Why would anyone who can afford a sword buy an axe instead...

Learn to read nigger, I never said battle axe.

Average fantasy adventurer living in generic LOTR rip off where the only ''formation'' is a hooligan charge surely encounters plenty of shieldwalls on his way.

>"Say that to my face!"

>yfw shieldwalls are actually mentioned in lord of the rings

I think those are usually called "knives", bud.
Although a disturbingly large amount of scifi/fantasy authors write about throwing a sword at someone. I guess because "so badass".

>You ever heard of a "throwing sword"?
Actually regular swords were thrown sometimes to surprise an enemy. Thrown objects have great penetration. If you manage to hit unarmored guy with a sword in his torso, it will disable or kill him.

Usually when I see it in fantasy books (I don't read as much sci-fi) it's either a desperate or retarded move, and most of the characters remark on it.

Like in 9 Princes in Amber, possibly the best example.

Here's the actual answer, in case anyone's curious:

Different weapons are ideal for different engagements. Saying one is "better" requires asking the question "better for what?" There are rapier situations, longsword situations, spear situations. Here's an example of an ax situation:

It's 800, you're in northern Europe, and you're fighting in a shield wall, clashing with another shield wall. Your opponent is wearing a helmet and guarding himself with a shield. You can't flank him, stabbing at his toes isn't working for shit. You really wish you could just smash his stupid shield to pieces, or split his helm and skull in one good chop. And you can! With an ax!

But not in the movie, who gives a fuck about some nerd ass book that describes a fucking leaf for 30 pages then mentions a battle in one sentence.

Heres a better weapon to do it with that combines the best features of axe and sword

Because it's a game.
Also an axe would be good for mounted combat I guess.

Nigga just git gud and teleport behind them. Also
>vikings
>fighting another shieldwall

yeah monks and farmers had so many shields around lmao

Historically, axes were given to soldiers as sidearms because chopping down a tree completely ruins a sword.

Also, throwing your sword at an opponent is a great way to surprise him as well as disarm yourself.

Knowing even the absolute basics of melee combat makes most depictions of it unbearable to watch.

Besides everyone running around like retards instead of fighting in formations, it particularly bothers me how shields are (mis)used in single combat.

>disarm yourself
In every culture warriors carried more than one weapon. And this trick is a gamble after all.

Axes are more practical for things other than killing.

>yeah monks and farmers had so many shields around lmao
I guess "england" even being a thing is because the danes couldn't stand the sight of anglo-saxon women then and all the colonists just packed up and left

Maybe they're a cop

Why would anyone who can afford a halberd buy a spear instead? Once some tard posted ''muh pikemen primary'' scenario which makes no fucking sense because real life pikemen had halberds too. Face it spears were pure shit.

>Why would anyone who can afford a sword buy an axe instead?
Because it's required for his job as a honour guard?
No axe - no job.

>not the falcata
D R O P P E D

You'd honestly have to buy something modern to get that. Like Condor knives makes a lot of knives that are clearly too damn thick for their job.

>let's ignore all the other countries they raided

just because they did well against britfags doesn't mean they were fierce warriors everywhere else

So what do you even care about? Real world situations or RPG mechanics? Because your post suggests it's the latter and then "it deals more damage" is the obvious reason people use axes.

point being, there were battles where a nearly a thousand vikings clashed with as many brits and you better believe they both utilized shield walls

and the norse raiders/invaders/settlers were of course defeated and/or assimilated in the end.

Oh it's this thread again. I'll go call the exorcist.

There,
you scored two (You)'s. You can leave now.

They are insane clown.

What does giving (you)s even mean? Accusation of samefagging? Saying that no one else thinks like that poster?

>Not knowing the difference between a felling axe and an axe made for combat.

+1

>user I wonder why Veeky Forums has an opinion of being the least informated board.

Many times yes Sir indeed Veeky Forums is havings of great ignoramusness on all of 5can. It is known.

axes without shields are shit. axes with shields are good, short of facing polearms.

When someone responds to your post, a (you) appears after the >>numbers. I think you have to enable this in the settings

>without shields are shit
>with shields are good, short of facing polearms.
Isn't that true for most (all?) single handed weapons anyway?

battles in LOTR are actually cringeworthy

It's essentially an accusation that someone said something stupid just to get responses, which are pictured as a (you) in their post.

>2016
>>lurk moar newfag
>is a forgotten meme

Axes have some advantages over a sword, especially when you use them with a shield, being able to hook the enemy's shield or weapon and packing more punch into a swing are among them

Also,never start a weapon or history discussion on tg, everybody here is fucking retarded in that regard and the people get their knowledge from rpg statlines

It's hard to put an armor piercing pick on the back of a sword?

myarmoury.com/review_aa_haxe.html

Yes but axes are good versus enemy shields. Also, as weapons they lean more towards the offensive side, compared to swords (which are decent at attack and parry). As such they are a good combination with the defensive shield. If you expect heavily armored enemies, consider a warhammer (with a spike) though.

Well in your standard fantasy universe the higher point impact damage from an axe makes it easier to score a damaging wound on creatures with thicker skin and adds an increased level of blunt force trauma when compared to a sword.

Of course in real life there's no reason to use an axe in battle over a sword. Unless your army spent more time building than fighting, in which case you might have just bought a woodsman's axe and used it for both.

Scholagladiatoria on YouTube
Everybody interested in this kind of shit should follow and watch that channel
Everybody who isn't should shut the fuck up
He has enough videos on axes

Problem solved

Oh hey, everyone's wearing mail, my cutting sword is nearly useless, but this axe will hurt the man in armor e en if it doesn't penetrate the links. Also I can use it to screw with enemy shields.

Definitely no use at all.

Swords can manage.

Easton senpai is love Easton senpai is life.

Axes can be used for self defense, hacking wood, and have much less maintenance. You can even add a spike at the top.

Why bother with an overly expensive giant kitchen knife? Better yet, carry an axe and a spear.

First off: You're a retard and shouldn't comment on anything ever.

Secondly: When comparing weapons of two different kinds, like an axe and a sword, rather than two of the same kind, like two swords, it's rarely a case of which one is "best" it's more about what you use it for. As soon as people start wearing armour like plate, or earlier transitional stuff like coats of plates/brigandines etc, a sword is only really effective as a thrusting weapon, and we see this impact sword design in a big way. What also happens is that weapons other than swords, like axes, war hammers and maces start becoming a lot more common.

Basically against armour, you want weapons that have most of their mass and most of the energy from the swing focused right at the striking surface. This means thrusting weapons or focused impact weapons like axes, maces and hammers.

Actually the flanged mace was developed and came into widespread use while mail was still the pinnacle of body armour, so even long before plate, splint armour or similar, people realized that their swords weren't cutting it any more.

Even the specialized knightly "longsword" (lets just call it that and not sperg out too much about oakeshott or whatever) with a thicker, more diamond shaped cross-section and a stiff, sharp point for thrusting was only effective against mail or the joints of brigandine and similar. Once full plate was a thing everyone who meant business were fighting with pollaxes and similar on foot, and warhammers, battle axes and maces on horseback.

Nigger.

Battle axes weren't used for woodcutting.

At that point it's more of a machete than a sword, though.

>my cutting sword is nearly useless

Actually straight swords can be thrust through mail pretty far. The Mail will resist it better than nothing, but there's plenty on youtube showing that thrusts can penetrate.

Plate can also be pierced by swords. Not as far as if they were merely wearing cloth, but people in this thread keep assuming swords are worthless against "heavy" armor.

As armor got heavier (plate) you'll notice swords got slimmer, and fighting styles moved more towards thrusting. An old viking broadsword can pierce the chainmail of it's day just fine though.

Don't underestimate the value of a balanced straight object as a wrestling tool either. Swords are excellent tools once in CQC, not necessarily as direct weapons.

Cause information was extremely limmited back thrn you absolure idiot.

Everything was basically going of either what you are given, rule of cool or those select few who got what little, probably factually wrong books there were in the world.

For instance, up until late 1700s the greek soldiers were just drawn as medeival knights because thats what anyone outside the scientific areas close to greece.

Skallagrim, too.

Nah

You're fucking retarded if you think people in the middle ages didn't know the advantages sword has over other one handed weapons.

Real life archers carried daggers and short swords, hardly any armor and MAYBE a small wrist buckler.
These weapons were mainly used to fight other archers in close quarters when flanking forces or scouting. When in formation, they had the bow and arrows, and again, no armor and maybe a dagger.
>Archers were not meant for melee combat, who cares what blades they had.
It's a back up plan incase shit hit the fan.
>Also axes are cheaper.

You 'can' chop light timber, but heavy stuff like busting blocks or trees is right out. For that matter you can do the same with a decently thick sword as well, but it'll end up a bit of a boomerang after awhile and on some you'll risk chipping the edge.
When you make an axe for chopping people- you need to change the geometry of the angle in the cutting edge from about 25deg in a wood axe all the way down to about 15-17deg that I'd put on a heavy duty knife. That way it will sink in a lot further and cause injuries to be a lot more grievous, at the cost of some material strength. But most importantly, it cuts down on weight.

Weight is a mixed blessing, more weight means more energy transferred to the target, but also more of it means you're wind up is to the point people can step out of the way.
That also means you need to make the handle relatively light, but flexible and strong compared to a wood axe. Plus it also has its own geometry which is very important to the way you wield the weapon as well, generally an '0' shape rather than round as it helps angle the cutting edge. When you strike it needs to be as perpendicular as possible to the target to confer the most damage and cutting depth.

Generally though, axe is a much different set of moves and various other sundry bits compared to swords, warhammers, spears etc.
But, they are fast and being fast to swing and recover counts for quite a bit.

I think you mean the axorcist

Don't bother, somebody will come up with an axecuse to post it again.

Has this axedentally turned into a pun thread?

How the fuck would they?
Google.

Nigger all they got to go with was either the blacksmith trying to sell a half baked peice of shit or if they know someone who knows a guy whos dogs former owner went to war and lived trough it with weapon X.

And dont you bullshit me on how they clearly saw the didjagabbadoo of the sword over the tbbbbth of the axe cause we got katanafedoras and people who thinks the bullpup is a good gun type.

Personal preference? Try explaining why a lot of people in the north use axes when they could make good swords.

Plenty of archers had falchions and arming swords, plenty had mail or even partial plate in the Late Middle Ages. You cannot make blanket statements like that.

>cheaper

Basic swords were so cheap by the High Middle Ages that a common soldier could afford several a week if he so wanted, again its a matter of context.

Because *Thunk!* Can your pansy sword make a *Thunk!* noise? No. No it cannot. And there is no sound more satisfying than *Thunk!*

>Try explaining why a lot of people in the north use axes when they could make good swords.
They were fucking poor. Vikings only got swords after a successful raid, and they'd get the very best German longswords custom made and imported. Vikings were like Mexican drug lords who were poor as shit but then after a successful crime spree bought golden Desert Eagles and diamond encrusted AK 47s. Also Vikings almost always carried shields and you'd rather chop wood with an axe than a longsword wouldn't you?

because its a hell of a lot easier to turn a wooden shield to splinters with an axe than with a sword

>Actually straight swords can be thrust through mail pretty far.
They can but against good mail it isnt easy. It also depends on the sword type.

>Plate can also be pierced by swords.
Hell no, not if it is of decent quality. You aim for the gaps instead.

Because warfare was a common occurence and there were still fucking veterans to pass the stories retard.

flails > maces > swords = axes

This
In any decent rules, axes would have bonuses against shields. (Hooking them and pulling) and also ruining wooden ones

You mean vikings? The ones who could afford a sword did so and losing a sword was considered a great tragedy. The ''le vikings prefered axes'' is a retarded meme only underages (aka you) take seriously.

Underrated post

>When you make an axe for chopping people [..]
Doesn't this assume unarmored people though, so as to maximize the cutting effect of the strike?

youtube.com/watch?v=VbDhQYvetr8

A veteran at the times couldve fought with nothing but a rock and would come home telling everyone rocks are magical superweapons and never be wiser. And there was a lot fewer soldiers coming home than going to war because not every village ever sent someone off to war or got theirs back home, considering information outside big trade places circulated information like shit it didnt really mean shit if a soldier knew why an axe is worse because that info would hardly travel far or into interested ears.

And dont get me started on army training and standard equipment. Spears were standard brcause they were cheap, not because they were le uber weapons.

Skall is an amateur weeb who just really likes video games and LARPing for the most part and far from anything approaching an expert
Easton actually knows his shit

Stop getting your knowledge about armour from shitty conquistador replicas, holy fucking shit
And stop watching american tv to learn shit about history

Explain why even proffesional soldiers like hoplites or immortals used spears if they were such le peasant weapons.

I'm pretty sure a regular non-battleaxe would work just fine on squishy bits man.

Because an axe is primarily a tool, and only a weapon when necessary. So maybe you're just a logger and don't regularly need a sword?

It was like any weapon of any time, evolving to the arms race of weapon vs armour.
Earlier designs like the one I made, that's more or less for heavy leather, chainmail and so forth that it will go through and have a longer beard for maximising the cutting width- they essentially where re-purposed wood axes with changes to the geometry. Latter designs they came up that where purposefully made 'just to kill' with would sometimes have a fiercer angle on the blade towards the top so as to go through armour a lot better, at the cost of some cutting width.

By the time of the high middle ages, the one handed axe had slightly fallen out of favour, swords where cheaper, easier to use and offer a bit more versatility in fighting styles- plus they're just fucking heaps easier to carry as a sidearm. The 'axe' grew so to speak into purpose built polearms (themselves having a fairly agricultural ancestry) that relied on two handed swings as a primary battle weapon to punch through heavy armours, points for poking and hammer heads etc- that also gave them quite a lot of utility in terms of 'how' they can be used.

There are a fairly massive variety of axes, ranging from trade tomahawks all the way up to the pollaxe. They all have their various places in history, but like anything else they changed to suit needs of their particular time.

It would be too heavy so good luck with hitting the guy with the slow piece of shit in the first place.

And you're retarded and should kill yourself because dedicated battle axes were a thing.

>implying axes are weapons

>that pic
>hurr durr lets test out this armor by tying it to a fixed object and then hitting it
This needs to stop. People always give way at least a bit when they are struck. Which means you will never be achieve the same amount of damage in a real fight as you would if you just hit some armor thats tied to a log.

Not to mention that these video damage tests almost never seem to use really good quality stuff (ie: hardened steel plates, and riveted chainmail instead of butted). Legit armor is pretty damn tough and you'd need a fucking lance on horseback to actually get enough force to penetrate a strong breastplate.

Katana could slice through it.

But they could be used for it. Any axe that chops wood would chop human flesh anyway.

>implying they can't be

>For that matter you can do the same with a decently thick sword as well

Looks like we found the retard. The length of the sword actually used leverage against the sword! Bwaha! People have been using axes to chop entire trees down for 1000's of years. Get over it swordfag mallninja