Welcome to our huge
selection of Larp armour. It's nearly all leather and we make it all
ourselves based on our experience of larp combats.
To start with the
helmets there is a range of open face, fixed face and swing visor.
Each facepiece design is a compromise between armour protection,
vision in a fight and looking cool. Helmets are made to fit although
we carry some standard sizes at Larp shows.
The Body Armour range
covers breaks down into four basic designs. The tabard style armour
which drops over the head and fastens at the sides has studs or
plates to give added armour protection. Jacket style armour which is
put on like a jacket and fastens down the front. This armour is made
in both suede and leather with a range of sizes and lengths. The
cuirass style is a classic back and breastplate armour made from a
heavy leather. The last section is a combination of tabard and
cuirass, a mixture of heavy and medium weight leather such as the
claw plated armour which uses heavy leather shoulders and heavy
leather plates on a medium weight leather for a more bulky look.
Arm and leg armour for
Larp is covered by greaves and vambraces with scale tassets for the
upper legs. The vambraces range from simple medium weight leather bracers to
heavy leather articulated vambraces with extra decoration on top.
Most are fastened with strap and buckles because it's so much simpler
at a larp if you can put your own armour on. Greaves follow a similar
pattern to vambraces.
Lastly there are
seperate shoulder armours. Whilst they rarely affect the armour value
of your larp character often it's all about the look. Extra shoulder
armour can make your character look bigger and meaner.
Before you
choose your armour it's worth thinking about two things that you need
to consider, armour class and coverage.
Most of
the games in UK larp split leather armour into two classes, light
armour and medium armour. Light armour is usually made from leather
which is about 2mm thick, medium armour is made from leather 3-4mm
thick. In the product listings anything that refers to medium weight
leather is going to be light armour and anything which mentions heavy
leather is going to be medium armour(helpful I know) anything made
from lighter weights of leather, around 1mm such as hoods or leather
trousers doesn't count as armour, just clothing.
Some of
the smaller club games also have nuances to the armour class with the
addition of extra metal plates and studs increasing the armour value.
Coverage
is the amount of your body/body location(arm, leg etc) which is
covered by the armour. Most games have a 50% coverage rule which
means that at least 50% of a location has to be covered to gain the
protection of the armour. So if you've got heavy leather greaves(leg
armour), vambraces(arm armour) and a cuirass(torso) you can claim
medium armour at a lot of games. Adding more armour in these games
doesn't give you any more protection but does look cool and can make
you feel more heroic.
Other
games have different rules, where armour only counts on the area it
covers. If a blow hits an unarmoured part of you then it's hit flesh,
get ready to fall over.
And of
course there are games that fall between the two and caveats about
special hit calls but those are things that will be specific to your
game. If in doubt it's always worth chatting to the refs/game
organisers before you click “add to horde”.
If you
don't find what you are looking for drop us a line and we'll see what
we can do.
Please remember that all this armour is only
designed for use in LARP. It is a physical representation of real
armour not the real thing. It is not designed for use with metal
weapons.