Longsword Tournament Rules
Our full ruleset may be found here
here .
A brief summary of the scoring criteria are outlined below.
- All valid hits are worth 1 point. A valid hit is either a) any cut that travels at least 30 degrees and lands with the edge of the blade or b) any thrust that lands to the opponent and is seen by the judge. Both cuts and thrusts must land to a valid target area to score. See main rules for additional scoring actions.
- Matches are first to 5 points in pools, first to 7 points in eliminations.
- In the event of bilateral hits, the strike that is deemed to have had priority is awarded 1 point and the other strike 0. If neither strike is determined to have had priority, no points will be awarded.
Summary of Priority Conventions
- If one fencer is moving forward and the other is not while a double hit occurs, the action of the fencer moving forward will almost always have priority.
- If an attack is parried, the action of the last fencer who parried almost always has priority.
- Target priority always takes precedence over attack priority (IE a counterattack to the head has priority over an attack to the leg, a renewal to the arm has priority over a riposte to the torso, etc). Any hit to the leg and cuts (not thrusts) to the body always lose priority.
- Big chambering actions or pulled attacks during the terminal portion of an attack transform the attack into a renewal, and therefore lose priority.
