Speculative axe play model

[Phil the Grips]

http://www.hurstwic.org/history/article ... m#extended

[WorkMonkey]

Not much use doing all the fancy work when you aint got a shield in a line fight, some pesky b**ger with a hand full of javelins will finish you off. In a one on one surely you'd just go for the legs to put him on the ground as quick as possible.

[Phil the Grips]

Once again we get the "Why would you learn calligraphy when we can just use text speak?" argument

You learn the overall model and adapt it to circumstance- this is not for th shieldwall but the techniques and concepts are applicable for all circumstances. Nothing fancy about this at all- I would consider it very basic stuff.

Going for the legs, other than maybe a cheeky stab to foot in a shieldwall if you can do it, is rarely a clever idea- it gets you hit on the head very often- another consistent concept in western combat that persists.

As the title says its speculative, but based on models of combat that are consistent in the main for hundreds of years.

[WorkMonkey]

If you're going into the shield wall with naught but a two handed axe, which they did if we believe the bayeux tapestry then you're going to get in the head no matter what you do.

Snatch squad tactics working with more stable infantry men to bring down horses or disrupt enemy formations would seem likely to me, if you're caught in a sticky situation then use, you'd use it practically rather than swinging it round like a mad man. Would like to see it in video format.

[Phil the Grips]

Indeed- but this is for one-on-one play, and this stuff is practical and the very antithesis of "swinging it round like a madman".

[Hraefn]

What you really want is just as you're having fun sparring some eejit tapping you on the back with a scram' shouting DEAD DEAD DEAD, works just as well on one to one combats as it does on shield walls and will make said scram' waver LOADs of new mates.

[Phil the Grips]

Ah yes- that's the bit they left out of the sagas and "The Battle of Maldon"

[zauberdachs]

Oh, if anyone was trying anything like this I'd just step in and have them.

[dbob.culley]

but surely a mad man with a two handed a xe will slauighter anyone within 2 foot of them? lol

[WorkMonkey]

Only if he can hit them. Spears are generally longer than a dane axe meaning you've got less range, and since you've got no shield, less protection.

[Medicus Matt]

The two handed axe relies on it's terror value as much as it does being a practical weapon.

A line of men swinging them, hewing through men and horses that charge at them is going to look bloody terrifying but they're not much cop against an organised shield wall that's got a second rank of blokes with 9 foot spears behind them.

And then there's archers....

[WorkMonkey]

Hur hur, I've blocked blunt arrows with a dane axe, but they go so slow through the air you could pick them out the sky. A sharp one on a warbow is going to do a Matt Bunker on you.

[Medicus Matt]

Hur hur, I've blocked blunt arrows with a dane axe, but they go so slow through the air you could pick them out the sky. A sharp one on a warbow is going to do a Matt Bunker on you.

Spindle whorl.

Right, we're going to try this out now. One monkeyboy with dane axe versus half a dozen archers shooting blunts.

[WorkMonkey]

In my defence, it was one archer, at long range.

Many archers would make a hedgehog of this monkey.

[Simon_Diment]

Hur hur, I've blocked blunt arrows with a dane axe, but they go so slow through the air you could pick them out the sky. A sharp one on a warbow is going to do a Matt Bunker on you.

Spindle whorl.

Right, we're going to try this out now. One monkeyboy with dane axe versus half a dozen archers shooting blunts.

I can field the archers for you, if that's any help Matt?

[Medicus Matt]

I can field the archers for you, if that's any help Matt?

More the merrier I think Si. Let's really test that Monkey-ninja foo.