Albion Ljubljana Review
Feb 10, 2022 0:33:00 GMT
Post by curiomansion on Feb 10, 2022 0:33:00 GMT
I'm still trying to get my review template down. I'd like to focus more on the subjective elements of the swords I review, because I think that's what people are looking for. Revisions are probably down the line, but for now, here you go. I know many have been asking for thoughts on this sword, so I wrote as quickly as I can. Will proofread later. Haha. Enjoy!
Albion Ljubljana Review
Links
www.albion-swords.com/The%20Ljubljana.html
myarmoury.com/talk/viewtopic.php?t=27475&highlight=ljubljana
myarmoury.com/talk/viewtopic.php?p=29848&highlight=#29848
Experience with the Sword
• Owned for 2+ Yrs, Bought New, 14 month wait
• HEMA drills for many hours (weekly practice)
• Cut/Thrusted:
o Hog and Deer Skulls (after kill, meat eaten)
o Hog Torso (all meat, organs removed)
o Newspaper (regularly, sometimes covered with various fabrics)
o Bottles and Recyclables (regularly)
o Light Trees (not sure of the type, but not hardwoods)
o Pumpkins
o A Dead Palm Tree
o 3 Tatami Mats (so expensive)
o Mattress Casing Wrapped into Cylinder
o Brisket
Thoughts/Feelings on the Sword
Here I focus on the subjective qualities and user experience of the sword. For stats, see the above links. My particular example was close enough to the official stats to not note a difference.
• The blade and grip is short for the current tastes of the HEMA market. Mind the stats, if you’re used to a modern Feder. Despite the weight, I think the dimensions fall well within the “hand and a half” category. The sword feels good with wide sweeping cuts in one hand. It feels nimble and sturdy in two.
• Given the length, the sword is heavy. It doesn’t feel heavy at all, but the actual weight is relatively high. Everything on the sword is beefy, thick, and oversized. It screams durability. It’s built like a war sword, but it handles like a dueling sword. Very stiff. In halfswording, the sword feels like a mini pollhammer.
• The general consensus seems to be that most of a sword’s balance is achieved in the shaping of the blade, with the pommel being more of a fine-tuning instrument rather than an outright counterweight. This sword seems to be an exception. The pommel feels like it’s doing quite a bit of heavy lifting in the balancing of this sword. The distal taper isn’t drastic and the sword is thick all the way up to the tip, which is reinforced. This means, relative to other swords of the type, the Ljubljana feels like it has focused bits of mass at both ends of the sword. The sensation this creates when dynamically swinging the blade, going through different fighting actions is unmistakably unique to this sword. It feels like playing with a friend on a see saw. Stiff swords tend to not feel as “alive” as more flexible ones, but this sensation makes up for it in droves. Sublime mass distribution! Can’t stress that enough!
• The best analogy I can think of for this sword is Batman in the warehouse scene in Batman v Superman. Nimble, agile, but beefy and sturdy.
• The pommel makes you smile! It never gets old! It feels like a macehead.
• The sword has decorations on it! Goooollllddd.
Why I Bought It
Aesthetically, I think this sword is perfect. Funny enough, it was an acquired taste. I find when you stare at swords for long enough, your opinions tend to drift. Swords that wow you at first grow familiar and tired, while some swords at first slip under the radar, grow on you and stick with you.
The Ljubljana was an example of the latter. Aesthetically, two pictures sealed the deal for me: one posted by DBK on his FB page before he started on a scabbard for it (a close up of the hilt in hand); the other with Blaz Berlec on MyArmoury holding the original. These two photos give the most accurate impression of the sword in person that I’ve seen on the net. Other photos tend to make the middle and weak of the blade look too narrow.
Aesthetics aside, I first fell in love with the sword from an engineering perspective. A picture from Albion’s Facebook page of the Ljubljana’s unmounted blade exhilarated me. The tang was soooo beefy! At the time, I was after an “apocalypse,” “shtf” sword. Durability was my #1 priority, and I wanted as good of a sword otherwise. The Ljubljana fit the bill perfectly. The edge bevels were nice and obtuse and the rest of it overbuilt.
From Peter Johnsson, MyArmoury (Feb 09): “To me it seems to have much in common with those sturdier XVa´s and XVII one come across from time to time. They are almost in a 150% scale to "normal" swords.”
Performance
My rating system:
• 1 – Ineffective
• 2 – Don’t Count on It: Probably won’t work, but might get lucky or can muscle it if you’re strong/fast.
• 3 – Competent: Reliable with good technique.
• 4 – Good: Reliable and forgiving of bad technique.
• 5 – Excellent: Gotta be incompetent to mess it up.
Handling
• Cuts from the Fingers – 3, Doable but not a long range hand sniper. It works because of the balance, but you can feel the weight holding it back. This is most apparent when you compare it to more reasonable type XVa’s or feders.
• Cuts from the Wrist – 4, This sword turns on a dime and can cut from very tight, constricted positions. Again, the only reason I don’t rate it a 5 is its weight.
• Cuts from the Elbow – 5, Sweet spot movement wise. This sword just goes.
• Cuts from the Shoulder – 4, As much as I like constricting hilts, I feel it gets in the way with broad, sweeping cuts. Specifically it’s the width of the huge pommel that prevents your bottom hand from comfortably gliding along the side the way other wheel pommels allow you to. The sword is well balanced for these cuts, but the ergonomics prevent it from getting a 5. For broad, sweeping cuts, this sword actually feels great in 1 hand, though I'd still give it a 4 in one hand.
• Stopping/Changing Direction of Cuts – 5, Very nimble. That seesaw mass distribution seems to always guarantee that some part of the sword is aiding you in going where you want to go.
• Zwerchs, Krumps, Schiels – 5*, asterisk because I know constricting hand grips are still not popular despite being awesome and historically very popular. I prefer them but know their limitations, particularly in dueling/arena contexts. If you’ve trained with such a grip, actions where your hands rotate around each other feel amazing on this sword.
• Winding (Roll) – 4, The blade is narrow, so winding from edge to edge isn’t going to be as quick as a wide blade, but the wide, heavy cross guard aides in this. KDF winds feel really good, but not best in class good.
• Steadiness in the 4 hangers – 5, this sword has the much sought after pivot placements at the tip and middle, so naturally the four hangers and transitioning between them feel amazingly steady and quick. The stiffness and weight also contribute. You just trust the thing to protect you. Perfect sword for Lichtenhauer.
• Disengaging – 4, Very quick/nimble, but again…weight. Won’t out disengage a Albion Ringeck/Talhoffer/Fiore or a Regenyei feder. To be fair, it almost gets a 5, just not quite.
• Point Accuracy – 4, on paper this should be higher? But in practice, I’ve just had feders and other swords that intuitively place the point on target better. Maybe it’s the unique mass distribution.
• “Whoosh” Factor (1= neutral to 5=blade heavy) – 3, with the close PoB, you’d image the sword feeling neutral, but that see-saw weight distribution makes the sword much more willing to move than that PoB would suggest. Context aside, based on feel alone, it’s perfect. It assists you in nearly every swing, doesn’t swing for you, nor does it make you do any work. Just tell it where to go and it’ll go.
• Sword Wind – 5, LOUD.
Damage
• Tip Cuts – 3, It’ll cut water bottles if your technique is good. Struggles with anything else even with good technique, but it would no doubt injure vulnerable targets alike hands and faces.
• CoP Cuts – 4, Shockingly good. Especially against hard targets. It tacks deep into skulls, trees, newspaper, tatami. You can’t be a clutz with it, but you don’t have to be an experienced cutter by any means. Fun note: this sword is easier to extract out of targets due to its thickness. When hitting trees, it cut 80% as deep as my thinner, wider blades, but rarely got stuck in the target. Also the CoP is almost halfway down the blade, meaning this sword is really good at close quarters fighting. So tip forward, harass, control the line, thrust at range, then swing up close.
• Raking Tip Cuts – 2, the fat, reinforced tip unsurprisingly doesn’t do well. I test these on fabric (rolled up mattress exterior) and fabric covered targets. There just isn’t enough cutting edge on the tippy tip to cut deep.
• Thrust Penetration – 5, lance-like performance. Goes deeeeep. Be careful though, it often doesn’t want to come out. I get this sword stuck in targets more than any other when thrusting.
• Blunt Trauma – 3, I test this somewhat subjectively on an upright tire that’s stabilized. I check how easily the sword compresses the tire, how deep in compresses it, and how well it resists the bounce back. Lastly I feel for the sensation in my arms after a hard hit. This sword is solid overall. Compresses the tire competently at the CoP down, but does little to the tire above the CoP. Cuts with the tip just bounce.
• Draw Cutting – 3, competent, but not amazing. The edge bevels are just too obtuse. Very well executed, but again, seems like durability was the main goal.
• Push Cutting – 3, I can process my brisket with it just fine, but it’s not effortless. This is definitely not an estoc, you don’t want this blade pushing into you, but not an insta-cut.
• Vs. Fabric – 2, This sword really struggles with cutting through thick fabric.
Comparisons
• The closest sword in Albion’s lineup I’ve handled is the Sempach. The Ljubljana is tankier, but overall the Sempach feels close. The Ljubljana outperformed it in pumpkin cutting by a noticeable margin (but not huge). Less experienced cutters did slightly better with the Ljubljana.
• The Ringeck and Talhoffer, were quicker swords, but didn’t cut nearly as well, nor hit nearly as hard. Neither touches the Ljubljana’s durability.
• The Mk1 13th Century Greatsword, is a fun comparision, as a much older warsword, with a completely opposite design philosophy and configuration. My example (bought within a year of it coming out) is actually a few ounces lighter than the Ljubljana, and it’s always fun to illustrate to fellow students what mass distribution can do. I adore both swords and mention the greatsword as a near perfect foil to the Ljubljana.
Recommendation
Value Score = 76.52%
(what I think it's worth/what it costs) = ($2200/$2875)
• As far as its place in a collection goes, the Ljubljana is a great “if I could only have one” long sword (functionally not financially). It’s extremely well rounded and ranks high in nearly all attributes and shouldn’t be completely out of the fight in any context. Its overbuilt quality is confidence inspiring, and don’t underestimate how sexy the sword is in person. You catch yourself just staring at it.
• If you’re building a large collection, it’s a great example of a “plate armor” sword. Great for fighting in and/or against plate. You think anyone wants a mordhau to the face when you’re carrying that bad boy? Forget about it!
• Naturally like most Albions and everything in the Museum line, its value for money is where it underperforms. If you want something in the same genre, but don’t have the cash, the Sempach (and I’d imagine the Landgraf) is 75% as good for less than 50% the price. Again, the Ljubljana has an unmistakable handling dynamic, but does that translate into performance? Personally, I don't think it does. It just makes it more fun and unique.
A friend of mine ordered a Vladimir Cervenka Ljubljana, and when that comes, I’ll do a comparison. Cervenka’s take is also about 50% the cost as well. I do firmly believe the Ljubljana is better than other similar swords, but not better proportional to price. The last octaves always cost the most. To the untrained eye (based on small sample) the Ljubljana does LOOK more expensive, if that matters to you.
• At the end of the day, the sword does put a huge smile on your face and feels like a high class weapon. Can't help but stick your nose up when carrying it.
Albion Ljubljana Review
Links
www.albion-swords.com/The%20Ljubljana.html
myarmoury.com/talk/viewtopic.php?t=27475&highlight=ljubljana
myarmoury.com/talk/viewtopic.php?p=29848&highlight=#29848
Experience with the Sword
• Owned for 2+ Yrs, Bought New, 14 month wait
• HEMA drills for many hours (weekly practice)
• Cut/Thrusted:
o Hog and Deer Skulls (after kill, meat eaten)
o Hog Torso (all meat, organs removed)
o Newspaper (regularly, sometimes covered with various fabrics)
o Bottles and Recyclables (regularly)
o Light Trees (not sure of the type, but not hardwoods)
o Pumpkins
o A Dead Palm Tree
o 3 Tatami Mats (so expensive)
o Mattress Casing Wrapped into Cylinder
o Brisket
Thoughts/Feelings on the Sword
Here I focus on the subjective qualities and user experience of the sword. For stats, see the above links. My particular example was close enough to the official stats to not note a difference.
• The blade and grip is short for the current tastes of the HEMA market. Mind the stats, if you’re used to a modern Feder. Despite the weight, I think the dimensions fall well within the “hand and a half” category. The sword feels good with wide sweeping cuts in one hand. It feels nimble and sturdy in two.
• Given the length, the sword is heavy. It doesn’t feel heavy at all, but the actual weight is relatively high. Everything on the sword is beefy, thick, and oversized. It screams durability. It’s built like a war sword, but it handles like a dueling sword. Very stiff. In halfswording, the sword feels like a mini pollhammer.
• The general consensus seems to be that most of a sword’s balance is achieved in the shaping of the blade, with the pommel being more of a fine-tuning instrument rather than an outright counterweight. This sword seems to be an exception. The pommel feels like it’s doing quite a bit of heavy lifting in the balancing of this sword. The distal taper isn’t drastic and the sword is thick all the way up to the tip, which is reinforced. This means, relative to other swords of the type, the Ljubljana feels like it has focused bits of mass at both ends of the sword. The sensation this creates when dynamically swinging the blade, going through different fighting actions is unmistakably unique to this sword. It feels like playing with a friend on a see saw. Stiff swords tend to not feel as “alive” as more flexible ones, but this sensation makes up for it in droves. Sublime mass distribution! Can’t stress that enough!
• The best analogy I can think of for this sword is Batman in the warehouse scene in Batman v Superman. Nimble, agile, but beefy and sturdy.
• The pommel makes you smile! It never gets old! It feels like a macehead.
• The sword has decorations on it! Goooollllddd.
Why I Bought It
Aesthetically, I think this sword is perfect. Funny enough, it was an acquired taste. I find when you stare at swords for long enough, your opinions tend to drift. Swords that wow you at first grow familiar and tired, while some swords at first slip under the radar, grow on you and stick with you.
The Ljubljana was an example of the latter. Aesthetically, two pictures sealed the deal for me: one posted by DBK on his FB page before he started on a scabbard for it (a close up of the hilt in hand); the other with Blaz Berlec on MyArmoury holding the original. These two photos give the most accurate impression of the sword in person that I’ve seen on the net. Other photos tend to make the middle and weak of the blade look too narrow.
Aesthetics aside, I first fell in love with the sword from an engineering perspective. A picture from Albion’s Facebook page of the Ljubljana’s unmounted blade exhilarated me. The tang was soooo beefy! At the time, I was after an “apocalypse,” “shtf” sword. Durability was my #1 priority, and I wanted as good of a sword otherwise. The Ljubljana fit the bill perfectly. The edge bevels were nice and obtuse and the rest of it overbuilt.
From Peter Johnsson, MyArmoury (Feb 09): “To me it seems to have much in common with those sturdier XVa´s and XVII one come across from time to time. They are almost in a 150% scale to "normal" swords.”
Performance
My rating system:
• 1 – Ineffective
• 2 – Don’t Count on It: Probably won’t work, but might get lucky or can muscle it if you’re strong/fast.
• 3 – Competent: Reliable with good technique.
• 4 – Good: Reliable and forgiving of bad technique.
• 5 – Excellent: Gotta be incompetent to mess it up.
Handling
• Cuts from the Fingers – 3, Doable but not a long range hand sniper. It works because of the balance, but you can feel the weight holding it back. This is most apparent when you compare it to more reasonable type XVa’s or feders.
• Cuts from the Wrist – 4, This sword turns on a dime and can cut from very tight, constricted positions. Again, the only reason I don’t rate it a 5 is its weight.
• Cuts from the Elbow – 5, Sweet spot movement wise. This sword just goes.
• Cuts from the Shoulder – 4, As much as I like constricting hilts, I feel it gets in the way with broad, sweeping cuts. Specifically it’s the width of the huge pommel that prevents your bottom hand from comfortably gliding along the side the way other wheel pommels allow you to. The sword is well balanced for these cuts, but the ergonomics prevent it from getting a 5. For broad, sweeping cuts, this sword actually feels great in 1 hand, though I'd still give it a 4 in one hand.
• Stopping/Changing Direction of Cuts – 5, Very nimble. That seesaw mass distribution seems to always guarantee that some part of the sword is aiding you in going where you want to go.
• Zwerchs, Krumps, Schiels – 5*, asterisk because I know constricting hand grips are still not popular despite being awesome and historically very popular. I prefer them but know their limitations, particularly in dueling/arena contexts. If you’ve trained with such a grip, actions where your hands rotate around each other feel amazing on this sword.
• Winding (Roll) – 4, The blade is narrow, so winding from edge to edge isn’t going to be as quick as a wide blade, but the wide, heavy cross guard aides in this. KDF winds feel really good, but not best in class good.
• Steadiness in the 4 hangers – 5, this sword has the much sought after pivot placements at the tip and middle, so naturally the four hangers and transitioning between them feel amazingly steady and quick. The stiffness and weight also contribute. You just trust the thing to protect you. Perfect sword for Lichtenhauer.
• Disengaging – 4, Very quick/nimble, but again…weight. Won’t out disengage a Albion Ringeck/Talhoffer/Fiore or a Regenyei feder. To be fair, it almost gets a 5, just not quite.
• Point Accuracy – 4, on paper this should be higher? But in practice, I’ve just had feders and other swords that intuitively place the point on target better. Maybe it’s the unique mass distribution.
• “Whoosh” Factor (1= neutral to 5=blade heavy) – 3, with the close PoB, you’d image the sword feeling neutral, but that see-saw weight distribution makes the sword much more willing to move than that PoB would suggest. Context aside, based on feel alone, it’s perfect. It assists you in nearly every swing, doesn’t swing for you, nor does it make you do any work. Just tell it where to go and it’ll go.
• Sword Wind – 5, LOUD.
Damage
• Tip Cuts – 3, It’ll cut water bottles if your technique is good. Struggles with anything else even with good technique, but it would no doubt injure vulnerable targets alike hands and faces.
• CoP Cuts – 4, Shockingly good. Especially against hard targets. It tacks deep into skulls, trees, newspaper, tatami. You can’t be a clutz with it, but you don’t have to be an experienced cutter by any means. Fun note: this sword is easier to extract out of targets due to its thickness. When hitting trees, it cut 80% as deep as my thinner, wider blades, but rarely got stuck in the target. Also the CoP is almost halfway down the blade, meaning this sword is really good at close quarters fighting. So tip forward, harass, control the line, thrust at range, then swing up close.
• Raking Tip Cuts – 2, the fat, reinforced tip unsurprisingly doesn’t do well. I test these on fabric (rolled up mattress exterior) and fabric covered targets. There just isn’t enough cutting edge on the tippy tip to cut deep.
• Thrust Penetration – 5, lance-like performance. Goes deeeeep. Be careful though, it often doesn’t want to come out. I get this sword stuck in targets more than any other when thrusting.
• Blunt Trauma – 3, I test this somewhat subjectively on an upright tire that’s stabilized. I check how easily the sword compresses the tire, how deep in compresses it, and how well it resists the bounce back. Lastly I feel for the sensation in my arms after a hard hit. This sword is solid overall. Compresses the tire competently at the CoP down, but does little to the tire above the CoP. Cuts with the tip just bounce.
• Draw Cutting – 3, competent, but not amazing. The edge bevels are just too obtuse. Very well executed, but again, seems like durability was the main goal.
• Push Cutting – 3, I can process my brisket with it just fine, but it’s not effortless. This is definitely not an estoc, you don’t want this blade pushing into you, but not an insta-cut.
• Vs. Fabric – 2, This sword really struggles with cutting through thick fabric.
Comparisons
• The closest sword in Albion’s lineup I’ve handled is the Sempach. The Ljubljana is tankier, but overall the Sempach feels close. The Ljubljana outperformed it in pumpkin cutting by a noticeable margin (but not huge). Less experienced cutters did slightly better with the Ljubljana.
• The Ringeck and Talhoffer, were quicker swords, but didn’t cut nearly as well, nor hit nearly as hard. Neither touches the Ljubljana’s durability.
• The Mk1 13th Century Greatsword, is a fun comparision, as a much older warsword, with a completely opposite design philosophy and configuration. My example (bought within a year of it coming out) is actually a few ounces lighter than the Ljubljana, and it’s always fun to illustrate to fellow students what mass distribution can do. I adore both swords and mention the greatsword as a near perfect foil to the Ljubljana.
Recommendation
Value Score = 76.52%
(what I think it's worth/what it costs) = ($2200/$2875)
• As far as its place in a collection goes, the Ljubljana is a great “if I could only have one” long sword (functionally not financially). It’s extremely well rounded and ranks high in nearly all attributes and shouldn’t be completely out of the fight in any context. Its overbuilt quality is confidence inspiring, and don’t underestimate how sexy the sword is in person. You catch yourself just staring at it.
• If you’re building a large collection, it’s a great example of a “plate armor” sword. Great for fighting in and/or against plate. You think anyone wants a mordhau to the face when you’re carrying that bad boy? Forget about it!
• Naturally like most Albions and everything in the Museum line, its value for money is where it underperforms. If you want something in the same genre, but don’t have the cash, the Sempach (and I’d imagine the Landgraf) is 75% as good for less than 50% the price. Again, the Ljubljana has an unmistakable handling dynamic, but does that translate into performance? Personally, I don't think it does. It just makes it more fun and unique.
A friend of mine ordered a Vladimir Cervenka Ljubljana, and when that comes, I’ll do a comparison. Cervenka’s take is also about 50% the cost as well. I do firmly believe the Ljubljana is better than other similar swords, but not better proportional to price. The last octaves always cost the most. To the untrained eye (based on small sample) the Ljubljana does LOOK more expensive, if that matters to you.
• At the end of the day, the sword does put a huge smile on your face and feels like a high class weapon. Can't help but stick your nose up when carrying it.