My realm has a ton of punch shields. On any given practice, any given fight, probably about a fourth of the people have punch shields. So I have been having trouble being Florentine and trying to manipulate them. Any suggestions?

Stab an edge or corner; it'll make it turn in their hand, and open up a side shot.

kick the bottom of it straight up, if they have a loose grip it will eiter get knocked out of their hand, get moved out of the way, or hit them in the chin. any of these will give you an opening.

Amen to that! I'm continually amazed that folks don't do more of this. Just because your weapon is not thrust-legal (green) does not mean you can't use it SAFELY to move a persons shield. Guess what, you stab at the top edge and hit a fighter in the face, then you are not doing it right or safely. Okay, so use some common sense.

I like to poke the left or right edge in conjunction with foot work and passing shots and wrap shots.

I'm not a big fan of shield kicking punch shields, they can be moved too fast and unlike strapped "barn doors," there is often no *need* to.

problem is if you use the upper distant corner push an experienced fighter will know what you did and rush in while pulling the shield around his/her back to protect from a coming wrap shot. If they are fast enough you won't have time to pull your weapon back in for a in close fight and wrap shots are useless.

I like to stab at the lower corner when I spear. It forces the shield into the user's leg which prevent him/her from rushing and a possible leg shot. If legged you aim a little higher but on the same side. It rotates the shield into the user's arm giving you a perfect shoulder shot. If you do pull of a arm hit then the person if ripe for a shield kick and kill shot.

while spearing I find it to be bad practice to stab at the away side of a target. If it slides it will completely miss. Where as you stab on the inner side and if it slides you may land a good shot on a limb/body. If the person have fought against a spear, an inner shot forces you to move your shield in and blocks any direct shots for a moment and blocks the vision for seconds. It also opens them up for a good outer corner shot to open them up.

Hmmn Savetuba, works just fine for me and I am also an experienced fighter. Still, I use the tactic to set-up wrap shots, which are again tied to proper footwork. True, if you "just do it" with no idea on how to immediately respond (if it goes well or poorly) then it might not be a good tactic. So, it is definitely not for everyone, but it is rarely done out where I fight so I get a lot of mileage from it...

For that matter, just punch them in the face. Brilliant.

Reminds me of yesterday... I rushed our archer and he dropped his bow, grabbed his side arm and spun around hitting me in the face. Afterwards he said it was so cool that he managed to stop my charge by hitting me in the face. We had a long talk about the ethics of that one.

think of the shield as your shield, use it against them. to get shots just look to pass them on the shield side or sword side. if they mvoe left pass on the left side beating them to the spot. right pass right. works good with almost any weapon combo.

Fighting a punch shield is really not any easier or harder than fighting a strapped shield, it's just different, and it all depends on the skill of whoever is using it. There's lots of ways you can try to move a punch shield, hook it with your foot and kick it up or to the side. Stab/slash it high on a corner and try to push it, even just grab it with a free hand and pull. But those are always tricky moves to pull off, because any punch fighter worth his salt will be expecting that and be able to either avoid getting his shield moved, or counter-attack while you're open. What it breaks down to is the punch shield's ability to be moved quickly is it's strength and it's weakness, how you decide to capitalize on that is up to you. Whether you just wail on him with your typical combo and try to knock his shield around, or make a concentrated effort to move his shield in a way that's advantageous to you.

As a consistant user of a punch shield, the most common opening is caused by striking the left side of the shield (your right, my left) as hard as you can, following it with a quick jab in the same spot to go for the arm that's holding it, as usually it's not entirely protected from sideways shots and a hard shot will send it out of the way for a moment.

Conversely, counteracting this is not difficult as long as the wielder sees it coming, simply involving turning the body into the attack or moving the shield to meet the angle of impact. But either one of these moves exposes the other side of the body to attacks.

That and slamming that corner of your shield is party what caused my wrists to get all screwed up this weekend

Sechiiro wrote:
Kicking a sheild is a prefectly legal tactic. Where it hits it owner is completly irrelevant. If your sheild is legally padded(and you're not stupid) it will have amplepadding on the inside edge for exactly this reason.
FB

I definitely need to kick more shields in my realm..the only problem is safety..I need to slowly encorporate it because my realm..the average person might way a buck twenty five..I have over a hundred pounds on them..

I would feel bad if someone gets hurt..but you need to know if you make ultra light punch shields they are very dangerous for that reason..if you get shield kicked it will go crazy.

start off by instead of kicking them over, just try to get the bottom outside corner, then go high cross. its safe easy and the worst possible thing is they get the shield or your foot to their shin, it hurts a bit but not an injury. then start to hit the inside of their shield and go for the wrap.

these are very effentive and don't put anyone in danger. until you get hte hang of it then start to kick people higher on the shield.

another option is to shield punch the top left and hunt those legs.

I like stabbing punch shields. Stab them on one side or the other to open them up and then shott for the gap.
I've been doing this alot with my red sword latly. It works great. It work with florentine also.
FB

1 Sword
GRAB......
THEIR.....
SHIELD....