What kind of polearms would a mounted military devoted to stopping zombies use?

I'm trying to build an army for the PCs to join as a part of my campaign, and they're centered around fighting undead from horseback, but on foot if necessary and when defending. I'm trying to figure out what kinds of weapons would be useful for them.

The military is running low on funds, so crafting swords for everyone is out, and they'd want to lose as few weapons as possible. They have access to plenty of wood, and steel to a slightly lesser degree.

I'm not sure what kind of hafted weapon would work best against ground forces. I don't want something that would stick in rotting flesh and get wrenched out of the hand (or pull the rider from their saddle into the horde), so I was thinking something like a boar spear. But you don't really want to catch all that weight on you while riding a horse, and chopping is better than stabbing when you're on foot (right?). I was thinking one of the poleaxes with a longer spike and a thinner chopping blade.

Any suggestions?

It's 5e D&D if that helps any, so the zombies aren't necessarily destroyed by a blow to the head so much as overcoming their magical reanimation.

Things to catch and impale them like boar spears and spetums. Then things to cut them down while their being held like axes and maces.

>spetums
Blading the outside of the upward curves on some of the bigger ones could give me just what I need, thanks.

If you know anything about 5e (which you might not, it's fine), would a 1d6/1d8 versatile and reach weapon be too much?

I should go ask that in /5eg/.

for ground fighting, a goedendag would be cheap and easy to make.

for your cavalry, a horseman's pick wouldn't get caught and could also be used on foot. A basic leaf bladed spear would be useful if you don't want to get too close, just make sure their arm has a bit of armor in case they miss

Not quite what I was going for, but certainly food for thought. The horseman's pick is a pretty badass idea---I really did always love the image of a horseman smashing a zombie's head as they rode past, bone and gore spattering with the swing.

Goedendag is a bit close-range when you're fighting a horde, you know of any polearms that'd work equally well on foot and mounted? Or should I have my men joust and march with polearms, and swap to the warpick and shield when things inevitably break down?

It really depends on if your zombies are Rage virus or Romero

Romero for the most part. Slow, stupid, easily lured around, but stronger than men and with massive numbers.

They don't require headshot kills which makes it easier, but they're still durable as all hell.

Contrary to what you ask for, I want to inspire you to find your own solution.
See, the thing about zombies is that they heavily rely on magic. That's either movie magic or something specific for the setting e.g. necromancy, which gives them a connection to negative energy in 5e (afair). The setting dictates what kind of weaponry is effective against them.

Aside from that, you could instead equip some kind of polearm weapon to your riders that matches the actual availability of resources and knowledge. Are the riders aware of what is most effective against the zombies? Are there enough craftsmen who can make the weapons?

Aside from that, I myself would not fight zombies on horseback.

Run circles around them pouring oil, set them on fire. Horde taken care of

Two dudes with forks, one dude with a hammer.

Forks hold the zombie in place, the hammer smashes the head.

no polearm is made for use on horseback aside from lances and simple spears.

If you want to limit the amount of gear needed per soldier, it would be best to differentiate infantry and cavalry loadouts. Infantry gets tower shields and maces, along with carrying entrenching tools for building camps. Cavalry gets sabers/picks and crossbows

Spears wouldn't be as good as a shield wall against zombies, as there's no fear that keeps the zombies from walking into the points.

>Contrary to what you ask for, I want to inspire you to find your own solution.
Me too, but I'm a bit of a loss. Right now I've got ideas for a billhook-hammer combo, but that doesn't really work too hot as a polearm IMHO. This has been a larger project for a year+ now, trying to really get into the details.
>See, the thing about zombies is that they heavily rely on magic
They're mass-animated by a necromancer who's making an army. Really, the only way to take a zombie is through repeated, heavily-applied force. Eventually you'll land a lucky shot and they'll go down, or enough massive damage will destroy the body outright.
>Run circles around them pouring oil, set them on fire. Horde taken care of
Run circles around them pouring oil, set them on fire. Horde taken care of
That could work, but they don't want to destroy the land they're supposed to be protecting. Still a great last-ditch effort, though.
Too many of them for that. 3 men to a zombie, faced with a couple million zombies in the nation? Not enough troops. I wish it'd work though.
>no polearm is made for use on horseback aside from lances and simple spears
Well I learned something today.
>If you want to limit the amount of gear needed per soldier, it would be best to differentiate infantry and cavalry loadouts
That's a good idea. I was leaning toward that anyhow.
>Infantry gets tower shields and maces, along with carrying entrenching tools for building camps
Would a tower shield really work well against the pressing horde? I feel like they'd be able to overcome the men relatively easily, as they're stronger and more numerous. I like
>Cavalry gets sabers/picks and crossbows
though, didn't think about crossbows at all.
>Spears wouldn't be as good as a shield wall against zombies, as there's no fear that keeps the zombies from walking into the points. (Cont)

Max Brooks has claimed that the ideal melee weapon against zombies is the Shaolin spade. It seems like beheading someone from range is a lot harder than he thinks, though. I'd go with something that can punch a hole in a skull like a bec-de-corbin or Lucerne hammer.

Arrows smeared with animal fat and gristle. An arrow won't kill a zombie but the horde would likely tear apart any zombie that happened to get hit by such an arrow. Likely they'd injure themselves pretty badly in the ensuing dogpile and any injured zombies would just be left behind by the horde making them easy prey.

Fire a few volleys into the middle of the horde each day to keep them around and move in once they move on to clean up any zombies left behind. Continue until you think you can face them head on

Whatever magic keeps zombies from turning on each other, it's surely too strong to be defeated by a little bit of non-undead tissue (which many zombies are covered in from feeding anyway) from an animal (which zombies usually ignore anyway.)

Nets
Fire

Max Brooks is not a martial artist or scholar, as you can tell form the fact that he suggests using an exhibition novelty weapon here instead of, you know, something people fought with the any major degree.

>Poleaxe
>Pole Axe
It's Pollaxe and it's etymologically unrelated to the word 'pole'

Dang. Makes sense though

tower shields would be the best, but only because the other choices are shit. Pike blocks don't have the stopping power against zombies that they have against humans, as there's nothing to stop them from walking down the haft.

With a shield wall, the people behind the front line can push on the front line so they hold position. Even in modern riot tactics use this, along with people to pull rioters behind the line to handcuff/beat.

Don't discount traps either, zombies are great targets for them. Anything that'll cripple their legs reduces the people the infantry have to fight. A ditch filled with spikes won't stop a horde, but it'll stop small groups. Czech hedgehogs are great, as they're extremely hard to push over.

Honestly, you're probably looking at some sort of mass skirmishing army with lots of bows and javelins; assuming the zombies are the classic mode with large numbers, tough to kill, but slow and have poor grasp of a changing battlefield situation.

Javelins with ropes attached to them, with hooks at the end of the ropes. Toss them into the horde from a distance and watch them tangle and tear themselves into a pile that can be set on fire.

>Too many of them for that. 3 men to a zombie, faced with a couple million zombies in the nation? Not enough troops. I wish it'd work though.

It's what fortifications are for.

We're talking about zombies here, walls and barbed wire are super-effectiv means of controlling their movement.

Max Brooks is a faggot who knows almost as little about melee weapons as he does about guns, and he knows jack shit about guns.

It's less about intimidation (which of course doesn't work on the undead) and more preventing yourself from getting grabbed, dragged in, and swarmed. If you can chop at it from a distance, why engage up close with a mace?
Oops.

Woops, my mistake. Today I learned.
Again, burning down the areas that they're defending, bad idea. But nets are a solid idea, they'd trap zombies until they can be properly disposed of. I like it.
>tower shields would be the best, but only because the other choices are shit. Pike blocks don't have the stopping power against zombies that they have against humans, as there's nothing to stop them from walking down the haft.
>With a shield wall, the people behind the front line can push on the front line so they hold position. Even in modern riot tactics use this, along with people to pull rioters behind the line to handcuff/beat.
Shit, that riot police analogy is brilliant. I was thinking of the boar spear build to prevent zombies from walking up the haft, but if they do get close, locking shields and pushing would be perfect. Combine that with attacks from behind the shield line and that could work great.

And traps would make it even better for the humans.
Good idea.
Also a very good idea.
Yup, there are lots of fortifications around, which I was I was asking about polearms rather than more mobile options. But having spear/polearm & tower shield cavalry accompanied with rope-bow and fire infantry sounds like it'll work much better.

>people suggesting bolts and arrow
You seem to not know how difficult it actually is to kill someone with that. Blotting out the sun with arrows on zombies will only result in walking pincushions moving towards you.

Polearms out the wazoo. If everything fails, use the good ol' macedonian phalanx. Just add someone here and there to check that crawlers don't move below the spike line.

Yeah good old Maxie is a grade-A retard about guns. There's a reason his book is filed in the "humor" section.
>well, you see, M16A1 was kinda sucky and jammed a lot
>absolutely no improvements were made to it since then
>AK-47 is a better choice even though the ammo is heavier
>handguns are shit and pistol caliber carbines don't exist
>.22 totally bounces around inside a skull and shreds the brain, some old fudds told me that so it's true
>use a .45 handgun for your house cause of muh 45 stoppin powah
>assault rifles are shit cause they jam, and also have the possibility of automatic fire which wastes precious ammunition
>so you should use a shittier gun that risks killing you because at least if you die they can save the ammo

That was my thought as well (OP here) but I think the discussion about keeping the zombies farther away than arms' length is a good idea too.

It warrants some thought, that's for certain.

A friend of mine pointed out that having two horsemen with a rope between them could seriously mess up some zombie legs.

it's more likely that the horsemen would get pulled out of their saddles or drop the rope

Depends on the length of the rope, saddle horns would help, and even if they couldn’t hold the rope brought to the other end a bunch of zombies with broken legs would hamper the mobility of a horde.

Would chariots be effective?

Personally, a good old shovel would work better then that thing.

You mean an axe attached to a pole didn´t got named poleaxe, for that reason, but pollaxe because of course?

only if they circled the horde and drew groups away to be slaughtered. Driving straight into the horde would be suicide

bec de corbin

Cavalry facing zombies? Crossbows are your best bet imo.

You can get really close to the zombies to make the kill shots, scoot without much worry and reload.

This is mainly for smaller groups and thinning bigger hordes for the infantry engagement.

Crossbow bolts can be made dirt cheap unlike arrows that need proper fletching.

Forgot pic.

See You use the horse to get close enough you won't miss, scoot and shoot my man.

I thought you had to get off the horse to reload, then get back on the horse. It's tiring.
Regular hit and run Mongolian horse archer stuff would do wonders.

it depends on the type of crossbow. You don't need a super heavy one, as you're not trying to pierce plate.

This and I imagine you could make a stirrup reload work on horseback too.

>Crossbows
Cannons firing chain-shot and ditches filled with pine resin are your best bet. Small arms in general would not be the most optimal solution versus enemies that ignore light injuries.

I wasn't actually implying that mounted crossbowmen should be the ones to take out big hordes but rather smaller groups and the big ones could be led by said horsemen to prepared spots where cannons or infantry have been assembled.

>Mounted crossbowmen are the first responders

a goat's foot lever could be used on horseback

Are there any firearms in this setting? Even matchlock arquebuses would be supremely effective against zombies, those big-ass musket balls can impart quite a bit of damage, sometimes penetrate multiple zombies, and the hydrostatic shock they cause would be good at dealing damage around the body.

If there are arquebuses, then you can also have cannons; any cannon with chain/grapeshot (or just the good old roundshot for carving through hordes like a bowling pin) will fuck up zombies badly.

Past that, what else would work? Explosives could deal shock to organs and bodily structure, and being dismembered by a blast always works. Primitive grenades (like those carried by grenadiers before they turned into just elite musketeers come the 18/19th century) thrown in volleys might be effective.

As for melee weapons, pikes are always useful at dealing with huge hordes. Mix some swordsmen in (or spearmen) to deal with zombies squeezing through the pike wall.

TL;DR: Pike and shot > zombies.

No gunpowder, sorry. I'm that autist who can't stand gunpowder in his fantasy.
All great points. Especially the cost of bolts and thinning the horde for infantry combat. In terms of mechanics, the units will only get 1 attack anyway, so the biggest reason crossbows are ignored won't matter too much.

So here's what I'm thinking, all:
Cavalry unit:
>Horse
>Light or medium armor
>Light or hand crossbow
>Round shield and war pick

Infantryman
>medium or heavy armor
>tower shield
>boar spear + chopping polearm
>fortifications and traps along with it

Now just for the cool decorative shit like trophies taken from corpses and mounted lanterns for visibility because the zombies can sense them anyway, thanks anons.

Oh, actually, not done. What about medics?

Shield walls sound great, but it depends on the amount of zombies & how strong they are. If you're talking superhuman strength undead monsters they'll just punch through the shields.

Honestly, any organized force > zombies. Especially if you're in a fantasy setting with mages, enchanted weapons, etc.

The basic 'use a .22 bolt action because it's less likely to jam, the ammo is lighter, & the weapons are quieter' makes some sense, but the rest is kind of dumb

Especially how (iirc) weapons like the AR15 are both exceedingly common in the US and quite often incapable of automatic fire.

Something with a crossbar. Zombies are like werewolves, you think spears are ideal until you realize it doesn't care about being impaled and can just pull itself up the haft.

Zombies have 13 strength in 5e, and I was considering the troops here to have the same or slightly higher. The zombies also have no technique, while the soldiers do.
>Something with a crossbar
Way ahead of you there, but it's good advice that warrants repeating.

You don't actually need cannons for chain-shot to work. You could also use a ballista that fires two bolts at once.

Brutal. I like it.

Or have a shield wall with this combo behind. Opening the shield wall to hook through with these behind to finish. Also zweihanders as a skirmish screen and to clear any collapses in the shield wall so it can be plugged.

>no polearm is made for use on horseback aside from lances and simple spears
but that's wrong

There were plenty polearms used from horseback

...

I don't belive it. Just because hidtorians couldn't find evidence that rhey are related doesn't mean they necessarily aren't.

K I L L D O Z E R

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what landscape is this? if it's steppe or grassland, crossbows and bows are the way to go.
if it's your typical medieval landscape, some fields, forests, etc, make fortifications in the fields. make lots of ditches and spikes. zombies will fall in those, have legs broken, etc. have lots of men in the foritifcation, the lines of men at the front have massive tower shields and axes, falchions, maces, anything with a lot of stopping power. the guys behind have crossbows and bows. you could even have greek fire, or guys with pots of oil to burn the zombies.


keep in mind horsemen are only really good in an area with lots of grassland, in a forest they're slowed down a lot

It's a pretty typical medieval landscape. Formerly pretty developed, so it was mostly fields, but at this point the pine forest is overtaking pretty hard.
Abandoned fortifications all over the place are a cool idea though. Definitely keep that in mind.

I can handwave the weaknesses of horses in woodlands easily enough (especially because the biggest concentration of zombies is a flat plain), but thank you!