Product ReviewsCompendium of Weapons, Armor and Castles by Matthew Balent (1989, Trade Paperback)

The Compendium of Weapons, Armour, and Castles

Overall, I found this product excellent. I did have three problems with the product.
First, the descriptions of the weapon were separated from their pictures. This involved having to turn pages to see the weapons that were described. This especially caused problems when the weapon pictures were misplaced.
The second problem was while the artwork by Kevin Long showed a great amount of drawing ability, most of the pictures were in model poses. There are some products I buy merely for the artistic execution, and so I found these lacking.
The last problems is the castles only include ancient Mid-East, European, and Crusader Castles. The weapons were much more diverse as far as the origin, so this was a let-down. The castles that were shown were diverse in design, but not as much as if a Japanese castle or Maori ditch fort would have been included.
One of the things I loved was that the book was not just an encyclopedic list of weapons. It tried to put some of the weapons in a cultural framework. The author included also why castles were necessary, plus a little bit of historical data on the castles pictured. The author gave the weapons attributes for traits Palladium Fantasy (which I have never played) does not include like breaking potential, and made these traits generic.Read full review...

Tons of information for application.

This book is well sorted out and full of details. Very pleased with the content. Great buy.

Verified purchase:  Yes | Condition: pre-owned | Sold by: goodwill_colora...

Love it

Love it! Great for adding detail to any game.

Verified purchase:  Yes | Condition: pre-owned | Sold by: nobleknightgames

GREAT!!!

Great for the history lover. Informative with many, many, illustrations.

Verified purchase:  Yes | Condition: pre-owned | Sold by: thrift.books