Have you ever wanted to be a knight? Wear metal armor, yield a medieval weapon? Dual others in combat? The Salt Lake City Crusaders understand, and have made these dreams into a reality. These knights in shining armor have picked Midvale City Park to host their armored combat practices and can be found on Saturdays swinging swords.

One such practitioner of the armored arts is Dallon Larson, who has been with the SLC Crusaders for about a year. He mentioned that he originally got into the Crusaders via social media and then met them at the Lehi Renaissance Faire last year and decided to join in on the fun. Larson also had the chance to boast his historically accurate armor that included a (very heavy) helmet, a chainmail collar, pauldrons, gauntlets and grieves. Larson, although the owner of this impressive set of armor, was not wearing it during this interview. He had graciously let a possible future-crusader use his armor that day. Oftentimes, members of the Salt Lake City Crusaders will let possible new members borrow their armor in the hopes that they might join them, and to make sure that those who might want to join know what they are getting themselves into. “Getting here is the easy process, getting the armor is a bit more difficult,” Larson said. “But once you get some armor you can do any event you want.” 

Larson discussed some of the ins and outs of getting such detailed armor for combat. He said that the best armors come from Ukraine, and this is where his armor came from, more specifically, Aleksey’s Armory. He said, “Anyone is welcome to come and practice.” 

Another armored combat aficionado is Jake Omer, who has been with the Salt Lake City Crusaders for over 10 years and is one of the founding members. Omer likes to sport Japanese-styled armor that he made himself. To make his own armor, he buys sheets of metal, takes those home and uses a template to cut them to the appropriate length and shape and mold them into armor. When asked about why he chose this type of armor over the typical medieval armor, he states with a smile, “I just like the way it looks.” 

Omer and several others created the SLC Crusaders over 10 years ago after seeing other countries compete in international armored combat, and they teamed together to create a more local group that they could pursue their interests with, and thus, the Salt Lake City Crusaders were born, and have grown since. 

The SLC Crusaders meet in the Midvale City Park each Saturday morning. If interested in joining this group of armored combatants, they can also be found on Instagram and Facebook under slccrusaders. λ