[Ulli Martin]

Hi all!

I'm interested in buying The Viceroy from Albion and have different thoughts about it.
I generally choose swords highly by "instinct" - concerning especially the proportions and the general aesthetics.

I'm not sure regarding The Viceroy. I can't get good impressions from the photos on the Albion website itself and the review here on myArmoury.com. The problem for me is, there is only little possibilty for comparing the seize.

So I searched the forums for pictures of The Viceroy with people or hands on it, but I didn't find one. Do you know where to find such photos? It would be really great if someone owning a Viceroy could take pictures holding the sword right in his hands. That would be perfect.

When looking at the official photos the blade looks always a little bit short to me (about 1 inch?). That's only my (perhaps weird) aesthetic feeling, I know it's a "correct" XXa

What do you think about the proportions?

Thanks for help!

[Jonathon Janusz]

Sorry I can't get up pictures of the sword in hand due to technical difficulties , but I can tell you that the Viceroy is the most massive Albion sword I own. The Tritonia comes close, and the Count/Steward has the width in the blade, but the mass of the Viceroy just puts it in an entirely different category of swords. In regards to use, one of my friends is a 6'6" railroad worker, and he was very much at home with the sword.

I'm 5'10" and about 190lbs, and for me the length of the blade feels good - shortish for a two-hander but far better to manage for me (one of the things that doesn't quite work for me with the Regent, for sake of comparison, is the length of the blade - when swinging a Regent I always feel like I'm about to dig the tip into the ground when making underhand cuts). The extra long grip (you need to include the pommel here due to its shape) makes for a strong, broad cutting sword that you could put a lot of grunt into swinging. It was very forgiving to cut with, and did so effortlessly against light targets, which I thought at first the sword might have some trouble with due to its size. Choking up on your grip and grabbing on to the base of the blade turns an otherwise powerful cutter into a completely different sword. I could easily see fencing with it at the halfsword and using it as a short spear in armour. This very split personality is one of the things I most like about it and makes it a very fun sword to play with. Make no mistake, though, that for my size I really feel this is exclusively a two-handed sword - it is just too massive for me to confidently manage in one hand.

Completely aside, I would really like to play with Bill's fishtail hybrid to see how they compare.

Hope this helps and good luck with your sword - I almost forgot to say that this is also one of the most interesting to look at among Albion's lineup - the facets, bevels, curves, and points really can not be done justice by pictures alone. I actually didn't like this sword at all just looking at the photos floating around, but once I got to see one in person, I came around.