What Weapon Will You Wield?

a spear is not the same as a pike/ sarissa.(and even they had small shields tied to their forearms)
spears can very much be used in only one hand.

I am going with Poleaxe! Because death…

Fists…well unarmed combat for a start. Good or bad idea idk it could work against weaker npc’s ?

I am definitely going with a mighty warhammer, if that is implemented :).

I guess we will get our fair share of pub brawls, but “bringing” fists into a swordfight is probably not gonna end well :).

I am thinking of using either a saber or a mace, any suggestions for which one I should have as my main weapon?

To add to the subtopic: You guys are just messing up some definitions on spears and such and that leads to confusion about whether something is used with one or two hands. :slight_smile:

There are basically the following historical distinctions: Spear, lance, pike and polearm.

The main purpose of a polearm is not thrusting but swinging. Hence the distinction, even though some polearm types do also have a spearhead to thrust and pierce. Nevertheless they are primarily used to swing down on the enemy to crack armour (helmets, shoulder armour, etc.). Good examples to mention here are the Swiss / German Halberd as swinging and thrusting weapon but also the Danish Axe or a Glaive as pure swinging polearms. For said reasons, polearms were generally two-handed weapons. They’re just too heavy to swing them down on the enemy with one hand and a shield in the other.

Then we have the Pike: A pike is in fact an own “class”, it’s neither a spear, nor a lance or a polearm. It is also a two-handed weapon, because of its unhandy length and the way it is being used. A Pike purely has the purpose of stopping approaching large enemy forces (by foot or horse), it is not an active fighting weapon due to its length. It was mainly used in formations, ramming it in the ground against approaching enemies and then holding it in place. Once the formation was broken, the pikes were dropped and pikemen fought with close combat weapons (swords, axes, maces, hammers, you name it.). You could certainly thrust with a pike but it is very hard to balance this weapon and I assure you, you do not want to thrust such a pike against an approaching horse. The shock will most likely throw you off your feet. Long story shor: Main reason why this is simple a one-handed weapon is the poor balance. Using a shield and still holding a pike under your arm to thrust - just not possible.

Next thing in the definition book ( :slight_smile: ) is the Lance: The difference between a lance and a spear or pike is that a lance is used on horseback and therefor far longer than a spear. The lance was used to thrust by making use of the kinetic energy of your moving horse. For that reason a lance is usually thicker and longer since you don’t have to move it around much. You lock it under your arm, point it towards the enemy, and there you go. Often the lance also has some sort of “guard” that is resting on your chest/arm area or locked at your armour and helps spreading the shock from impact. A spear doesn’t have that.
This explains why it is well possible to use a lance and a shield - because you’re sitting on a horse and the lance is locked under your arm! You won’t be able to use a heavy lance and a shield on foot unless you’re Mister Strongman 2014.

I have to mention though, that the definition of a lance is blurry and mixes with the definition of a spear, depending of what time age you speak. The shorter lances that e.g. 18th, 19th century “Lancers” (lance riders) used could be defined as spear in some ways, as well.

Last but not least, the first weapon of mankind: The Spear. As you can imagine by now, the spear is an infantry weapon. It is similar to the lance but the main difference is that it is thinner and hardly ever longer than “a man is tall”. They are light weight enough to be very well, and in fact mostly, used together with a shield. Spears were not usually used as two-handed weapons. You certainly can use it as that but you won’t stand a chance against an enemy with sword and shield even with your extended range (which will be your problem if the enemy comes closer). Hence spear infantry mostly used said spears together with a shield to thrust against the enemy and same time cover yourself up.

Demonstration to underline my statement: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j3J-10KfRe8

So summed up: A spear is a weapon purely for thrusting, usually as long as a man is tall and commonly used with a shield, while a pike is somewhat a “much longer spear” but only used stationary against approaching enemies as a wall formation. If you want a two-handed thrusting and swinging weapon however, you’ll end up using a polearm. If you want to use a lance - don’t even try to do so on foot, grab your horse to get the maximum effect out of a lance.

I hope I could help some folks out with that definitions and explanations about why / why not using particular classes as one- or two-handed weapons. By the way, I have excluded Javelins from this text simply because they are nothing but spears, just shorter and balanced to be thrown. You can, however, certainly use a javelin as a short spear, too (unless you try that with a Roman pilum, which had a soft metal tip to bend - it would be useless as thrusting spear).

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Oh hah, now I forgot to even reply to the original post! I would definitely go for my standard gear: Shield and Axe.

sword and shieldseem like the best mixture :slight_smile:

This is misleading, as the same can be said for ANY two-handed weapon (including the halberd, longsword/two-handed sword and polehammer). Speaking from experience: You have one shot, and once the shieldman is inside your reach, you’re pretty boned if you can’t get your distance back. This is precisely one reason why real fighters carried multiple weapons; once the combat closed too much for their primary weapon to be effective, they would switch to a shorter one (thus why Liechtenauer dictated one should be fully proficient in a polearm, the longsword, AND the dagger and unarmed combat, because often you would go through all four over the course of a fight!).

Incorrect.

Many spearheads had quite heavy blades, and very well CAN and were used to cut as part of their fighting technique, especially when using it without a shield. The corpus on polearm fighting present in the German, Italian and English manuscripts applies to the spear as much as to any other pole weapon.

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The Spear of the Red Viper or the Oathkeeper (:

I will be using the classic historical combination of the late medieval time period:

A pole arm as the primary weapon.
Depending on what I can afford in the game. Starting with a spear, trying to get a pole axe into my virtual hands.

A longsword, sword or falchion as side weapon.
Depending on affordability again. Could also be a hammer, mace or club in the beginning.

And finally a dagger as backup.

The high end version of this would be full plate armor of tempered steel with a pole axe, a longsword and a dagger.
I hope this equipment will not be easy to get in the game and will need a lot of maintenance. Most likely done by a squire.
The whole thing might look much like this. The equipment fits perfectly into the period around 1400. Only the Bec de corbin might be a little too 1500. :wink:

Greetings!

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If a horse can be used in combat I will opt for a light cavalry setup.

Big bag of javelins together with a light lance/spear and a shield on an Arabian or tartar pony. If I make enough money i’d opt for western style knight.

If foot is the way to go then armor all the way.

That’s actually not true, spears were often used with shields and or thrown before entering more close range combat. A javelin could also be thrown yet it is a completely different weapon. :smile:

As for myself, i’ve been playing archery in most medieval games i play. I’ll be using a bow as my primary weapon, but I will also be carrying some sort of short sword or dagger! :stuck_out_tongue:

longsword, shortbow, and rondel, as long as i can half sword and mordhau with the longsword. be fun to roleplay some of the fight styles i use

Is there will be flail weapons? No one medieval game have that type of weapons. It will be very fun have realistic flail weapon, smashing skulls into mush

Hey @Xoxarle,

feel free take a look at the livestream and get to know the answer from Dan himself:

Cheerio,
Yuusou

Well done, I remembered that statement. Sadly its not historically correct because they were a well known and effectively used during Hussite wars. There is another topic on the unlikeliness of using Swords as a commoner.


“The first known use of a flail as a weapon was by farmers under the leadership of Jan Žižka during the Hussite Wars in Bohemia.”

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Shield/Spear with shortsword as backup. Going classic :slight_smile:
edit: plan b would be a claymore

Poleaxe for fighting worthy opponents, and a cudgel for beating the locals!

Throwing daggers if they have them!