I was about to bring up Battle of the Nations as an example of how style goes out the window, then realized that their weapons aren’t sharp, and they aren’t allowed to stab. EDIT: I also just realized that in Battle of the Nations… there IS a style, but its mostly just to take your opponents to the ground. You are correct though, you wouldn’t throw style completely out the window, but you aren’t going to try and use the locked fencing that we find in the game (which was already pointed out above). I was completely wrong in saying that “swinging wildly is your best bet”. Thanks for correcting me, I do not want to misguide people. I’m glad someone also clarified that we won’t be forced into a 1 v 1 locked combat system every time. On a side note, I think it would be interesting to see a real life fencer (maybe an Olympic medalist) try to fight two opponents. I would like to see how they would handle the situation. To strengthen your statement that you would not swing wildly, I tried to imagine someone who is a professional in fencing using that fast precision to disarm a few thugs wielding nothing but daggers. I can see it happening. I have no doubts though that Warhorse is doing their research and consulting those professionals to make it as realistic as they possibly can. 
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Hi,
If I can find another sparring partner (2 vs 1 atleast) and get my arming jack repaired I’ll harness up and show you what real fighting is like versus a trained armoured knight (1450s).
Regards,
Warrior Rose.
Do keep in mind Olympic fencing is purely sport and wouldn’t be at all applicable, here. You’d need someone who’s trained in actual historical fencing (even classical fencing is much closer to sport fencing than actual combat).
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Why not? Here is an example of a weird japanese TV show doing exactly this. 3 professional fencers against 50 unexperienced ones
well, fiore does show some multiple opponent combat (sword vs spear section, spear vs. other weapons, sword vs dagger) so there is that to consider, although that could simply be a way to show multiple techniques that could be used with each weapon. Other masters have said, in different times and contexts, that cutting is far better for multi-person combat, because you don’t have to withdraw, and, as with the Polish technique of cross cutting, you can use the cuts to beat blows out of the way. Schola Gladiatoria has an interesting video on some other techniques suggested for multi-person combat https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lM7snYlVYZg
edit: http://wiktenauer.com/wiki/Fiore_de’i_Liberi link to Fiore manuscript
Might be worth mentioning this topic here as well. Go have a read, but the general gist is that combat is difficult enough in a one-on-one scenario, let alone one-to-many.
Just thought this was relevant to this thread 
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you do realize that’s heavily rehearsed right? those unexperienced guys just stand around in a huge big crowd and come up one at a time to challenge the fencers.
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I see that this is not an accurate fight, but I think the behaviour of the crowd is actual very plausible. "Damn this guy over there fight very good I better don´t want to meet him. Better someone other do this job, I will stand here with some distance and the other guys and will look angry, the crowd will safe me."
I think if this would be a rehearsed show the fencers would have won this fight, but they lose, after all the crowd won this fight with heavy casualties.
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you mean balloons popped?
It was an interesting video but it is nowhere near representative of what would happen in real world situation.
Modern day fencing is a sport and really has nothing to do with actual combat, the same it is with target shooting.
We can only speculate how this scenario would have panned out in RL but there’s many factors that are overlooked.
A. The chest is not the only vital area on the human body, nor is the only area that would receive injury. Countless times you can see those Olympians get several hits landed on them just not in the balloon which is the only area they were attempting to protect.
**-**Stamina and pain tolerance would have slowed them down extremely fast had they been so careless in a real world application.
B. The biggest thing I have yet to see discussed is the Psychological factors.
**-**if our champion fighters had managed to cut down 5 (10%) of there opponents without being scathed the morale of the larger group would decline quickly. they defeated 41 of 50 before the first Olympians balloon was popped, is those were deaths you really think these people would still be going lemming status at them?
**-**this drop in morale could potentially cause a retreat out of fear, or a charge motivated by anger over their fallen comrades with results that once again could only be Speculated upon.
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Yes, this is all true and I would agree. This is not a real fight, neither with real techniques nor real fear. But this video shows about the possibility of a small group of high quality warriors can handle a large group of rookies. May the law of lanchester shows where the balance of quality vs. quantity changes, but to use this we had to know how much better one quality man is comapred to a quantity one. But without this knowledge this is pure speculation.
Yeah man I know modern sport fencing is a lot different than historic fencing. I am just curious to see how they would handle two people. They train their reflexes to the max. It would be interesting to see how they would adapt to that sort of situation.
I couldn’t disagree more!
There are lot of arcade games out there, where you could be dragonslayer or vampire hunter or whatever.
Warhorse tries to shoot for realism, which is something never seen in this type of PC game.
In real life one vs. three usually resulted in the death of the former, as long as those three had morale and desire to fight. So, I will back the devs on their effort to make a game like never before in which the playing character is actually a simple human being.
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Well, in my HEMA group we rarely ever experiment with clear one vs. more situations. It’s either a duel, or a battle. However, luckily I still have more than nil experience - naturally, I still only have a very subjective opinion, and whatever I write, I write about unarmored combat.
One of my most proud moment is still when I was able to beat two longsword fencers attacking me at the same time with similar experience as me. This however required excessive repositioning (they screwed up by splitting up, so I always was able to locate myself so that one was blocking the other and disengage when problems arose) and - I am certain - a good amount of luck. They were probably also overconfident. The fact that I had room to move around also helped tremendously.
In this case I think the two fighters best bet is to stay together and from the same side simply “overload” the capabilites of the defender. I know, it sounds bad, everyone’s first guess is to separate and flank, attack from multiple directions, but this also gives the defender the opportunity with smart - and lucky - positioning to convert the battle into two separate duels. And if you win the first round, you have a great psychological advantage over the second opponent.
I have yet to see, however, for someone to win against even more, at least minimally capable opponents without choke points. Sure, I am far from being a good figher, so someone might say “I am easily capable of doing so”, and I have no reason not to believe it, but let me quote the codex Döbringer here:
Wen guter mut mit kraft macht eyns wedersache czagehaft
dornoch dich richte gib keynem forteil mit ichte
Tumkunheit meide vier ader sechs nicht vortreibe
mit deynem oebermut biss sitik das ist dir gut
der ist eyn kuener man der synem gleichen tar bestan
Is ist nicht schande vier ader sechs flien von hande
(MS 3227a, folio 18r)
This translates to:
(…)since good courage and strength make your enemies hesitate. Keep in mind to give no-one any advantage. Avoid foolhardiness, do not attempt to match four or six opponents at once. Restrain your ambition, this will benefit you. He is a courageous man who can stand against his equal, while it is no shame to flee from four or six.
This is a historical source for “If you are outnumbered, don’t try to be ballsy, just get the hell out of there”-proceeding. 
…and then there are situations where the source utilizes the possibility of facing two-three opponents at a time:
“since this [the montante] can deal with all [weapons], even if they are double [weapons], with which one can oppose two or three at a time, whether they are offensive or defensive in nature.”
(Monte, Pietro, Exercitiorum Atque Artis Militaris Collectanea, Milan, 1509.)
…or even more, like a whole crowd (some rules’ of Figueiredo’s Memorial da Prattica do Montante, but those do not include the row “…and you will survive this.”
So, again, in my subjective opinion almost no matter how good/experienced you are, your chance of survival drops rapidly (exponentially?) with each new at least moderately adept challenger you have to face at the same time. Whatever you do, you only have two hands.
…just run. Seriously. Throw your sword at them and run.
(By the way, where the hell did my account information, profile picture and so on go?!)
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Yeah, positioning really does make the difference in a one vs. multiples fight. It sounds like the pair which split up used bad positioning — had they stayed close together it actually would have made things even easier for you to position yourself so you only had to fight them one at a time — so they probably spread TOO far apart (it’s a balance; far enough for the second fighter to get around you and box you in, close enough that they don’t give you a 1v1 situation).
I agree with what you’re saying, but when a game becomes too realistic it isn’t quite as fun anymore, as the aim of the game is to be as realistic as possible, there still needs to be ways to keep the game interesting, like only requiring one fast blow to take out the weaker bandits that were so troublesome earlier in the game as you become more skillful / gain better weaponry.
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try mount and blade or mount and blade banner lord when it comes out. in that game you can 1 vs 100 no problem if you pack a shield and have high level armor.
but this game is trying to be special and different and finally do combat realistic way. please don’t ruin it with hollywood stuff. thank you.
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That depends on the which aspect is being made realistic, and who is experiencing it.
Of course you will become more skillful and take down lesser skilled/armored opponents more easily as you progress, but its still completely unrealistic to do so on groups of 3-4 at a time with ease (the context of what you quoted me on).
Now that’s not to say that it should be impossible but difficult.
I recommend watching some footage from Battle of the Nations from any year, even though they aren’t killing each other it demonstrates very well how hard fighting multiple opponents is.
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I’m talking about when you play a realistic tank game and you sit there the whole round because your tank came out of the factory faulty. (that kind of realistic)
Of course, sorry I didn’t explain myself clearly. I was trying to suggest that if every fight takes a long time to remain realistic or fights are slow moving and you are only capable against 1 person throughout the entirety of the game it will quickly become monotonous. I’m expecting the game to have a way to keep it interesting (like many different settings for battles) to compensate for how realistic the game’s fighting will be.
“Actually we have a confirmed record of two Hospitaller brothers (1200s) in England taking on 34 bandits by themselves while staying at an Inn on their way to a priory” - Warrior Rose
(failed quote, but important point to bring up, depends on if they attacked all at once or any other way, very dependent on setting. So the feeling of power the creator of this thread wants could come from defeating more than 5 people by himself, but perhaps it doesn’t have to be all at once)
I’d disagree. Yes you can 1v100 but only on horse. When going on foot it is completely diferet matter. I was able to take on quite a lot guys when I was going only beckwards slashing at them and parrying occasional strikes. Then they formed a line and I could manipulete them.
Still this techique is quite hard and unreliable as it does not work against mounted enemies and it is substantialy harder if ranged enemies are present.
I do not think that this is how medieval fights looked. It is possible that melee fight at turneys might have looked similar, but in my opinion it tells you little about actual fight.
BoN fights have one significant rule “when you tuch the ground by any three parts of your body, you are out”. This rule was perfectly interpreted by russian team, who more then their weapons relied on their foot work.
I am not familiar with medieval fighting, but thus kind of fighting did not strike me as accurate.
But what do i know, right?
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Those guys were battle hardened knights who had years of combat experience and training. You’re just a black smith. Based on what Warhorse has told us you’ll be lucky to make it out alive fighting 2 people at once/.