Tod Cutler's new German War Sword - Tested and Reviewed

Hello, this is Kyle, also known as AlienTude, reviewing today this Todd Cutler German War Sword that I recently bought pretty much as soon as it became available on Todd Cutler's website. When they released this sword, it hit me in all the right places. I love complex, hilted, long swords. I love the big, broad, wide blades that are late medieval, early renaissance, 18c's that are really good for cutting. I love this style. I love the rithening on here. I'm already gushing about this sword and I'm just introducing the video. But this sword spoke to me and that's why I bought it right away. Now it's not inexpensive. The asking price is around £650 after shipping and any taxes. I didn't have to pay any tariffs in the U.S. But after all that, it got to me for right around $850 to $875. I don't remember the exact amount, but right around there. So this is, I would consider, because it comes with a scabbard, I would consider that at the very top end of mid-range for a sword. But this could just as easily be classified as the very bottom of the high-end swords. For me personally, I do consider it a mid-range, but just like a very top mid-range. There's really not a whole lot of sword lines in this price range. Your top competitors, I'm going to name off three and only some of them are very accurate. The first would be Darksword Armory. This is right in their price range with scabbard. And I'll tell you right now, this blows any Darksword Armory sword out of the water. Full stop. If you are in this price range and it's between Todd Cutler and Darksword Armory, I don't care how much you like the design of Darksword Armory, go with Todd Cutler. The second one would be the Windlass Royal Armories Collection. They're usually a little bit cheaper than this and they also have sales all the time. So you can get them even cheaper and Todd Cutler doesn't put his swords on sale nearly as often. The last is the Albion Squire line, which there's only a few models of, but they are in the $550 to $650 range for just the sword. And if you order one from Albion, it is a two-year wait at least. So this is certainly more available than those, plus you get a scabbard with it, although that scabbard does add some to the cost. So let's talk about the scabbard. This is beautiful, first off. It has a really nice screen. There's several different options for color, I chose green obviously. It's got multiple, what looks like brass, but they might be bronze, I'd have to go check the listing. Multiple fittings, a nice belt with some decorations on it, a really nice stamped pattern on it, and a pretty attractive shape as well. These hilt, or the metal components, I believe are all available to be bought from Todd Cutler if you want to make your own scabbard. The size of the scabbard is very nice, it's slender, it's not heavy and bulky. It's more accurate to historical norms for it to be relatively thin and lightweight. There's one thing about it that is completely ahistorical though, and if you look in the mouth of the scabbard, it has what looks like some rubber or some other modern material similar to rubber glued in there. I assume that's to ease the draw and the sheath and refine the fit. It doesn't particularly bother me, but it's certainly ahistorical. As for the fit, it slides right in, no problem. There's no way you're going to be able to hear rattle with all these buckles and stuff, but there's pretty much no rattle anyways. And if I switch which way it goes in, same, no rattle at all. Fit, so it slides out very gently. This is, to me, the perfect amount of retention. Overall, the scabbard is really nice. You get a very functional scabbard that looks great, and it's a really nice value add if you happen to value scabbards, which I do. All right, let's move on to the sword itself, starting with the hilt. So I mentioned that this hilt really hits me in pretty much all the right ways, and I'm going to go through and explain that now. The design is beautiful. I love the riffened hilt furniture, the pommel, having that twisted lines, and then that continuing through with the crossguard. It just has such a great look, and it really inspires thoughts of Emperor Maximilian and the Landsknecht and that kind of thing. It just looks great. The finish on the metal bits is a little bit rough. It's definitely not a particularly polished look, and these are most certainly cast because they have a lot of casting flaws, and not, I wouldn't even say flaws, but a lot of signs of casting. They're not going for perfect casting. They're going for good enough, and you can see there's some pits here and there, some parts where it's not perfectly shaped, but it all looks good enough. Now, the finish does look, to me, a little modern, which I would prefer it to look a little bit more to what I consider historical. It's not saying that's inaccurate. I don't really know, but to me, it looks more modern. There is a peen here. It is solidly peened, but it is quite a small peen. That might not be a problem. It's not something that I'm particularly knowledgeable enough to know. There's also a peen block on here, which is a nice touch because it's something you saw on a lot of historical swords, not all of them, but it is something you saw on a lot of them. The only other real criticism I have of the metal bits is that the spiral design, this design on here, doesn't continue at all on the inside of the rings. They are just flat metal there. I get it. Now, if this was being done by hand and forged to shape, they would probably continue that spiral. Being cast, I get it. I understand why it's not done. It just does kind of draw the eye a little bit. When I look at the sword from certain angles, I'm like, oh, it's flat there. To me, these lines should continue all the way around to make it look a little bit more like rope. It's not a big concern of mine, but it would be nice, and I think that's one of the reasons it looks a little bit modern to my eye. The fit of the blade to the crossguard is quite good. There's a little bit of a gap, but not a ton. I think it looks good enough. It could be improved. If you are really a stickler about this, that might bug you. It doesn't really bother me. Let's move on to the grip. That is probably my favorite part of the hilt here. That's saying something since I love the double ring look. The grip is, the shaping is outstanding. It is a hexagonal shape, and the flats are nice and crisp. The transitions between the flats is gentle and not sharp, and it really locks into the hand beautifully, giving really good feedback for edge indexing. It is a really outstandingly designed grip, and very well executed as well. The leather is, the leather cord wrap on it. It's not quite as nice as you'll see on, say, an Albion or something like that. It's a little more prominent. It doesn't look quite as refined as an Albion's does, or a Valiant Armory, or anything like that. But it's good, and it works, and that's the most important thing. It works really, really well. Now there is one other concern I have with the hilt. Pretty sure you're going to hear that. There is a very, very slight ping in the hilt when I tap the pommel to look for the blade nodes, or even sometimes if it's lying down, I pick it up. I will sometimes hear that little ping. Now I sent a message to Todd Cutler asking, hey, is this something that you think is a problem given what I do? I cut water bottles and I cut tatami with it. They replied back that they didn't consider it a problem, asked if I had a problem with it. I was like, as long as you can say that it's not going to cause issues with my use, I'm okay with it. And they said, yeah, it should hold up fine for that if it doesn't contact us again. So at close to $900, I would like it not to have that ping, but we'll see if something develops out of it. It's a slight concern to me, but it's not a huge concern. And generally speaking, from everything I've seen from other people, Todd Cutler generally has quite good customer service. So my suspicion is if something becomes problematic about that and maybe the crossguard comes loose, something like that, I think Todd Cutler will take care of me on it. Moving on to the business end, the blade. Now, unfortunately, I don't have my normal measurements graphic for you because, frankly, this blade was problematic getting measurements on because my calipers just couldn't reach the center spine without hitting hard against the blade. And I don't want to hit it hard against the blade. They are metal calipers. I don't want to run metal against the edge. And even when I was skiing very close, I couldn't quite get them to measure right at the crossguard. And I was just like, you know what, I'm not going to fight on this. I can kind of describe the measurements of the sword. It is three pounds, nine ounces. I will put up on screen here the measurements that Todd Cutler provides the specifications. It is overall a pretty thin blade. And at three pounds, nine ounces, that makes sense because you have a heavy hilt here. The crossguard adds a lot of weight to the hilt because of those two rings. So at three pounds, nine ounces, that's not particularly heavy for a sword of this girth. So to have that much extra weight right there at the crossguard and still only come in at three pounds, nine ounces means the blade is generally pretty thin. And there is definite distal taper throughout. It has very much mastered that. And we'll talk about how that handles and how it affects handling when we get to the handling section. I didn't mention this anywhere else. I don't really know where it fits in. But this sword isn't really what I would consider historically accurate. It is historically plausible though. So there's no, as far as I'm aware, no surviving 18C blades, which is this broad blade with a very flat diamond profile. There's none of those with a complex hilt on them or a ringed hilt or anything like that. There wasn't a ton of 18C blades in general. They were all found in the Alexandria arsenal, if I'm remembering right. And none of them had this general hilt configuration. But it's not out of the reason to think that somebody could have come up with this. Somebody could have come up with the broad blade. We know they came up with that broad blade. And it's certainly possible somebody in like a Landsknecht wanted a flamboyant hilt or something like that. It's perfectly plausible. It's just not accurate because there's no sword that is this design from history. And some people really care about that. Some people want their sword to be very closely designed based off of specific individual swords from history. I'm not like that. I like the historical plausibility part. And then there's some people who don't care about historical accuracy or plausibility at all. They just want cool swords. And I don't mind that either. In any case, getting back to the blade here. So the finish is pretty rough. There's a satin polish on it. But there's grind lines going in various directions. There's some going completely against the grain. Normally you would have the grind lines be straight down the blade. There's parts where it's perpendicular to that. And it's just kind of all over the place, the grinding, the finishing on it. In addition, the surfaces of the blade have a lot of ripples in them. The spine kind of wavers around, especially because of those ripples. But none of them are particularly deep or problematic. The sword is still maintaining the correct overall shape and structure. It's just there's rippling in the final finishing and the final shaping of it that is not really going to affect cutting at all, at least that I have seen. The performance shouldn't be affected. Should also mention it is very slightly hollow ground, which is not something you see a ton of on 18C reproductions or models available on the market. It's a really attractive sword from afar. When you get closer, you start to notice some of those flaws in the finish and geometry, that kind of thing. Is that a problem for you or for me? It bugs me a little bit. Because this is getting close to $900, I feel like the finish could be brought up just a touch to really bring it in line with swords with that price. If I want an Albion Squire line sword, I can get them for around $600 and they have better finish on them and just better fit and finish overall a little bit, definitely a lot more simpler. But I would like to see these brought up just a little bit, a little bit more attention paid to that finish. Some people are going to love it because this maybe is the type of finish you like. This is what is kind of funny about looking at swords and especially the aesthetics of swords. Everybody has their opinion and everybody thinks their opinion is right. So the sword also can be bought either semi-sharp or sharp. Semi-sharp is what Todd Cutler calls butter knife sharp, so there's definitely not an edge there and it's something that you'll have to sharpen if you want it sharpened. Or you can buy it sharp for a small upcharge, it's really not that much. And the way Todd Cutler describes that is it'll be brought to a usable edge but final honing, if required, is on the customer. I can tell you, this is sharp enough for cutting. I may not say competition sharp, but it isn't far off. It is a very nicely sharpened sword and if I had it re-sharpened by a friend, it probably would have to do very little work to get it to competition level sharp. So let's test it on some paper real quick. Paper here. So really struggled to start the cut there. And then this side cut it very easily. That basically goes along with my experience that there's one edge that's a little bit duller than the other. But both sides, that one had struggled a little bit but then it started cutting. It is definitely a quite sharp sword that could be sharper. Alright, so cutting with this sword. I did two types of cutting. The first thing I did was I was over at my friend Ryan's house for cutting practice for Combat Con and I brought this sword to do one mat on it. And it worked pretty well. It has a sharp enough edge to get through tatami, but the percussion node on the blade is a little further back than I am used to. So it was giving me a little bit of trickiness on getting a really good cut every time. I didn't really have a good measure with the sword. In addition, I did notice that the hollow grind was causing it to drag in the tatami just a little bit. I don't think it would make much of a difference at all if it had that little bit of extra sharpness to really slice the tatami very easily with some speed. But when the edge could use just the slightest bit of touch up, I did notice that. My friend Ryan also did some cutting with this sword and you can see here the results speak for themselves. Pretty good results. Not competition level, but not far off. So I also took it to the backyard. Now this is a sunset shot because it's the only time I was able to cut in the desert heat, but it was fun. It cut through water bottles with ease. It didn't matter what type of cut I did. As long as my accuracy was good, it sliced right through the bottles without pretty much any effort. I didn't get silent cuts, but my stand is so destroyed. I think it's actually at a little bit of an angle now as well. That silent cuts are pretty rare on that. I really need to repair that thing or just put a new post in or something. Regardless, it cuts water bottles very, very well. Right out of the box. Once again, I did notice the one edge that's slightly less sharp. So when I switched to the other one, it made it that much better. I did false edge cuts with this. Formed great. Overall, it just cuts very, very well. So how does the sword handle? Well, very nicely. It is, I already showed, pretty easy to move around when cutting. It's fun to move around during cutting. It is balanced very close to the guard. It looks like to be about two and a half, two and a half to three inches, right around there. It is a pretty thin blade, so, well, before I get to the actually flexing it, hopefully you can see the percussion node there. It's right around there. So a little further back than I'm used to when cutting. It definitely made a difference. If I cut back here, it works better than if I cut up more like this. That said, up here, it's still an effective cutter. It's just, especially on tatami back here, it really wants to be at that percussion node. The flexibility of the sword, it's got some flex in the last portion of it, but not a ton. It's a pretty rigid blade. The hilt node, it's a little bit higher than I would like. It's like right in the guard. I would like it to be pretty much right below the guard. There's a little less hand shock when it's really meeting where your hand is, and here I'm feeling those vibrations back here a little bit, whereas if it was brought back just about there, those vibrations wouldn't be felt nearly as much. Very minor difference there, though that's not a huge deal. It's just something that could be slightly improved. So even holding it like this in one hand, three and a half pounds, this is nimble. I can move it around, I can swing it one-handed, and it feels fine. It's pretty agile and maneuverable for a three-pound, nine-ounce sword to be used in one hand. Put a second hand on it, it is quick, and you can probably hear that sword wind there. I certainly could. Yeah, it's a quick sword. When I use it two hands, yeah, I can put the tip pretty much where I want it. Honestly, I think the tip control is a little bit better one-handed. Well, no, never mind. Two-handed is a little bit easier because as you're extending it out, you start feeling that weight a little bit more. I just hold it out, doesn't really have much sag or wobble to it. Just holding it like that, I can see all those ripples on the blade, and I already talked about that. It moves around very well, would be a good double-cut candidate because it's got a close point of balance, which means you can change directions in the cut, you can pivot between cuts, that kind of thing. You can do that very quickly, but it's also got a good amount of authority in the cut because it's so wide up there. It actually is a really well-designed sword for cutting, which does make sense. It is an 18C, which is really, cutting is the primary focus. It also has good geometry for thrusting. The tip is not perfectly acute. It's got a little bit of rounding to it, but very, very minor. That tip could definitely be sharpened up, and it would be a very effective thruster as well. I mentioned before, the grip locks into my hand beautifully. I can't twist it at all, even though I'm cranking with my left hand there, I'm not moving this sword in my hand. It really locks in very nicely and really gives good edge alignment feedback because this, the surface right here is nice and flat. It locks in there so well. So yeah, this moves and handles extremely well. Let's compare it to the Prince of Bey that I've got over there. So you can see that these are pretty different blades, while still being somewhat similar. The Prince of Bey is notably wider at the base. In fact, I had somebody ask me if the Prince of Bey, or Alexandria in their case, could fit in the Todd Cutler scabbard. No, not at all. The Prince of Bey is much wider of a blade. The hilt lengths are pretty similar, the cross guard width is pretty similar, just the Prince of Bey is a little bit wider at the base and stays a little bit wider throughout. So I pick up the Prince of Bey, what I feel different, it's a good six ounces heavier, so a third of a pound. Most of that weight feels like it's in the hilt, actually. We've got a very chunky pommel, pretty chunky guard as well. So it's interesting that it feels more heavy in the hilt. What it is, is the pommel feels heavier on the Prince of Bey than it did on the Todd Cutler, whereas a lot of the weight of the Todd Cutler hilt is in that cross guard with those rings. And the Prince of Bey feels almost as nimble, but a little bit slower. So there is more weight overall out here than there is on the Todd Cutler sword. And that's why this sword is almost four pounds. And it still moves very well, it is balanced at around the same point, actually it might be even a little closer than the Todd Cutler. But it has overall more mass, so for me, it's a little bit slower of a sword, even though I can still accelerate the tip very quickly. It doesn't, for me, I have to labor just a little bit to pivot it and that kind of thing. Some people will do that with this sword no problem. This is a lot of personal preference here. The Prince of Bey handles amazingly well if this is the type of sword you like to handle. I think the Todd Cutler is a little bit more up my alley though. So yeah, when I pick this back up right after handling the Prince of Bey, I feel the weight of these rings affecting the balance of the sword. The pommel doesn't feel quite as noticeable when I put the sword out there. It's more, more of the weight is centered right in this area than on the different ends, which is I think the primary difference between how this sword handles and the Prince of Bey. Alright, so bottom line, I paid $875 approximately for this sword. This price is kind of fluctuating because of exchange rates. It's sold in British pounds and exchange rates fluctuate, tariffs, shipping costs, all that kind of thing. I'm going with what I paid for it, which was $874.63 if I remember right. Is it worth that price? Yes, with caveats. First off, one of the reasons somebody might consider buying this sword is as a competition cutting sword. This sword would absolutely do very well in competition. Probably out of the box, extra sharpening would get it an amazing cutter. But I have heard that it may not be allowed in cutting competitions because the side rings kind of turn it into a renaissance era sword. And most cutting competitions, from what I understand, want medieval long swords. I don't know that for sure. I have no official source on that. It's just a rumbling I've heard. So if that's what you're interested in, if you were interested in buying this as a competition cutting sword, I would certainly check with whoever runs the competitions you are interested in to make sure that they would allow it before you drop nearly $1,000 on a sword that may be disqualified. Again, I have no official source on that. That's just something that I have heard and is kind of a rumor at this point. The other caveat that I would say, well, there's two. There's the slight pain in the hilt, which I'm a little concerned about, but that's just going to have to be, if it holds up to use and age, great. If it doesn't, I will probably make a follow-up video to let you know about what goes on. But that does concern me a little bit. That probably means that they're using some epoxy to fill in the gaps. In fact, I'm positive they're using epoxy to fill in gaps in the hilt, and they probably didn't use enough on this sword. The last thing is, how does the finish and the overall slightly rough appearance of it affect your buying decision? For me, it's not really a problem at this price point. I would like a bit higher finish, especially the polish on the sword. There's parts where you see grind lines opposite and perpendicular to each other, and that's just a little sloppy. In my opinion, that could be cleaned up a little bit more. Some people are going to mind that. Some people aren't. I can't answer that for you. But even with some small caveats there, this is a fantastic sword. It handles beautifully. I like its handling more than I like the Prince of Pace. It cuts really, really well. If I got this sharpened up to competition-level sharp, it would cut phenomenally well. I can already tell that. It does have a little bit of a learning curve with cutting, because the point of center of percussion, the real sweet spot where you want to cut, is a little further back than I'm used to. But that's just a matter of practicing with the sword to really understand the measure that you need to be in to get good cuts. Overall, outstanding sword. Not a lot of options for 18C swords that are below Albion-level price. You can get the Ronin Katana, Alexandria. I haven't heard very much good about that one, really. There's the Darksword Armory one. I would avoid that at all costs. And then there's the Valor Arms Alexandria, which is a very, very good option. But with them being sourced from China, tariffs, I don't know what stock of them is going to look like for who knows how long. So this might be the best, the lowest cost best option for a good quality 18C. And that's going to wrap up this review. Thank you for watching, and until next time, Alien Dude out.