What is SCA armored combat?
SCA combat simulates medieval tournament fighting, using rattan weapons rather than real swords, spears, and axes. (As we’re fond of saying, we want to “kill” our opponents, not injure them.) Fighters wear very protective armor, and a telling blow is one that hits with such force that if it had been struck with a real weapon, the combatant would have been killed or disabled. The person being hit is the one who determines if the blow was good. A fighter who is struck in the head or the torso is considered “dead” and falls to the ground. If a fighter is struck in the arm, they may continue to fight one-handed; if they are struck in the leg, they fight from their knees. We have both tournaments, where fighters compete one-on-one, and melees, where armies take the field against each other. The objective of a melee might be to defeat every member of the other team, to hold a flag, or to capture a certain amount of territory.
