HEMA Gear Part 2: Longswords

This article is Part 2 of my ongoing series, HEMA Gear: A Year in Review. Please note: the opinions stated in these posts are my personal views, and don’t necessarily reflect official club recommendations or even a consensus at our club. Take them with a grain of salt!

We all know, this sport is about the swords -- fighting with swords is probably what got most of us into HEMA in the first place. The section on gloves preceded this one only because of how much time and consideration they require, and how intractable a problem they can sometimes be.

There of course do seem to be differing opinions on swords in HEMA, but in aggregate, in the tournament scene at least, there seems to be a clear trend these days toward a specific kind of sword: the short-ish, flexible feder. This is obviously a generalization that’s bound to be only so accurate, but I’ll discuss the particulars below.

At the very least, my personal philosophy about, and preference in, swords has certainly undergone a drastic change in the last year, and that’s what I’m ultimately interested in communicating.

VB Steel Techniques

The VB Steel Techniques Longsword Feder is the first sword I bought for myself. It is the sword that my old club used (and still uses) for loaners, and which sees high adoption by HEMA newcomers in our geographic area for that reason. I believe my old club likes this sword more for its “optics” than for its functionality in the modern HEMA meta. Specifically, I think that they, and many folks who buy this sword, like that it has a longsword morphology -- that is, it has a relatively broad blade, with a fuller, and it lacks a schilt. I think a lot of people who come to HEMA because they are interested in swords and medieval fighting see a feder with a schilt and it makes them feel less like they are participating in the quasi-historical reenactment that they had perhaps imagined. And I get that, I had a lot of the same feelings. Nevermind that feders are historical.

I also think my old club likes these swords because of their “optics” in the type of fencing that the club likes to engage in, which is slower-speed, low-to-medium intensity fighting with lots of work in the bind and a relatively high amount of ringen/stretto play. The stiffness of this sword, then (and it is stiff -- just on the edge of being unsafe), is a desirable quality, as is the sword’s heft in the cut and its overall weight.

If lower-intensity sparring with lots of bind work and grappling are what you like to do, then there are worse swords to use than this guy.

Here’s my take.

For starters, I think it’s worth pointing out that this sword is relatively cheap, and very available. You can order it from Purpleheart and it will arrive in under two weeks, and it costs less than pretty much every other reasonable alternative. For the beginning HEMA fencer, this is often an irresistibly attractive prospect. Additionally, the sword is pretty durable. The temper on the blade means that it picks up few burrs, and it can stand up to a lot of punishment. The mild steel used for the cross is much more prone to burrs and bends, but generally that has not made the sword unusable in my experience. The leather wrap on the handle is also going to go bye-bye inside of a month or two of any serious sparring, but that’s easily fixed by a re-wrap.

But there is where the attractive qualities of this sword end, sadly. As previously mentioned, it is a generally stiff, ponderous sword. With a blade flex at the very fringe of what in my opinion should be considered safe for partner work, eating a thrust from this sword can absolutely ruin your day. And the irony of it being used so often by and against newer fencers, who by definition possess less control, means that thrusts from this bad boy can be stiff indeed.

Furthermore, the blade-forward weightiness of this model gives it a sluggish feel in the hand. Zwerchs and crisp actions along unusual lines are much more difficult to pull off with this weapon than with a comparable feder. And the weight really means that it hits quite hard in the cut. Here again we see the irony of this being touted as a “beginner” sword, as newcomers tend to swing for the fences, and with so much mass forward of the PoB, taking a cut to the shoulder or thigh from this clunker can be much more painful than taking a hit needs to be.

And finally, this sword is short. It’s shorter than most other swords labeled as “shorties” out there. To some extent, sword length is totally down to preference, and experienced fighters would be equally justified in picking a short sword over a long one, or vice versa, but one of the benefits using a short sword is supposed to get you is a faster, more agile weapon, and unfortunately,  as described above, the VB is not that.

There’s really no upside to this sword other than  a way to spend your money and receive a chunk of steel fairly quickly. New fencers would be better served watching their local Discord channels or online marketplace feeds and buying a used feder than spending their money on a sword they won’t use after six months.

Albion Lichtenauer

From what I can tell, this Albion model is the ideal sword for my old club -- the one I was at when this past year of fencing began. The Lichty has a classic-looking medieval longsword morphology, is relatively stiff, heavy in the cut but somewhat more nimble than the VB, slightly longer than the VB, and it comes with the weight of reputation of Albion, a forge that creates museum-quality replicas of sharp swords for the cost of multiple thousands of dollars.

In my view, this is the HEMA sword of the previous generation of HEMA fencers. It’s a sight better than wooden, poly, or aluminum wasters; when it’s new, it looks quite beautiful; you can indeed spar with it (though in moderate intensity at the highest); and compared to the DIY blades of the proto-HEMA era, it is reasonably safe and durable.

The pros of this sword end there, unfortunately. For starters, the blade characteristics do not appear to be exceptionally durable -- most of the models present in class at my old club, if they had been used for any length of time past about six months, were significantly notched and had taken many burrs that required constant filing.

Safety-wise, the blade is maybe a bit more flexible than the VB, but its tip is not rolled, spatulated, or otherwise made safe -- it is simply rounded off into a thin, quarter-sized taper. This requires the addition of a steel-reinforced rubber tip, which invariably needs to be taped on. For me, this ruins the overall aesthetic effect of the blade, which in my opinion is the main thing it has going for it. Rubber tips, additionally, are arguably less safe than spatulated or rolled tips, being more grippy and therefore transferring more force in a thrust. They are also constantly falling off mid-fight and having to be replaced and re-taped.

While the Albion is certainly better weighted and more nimble than the VB, it’s still nowhere near as nimble some of the standard feders on the market, and it hits noticeably harder in the cut. Most tournaments simply do not allow this blade at all because of its safety characteristics.

Oh. And, it’s super expensive and has a purchase lead time of over a year. That’s gonna be a hard pass from me.

Regenyei Short Feder

The Regenyei shorty is the Toyota Corolla of HEMA longswords. It’s affordable, available, will last you for years, and lacks flash or style. But people have done amazing things with it!

This is the first sword on this list that I would actually recommend to a new fencer. I’ve personally never owned one, but my club has several in rotation and I have used this sword several times in sparring. While it’s not my personal cup of tea, it has a lot going for it, especially for folks new to HEMA.

First of all, this sword is the next best thing to the VB Steel Techniques line in regards to cost and availability. Whereas most other swords on this list present fabrication lead times of anywhere from several months to a year or more, the Regenyei are at the time of this writing widely stocked and generally ship inside of a week from Purpleheart, HEMA Supplies, and other distributors. There are also plenty in circulation, so finding one used is generally not a difficult task.

And although cost and availability are typically the first things folks look for, especially when buying their first sword, in my opinion the most valuable characteristics of this sword are its safety features. It has a light, flexible blade that is forgiving in both the cut and the thrust, while retaining a decent amount of presence in the bind. The manufacturer also now offers spatulated tips on all their models, whereas only some months ago the rolled tip -- somewhat less safe, in my opinion, because of its increased brittleness and its ability to “scoop” out a wound in specific circumstances -- was the only option.

Finally, let’s not discount the fact that this sword is an absolute legend in terms of durability. It seems to be more or less indestructible. Of the half-dozen or more used in my club, that undergo heavy use in sparring sometimes thrice-weekly, I don’t think I’ve ever seen one even take a set. I’m sure it’s happened elsewhere, but in my experience these swords simply seem to shrug off the wear and tear one would expect from normal use. The small exception is the cord wrap on the handle, which will typically come unraveled after taking constant abuse, but as far as I can tell every sword has this issue, and it’s an easy one to correct with a re-wrap or hockey stick tape.

As for the downsides. I don’t personally use this sword and I don’t have any plans to acquire one. It doesn’t fit my aesthetic tastes, it’s a bit too short for my personal style, and I’m not in love with the pommel or the balance of the sword in general. There is nothing objectively wrong with the Regenyei’s particulars in any of these areas, I just think other brands (Sigi) do them better, and I have the means to pay a little extra to get what I want. Your mileage may vary.

The bottom line is that you can’t go wrong with this sword: a lot of people use and like it, it is reasonably affordable and available, and it will probably last you your whole life.

Krieger Armory Sentinel Fiore

I thought the Krieger Sentinel Fiore was going to be my second sword. I ordered it about a year into my fencing career, expecting it to take the advertised (at the time of order) four to six months to arrive. Specifically I was looking for a blade with a longsword morphology that was both more nimble and more beautiful than the VB. The reviews I found online of Krieger Armory were positive, and they are a US forge (not to be confused with Krieger Historical Weapons in the EU), which I thought would mean the sword would be easier to acquire and customer support would be better, so purchasing this sword seemed like a good decision.

Well, in the end the sword didn’t arrive for over a year, I had to constantly prod the forge via email for information about the ever-extending lead times, and by the time the sword did finally arrive at my doorstep, I had already bought a Sigi in the meantime.

Overall the Sentinel is fine. It is a better sword than the VB. It’s very nimble and flows nicely. It has high quality fit and finish, and when it first arrives it is a very pretty sword. Although by the time I received this sword I was totally Sigi-pilled and used to the Sigi handle, this sword has a very distinctive and comfortable handle and some people think that it’s the best handle in the game. I don’t know that I agree, but it is nice, especially for non-thumb-grip actions like zornhau or thrusts. I like Krieger a lot in general and would like to see them succeed. I love my Guardian arming sword (more on that coming soon), and will probably try to continue to support Krieger with purchases in the future. My clubmate has ordered the Arbiter and I’m very excited to see it.

However.

First and foremost, the blade temper. I’m not sure if I just got a model that an apprentice made or something, but the blade on my Sentinel did not have the durability that I expected. Over the course of maybe two or three months of regular sparring, the blade picked up a significant amount of nicks and burrs. Whether the result of the actual steel hardening process, or too steep a grind on the blade’s edge, something in the manufacturing caused it to not take punishment super well. It was nothing catastrophic, but whereas a Sigi or Regenyei blade can go months or  years without needing a file, I found with the Krieger that I needed to take off little burrs once every other week or more. On the blade! We aren’t even talking the cross here, which seemed to be hardened better and stood up very well to sustained use.

Second, the Fiore variant of the Sentinel is short. I ordered it because it was short and expected that I would continue to like using a shorter sword. But after having acquired the aforementioned Sigi Maestro Shorty (which is slightly longer than the Sentinel Fiore) in the year+ time it took for the Krieger to actually arrive, I found that I actually liked a somewhat longer sword, and the shortness no longer suited my fencing style.

Finally, and this is on me, I ordered my Sentinel with a wheel pommel. This was mostly because I liked the look of it and wanted to try something new. Also, I had believed that having the wheel pommel would make edge alignment better because the flat shape of the wheel would allow me to feel the sword’s orientation more easily.

It turned out that the Krieger handle was more than enough to give me a feel for how my edge was aligned at any given time, and I also came to realize that my pommel hand doesn’t really play that big a role in my edge alignment anyway. In the end, I didn’t end up liking the way the wheel effectively shortened the handle length by acting as a catch for the thumb of my pommel hand -- during a sheitelhau, for example, the wheel pommel limited my reach by a couple of inches because it locked my thumb into the groove where the curve of the wheel met the handle.

I ended up selling my Sentinel to a clubmate who was looking for their second sword, who had used it as a loaner and liked it. 

Overall, I wanted to like this sword more than I did in practice. The blade durability was certainly a disappointment to me, but otherwise the sword is of reasonably high quality. It is certainly very nice aesthetically. In addition to the apparent problems with the blade temper, the sword’s length, handle, and pommel just didn’t end up suiting my fencing preferences very well.

Sigi Forge Maestro Shorty

Four or five months into the year-plus wait time I ended up experiencing for the Krieger Sentinel I had ordered, Sigi Forge posted a number of “sworphans” (swords people order and then do not pay for in the end) available for sale on their Instagram page. One of them was a Maestro shorty with several customizations, and I snapped it up for a not-insignificant amount of money. The price was not cheap, so I expected a not-cheap sword. My expectations were met, and then some.

The Maestro was my first experience with Sigi and swords of its calibur, and its high quality and excellent characteristics influenced my fencing style and ideas about fencing, probably forever.

I’ll just say up front that this is an awesome sword, and well worth the money. It manages to meet and exceed high standards for cost, durability, safety, aesthetics, and “feel.” Sigi Forge has a strong reputation in the HEMA world, and in my opinion that reputation is absolutely earned and valid.

Cost. Sigis are not the most inexpensive swords on the market, and the Maestro is not the most inexpensive model that Sigi offers, but at €370, as of the time of this writing, for the non-engraved version, it is well within the bounds of being reasonably priced for a HEMA longsword. Customizations bring the price up, of course, and while very well-executed and varied enough to suit lots of preferences, none are needed to make the Maestro an excellent sword.

The durability of the sword is solid. Over the course of a year of constant sparring and tournament competition, the blade has picked up maybe less than five significant burrs. The octagonal crossguard on my model shows nothing but superficial wear. The leather waisted grip has gotten beaten up and cut in various places, but it’s easily fixed with regular re-wraps of hockey stick tape. My model came with blackening on the cross and pommel, which really helps quite a bit to stave off rust, in comparison to e.g. my Sigi Feder standard, which lacks any customizations and which must be oiled regularly to prevent rust. The one durability issue with the Maestro, and indeed apparently all Sigi longswords, is that the blade will take a set during the course of a heavy thrust. It should be noted that this is partly a safety feature, and also partly a maintainability issue -- better that the blade take a set than break. Depending on how often you land deep thrusts, you may find yourself bending out sets fairly regularly. But your fencing partners will thank you :).

Another note on durability is that since acquiring a Sigi Feder (described below), I’ve found myself loaning out the Maestro for use at our club, and it has continued to see as much or more use in recent months as it ever did, under use by a variety of mostly new fencers. I’m a bit unclear on how long one should expect a sparring sword to last under sustained heavy use, but this thing has not been pampered in the least and shows no sign of slowing down.

Safety-wise, the Maestro and other Sigi models are unparalleled. They are among the most flexible blades on the market, and they are weighted such that they don’t hit super hard during cuts. Their broad tips are spatulated and, in my view, the standard for safe tips in HEMA today. We have several Sigi models in our club, including multiple Maestros and Concepts, and I haven’t yet seen one fail, break, come apart, or set beyond repair.

I also tend to think the Maestro looks very nice. I like the shape of the schilt and the relative broadness of the blade. Customizations or no, Sigi seems to be very conscientious of fit and finish: no part of the sword seems cheap, ill-considered, or hastily done. 

In terms of fencing qualities, some will say that the Sigi blades are too floppy. While I don’t agree, I think that there’s a legitimate statement of preference one can make that excludes the Sigis somewhat. Their blades are flexible by design, it’s not an accident. But the blade qualities of the Maestro, such as its schilt shape and the width and taper of the blade, never made me feel like I couldn’t bind or parry properly. The Shorty length, too, I think makes for a sword with tighter pointwork than might be found in a longer blade. The balance and weighting of the Maestro make for a very nimble sword that still has more presence than say a Sigi Concept or a Regenyei Short Feder.

If this section sounds like complete simping for the Maestro and for Sigi in general, that’s because it is. In my view you really can’t go wrong with this sword.

Sigi Forge Feder Standard

Finally, my most recently-acquired sword. This Feder I ordered early in 2024, and Sigi was kind enough to roll it into an existing order I had already put in for two other swords -- a saber and a rapier, which I will review eventually (spoiler: they’re both great). I had this sword in time to use it at IFG Spring Fling of this year, and did pretty well with it (I placed 4th in Open Longsword). And so the verdict is in: this is my new favorite sword.

Originally my purchase of this sword was aimed at three things: making sure I had a spare longsword (I had recently sold my Krieger Sentinel), seeing what it was like to fence with a longer sword, and understanding what the absolute cheapest Sigi model would get me. At €330 the Feder model is about $50 more than a Regenyei Short Feder at the current exchange rate.

All of the above claims about the durability, safety, and fit-and-finish of Sigi swords hold true with the Feder, so I won’t re-litigate those. I’ll just talk about the sword’s fencing qualities and my thoughts on this particular model.

As mentioned at the top of this article, the HEMA meta seems to be moving these days toward swords with lengths on the shorter side, and short blades are/were especially common in the Eugene HEMA community -- they certainly formed the bulk of my initial fencing experience. So I was curious about using a longer sword.

It took me probably a month and a half to get used to the standard length Sigi model, which is longer in both the blade and the handle than the shorty, but once I did get used to it, I loved it. It is probably useful to note that I am 6’1”, so a big part of my game naturally centers around using my reach. In that respect, having the longer sword is absolutely an advantage. I’ve also found that, contrary to my expectations, I can make certain cuts faster, particularly overhand cuts, as the inertia and momentum of the blade seem to assist in the speed of the blade. This isn’t true for every kind of cut -- I have a harder time with zwerchs, for example, using the standard than a shorty. But for making strong, fast initial actions, the extra blade length and handle leverage seem to benefit me greatly.

The increased reach also means that I’ve generally become more successful with thrusts. This could be an artifact of my local or club meta -- that simply by virtue of the delta in length, my opponents have misjudged measure as they adapted to my new sword length, and have/will eventually become savvy enough to parry or void my thrusts just as they would if I were wielding a shorter sword. Nevertheless, my impression is that I’m landing thrusts more often, which makes me like the sword more. 

Interestingly, I haven’t found that the longer blade suffers at all in terms of presence or binding capability. The extra length does make it more difficult to work with at close measure, but the blade itself does not seem to flex or flop any more than my Maestro shorty. I was expecting some of the floppiness I had felt while briefly testing out, for example, various lengths of the Sigi King, in particular the standard length -- that model does feel like it lacks something in the way of presence, perhaps paradoxically given its broader morphology.

Some folks don’t like the schilt on the Sigi Feder. I’ve heard some concern that it might not be as safe as other models because of its sharp angles, and I’ve also heard people say they just don’t like the look of it quite as much as, say, the Maestro’s schilt. Personally, I do think that the Maestro’s schilt is a bit nicer looking, but it’s not enough of a preference for me to choose one model over another based on that alone. One concern I do have about the Feder schilt is that it’s more liable to take damage from direct hits from an opponent’s blade, whereas other schilts will direct the force of the blow outward in a glancing fashion. Thus far, over maybe six months or so of use, this hasn’t been an issue, the schilt has held up just fine, but maybe it’s less than ideal, I dunno.

For this sword, I was determined to order as vanilla a model as possible -- no customizations, no alternative features. Standard cross, handle, and pommel, no brassing or blackening. This strategy got me a sword that I expect will last me years and will be a pleasure to fence with all the while. However, there are times that I do really miss the blackening on my Maestro. The bare brushed steel of the vanilla Feder model readily picks up rust after any intense, sweaty practice session. It needs oiling and scrubbing regularly, or else it gets nasty. I value the appearance of my swords too much to let rust develop, so this means more or less regular maintenance of this sword. If (when) I buy another Sigi, I’ll probably spring for the blackening again, to keep the rust off if nothing else; it really does seem to make quite a difference.

In my view, the $50 cost difference between the Sigi and Regenyei is worth it. Our club recommends both brands to new fencers, but for my money I want something that shows a bit more craftsmanship, a bit more aplomb, and for me, Sigi’s fit and finish is worth the extra $50.

Ultimately, for me at this point in my fencing development, I feel that the longer sword was the right choice. For now, the extra length really seems to suit and influence my fencing style for the better, and I am very happy with it and my improvement as a fencer. Bottom line is that I cannot recommend Sigi enough, and the Feder is a superb example of the company’s core sensibilities about what makes a great HEMA sword.