Shields in the Game

Gameplay
#1

In the trailer you can see some shields that appear to have been reinforced with iron bands, at least it looks that way.
proof me wrong, but for what i know of there was no such thing. metal was way to precious and heavy to be used that way.
a shield may have an iron buckle (the early ones), and later you have bucklers made of iron, but that was it.
the sutton-hoo shield should me mentioned thou as an exception
http://www.jugandi.com/Photo_Gallery/England%202003/The%20British%20Museum/index2.html

a shield is made of wood and wrapped on both (!) sides with rawhide (and not leather or linen). so you should not be able to see wooden planks on the backside, something nearly all games do wrong. of course it looks cool, but still is wrong. (here i have not seen the backside of any shield so far…)

a good book to be mentioned in this case is ‘‘der mittelalerliche reiterschild’’ von jan kohlmorgen
https://www.morebooks.de/assets/product_images/9783935616/big/808615/der-mittelalterliche-reiterschild.jpg?locale=gb

(ask google for it, you can find the whole book online. dont want to link it. you should better buy it if you are interested, its woth it.)

it is a good resource if you want to make a minigame for crafting shields

probably useless to mention, for i think you already know.

i made my own shield this way, if someone is interested:
(the ‘‘frankenstein’’-backside is not that accurate thou…)
http://www.furor-normannicus.de/cgi-bin/YaBB.pl?num=1111691814/75

it is of course not a perfect reconstruction, but i think you can see what i mean.


edit: the strap design is taken from the original mentioned in the book, except the left one, that i added. also the small buckles on the middle and left strap are my customization.
the small leather band above the middle strap is for hanging the shield to a wall, and taken from the original.

what also is missed in all games is the leather-strap above the grip that goes around the neck / left shoulder.
it is very important, without that unremarkable strip, your shield could be pulled away from you with an axe for example.
very unfortunate if a second opponent attacks the opening gap with a spear…

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#2

i don’t know which video you are talking about, but from the one i see(the character customization update), it looks like metal nails or pins on the side, not bands.

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#3

Never knew that, but one thing that made me cringe in most games was the single “handle” behind the shield (ouch!). Glad they used straps here instead.

#4

this one: http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=mOiUplvfeS8
at: 1:20

#5

for example the far left shield appears to be wood only (but that’s not for sure due to the video quality) with iron bands.
that cant work. someone asks why? watch this:

the one in the right middle is way better. i suppose that’s the one you saw in the customization update.

#6

By the way… will it be possible to form a shieldwall? or will there be formations in the game?

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#7

I would like to point out the need of bucklers in the game. Thread about bucklers. These were very common especially for use when not in battle.

#8

there are formations. in the video, the scene where you kick a teutonic/hre soldier away, you can see people moving in formations in the background.

as for the shield, interesting. i hope they investigate and correct this if needed.

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