Re: CWT Draft: Military Use Weapons

["dbarrass_2000" <david.barrass@ed.ac.uk>]

--- In dq-rules@yahoogroups.com, "redroop1964" <rupert.carus@b...> wrote:
> Dear All
> 
> A this is my first message to this group; hello one and all.

Hi, welcome 

> I have not played DQ for years properly; the most recent time was 
> with my eight year old daughter about three months ago. It was great 
> fun but very time consuming.

There's a few of us in this possition, odly my daughter is also 8 and
I DQed with her for the first time earlier this year

> So, as a non-DQ playing member of the group feel free to tell me to 
> get lost if you feel that what I have to say is not relevant to game 
> play.

This is a very freindly group so noone is going to tell you anything rude

> I have no time to play DQ but I am trained in Medieval Martial Arts, 
> this includes unarmed, small sword, longsword, pole arms and lance.

Your experience is very welcome, most of mine is from watching
re-enactments and hitting my 11 year old son with foam swords (I
should point out that he hits back and enjoys it before anyone reports me)

> I do not have a horse and so will probably not ever use a lance in 
> either training or bouts, but the rest I have various degrees of 
> familiarity with.
> 
> Re: Pole arms. Most pole arm training is very similar. For example 
> the quarterstaff and pole-axe both have the same 'cuts', 'blocks' 
> and 'guards'. It is just that the pole-axe was designed for use 
> against an armoured opponent. The billhook was very similar but with 
> the additional benefit of the hook obviously, which was used to 
> unbalance and trip, remove items of armour etc. 

So thats being able to use a pole arm as a quaterstaff with no extra
EP cost then

> The most 
> important 'cut' for all these weapons was the thrust, especially for 
> the quarterstaff. A cut from a quarterstaff is relatively easy to 
> deflect whilst a thrust is much more difficult. A blow from an 
> oblique 'cut' has a good chance of giving a glancing blow whereas a 
> good thrust from a quarterstaff will crack ribs and puncture lungs.

Facinating, is this a general feature of all weapons, is a thrust from
a sword harder to deflect than a cut? Is it worth implementing into
DQ, or would it make things over complicated?  Can we think of ways to
do this simply?

> A friend of mine was run into with a pole-axe whilst wearing 3mm 
> steel armour (during a re-enactment) which very nearly penetrated 
> the armour. Probably the most important factors in the use of 
> offensive and defensive battlefield weapons were how cheap they were 
> to produce (swords being hellishly expensive even today), and how 
> far they allowed your opponent to come. It is probable that the main 
> reason why a dismounted man-at-arms was so vulnerable to being cut 
> to pieces once knocked off his horse was that they were then 
> resorting to using their secondary weapon, the sword. 


> Re:Blocking (with pole arms). Blocking is a very alien notion to a 
> martial artist, at least a western one. You would never put your 
> weapon in the path of a cut, but the side of your weapon to deflect 
> the blow whilst simultaneously presenting an attack of your own. 
> Some weapons, the very big double handed swords, where specifically 
> designed to cut through pike hafts, but these were very impractical 
> once the melee developed.

Ok so its more of a deflection than block?  If so this seems like a
good arguement for adding weapon ranks to the defence, (ie its
something that adds to your defence but does not interrupt your own
attack as an evade would)

> Re: The pike. The effectiveness of the pike lies in the training and 
> cohesion of the unit armed with this weapon. These units were used 
> as heavy infantry, although were often lightly armoured. They did 
> indeed defend well against cavalry, but then so did all pole arm 
> wielding foot units. Units of pike were also devastating when used 
> against infantry. Unless you can break the line of pikes there is 
> not much you can do to break the unit. There are a number of 
> historical battles (I am sorry I can't remember which - will have to 
> go back to my books) in which poorly trained pike units where wiped 
> of the face of the battlefield because once the wall of pikes if 
> broken the weapon is practically useless. As the use of small arms 
> developed so the pike got longer, reaching its longest length in 
> order to defend itself from contemporary cavalry armed with light 
> side arms, the pike kept the cavalry at the weapons maximum 
> effective range! Whilst the pikeman was standing with lead bouncing 
> off him the musqueteers where taking pot shots. I'd rather be an 
> infantry man any day of the week.
> 
> I will only go so far as to make one suggestion as to how these 
> observations might be incorporated into rules but would be willing 
> to ask others in my martial arms group and other groups for their 
> opinions as to how to codify this if you all felt it might be 
> worthwhile. My suggestion is to restrict the pike and lance to 
> battlefield situations because their use outside massed combat 
> renders their wielders practically undefended.

Thanks for your contribution, I look forward to your future posts

David