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KNIGHT!

42 (49.4%)

SAMURAI!

7 (8.2%)

BOTH SUCK!

15 (17.6%)

NEUTRAL!

4 (4.7%)

I DON'T CARE!

17 (20%)

Total Members Voted: 81

[LuckyKobold]

Well Bay12 I've been internally debating for quite the while and I want to your collective opinion who is superior The Knight Or The Samurai?

[Bauglir]

Gonna need some context on this one.

[Baffler]

Obligatory:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

[Darvi]

The answer is Jedi.

[Empiricist]

Uh, what time periods are we assuming? As in, back when each were effectively just soldiers and mercenaries? Or during times of relative peace where they were given codes of honor as a leash of sorts and gained a whole load of privileges unrelated to their murder capabilities?

My gut feeling is that a knight would win on even grounds since their plate armor is more protective and they had misericordes for grappling combat. I mean, their actual usage of swords aren't that different and it's probably going to just devolve into a grapple anyway.

Though really, the real winner will probably be dysentery and poor hygiene standards.

[Frumple]

Gonna need some context on this one.

Yeah, context is kinda' needed. That said, without context, both, being symbols of social oppression and brutality, objectively suck. They represent fairly terrible times, nearly unilaterally terrible people, and pointedly obsolete military ideology. Their sole saving grace was the occasionally aesthetically pleasing armament, for what little difference it makes.

[TamerVirus]

Dammit Frumple

What about the glorious folded metal and the chivalry and the horses and the feudalism???

[Bohandas]

I think I heard that the samurais' methods were more advanced. On their other hand however the stupid idealistic code followed by samurai was even stupider than the stupid idealistic code followed by chivalric knights.

[Orange Wizard]

Gonna have to go with the guy in armour for this one, honestly. Ye Olde Katanae weren't too good at chopping through steel plate IIRC.

[Bohandas]

Gonna have to go with the guy in armour for this one, honestly. Ye Olde Katanae weren't too good at chopping through steel plate IIRC.

The Samurai wore armor too, they just gravitated away from brigandine plate.

[Ogdibus]

They would probably end up grappling if neither gets an early lucky hit in.  Knights in plate learn to grapple with their swords and pole arms.  A katana is far better for penetrating armor than any knightly cruciform sword, but not so good that it's practical to cut plate.  Samurai also used pole arms.  The knight's sword is better for grappling, because you can actually hold the blade, but plate armor gets really hot, and doesn't let you cool by sweating, which can result in heat injuries.

The question isn't necessarily pitting them against each other, though.  I have no idea which one was statistically better at their job.  I think the samurai came out of it with a better reputation, though.

Clearly the samurai is best on account of smelling slightly better after a battle or march.   An armored knight is like a one man locker room.

[mainiac]

It's not even a contest.  Samurai is super duper hyped.  Knights didn't live up to the hype either but they were competent.

Japan had crappy steel, little coal and poor horses.  Japan was an insular culture where samurai didn't need to fight a variety of foes.  People also tend to massively underestimate the variety of warriors that were labeled knights.  Almost every fighting style that was fought in Europe from the late roman empire until muskets was used by knights at some point or other.

So generally speaking, knights hands down.  They actually knew how to fight, they knew how to adapt and they were much, much, much better equipped.  I'm pretty sure that a knight with a bastard sword could bisect a samurai in full lacquer armor with a simple horizontal slash.

And there's the troublesome fact that the height of the samurai came after knights had finally disappeared from European battlefields.  The contemporary of the pop culture samurai would be a Cuirassier armed with a pistol among other things and capable of killing a samurai 99.9% of the time using Caracole tactics.

[WillowLuman]

2 warriors with highly similar tactics and armaments, but one is better armored. I'd give it to the knight. One does not simply slice through plate armor. You need a sharp, sturdy, rigid point with a good deal of mass behind it. One does not easily slice through wooden armor either, but one can do it.

[Il Palazzo]

Gonna need some context on this one.

Yeah, context is kinda' needed. That said, without context, both, being symbols of social oppression and brutality, objectively suck. They represent fairly terrible times, nearly unilaterally terrible people, and pointedly obsolete military ideology. Their sole saving grace was the occasionally aesthetically pleasing armament, for what little difference it makes.

I love you man.

[Ogdibus]

It's not even a contest.  Samurai is super duper hyped.  Knights didn't live up to the hype either but they were competent.

Japan had crappy steel, little coal and poor horses.  Japan was an insular culture where samurai didn't need to fight a variety of foes.  People also tend to massively underestimate the variety of warriors that were labeled knights.  Almost every fighting style that was fought in Europe from the late roman empire until muskets was used by knights at some point or other.

So generally speaking, knights hands down.  They actually knew how to fight, they knew how to adapt and they were much, much, much better equipped.  I'm pretty sure that a knight with a bastard sword could bisect a samurai in full lacquer armor with a simple horizontal slash.

And there's the troublesome fact that the height of the samurai came after knights had finally disappeared from European battlefields.  The contemporary of the pop culture samurai would be a Cuirassier armed with a pistol among other things and capable of killing a samurai 99.9% of the time using Caracole tactics.

The steel was good.  The iron ore was bad.  There is a huge difference.

A knight wouldn't try to cut a samurai in half because knights are trained well enough to know that it would be a stupid tactic that telegraphs itself and creates a huge opening.  Likewise, while a katana can stab through plate, it be obvious to the samurai that any attempt to do so would be easy to avoid, and create a huge opening.

Gonna need some context on this one.

Yeah, context is kinda' needed. That said, without context, both, being symbols of social oppression and brutality, objectively suck. They represent fairly terrible times, nearly unilaterally terrible people, and pointedly obsolete military ideology. Their sole saving grace was the occasionally aesthetically pleasing armament, for what little difference it makes.

I love you man.

I shall now provide a hypothetical scenario:

They are both in a locker room, wearing only jock straps, and armed with wet towels.  Both have self aggrandizing names.  Which one is the "best"?