Poll: Choose your weapon!

[Abedeus]

I'd go for ranged. Reason? The English won pretty much every war that they were in, and managed to win most battles even when massively outnumbered (see Agincourt) simply because our young male children were trained, by law, to use a longbow from childhood. It was a legal requirement that every male above a certain age had to practise at the archery butts with a longbow (size increasing as they got older) for a certain amount of time per week. The result? Almost every English soldier was deadly with the bow and could wipe out masses of enemy troops with a few quick volleys, which is one of the ways we managed to win at Agincourt. If you had a crossbow as well for close quarters or indoor fighting, you were pretty much guaranteed to be on the winning side.

So yeah, ranged weaponry for me.

Weird, Agrincourt. I've learned about it as "Azincourt", but whatever.

England won because they had archers, yes. But France lost, because they had crossbows instead of normal bows. While they had 100m range advantage over the archers, the English could fire 5 arrows in the same time a French archer would fire 1 bolt.

The English didn't use crossbows.

 

[ShrooM_DoughKiD]

My weapon of choice; Epic Type; Warhammer.

Reason: I can probably kill most enemies with a single blow, or if all else fails, just crumple their armor to their body so they can never get out of it.

 

[Frungy]

Nice oaken quarterstaff. Versitile, easy to wield, and I won't get exhausted in the first 10 minutes of battle like all the morons carrying heavier weapons. Remember that in any metal weapon was mostly pig iron, which is heavy as hell. The more iron, the heavier the weapon, and medieval battles weren't afternoon tea affairs, you were there for the whole bloody day.

Also I prefer the quarterstaff since it's a nice balance between offensive and defensive, and since my personal objective for the day (and bugger my Lord's objectives) is to stay alive I'd like something that keeps me breathing. As for arrows and shields... *sigh* even a medieval longbow shot would go straight through the wooden shield you'd be carrying, so there's no real defense against arrow fire. All you have to do is find someone in a red shirt and stand next to them and hope they attract all the arrows.

Oh... and as for clothing, no red shirts and definitely brown pants.

 

[Trivun]

I'd go for ranged. Reason? The English won pretty much every war that they were in, and managed to win most battles even when massively outnumbered (see Agincourt) simply because our young male children were trained, by law, to use a longbow from childhood. It was a legal requirement that every male above a certain age had to practise at the archery butts with a longbow (size increasing as they got older) for a certain amount of time per week. The result? Almost every English soldier was deadly with the bow and could wipe out masses of enemy troops with a few quick volleys, which is one of the ways we managed to win at Agincourt. If you had a crossbow as well for close quarters or indoor fighting, you were pretty much guaranteed to be on the winning side.

So yeah, ranged weaponry for me.

Weird, Agrincourt. I've learned about it as "Azincourt", but whatever.

England won because they had archers, yes. But France lost, because they had crossbows instead of normal bows. While they had 100m range advantage over the archers, the English could fire 5 arrows in the same time a French archer would fire 1 bolt.

The English didn't use crossbows.

Agincourt is the Anglicised way of saying it. I've always known it as that, anyway. And the French were idiots anyway to use crossbows on an open battlefield. Crossbows are specifically designed to be used in close quarters, they were most commonly used for skirmishes and indoors, for example, when besieging a castle. Soldiers that managed to get inside would be able to score a quick and easy kill from a distance with a crossbow, without having to close in on the enemy, since longbows were much too large for indoor use. On an open battlefield though, crossbows were almost useless unless your opponents were completely devoid of ranged weaponry, since they'd be able to fire while you were still reloading, or even worse, close the gap with their infantry. So if the French were using crossbows at Agincourt then they deserved to lose...

 

[Bobbovski]

A crossbow. It's powerful and relatively easy to use.

 

[Arcticflame]

Simple. If I go into battle in medievil times as a swordsman, or any standard foot soldier bar ranged, I will get crushed by the much stronger, better drilled, better trained soldiers I would go against. My only chance of survival would be to stand back and hope we win the battle. The only way to do so would be to be a ranged dude. So basically crossbow, bow and arrow, anything that stands at the back out of the way.

 

[Kinguendo]

Ok, here's the deal;

1. You're stuck in medieval times.
2. You're conscripted by the lord of the land into his army.
3. You are going into battle soon against enemies you don't know anything about.
4. You'll be killed for desertion.
5. You're allowed to choose a standard medieval weapon you wish to take into battle. Nothing rare or fancy, just from the basics, swords, shields, pole arms, bows, etc.
6. You can just take one weapon (plus a shield if you like).

What weapon do you take and why?

Me? I want a nice long Halberd. That way I can stick it to people from beyond sword range, while still getting my armor covered in blood.

Look up "Fantasy Gun Control" on TV Tropes. The term "Bulletproof" actually comes from Medieval times: Guns existed for a very long time before Knights and swords went out of fashion. The term "Bulletproof Armor" was actually used to refer to Knight Armor that could take a bullet.

I choose gun. Especially since no matter which of those weapons I choose I am screwed if a rich nobleman in bulletproof plate armor decides to kill me.

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/FantasyGunControl

Guns and Knights coexisted in Europe for 300 years. The first guns- tubes with gunpowder that shot projectiles-existed as early as 1200 AD.

Oh, and for the record, conscripts don't get armor. Rich, arrogant, bastard noblemen do. Only the rich get to run around in plate armor. There was no real "Honor" or "Nobility" in those fights. A bunch of invincable rich dudes carved up poor people who had no way of defending themsevles, until they got tired of carving them up and decided kill each other. It was ridiculously one-sided in favor of the rich. A wild west gun battle had more honor and fairplay to it, since everybody was equally vulnerable.

Should go with ancient China. Same weapons, much more honour... much more crazy fighting and tactics... apparently.

 

[Wintermoot]

a pointy stick and stab them while they are laughing

 

[camokkid]

I am very partial to the war-hammer.

 

[Super Toast]

Polearm. I'm afraid that if I got close I'd be deader than disco.

 

[TheSeventhLoneWolf]

Any light, one handed sword. I'm generally skilled with those. I'll be killed by arrows or spears pretty quickly though.

I'd go for a Katana or Dai-Katana to be honest. But that's probably out of the question.

 

[xHipaboo420x]

A sharp sword and a nice, big shield. The utter protection should compensate for the fact that I'd essentially be just swinging wildly with the sword.

I'd be ok as long as there were no bosses on the first level.

 

[Eleima]

If I *had* to pick (since running away doesn't seem to be option, don't want to get killed for desertion!), I guess I'd go with some type of ranged weapon (bow or crossbow). At least you can try to stay away from the main area of the fray with ranged weapon.

 

[CheesusCrust]

Ranged or Long polearm

I'm scared of getting cut and want the sharp, pointy things as far away from my body as possible

 

[maninahat]

I've no real experience with any of them, So I'll just picj the lightest bit of kit (I'll be able to run away quicker if everything goes to pot). In that case, I'd take a bow. I'd like to be a cavalry archer if possible.

 

[TheGreatDirectorWatanbe]

Classic Sword and Shield, people forget that a shield can be used as a weapon too.

 

[Not-here-anymore]

A bow. Because it gives me a nice long safety range, I can run away if needs be whilst 'my lord' is being cut into small pieces, and because I'm pretty good with one IRL.

 

[Unit420]

I'd use stories and wisdom to avoid combat or to make others do the combat for me.

"Greetings. Stay a while and listen."

 

[joschen]

Well, even thou a claymore would be totally badass, i think its a bit unpractical. I think longsword and some kind of shield is the way to go, if not longbow.

Not to forget thou, that longbow requires much training and long term usage may cause lower arm bone deformation.