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Sword Bonus (Audio)

🕑 Added 2023-07-11 14:04:19 +0000 UTC

Comments

Zagreuses-toast

"A sword is an ugly peice of metal and it's adherents idiots" - Meti's sword manual, Mastering the sword, 5.

Dr. M.R. Geldof

[dropping into the comments from a very late delivery van marked 'free candy'] Apparently the thrusts are better than slashes is partly the fault of people reading Vegetius (4th c. late-Roman) and taking it as gospel. This was further adapted by later promoters of the post-military personal arms like the rapier etc. which, obviously, weren't that great for cutting / slashing. The issue really is one of context for weapon and likely target. Thrusts, delivered to the right places, are, in the long run, more likely to kill than a slash but work best in unarmored targets. Cuts, by contrast, can disable even if they don't kill and, if interrupted by armor, can still injure, stun, or incapacitate. You would be surprised at the kinds of thrust / penetrating injuries one can survive, and survive without immediate impairment. A cut muscle group or tendon, won't kill you but it will make it hard to defend against the next blow, or attack on your own. So, context again.

Noblesse Oblahaj

As someone that has read an entire book about swords and the merits of the slash versus the thrust, I would have liked a little bit more about that. Apparently there were some cavalry that would use their thrust-style swords as a worse lance. The problem with this, as one British cavalry noble would lament, is that if the sword made contact and stuck. If you had the sword secured to your wrist, as many horsemen did, it would shatter your wrist and wrench you off your horse because physics are a mother