@corvino i have rarely encountered the term longsword outside DnD. Doesnt the game talk about the artificial nature of the term? Rarely read the standard longsword lore, could be wrong.
the weirdest ive ever learned of were the curved abyssinian swords, sharpened on the concave side, ie opposite of a scimitar. Kinda like a kukri if youre familiar, but less stumpy looking, and on scale with a scimitar. They were used to attack around shields. Not unlike a sickle i suppose. Khopesh are pretty crazy too.
@the_spyder Tolkien was professionally a scholar of germanic history, mythology and lit. He translsted Beowulf, as many know. But my point is the era/mythos he based LOTR on loosely was one in which interlocking plate wasnt invented yet. Chainmail offers much better protection than the breastplates it replaced. Makes sense his dwarves would prefer it. This is conjecture, but it fits
Someone mentioned scythes as weapons earlier, and I found this http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_scythe Looks like, for those who won't bother with the link, the had the blade point outward, and reinforced the connection, so it's essentially an improvised halberd or extra-large bladed spear, popular in peasant uprisings in the 1800's.
Similar to Scythes was the Falx, used by the Dacians against the Romans. It was quite a long, curved blade, again shaped a bit lole a reverse scimitar, sharpened on the inside of the curve and used like a hook. It was so devestating that the Romans actually modified their equipment to resist it better, adding reinforcing bands to their helms and changing armor.
@DreadKhan - Thanks for that. That was more or less what I was alluding too, although not as succinctly as you put it. Tolkien's world was extremely fleshed out and detailed, even to the point of explaining the Elvish language and it's change over time (he was also a linguist). I remember reading that it was based on a time period in particular, but wasn't sure which. And then I remember reading the armor thing, so all of that fits. In any event, a bit off topic, but thanks for the info.
It's interesting that http://www.medieval-life-and-times.info reports long swords and bastard swords were considered to be the same swords in the Medieval period. Only later a bastard sword began to be known as a Hand and a Half sword.
The term Bastard sword originates from the the French 'epee batarde'. This term was used to refer to a 'hand and a half sword' or a 'long sword'. The blade could be the same length as a single hand sword but the tang and the grip were long enough to accommodate two hands providing better leverage and more power. The versatility of the design prevented the sword from being specifically categorized as either a one-handed or two-handed weapon.
Also, as http://www.thearma.org reports, a hand-and-a-half sword (i.e. a horse sword) and a bastard sword are different weapons with different weight. So, it additionally can point to the fact that by a term "bastard sword" we can understand a long sword:
Medieval swords in general were well-made, light, agile fighting weapons equally capable of delivering dismembering cuts or cleaving deep cavities into the body. They were far from the clumsy, heavy things they're often portrayed as in popular media and far, far more than a mere "club with edges." As another source on arms affirmed: "the sword was, in fact, surprisingly light·.the average weight of swords from the 10th to the 15th centuries was 1.3 kg, while in the 16th century it was 0.9 kg. Even the heavier bastard swords which were used only by second-grade fighting men did not exceed 1.6 kg, while the horse swords known as 'hand-and-a-half' swords weighed 1.8 kg on average. When due allowances are made, these surprisingly low figures also hold good for the enormous two-hand sword, which was traditionally only wielded by 'true Hercules.' Yet it seldom weighed more than 3 kg." (Funcken, Arms, Part 3, p. 26).
Alfred Hutton categorized by size and shape based on his limited personal experiences and collection, historical manuals at times give indications of the difference of swords, while Ewart Oakeshot used a system of categorizing blades by their blade, pommel, hilt, but not their grip-length. In short- there is no clear definition what makes the difference between a longsword and any other two-handed sword with plenty of cross-over in the case of Oakeshot's categorizing.
Alfred Hutton, a Victorian historian and a forerunner of today's Western Martial Arts, had in his possession or access to a considerable amount of swords, which he in turn categorized. In particular of the two-handed varieties Hutton mentioned a 'bastard sword' that could be used in one hand or two. Specifically he described the use of this bastard sword in a judicial duel fought in 1549.
Hutton also wrote about swords designed for two-handed use and cited them in The Vse of the Two Handed Sworde, or MS Harley 3542 dated to the 14th century . In the case of MS Harely 3542, Brandon Helsop and Benjamin Bradak in their English Lessons on the Longsword firmly place the verses in the realm of the longsword as used by contemporaries such as Liechtenauer and Fiore
George Silver's Paradoxes of Defense 1599, and Joseph Swetnam's treaties of 1617 also documented two-handed swords, but these are not the same as the ones used by Liechtenauer and Fiore. In the case of Silver and Swetnam, the weapon is too heavy and long to be considered a longsword in the same sense as those of the 1300's. George Silver stated that the two-handed sword should be in the length of its blade the same length as a single-handed sword. This would at first suggest a sword similar to those seen in the longsword fight-books of the 1300's, but in his Brief Instructions, Silver suggests the two-handed sword should be used as a short-staff and lumps the two-handed sword in the same family as the long-staff, Morris pike, and forest bill.
Joseph Swetnam categorized swords differently specifically mentioning a two handed sword as different from a short or back sword, and different yet from a bastard sword, which by his definition was longer than a short sword, but shorter than a long (two handed) sword. The artistry on the cover of Swetnam's work depicts swords that are meant clearly to be used two-handed and are large in size.
Oakeshott divided swords into types based on the dimensions of the blade. Because not all swords with the same blade dimension looked the same, he further broke down his classifications into pommel types and cross styles. Furthermore, he noted that dating swords can be tricky because it was perfectly possible for a blade to be made at one time and a century later remounted on another hilt:
The types do not follow a specific chronology. Type XIIa swords for example co-existed with XVa blades, but there were trends where certain blades were popular. He did not use grip-length to determine what type a sword was, nor did he use words such as 'longsword' to define weapons.
Thus, his type XIII blades include similar looking blades, but different grip-lengths, pommels and cross styles. This can be problematic because his type XIII swords labeled as 2, 3 and 4 have small grips, incapable of a two-handed grip (unless the wide pommel was used). Meanwhile the XIII labeled as 1 can easily fit two hands. It is impossible to say all XIII swords were meant to be used as the longswords of Liechtenauer or Fiore due to differing lengths in the grip.
When using generic terms, Oakeshott referred to swords as:
Riding = Smaller and used most likely for day-to-day usage. Arming = Larger, heavier and good for an expected armed encounter. War Sword = Even larger and meant for heavy action such as the XIIIa, XVa, XVIa, and XVIIIb type swords.
Additionally, Ewart used other generic terms which crossed over numerous types, such as bastard swords which could be used in one hand or two, and two-handed swords, which he indicated were expressly meant for two hands due to their size and weight.
Identifying what is a longsword in the same vein as those used by the author of Ms Harley 3542, Liechtenauer and Fiore is not as simple as finding the right 'word' or the right 'Oakeshott type'. However, using Oakeshott's typology it can be determined that a longsword can be a weapon of the type XII, XIIa, XIII, XIIIa varieties. These weapons date from as early as 1150 (note A) and were popular throughout the 1300's and beyond. They would have been perfectly capable of being primary tools on the battlefield until armor advancements made them less popular around 1400-1450. These longswords were replaced (neither evenly nor gradually) by later types such as the XV which were stiffer and designed to thrust more than cut, such as Oakeshott's XVa number 6, a sword from 1370 reputed to have belonged to the Black Prince and XVa numbers 3, 4 and 5 which came from the 1400's. While these weapons are still longswords, they were becoming steadily obsolete as a primary tool in the face of armor and tactical changes on the battlefield.
Just a quick note about those unfortunate scythes — they were, indeed, historically used but as noted before as improvised weapons. Particularly by uprisers in Eastern Europe in times when fighting against organized army with real weapons was a luxury.
The most prominent that is known to me is the Kościuszko Uprising in Poland where the peasants employed scythes in fights against Russian army (they were called "kosynierzy" or "scythemen" in English). Perhaps the most famous would be the battle of Racławice (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Racławice)
Note that the scythes were modified so they could be used somewhat effectively, as opposed to the image one would associate with the Grim Reaper (which would indeed be unusable in a fight).
Scythes were used as dueling weapons as-is too. More for their awkwardness than effectiveness (combatants on more even footing weapon unfamiliarity-wise):
I'm sorry I somehow missed this discussion back in May. I'm glad it got bumped. It's been a fascinating read.
I've seen the history of weapons discussed in several other threads before, and what I've concluded is that there is a lot of contradictory "information" about it on the internet. Most people post as though they are authorities on the subject, yet they provide little or no documentation or citation. Since there is apparently a lot of incorrect "information" floating around, I think the entries worth paying the most attention to are the ones that provide the most documentation and reference.
For that reason, I think that @bengoshi's post is the best one I've seen, because he has written it as a competently scholarly research paper, albeit a short one. He provides extensive citations from a variety of sources, and points out several historical "schools of thought" on classification of weaponry, making the point that one needs to cite which classification system one is using when providing "information" about historical weapons.
@Bengoshi's short research document, which provides an outline for a potentially more lengthy dissertation on the the subject, also makes the point that historians do have some disagreements, and that many points of classification in various historical epochs and regions are still under debate.
Richard Marsden is a friend of many friends and acquaintances of mine. He does solid research (and is an excellent saberist (the Calvary style of sword).
Also I will second, the Oakeshott is *the* standard in the museum system and Historic Euopean MArtial Art community. http://www.oakshott.org/Typo.html
Jan Petersen's as published in the "De Norsk Vikingesverd" (1919), is the go to for more refined typology when it comes to Viking and surrounding era swords. http://www.vikingsword.com/vbook/vtypes.pdf
Medieval weaponry debate aside, I think one of the components of the tweakpack allowed you to choose if you want to wield bastard swords and katanas with 1 or 2 hands
But to realign with the original topic briefly... the "gaming" bastard is implemented better from AD&D 3.0 onward. Whether other nomenclature exists for its design or not, the mechanics are the same: wielding with one hand provides an opportunity to keep the other free for either defense (buckler or smallish shield), as an auxiliary offense (i.e. balanced throwing dagger or axe) or just holding the reins. But the bastard's hilt grip length is still long enough to wield comfortably and securely with two hands and in many designs have customized the guard into a weapon by grinding a razor edge or spear points for melee range that is too close to swing the blade.
In later AD&D game versions, the damage potential will change according to how it (a 2-way weapon) is being equipped, typically +50% over the SH stat, a somewhat random approximation by game designers. But a dedicated 2H weapon should still cause more damage due to its greater weight, which is usually just by setting a higher base damage spec.
Design-wise in manufacture, it just comes down to the grip length whether any sword can be wielded with the force of two arms (though blade balancing plays a big part as well). And that length is determined by the wielder's hand(s) width(s) which can vary significantly from person to person (ever get a close look at Michael Clarke Duncan's hands? geesh! back to the drawing board for his personal smith). Too long of a grip means constant slippage (and blisters or glove abrasion). Too short means the lower hand may slip off the pommel during a strike (with disastrous results).
Funny how weapon nomenclature has changed from era to era, though. The maul (some call it a splitting axe, today) that I use to cleave wood could certainly be used as a 2H weapon in combat but I have yet to see a gaming maul that is half hammer and half axe edge rather than just a huge sledgehammer.
...and in many designs have customized the guard into a weapon by grinding a razor edge or spear points for melee range that is too close to swing the blade.
I hadn't read that, interesting. Any examples in manuals, writing, or museum pieces, etc?
I've found from handling/bouting and written examples that a crossguard with blunt ends (quillions) are just fine when half-swording (Halbschwert in the German tradition) for grappling purposes. Also in close quarters, blunt (vs sharpened) can handily take someone out of the fight with a blow to the face/neck, yet not be dangerous/a nuisance to the wielder at other times, ie snagging at inopportune moments.
It's nice there are others with solid information. So I don't need to start doing the wall-of-text-thingys.
Longswords and "bastardswords" are of the same blade-size. The hilts are different and they were mostly used for separate purposes and on different ages. The sword you see on LotR, Aragorn's sword Anduril, is a bastard sword. They were historically used by knights in full plate since they didnt need a shield because of the armor. They could use it one-handed on horseback, and as a two-handed weapon after dismounting.
Longswords, if thought bg-wise, are close to the traditional Viking swords or chinese swords(not dao but the other one). They were used together with shields, and since you couldn't go two-handed, there wasn't enough grip for that either. A longer grip would have made you an easier target for enemy grappling moves, disarming you of your weapon.
They are both historically called longswords, and history doesnt distinguish them from eachother. Only BG really does that. Short swords are a different thing entirely.
@Yannir the longsword animation looks more like an arming sword or a backsword to me. Viking swords are a lot wider at the bottom also the drawing of the hilt. I shall quote myself.
@Corvino well, the longsword is actually very similar to what we say in game, though I would say that the length and width of the sword that the paperdoll holds looks a bit like a rapier, not being any wider at the bottom, and a bit longer than an actual longsword. This is a longsword: And as you can see it's very similar to the drawing in the description: A viking sword looks like this: And an arming sword is a bit shorter than the longsword animation:
@meagloth I was actually referring to that very comment when I said that. That 1st picture is both a longsword and a bastard sword. They are the same thing historically. When people refer to longswords, that is what they mean. BG-longsword is a viking sword basically since it can't be used twohandedly.
Edit: Ok, yeah, arming sword gets closer. Missed your 2nd comment after opening the spoiler.
@meagloth I was actually referring to that very comment when I said that. That 1st picture is both a longsword and a bastard sword. They are the same thing historically. When people refer to longswords, that is what they mean. BG-longsword is a viking sword basically since it can't be used twohandedly.
Edit: Ok, yeah, arming sword gets closer. Missed your 2nd comment after opening the spoiler.
Comments
the weirdest ive ever learned of were the curved abyssinian swords, sharpened on the concave side, ie opposite of a scimitar. Kinda like a kukri if youre familiar, but less stumpy looking, and on scale with a scimitar. They were used to attack around shields. Not unlike a sickle i suppose. Khopesh are pretty crazy too.
@the_spyder Tolkien was professionally a scholar of germanic history, mythology and lit. He translsted Beowulf, as many know. But my point is the era/mythos he based LOTR on loosely was one in which interlocking plate wasnt invented yet. Chainmail offers much better protection than the breastplates it replaced. Makes sense his dwarves would prefer it. This is conjecture, but it fits
Looks like, for those who won't bother with the link, the had the blade point outward, and reinforced the connection, so it's essentially an improvised halberd or extra-large bladed spear, popular in peasant uprisings in the 1800's.
It's interesting that http://www.medieval-life-and-times.info reports long swords and bastard swords were considered to be the same swords in the Medieval period. Only later a bastard sword began to be known as a Hand and a Half sword.
The term Bastard sword originates from the the French 'epee batarde'. This term was used to refer to a 'hand and a half sword' or a 'long sword'. The blade could be the same length as a single hand sword but the tang and the grip were long enough to accommodate two hands providing better leverage and more power. The versatility of the design prevented the sword from being specifically categorized as either a one-handed or two-handed weapon.
http://www.medieval-life-and-times.info/medieval-swords-and-armor/long-sword.htm
http://www.medieval-life-and-times.info/medieval-swords-and-armor/bastard-sword.htm
Also, as http://www.thearma.org reports, a hand-and-a-half sword (i.e. a horse sword) and a bastard sword are different weapons with different weight. So, it additionally can point to the fact that by a term "bastard sword" we can understand a long sword:
Medieval swords in general were well-made, light, agile fighting weapons equally capable of delivering dismembering cuts or cleaving deep cavities into the body. They were far from the clumsy, heavy things they're often portrayed as in popular media and far, far more than a mere "club with edges." As another source on arms affirmed: "the sword was, in fact, surprisingly light·.the average weight of swords from the 10th to the 15th centuries was 1.3 kg, while in the 16th century it was 0.9 kg. Even the heavier bastard swords which were used only by second-grade fighting men did not exceed 1.6 kg, while the horse swords known as 'hand-and-a-half' swords weighed 1.8 kg on average. When due allowances are made, these surprisingly low figures also hold good for the enormous two-hand sword, which was traditionally only wielded by 'true Hercules.' Yet it seldom weighed more than 3 kg." (Funcken, Arms, Part 3, p. 26).
http://www.thearma.org/essays/weights.htm#.U32SpXJ_uCQ
At http://www.worksofrichardmarsden.com/historyofthelongsword.htm we read that dating blades, let alone categorizing them has not been a precise science.
Alfred Hutton categorized by size and shape based on his limited personal experiences and collection, historical manuals at times give indications of the difference of swords, while Ewart Oakeshot used a system of categorizing blades by their blade, pommel, hilt, but not their grip-length. In short- there is no clear definition what makes the difference between a longsword and any other two-handed sword with plenty of cross-over in the case of Oakeshot's categorizing.
Alfred Hutton, a Victorian historian and a forerunner of today's Western Martial Arts, had in his possession or access to a considerable amount of swords, which he in turn categorized. In particular of the two-handed varieties Hutton mentioned a 'bastard sword' that could be used in one hand or two. Specifically he described the use of this bastard sword in a judicial duel fought in 1549.
Hutton also wrote about swords designed for two-handed use and cited them in The Vse of the Two Handed Sworde, or MS Harley 3542 dated to the 14th century . In the case of MS Harely 3542, Brandon Helsop and Benjamin Bradak in their English Lessons on the Longsword firmly place the verses in the realm of the longsword as used by contemporaries such as Liechtenauer and Fiore
George Silver's Paradoxes of Defense 1599, and Joseph Swetnam's treaties of 1617 also documented two-handed swords, but these are not the same as the ones used by Liechtenauer and Fiore. In the case of Silver and Swetnam, the weapon is too heavy and long to be considered a longsword in the same sense as those of the 1300's. George Silver stated that the two-handed sword should be in the length of its blade the same length as a single-handed sword. This would at first suggest a sword similar to those seen in the longsword fight-books of the 1300's, but in his Brief Instructions, Silver suggests the two-handed sword should be used as a short-staff and lumps the two-handed sword in the same family as the long-staff, Morris pike, and forest bill.
Joseph Swetnam categorized swords differently specifically mentioning a two handed sword as different from a short or back sword, and different yet from a bastard sword, which by his definition was longer than a short sword, but shorter than a long (two handed) sword. The artistry on the cover of Swetnam's work depicts swords that are meant clearly to be used two-handed and are large in size.
Oakeshott divided swords into types based on the dimensions of the blade. Because not all swords with the same blade dimension looked the same, he further broke down his classifications into pommel types and cross styles. Furthermore, he noted that dating swords can be tricky because it was perfectly possible for a blade to be made at one time and a century later remounted on another hilt:
The types do not follow a specific chronology. Type XIIa swords for example co-existed with XVa blades, but there were trends where certain blades were popular. He did not use grip-length to determine what type a sword was, nor did he use words such as 'longsword' to define weapons.
Thus, his type XIII blades include similar looking blades, but different grip-lengths, pommels and cross styles. This can be problematic because his type XIII swords labeled as 2, 3 and 4 have small grips, incapable of a two-handed grip (unless the wide pommel was used). Meanwhile the XIII labeled as 1 can easily fit two hands. It is impossible to say all XIII swords were meant to be used as the longswords of Liechtenauer or Fiore due to differing lengths in the grip.
When using generic terms, Oakeshott referred to swords as:
Riding = Smaller and used most likely for day-to-day usage.
Arming = Larger, heavier and good for an expected armed encounter.
War Sword = Even larger and meant for heavy action such as the XIIIa, XVa, XVIa, and XVIIIb type swords.
Additionally, Ewart used other generic terms which crossed over numerous types, such as bastard swords which could be used in one hand or two, and two-handed swords, which he indicated were expressly meant for two hands due to their size and weight.
Identifying what is a longsword in the same vein as those used by the author of Ms Harley 3542, Liechtenauer and Fiore is not as simple as finding the right 'word' or the right 'Oakeshott type'. However, using Oakeshott's typology it can be determined that a longsword can be a weapon of the type XII, XIIa, XIII, XIIIa varieties. These weapons date from as early as 1150 (note A) and were popular throughout the 1300's and beyond. They would have been perfectly capable of being primary tools on the battlefield until armor advancements made them less popular around 1400-1450. These longswords were replaced (neither evenly nor gradually) by later types such as the XV which were stiffer and designed to thrust more than cut, such as Oakeshott's XVa number 6, a sword from 1370 reputed to have belonged to the Black Prince and XVa numbers 3, 4 and 5 which came from the 1400's. While these weapons are still longswords, they were becoming steadily obsolete as a primary tool in the face of armor and tactical changes on the battlefield.
The most prominent that is known to me is the Kościuszko Uprising in Poland where the peasants employed scythes in fights against Russian army (they were called "kosynierzy" or "scythemen" in English). Perhaps the most famous would be the battle of Racławice (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Racławice)
A picture: http://pl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kosynierzy#mediaviewer/Plik:Stachowicz_Kosynierzy.jpg
Note that the scythes were modified so they could be used somewhat effectively, as opposed to the image one would associate with the Grim Reaper (which would indeed be unusable in a fight).
I've seen the history of weapons discussed in several other threads before, and what I've concluded is that there is a lot of contradictory "information" about it on the internet. Most people post as though they are authorities on the subject, yet they provide little or no documentation or citation. Since there is apparently a lot of incorrect "information" floating around, I think the entries worth paying the most attention to are the ones that provide the most documentation and reference.
For that reason, I think that @bengoshi's post is the best one I've seen, because he has written it as a competently scholarly research paper, albeit a short one. He provides extensive citations from a variety of sources, and points out several historical "schools of thought" on classification of weaponry, making the point that one needs to cite which classification system one is using when providing "information" about historical weapons.
@Bengoshi's short research document, which provides an outline for a potentially more lengthy dissertation on the the subject, also makes the point that historians do have some disagreements, and that many points of classification in various historical epochs and regions are still under debate.
You're a gentleman and a scholar, @bengoshi.
Also I will second, the Oakeshott is *the* standard in the museum system and Historic Euopean MArtial Art community. http://www.oakshott.org/Typo.html
Jan Petersen's as published in the "De Norsk Vikingesverd" (1919), is the go to for more refined typology when it comes to Viking and surrounding era swords. http://www.vikingsword.com/vbook/vtypes.pdf
But to realign with the original topic briefly... the "gaming" bastard is implemented better from AD&D 3.0 onward. Whether other nomenclature exists for its design or not, the mechanics are the same: wielding with one hand provides an opportunity to keep the other free for either defense (buckler or smallish shield), as an auxiliary offense (i.e. balanced throwing dagger or axe) or just holding the reins. But the bastard's hilt grip length is still long enough to wield comfortably and securely with two hands and in many designs have customized the guard into a weapon by grinding a razor edge or spear points for melee range that is too close to swing the blade.
In later AD&D game versions, the damage potential will change according to how it (a 2-way weapon) is being equipped, typically +50% over the SH stat, a somewhat random approximation by game designers. But a dedicated 2H weapon should still cause more damage due to its greater weight, which is usually just by setting a higher base damage spec.
Design-wise in manufacture, it just comes down to the grip length whether any sword can be wielded with the force of two arms (though blade balancing plays a big part as well). And that length is determined by the wielder's hand(s) width(s) which can vary significantly from person to person (ever get a close look at Michael Clarke Duncan's hands? geesh! back to the drawing board for his personal smith). Too long of a grip means constant slippage (and blisters or glove abrasion). Too short means the lower hand may slip off the pommel during a strike (with disastrous results).
Funny how weapon nomenclature has changed from era to era, though. The maul (some call it a splitting axe, today) that I use to cleave wood could certainly be used as a 2H weapon in combat but I have yet to see a gaming maul that is half hammer and half axe edge rather than just a huge sledgehammer.
:v
I've found from handling/bouting and written examples that a crossguard with blunt ends (quillions) are just fine when half-swording (Halbschwert in the German tradition) for grappling purposes. Also in close quarters, blunt (vs sharpened) can handily take someone out of the fight with a blow to the face/neck, yet not be dangerous/a nuisance to the wielder at other times, ie snagging at inopportune moments.
edit: looks like bg2tweaks has it
Longswords and "bastardswords" are of the same blade-size. The hilts are different and they were mostly used for separate purposes and on different ages. The sword you see on LotR, Aragorn's sword Anduril, is a bastard sword. They were historically used by knights in full plate since they didnt need a shield because of the armor. They could use it one-handed on horseback, and as a two-handed weapon after dismounting.
Longswords, if thought bg-wise, are close to the traditional Viking swords or chinese swords(not dao but the other one). They were used together with shields, and since you couldn't go two-handed, there wasn't enough grip for that either. A longer grip would have made you an easier target for enemy grappling moves, disarming you of your weapon.
They are both historically called longswords, and history doesnt distinguish them from eachother. Only BG really does that. Short swords are a different thing entirely.
As you can see they are basically identical.
Edit: Ok, yeah, arming sword gets closer. Missed your 2nd comment after opening the spoiler.