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kyburgclockadile:
You can follow the tag #Swords for Fics if you want to keep up without following me :)
Available Chapters:1: Dumb Ways to Die 2.May Your Blade Be True! 3.On Your Guard!4. Making the Cut 5.Stick ‘em With the Pointy End 6. It’s Like a Dance7. The Measure of A Man 8.A Crossing of Blades 9.Like Chess, but with KnivesAn Interlude About Story Telling10. You Can Barely Lift Your Sword 11.Buckle Some Swash 12.Dual Wielding
Dual WieldingFighting with Two Swords or an Offhand Dagger
Fighting with a dagger in the offhand instead of a shield was a common practice. A long dagger made an excellent tool for catching the opponent’s weapon while attacking with your own. While attacks were made with the dagger, it’s greatest benefit was as a defensive tool.Here the dagger is being used to restrain the attacker’s weapon (note: The big guy’s sword is pointed away from the dagger guy. Again, the problem with flat images and flat swords is swords tend to disappear in perspective. My apologies for the unclear drawing.) The dagger user is now free to attack with their sword in their next action.
I have more experience with double swords so we’ll be talking mostly about that now. We both know that’s why you’re reading this chapter anyways.
Two Swords are used like off-sync partners, with one movement slightly behind the other while they’re in motion. One might temporarily stay still to cover a line while the other attacks, but you’re not going to be fighting two battles at once except for in exaggerated cartoon circumstances. We’ll talk about fighting multiple opponents in “I’ll Take You All On” (chapter coming soon)
As an example, if two downward cutting attacks are being used, what this off sync movement achieves is that as the first sword finishes it’s blow, it deals with the opponent’s weapon. The second sword is a split second behind the first, and now has a clear path to finish it’s blow. The first sword continues to restrain the opponent’s weapon.
In one pattern of attack, the lower sword begins with a thrust, forcing a defence from the opponent then the upper sword begins it’s preparation. The lower sword then follows and does it’s own cut ending as the new top sword. Beginning with the thrust provokes a reaction from the defender and buys time for the first sword to swing back in preparation while the attacker remains covered.
When defending with two swords you can use any of your usual defences as outlined in “A Crossing of Blades” but you need to be careful that you’re not criss crossing your arms and getting tangled up. That’s another reason for the off sync movements. If they follow their patterns and both do the same action, the arms will stay untangled.
Crossing the blades to collect the attacker’s sword is one of the coolest looking defences you can do with two weapons. This one also works well with a dagger in the offhand.
Things get more complicated when both opponents are dual wielding. Now each opponent can restrain with one sword and attack with the other. Even so, they’ll still be following those same slightly out of sync patterns.
It might feel like we can do two things at once, but really we’re just switching quickly between two tasks. It’s better to have two swords working towards one goal then trying to have them both achieve two different things.
Often in one action you’ll still be catching both of your opponent’s swords in the defence.
I’m not feeling ambitious enough to try breaking down two dual wielding fighters anymore than that though, so we’ll leave off here. In the next chapter we’ll look into things you can do with a free hand that’s not holding anything.
http://ift.tt/2kunFXB
from Tumblr http://ift.tt/2lebW3N
via IFTTT
You can follow the tag #Swords for Fics if you want to keep up without following me :)
Available Chapters:1: Dumb Ways to Die 2.May Your Blade Be True! 3.On Your Guard!4. Making the Cut 5.Stick ‘em With the Pointy End 6. It’s Like a Dance7. The Measure of A Man 8.A Crossing of Blades 9.Like Chess, but with KnivesAn Interlude About Story Telling10. You Can Barely Lift Your Sword 11.Buckle Some Swash 12.Dual Wielding
Dual WieldingFighting with Two Swords or an Offhand Dagger
Fighting with a dagger in the offhand instead of a shield was a common practice. A long dagger made an excellent tool for catching the opponent’s weapon while attacking with your own. While attacks were made with the dagger, it’s greatest benefit was as a defensive tool.Here the dagger is being used to restrain the attacker’s weapon (note: The big guy’s sword is pointed away from the dagger guy. Again, the problem with flat images and flat swords is swords tend to disappear in perspective. My apologies for the unclear drawing.) The dagger user is now free to attack with their sword in their next action.
I have more experience with double swords so we’ll be talking mostly about that now. We both know that’s why you’re reading this chapter anyways.
Two Swords are used like off-sync partners, with one movement slightly behind the other while they’re in motion. One might temporarily stay still to cover a line while the other attacks, but you’re not going to be fighting two battles at once except for in exaggerated cartoon circumstances. We’ll talk about fighting multiple opponents in “I’ll Take You All On” (chapter coming soon)
As an example, if two downward cutting attacks are being used, what this off sync movement achieves is that as the first sword finishes it’s blow, it deals with the opponent’s weapon. The second sword is a split second behind the first, and now has a clear path to finish it’s blow. The first sword continues to restrain the opponent’s weapon.
In one pattern of attack, the lower sword begins with a thrust, forcing a defence from the opponent then the upper sword begins it’s preparation. The lower sword then follows and does it’s own cut ending as the new top sword. Beginning with the thrust provokes a reaction from the defender and buys time for the first sword to swing back in preparation while the attacker remains covered.
When defending with two swords you can use any of your usual defences as outlined in “A Crossing of Blades” but you need to be careful that you’re not criss crossing your arms and getting tangled up. That’s another reason for the off sync movements. If they follow their patterns and both do the same action, the arms will stay untangled.
Crossing the blades to collect the attacker’s sword is one of the coolest looking defences you can do with two weapons. This one also works well with a dagger in the offhand.
Things get more complicated when both opponents are dual wielding. Now each opponent can restrain with one sword and attack with the other. Even so, they’ll still be following those same slightly out of sync patterns.
It might feel like we can do two things at once, but really we’re just switching quickly between two tasks. It’s better to have two swords working towards one goal then trying to have them both achieve two different things.
Often in one action you’ll still be catching both of your opponent’s swords in the defence.
I’m not feeling ambitious enough to try breaking down two dual wielding fighters anymore than that though, so we’ll leave off here. In the next chapter we’ll look into things you can do with a free hand that’s not holding anything.
http://ift.tt/2kunFXB
from Tumblr http://ift.tt/2lebW3N
via IFTTT
