Favourite Medieval/Fantasy Melee Weapon?

[mrthejoshmon]

Axes? Knives? Polearms? Swords and Boards?

 

What wonderfully elegant and/or horrifyingly barbaric whacking stick do you enjoy introducing to your equally murderous neighbours the most?

 

I'm a rather large fan of the more flashy and "skilful" (see: hilariously impractical) weapons of old, I have taken a rather large liking to Rapiers and Halberds especially, something just so appealing of prancing around parrying blows with the rapier, my movements being more of a weapon than the actual weapon itself. I also like the Halberd because it is a nice idea to keep anything bigger than me away with a sharp pointy stick that I can chop with as I cower in a corner.

[Gez]

I've always been partial to the crossbow, but you want melee weapons. I guess I'll be boring and go with the typical arming sword, straight out of Oakeshott's catalogue.

 

 

[Biz!]

sword

[P41R47]

I always been a more passive style of thug, you know.
I prefer to blow my foes head with a sonic boom from my lute than attack them with a silly sword or axe.
When that fails, i use my mystic knifes that bring astral monsters to the fight and helps me.

And when everything else fail, poetry always wins

[RDETalus]

• One-handed swords + buckler, such as the knightly arming sword, falchion, or Chinese saber. These swords are easy to wear because they are light and short, and a buckler the size of a dinner plate carries easily on your belt too. Great for civilian life, but poor choice for war.

 

• Halberds and similar polearms are interesting. A spear tip for stabbing, an axe blade for swinging, and a hook for tripping / pulling. It sounds perfect, but I’ve never held one before and don’t know how they handle. The only downside is that they are too big to fit in my car.

 

• I really like crossbows, I even designed and made a historically accurate 15th century crossbow out of walnut and steel once. However, they are a huge pain in the ass to reload. I would almost always prefer to use a bow in any real situation I can think of.

[Hawk of The Crystals]

Broadswords and crossbows. Tossing potions at people is also a favorite of mine.

[Wavy]

I'd love me a crossbow!!

[Teo Slayer]

Crossbow

[lazygecko]

Flails are pretty interesting. Made all the more exotic by the fact that you rarely ever see them in more modern 3D fantasy/historic games. Probably because they're so much more of a bother to animate especially if they're physics driven, and also difficult mechanically if you want to account for their design purpose of bypassing defenses.

[Naarok0fkor]

Battleswords & Warblades...

[Azuris]

Sword, Shield and a proper Armor.

I am more into a defensive Style.

[Astronomical]

Do flails count?  I like flails, despite how impractical they might be. 

[lokbustam257]

 a sword with a shield

[Omniarch]

With regards to fantasy, this ungodly awesome but comically impractical weapon from Dark Souls 3:

Spoiler

 

It's so dumb and yet so damn cool at the same time, like a lot of Soulsborne weapons.

 

With regards to real life, my favourite historical weapon has to be the halberd. I mean, just look at it:

 

Beautiful, and functional to boot. This baby, alongside its sister polearms and early firearms, put a definitive end to the dominance of heavy cavalry on european battlefields. Any mounted knight fool enough to charge massed infantry formations armed with these badboys would doubtless find himself skewered like a man-kebab and then hacked into human-salami.

[TenenteZashu]

Hammers, axes, flails, morning stars, as long as they're heavy and blunt

[Stupid Bunny]

Do Gauntlets of the Necromancer count?

[RDETalus]

Maces and warhammers are also nice because they can be used non-lethally, aren’t illegal to own in most places, and are also effective against plate or mail armor 

[vyruss]

A big, heavy kite shield and a big, heavy axe.  A decent-ish set of armor is also good.

[ChopBlock223]

I'll cheat and say the bayonet, because that means a spear which can shoot.

 

Smoothbore matchlock muskets were seen in medieval times, though if with any bayonet, it would be a 'plug bayonet', ergo a dagger with a rounded grip which you would friction fit inside the muzzle. Not safe to fire the gun with one of those mounted, obviously, and not quick and easy to attach or detach.

Eventually there would be ideas for fixing bayonets on the outside of the muzzle, so that the musket doesn't become a pipebomb. Primitive precursors to the flintlock (called 'dog-locks' and 'miquelet-locks') sporting the springs and other moving parts exposed to the outside elements, were around for quite some time before the common idea to conceal those inside the gun in much later times.

 

For a sidearm, I'll say a wheellock pistol (very expensive in their day), which like other pistols of their era were generally designed to have the pommels of the grips made for impacting people's heads, gripping the barrel after firing your shot and then using the gun as a club.

 

For a more straightforward answer, a saber.

[MemeMind]

I want a sling.

Just a little tiny sling and a rock.

With the right amount of force you could throw the rock at the speed of a bullet.

[Gez]

53 minutes ago, RDETalus said:

Maces and warhammers are also nice because they can be used non-lethally

Not really. At least not in a fight. You'd have more luck using the flat of a sword's blade to inflict a knock-out blow than trying to do so with a weapon designed to concentrate all your striking force into a small area so as to pierce through a helmet and shatter the skull beneath.

 

See the thing is that contrarily to their common fantasy depiction where they're basically a streetcar mounted on a pole (with an estimated weight of three tons and aerodynamic drag greater than a parachute), actual war hammer heads were rather tiny. And slim.

This is real.

 

This is bullshit:

 

At some point people started thinking that sledgehammers are practical weapons, so just add some spikes on it and it'll be perfectly cromulent for your medieval fantasy warrior. Yeah, no. They're great tools to destroy masonry, but far too heavy, unwieldy, and slow to use against a moving target. Especially a moving target that is trying to kill you.

[spineapple tea]

Without a doubt the Moonlight Greatsword from just about every Fromsoft game. 

[RDETalus]

22 minutes ago, Gez said:

Not really. At least not in a fight. You'd have more luck using the flat of a sword's blade to inflict a knock-out blow than trying to do so with a weapon designed to concentrate all your striking force into a small area so as to pierce through a helmet and shatter the skull beneath.

I’m not talking about cartoon warhammers, do you think I am that stupid? Consider what police equip themselves with, such as the expandable baton. It’s not so different from a warhammer in length, weight, and contact area. It can certainly crack a skull as well, yet it’s the non lethal weapon of choice for the police around here.

 

Also if your sword slips the wrong way, you might end up slicing into a person’s neck. How is that supposed to be better in terms of non-lethality than a hammer?

 

If you’re talking about fighting a man in plate or mail armor, then there is little distinction in lethality between a sword and a hammer. But I’m mostly talking about use in the here and now.

Edited October 28, 2021 by RDETalus

[LordEntr0py]

Not a real-world combat weapon, but the wheel from Bloodborne is a great concept, especially taking into account the real world history it's built on (and the worldbuilding it implies in context of the game).

 

Was a lot of fun to use, too.

 

 

In terms of real-world weapons, give me a pike or a halberd as @Omniarch suggests and let me stay as far away from the advancing enemy as possible.

[Azuris]

2 hours ago, Gez said:

 

 

 

Just wanted to see one and found a List on Wikipedia.

One Name just stoled my Attention, the Meteor Hammer haha:

 

 

Here are Horsemans Hammer, being longer:

 

Searching for Armory, that reminds me of my last search for that unique Sword/Shield Mix:

 

 

 

Seems like it was mostly used by Guardians, because you can insert a Light in the Hole above.

 

Would love to see such Weapon/Shield in Games :D

 

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lantern_shield

[bofu]

I'm a big fan of the double crescent halberd, a medieval Chinese weapon that's still used in martial arts today.

 

 

[rzh]

Spears, javelins, 1H swords, flails, maces, morningstarts, clubs, crossbows, firearms, THE WRAITHVERGE.

[ax34]

Big sword - the bigger the better... but only in video games.

[mrthejoshmon]

28 minutes ago, ax34 said:

Big sword - the bigger the better... but only in video games.

My disappointment that you did not pick axe is immeasurable, and my day is ruined.

[ZeMystic]

Erik Alm's SCYTHE!

 

 

Spoiler