battlefield, but instead a lot of manuscripts have survived showing they were mostly used as a guards weapon to protect VIPs. Note: what he's swinging is significantly heavier than an actual Montante. Maybe we can add a snapping protect function to the game where the VIP constantly huddles around the guard as the guard swings like a mad man? It'd be funny to see at least.
