Archers of Anvil, how much did you spend on your equipment and average cost of arrows per event?
Thank you
While anecdotal, anything from 3 to a 1/3 of your arrows will need replacing is what Iāve heard. I do know battle refs donāt hesitate to break bad arrows found in battle.
#notanarcher but a LARP bow will cost you about Ā£40+. 12 arrows will cost you about Ā£120 (yup Ā£10 each) and you can expect to lose about 10% of your arrows per battle due to breakages or simple losses.
LARP archery is not a cheap option, but from an IC point of view archers can be pretty powerful (1 hit kill against anything not in heavy armour).
As a practicing archer already it sounded like a good choice, but maybe not for my first character perhaps.
Afterall I may find something else I like better that doesnt require expendable stock
Bring the bow and archer as a monster as PD provides arrows for monster archers.
Iām not really interested in monstering right now
If you go on a large battle as your character you should monster the other battle.
Its not like turning up and monstering the whole event, but thats the social contract of the battles.
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I may or may not take to the field, I am undecided but will bear that in mind
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Bow 1= Ā£35 and that did me fine but i wanted a second bow
Bow 2 = Ā£110 and is very pretty
Arrows =Ā£6 each from. In your dreams fx and happen to be some of the best as well. I have 8 atm I started with 12 (Ā£80 as bulk purchase) and have lost a 4 over the last 2 years. Mark your arrows very very well and you lose a lot less
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Those prices are very reasonable, I like.
I will check out that company you suggested now
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I already had a horse bow that met the specifications when I decided to LARP, but my bow probably cost me around Ā£60-70 at the time.
I have been slowly buying a few arrows a month for a while now and Iāve got a good supply as a result. Its cheaper to buy them all in bulk if you can afford it of course. Ā£6-Ā£10 per arrow is standard.
Also donāt forget to factor in the other costs, such as a quiver (or two) for your arrows, arm guards and finger protection (or a thumb ring in my case). You may also want some kind of bow holster or back bag as well.
Iām a huge Steppe archer fanboy, so Iām making myself a hip worn Mongolian/Turkish style bow holster/bag so I can stow and draw my bow with relative ease. This type of practicality may or may not be an important consideration to you based on your preferences. The largely Hollywood convention of wearing a bow slung on your back with the string pinning it to your front is in most (but not all) cases utter fiction and highly impractical in a reality. The same goes for a lot (but again not all) back worn quivers as well.
Continuing upon that line of thinking its interesting to consider how you wear your weapons and other gear outside of combat. After all you donāt hold it in your hand at all times - consider marching, cooking, eating or answering the call of nature. One of the reasons swords are such prevalent weapons in history is due to their ease and comfort when worn outside of combat. Swords (of a reasonable length) are highly practical.
And this of course leads back to your cost considerations. If you want to be a swords person you only need a sword and maybe a shield, but if you want to be an archer you will probably still want some kind of side arm. Indeed something like a sword and buckler are logical choices. So yeahā¦ melee weapons, consider the cost of those as well.
Long story short its not cheep to be an archer. However, Iāve found that by slowly expanding my gear over time (rather than bulk buying everything at once) and making a few things myself its been much easier to digest financially.
Once your set up the costs still exist of course, but its not too bad.
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Re the monster archers: They provide arrows for bows, do PD provide bolts for monsters with crossbows? On the few occasions that is appropriateā¦
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So to get it on a budget
Bow: Ā£30-Ā£40 - you can get a ātraining bowā however to make them look more IC you might inadvertently up the poundage so the alternative is uPVC bows that someone makes (which Iām trying to find the link, Iām 90% certain itās Umbra armoury though)
Umbra Armoury
Arrows:
In your Dreams FX aka Dave is good and trades in the Marches at Empire. Part of the Applewood Levy
Another thing, what are the poundage of the bows you use?
Are they restricted for safety reasons?
Iām by no means an expert on bow safety, but the wiki indicates the draw must be less than 30lb at 28ā'.
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Yup, you can read the weapon checking guidelines for bows and crossbows here: https://www.profounddecisions.co.uk/empire-wiki/Weapon_checking#Missile_weapons
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Thanks both. would this mean it can be over 30lbs if the draw distance is over 28" or less than?
Probably wont matter to mr short arms me though
My understanding (from that same page) is that you must not draw an arrow to greater than 28ā', and that under no circumstances should an arrow be fired at more than 30lb draw.
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Thats cool, cheers
Having been shot by a bow under 30lb at full draw (by my husband - we were testing the bow!) I can confirm that it hurts a heck of a lot. Get used to only drawing the minimum you need, especially if you are at close range. While thereās a bunch of overlap between real and LRP archery they are different skills; give yourself a bit of practice time to adapt. 
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