Bat
From BelegarthWiki
A bat is a swung weapon with a cylindrical striking surface. They usually are less tip-heavy, have more striking surface, and have more uniform diameter than most clubs. Like many Belegarth weapons, they often have stabbing tips and normally don't feature guards built into them.
Sword Comparison
Swords, also called flats as to rhyme with bats, have a two-dimensional striking surface. While there are other differences between them and bats, such as swords being built with guards more often than bats are, this is the most inherent and important difference.
- Shots that would hit with the flat, non-striking side of a sword count as legal hits with omni-directional weapons such as bats.
- The stabbing tips of bats have more area and support than those of swords, so they can be more durable.
- Because bats are strike-padded in all directions, they are safer to use than flats. Some other foamfighting games actually disallow flats due to safety concerns; bats may be a more resourceful choice for crossgamers.
- Swords can be thinner than bats, allowing them to slip through smaller holes in the opponent's defense. But this difference is negligible in blue weapons.
- Sword blades can weigh less than bat striking surfaces due to their thinness. With current foamsmithing tech and minimum weight rules, this is more important in larger weapons such as reds.
- Swords can use less foam in their construction than bats, since they don't need to be strike-legal in all directions. To spare materials, build a blade rather than a bat.
- Swords fit the medieval aesthetic better than bats do. The flat of the blade can also be detailed and decorated with embroidery and Plasti Dip.
Speed Bat
A speed bat is a Class 1 Weapon at least two feet in length (typically between 2½ and 3 feet) and weighing slightly over the minimum weight. With ultralight tech introduced through crossgaming from Amtgard, these bats push the lower limits of Belegarth and Dagorhir with their precisely miniscule and carefully-balanced weight. These two features enable extremely fast combat relative to the Beledag's pace in previous decades.
Speed bats have been rising in the competitive meta of the US West Coast. While speed bats neither have much blade-blocking power nor keep their momentum well, punch blocks with protective gloves have become more popular than blade blocks and speed bats can feint and change shots very easily. As they cannot easily brute-force through an opponent's defense, experienced speed bat fighters must rely on psychology and swiftness to circumvent it.
