Bay 12 Games Forum

Just saying that the larger weapons were either decorative or had alternative uses than being given to the average footslogged. But i will take your word for it for the zweihander.

Touche. Right. Im going to stop nit picking now.

Arrows weren't as effective against armor as you seem to think. At Agincourt the French made it all the way to the English lines under a hail of arrows. What killed them was the combination of mud and their heavy armor and the fact that arrows bouncing off their armor was actually really quite painful and fatiguing (I guess it was like being punched?). Yes, the English archers beat the French knights at Agincourt. But they did it with hatchets, swords, spears, and knives, not with arrows.

Similarly steel plate would deflect crossbow bolts, and the closer you got the more likely you were to get wounded, but not

Quote from: Wannazzaki on October 11, 2011, 01:37:37 pm

one shot to kill, and even less of a shot to wound, maim and cripple

. Considering that mail over a gambeson will protect you from arrows and bolts some of the time, steel plate would be even more protective.

The longbow and the crossbow didn't end the knight because it could defeat armor without a problem, it ended the knight because horses and plate armor were expensive, while longbows and crossbows were way cheaper.

Crossbow bolts were high velocity spikes which would puncture platemail, by the nature of the weapon and the shape of the bolt the sheer force behind the weapon was much greater. Crossbows mechanical crank vs hand drawn. I think people underestimate quite how scary a crossbow is. The drawback of course is a rate of fire at around 2 per minute. Meaning missing more than once could be the difference between life and sword through face.

tileset is ironhands, using TomiTapio's version of genesis.

There we go

Im not sure if thats helpful...it screenshotted without the damn yellow X -.-

The biggest weapons were often ceremonial or for hoseback. The flamberge was ceremonial, the hugemongous man sized katana (Dikatana? i forget) was for human face horse back polo. Though think about it in fantasy. Average human stats is 10. A barbarian at start often has 18 strength. In earlier editions 20 was demigod status.

Point is fantasy isn't as bad as you think, just player characters and antagonists are all abnormal god-blooded freaks.

Wellllll, only in so far as a lethal weapon can be hoity toity stylistic ponce pieces, sure. One peasant with one crossbow would not be all too much threat versus a knight, however. Now, a pro with a pro crossbow is a slightly different matter. If he can keep his cool.

In Britain all of the warring kings agreed to ban the crossbow because the bolt would punch through the armour like it was tinfoil. I assure you, ballistic weapons were the end of the knight. (Even the broadhead arrow would can-opener it's way through some good plate).

Think about it. Training and armouring a knight was ludicriously expensive. Give a few plebs a crossbow and show them how to aim and all it takes is one shot to kill, and even less of a shot to wound, maim and cripple. What about if his horse goes down? Try moving fast in plate vs some peasants in cloth. You are a sitting duck.