Vito's Minions

It is plastic. Really. People make fun of plastic armor until they realize ours is plastic. And then the Minions tell them it was free.

Vici manufactures the armor from Vito's design, an alteration of Newstead Roman lorica segmentata. It's HDPE plastic, is lightweight, won't absorb sweat, won't shatter in the cold, floats well and is more durable than anything else on the battlefield except stainless and titanium. But really, the best thing about the armor is that all minions look the same on the field. This makes the Minions unit unique in the SCA.

The biggest obstacle to someone joining the SCA and fighting is the up-front cost of the kit. Our goal is to outfit new Minions at no expense to the new guy. The cost of helm halves, aluminium for shields, elbow cops, rivets, washers, strapping, cord, and padding is paid for with donations made by second /third year minions, Vito, and Vici. We are continuing to reduce the cost, now about $150 in materials per soldier.

The armor includes a custom plastic torso with attached skirting. We make one-piece all-plastic greaves, bazubands fit with aluminium elbows (from Bokalo's Armory), gauntlets and gorget, all in plastic. We build a custom Roman helmet from 12-gauge halves (from Rough From The Hammer on Facebook) and 14-gauge sheet, with a 1/4 inch bar grille, all in welded mild steel. We build 24" x 36" rectangular shields from .09" thick T-6 6061 aluminium, edged in McMaster-Carr door edging and rubber air hose, with a plastic basket and canvas webbing strap on the back. For a sword we build a custom plastic cup hilt on a rattan sword. We have started to make center boss shields from 1/4" HDPE sheet plastic from Menards.

This all sounds good. But there's a catch. We only build it for Vito's Minions, at Vito's orders. There was a lot of R&D work put into the armoring process, and a lot of expense on tools and materials. If you join, we build you a kit. We have enough kits in enough sizes to give you a test run, to see if you like it. If you tell Vito that you want to fight with us, and he accepts you, and you pre-register for Pennsic, we'll build you a kit. If you quit, we'll take it back, and it gets used by another Minion.

The Armor