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hi it's todd from todd's workshop and
todd cutler here and i'm back with matt
easton scholar galiatoria weird weapons
is back and i'm back down at matt and
lucy easton's uh skirmish event so it's
basically where loads of people get
together and they fight doing all sorts
of stuff uh you asked earlier on you
said is this one that you found yourself
or somebody showed you yeah you showed
me it at christmas
did i you did and i looked at it and i
went i don't believe that are you ready
if it was christmas time i might have
been drinking the cherries and i have no
idea what this is it was like 27 oh
right okay it doesn't feel like well
i was expecting this to have a thick
shaft inside and it doesn't i honestly
have no idea whatsoever what's inside
this you have been drinking i can see it
it's got a knob at the end
what's this
feels like a pommel at the end that's
not that great on batteries oh i can't
get it out oh
that's a beautiful pommel
ah it's there i've completely forgotten
about that oh that's mental it is
bonkers right this is this is the thing
you said to me that'll never work not
only did i say that that wouldn't work
that is some sort of weird
chain flail thing so you've got a weight
here which weighs about 450 grams so
about pound and then you've got what
looks like a bike chain
conveyor chain steel handle still all
the way
uh leather
cord bound grip and a pommel
right whole thing there uh
58 centimeters something like that so
just under two foot long so i mean it is
a flail isn't it but it's it's like an
enhanced flail yeah you sent me the
picture i took one look at that and i
just went modern industrial definitely a
fake not interested in it matt sorry you
missed the boat
and i paid it no more attention and then
i was looking through a 1430s book by a
guy called mariana tackler and he had a
whole page of different chain link types
like this duplex simplex ones with gaps
in ones without gaps and i just went
ah
interesting i found the original piece
of paper that you sent me
and it goes into describing what it was
about this
is a replica of a piece that was sold
through the hermann historica uh auction
house which has a really good reputation
for
quality and real weapons
so i don't doubt the provenance of it
actually in fact i just dismissed it
from the image first of all which i
shouldn't have done 1520s 1530s german
i've sized it according to their
pictures i've scaled it really quite
carefully so i think we can say what
i've done is pretty true to weight
pretty true to size i'm going to hand
back to matt because you are the expert
on how to use these things and explain
why the chain is like this so mendoza
does talk about a chain which is
designed perhaps like this to prevent it
from tangling itself
but this has some other implications
because of course this can only flex in
one plane oh well it can flex a little
bit from side to side but just like a
bicycle train or a motorbike chain
it is designed to really only go one way
which means that like a blade this thing
can will only want to swing that way it
cannot swing sideways
it feels more akin to swinging a blade
which has edge alignment to it and you
can feel
which way it's supposed to go you if you
try and swing it the other way
yeah well that would happen yeah
actually it can tangle itself but the
but the other thing that that what those
words were explaining was that when you
have a chain like this
that isn't completely free-flowing in
all respects what it allows you to do is
you can now control the weapon in
slightly different ways yeah and and
that's what the text is also saying is
that it allows you different levels of
control to a purely
chain mace if you see the other thing of
course is the fact that mendoza was
talking about it not entangling itself
or considerations about the the
construction of the chain at all
suggests that with other flails
there maybe were issues with this the
head on this one is interesting as well
isn't it because it's it's a cube with
the corners cut off basically d and d
dice
d20 simple question yeah do you like it
i actually really do yeah that's that's
what that's one of the nicest flails
i've ever held of this kind of ball and
chain arrangement um and so long as
you're holding it one-handed your hands
not at any real risk and to be honest
because it's quite a top-heavy
type of swinging weapon
i'd probably just
nestle my hand down right at the bottom
next to the pommel
it's actually quite wieldable
it's yeah it's a nice weight and balance
to it
it feels like it's got good reach on it
like you can really hit
it'd be fun to go at someone's kneecap
with that
did that feel good
it seems to have just disappeared
you're enjoying yourself
[Laughter]
i would not want to be hit by that at
all all right should i try and wrap the
chain around
i imagine that wrapping around an arm
it's completely breaking the wood on the
back is it so a bit like we found with
the shield yeah it's it's almost
accelerating around yeah
and if you so if you were aiming at
someone's helmet or head
and you hit the side of their head with
the chain
the ball would hit them in the back
very interesting
um does that come into the devastating
category
wow i've got a sparring version or
actually i've got two oh really yeah
yeah so well i probably have some people
who'd be very keen to try those out
[Applause]
so bear in mind of course he's got a
big reach advantage with the spear he
has got his his spare hand to grab with
he's actually left-handed so yeah
that'll be a little bit different for
him too
oh he switched hands oh no he's just
like oh he has yeah
but but it's interesting as well with
the mendoza he's talking about the big
circles same with the mountain same with
emmanuel is just keeping people well
away
i mean i'm thinking here that he should
be
he should be making an area that's
difficult for the spear to get through
so an interesting happened there thing
happened because jordan defended the
spear thrust purely with his spare hand
and then tried to strike back with the
flower he wasn't quite close enough to
hit you can just defend it with your
hand you can just push the thrust aside
oh yeah that was interesting because it
lapped over that would have taken his
fingers off i think the plane of the
movement
the flail
he's looking for that opportunity but i
think that the weapon will be so slow to
bring on target yeah that the
opportunity to be gone
oh oh
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oh
hand again interesting yeah
oh so we're swapping out weapons now
so hungarian sabre
kind of a later uh descendant of the
messer you could say i was gonna say the
saber has a reach advantage but i don't
think it does i think there's a similar
reach now
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you know what i'd like to see though
i'd like to see that flail just coming
round and round around to see if the
saber can even really get in
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you have to cover a lot of ground it's
uh
similar to fighting something with a
montante in the same sort of drills
yeah
big circular potions i'm trying to find
an opening
long enough where i can actually do
something yeah
right so new pair of people long sword
versus flail this time remember this
flower can hit pretty hard so be quite
cautious with the blows
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now he instinctively unwrapped it when
he got the contract
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[Laughter]
tell you what i am seeing those
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i think it was the second strike there
on the long sword blade it wrapped
around near the hill so there was an
interesting moment there where his flail
ended up spent as we'd say here and
you've got to pull it back before you
can really do anything with it again and
in that time the long sword is still
potent because you can just thrust or do
a draw cut with it so that was an
example of a moment where the lungs was
definitely
a more dangerous weapon than the
flailers assuming they're unarmored
[Applause]
oh nice
oh
oh yeah but yeah that again that came
over the top i think that i think what i
saw was the shaft hit the blade and then
the rest of the chain link came in and
hit his arm on the way through
[Applause]
in the face
can i give stephen
something to try that we haven't seen
yet
because i think they should work well
okay all right what i told stephen to do
was to try and get his opponent in the
leg
and so just try and snipe down to the
legs so to faint high and then to hit
down on there we go
oh
radical
oh
nice
interesting tactics okay oh new toy
oh
there we go it's good we've got a backup
[Applause]
there's quite a lot weariness
between both of them
that said it all yeah
[Applause]
oh well thank you very much guys because
you know we can't we can't do our work
without you really in that sense what
did you think of it give us 30 seconds
on what you think i find it quite
difficult to use and that at one point
told me to try doing the leg strikes
it's all that big the problem is to do a
leg strike you had to faint high and it
was almost impossible to do a convincing
claim without committing to it and then
to get it down so maybe there's a way of
doing it but mechanic you need to do it
in a slightly different way you need to
set it up differently and you know
mendoza's doing continuous
motions around so maybe you need to
follow through with it and then come
down low or something you know yes what
i got from it was really just needing to
keep keep it moving
keep that swing up keep that momentum up
because at the end of it my arm was
getting a bit tired my grip was gone a
couple of blows in the forearm you know
and
it was beginning to be difficult for me
to keep it moving from from the shoulder
position you can't really fire straight
out you've got to go over a bit to it it
feels like that would be good to
experiment that a bit more but you feel
as though you've got to bring it up
first before you can bring it down
rather than go straight forward and
punch with it i think everyone here
found the tiring factor of thing didn't
you
a little bit difficult although i did
notice the spying versions didn't have
such big pommels is there no i've put
some lead in to weight them but yeah and
something i noticed swinging this around
was having that big pommel there was
really
really vital yeah so if you want to
strike quickly with it you kind of had
to
so pre-cock it i think some of the best
uh hits that i got for you
involved me sort of almost cocking the
hand
and then just being able to flick the
stuff we're watching you experiment with
yeah and that was brilliant and for me
there was some parallels there with how
i've seen people using nunchucks as well
and yourself uh what i found i tried to
try to keep it moving
and i tried to play with the distance
when i was moved
moved it and
out of distance i tried to keep it
moving close to my body leaning back
having my opponent come closer and when
i see an opening or an opponent chase
guard i tried to
come out yeah
lean forward step forward and edge out
yeah arms forward and i was able to get
usually get him or get somewhere i don't
know whether you all perceive this but
when you were all using a sword against
this you all looked very cautious and i
think because you all knew i was trying
to catch the flail in the song right
okay then once it's wrapped up his
momentum is gone right he's trying to
just follow through okay okay one
characteristic i found fighting the
swords and i think lots of other people
found it was
you end up using the half to block so
you end up striking with the tip of the
hat
while letting the fl the ball of the
flail go past go past so instead of
swinging and your aim point being so
coming around the back extension yeah
like with the shield yeah you make some
beautiful rondelle daggers with studs in
the handle thank you very much
stubs on the handle of that would make a
difference because i found it was slowly
slipping out and i did as well
interesting studs on the handle would
really help with that grip thank you
very much and uh well matt and lucy
easton fight camp
uh thank you all um thank you todd for
bringing this wonderful creation if we
love it
if mad max had a mace that would have
been it yeah yeah absolutely it's
industrial meets medieval i love it
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you