Weapons to consider

[MRPolo13]

In this thread I, who has been recently taking great interest in Medieval weaponry, will run through sword types and weapons you may want to consider instead of using swords. In OOC fighting, do go for a sword or an axe, of course. However, an RP can be greatly enhanced by what weapons you use, and it forces the opposite side to approach differently.

As it stands, there is basically one type of sword used in RP. We all probably have a similar image in our heads of a bastard sword or long sword, depending on what you want to call it. Here is an average bastard sword;

As far as "knighting about" is concerned, it's perfect. It was often called "One and a half handed sword" as it had a long handle and blade, but at the same time was light enough to be used as both one handed and two handed sword. It was well balanced and in reality something that only stopped being used around the times of sabres. It also looks pretty awesome, let's be honest.

However, there are also a couple of other sword types you may want to consider

The Broadsword
These were some of the earliest types of swords known to Medieval Europe. Your classical Viking sword, two edged and pretty thick and stubby in appearance.
(Note; Vikings later on used "cutting swords", which looked similar but were slightly better, as in longer and, at least I presume so, made of steel)

The Falchion
To explain what a Falchion was you'd have to imagine combining a heavy Saracen scimitar with an European Broadsword. What you get sort of looks like this;

Believe it or not, it was the Crusaders' favourite. Nasty, heavy tip of the sword sliced through flesh and armour pretty easily. You also have to admit it has its own, rather creepy, charm.

The Greatsword/ two handed sword
I guess not much is needed to say for this. A great sword went up to 1 metre 20 in length (48 inch), and was a two handed sword that was really the favourite of many knights. Despite the appearance and design, it was possible to use great sword as one handed weapons (especially noticeable on horseback) but, though not all that heavy, they were pretty long and clumsy.
Slightly longer, because up to 140 cm, was the claymore, a Scottish version of your average great sword, which probably got most of its popularity from Lionheart... (and it's funny, because around William Wallace's times, the Claymore wasn't used.)
Then we had the Renaissance extremes which went up to 2 metres in length. The famous Bidenhander, for example.

Lastly, the scimitar
Scimitars really should get their own section but since they're not really going to be that popular, I guess this is enough. A curved sword that Falchion was loosely based off, favoured by the "Saracens" during and after the First Crusade (along with further Crusades I believe... Don't quote me though )

I have obviously put up few pictures. If you're not sure what a certain sword looks like, go ahead and google it. She's out there waiting for ya

 

[MRPolo13]

This here will show you slightly different weapons... usually far worse than swords in a not pleasing way... You'll see what I mean.

To start with, I'll just say that I suggest you consider every single tool and item available in Minecraft to Role Play with these weapons. They're all possible to RP with, trust me xD

To start with, a battle axe (or battle ax). This is also something the Vikings would have used. The battle axes were somewhat early as far as history is concerned. Simply enough, it's an axe. There were two handed ones, but not very common. I do, however, understand the entire concept behind Dwarves and I have to say the two handed axes are awesome.
Cavalry, (something you lord RPs may want to consider), used something similar to war hammers (I'll go through them in a sec,) however, they were... less like hammers more like axes? Oh, and called "Horseman's Axes," conveniently enough.
Well, this is a cavalry war axe from late 15th century;

You get the gist.

Up next is, or was, the war hammer, and no, I don't mean the games!
War hammers were not something you probably have in your mind right now. Not a gigantic hammer to crush entire men with... Not a ban hammer

That's a War Hammer right there. It was designed for knights to crush through enemies' helmets and thicker armour parts. The blunt end of the weapon was great for denting in while the sharper end for actually getting through. Both ends, as you can see, were used, and as a weapon, this was not only effective, but also bloody dangerous!

Horseman's Pick
These weapons were highly popular around and after times of war hammers in Eastern parts of Europe. Though they looked somewhat similar, they were different as the blade is shaped more like a pickaxe. The original name of the most common was "Checkan" (simplified for pronunciation, else you wouldn't know how to pronounce Czekan hm?)
These two beauties are actually Polish, from around 17th century;

As you can see, they were pretty decorative, but with the amount of damage they could do to a Human body, they were actually more feared in duels than sabres, as very often injuries caused by them lead to proper disabilities such as loss of limbs. They were far nastier than they may look.

Maces
I guess this should be a sub category, really. Maces were probably the most popular types of weapons and to keep things relatively simple, I'll divide them up into two categories, one of which I'll divide further.

Ball on chain (or chained morning star, or whatever)
You probably all saw it. Horrible things. They were probably by far the most destructive weapons of early and central periods of Middle Ages. It consisted of a ball (often spiked) attached by a chain to a somewhat long stick, at the end of which there was a hand. The person that held the thing would swing it about before attacking the enemy. The damage made was catastrophic. Often even helmets didn't help. Your only hope would have been a shield (something I should go through too) which you'd have to use to directly deflect the ball itself, not the chain, as that could just make the ball go around the shield and continue its route on your head.

Nasty stuff. Some had shorter handles or longer chains. It always varies, remember.
Another point to note is that if you're a peasant you're not hopeless. The chained Morning Stars (Morgernsterns, because they were first used in Germany) were actually based of flails, which, trust me on that, could be very damaging too.

And of course the maces without chains attaching the ends.
My favourite one of those would be the flanged mace, which looked a little like this

I guess you can see where the love comes from? Also a horrible weapon to find facing.
Maces in general went into maaany different categories and looks.
Normal maces looked like the chained morning star... but without a chain, and were also incredibly nasty.

Yup, as far as killing goes, Europeans were very imaginative.

 

[MRPolo13]

Ranged Weaponry

As it stands, as far as RP is concerned, we have "The Bow!"... and that's about it. I'll try to go into more detail about that, though finding information is somewhat problematic

The Recurve Bow
Best associated with Mongols and Mounted Archery, these relatively short bows were perfect for shooting from horseback and were made from both bones and wood, making them sturdier and more powerful. Indeed, these bows are really what has given the Mongols such dominance over Asia and huge portion of Europe.

This is a recurve bow. Accurate, powerful, sturdy and pretty. Perfect for mobility and power.

Different cultures had their own short bows, while obviously not as effective, they were still pretty decent, but never did they get that popular, as archery was an infantry thing... However, short bows with minor recurves (that's the tips of bows) can be considered to be of use by the Dwarves. It'd make a lot of sense too, actually.

And so, we come to the Longbow.
Probably the best known Longbowmen were the Welsh. Welsh Archers were renowned and hired worldwide, as they were trained from childhood in archery.

This is a normal longbow. There isn't really any difference between that and the Welsh longbow except its size. Welsh had slightly larger toys.

Now, in order to get Elven, you might want to consider joining the two up, to make a recurving longbow sort of thing. Experiment around, see what you think suits you.

Now we come on to crossbows. Trouble I see with them is that they can be OP, and I'm not sure whether they exist according to the lore. Maybe one of the Lore Team officials can come along and bug me about this?

So, there were basically three crossbow types. Light crossbows were usually (Not always, of course) made by average people and were of poor quality, but still dangerous... both to the user as to the victim I guess it can be said xD

Normal crossbows were pretty fast to reload. You'd place it on the ground facing down, put your foot through the stirrup and pull the string back in place. You then placed the bolt in position and away you go!

Now we come on to Windlasses. Something like anti tank rockets of Medieval times. Saw one fired in real life; it went right through a straw target shield. They were too large to be pulled back by hands and so had a cranes on them. You basically wound them up. It took about a minute to reload the thing, but each shot could go almost right through a fully armoured knight (without the use of shield that is).

And that's what the thing would look like.
There were also Cranequins, but they're slightly newer and similar to this anyway

The Boomsticks
That's what I decided to call them, since in Real Life "The Boom Sticks" were only used as signal weapons.
It's the only gunpowder based firearm usable according to the lore. Invented by the Dwarves, it's basically a small cannon attached to a plank of wood...
It may or may not explode in your hands... It may or may not actually fire... It's dangerous as hell xD

 

[MRPolo13]

As Hiccup was taught, shield is more important than anything else, though as it stands RP misses out on lack of shield use.

I'll list five shields you may want to use in your RP. They are probably the five main ones, honestly.

The first shield we'll look at is the buckler. Buckler shields were pretty tiny, and the reason behind that was that they were archer shields. An archer would have the buckler wrapped around his left wrist, while holding the bow with the hand. This isn't really something for longbowmen, but certainly a normal archer might want. It's light, mobile and if it comes to close and personal, a good buckler can be used both as a shield and a crushing weapon.

Here is a wooden buckler. Pretty sweet huh? Remember that it's tiny though, so don't expect to be blocking shots with that.

Next up is the slightly larger round shield. You may know them as "Huscarl" shields or just your Viking round shields. These things were basically larger bucklers, but thanks to that they were both cheap and reliable, as well as gave possibilities of some beautiful decorations. Nothing much is needed to say about those I guess. Sometimes reinforced with steel around the edges and sometimes not, they were used for a very long time in history.

After this we have the heater shield. It's basically a rounded triangle, at least the most common type, best known to be used by knighthood of Middle Ages, and by used I mean it was probably used until shields faded away in knighthood overall...
Heater shields weren't big, they were intended for horse use, therefore they didn't need to be big. However, since these shields were made for knighthood, they were always well reinforced and sturdy, as well as decorative (you may want to mention in RP your coat of arms or crest, but that's up to you )

These are the shapes Heater shields come in. As I said, a general arrowhead or triangular look can be seen throughout.

A larger, and somewhat older because already existing in 11th century, was the kite shield. These were large, and though usable on horseback mainly infantry shields, mostly resembled with the Normans. These shields went well with spears as well as, something to consider here, broadswords and cutting swords.
Kite shields were usually same in shape, and basically something like this;

This is a classical example of Norman decorations, as well as an idea of what you might want to use.

Lastly, but by no means the least, especially in size, the Pavise. Pavise shields were used by archers and crossbowmen as basically mobile defensive walls. They were pretty huge, and sometimes had separate people to carry them. They had a stand so you could just place them down on the ground not holding it. Here is an example of one and its use;

Shielded nicely from bolts and arrows, with a rank of lighter crossbows in front of him and rank of pikes in front of them, along with the shield bearer who usually had at least a short sword, this Windlass crossbowman can feel pretty safe about coming back home, at least at this point in battle.

Now, we move on to two handed weapons!

There are two general reasons (were three, but one buggered off :/) why I didn't really want to do this.
First, RPing with double handed weapons, at least to me, can be pretty hard at times, especially if you get extreme enough to use a pike or a lance.
Second, there was soooo many of them! This is a very brief overview in general, that misses out tonnes of weapons of course, but I think that two handed weapons are the most extreme.

But anyway, enough of a rant, now it gets real.

First, the Pike and the Lance
They're like Ying and Yang. Pike designed against cavalry, lance against pikemen (against all infantry really, but to get through pikes was its main idea).
A pike is basically a long sharpened stick, cheap to make and easy to mass produce. They were used all over Medieval Europe as the cheapest option.
Lance on the other hand was used either by heavy cavalry or the lancers, as you may tell by the name. They were somewhat shorter (the longest battle lances were used by the Winged Hussars... I am obsessed with them, yes,) and were used by the cavalry. Their length didn't really make cavalry useless against pikes though, so don't think that.

Up next, Halberds
City Guards' favourite back in the day. Basically long axes. Very nice to look at, and somewhat combat effective, though pretty clumsy.

That's a Halberd right there. As you can see, a nice mix between a spear and an axe. Pretty cheap to make and somewhat effective, perfect for one on ones if the bearer also has a shorter weapon like a club or a sword.

Polaxes can be brought up here as slightly earlier cousins. That's what a Dwarf should use!

Lastly, normal spears. By Middle Ages, Spears were mainly used for hunting, but that didn't mean they weren't used at all during battles! Quite the opposite.

As you can see, this section is somewhat shorter than the rest. Please, if you have any more interesting weapons in general, post them on this thread. If you have any questions, feel free to ask. I am very general about this, but this is just a simple idea-giver, and nothing more. Also, I'm but a mere Human, and do make mistakes/am lazy/ am very lazy, and miss out some bits that you may know about. Again, feel free to post those things

 

[spagbog]

My character uses an Elvish blade, but if I had to choose one of those it would be a Falchion.

 

[Jeroxia]

Epees? Daggers maces loads of things
Flamberges maybe
Anyhow I love it polo keep up the good work!

 

[MRPolo13]

Obviously this is just a reference. An Elvish blade like the ones from Tolkien's books would be a little like a long Falchion or something a little more Oriental (Japanese or Chinese. This is clearly what the long swords were based off). What I put up here is European (and one Islamic ) equipment
I'll be going through blunt weapons as well as axes and stuff...
As for daggers, I guess you can search for cool ones yourselves. I personally love Miseracordes, which were finishing-off daggers used to kill knights who basically had no chance of surviving.

 

[blargtheawesome]

Nwalme uses a rapier, or did anyway. He'll return eith either a gun-powder weapon or a falchion.

 

[Michcat]

... What about shovels?

 

[MRPolo13]

lol not sure whether they'd be used as weapons by anyone in these days. Entrenching tools can be brought up to give an example on how effective a spade can be as a weapon. They're modern of course, but this is Altera we're talking about. Many soldiers actually preferred to use entrenching tools instead of bayonets, especially on the German side during both World Wars.

 

[Roablade]

My character had the pieces of his acutely tapered longsword Blitzinger reforged into the katana Neo Blitzsinger and obtained the wakizashi Sparrow in the Far East. Quite recently he tried out using a baselard and flamberge, but that worked against his favour.

 

[MRPolo13]

Updated!

 

[Aerogor]

Don't forget spears and halberds (AKA polearms)!

 

[MRPolo13]

(God rid of longswords under Great Swords.
Longsword is more like a general terminology )

 

[MRPolo13]

Also, I'm not entirely sure about polearms. Trouble with them is that if anything is hard to RP with, it's that.

 

[MRPolo13]

{Seems I didn't put enough reserves in...}

 

[MRPolo13]

Another update! This time on ranged weapons!

 

[Erlewis]

So far in RP I've used a rapier, a cutlass, a gladius (Roman infantry short-sword), a recurve bow, and most recently a short dagger. Mixing it up makes for some more interesting RPs...

 

[MRPolo13]

Good stuff, and yes, I went through times of love to later renaissance myself xD

 

[MaelstromPuddle]

Mental stuff!

I like how the British just leeched off the designs
Get the pitchforks and pikes lads!