Armour

Armour is the part of the kit that finishes a character. You can carry the nicest sword on the field, but if there's a hoodie under your tabard, nobody believes you're a knight.

We've been making armour since 2007. Before Epic Armoury existed, our founder ran a larp shop, and most of what's in this catalogue traces back to something that annoyed him behind the counter. Armour that only fit one body shape. Pieces that fell apart after a couple of events. Prices that meant a new player couldn't afford a starter kit without rethinking the rest of their month. So we built a brand that doesn't pick one customer and ignore the others. There's gear here for someone showing up to their first event with a budget, and there's gear here for someone who's been doing this for fifteen years and wants something they'll still be wearing in 2040. Same shop.

Browse by type

Plate Armour — Breastplates, cuirasses, pauldrons, gauntlets, greaves, full steel sets. Hammered by hand. Heavy. Loud when it gets hit. The real thing.

Leather Armour — Cuirasses, brigandines, bracers, leg pieces, full sets. Genuine leather. The most versatile material we sell, and what most of our customers end up living in.

PU Armour — Polyurethane pieces that photograph like steel or leather but weigh almost nothing. New players love this stuff. So do veterans during summer events.

Chainmail & Padded — Hauberks, coifs, parts, plus gambesons in every configuration we could think of. Chainmail goes over a gambeson or under plate. A gambeson on its own is enough armour for plenty of characters.

Helmets — Steel, leather, and PU. Knight, medieval, fantasy, Greek and Roman.

Armour Sets — Matched sets in all three materials, for anyone who'd rather not piece a kit together themselves.

Shields live under weaponry, over here.

How to choose

Read your rulebook before you spend money. Every larp handles armour its own way. Some require a minimum thickness, some won't let you wear metal at all, some hand out hit points for heavier materials. Sort this out before you fall in love with a breastplate that turns out to be illegal at your game.

Pick the material around how you'll actually use it. Steel is unbeatable for presence. It also weighs what it weighs, gets hot in summer, and you'll need to wipe it down and oil it occasionally or it'll rust on you. Leather is what most of our customers end up in: light, flexible, easy to layer with cloth, comfortable for a full weekend. PU foam is the newest material in the hobby and probably the most forgiving one. It looks like steel or leather in any photo that isn't macro, it weighs almost nothing, and it doesn't care if you leave it in the garage between events. Chainmail and gambesons are usually layering pieces, though a good gambeson on its own reads as proper armour for a lot of character concepts.

Don't buy a full set on day one. Almost nobody does this well. Start with a torso piece, get a gambeson if you'll need one underneath, and add to it as the character settles in. You'll probably change your mind about what you want once you've worn armour at an actual event, and a complete set bought up front is a lot of money to put behind a guess.

Get the size right. This matters more than which material you pick. A breastplate that doesn't fit is coming off by the time lunch is called. Measure properly, over whatever you'll wear underneath, and trust the chart on the product page rather than guessing. Between sizes, our usual advice is to go up for plate and chainmail and down for leather, since leather stretches a little and metal doesn't.

Why us

We run several sub-brands and material lines because the hobby isn't one customer. There's the person showing up next Saturday who needs something that looks like armour and costs less than their phone. There's the veteran who wants a steel cuirass they'll still be wearing when their character's grandkids are in play. Most shops pick a lane. We didn't want to. Everything we make gets used by people who actually larp, which means we end up designing around the unglamorous stuff: how a piece sits after eight hours, how it survives being stuffed in the back of a car, what happens to it when it rains for three days straight at a UK summer event.

Things people ask us

What's the best kind of armour for larp? There isn't one. Leather is where most people are happiest if they don't know what to pick. PU is the easiest material to own. Steel has presence nothing else can match. Most of the kits we see on returning customers have all three materials in them somewhere.

Is PU foam armour actually any good? Yes. There's still some old prejudice in the hobby against foam armour from when the early versions of it looked rough, but the current generation is a different product. Holds shape, takes hits, photographs well, lasts years. Just don't take it into a steel fighting league, because it isn't for that.

What do I wear under it? Gambeson under plate or chainmail, always. Linen shirt or tunic under leather or PU. If you skip the gambeson under metal, you'll figure out why you shouldn't have within about twenty minutes of the first battle.

Can I just start with one piece? Yes, and you probably should. A cuirass on its own reads as armour. Add to it when you know what else you want.

Chainmail without a gambeson? You can wear it that way. You won't want to. The rings catch on everything, every impact goes straight to your body, and the weight sits on your shoulders in a way that gets miserable fast. Just wear the gambeson.

How do I size it? Size chart on every product page, measure over whatever you'll have on underneath, don't eyeball it. Up a size for plate and chainmail if you're in between, down a size for leather.

Looking after steel? Wipe it after events, store it somewhere dry, thin coat of oil before it sits unused for a while. Leather wants conditioner occasionally. PU and chainmail are basically maintenance-free.