Let's talk about flails Veeky Forums as they are criminally underrepresented

They're the only reason I bought that shit and for honor

The only common flail in Europe was the peasant weapon derived from the grain flail. It was thus a foot weapon.

The less common, to the point that until recently it was thought they were fake, was originally a horseman's weapon that came to Europe through the Avars and was later adopted and turned into what we imagine as a modern one handed flail today. Super fucking rare though.

Attempting to wrap a flail about someone was suicide, the flail was a shock weapon used to deliver heavy blows in combination with a shield so that your opponent would eventually be too concussed to continue. At this point, you would truly wind the flail up to crush their helmet and skull had they not yielded. As for going around shields, yes and no.

They experienced some rise and then decline along with the evolution of armor, and once it became popular, the strategy against one was to simply stay aggressive, as without proper time to wind up or prepare, a flail is nearly impossible to use in a panic, compared to a mace. Thusly, the war pick and mace became more popular again, and flails regressed to only having a few links so that they could be used as a mace as well without risking harm to the one wielding it.

It's a fun weapon, but I'd rather take a halberd or longsword in most cases.

I'm curious as to why they're few depictions is always as a "paladin" weapon

Flails are more "the miniboss weapon" than a paladin one

>The only common flail in Europe was the peasant weapon derived from the grain flail. It was thus a foot weapon.

It was also a polearm

Whatever you say, sweetheart. I hope you and your little friends have fun swinging your purses at one another.

Signed
A mace fag that can't get past a shield

It's also one of the rare few weapon where "nat 1 on attack means you hit yourself" actually is realistic and appropriate.

>Chain longer than handle
Yeah OK OP.

Maces were real but not particularly common or effective.
They had to be long enough to not hit yourself with, meaning the actually fail bit had to be short, which made it too short to get around shields, and on top of it being unpredictable and lopsided, it ended up just being a bad-mace which is why they fell out of favor. They were certainly real, but were not used often and were eventually relegated to a thing of a myth and legend to the point they were thought to be fake.
There was a long polearm type weapon, but it's basically just a double jointed club and were made of wood with occasionally metal finishing. And weren't super common either.