Armour

Medieval plate armor, leather armour, chain mail and matching gambesons! Everything you need to protect yourself!

For thousands of years, warriors and soldiers all over the world have worn armor in all its innumerable forms to protect themselves from the effects of enemy weapons. There have always been many factors that have come together to determine how an armor looked, worked and in the end also how well it was able to protect against certain weapons. Technology, available materials, fightingstyles, social norms, military tactics, etc. have always played an important role in this. Fashion and prestige or representation should not be neglected here, because that armor is always subject to strict pragmatic rules, to say the least, would be wrong.

Whether the bronze scale armour of a pharaoh, the chain mail of a Viking jarl or a complete plate armour of the Renaissance, expensive armour has always been a demonstration of social status.

The development of armaments over the millennia is too extensive an issue to be sufficiently explained here, but in principle it can be said that technical progress has also improved armament technology until this development reached its peak in the early Renaissance. The development of firearms and changes in the social armour posed completely different challenges to armament technology and the race between weapons and armaments continues today.

In this category we try to offer you a nice mixture for all tastes. Fantasy leather armor and Larp plate armor mixes here with chain armor and historic knight armor. But you will also find gambesons and padded bracers or greaves here.

Chain armor

Chain mail is perhaps the type of metal armor that has been in use for the longest time. Probably developed around the year 500 BC, it remained in continuous use in some parts of the world until the beginning of the 20th century. Today is is still used by butchers or shark researchers.

The advantages of chain mail made it attractive for many peoples and fighting styles. It hardly restricts movement at all, it reliably protects against cuts and to some degree against thrusts and projectiles. Although it is time-consuming to produce, it is very easy to maintain and repair. In addition, it can be easily combined with other armour (e. g. plates/scales/lamellar armour). 

Chain mail is most efficient if worn over a padded jacket, a so-called gambeson, as it helps to spread the force of an attack better and also helps against chafing and pressure points. 

Historical chain mail shirts were always riveted or welded, i. e. the rings were closed with rivets or hot forged. Only a few exceptions, which were probably more for decoration, were not.

Leather armor

Of course, we at Andracor pay special attention to our own leather products and especially to our leather armors. These work very well as Larp armour because they are quite comfortable and light and can be worn for a very long period of time. Bracers made of leather, for example, are not only suitable as armor, but also serve to protect the occassional archer from his bowstring. Leather greaves not only protect against enemy weapons, but also against thorny scrub and biting insects when wandering through the undergrowth as a ranger. In fantasy, there are also many character concepts that prefer leather as a material for their armour, since leather does not interfere with their ""magic"", or because leather armor rarely makes as much noise as a knight's armour. 

Our leather armor, whether for women or men, is made of high-quality 3-4mm thick upper leather, often in combination with high-quality suede. We are working intensively on new designs and will always implement ideas that come to us in this way. It's definitely worth stopping by every now and then!

Plate Armor

They embody the Middle Ages like few other things: Knights in full plate armor.

Here with us you can at least emulate these models. We offer you different plate armor parts and complete sets. 

This kind of armour allows you to realize very different character ideas, because you can use plate armour rather minimalistically by wearing only one collar or you can wrap yourself from head to toe in metal. Combinations are also easy to implement, as a pair of plate shoulders or even bracers can easily be carried over a chain mail shirt. If you have a complete full armour, you don't always have to carry it completely, but you are equipped for all possible levels of armoring yourself. 

Larpfight vs. showfight vs. full contact

However, there are different requirements for plate armour. Especially for which area of the hobby it is to be used, has a big influence on it. Larp armor must be comfortable and safe for the wearer and his fellow players. Therefore, there must be no sharp edges or sharp metal spikes which would unnecessarily endanger the health or the foam weapons of the opponent in battle. The steel of the used armour does not have to repel blows from steel weapons or sharp arrows and can therefore be relatively thin or unhardened. 

In contrast, however, there are different requirements for the staged fighting that is often seen at medieval markets. Here an armor must be able to withstand occasional hits with blunt steel weapons, which are usually not executed with full force. Most Larp armour also protects the wearer from the usual hits, but the potential for injuries is higher. Particularly with helmets and gauntlets, higher demands are made on stability. They are often met by increasing the thickness of the steel or by wearing more thickly padded gambesons.

Full contact battles, i. e. fights in which more or less powerfully executed blows are to hit the opponent and which are choreographed, pose the highest demands on armour. The armour and especially the helmets are often made of hardened steel, which in combination with good padding should guarantee a high degree of safety.