Dressed in his hand-wrought suit of armour with helmet, sword and shield, Tauranga's Charlie Tapsell looks like he has walked straight out of the medieval era.

Charlie, who leads the Tauranga combat and culture group Northern Horde, will be commanding the New Zealand team when they take to the field in France later this year for the Battle of the Nations tournament.

Charlie Tapsell will command the NZ team in France later this month. Photo by Bruce Barnard.

The five-strong team go head to head with fighters from 25 other countries in a full contact battle – among clashing swords, axes, daggers and shields.

The fierce conflict conjures images of gruesome injuries, but Charlie stresses that full-contact has strict safety guidelines to ensure no-one gets badly hurt – including flat, blunt blades which will do little more than cut a cabbage.

'Broken fingers are quite common overseas, but the worse we have had here was a cracked thumb,” says Charlie, who like most other New Zealand participant wears authentic-looking armour he has fashioned himself the traditional way.

He first got involved in Medieval culture groups 16 years ago drawn both for the excitement of the battles and the satisfaction of making objects from his varied weapons to his costume and armour.

Charlie is most proud of his full contact helmet, which he made with the advice of the top armourer in the country.

'I actually made it all myself and it protects me very well. At the A&P Show the other day I was getting people up and they were given a weapon and they were going at me in full flight but nothing came through. I just got a few dents, that was all.”

Until 15 months ago Charlie and the other members of the Northern Horde had been fighting 'controlled contact' battles, where you controlled the force when you were hitting the opposition to ensure nobody got hurt.

'We had been seeing these videos of these crazy Russians hitting each other really hard, these videos were surfacing on the internet and I was keen to get involved when it reached here.”

Along with other members of the Northern Horde he can be seen practising medieval battles at Memorial Park on Sundays from 1.30pm. Anyone interested in getting involved is welcome or can contact Charlie on 021 296 0215 or GoTheHorde@gmail.com

On Saturday he will be pulling on his full armour, weighing almost 50kg and running 5km round the Tauranga Domain track as fundraiser to compete in the tournament in France, starting from 9am. To support Charlie go to www.pledgeme.co.nz/673