A first time for everything
Hi-res and textless version available for free on my Patreon!
Colorists: Raptie & Oniontrain
https://unitedhelpukraine.org/ https://www.comebackalive.in.ua/
Out-of-Placers
A story of inconvenient changes
Support The OOPs
OOPs now has a Russian translation which updates shortly after the English pages are posted!
Now also in French:
And Ukranian:
Ah, a therapeutic dream!
One guy’s armed with a meat cleaver and the other has a meat tenderizer … someone was bound to get hurt. I’m not sure why, but I formed an instant dislike for the guy with the cleaver
Two-handed hilt, short heavy blade, that thing is definitely meant for chopping off entire limbs in close quarters. Still puzzled by the skinny tang, but I assume it thickens up significantly towards the hilt in order to maintain some kind of strength. And that tanto point definitely makes it extra stabby.
It is de Bastard sword, in concept, but dis time made for de actual bastards! Its proportions are looking better for being useful zhough. Having a longer, and heavier pommel makes for better balance overall, especially for a heavier blade like shown. Is a question zhat why Elim just did not pick one up after decorating de ground wizh de blood of Beletan’s youzh? It is very common to show such “trophies” picked up in de combat, and if dis was early in de war, Elim did not yet know his side were about to lose.
A sword is the iconic weapon of the professional fighting class for a number of reasons.
One is that the are expensive. Another is that they are hard as hell to use effectively. Not just going out and chopping a brush, but chopping brush for four hours straight when that brush is trying to kill you. They are heavy* , and if you don’t land your blow with the sword at the exact right angle when you hit something, a moving target at that, you can break your wrist or have it pop out of your hand.
That takes a LOT of training. And that time training is time you’re not farming. That means money.
Elim was listed as a farmer/poor. I don’t know how he got armor.. .probably off of a dead guy. Or maybe kass took a liking to him. But he’s missing a lifetime of training in how to use sharp pointy objects. So for a farmboy with the mud still on his boots, a spear was the preferred weapon. Once the fight devolves from formation to mano e mano, yeah, Pointy metal club is a good idea.
Elim may just be staying with what he knows works
For humans too, ya never forget your first. Unless your first time is dropping your sword, then it becomes a non-issue very quickly in a fight. And de Beletan hat/helmet looks like its design is dere specifically to made de enemy die laughing. De hole dat the floof is attached to would be an obvious target to smack. And while I appreciate floof generally, socially, and romantically, its use on de helmet is questionable for humani due to its ability to be pulled and *gasp* none of zhem use a chin strap, somezhing dat even a Yinglet would have! If I was Elim, I’d pull off de ugly helmet, zhen beat de Beletan wizh it!
Could the floof be attached to the outside of the helmet via a bolted-on bit, or would that also cause a weakpoint?
Also, personally, it’s not that I can’t forget. It’s that I refuse to let myself forget. I’m worried what it would make me if I stop questioning if I had to.
I’m kind of thankful for the floof bit.
It helps keep us from having to see his maced face.
Macing faces seems to be Elim’s signature finishing move.
Witness page 95: https://www.valsalia.com/comic/out-of-placers/oops-95/
De more I look at it, de less I see de Beletan helmet as what we would call a helmet. From de pages it is featured, I zhink it is like de circlet Elim is wearing, but larger, heavier, and de floof being long enough to get in one’s eyes. It looks like a cylinder, hollow in the center wizh a noseguard added.
It could be it’s an actual helmet, wizh de cylinder added atop it, as head protection from above is important if zhings like arrows or sling and stones are around. But I don’t zhink so, or at least not a metal helmet like we would recognize.
Sorry, Goat-patch, you’ve just been ELIM-inated!
I like how the movements flow from one frame to the next. Elim did a nice parry, but he is very lucky his fingers didn’t get chopped off – without handguard that is.
Also, what’s with the… shield-thing? Can’t even call it a shield. First I thought that maybe they had a shortage of wood and had to make do with tiny thingies, but then I looked at the background.
You may say that there are historical bucklers of the similar size, but they are all center-gripped, not strapped. And almost never a battlefield equipment. Its just weird. Looks cool though, can’t argue here.
Oh, and I tried to make a compliment to the portrayal of movement here, and I ended up nitpicing on gear again. Then again, judging by the previous page people seem to enjoy doing that.
It looks like some sort of bracer, but with “wings” added to increase the coverage.
He has a similar, albeit less fancy, bracer-shield in the second page. It might be Dinnish custom, or a mace-wielder thing, as he uses it to make (I assume) a threatening noise.
De Shield thingy for Elim is one of my least favorite bits too. its a exaggerated Vambrace technically. A bit of armor zhat covers de forearm. But Elim liked it so much dat he uses it even as a Ivenmoth guard.
That’s how training works. Stimulus-Response. You can have a “Did that just happen?” moment afterwards. The training means you get an “afterwards”
One Important zhing dat the Beletan was wearing was a short Gambeson, or cloth armor for a shirt. Clozh armor sounds weak, but it was very effective for a very long time on Earzh. And both parties look to be wearing Ichcahuipilli, or somezhng like it. Silly word, yes? Ichcahuipilli is de type of armor used by de Mesoamericans, and was super useful. It was even reported to stop bullets fired by smoothbore pistols.
What dat means for us, is de baggy pants look around the more heavily armored bits is not a sign of poor quality, but instead quite the opposite, as it would take a lucky hit to penetrate it at a seam or such. Unfortunately Elim’s lack of a gambeson worn above dis armor would later have him wizh a stabby-stabby in de guts. So dat gambeson worn atop de Ichcahuipilli type armor would be very useful on de battlefield, and ozher than de silly helmet, I give de Beletan armor a very high grade for being well zhought out.
A book wizh Ichcahuipilli equipped soldiers on de bottom of de page : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ichcahuipilli#/media/File:Codex_Mendoza_folio_67r.jpg
And yes, seeing dose aztec helmets now makes me want one for myself, but instead of a jaguar, be a snarling Yinglet’s visage. Dat would be so cool!
With you drawing atention to the armor now I think that Elim’s headband is a bit strange. AFAIK metal headbands like that were used when a full helmet couldn’t be afforded. But he is covered in metal plates. I don’t really see a reason for not having a full helmet. Even sacrificing leg armor for the helmet, if metal was in short supply.
And the shield. The shield is just silly, no way around it. Even if it looks cool. I mean – Elim had to block with his mace, a weapon that is super not made for blocking but made to be coupled with a proper big shield!
It is worth reporting zhat Drinlan (may her memory ever be revered) lost de war. Elim was a poor dude before de war, so his outfit was de bare minimum his country offered to go into combat. Kassen was from a trading family, so it would be interesting to see if dere were differences between Elim and Kassen’s kit. Kassen later having only a spiked ball as a weapon in ValSalia likely means he ditched his preferred weapon to save his friend.
But yes, I’d give Drinlan a C- score for equpment, zhough to be fair, dey did not start de war. Beletan was ready, and prepared to win, and better equpped to do so as a result.
I see that Elim is left-handed. I can’t tell if the other guy was. I think the parry worked so well because the sword stuck in the mace’s shaft (see the nick it made on the previous page) and because Elim caught it in a good spot to have leverage, near his own hand. Good job there, but he got away with that risky spin move because the other guy had dropped his sword, and on the way up from his knees, put his head right in line with Elim’s swing. He evidently didn’t expect a move like that. Sometimes it’s better to be lucky than good! I haven’t been looking to see how many people in this world are left-handed, but there might be a lefty’s advantage in single combat, where most people are more accustomed to fighting right-handed adversaries. Elim is also going to have to deal with the fact that, in his latest fight, he killed several people at once, not just one, and not during war. I wonder how he’ll react when he hears that that Brakka isn’t dead.
Also, it occurs to me that we haven’t seen any of Kassen’s narrative voice recently. I wonder if the story is getting close to an inflection point and we’ll see that again soon. I also wonder about how much more there is to the matriarch’s visit to town. If Chekov’s gun teaches us anything, she’s not just there to pay a social call.
I didn’t even realize he did a spin attack until you mentioned it. I interpreted it as a big overhead swing at first. Exactly because spin attaks tend to be suicidal.
There are right handed weirdos that bat lefty. 🙂
For me it makes a bastard sword harder to use, But it meant my two handed tennis backhand was absolutely brutal.
Must resist reading the final panel in Steve Urkel’s voice.
that boy dead