Review: The Compendium of Weapons, Armour & Castles

[Aneoth of Ironwood]

I did a review a couple of years ago on another forum.

I thought some Crusaders might find it interesting as well.

The Compendium of Weapons, Armour & Castles.

Palladium Books.

By Mathew Balent; 1989.

Over 700 weapons, 40 types of Armour, 40 Castles with floor plans

Siege weapons, laying siege tactics and plan layout.

Soft cover, 224 pages.

Original Price $19.95

The book has hundreds of sketches and even more descriptions of almost every type of ancient weapon one might think of.

Five pages are dedicated to the knife alone and for some folks here who love to talk CLUBS; Clubs take up two pages as a type of weapon and even more clubs are sprinkled about in the weapons library as well.

Many types of amour are listed with sketches, including several for horses and one type for elephants.

For Japanese Samurai Armour (c. 1500-1700 A.D.) the book shows step by step donning instructions, with Japanese names for each piece of Armour.

(Pg. 138, see scan below)

Castles and fortifications, with plan view pencil sketches and overhead ground floor plans, some also include every floor and dungeon level plans.

Many examples of actual European Castles, both ancient and still standing.

At the end of the book, there are a few pages dedicated to gunpowder weapons, Cannon and handguns (Powder).

My inexpert review;

Where else can you find combat instructions for a Halberd?

(Meyers School of Halberd Combat Page 23, see scan below)

The book is very well laid out.

The format is very good.

The information is very detailed and with the sketches well understood.

The details are amazing to me (Of course I am no expert in the field of weapons, castle, and Armour)

IMO: This book would be a great boon to the games master for any RPG system dealing with the ancient subject matter in this book.

This book would be an excellent supplement to ANY fantasy or history re-enactment game.

I will place my copy right next to my AD&D and C&C Rules books, so I can show the kids what a Bagh Nakh looks like and what it can do.

Front cover scan.

Polearms, specifically on this page; Halberd.

Many other polearms (Yes, Glaives too) are shown on other pages.

How to don Japanese Armour

[serleran]

It is a neat book, obviously inspired by Stone's A Glossary of the Construction, Decoration and Use of Arms and Armor: In All Countries and in All Times which is even better, but not specifically a RPG book.
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[Omote]

Yup, 'tis a great book on the subject matter. For RPGs, it might be the best.

~O
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[Rigon]

A very excellent book. It was the first Palladium book I ever bought.

R-
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The Book of the Mind

[moriarty777]

Yes... It's a shame that this compendium version is OOP. Right now, they've gone to (or should I say gone back to) splitting them up to smaller books.

-Book of Weapons & Armor

-Book of Weapons & Castles

-Weapons & Assassins

-Weapons & Castles of the Orient

M
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[Lurker]

Rigon wrote:
A very excellent book. It was the first Palladium book I ever bought.

R-

It was my third, First was Beyond the Supernatural, and the fantasy RPG. This is a great book, come to think of it, I think I still have it ... I'll have to dig through my box of books that didn't get unpacked after my last PCS move.
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[shizuo]

The book is great is filled with a lot of knowledge about weapons and armors.

[Lurker]

The book is great is filled with a lot of knowledge about weapons and armors.

Rgr that

Welcome to the forums!

[Treebore]

It is a very good book, I have the full book and the smaller one on the Oriental stuff. I think I have one or two of the others, because at the time I didn't realize the smaller books were the same material as the big one.