I’ve been formulating a character for my first event and was curious about something I know that nations favour certain weapons and that some weapons are almost symbolic of certain nations but I was curious about which style of weapons belong to which nation for example sword is a very generic weapon butnarrowimg it down to briefs I imagine for the most common types of weapon nations to be split something like
Highguard - short gladius / arming sword
Dawn - 12 - 15th century single handed (typical cross shaped but longer than high guard)
Marches - falchion or 15th century single handed
League - sabre or rapier
Navarr - kopis/machette
Varuska - scimitar
Brass Coast - cutlas / hangar
Wintermark - Viking going into early 12 century cross guard single gander
Urzien - single edged messer / katana style sword
Imperial orcs - single edged /falchion
What I’m interested in people’s opinions have I got the differences between nations right or have I made mistakes and how does this spread look with other types like axes, polearms, projectile etc
The Varushkans typical single handed weapon is the Axe for the most part. I would say that the most iconic weapon in the Marches is the Billhook or Halberd.
The Look and Feel wiki pages are your friend here. There’s still going to be a lot of overlap because in terms of basic weapons a lot of them look particularly good in lots of places. The key to looking good is not to pick something wildly inappropriate, like a Urizeni with a pair of brutal hatchets or a Marcher with an ornate naginata.
Some example:
Bills are the most popular front-line weapon in the Marches in play, although greatswords, warhammers and big maces are stated as common Marcher weapons for clanky PCs.
As for swords, the inspirations is anywhere from the 12th to the 15th century. It’s definitely a nation where variety in sidearms is a plus as it reinforces the “rabble” look. profounddecisions.co.uk/empi … k_and_feel
I’d keep it simpler for what is popular. You don’t need to break down everything, just ask “does this look good with my kit?”. There is already a tendency to over-fit to one section of the brief.
Marches, Navarr, Orcs, Wintermark and Varushka are more likely to have “improvised” weapons or ones that do double duty as tools.
Brass Coast, Dawn, League and Marches will have variations on the theme of “Fancy weapon”.
For Orcs, I’d go with anything that looked simple, brutal or shit-kicked. Anything with a rusted paintjob or the end apparently broken off is very Imperial Orc. Just look at all that accumulated Worth.
For Highguard at least in my group we’ve picked up a bunch of classic medieval crusader style swords and similar two handed longswords. What I see out there on the field is mostly swords of various descriptions, along with a variety of other common weapons like maces etc. The common theme is that they’re all utilitarian with little in the way of flash or bling. Also according to the brief we should have a bunch of Javelin throwers, but that’s not very common in Highguard from what I’ve seen.
Several of Adina’s Charge specced with Use Thrown Weapon.
The issue is basically that Javelins are incredibly awful. The skill is almost redeemed by being able to throw monster javelins back, but that’s about the only thing it’s ever useful for.
Polearms are also popular in the League, not as common as they are in the Marches, but still common enough.
(If you want to see just how popular Billhooks are in the Marches, pop over to the Marchers Facebook page, where we are sorting out a big bulk purchase of the things)
Highguard is much more sword and shield than spears in game, even though spears and javelin’s hark back to it’s history with mounted cavalry. Spears in play is much more Navarr from what I’ve seen.
I reckon a Highguard pole or pike unit behind the shield line would look nice and be quite cool.
Outside of the League, Highguard is where I see pikes being the most common.
For the orcs I actually think we are rather random in the weapons we use. It is all very practical. Seems scavanged. Lots of us using varied equipment, collected during our battles across the Empire fits well I think.
brass coast is largely sword and board with straight swords of various design or axes plus some duel wields and archers.
as mentioned on the wiki we don’t do really do curved swords:
Scimitars are less common than straight swords and axes which are the preferred weapons. The Bhuj, a large heavy single-bladed spear, is the ideal pole-arm. The best quality weapons are intricately etched and engraved with complex designs.
An interpretation of the League brief that several of us have taken is to be inspired by Reislaufer and Landsnecht soldiers. Both troop types used similar equipment, but the Reislaufer often had a longer sword with a conventional cruciform hilt. Landsnecht classically carried the katzbalger, a shorter sword with a figure-eight crossguard. Both types of swords work really well with the look and feel of the League- better than a rapier or sabre in my opinion.
As an incidental, when I was first kitting the character I commissioned a katzbalger from Saxon Violence, with my heart sinking as I asked for him to make it the correct length, which is shorter than most larp swords and thus sub-optimal for duelling (but I wanted it to match my mental image for the costume). Much to my joyful surprise, it turns out that it is Really, Really Good at the purpose it is designed for. Sure, it is not great for a fair fight against a sword user, but it is superb as a secondary weapon for a polearm user. Fast to draw in an emergency (arm cleaved or polearm shattered) because of the length, it is also a great weapon in a close-quarters ruck against a mess of opponents- more reach and weight than a dagger, but doesn’t get tangled up like polearms or longswords.
I’m actually considering commissioning a 57 - 60inch great sword being a chap who is 6"5’, I’ve also considered adding a slight wintermark/varuskan feel to it to represent where my character has come from and the fact that my character has travelled the empire
