What is the best weapons for dnd militias?

So, yeah, in D&D terms:

- Spear
- Hammer, knife, or club
- Padded or leather armor
- Wooden shield
- Bow or sling if early or middle Medieval period; light crossbow if late Medieval period/early Renaissance
- Case with 20 crossbow bolts
- Ed Sheeran's greatest hits album
- Letter from/to loved one that can be found bloodstained on their corpse when the PCs finally arrive, too late to save them.

Spears and truncheons. Cheap to make, plenty of uses. Also acceptable would be axes/hatchets, because of the same reasons. It also depends on where they are coming from and what they are doing. A rabble organized to deal with bandits? They are literally going to have the tools they own, so pitchforks, truncheons, flails, hatchets, axes, and bill hooks. If they are going to war as conscripts or a rabble to support a lord they really like, then they may make efforts to get more proper gear like spears in addition to all that.

You want to teach a peasant how to use a mace to kill someone in armor? It's like you don't want to have peasants anymore. They're a militia, not an army.

The spears will give them enough to at least threaten the people on the other side of the line while your actual soldiers do the real work.

Yeah, spear, shield, fat chance teaching them to use anything else in time.

Spears? No way.
Give them all crossbows so that they can support the real Troopers.

I'm not paying for my peasants to have crossbows, they're fucking peasants.

They might decide to shoot my knights afterwards as well. Crossbows are expensive, and a peasant will suck with one. They're not there to deal damage, they're there to absorb the brunt of the enemy charge.

Well if you're adventurers, you could probably afford a couple of Hochland Long Rifles, but that'll only go so far. Other than that, crossbows and pikes. Make sure people stay away from you.

Peasants with muskets?! Are you a loon?

Spear is 2 gp. Dagger is 2 gp. Light mace is 5 gp. Now you can kill both zombies and skeletons. Spear is just such a solid weapon, I feel like it should have an inherent to-hit bonus in D&D. Ever fought a guy with a spear? I have, it's hard as fuck to get inside his reach, especially if he's nimble on his feet. Even a short spear.

>They're not there to deal damage, they're there to absorb the brunt of the enemy charge.

Keep thinking that. Fex urbis lex orbis.

>muskets

Who gave my peasants enough money to afford those?

Do you want revolutionaries? Because that's how you get revolutionaries.

That asshole baron from two towns over you know he has always held a grudge after what you did to his cousin.

For the record, the trick is that a spear, as a thrusting weapon, has a relatively narrow point of attack. When fighting a single person with a spear, it's advisable to have a medium- to large-size shield. When they thrust with the spear, use your shield to batter the spear aside and out, as you charge forward parallel to the spear, keeping your shield against the spear's haft.

At this point the spearman's only real choice is to either drop the spear - leaving him defenseless - or turn, which should be easy to follow. He could also lift his spear up, but no matter what you should be on top of him by now and so the spear's pointy bit is no longer as useful as it was.

I'm not saying this is EASY, mind, just that this is the tactic you should be using.

Alternatively, shoot him.

Spear and shield.
>Shield
Can be as simple as a round plate of wood. It's really effective at helping you not die.

>Spear
The simplest and debatably most efficient weapon ever invented. It's a pointy stick, you stick the sharp end into the baddy.

Crossbows too, if the militia can afford it. If not a simple bow helps (it's a bendy stick with a string attached to it).

Other weapons don't really come into play unless the militia becomes an actual professional force to be reckoned with (maybe being part of the militia is a highly prestigious position for lower nobles or something?).

I'll excommunicate him too, I've got the money to do so.

No, this is how you DON'T get revolutionaries, because they pressed peasants die in service of their country and the widows get a few shillings.

The Revolution finds a way.

M8 you forgot about slings!

>in service of their country

"Country" is a thing for barons and knights. Peasants are usually interested only in their own township. One lord is as good as another as long as that lord touches neither their property nor their laws, and the one from two towns over just gave them enough money for muskets.

It's like you haven't even read The Prince.

>The Prince
>reading a satire of old politics
>taking it as a guide

Also, by the time muskets were a thing, peasants weren't. Everyone was technically a freeman at that point.

What? Noooo... peasants are notorious for their loyalty!

magic

What should one do if your peasants are in a state of Revolt?

>Also, by the time muskets were a thing, peasants weren't. Everyone was technically a freeman at that point.
nigga. peasants were free too. Also check your opinions, peasants were still a thing when muskets were on the battlefields

Technically correct; the best kind of correct. When most people think of peasants they are actually thinking of serfs, which only really existed in Russia at the time of pike and shot, and firearms in general being a mass thing on the battlefield. Peasants were indeed freemen that could travel between townships and fiefs as they wished, and existed in plenty of places in that time period.

>1700
>peasant
>thoumustjest.tapestry

Peasants being slaves were no longer a thing, the term freeman applied to them at that point. They were still called peasants however because they were still only farming land.

The peasant revolution was over by that point.

Take your taxes with fire and sword.

The idea that The Prince is satire really doesn't hold weight on close examination, since at least one letter of his we have, to his friend Francesco Vettori, refers to his writing of The Prince and certainly comes across as being something he's taking seriously, not as satire.

>"And because Dante says that no one understands anything unless he retains what he has understood, I have jotted down what I have profited from in their conversation and composed a short study, De Principatibus, in which I delve as deeply as I can into the ideas concerning this topic, discussing the definition of a princedom, the categories of princedoms, how they are acquired, how they are retained, and why they are lost. And if ever any whimsy of mine has given you pleasure, this one should not displease you."

Machiavelli may have been a lover of republics, but he was also a practical man. He wanted to be of use to Florence again, and was perfectly willing to set aside his love of republics in the hopes of getting a position in the Florentine Court where he could once again be a statesman.

>Also, by the time muskets were a thing, peasants weren't

It's like you've never even heard of Russia.

>which only really existed in Russia at the time of pike and shot
that is, if we talking about europe. Also if I'm not mistaken there were some borderline serf like things in sweden too but that's pretty much a grey area

Why did you pick that date when muskets existed even before that?

>teach a peasant how to use a mace to kill someone in armor
if things in armor get past the spears it's better for the peasants to have a mace than nothing

Spears. Its always spears. Every culture in the world used spears as the default weapon, especially for levies.

Sorry, it's about time to actually sleep over here, I figured that was the date we were talking about since muskets were being bought for peasants. They existed earlier, but peasants with crossbows or swords at that point are just as problematic for a lord and far cheaper.

Outside of that, the situation implied that muskets were widespread and cheap enough that someone was willing to buy some for peasants. If I'm remembering things correctly, 1700 is your best bet on a year where that would actually happen.

The writing of it was simply a tool to allow him to have weight in court again. He wrote what its' readers would want to read. Some elements do apply and it is a writing that holds merit enough as a introduction to certain political elements of court, but I would not hail it as a proper guide or a writing worth following to the letter.

Russia is a huge outlying data point in still having peasants like this. Granted everywhere else, not much more than the technical legal term changed, but it did mean certain laws didn't apply to the unwashed masses.

GURPS

A peasant isn't drawing a mace fast enough to kill that knight. That peasant is dead.

Sire! *The weasely little man shrieks as he bursts through the door* The Commons are in a state of open revolt! He shouts What should we do? He says in a quiet worried voice.

>Also, by the time muskets were a thing, peasants weren't
What about Russia?

>Falling for the mace meme

Using a mace against someone in armor, its still really hard to hurt them. Its a lot easier than with a sword or spear, but its still not easy.

If you get hit in the head with a mace, even in armor, it may not kill you, but it's going to disorient you for long enough that they might get another lucky blow, and another, and then him and his friend are beating on your until that helmet doesn't work as well as it should.

Read the full chain of comments,

Get the soldiers and the knights, march out there, put down any peasant who raises a spear at you when you go to collect taxes.

You act like this isn't the solution that was used to great effect every time.

Guys. I thought OP's question was about militias. Then why the fuck are we talking about peasants?

B-b-b-but Sire! The men have joined them!

They come for your (and my) head on a pike!

Clearly then the men hadn't been paid properly, and the church hadn't been working either. If the knights have turned I'm clearly either excommunicated or a traitor, which means something has gone so terribly wrong there isn't a right answer.

N-n-no Sire the Knights are still on side! But... most of the Town Guard and the Militia have Put up the Hammer and Sickle!

it's a battle, not a series of one on one duels.
peasants with maces is better than peasants without maces.

I think a mace or a club would still be useful in case they have to fight a skeleton or if they simply need a bludgeon if their spear isn't applicable.

Fpbp

Because humans intuitively understand how to use a spear and a club, thus training your militia to become proficient in their use can be done with a minimum of time and effort

>letter to
>literate militiaman who carries quill, ink, and vellum
I don't think so

Why does it matter, you never fight just a single spearman

Misconception by some anons who think militias only include peasants, and anons who forgot ops question includes the early renaissance.

Most men in a militia would have a shield and spear, although if the militia is from a city you'll have middle and upper class families that can afford better equipment. That means a few men with swords (which they barely know how to use) as well as better armor. Depending on just how far into the Renaissance you go those sword-wielding bourgeois merchants will have a handgun or two. A large city in the early Renaissance might even have an armory with arquebus or muskets that can be distributed, but the earlier stuff about shields, spears, maces, hammers, knives, and a few swords still applies to most of the militia. Shields and spears can be dropped for much longer pikes once guns are relatively common.

If a population has a longstanding tradition of forming a militia they will also have some sort of symbols they may carry with them to improve morale. It might be as simple as a flag of their hometown, a holy relic, or a sacred goat.

I like how you are more right than most people here but also wrong on a lot of things.
Like
> That means a few men with swords (which they barely know how to use)
Is completely wrong for nearly every part of germany, most parts of italy and a few other places like poland and the likes.
Probably other places too but I don't know as much about them.

Halberds.
Best infantry weapon combining the spear and the axe. Only replaced by the pike-musket combo.

>inb4 "but it's too sophisticated!"

The swiss became renowned for their proficiency with it, and they were dirty peasants lost in the alps.

So will your knights farm their own crops and scrabble in the dirt once all the pesents are fucking dead? Of course they wont! they'll kill you, plunder and Pillage until literally all the food is gone then kill one another over the scraps

Go swing an axe for 10 minutes as hard and as fast as you can, then come back.

Seriously, any weapon you have to swibg over a pound is pretty hard to justify.

an imperfect weapon is better than no weapon

Guns.
Or spears. It depends what they have available. Historically peasant soldiers would use things like polearms because they're easy to learn and cheap. An actual military would use guns and cannons, and officers/nobility would have a sword.

also just for fun here is a really good article about militias

A brief examination of warfare by medieval urban militiasin Central and Northern Europe
Jean Henri Chandler, SDA NOLA, New Orleans, Louisiana

Lot's of references and sources in there.

This article and the book "Furies of war" is a big eye opener and I can only recommend both of them

>They're not there to deal damage, they're there to absorb the brunt of the enemy charge.

Felling axes are really thick, they're designed for splitting wood. Dane Axes were like meat cleavers, because, as you'd expect, meat cleavers cleave through meat. Woodcutting axes cut wood.

Right tool for the right job.

Oh yeah, I remember all those successful pre-gunpowder peasant revolutions...

England had a bunch, particularly during the period where military archery formed the core of English battle strategy. One revolt even sacked London and breached the Tower of London where the royal treasury was kept, grubby peasants took as much gold as they could carry and withdrew just outside the city. They were given a full pardon and allowed to keep everything they took in exchange for a promise to disperse and not enter the city a second time.

A lack of 'revolutions' that completely toppled the existing system of government during the Middle Ages had nothing to do with the availability of firearms and almost everything to do with literacy levels and the printing press.

Yomen weren't peasants. In fact, yomen were the most brutal oppressors of the lower classes, being landowners and comparatively wealthy. In France, a yomen would have been a knight.

It's more that 'killed putting down uprising' was a surprisingly common way for monarchs to die, but a new noble would rise, become king, and you'd get a new dynasty.

It means no shield, though, which is pointless unless you have plate armor, which a militia does not.

>Yomen weren't peasants

Yeomen were peasants by the definition given in this thread i.e. not a noble. And the English definition of a yeoman during the medieval period was far broader than the French one or the later English definition, especially in a military context where it was synonymous with any soldier who wasn't a permenant member of a household retinue. English "Yeoman Archers" didn't even neccesarily own land, a lot of them existed solely as soldiers and mercenaries.

Plus English armies did include genuine bottom-of-the-barrel scum, the order of battle for Crécy lists 'daggermen' who were basically men who'd been scraped out of England's jails and given a sharp bit of metal and told to sprint forward and shank badly wounded men-at-arms who'd survived the arrow storm that occured whenever you tried to charge archer emplacements.

Goedendag? Best of both Spear and Mace?

>best weapons to arms a militia with

Spear and really big shield.

This. The Swiss Pike was a game changer for European warfare because it was cheap to make, easy to mass produce, and required minimal training. Following the Burgundian Wars, heavy cavalry use went into decline and larger groups of pike and archers/musketmen became the norm in European warfare.

This is why you normally have multiple spear/pikemen in a formation, as opposed to letting them fight one on one. It's incredibly easy to hand everyone long pole and tell them to stand in a line.

Billhooks.

Stay away from swords, they're cool but not very practical. Swords were created to fight other sword wielders.

A smallspear and shield combo is a good start, both are pretty intuitive to use, and as said, a mace as an anti-armor weapon.

Most peasants carried a knife as well, so that would probably be good for coherency.

Militia are literally commoners who might practice drills once a week or so. Just a spear, club or axe, light non-standard armor if any's available, and a wooden shield will do. Hunters can bring their bows, but an average commoner wouldn't be a good archer.

The town's guard, assuming it's big enough to have a formal force, might actually have swords and crossbows.

Otherwise it's just militia and whatever private bodyguards richer people can afford.

Simple and cheap to make, and need almost no training to use.

>I don't think so
>what are ghostwriters
Nigga if you can write with even mediocre eloquence you could follow an army and write letters to home on behalf on illiterate soldiers, and they'll pay you for it.

Simple pikes, maybe an axe or a maul or a pitchfork here and there.

Spears and axes.

>what are the best weapons to arms a militia with