I'm writing the rules for game and need to know how common

I don't think knights in full plate armour really ever used shields. But in 13th century they probably did use shields.

>>1455349

>13th century
>Battle of Hastings

File: Bayeux-Tapestry-009.jpg (182KB, 940x513px) Image search: [Google]

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>>1455349
Shields were a big thing in the middle ages. Just check out the Beyeux Tapestry.

See all the dead guys on the bottom? Most of them aren't carrying shield and have arrows sticking out of their bodies. See the live guys? They all have arrows stuck to their shields. Meaning that the armor of the time couldn't stop an arrow, but the shields could.

Basically, until armor got good enough to resist arrows (that is, plate armor) shields had a major role to play in battle.

>>1455349
Until the adoption of full plate, shields were almost mandatory. In the very early ages of medieval Europe, one could even say that shield were more common than armor, and im sure this somewhat translates to Hastings in 1066 (Ill assume 13th century is a typo). Armor before plate was still very vulnerable to different types of attacks. For instance, chainmail is vulnerable to piercing attacks (or at least more vulnerable than plate to them), such as arrows. Consider that a shield would be able to massively improve your chances of not being hit by an arrow as well as being used in melee.
As the world transitioned into plate, shields started to become smaller and smaller, until they became optional; this does not however mean they were never used, just that plate was more than adequate to guard you.

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>>1456509
i just know if i had a shield in battle like that an arrow would go through my arm

>>1456524
I mean
Theres a shield in the way so

>>1456527
yeah but when an arrow gets stuck in a shield it poked through the other side and i just know it'll hit my arm

>>1455349
>I'm writing the rules for game and need to know how common was it for fighters to bring shields into battle?

Almost 100%. The only people who wouldn't have a shield are archers and pikemen.

>>1456536
Archers usually had very small shields.

>>1456534
>>1456524

You don't strap a shield to your arm, you hold it in your fist by a bar right behind the boss.

>>1456534
It depends on the range. while its possible for an arrow to go through a shield at close range, they probably wont from afar.
Besides that, theres a boss in the middle to protect your hand/ a good bit of your arm (depending on how you hold it).
In other words youre probably good, and its better than being shot without one.

>>1456557
....not all shields have bosses

>>1456524
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h8_ybPxCmog
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SQGoiJKpGQI

Look how he holds it, an arrow going thru the wooden part is unlikely to hit his body because he doesn't hold teh shield straight against his body / arm.

>>1456568
>>1456557

Different kinds of shields guys

>>1456524
Most bows of that time didn't hit with enough force to penetrate a shield and your arm armor.
Later warbows/longbows/crossbows did.

>>1455349
The golden age of shields was the late antique to high middle ages. From that point on, armour became protective enough that the shield didn't need to take care of most of the defence any more. You would still find shields, but they usually took more specialised roles, such as paveses to hide behind while reloading, bucklers for skirmishing, targes to deflect lances, etc.

Overall this is obviously a huge and wide topics on which many PhD theses could be written. Just picking the shields of a single time period would already be way too much to discuss in a single thread, let alone such a wide timespan.