Growing up, I was enchanted by stories of medieval knights –
King Arthur and Camelot,
Ivanhoe, Robin Hood, even the later stories of
Henry V and other examples of duelling and close-range warfare. Romanticised, yes, but when you’re seven years old and all you see is the vividly technicoloured images of handsome, virtuous knights facing down evil, rescuing maidens and seeing off the Sherriff of Nottingham, well, it leaves a mark.
Knights, historically, would have used a variety of weapons. Maces and hammers, of course, and axes too. A halberd was an effective weapon against armoured foes, providing the leverage and focused point to puncture armour and the flesh beneath. Still, as every schoolboy knows, the real weapon of a knight is their sword – be it Excalibur, Albion or just some unnamed-but-lethal length of steel.
Lightsabres come from that line, too – albeit that George Lucas’ vision drew more obviously on Japanese legends and stories. Still, a knight with a shining sword: This is King Arthur territory, and this is where I grew up.
(I actually bought a plastic toy sword when I was about 10 or 11 that lasted me for almost 25 years until my niece and nephew got hold of it last year, their vigorous duelling proving the final nail in its coffin. I mourn its loss even now.)
But enough reminiscing: My £3 sword is gone, and its replacement as my knightly weapon cost rather more – even allowing for inflation.
My entry into the first spring raffle was the Flamberge v2. I hemmed and hawed over this one, as black hilts aren’t generally my thing, but I do really like the Omen-esque inlay on this hilt. I contacted Ultrasabers and asked if there were any plans for a light side version, but it wasn’t to be (there should be – black highlights on a silver hilt would look awesome).
In the end, after spending weeks and months looking at all the versions of the Flamberge and Renegade, I opted for the Flamberge v2. The ornamentation won me over, and I liked the simple emitters more than I liked the ‘moray teeth’ emitters of the Renegade.
I knew that I was buying a big hilt. There should be no surprises in that – the Flamberge sports 3 blades, and even if it (and the Renegade) draw on Kylo Ren’s lightsabre for inspiration, for me it’s the two-handed (zweihander) swords brought into use in the 16th Century that really come to mind when looking at this monster.
And monster is an accurate term. With a hilt measuring some 14 inches in length, this is a long lightsabre – compare to the Manticore, Sentinel or Prophecy, for example. Throw on a 36” blade, and it’s almost 4 foot from blade tip to pommel – longer if you opt for the offered 40 inch blade.
Full disclosure: This is a 32 inch blade, which I only realised after I took the photo. That’s long enough!And then there’s the crossguard – 5 inches wide on its own, but then there are the blades that come with it. I opted for the shorter 6 inches blades, making it around 16 inches wide. 16 inches! It’s like strapping a Scorpion on top of another Scorpion!
Stay behind me, I'll protect you!The Flamberge is so big that it swallows up a significant percentage of the blade – around 4 inches, including that contained within the emitter itself.
Zweihanders have a ceremonial use in the UK. Whenever local dignitaries (mayors, for example) get dressed up in their finest regalia, there’ll invariably be a zweihander (or an ornamental mace) as part of the outfit. They’re never used for anything – I like to imagine a mayor struggling to swing one when cutting the ribbon at a new hospital, or something – but they’re ceremonial, and ceremony is important. Still, anyone trying to brandish one of them is probably going to cause a ceremonial bloodbath.
The always-reliable Wikipedia tells me that the length of zweihanders was a result of centuries of gradual lengthening of swords – they seem to have represented the peak of the movement (which I can only imagine began with a ‘My sword is longer than your sword’ jibe, possibly accompanied by some nudging, winking and repeating ‘Eh? Eh?’ing) before blade lengths began to contract – and swords began to fall out of fashion, of course. Shorter blades are simply more manoeuvrable. Police officers carry nightsticks rather than baseball bats for exactly that reason.
Top to bottom: Big and heavy, pretty typical, short and whippy, an honest-to-goodness TARDIS and a FlambergeThe size of the Flamberge makes it almost impossible for me to give a reasoned impression of how well it handles. In my previous reviews I’ve talked about how, generally, I prefer shorter, sleeker lightsabres.
Exac- Well, maybe not this short...I’m a dual-wielder by preference, and two-handing a ‘sabre feels... well, like I’m only using half the options open to me. Further limiting myself with this beast of a hilt (which, lest we forget, is 16 inches wide!) goes contrary to all my preferred moves, and the crossguards are all too easy to snag on yourself when performing a more sweeping move.
I have two options, then – adapt my fighting style, or adapt the Flamberge.
Adapting my fighting style would probably require rather more refinement than I’ve ever put into my current ‘style’, which in truth is pretty much just flailing at whichever one of my opponents has come within arm’s reach! Keeping the Flamberge as is would probably give me an advantage in reach, and the crossguards would provide added protection – if I could manage them.
Adapting the Flamberge, then, is the way forward. That’s easily done; All 3 emitters, plus the pommel, are MHS compatible. The emitters aren’t all that big, but can be replaced if you fancy something different.
This would work so much better in all black or all silver...Having a full-sized MHS emitter on the crossguards is actually quite a bit shorter than having even a 6 inch blade on it.
But losing the blades immediately makes this more of a manageable hilt. Swapping them for blade plugs is a temporary solution – the light’s not diffused within the plugs, and they’re too long to drop any further into the hilt. In time, I’ll pick up a couple of grab bag blades and have a couple of stubby 1-2 inch projections.
Although not an exact match, by any means, I like the look of this shortened crossguard a lot – it reminds me a little of the Great Swords wielded by Cyclonus and the Knights of the Silver Circle in IDW’s Transformers comics.
Cyclonus stabs Megatron, and the fandom rejoiced! CyclonusxTailgate4evah!You can’t remove the ‘hammerhead’ section of emitter from the main body of the hilt – not without potentially damaging the wires to the crossguard LEDs. It has been done, but I’m not volunteering to show you how!
Follow me down the rabbit hole and see where it might take us...I bought the Flamberge knowing that it would be a tricky hilt to deal with. I found myself surprised, even so, at just how big it was in hand – a measure, as much as anything, of how bad I am at estimating measurements
Still, it’ll take some ongoing work on my part to get it into a usable sword that makes proper use of the crossguard LEDs. It’s too nice in appearance not to use them, but having full-sized blades in there makes it too unwieldy for me to use.
Clearly I was never meant to be a knight in shining armour...
Which is a bit of a blow.*
...but what about a Guardian?
In Star Wars lore, Jedi knights fell into one of three roles – Consulars, who were the diplomats, teachers and healers of the Order, Guardians, who were the peacekeepers and combat specialists, and Sentinels, who sought a balance between the other paths. I’ve tended towards the Sentinel path, but the Guardian is such a nice hilt, it could make me re-think matters.
I’ve spoken before about the Guardian, as I first bought my nickel plated version 2 years ago (where does the time go?). It’s a big, two-handed (there’s that phrase again) hilt – probably the heaviest of any in my collection because I (all join in) prefer sleeker, shorter hilts.
But I like the Guardian, nonetheless. It dates from The Phantom Menace, of course, the first Star Wars film that I (and a lot of fans) saw for the first time on the big screen. A fifteen year wait between Star Wars films? Nowadays, that’s inconceivable.
Although it is, objectively speaking, not a great film, Phantom Menace does have the wonderful lightsabre battle between Obi-Wan, Qui-Gon and Darth Maul at its climax, as for the first time we got to see fit, healthy, trained lightsabre duellists going at it full tilt.
While I preferred the Qui-Gon’s hilt (the Consular) at first, Obi-Wan’s hilt grew on me over time. Even for a Star Wars fan, I developed a really deep interest in the hilts wielded by various characters, and I kept coming back to Obi-Wan’s – possibly because the Episode III/IV hilt design has never really appealed to me. It also reminded me of my friend Matt, who I introduced to Star Wars in the summer of 1999, and who re-paid me by buying me my first lightsabre – one of the collapsible plastic Qui-Gon hilts while he got himself the Obi-Wan hilt.
Way back when I bought my Guardian, I went for the nickel finish on it. I didn’t have a particular reason for doing so; I think I may have just wanted something a bit different. I’m fairly ambivalent on the finish, in general. I like it on the Guardian and Menace, but less so on the other hilts in the US lineup. As the Menace wasn’t available when I bought my Guardian, possibly I thought it was then or never.
Nickeled to the tips of the pommel spikesAs I’ve discussed before, I am a completist. I have two Sentinels, two Catalysts, three Aeon v2s, three Prophecies, two Menaces... and now two Guardians, one in each finish. I like that, I like that my new Guardian matches my Consular and Menaces now...
Spot the odd one out...and I like that having a pair of Guardians actually means that I can balance them when dual-wielding them.
Which, apparently, is what happens when you take equally heavy lightsabres and put one in each hand – they cancel out the heaviness of each other, leaving you free to dual-wield like some crazed highland warrior, charging the English with a
claymore in each hand.
Apparently in order to get comfortable with my Flamberge, I need to buy another one to hold in my off hand. This could get expensive; Good job I’m not a completist or anything...
But enough of that. I know I’m in the minority as a dual wielder. When most people see identical hilts, they want to know what it’s like as a staff. I blame Darth Maul, obviously,
The answer, though, is that it works well.
Like, really well.
Really, really well.
The balance is good, and because of the shroud around the Guardian, the coupler makes for an interesting balance point for spinning. I don’t spin staffs, as a rule – the potential for destroying stuff is far too great, and my wife’s tolerance for lightsabres only extends so far. Still, I can see that the various raises and dips in its profile would make for excellent grip when spinning. Whether that’s what a spinner is looking for will probably be down to personal preference.
*
My Flamberge is awesome, and I look forward to getting used to wielding it. My nephew’s birthday party is coming up, and I usually take along plenty of ‘sabres to spar with, so that should be fun. My Guardian is great, and while I knew that already, I do like how I’ve found a way to use them one-handed now I have two of them.
Now I suppose ought to go and see if I can balance a Flamberge in one hand with a Guardian staff in the other. Ought to be interesting...
