Lord of Battles – Steel Cuirass with Tassets – 18 Gauge Steel

Great Price… Good looks As far as protection, I can’t really comment because I haven’t been attacked by any Moors, Huns or even a small band of outlaws. I don’t know how well this would stand up to actual 14th century combat, but it stood up very well to my “Antiquing” process. To make it look a bit more authentic, I bashed pretty good with a small Polish mace, a Hanwei Hand and a Half sword and a Windlass English War-hammer. To my delight, the armor held up really well. I hit the armor (as it was lying on the sand” with a full swing from a sharpened 40oz. sword and it left a nice crease, but really did no real damage. The hammer left some good dents and the mace just put a dimple or three in the back-plate. The overall look of the armor is good, and because the steel is only a bit over a millimeter thick, it wasn’t too hard to form the plates to fit my proportions. It’s fairly light weight so it’s not too heavy to wear for hours at a time. My only complaint is that the straps were not well placed on the armor for keeping it in place, but that was overcome by putting my sword belt on the outside and cinching it tight. All in all, unless you crazy enough for Battle of Nations full contact, this is a great deal. I would feel absolutely confident in this armor for fencing with anything from Feders to 5 pound stage swords. I almost took a shot at it with my 150lb crossbow, but wasn’t sure that it wouldn’t actually fully penetrate the armor. I want it to look like I survived combat instead of making it look like I stole it from a corpse that died from a crossbow shot! Well worth the price and a ton of fun!