Hilt and Helm Fall 2024 Status Update
Lace up your Ugg boots and heat up your pumpkin spice latte’s, it’s time for another Hilt and Helm status update: Fall edition. The season we’ve been pretty busy so check out what we’ve been up to!
Pillowfecht 7 More Bang for your Buckler
On October 7th, we held our first Pillowfecht in our new space! As much as we wanted to have a sword and buckler class, we just didn’t have enough arming swords for a full class. So this tournament’s ruleset allowed fighters to face off with a buckler and whatever other weapons he had lying around so long as both fighters were wearing equivalent amounts of protection. We reused the health bar rules from the last Pillowfecht since we plan on using them for Unicorn Cup. The results were pretty spectacular!
We had some real standout guests come out for the event. Martin Dollinger and AJ Trefney came down from Cleveland to take half of our medals. Jacob Nelson (President of CMU HEMA) and Lauren Loria-Sklar came over from CMU to compete as well. In the end, 3 out of 4 of them wound up on the podium with our gal Robin showing up for the club!
1st Place: AJ Trefney,
2nd Place: Martin Dollinger
3rd Place: Robin Steele & Jacob Nelson
After the tournament was done, we revived the tradition of having a cake with the tournament artwork printed on it. The tradition started with our first and second going away parties (Pillowfecht 4: Oh Danny Boy and Pillowfecht 6: Ben Voyage), but I didn’t these cakes to become associated with farewells. Also since one of our two messers died, we decided it would become the permanent cake messer!
As not to have cakes be permanently associated with good bye parties, we decided to revive the tradition for every Pillowfecht!
As for footage, please check out our YouTube Channel for a Pillowfecht 7 playlist!
New Swag, Who Dis?
Being the shop-aholic that I am, I have a very hard time resisting the urge to get new designs made up for the club. The first design was inspired by Tony Cavalline, our 4th Thane of Hiltenhelm and Master of Longsword Lessons. I’d asked him why he fought for the club but didn’t wear one of our patches and after hearing his answer I couldn’t help but agree with his logic: it didn’t match his outfit.
So after consulting his color pallet and talking to our graphic designer, we came up with a new design! This new design is available at the club as a patch, a pin, and a sticker (coming soon).
The new patch logo!
The second piece of merch is inspired by my most recent tattoo. I went to 7 Daggers Tattoo and got this beauty done!
I wanted my HEMA kit reimagined as a Japanese wood block painting and my tattoo artist didn’t let me down! Everything from the double ring guard sword to the mask and socks was done amazingly!
I was so impressed with how the tattoo came out that I asked the artist if he could share with me the stencil file he used as inspiration. He didn’t get back to me, so I went to our graphic artist Emy Bitner and asked if she could recreate it as artwork so I could put it on stickers and such. Not only did Emy find the original Japanese artwork my tattoo artist used as the character model, but she also imposed it on a bad ass background!
Oh … my God do I love what she did with this! If I thought my tattoo looked cool, she took what he did and cranked it up to 11!
This new artwork is available as a poster, a t-shirt, and stickers.
Lastly, we have pillows available in the store! So far we’ve released our cutest designs: The Pride Sword-i-Corn, the Trans Pride Sword-i-Corn, and the Seal of Steel. This is a new product line we’re trying out and we’ll see how well the reception is before making any new pillow designs.
Duel for the Jewel 2024
Me and my girl Robin posing at Duel for the Jewel 2024!
On October 26th, Robin and I trekked over to Bellbrook Ohio for Gem City Duelists Society’s annual tournament: Duel for the Jewel 2024. Their ruleset is one of the more interesting ones in my opinion. Like most Ohio rulesets, shots to the head and torso are worth 2 points and shots to the arms and legs are worth one point. The big difference is with “Ranked Priority” when adjudicating doubles. Here are the rankings of each target:
Cuts and thrusts to the head or thrusts to the body.
Cuts or thrusts to the dominant arm/hand or cuts to the body.
Hits to the off hand.
That means whenever two people hit each other within tempo, who ever had a higher priority hit gets one point instead of two; however if both fighters hit targets with the same priority, then neither gets any points. This is a ruleset I can get behind!
They also had a new method of determining whether a sword is too stiff. By grabbing the sword at the cross guard and pressing down on a scale, they can calculate how many pounds of force are necessary to cause the sword to bend. Typically it’s tested by the manufacturer from the pommel, but the cross guard gives you a better idea of what kind of force will actually be applied. This method is way more consistent then the old method of having the director bend the sword and judge by their gut intuition. My problem is with the cut off limits. According to the research the tournament organizers did, any longsword whose thrust force exceeds 40 pounds is considered unsafe. My longsword measured in at 41.6 pounds and was disqualified from entry. I had to use a loaner sword which I’m firmly unaccustomed to and it did impact my performance during my Tier A pools as I had to readjust to the weight and feel of a brand new sword.
Am I mad at the organizers? No not even a little bit. Frankly this level of consistency has been needed for a long time. Am I mad at Hema Supplies and Regenyei for making two swords that are now considered too stiff for tournaments? No. I ordered a medium flex sword and at the time that is what they considered medium flex. I am however immensely frustrated at whomever did the research and concluded that 40 was the magic number. I like how Columbus United Fencing Club approached the situation. For them, any sword between 40 and 45 pounds got orange tape on the blade and the fighter was warned that if they go for a thrust they are going to have to release the sword to keep from hurting people. Thankfully at their tournaments my sword was allowed and there were no issues; however, now that I can’t reliably fight with my weapons it puts me in an awkward position of having to train with two weapons and be prepared to fight with either. Still though, as upset as I was about my sword getting disqualified and doing poorly in Tier A longsword, my mood immensely improved when I fought in saber and rapier.
The next day, I fought in the rapier tournament first. Long story short, I swept my pools with my only close fight being between me and Brandon Nguyen. He and I go way back. We first saw each other at “As You Wish” rapier dagger tournament. I admired his mask so much that it became the subject of our “Armed and Fabulous” artwork as well as the softened version of our “We’re here, we’re queer, and we will stab you” artwork. So when I moseyed into the final 4 fight and I was up by 6 points I thought I had that silver or gold medal in the bag. Then he went … low. Like REALLY low. Up until that point I was playing fairly aggressively, but when he scored 3 points on me by ducking my attacks and hitting my leg and chest I had to go back into a more defensive strategy. Even when he was taking the initiative my attempts to lock out his blade and hit with repost we missing entirely because he just kept getting lower and lower than I could anticipate. Until finally he was able to overcome a STAGGERING disadvantage and beat me to advance to the finals. I ain’t even mad! That was stupendous.
What did make me mad; however, is who I had to fight for 3rd place. Brandon … mother-f*&king … Zipplinger. Now those of you who’ve been following my blog posts know that this man regularly beats my ass like the red headed step child of a rented mule. If I was a gambling man, I would have put my money on him. So when I sauntered up to him in that fight, I’d already kinda mentally clocked out. And apparently that was the trick.
See one thing I’ve noticed about him in every fight we’ve ever had is that he loves taking the initiative. He’s strong and extremely fast. And usually he’s able to dominate his opponents by yeeting himself at them so fast that they aren’t prepared for attack before they get skewered. But then I realized something … he always goes for a lightning fast attack and a lightning fast second intention. If I let him come at me and parry both of those things, he probably doesn’t have a strong follow up because he’s not used to people getting that far. As so I played the waiting game. Each pass I let him come at me. I waited for the attack and parried. Then I waited for the repost and parried. And as I suspected all that energy expended on the first two attacks left little in the tank for retreating and following through. That’s how I managed to get ahead pointwise. Staying ahead required me to change paradigms. He was used to me being defensive. Once he switched to a more defensive strategy himself I knew he was going to try and goad me into attacking and exposing myself so he could do what I’d been doing. Only I knew he knew that, so I threw random bullshit at him to throw off his game. I pulled the weirdest, most off the wall attacks and movements I could think of to get him to react offensively. Once I “seemed” to be open, he came at me and I could resume my actually defensive strategies to secure my lead and take home the bronze! That made medal number 20!
In between the rapier and saber tournaments was lunch. Once I’d stuffed my face I got approached by a new kid I hadn’t met yet named Logan Caldwell. We faced off in a friendly little warm up match and for being as new as he was he was actually quite good! Thankfully I had a few tricks he’d never seen before which allowed me to stay on top, but after the fight we had a little chat. He said this was his first saber tournament and he hoped he’d walk away with his first medal! I told him I’d been doing this for 10 years and if I got a medal it’d make number 21! I wished him luck in the tournament, then went onto sweep my pool.
What was eventful was who I ran into during the semi-finals. It was Logan again! Thankfully (for me) I’d been paying attention to his measure, his attack patterns, and devised a strategy to either fool him into committing his defense to an area I had no actual interest in attacking or letting him come at me until I saw an attack I recognized and could focus on parrying and reposting. I came out on top and went on to fight Alexander Brindley in the finals.
For reference, Alex had taken 2nd in Tier A longsword, 4th in Messer, and also swept his pools is saber so he was definitely the guy to beat. Initially I’d been able to get some points on him early on by feinting in one direction and hitting in another. But a man that talented isn’t fooled for long. After a few more attacks he was able to differentiate my attacks from my feints and when he stopped falling for my trickery he managed to pull ahead and claim the gold. Still though, another silver saber medal is always appreciated and that is how I got medal number 21!
Me posing with medals numbers 20 and 21!
Hilt and Helm is Open for Parties Now!
Dan Michniak, the Dad of our youngest members Logan, asked me one day during practice if we were open to hosting Logan’s 15th’s birthday party at the club. Some family members were interested in sparring and wanted to know if they’d be allowed. The answer to the first question was “Most Certainly Yes!”, but at the time, we didn’t have a precedent for hosting other people’s events since this was the first time we had our space. So after consulting a few other event pricing schemes we settled on this format for booking parties at the club!
If you’re interested in having an event at the club, we just need to know …
Your name / Your organization’s name
How many people would be coming
Nature of the gathering
How long you’ll need the space (Make sure to book adequate setup/tear down time)
When you’ll need the space
What facilities of ours you’d need (chairs, tables, speakers, television, video game console, lounge area, weapons, staff, etc)
Once we have that information, we’ll work out a quote and confirm the date works for us. So long as everyone is in agreement, your event will be on the books!
The answer to the second question was “Yes, but we’d have to run them through a brief lesson first and only allow them to use the foam padded weapons.” Thankfully they were totally on board with that, and so after food I ran everyone through a brief introduction on fencing, the etiquette of sparring, and force calibration to make sure everyone walked away as happy and healthy as they arrived.
The lessons went well and the sparring that followed was actually pretty fun to watch. What was special about having a family event at the club was that it’s kinda natural for kids and relatives to come into conflict with each other at family events. But here, there’s a trained professional to ensure no one is hitting too hard, the rules are being respected, and that things remain civil. It’s not just the kids beating each other up, it’s uncles and nephews, cousins and aunts, while the older folks get to watch and eat!
Logan’s family getting ready to watch a family conflict that’s supposed to end in violence!
The prelude to the mini lesson before the family gets to fight!
I’m just glad I could be a part of this for them. When I was a kid I LOVED swords. My Dad had a computer repair stall at the local flea market back in Baltimore. Our stall was a little ways away from a sword dealer. Every day after work I’d look around his shop and marvel at the decorative wall hangers. Eventually I’d saved up enough money to buy a few. In his defense he did ask if I was old enough to buy them. Thankfully my good friend Benjamin Franklin convinced him I was responsible enough to make the purchases. To this day I still have most of those swords hanging in my living room.
The aforementioned decorative sword collection
But I make that tangent to say this … when I was Logan’s age I would have LOVED to have my Dad allow me to do HEMA. Back then HEMA wasn’t a thing yet and I’d like to think my Dad would have supported me, but I’m jut glad I can help Dan do this for Logan!
Lost Arts Tournament 2024
On November 2nd, Ryan Leanard, Morgan Redfield, and Tony Cavalline went to Waterfront Mixed Martial Art’s first tournament. As much as I wanted to be there for this historic first for their club, sadly I had another engagement in Columbus I had already bought tickets to. Thankfully there was a heaping helping of Hilt and Helm representation at the event and two out of three of our members wound up on the podium! Congrats to Tony for getting a Gold Medal in Longsword and Morgan for getting a Bronze Medal in Saber!
Tony getting a Gold Medal at Lost Arts 2024!
Scioto Open 2024
Tony, Adam, and I at Scotio Open 2024
On November 16th, Tony, Adam, and I travelled out to Columbus Ohio for Columbus United Fencing Club’s new annual event: Scioto Open 2024. Before the split with Royal Arts Fencing Club, the event was called Blue Box Open after the fact that the main room in which the fighting occurred was big and painted blue and looked way larger on the inside than it did on the outside. Blue Box 2018 was also the first medal I’d ever won! …ok “technically” it was my 5th, but the first two “medals” were trophies, the third was a sash, and the forth was god damned t-shirt so I was happy to finally get something that fit in my shadow box.
Me winning my first actually for-realzies medal!
The event has even deeper emotional significance for me since Blue Box 2022 was Julia’s first ever tournament and now its spiritual successor would now be Adam’s! But before that would go underway, Division A longsword was first. Of my more notable losses in pools was again … JW God-Damn-Mother-F*@king Pugnetti. They even let me have my regular sword this time so there wasn’t even the excuse of having a weird new sword to get used to.
Another notable loss was Seanpatrick Thomas from Two Raven Fencing Club. For those of you who don’t know, Two Raven’s puts out some of the best fencers in the HEMA Circuit. From Brian Stone (the big guy in charge), to Martin Dollinger, to Kathryn Dunn, Lacy Eck, and formerly AJ Trefney, their fighters are often on the podium. Facebook had been telling me that Seanpatrick and I should be friends for a while but we’d never actually met before in the tournament circuit. As usual whenever I fight someone I don’t know I load my standard mook playlist which involves hanging out in plow, playing defensively, and waiting for them to make a mistake so I can yeet myself at their accidentally created opening for easy points. I mean … was he in A-Tier? Yes, but sometimes newer people get shuffled into it when the tournament organizers need to fill out the brackets. Then he showed me why he belonged in A-Tier! Dude was fast and tricky. Not once, but twice he feigned a standard attack and then came around for his real target scoring two solid hits on me in the first few exchanges. At this point, I activated both ass cheeks and came in for some tricksey bullshit of my own ratcheting up the score 4 - 2 his favor. I tried another feignt, an under-hau that disengages and turns into a thrust, but he managed to bind with the blade before I could disengage and get me in the head. 6 - 2, his favor. At that point I came in aggressive and straight forward hoping to chip away at his defenses by overwhelming him zwerk-haus, but he deftly managed to maintain distance or negate my attacks with doubles to equally weighted targets until finally he was able to get the last point he needed to secure a victory. Well played Seanpatrick!
Of my victories, I did manage to pull off an upset win against Brandon Zipplinger! But during the last tournament I’d figured out a pattern he repeats over and over again: he’s super aggressive and relies on hitting on the second intention. So this time I figured I’d try something a little different: speaking window.
Sprechfenster (or Speaking Window) characterized by this old-timey picture from a manual I haven’t read.
For those of you who don’t know, speaking window is a guard where you bring the sword up to your chest and point the tip at your opponent. It’s similar to long point, but the big difference is that you bring your arms in instead of extending them. What this does is it fools your opponent into coming closer since they aren’t as sure where you measure is. This is aided by two things:
By having your arms close to your chest, you still have the ability to extend them in many directions. This allows you to shift into ox for high cuts, plow for low cuts, disengage and thrust if they krump, or just stab them in the face.
By having your point directed in their face, it messes with their depth perception and allows you to get closer before coming in for your attack.
I gambled that he didn’t see this manuever a whole lot during tournaments and apparently I gambled correctly! He wasn’t sure how to apply his typical tactic against this guard and it allowed me to keep his aggressive ass at bay long enough to secure a few points and maintain my lead until time ran out.
Coming out of pools I’d had 4 wins and 2 losses. My first fight going into Elims was against Thomas Kesler. I’ve mentioned him a few times before as a guy who I used to be able to beat pretty consistently but has since then beaten me on several occasions only for me to return the favor shortly afterwards. It’s always a pleasure (win or lose) to fight Tom! Although the fight was super close and it came down to sudden death (emphasis on death as you’ll see soon), he came out on top this time and I died with grace and flare!
Up next was Tier B Longsword. This wasn’t Tony’s first rodeo so I let him do his thing. Adam signed up for a private tutoring session with me the weekend prior and asked that I corner for him during pools. During our session I’d taught Adam about the 3 broad strategies during our session because it meant when giving him advice I had to say a lot less than I normally would have to when cornering for someone new. For those who aren’t aware, the 3 broad strategies are …
The Buffalo - an aggressive strategy centered around applying pressure by chaining multiple attacks.
The Boulder - a defensive strategy centered around waiting for your opponent to throw an attack you recognize and focusing on performing the correct parry riposte.
The Lynx - a tricky strategy where you feign straight forward attacks to get your opponent to open up your actual target, then disengage and hit it.
This meant that while he wasn’t fighting the two of us watched his opponents and figured out which strategies they relied on the most so that when he fought him he’d already have a solid game plan on how to beat them. And credit where it’s due, Adam did excellently for his first tournament scoring a few wins! One of his opponent’s who beat him whom I wanted to call out was Tiffany Shi. During her earlier fights she was always very defensive, so Adam and I figured he could beat her by setting her up using the lynx strategy. When the two of them clashed blades, she unleased a ferocity neither of us had expected! The once timid defensive fighter came out the gate swinging and handed Adam his ass. In his defense, she’s been in the game a while. She took second at Last Year’s Unicorn Cup Gender Minority Tournament so there’s no shame losing to someone that skilled!
After Adam finished his pools I checked up on Tony. Apparently he won all of his fights except against one opponent: Alex Beaudet. Having not seen their fight I didn’t have much input to give. I just told Tony to do his best if he had fought him in elims. Which he did … and went on to secure his bronze medal! I have the fight on film. If at some point he doesn’t mind me sharing it, I’ll post a link to it here.
The next day was the saber tournament. My pool was especially shark-ey with myself, JW, and our good friend Logan Caldwell! You may remember him from earlier in this blog post where I beat him and prevented him from getting his first medal. Well apparently this was his chance to seek redemption! During the pools, there was a very interesting trifecta in that he, JW, and I all had 3 wins and 1 loss where JW beat me, I beat Logan, and Logan beat JW.
During Elims, I got back up to the semi finals and who do you think I had to fight again? That’s right. JW God-Damn-Son-Of-A-B!tch-Every-God-Damn-Time Pugnetti. He beat me … again but surprisingly Logan was on the other side of the bracket! It seems this time both of us would get a bronze medal!
First Place: Brandon Zipplinger, Second Place: JW Pugnetti, Third Place: Chris Shelton and Logan Caldwell
Of course once we got back to the club Tony and I had to take this rad photo to celebrate our two medals!
Tony and I looking bad ass with our newest medals!
At this point, it’s been 6 years since I got my first medal at Scioto Open’s spiritual predecessor tournament. Back then I’d only been teaching for a little while, but teaching others made a world of difference in my fencing game. Now I’m up to 22 medals and my students are either teachers following in my footsteps, embarking on their first journeys into the world of competitive HEMA, or somewhere in between. I’m proud not only for myself but for everyone at the club who not only enjoys this as much as I do; who find gratification in getting on the podium or just doing better than they had been before.
Lake E-Fecht 2024
On December 7th, Hilt and Helm traveled up to Erie PA for Steelhead Western Martial Arts’ annual tournament: Lake E-Fecht. Sadly I waited until the last minute to buy my ticket and it was sold out. Fortunately Ryan, Nate, and Adam were able to make it up!
Ryan and Nate on a road trip to Erie!
Although there were multiple events, each of them participated in Tier-B longsword. When asked for comment, Ryan had this to say about the event:
Appreciation to the event organizers for running a fun event that was …
1. ahead of schedule
2. efficient and
3. affordable!
Usually you can get two of three in that combo and they managed to sweep. The aspect that I think could use more reps before the 2025 event is judging practice, and carding for warnings/excessive force. After taking and witnessing more than a few late hits after halt was called during the event, I think that normalizing going to a yellow card for those actions would be a worthwhile practice to adopt.
- Ryan Leonard
Although Adam’s performance in the first round of pools wasn’t great, he did manage to sweep his second round! Overall Nate and Ryan wound up in the top 10 with 5 wins and 3 losses and friend of the club Tan wound up in the top 5!
Pictured left to right: Ryan Leonard, Nate Dolphin, Tan Nguyen, and Josh Derby. Congrats to Tan, Ryan, and Nate for making top 10 in Tier B Longsword!
Pillowfecht 8: The Reindeer Games!
On December 14th, Hilt and Helm celebrated it’s 3rd Anniversary with another in house tournament. The rules this time were the same as the last. Each fighter would get 10 health points and every hit against them (double or otherwise) would subtract from that total. As long as both fighters agreed on the weapon and both weapons used the same level of protective equipment, any weapon combination would be allowed. Fighters would continue until either 3 minutes elapsed or someone’s health points reached zero. If both fighters’ health points reached zero, they both lost. The twist this time was that we’d be combining the tournament with a white elephant gift exchange where the order you place in the tournament determines the order in which you take gifts from underneath the Christmas tree. Oh yeah since this is our first time actually owning our own space , it felt necessary to decorate accordingly!
Hilt and Helm’s Christmas tree!
I also decided to get … dressed for the occasion!
Don me now my gay apparel!
Also as usual we had to bring back the Pillowfecht cake. I mean, it is the club’s 3rd birthday. Only seems appropriate. Apparently we couldn’t wait to take the picture until after we’d already started eating!
Pete and Keith having a spear duel!
If you’re curious how the fighting went, feel free to check out our footage of the whole tournament on our youtube page!
We also bought “trophies” for this Pillowfecht’s tournament winners. Little pillows with the event art work on them!
1st Place: Morgan Redfield, 2nd Place: Eric McChesney, 3rd Place: Kevin Brough and Pete May
Kavan getting his gift!
Hilt and Helm’s 3rd Anniversary Retrospective
As I pen this blog post on New Year’s day and look over all of the things we’ve accomplished I’m both profoundly proud and exhausted. Never in my wildest dreams would I ever have thought that this was the direction my life was going to take. What initially sparked from a cool advertisement for a sword fighting club I saw on the internet was an interest. When I swung my first sword and tasted the adrenaline of combat that interest became a hobby. When I went from just training and competing to teaching and winning medals, that hobby became a passion. And when given the opportunity to form my own club, that passion formed with the passions of others to become Hilt and Helm Pittsburgh Fencing Club. Although I put a lot of myself into the club, it’s not all me. If it were, the club would be called “Shelton’s Splendiferous Sword School”. But the club wouldn’t be what it is today without the help of a few people I’d like to thank.
Liz Wildenhain
When we landed in the Hamilton Avenue location, I’d been blind sided by the red tape involved with the occupancy permit and the logistics of actually moving into the space we’d just signed a lease on. Thankfully for us, Liz had a connection at Ace Axe Throwing that allowed us to keep up practice without having to fight outside in the park. Because of her, practice was able to continue uninterrupted as I navigated us out of that perilous pit trap.
Tony Cavalline
After things stabilized at Ace Axe Throwing, it was Tony’s connections that found our current space. Thanks to him, a whole new generation of Hilt and Helm fencers will only know the sweet caress of conditioned air and the street level entrance of our current location as opposed to the suffocating heat and steep-ass-stairs of our first location. The “smell” of a fencing club will forever be mitigated by our dehumidifiers and handicap accessible shower. Without him, we’d be a transient, smelly, and heat stricken bunch of sword wielding vagrants bouncing from park to parking lot.
Robin Steele
With so many things constantly changing, one person I could always rely on to help maintain what we had was/is Robin. From helping maintain push press, our equipment, and every other tiny little thing that helps keep the club running, she’s always been there to help me keep things together.
Paul Wintruba and Scrimshaw Media
Paul’s photo’s are some of the best photography I’ve ever seen. And the fact that he does it for the club on top of maintaining our instagram account is something I can never thank him enough for. Our online presence wouldn’t be anything like what it is today without him. Before him I was doing my best with my shitty iPhone 8 and intermittent posts, but thanks to him we actually look like a respectable business.
Emy Bitner
Emy is the mastermind behind all of our club artwork with the exception of the original logo. We owe our entire line of merchandise, our distinctive stickers, and a big part of our club culture to her taking my wild-ass-ideas and bringing them to life.
Our Instructors and Administrative Team
Eric McChesney, Phil Clark, Kevin Brough, Ryan Leonard, Aleksei Bulan, Shawn Howering, Pete May, and everyone else that I may have missed I couldn’t run this place without you. Seriously, if I had to be at the club every god-damn-day to do every god-damn-thing I’d pull my hair out. It’s only because of you and your assistance that we’re able to be open 4 days a week and generate enough income to keep our location from turning into … I dunno … a Pottery Barn or something.
Our Students
Last, but certainly not least are our students! Thank you all so much for putting your faith in us. It takes a lot of courage to walk into a place and allow people to beat you with swords, and I can’t thank you enough for trusting us with your safety and continuing to come back to form this awesome community. Here’s to making 2025 just as awesome as the last year (hopefully with a lot less having to move the club).
2024 Hilt and Helm Tournament Performance Summary
The Medal Count: 15
Unicorn Cup: 6 top 8
Ascalon Sword Festival: 5 top 8
Duel for the Jewel: 1 Silver and 1 Bronze
Lost Art: 1 Gold and 1 Bronze
Scioto Open: 2 Bronze
The Highs
Ran our first successfull large scale tournament (Unicorn Cup 2024)
Ran the country’s largest HEMA sparring camp
Survived getting displaced from 3 different training locations
Set up shop in our very own training location
Expanded from operating 2 days a week to 4
Future Event Plans
The Unicorn Cup - Jan 18th 2025
Join us on January 18th for The Unicorn Cup! As of the writing of this post, there is exactly ONE ticket left in the Rapier Dagger event and everything else is completely sold out. There are plenty of slots on the wait lists. If any people drop out, we will allow those on the wait list the opportunity to buy the tickets in the order in which they appear on the wait list. Hope to see you in January!
The Alicorn Cup - Summer 2025
Some people were upset that we had to remove Gender Minority Longsword from Unicorn cup. The reality of the situation is that we had a really low turn out last year and needed to replace it with event that would draw a larger crowd. Instead, we are planning a Gender Minority Tournament at the club. We’ll have it in the summer with twelve spots for Longsword and 12 spots for Saber. Once we have more information on the date, time, and tickets, we will announce it.
More Bang for your Buckler - Fall 2025
Some other people were upset that we didn’t have sword and buckler at Unicorn Cup. We figured since we loved the name of our pillowfecht tournament that went by this name that we’d have another full tournament at the club for all of the seldom fought weapons. Ideally we’ve have 4 tournaments with 12 spots each: sword and buckler, rapier and cape, side sword, and small sword. Once we host the Alicorn Cup and see how well our current space accommodates a 1 day tournament, we’ll announce this proposed 2 day tournament.
