From what I have seen in these videos, I'm finding it hard to be impressed with the Battlecry lineup. Granted, I have not held one in hand, but given Windlass Steelcrafts' track record, I'm not hopeful. Part of the problem is the Rolling Stones' ideal for the appearance of these weapons (I see a Windlass Sword, I want to paint it black). They look straight out of a fantasy series on ABC Family. Sorry, I mean Freeform. Some of these are nicer looking than others; out of all of them the Bosworth is the "prettiest" of a sorry lot, while others are just plain ugly, like the Maldons and the Hattin. It's not the type of weapon that makes it ugly either. I've seen some beautifully made falchions and Viking swords and seaxs, but not in the Battlecry lineup. The Hattin looks more like a machete than a falchion. Of all of them, the Soldier's Buckler looks the most promising, yet they do not have a video of the buckler. In fact, the Hattin video shows Mr. Clements with the Hattin and a buckler, but not the Battlecry Soldier's Buckler. Unfortunately, there only seems to be two rivets securing the boss of the buckler to the rim, leaving me wonder how well it would hold up.
It's not like these are drastically different than their other offerings; in fact, the Acre is their Classic Medieval Sword with a black "paint" job and a decorative (read as poorly executed) wire wrap on the grip. Yet, the Acre is significantly more expensive than the CMS, even with the sharpened blade taken into account. Why? Compared to other swords that they sell, how are these improved? We see John Clements beating the living daylights out of things with them, but how do we know those examples are common across all of their Battlecry products? By that, I mean are his swords "special" for the videos, or is the quality of any particular sword in that line the same? Yes, they talk about how they are inspected based off of an "Industry Standard", but what is that standard? If you compare the custom made swords out of swordsmiths like Peter Johnnson, Lukas Mastle Goer, and Miecze Sredniowieczne, to production swords from Albion, A & A, or Castle Keep, to the wares of Cold Steel, Hanwei, and Windlass, what is the Industry Standard they claim to exceed? How far do they exceed it? How did they make the blades black? I'm guessing chemical bluing of some kind, but depending on the kind leads to how sturdy is the bluing and how easy is it to remove?
