just throwing this idea around, not even sure if I like it completely... but it could be cool.
The Romans were very good at killing barbarians. one reason was that they would hurl their javelins at the enemy in mass, and the javs were designed to get lodged and the shield and bend in such a way that they could not be removed the wooden barbarian shields, and the shield would become useless and would have to be discarded.
This gave me the idea that perhaps a javelin in our sport could be able to count as a red hit on foam cored shields only. It would serve to sway people from using as many 1/2 ounce foam core shields and bring some more balance/historical accuracy to the game.
Something like a jav to a foam shield counts as a red hit.
what do you think?