Your description on longswords

Combat system
#1

On your kickstarter page there is the section that describes weapons. Now you describe the longsword as being slow and powerful. This is totally incorrect. Longswords are very fast weapons and compared to the majority of other two handed weapons like poleaxes, halberds and spears they are actually pretty weak, especially against armour. Also it actually takes much more strength to fight properly with a one handed sword than a longsword since the weight difference is so small. If you look at modern historical European martial arts clubs you will often see weaker members sticking to longswords because they can’t really manage a one handed sword.

Please don’t go down this holywood/typical video game thinking of a big two handed sword being just the most powerful thing on the battlefield because they’re not. Swords across the world have pretty much always been secondary weapons on a battlefield because of their ineffectiveness against armour. Please don’t forget this because polearms are awesome.

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#2

Good thread.
And thanks for all of the information: I hope that devs follow real historical rules even for weapons only to avoid mistake like the ones reported here :slight_smile:

#3

Well said! Good of someone to point out things like this.

Lets just hope Warhorse takes our words to heart. (If you read this: keep up the good work!)

#4

Yeah, my steel longsword is ~53" overall with a 40" blade. It weighs a grand total of 3lbs, and balances 3" out from the guard. Its’ a VERY fast and quite maneuverable weapon. That said, at extreme close quarters an arming sword is going to be much easier to wield because the longsword is more likely to get tied up.

It should also be noted that newbies generally start with longsword is because longsword is the foundation of the later Western martial arts, and everything (polearm, grappling, and even sword and shield) builds off those principles.

As for relative powers, they’ve already said that certain armors are going to be better against certain weapons. Swords aren’t great for fighting armored opponents (excluding using the longsword at half-sword against plate). You’re not cutting through any kind of metal armor (mail or otherwise). Pretty sure they’ve already said that hammers will be the best choice against plate armor, which is accurate to reality (mass out at the end, while also highly-concentrating the force of the blow), with swords in general being inferior against armor than axes, hammers, etc.

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#5

a longsword swing is never faster then a shortsword swing or a onehandpoleaxe - axe whatever swing.

mind your language please
//MadSmejki

#6
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#7

You’ve to think that the weight, the lenght and the fact that you swing with 2h give to the 2h sword alot of speed :wink:

#8

The interaction of the two hands is a major factor in wielding the longsword. Keep in mind that the front hand is only the fulcrum. Much of the blade movement is actually controlled by the trailing hand, which means you have a substantial lever for moving the point around. This gives you much finer and faster point control on the longsword than you have with the arming sword. Changing the direction of your cut is very quick, and it takes only a very small movement of the trailing had to shift from a falling to rising cut on the longsword, whereas the arming sword requires much more effort and a larger motion, particularly in the wrist.

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#9

People like you with absolutely no understanding of medieval weaponry giving out so called “facts” are the reason why so many people have such a poor understanding of what medieval warfare was really like.

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