Light fighter

In some SCA kingdoms, light fighter or light refers to a fencer or rapier fighter. The use of the term is subject to extensive variation, and is not used at all in many Kingdoms.

• In Lochac the term is traditionally used to describe combat engineers, banner bearers, scouts, missile combatants (such as archers). Originally, in the SCA lights don't do melee combat with rattan weapons. Hence, they had less of a need for more than the minimum armour. Therefore, a light would have "lighter" armour than the normal heavy. For this reason, they had to be clearly distinguished from heavy fighters during mixed battles, so their helmets bore either a large fluorescent triangle or a clearly visible plume. Lochac favours the plume method.

The present SCA combat rules do not distinguish between archers and melee combatants on the field, so any combatant could be struck by a rattan weapon. Thus, the "light" armour aspect is no more. However, in Lochac the convention of marking archery-only combatants by a plume (and not striking them) is maintained. They can still be "killed" by a nearby fighter indicating that the archer is their target and they are now dead. No weapon contact is required. This is similar to the "death from behind" method allowed in some scenarios.

• In Caid the term represented Shinai fighters, a fighting form that has been disbanded since A.S. XXXVIII.

See also

• Combat
• Combat archery
• Heavy fighter
• Fencer