Why are berserkers always shown dual wielding axes...

Thats the first dual axe berseker that I have ever seen.

It's just an easy way of visually representing the "all offense, no defense" thing.

Berserkers in the typical sense have little to nothing to do with berserkers in the historical sense.

> Because axes are cool with swords being reserved for knights, soldiers and those with discipline.

By later dates it was customary for essentially everyone to own a sword, but only Knights were allowed to carry them in public. Sure, in the dark ages the go to would be a spear, but generic fantasy land is typically not set in the Dark Ages.

> It's fine to dual wield with a sword and dirk or something, though.

Yes please. My players want to dual wield swords and spin around in a flurry, and roll across the floor and shit. And they want to bring this shit to a homebrew dark ages fantasy.

Frankly there's little to no point in dual wielding the same weapon twice, when you could vastly improve your odds of survival by using a shield instead of another sword.

I blame d&d and the idea that more weapons = more attacks, but I'm probably wrong.

>someone doesn't know what moment, or even center of weight is

>Anyone in a medieval society could pick up
Bullshit.
>weaponsmithing
Bullshit the size of Westminster.

I usually think of them using two handed weapons like the dane axe.

>there's little to no point in dual wielding the same weapon twice
Unless you don't have anything else. If you have to pick one arming sword or two arming swords go with the latter. But if you can have a shield, pole arm, ranged weapon, or two hander yeah you're right dual wielding a single weapon type is dumb.

People who think dual wielding makes it possible to attack faster have never actually tried it.

I would hazard that the trend goes back to 70's fantasy/sword and sorcery art. It's a quick visual symbol to separate one character from another (or from numerous background characters with swords and spears).

I'm far more spergy about those giant warhammers--you know, the ones with a head the size of a suitcase, that would weigh 800 pounds? Clearly the work of some pencilneck who's never even picked up a sledgehammer.

The whole idea of "signature weapons" is dumb.

In a sense it does make a follow up attack faster. It completely fries the mind ofcourse.

As a previous poster has mentioned it's all simply closing off angles and abusing openings and if you have the mental faculties this is easier with two swords.

If Miyamoto Musashi says it works than it's good enough for me.

Pic related isn't the picture I want (of dual wielding identical swords) I think said elusive picture is from Di Grassi but it covers the same principles.

>tfw the entire party dual wields
>axes
>daggers
>swords
>maces
>shields

>tfw the bbeg also dual wields
>tfw the bbeg swings his mighty scythe/halberd combo and only death is left in their wake

>dual wielding anything aside from guns is cancer I don't mean practicality I mean it just looks Linkin Park tier if you use dual wielding art kill yourself.
What if you dual wield fists?

It really doesn't help with speed, or if it does, it shouldn't.
Swords, IRL, don't have magical cutting power. You need to swing with them, transferring all of your weight into the swing, in order to do damage with the strike. If you're just flailing around, bashing at the opponent with the swords one after the other, it's like lightly jabbing at your opponent in boxing, except worse because it's slower, more tiring and you'll need to change stance often.
There are even more disadvantages too, what with many weapons being designed for side-on stances. Dual wielding requires a frontal stance which limits your range and your speed even more with many weapons.
There are effective ways to dual wield, even with the same weapon, you just have to get a bit creative. With two bastard/hand-and-a-half swords you can parry with one and thrust with the other, and if you get tired you can throw one and two-hand the remainder. Dual cesti was how they were traditionally used, for close range grappling and many knives are effective dual-wielded as well, due to the fact that you aren't really going to be getting much of a swing when grappling, so more blade is all the better. But dual wielding longswords and trying to swing with both at once, or spin from one attack into another will just make you look like an idiot before you die.

Barbarians are not made up. Old time Europe had a groups of warriors. Scottish possibly I think. Who would take drugs before a fight making them "berserk", not deal pain, and yell a lot. Im uncertain but seems like they would more probably use 2 weapons then a shield.

Correct me with actual sources if I'm wrong please.

I never mentioned longswords and wouldn't bring them up for dual wielding.

The poster I was replying to mentioned attacking faster which is possible with a second sword simply because an attack on a different opening can be set in motion before the first blow lands.

Maybe you mention longswords because I brought up Musashi. I don't practice Japanese swordsmanship regrettably so can't comment in any detail but the Book of Five Rings suggests he'd disagree with your closing sentence.

What's the matter op? Lacking in the dex department?

Dual wielding bows

That's more a technicality,

yes most people on a crusade were spear armed peasants, no that's not the same as a paladin.

crusading knights = paladins (or that's what they're supposed to be), these knights used lance on horseback but swords, maces and axes on foot

Robert of Normandy cut an emirs head in half in a mounted combat, Godfrey of bouillon cut a dude in half to the waist if you believe the chronicles

I'm just saying that one is legit.

As a long time HEMA fag this thread is giving me cancer. It is always better to have a shield and weapon rather than two weapons unless you're talking about rapier and dagger and that's only because it wasn't fashionable to carry around a shield at that time. Having two axes would be less effective than just one axe and a free hand for grappling.

Because dual chainsaws may not be in the campaign.

The dual longswords thing wasn't directed at you, it's because that's one of the most common dual wields you see in fantasy, and it makes absolutely zero sense.
Niten Ichi-ryū has little to do with this conversation, it's Katana and wakizashi, the wakizashi effectively functions as a long parrying dagger, although it is much more difficult to do the same damage as with regular strikes, the best you can go for is thrusts to important muscles, such as in the shoulder, crippling your opponent.
And as I was saying, you simply can't begin one attack before your current one has landed, as that would be redirecting momentum away from your current strike. You may land lots of hits, but if you're not penetrating deep and fucking with your opponent's tissues, it's really not worth it. One good hit is worth a hundred papercuts.

>viking wizard

Fits perfectly, considering Odin was one of the biggest inspirations for the fantasy wizard.

1. Dual weapons emphasizes the "all offense no defense" nature of berserkers. They have no shield because those imply defense, and they don't keep their off hand free because why would they. A two-handed weapon serves the same purpose, which is why you also see 'zerkers with big ol honkin weapons too; it mostly comes down to the character -- when they go berserk, do they slaughter a dragon (one big weapon for one big beast) or an army (multiple weapons for multiple targets)?
2. To a lot of people, axes scream "brutal bloody strength." Swords are fancier and clubs too primitive (and leave fewer gaping wounds).

Well there's at least one more HEMAfag in the thread and if you've been doing HEMA very long it wouldn't seem worth mentioning as a qualifier of any knowledge.

It's not a question of comparing with shields but two weapons can often be better than one.

The style lends well to the Berzerker character frame because it's frenetic and for the most part at least stereotypically more aggressive. Axes too are stereotypical of the Vikings because of their notoriety with their titular Dane Axe so even though it's not a very sensible setup it's pretty logical that artists like show Berzerkers with two axes.

It's becoming an increasing fad in modern martial arts with the rise of Tomahawk schools coming of FMA practitioners in the USA like this..

youtube.com/watch?v=C3CACKhRa_E

..were transitioning from double stick sinawali's becomes more of a natural progression

no it fucking doesn't, Odin was the exception making the rule, he was the only man who could ever perform magic and that was only because he was the king of the gods and would take any source of power he could get at in his hopeless struggle to postpone the end times.

otherwise if you're a man and doing magic in any sort of norse setting then everybody who isn't a monster should be lining up to torture and burn you to death.

Niten Ichi-ryū is nonetheless still dual wielding and you can very ably strike a second blow before you first lands by striking along the same plane of momentum.

We're all forgetting ofcourse what Viking raiders actually got up to and two axes would be more than adequate at cutting down fishermen and monks.

Berserker may have had different meanings depending on where you are, but here in Norway the word did not mean champion at all. A man that "went berserk" was someone who decided to live outside the law and customs, basically becoming a lone bandit. My guess to why everyone thinks it's a kind of warrior that fought with the vikings is that someone fighting especially fiercly might have been called a berserker by their mates, the same way someone would say "that guy fights like madman, like someone gone berserk". It most certainly wasn't a title given to a champion.

t. read several sagas in old norwegian, only mentions I've read of the term are the lawless robbers and killers everyone keeps their distance from.

18 seconds in he does a fecking spin. All credibility lost there.
Still, the thing to remember is that the tomahawk is to a standard battle axe what a dagger is to a shortsword. What does and does not work for a battle axe doesn't translate to a much smaller and lighter tomahawk. They can be swung much faster much easier and require less force to penetrate deep, due to a small cutting area. Dual wielding them would work as well as daggers in close range grappling, the only disadvantage that I could see would be that they are easily parried, as you can see in the video, and that you don't have a hand free to grab your opponent.

>Transferring all your weight into the swing.
Depends on the setting.

Against an unarmored opponent, 10 lbs of pressure with a thrust to a vital area will be plenty.

Theres a stereotype of some vikings getting high or drunk as fuck before battle and then going berserk at the enemy.

I think that's what most people imagine when they associate Vikings with berserkers.

No idea where that stereotype comes from though.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seiðr

Dude, it's been the same fucking story for years.

>We find out more and more about history every day
>It keeps turning out to be even more exotic and cooler than we thought
>Expect this to translate into video games, seeing as how most of these discoveries end up heading buzzfeed articles and shit
>Instead of naked, fully-painted, heap-of-furs-wearing, drug-fueled, too-angry-to-feel-pain, swashbuckling berserkers, we we get "HURR I AM A STOUT AND BRAVE WARRIOR WHO PUTS WARRIOR'S HONOR ABOVE ALL AND DUAL-WIELDS SMALL WEAPONS"
>Instead of full-plate-harness-exclusive, celebrity-status, nigh-physically-and-spiritually-untouchable, agile, skilled straight-sword/bihander-wielding knights who didn't give a fuck about chivalric virtues in battle when it meant crushing peasants and believing that only other knights could kill them, we get "BIG HEAVY TANK ARMOR SO SLOW, GIANT BLUNT CAR-WEIGHT SWORD AND TOWER SHIELD, AND SO BOUND TO CHIVALRY THAT HE'LL BOW FOR A LADY WHEN HE'S IN DANGER OF BEING BEHEADED"
>All the cool shit we keep learning about how historical warriors and battle actually worked, and we still just keep getting the same old Hollywood tropes from the 80s served to us like we aren't all sick to death of Tolkien high fantasy yet.

Don't even get me started on pirates, ninjas, WW1, the Colonial and Victorian periods, or hell, basically anything that involves melee fighting and guns that aren't automatic/semi-auto.

The question is about same-weapon dual wielding. Everyone knows that different weapon dual wielding is a perfectly fine idea, sword and dagger and sword and buckler have tonnes of historical references. But in these scenarios, the off-hand weapon is never used for proper striking, it's only ever used for parrying or harassing the opponent. Off-hand weapons can often be excellent choices for these purposes, but the damage will always be dealt by the main hand weapon, as that's where the momentum lies.
How, I ask you, do you strike "along the same plane of momentum"? Do you have any examples of sword techniques that do this? Because the only thing I could think of like that would be doing a spin from a right handed swing into a left handed one, and that's stupid for entirely separate reasons.

The video was an example of modern practitioners and there was no sparring involved. Nothing in it suggested they would be easily parried. Parried in a choreographed drill like in the video maybe but with any intent few would try.

Your spinning point is valid and logical although it's not one I personally hold much credence too after knowing some phenomenally fast martial artists in my time but outliers exist everywhere.

I think we're getting a bit carried with the argument. I wouldn't espouse the use of two hand axes in a remotely even fight or a dueling scenario but in a fray or night raid why stop at hitting the poor bastards once.

If the character was worried about his opponents he'd probably not be bare chested after all.

>There were also accounts of male practitioners, known as seiðmenn, but in practising magic they brought a social taboo, known as ergi, on to themselves, and were sometimes persecuted as a result.

read your own wiki links dumbass

Because its good visual storytelling. Axes are seen as a more brutal form of weapon than swords and having two of them shows that the man is more concerned with killing you than protecting himself. If they're big old heavy looking things they also convey the enormous strength that has become associated with a berserker rage.

How things actually work is irrelevant. Verisimilitude is all you need.

Yes it's very common in Asian living traditions that focus more on dual wielding like those of the Philippines and in alot of forms of Kung Fu as I'm told.

Heaven Six being the most basic example: youtube.com/watch?v=M2ylWUicoAc

One strikes from the right shoulder. Promptly followed by a second and mirrored in this example. The hip momentum and the structure of the body is used for both strikes.

listen to this guy Odin was all about magic, loki even basically called him out on it saying it was feminine, odin laughed and said he turned into a female horse and got fucked so... stones in glass houses and all that

Gandalf was inspired by Odin and I always imagine Viking wizards are all about buffing. bloodlust and elements

?
Never said it wasn't taboo, but you said they didn't even exist. They were shunned but not hunted and killed, people where just afraid of getting cursed much like any historical setting were witches and sorcerers were thought to be real.

Just in case anyone has any concerns about it not being European it's fun to note that the under arm chamber in FMA is the first ward in MS.I.33 (although the drill is very different by our best interpretations today) which is regrettably as close as we can get to any documented Viking forms of fighting (i.e nothing at all but it's the least anachronistic conjecture) so although there isn't any identical training drills in HEMA it isn't ridiculous that the same movement was practiced in Europe.

That's really not what I got the impression you were talking about. From what I've seen of it, it's a drill that's designed to help with speed and strngth, but you're never going to be doing any actual damage with that. There's no momentum behind any of those swings, your body is essentially stationary. It also looks super easy to learn and parry, seeing as it's a pattern designed for two people to be able to learn and parry, just look at a video with two people doing it on each other. I've done similar things myself, barehanded though, and while they're are very useful for building up muscle strength and speed, they're not sparring or combat techniques, they're foundational drills.

It's the movement that matters not the drill when delivered as a proper strike on the opponent it can easily overwhelm them and get hard hits in.

I respect you have some martial arts experience but I respect the living tradition of Filipino sword fighting much more and this is a common strike which they've been using to kill eachother within living memory.

You're correct though Sinawali's are an exercise and not a display of fighting. It's just that single that demonstrates the idea.

>what started the edgy dual wielding trope?
berserkers

Wasn't there a rather famous band of mercs in northern europe that may (!) have been the namegivers of the term berserker? Can't remember their time period anymore though, my best guess is somewhere around 800-1100 AD .
Very likely sell-sword would have been seen as bandits and/or outsiders by the local population. What makes them interesting for this topic, fighting many different battlefield in a comparitivly short time span (contrary to "ordinary" armies) could have spread the terms quite well.
You know something about that?

>A man with two axes will be able to catch an opponent off guard
How?

>attack from multiple directions at once
Have you heard of a little thing called balance?

>parry and attack at the same time
A shield is better for this.

I heard it about northern europe and what would be Scottish people. It's a theory, but has no real proof until now. Indications at best, but those are quite weak.

I can't say I know much about vikings influence outside scandinavia except for the mercenaries in Istanbul, but they might very well have brought the term with them.
Again, the people gone berserk I've read about mostly wandered from farm to farm and demanded food and in some cases even the whole farm, lest they resort to violence. No mention of them forming gangs or groups, since the population density was very low at that time with mountains and hard journeys I'd imagine it would be hard to find other in the same situation unless you were together from the start.

I am of course talking about the norwegian mentions, the swedish and danish vikings both had their own history with different traditions and range of influence.

He's got some fantasy in his head about "double-strikes", like either swinging both weapons at once in the same direction, or swinging one weapon immediately after the other in the same arc. The logic being that you could swing one weapon while the other is swinging, letting you hit twice as often, making two weapons better than one.

This falls apart in practice though, because like you mention, the off-hand (depending on left- or right-handedness), unless specifically trained, is less powerful and especially less dexterous than the main hand. It is not suited to delivering decisive blows or accurate thrusts. That's why the off-hand is relegated to "sub-weapons" (like knives, parrying daggers, or pistols) at best, more often being used for defensive tools (like shields, bucklers, or cloaks), or simply being left empty for grabbing opponents' weapons and grappling.

Wielding a second main-hand weapon in your left hand just gives you a weaker, clumsier alternate attack than a specifically off-hand weapon, and a shittier parry/guard than a parrying or defensive tool. Furthermore, there are no real "two-main-weapon" stances and strategies that have been proven effective in battle or duels, due to most of them sacrificing the reach of one outstretched arm to allow for equal leverage and reach of both arms.

While yes, there are many martial arts that utilize two main weapons simultaneously, these are often only effectively used against like-weapons in competitions, and would encounter many shortcomings when facing someone using a single sword, or weapon and shield combo. Sure, you could hit twice as often if you ignore defense and reach, but when it comes to weapons, reach is everything. You could cut someone 5 times in 2 seconds with dual small weapons, but if he can stab you just once before you get in range, you're already dead.

if you are going by sagas they were not even blood lust warriors

Utter bullshit.

As an ambidextrous fencer I'd love to prove it to you in person but sadly since anecdotal evidence is naturally worthless we'll have to satisfy ourselves with shitposting until one of us gets the last word.

In a dueling situation two hand axes would be at a disadvantage against practically everything else but in a melee or rampage like a Berzerker would assumably be involved in they'd be perfectly adequate for brutal and unsporting murder.

Of all the things you could attempt to dual wield, shields actually sound like maybe the least bad.

It's kinda like having two maces, so you don't have to care all that much about technique, and obviously you can go defense-mode to catch your breath for a few moments and maybe tire your opponent out/trap his blade in a shield rim.

And using a main weapon and a parry dagger is exactly what europeans did too (everything else is rarely depicted). That can be viewed as an indication that this is the most, possibly the only, effective way to use dual-wielding.

Depending on your opponent's armour it may not matter if the blow are a bit less hard. If he has no protection or many unprotected body parts you're still dealing blow, that puts opponents out of a fight. So it depends if you fight against peasants, decent soldiers or fully armoured knights (or their equivalents in other regions).

I remember one pal from my former training group who experimented with dual-wielding, but more in a "one-on-one fights" approach, not battle formation. His first big insight was that momentum is everything. He could start a blow with his 2nd weapon while the first one was still in movement, but only by following the same direction of attack. After some training he managed to shift the 2nd attacks direction, but it was still quite predictable from where it will come. Against decently armoured opponents he had a big disadvantage.

Long time Kung Fu practitioner here. As most people have said two long weapons is impractical, we generally only use short weapons for duel wielding and those weapons are usually designed so you can still use unarmed techniques. Butterfly knives are a good example because of the knuckle duster hand guards. Nevertheless my weapon preference is always going to be polearm, then single weapon, then doubles. I do have a special place in my heart for guwyes (tonfa) though just because they feel like such a natural extension of unarmed techniques.

Over here, Sweden, Bärserk were the elite warriors who clad themselves in certain ways (bear pelts preferably) and lead the charge on the enemy, being fearless and that kind of thing.

Things like "This chief and that had X number of ships and Y berserkers from over there" isnt a rare description of armies/raiding forces.

youtube.com/watch?v=PBUGQkpk3RE
just watch this video u plugs

>center of weight
Look at this guy trying to get all scientific. Come back when you know the correct terms.

Berserkers used fucking spears you goddamned idiot.

>being pedantic
>not commenting on "moment" which clearly indicates the other user is Scandinavian (since the proper English word would be 'torque'
0/10

Now that I think about it, wizards were portrayed as archetypical travelers, worldly men who traveled far across the land in search of knowledge
Would the modern equivalent of that be some kind of scholar trucker?

Worldly trucker, mysterious hitchhiker, wise bum, I think all those fit.

To a degree you could also include the old-school rocker or veteran reporter. A survivor of many tours, someone who's seen dizzying highs and horrible lows and all the weird shit in between. Someone too true to the art to ever have (or need) fame themselves. A figure of intense, even dangerous passion but also one of great wisdom for those willing to listen.

Just a thought, but what if one of the axes was for throwing, not hitting? You'd still get the whole "all defence, no offence" vibe, but at least then having two axes would make sense, because the two axes served different purposes.

Load of shit you should kill yourself.

Taking drugs doesn't make anyone a more efficent fighter at all retard. Kill yourself.

>I know nothing about history, I'm an underage retard and a living proof americunts deserved 9/11

the post

The Nazis would beg to differ. Speed and other stimulants are excellent for morale, among other things

There is no evidence of this stop being a retard 16 year old

>the guys who attacked Russia in winter and looked for spear that pierced Jesus beg to differ

that's really convincing

>Who would take drugs

The usual theory is that they'd eat amanita muscaria mushrooms, what people think of when they hear 'toadstool'.

I've eaten my share of magic mushrooms, though the active ingredient of those is psilocybin as opposed to amanita's muscimol I imagine the effect's similar, and frankly the last thing I wanted to do is go on a killing rampage.

If you ask me, something more likely to causee a berk effect would be a deliriant or dissociative , something like Datura stramonium for example.

>Anyone could pick it up
You're thinking of knives, not axes. Knives are a subtractive work, while anything bigger is additive.

>datura
oh boy

Yeah, see something like that I could totally see driving you into a shield-biting blood frenzy, not a psychedelic's "wow look at the pretty colors whoa man have you ever looked at your hand?"

Well, if you're a long time HEMA fag you are in fact cancer personified.

bro, people in the states who know enough to know what a torque is are just as likely to use moment

I was always partial to the spear/dagger combo, myself.

Spear...and dagger?

What are you supposed to with that combo?

>those tarded wings block nearly half of the spearblade rendering the weapon almost useless

great fucking design as usual Asia delivers

Having never taken drugs, what would be the effect of the mushrooms kicking in while you were in the middle of a rampage?

If you're not having a polearm with chainsaw attached to both ends in your B-movie styled game, what are you doing?

You're using a pretty standard short spear, and all that entails.

However, if the opponent closes with you, you've got a dagger to parry with and generally still fight, even inside your spear's range.

It's more of a duelists style than something you'd use on the battlefield.

And if you hold the buttons for 25 seconds, you get a super powerful attack

I think that's one of the fancy style weapons, she's got more mundane spears as well

it comes largely from history (except perhals the actually getting high part). the english word berserk derrives from the old norse name for such warriors berserkr (literally bear-coat because they where said to wear animal pelts instead of armour)

I dunno, but I once asked Finns why the thunder god Ukko had ladybirds as his favourite pet, who were called Ukko's cows. The answer I got was fly agaric, so I'd assume a state of delirium is the main effect.

If she doesn't use a shield she could just use the spear with two hands and change her grip if the opponents comes too close like in this video

youtube.com/watch?v=l2YgGY_OBx8

so she seems to be a complete fucking retard who can't even grasp how to use the simplest melee weapon effectively

>A man with two axes will be able to catch an opponent off guard
>How

because it's hard to concentrate on two moving things at once, especially in a combat situation where tunnel vission can easily happen.

sure its not as good as a sheild defensively. but it's still better than just one axe

That's a hard question to answer. The best way I can explain the general feeling you get under psychedelics is that it revives your "sense of wonder", sort of like the outlook you had as a child before you could explain the things around you with logic and experience.

That being said, unless you've taken a truly epic dose, you're still -you-. Still sane and totally capable of understanding that what you're seeing is because you're on drugs.

A lot of people seem to think you get transported to fantasy world with rainbow dragons and magic leprechaun villages, which just isn't the case. You're still perceiving reality, just slightly differently.

When has dueling styles ever been solely about efficiency?

It's flashy, it looks good, and conceptually, it's not that far off from rapier + dagger.

Duels were always about efficency you dumb retard that's exactly why they used rapiers and not clubs.

But rapiers and daggers were designed the way they were for a purpose - people started having private duels in narrow streets and alleyways, instead of the fairly wider spaces afforded on the battlefield. The rapier was at first a civilian weapon, so people would often wear clothes while using it, making weight and strength not as important as speed and accuracy.

axes are still relatively easy to make.
and probably more importanly can be made with less and lower quality metal with only a negligible sacrifice in quality.

yes because one dumb idea means all their ideas where dumb.

it should be obvious why giving your soldiers something that masks fatigue and/or reduces fear and anxiety or even just improves moral would be an advantage in war (even if it does hurt their long term survival)