Two
by Scott Meek
12 December 2005
It has become quite obvious to me that the simultaneous wielding of two swords is far more impressive than the use of only one sword. In fact, the use of 2 swords almost automatically increases ones “badassness factor” by at least 3 points.
Don’t believe me? Watch:
Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, Gladiator, Lord of the Rings, and the newly released Chronicles of Narnia.
One could site General Grievous from Revenge of the Sith as a problem with my hypothesis, but I will remind the reader that he patronized four blades until his lower arms were removed.
Aparently, I’m going to have to start training with a second sword. I suggest you do the same.
Dec 14, 02:27 PM
I’ve got quite a bit of sword experience, though I doubt it is at all applicably to real sword fighting.
I can’t imagine having two swords and fighting effectively with both of them. Fencing with one sword takes pretty much all of my conscious brain cycles in addition to a shocking amount of “intuition” and other subconscious processing.
That said, boxers fight with two hands, and Ultimate Fighters fight with, well, everything so there must be some kind of compromise. And again, fencing does not in anyway equal sword fighting.
If I were in a sword fight, I think I’d want a sword and a shield. I can imagine being pretty much as effective with a sword and a shield as I am with just a sword, probably more so. Shield blocking, I suspect, is pretty intuitive. I think I could also learn to parry attacks into the shield, which might sometimes be easier than parrying totally. If I can exactly counteract your off-hand sword with my shield, then we’d have an even one-sword fight, Scott. If I can exactly counteract your good-hand sword with my shield, then you’d be in a real bad way.
Check me if I’m wrong, but “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon” ultimately advocated using only a single sword (as long as that single sword was super-powered).
But maybe I’ve miss understood. Maybe you just want to look badassed. In that case, go ahead, double down with the swords. I’m going to use a gigantic ax.
Dec 16, 12:52 PM
Assume no armor,
Here’s the one I can’t descide. Player 1: light one-handed Sabre in good hand, long-knife in the other.
Player 2: two handed Katana plus wrist sheathed daggar. Or to make it more fair, two gloves with integrated psis.
Player 2, has the advantage at a yard and also in the wrestling match. Has a disadvantage in the in-fighting and a notable disadvantage in transition.
My money is on player 1, who in my estimation is a just a cross-advance away from an easy win.
Now take player 1 and put him up agains player 3 who has the same sabre but instead of the knife he has a shield (and lets put spikes on it too). I still go with player 1 because the shield guy looses the wrestling match baring a lucky shield attack and in other ranges, he doesn’t have any offensive advantage.
Player 4 insisting on the shield goes with a sheild, long-knife combo planning to go straight for the wrestling match. Player 1 is too quick with the sabre for that to be an effective strategy.
Aside: In star wars, it always bothered me that a guy with one light sabre could block so many attacks at once. If the storm troopers went like “1…2…3… shoot!”. The linear light-sabre couldn’t block everything.
Dec 16, 02:15 PM
I disagree, Tom. I think sword fights are unlikely to end up wrestling matches if both people have even 1 sword.
I think the shield is a huge offensive advantage. Player 3 can block Player 1’s sabre with his shield, and because that action is instinctive he will still have most of his brain to figure out how to counter attack. Player 3’s counter attack is now light sword versus long-knife, and Player 1 already used most of his brain cells on his sabre attack
My (basic) sword / shield strategy would be to draw a big attack into my shield, and then counter attack. The obvious counter-stratgey it to feint at the shield, but I don’t see that as being effective.
The only thing I can think of that would scare me if I had a shield: a lefty.
Dec 16, 03:02 PM
Why am I certain that there is an Andrew Loeb-ish person out there working for a video game company whose job it is to figure this stuff out?