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Spear

2021-10-06T06:55:51Z

2603:8001:3500:CB:903:7DAD:413D:2B28: /* Spears in Warfare after the agricultural revolution */

{{Stub}}
[[image:Yari_spear.jpg|thumb|300px|right|A Yari Spear]]

Behold the most simple yet [[OP]] weapon to have ever been made!

Several million years ago among our primitive ancestors who still walked on all fours, was an ape who figured something out about sticks. A long, solid pointy stick could penetrate the skin of an enemy, a predator, or prey at a distance. This sort of thinking caught on and became common. Eventually these primates worked out how to make sticks pointy by chewing or using tools to carve out a point. Much later they figured out that fire could make the points harder and better at poking through stuff, and eventually that a triangular pointy rock tied to one end was even better than that. This is the origin of one of the oldest and most extensively used weapons in human history: the '''Spear''', the first of the many types of weapons collectively known as [[pole-arm]]s. The spear, having been in use for over 500,000 years, is older than the human species and the only melee weapon [http://www.businessinsider.com/the-most-famous-bayonet-charge-of-modern-conflict-2012-10 still in common use today], and has occasionally been seen being used by chimpanzees (albeit in a far cruder form than any human-made ones). It is therefore an objectively correct statement to say that the spear is one of the most effective and versatile weapons ever devised.

In fantasy settings, spears are often a universal weapon, with all races typically making use of them in some way because of their tactical significance in warfare, relative simplicity of use (compared to other weapons), and ease in manufacturing, compared to other weapons.

== Spears in Warfare after the agricultural revolution ==
[[image:Greek_Hoplites.jpg|thumb|300px|left|A Group of Greek Hoplites demonstrating the phalanx formation.]]
First off, a general fact. Spears are designed to do one thing: poking the enemy to death. They do this very well, but they are pretty poor at other things. If they run at you, or you run at them (or better still, are on a horse running at them) that momentum makes the poking all the more effective. Two-handed spears can be longer, up to 7 meters and like a Pokémon get a new name, '''Pikes.''' One-handed spears leave the other free to hold a shield for better protection (granted, there certainly were ancient example of pikemen also holding shields, though they certainly weren't actively blocking with them and were just worn while hoping for attacks might end up into them).

In melee combat on foot spears have one big advantage as far as weapons go: reach. With a spear you can attack your enemy from further away than you could if you had an axe or sword. Your blade, after all, is at the end of a shaft of wood at least a meter and a half long. However, if your enemy should get past the point of your spear and has a sword, mace, or axe, you are at a big disadvantage and are generally screwed. The best way around this fact is to gather up a bunch of spearmen and stand shoulder to shoulder, with more men behind you in case you miss. Thanks to the length of the spear and the simplicity of its combat use (stabbing) it was possible for those in the back ranks to fight over the shoulders of the guys in front of them. These formations can be very resistant to cavalry charges since one: you can stab the guy off his horse. Two, horses' momentum is working against him, increasing the strength of the stab the faster he rides towards you. And three, horses often balk and shy away from charging headlong into spears killing the momentum of their charge and of the horses behind them. A major downside of spears is their cumbersomeness. Due to their length, spears work very well in narrow avenues, but are impossible to wield at very close quarters. That's why elite or well equipped spearmen usually carried short swords or daggers for when enemies come really close or their spear broke in the middle of battle (being made of mostly wood they tended to do this quite often).

Another important fact about spears is that they are dirt cheap and easy to train with. A perfectly adequate steel tipped spear could be made by a village blacksmith or farrier in about three hours. [[Katanas are Underpowered in d20|A good sword]] would take a whole lot longer to forge, more iron and fuel to heat, and generally require a more skilled smith. If you want to raise a bunch of conscripts or [[militia]] and can't/don't want to pay a lot of money training and equipping them, or you want it done fast; a spear is your go-to weapon.

Unlike with swords, axes or bows, spear wielders benefit the most not from the personal skill, but from discipline, as their strength is usually in formations that prevent their foes from coming dangerously close. While technically spears are a hard counter to cavalry, medieval knights [[rape|utterly curb-stomped]] undisciplined spear-armed militiamen, while similarly armed but heavily-drilled Italian and Swiss mercenaries with pikes [[anal circumference|royally buttfucked]] any heavy cavalry stupid enough to charge them... from the front. That is of course the other problem with spears: because they work best in tight formations, outflanking and hitting the side of the formation is often a slaughter as the tightly packed men can't turn well to adjust to the new threat on their side. Alexander solved this by putting lighter troops on the flank, later the Europeans would use hand gunners to help repel charges. Swiss, however, solved this problem completely by training the everloving shit out of their soldiers so their pikemen blocks could switch direction in a matter of seconds, turning former flanks into new front and vice versa, all while RUNNING at the enemy in perfect formation (something no other spearmen in history had ever done before, though the descendants of [[Vikings|these nutters]] would later adopt the idea). They were so OP at their time, other nations ''waged wars'' for the right to hire them and in fact the modern Swiss constitution makes it outright illegal for the Swiss to serve as soldiers for other nations, with ONE exception: the Swiss Guard who have been guarding the Pope ever since 1506, yes, over 500 years, making them one of the, if not the, longest serving military units in history.

Spears were also perfectly functional naval weapons used by marines. Two vessels that came alongside for boarding actions would often have teams of fighters as dedicated spearmen to stop enemy soldiers coming on board by jumping between ships and clear spaces on the opposing vessel for their own swordsmen to board themselves.

Spears are often portrayed as being used overhand, meaning that if you point your fist outwards the tip is pointing down. While this may sound like a bad idea, as it creates an incredibly unwieldy angle to use your weapon at, limits your thrusting strength and does not allow you to stab as far as an underhand grip, it does allow to stab over your shield and this style of spear use was widely practiced by the Greek Hoplites. (as the picture above shows). This is incorrect and a common misconception, spears, unless they were Macedonian sarissas, were held in phalanx formation at around belly height, underhand. As a nice trick it also doubles as throwing stance (so you can launch your spear in surprise attack without telling it to your opponent with a sudden stance-change). Speaking of which:

===Spears at Long Range===
So far this has all been about spears as melee weapons. Spears can also be thrown, though for best results you usually need specialized spears. Thrown spears (or '''Javelins''') are typically shorter and lighter than melee spears, but heavier than arrows. They don't have the same speed or range, but since they are heavier they can make quite an impact. Regular one-handed spears while not designed for it, could be thrown too, though at far less distances, and throwing your main close combat weapon at enemy is usually a bad idea, unless he retreats or is a giant hulking elephant you don't want to face in melee.

Notable users of throwing-spears were Roman legionnaires, whose ''pila'' were specifically engineered to sink into a shield, bend at the long, flexible barbed tip to make removal just about impossible, and then detach from their handles. This served the three-fold purpose of making the ''pilum'' unusable for the enemies thus attacked, ruining any shields they happened to sink into, and being nearly impossible to treat without heavy surgery off the field, and these were the days before penicillin, meaning you were more likely to die of infection even if the surgery went well. For these reasons Pila were effective at inflicting significant losses even on armored opponents.

Other famous throwing spear users were the Aztecs who used the ancient atlatl to throw stone-tipped spears with enough force to penetrate Spanish steel mail or brigandine armor. There is some evidence that Ice Age humans who first developed atalatls in the region could use them to penetrate into the armoured hides of glyptodonts, resulting in an extinction overkill event for the large mammals. The people of the Iberian peninsula were also famous historically for the use of javelins, and even kept using them from horseback to some degree while absolutely everyone else was shooting guns while mounted instead. Native Americans also used these. Ancient Greeks and Romans had leather straps called an amentum as a similar throwing device. Many throughout history experimented with better ways to throw spears.

== Long Spears (Pikes) ==
[[File:Pikemen.jpg|250px|thumb|right|Assume hedgehog formation!]]
Spears are good at keeping a enemy at a distance so one day some king from Macedonia made the spear three times longer, called it the '''sarissa''', [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_the_Great and then his son went and took over the known world with it.] A longer spear means that you can have more guys fighting at a time and so make dense blocks of men more dangerous.

You know how spears can fight three ranks deep in [[Warhammer Fantasy Battle]]? Well, real life Macedonian phalanxes could fight around five ranks deep, meaning [[RAPE|more spearheads than available targets]]. It was said that a pike formation facing forward could only be broken by a charge of elephants, though this probably has less to do with elephants being invincible and more to do with soldiers shitting themselves at being charged by elephants, especially since elephants aren't insane themselves either and probably wouldn't like to actually run into hundreds of pointy bits if the men holding the pointy bits were brave enough to stand their ground.

After Alexander's death, the idea fell by the wayside, mostly as the generals following him assumed their pike formations were invulnerable and forgot about combined-arms tactics and protecting the vulnerable flanks of their pike formations with spearmen, swordsmen, or their own cavalry. Thus, the first Roman-style professional armies could outflank the formation and take it apart (Though doing so required them to sacrifice a couple line of their own guys to tie up the blocks of pikes so they couldn't reorient themselves in time to prevent said outflanking). Then the stirrup was invented, which allowed cavalry to really charge home, putting the full weight of the horse behind the lance and allowing cavalry to overrun infantry formations.

But like a swinging pendulum, the pike's day was coming back. The Swiss are known today for clocks and little knives that do everything, but back in the 15th century, the Swiss were known for being the greatest mercenaries in Europe. There is a reason why the Pope chose the Swiss out of all of Christendom for his guards: the Swiss solved issues with pikes by having much stronger training programs so their pikemen could be much more aggressive by closing with the enemy rather than "poking" from seven meters away, giving guys in the front rank swords or daggers while the men behind him stabbed forwards. Later, the addition of early hand guns made a match truly from hell as pikemen could be used to protect the vulnerable musketeers from cavalry charges.

To understand 15th century tactics, go play Warhammer Fantasy as the Empire. Seriously, they're so similar to each other it practically a learning experience.

Also Oda Nobunaga had lots of ashigaru armed with the magae yari, which was 5 to 6 meters long. He would go on to unify half of Japan before being assassinated by a subordinate (Oda had other things going for him like how willing he was to use guns) and said subordinate and his rival, Toyotomi Hideyoshi continued this. After Hideyoshi fucked up bad at Korea and died, Tokugawa Ieayasu and the Daimyo opposed to him fought like this at Sekigahara too - by the end of the Sengoku era and the establishment of the Tokugawa Shogunate, Japan was basically in a Pike and Shot period of warfare that wouldn't have any real battles until the Boshin War and the Imperial Restoration, which had post-Napoleonic line warfare that was having its bad days with good artillery and breech loader rifles making it more and more impractical.

===Death of the Pike===
Guns and cannons finally killed the pikeman: a gun took only modestly more training than a pike, but a musketeer or rifleman can kill you from considerably farther than seven meters away (like ten meters for early firearms). That said, pikes and guns worked together for much of the 1500's to the late 1600's, where men with black powder guns were protected from dangerous cavalry rushes by being combined into mixed Pike and Shot formations with well trained pikemen.

However, as the development of ranged weaponry progressed, having large formations of men became tactically unsound. Massed firepower or artillery could easily wipe out blocks of soldiers. This meant that being a professional pikeman was quickly becoming suicide, as the enemies were less and less likely to engage you in melee and more likely to use you as target practice. So the "deep" formations of the past were phased out in preference to smaller, tighter "lines" of men, which meant that bouncing cannon balls would go through far fewer targets. Pikemen only really work in deep formations, since that's the whole point of a long-ass spear which is otherwise a bit cumbersome to use against someone within the 3-meter range.

[[File:Defenders NGM-v31-p369-A.jpg|thumb|right|300px|the spear is still in use in modern times, though given the length of those things they're more like Glaives]]

However, this was not the final deal breaker for pikes. After all, guns or not, cavalry were still a problem until rifles gave infantry enough range to overcome the speed advantage of cavalry. What truly finished off pike formations off were '''bayonets'''. Why let a man only have a spear when you could give a man a gun that could stab, or rather a spear that could shoot (since smoothbore firearms sucked in every regard except armor penetration and ease of training)? This dual purpose would allow formations of musketeers to ward off cavalry charges and protect themselves in melee engagements from other infantry just like if they had a pike while still keeping up with their barrage of shots while unengaged. Fortunately for the spear, the bayonet long remained a vital weapon even as guns improved - seriously, military officers for centuries never thought themselves as winning a battle until they expected to be able to drive the enemy from the field at a bayonet's point, and this viewpoint would have merit until the 20th century. Better practiced gunners with more advanced and rifled guns were later capable of achieving high enough rates of fire at long enough ranges to no longer need the help of pikemen to ward off incoming charges and phase out the need for bayonets altogether. Soldiers today still carry bayonets and the odd (successful) bayonet charge can occasionally be heard about, but most modern bayonets are meant pretty much just for aggression training and then to double as normal knives as well.

{{MedievalWeaponry}}

Spear

2021-10-06T06:32:14Z

2603:8001:3500:CB:903:7DAD:413D:2B28: /* Spears in Warfare after the agricultural revolution */

{{Stub}}
[[image:Yari_spear.jpg|thumb|300px|right|A Yari Spear]]

Behold the most simple yet [[OP]] weapon to have ever been made!

Several million years ago among our primitive ancestors who still walked on all fours, was an ape who figured something out about sticks. A long, solid pointy stick could penetrate the skin of an enemy, a predator, or prey at a distance. This sort of thinking caught on and became common. Eventually these primates worked out how to make sticks pointy by chewing or using tools to carve out a point. Much later they figured out that fire could make the points harder and better at poking through stuff, and eventually that a triangular pointy rock tied to one end was even better than that. This is the origin of one of the oldest and most extensively used weapons in human history: the '''Spear''', the first of the many types of weapons collectively known as [[pole-arm]]s. The spear, having been in use for over 500,000 years, is older than the human species and the only melee weapon [http://www.businessinsider.com/the-most-famous-bayonet-charge-of-modern-conflict-2012-10 still in common use today], and has occasionally been seen being used by chimpanzees (albeit in a far cruder form than any human-made ones). It is therefore an objectively correct statement to say that the spear is one of the most effective and versatile weapons ever devised.

In fantasy settings, spears are often a universal weapon, with all races typically making use of them in some way because of their tactical significance in warfare, relative simplicity of use (compared to other weapons), and ease in manufacturing, compared to other weapons.

== Spears in Warfare after the agricultural revolution ==
[[image:Greek_Hoplites.jpg|thumb|300px|left|A Group of Greek Hoplites demonstrating the phalanx formation.]]
First off, a general fact. Spears are designed to do one thing: poking the enemy to death. They do this very well, but they are pretty poor at other things. If they run at you, or you run at them (or better still, are on a horse running at them) that momentum makes the poking all the more effective. Two-handed spears can be longer, up to 7 meters and like a Pokémon get a new name, '''Pikes.''' One-handed spears leave the other free to hold a shield for better protection (granted, there certainly were ancient example of pikemen also holding shields, though they certainly weren't actively blocking with them and were just worn while hoping for attacks might end up into them).

In melee combat on foot spears have one big advantage as far as weapons go: reach. With a spear you can attack your enemy from further away than you could if you had an axe or sword. Your blade, after all, is at the end of a shaft of wood at least a meter and a half long. However, if your enemy should get past the point of your spear and has a sword, mace, or axe, you are at a big disadvantage and are generally screwed. The best way around this fact is to gather up a bunch of spearmen and stand shoulder to shoulder, with more men behind you in case you miss. Thanks to the length of the spear and the simplicity of its combat use (stabbing) it was possible for those in the back ranks to fight over the shoulders of the guys in front of them. These formations can be very resistant to cavalry charges since one: you can stab the guy off his horse. Two, horses' momentum is working against him, increasing the strength of the stab the faster he rides towards you. And three, horses often balk and shy away from charging headlong into spears killing the momentum of their charge and of the horses behind them. A major downside of spears is their cumbersomeness. Due to their length, spears work very well in narrow avenues, but are impossible to wield at very close quarters. That's why elite or well equipped spearmen usually carried short swords or daggers for when enemies come really close or their spear broke in the middle of battle (being made of mostly wood they tended to do this quite often).

Another important fact about spears is that they are dirt cheap and easy to train with. A perfectly adequate steel tipped spear could be made by a village blacksmith or farrier in about three hours. [[Katanas are Underpowered in d20|A good sword]] would take a whole lot longer to forge, more iron and fuel to heat, and generally require a more skilled smith. If you want to raise a bunch of conscripts or [[militia]] and can't/don't want to pay a lot of money training and equipping them, or you want it done fast; a spear is your go-to weapon.

Unlike with swords, axes or bows, spear wielders benefit the most not from the personal skill, but from discipline, as their strength is usually in formations that prevent their foes from coming dangerously close. While technically spears are a hard counter to cavalry, medieval knights [[rape|utterly curb-stomped]] undisciplined spear-armed militiamen, while similarly armed but heavily-drilled Italian and Swiss mercenaries with pikes [[anal circumference|royally buttfucked]] any heavy cavalry stupid enough to charge them... from the front. That is of course the other problem with spears: because they work best in tight formations, outflanking and hitting the side of the formation is often a slaughter as the tightly packed men can't turn well to adjust to the new threat on their side. Alexander solved this by putting lighter troops on the flank, later the Europeans would use hand gunners to help repel charges. Swiss, however, solved this problem completely by training the everloving shit out of their soldiers so their pikemen blocks could switch direction in a matter of seconds, turning former flanks into new front and vice versa, all while RUNNING at the enemy in perfect formation (something no other spearmen in history had ever done before, though the descendants of [[Vikings|these nutters]] would later adopt the idea). They were so OP at their time, other nations ''waged wars'' for the right to hire them and in fact the modern Swiss constitution makes it outright illegal for the Swiss to serve as soldiers for other nations, with ONE exception: the Swiss Guard who have been guarding the Pope ever since 1506, yes, over 500 years, making them one of the, if not the, longest serving military units in history.

Spears were also perfectly functional naval weapons used by marines. Two vessels that came alongside for boarding actions would often have teams of fighters as dedicated spearmen to stop enemy soldiers coming on board by jumping between ships and clear spaces on the opposing vessel for their own swordsmen to board themselves.

Spears are often portrayed as being used overhand, meaning that if you point your fist outwards the tip is pointing down. While this may sound like a bad idea; it creates an incredibly unwieldy angle to use your weapon at, limits your thrusting strength and does not allow you to stab as far as an underhand grip, it does allow to stab over your shield and this style of spear use was widely practiced by the Greek Hoplites. (as the picture above shows). This is incorrect and a common misconception, spears, unless they were Macedonian sarissas, were held in phalanx formation at around belly height, underhand. As a nice trick it also doubles as throwing stance (so you can launch your spear in surprise attack without telling it to your opponent with a sudden stance-change). Speaking of which:

===Spears at Long Range===
So far this has all been about spears as melee weapons. Spears can also be thrown, though for best results you usually need specialized spears. Thrown spears (or '''Javelins''') are typically shorter and lighter than melee spears, but heavier than arrows. They don't have the same speed or range, but since they are heavier they can make quite an impact. Regular one-handed spears while not designed for it, could be thrown too, though at far less distances, and throwing your main close combat weapon at enemy is usually a bad idea, unless he retreats or is a giant hulking elephant you don't want to face in melee.

Notable users of throwing-spears were Roman legionnaires, whose ''pila'' were specifically engineered to sink into a shield, bend at the long, flexible barbed tip to make removal just about impossible, and then detach from their handles. This served the three-fold purpose of making the ''pilum'' unusable for the enemies thus attacked, ruining any shields they happened to sink into, and being nearly impossible to treat without heavy surgery off the field, and these were the days before penicillin, meaning you were more likely to die of infection even if the surgery went well. For these reasons Pila were effective at inflicting significant losses even on armored opponents.

Other famous throwing spear users were the Aztecs who used the ancient atlatl to throw stone-tipped spears with enough force to penetrate Spanish steel mail or brigandine armor. There is some evidence that Ice Age humans who first developed atalatls in the region could use them to penetrate into the armoured hides of glyptodonts, resulting in an extinction overkill event for the large mammals. The people of the Iberian peninsula were also famous historically for the use of javelins, and even kept using them from horseback to some degree while absolutely everyone else was shooting guns while mounted instead. Native Americans also used these. Ancient Greeks and Romans had leather straps called an amentum as a similar throwing device. Many throughout history experimented with better ways to throw spears.

== Long Spears (Pikes) ==
[[File:Pikemen.jpg|250px|thumb|right|Assume hedgehog formation!]]
Spears are good at keeping a enemy at a distance so one day some king from Macedonia made the spear three times longer, called it the '''sarissa''', [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_the_Great and then his son went and took over the known world with it.] A longer spear means that you can have more guys fighting at a time and so make dense blocks of men more dangerous.

You know how spears can fight three ranks deep in [[Warhammer Fantasy Battle]]? Well, real life Macedonian phalanxes could fight around five ranks deep, meaning [[RAPE|more spearheads than available targets]]. It was said that a pike formation facing forward could only be broken by a charge of elephants, though this probably has less to do with elephants being invincible and more to do with soldiers shitting themselves at being charged by elephants, especially since elephants aren't insane themselves either and probably wouldn't like to actually run into hundreds of pointy bits if the men holding the pointy bits were brave enough to stand their ground.

After Alexander's death, the idea fell by the wayside, mostly as the generals following him assumed their pike formations were invulnerable and forgot about combined-arms tactics and protecting the vulnerable flanks of their pike formations with spearmen, swordsmen, or their own cavalry. Thus, the first Roman-style professional armies could outflank the formation and take it apart (Though doing so required them to sacrifice a couple line of their own guys to tie up the blocks of pikes so they couldn't reorient themselves in time to prevent said outflanking). Then the stirrup was invented, which allowed cavalry to really charge home, putting the full weight of the horse behind the lance and allowing cavalry to overrun infantry formations.

But like a swinging pendulum, the pike's day was coming back. The Swiss are known today for clocks and little knives that do everything, but back in the 15th century, the Swiss were known for being the greatest mercenaries in Europe. There is a reason why the Pope chose the Swiss out of all of Christendom for his guards: the Swiss solved issues with pikes by having much stronger training programs so their pikemen could be much more aggressive by closing with the enemy rather than "poking" from seven meters away, giving guys in the front rank swords or daggers while the men behind him stabbed forwards. Later, the addition of early hand guns made a match truly from hell as pikemen could be used to protect the vulnerable musketeers from cavalry charges.

To understand 15th century tactics, go play Warhammer Fantasy as the Empire. Seriously, they're so similar to each other it practically a learning experience.

Also Oda Nobunaga had lots of ashigaru armed with the magae yari, which was 5 to 6 meters long. He would go on to unify half of Japan before being assassinated by a subordinate (Oda had other things going for him like how willing he was to use guns) and said subordinate and his rival, Toyotomi Hideyoshi continued this. After Hideyoshi fucked up bad at Korea and died, Tokugawa Ieayasu and the Daimyo opposed to him fought like this at Sekigahara too - by the end of the Sengoku era and the establishment of the Tokugawa Shogunate, Japan was basically in a Pike and Shot period of warfare that wouldn't have any real battles until the Boshin War and the Imperial Restoration, which had post-Napoleonic line warfare that was having its bad days with good artillery and breech loader rifles making it more and more impractical.

===Death of the Pike===
Guns and cannons finally killed the pikeman: a gun took only modestly more training than a pike, but a musketeer or rifleman can kill you from considerably farther than seven meters away (like ten meters for early firearms). That said, pikes and guns worked together for much of the 1500's to the late 1600's, where men with black powder guns were protected from dangerous cavalry rushes by being combined into mixed Pike and Shot formations with well trained pikemen.

However, as the development of ranged weaponry progressed, having large formations of men became tactically unsound. Massed firepower or artillery could easily wipe out blocks of soldiers. This meant that being a professional pikeman was quickly becoming suicide, as the enemies were less and less likely to engage you in melee and more likely to use you as target practice. So the "deep" formations of the past were phased out in preference to smaller, tighter "lines" of men, which meant that bouncing cannon balls would go through far fewer targets. Pikemen only really work in deep formations, since that's the whole point of a long-ass spear which is otherwise a bit cumbersome to use against someone within the 3-meter range.

[[File:Defenders NGM-v31-p369-A.jpg|thumb|right|300px|the spear is still in use in modern times, though given the length of those things they're more like Glaives]]

However, this was not the final deal breaker for pikes. After all, guns or not, cavalry were still a problem until rifles gave infantry enough range to overcome the speed advantage of cavalry. What truly finished off pike formations off were '''bayonets'''. Why let a man only have a spear when you could give a man a gun that could stab, or rather a spear that could shoot (since smoothbore firearms sucked in every regard except armor penetration and ease of training)? This dual purpose would allow formations of musketeers to ward off cavalry charges and protect themselves in melee engagements from other infantry just like if they had a pike while still keeping up with their barrage of shots while unengaged. Fortunately for the spear, the bayonet long remained a vital weapon even as guns improved - seriously, military officers for centuries never thought themselves as winning a battle until they expected to be able to drive the enemy from the field at a bayonet's point, and this viewpoint would have merit until the 20th century. Better practiced gunners with more advanced and rifled guns were later capable of achieving high enough rates of fire at long enough ranges to no longer need the help of pikemen to ward off incoming charges and phase out the need for bayonets altogether. Soldiers today still carry bayonets and the odd (successful) bayonet charge can occasionally be heard about, but most modern bayonets are meant pretty much just for aggression training and then to double as normal knives as well.

{{MedievalWeaponry}}

Spear

2021-10-06T06:29:36Z

2603:8001:3500:CB:903:7DAD:413D:2B28: /* Spears in Warfare after the agricultural revolution */

{{Stub}}
[[image:Yari_spear.jpg|thumb|300px|right|A Yari Spear]]

Behold the most simple yet [[OP]] weapon to have ever been made!

Several million years ago among our primitive ancestors who still walked on all fours, was an ape who figured something out about sticks. A long, solid pointy stick could penetrate the skin of an enemy, a predator, or prey at a distance. This sort of thinking caught on and became common. Eventually these primates worked out how to make sticks pointy by chewing or using tools to carve out a point. Much later they figured out that fire could make the points harder and better at poking through stuff, and eventually that a triangular pointy rock tied to one end was even better than that. This is the origin of one of the oldest and most extensively used weapons in human history: the '''Spear''', the first of the many types of weapons collectively known as [[pole-arm]]s. The spear, having been in use for over 500,000 years, is older than the human species and the only melee weapon [http://www.businessinsider.com/the-most-famous-bayonet-charge-of-modern-conflict-2012-10 still in common use today], and has occasionally been seen being used by chimpanzees (albeit in a far cruder form than any human-made ones). It is therefore an objectively correct statement to say that the spear is one of the most effective and versatile weapons ever devised.

In fantasy settings, spears are often a universal weapon, with all races typically making use of them in some way because of their tactical significance in warfare, relative simplicity of use (compared to other weapons), and ease in manufacturing, compared to other weapons.

== Spears in Warfare after the agricultural revolution ==
[[image:Greek_Hoplites.jpg|thumb|300px|left|A Group of Greek Hoplites demonstrating the phalanx formation.]]
First off, a general fact. Spears are designed to do one thing: poking the enemy to death. They do this very well, but they are pretty poor at other things. If they run at you, or you run at them (or better still, are on a horse running at them) that momentum makes the poking all the more effective. Two-handed spears can be longer, up to 7 meters and like a Pokémon get a new name, '''Pikes.''' One-handed spears leave the other free to hold a shield for better protection (granted, there certainly were ancient example of pikemen also holding shields, though they certainly weren't actively blocking with them and were just worn while hoping for attacks might end up into them).

In melee combat on foot spears have one big advantage as far as weapons go: reach. With a spear you can attack your enemy from further away than you could if you had an axe or sword. Your blade, after all, is at the end of a shaft of wood at least a meter and a half long. However, if your enemy should get past the point of your spear and has a sword, mace, or axe, you are at a big disadvantage and are generally screwed. The best way around this fact is to gather up a bunch of spearmen and stand shoulder to shoulder, with more men behind you in case you miss. Thanks to the length of the spear and the simplicity of its combat use (stabbing) it was possible for those in the back ranks to fight over the shoulders of the guys in front of them. These formations can be very resistant to cavalry charges since one: you can stab the guy off his horse. Two, horses' momentum is working against him, increasing the strength of the stab the faster he rides towards you. And three, horses often balk and shy away from charging headlong into spears killing the momentum of their charge and of the horses behind them. A major downside of spears is their cumbersomeness. Due to their length, spears work very well in narrow avenues, but are impossible to wield at very close quarters. That's why elite or well equipped spearmen usually carried short swords or daggers for when enemies come really close or their spear broke in the middle of battle (being made of mostly wood they tended to do this quite often).

Another important fact about spears is that they are dirt cheap and easy to train with. A perfectly adequate steel tipped spear could be made by a village blacksmith or farrier in about three hours. [[Katanas are Underpowered in d20|A good sword]] would take a whole lot longer to forge, more iron and fuel to heat, and generally require a more skilled smith. If you want to raise a bunch of conscripts or [[militia]] and can't/don't want to pay a lot of money training and equipping them, or you want it done fast; a spear is your go-to weapon.

Unlike with swords, axes or bows, spear wielders benefit the most not from the personal skill, but from discipline, as their strength is usually in formations that prevent their foes from coming dangerously close. While technically spears are a hard counter to cavalry, medieval knights [[rape|utterly curb-stomped]] undisciplined spear-armed militiamen, while similarly armed but heavily-drilled Italian and Swiss mercenaries with pikes [[anal circumference|royally buttfucked]] any heavy cavalry stupid enough to charge them... from the front. That is of course the other problem with spears: because they work best in tight formations, outflanking and hitting the side of the formation is often a slaughter as the tightly packed men can't turn well to adjust to the new threat on their side. Alexander solved this by putting lighter troops on the flank, later the Europeans would use hand gunners to help repel charges. Swiss, however, solved this problem completely by training the everloving shit out of their soldiers so their pikemen blocks could switch direction in a matter of seconds, turning former flanks into new front and vice versa, all the way wile RUNNING at enemy in perfect formation (something no other spearmen in history had ever done before, though the descendants of [[Vikings|these nutters]] would later adopt the idea). They were so OP at their time, other nations ''waged wars'' for the right to hire them and in fact the modern Swiss constitution makes it outright illegal for the Swiss to serve as soldiers for other nations, with ONE exception: the Swiss Guard who have been guarding the Pope ever since 1506, yes, over 500 years, making them one of the, if not the, longest serving military units in history.

Spears were also perfectly functional naval weapons used by marines. Two vessels that came alongside for boarding actions would often have teams of fighters as dedicated spearmen to stop enemy soldiers coming on board by jumping between ships and clear spaces on the opposing vessel for their own swordsmen to board themselves.

Spears are often portrayed as being used overhand, meaning that if you point your fist outwards the tip is pointing down. While this may sound like a bad idea; it creates an incredibly unwieldy angle to use your weapon at, limits your thrusting strength and does not allow you to stab as far as an underhand grip, it does allow to stab over your shield and this style of spear use was widely practiced by the Greek Hoplites. (as the picture above shows). This is incorrect and a common misconception, spears, unless they were Macedonian sarissas, were held in phalanx formation at around belly height, underhand. As a nice trick it also doubles as throwing stance (so you can launch your spear in surprise attack without telling it to your opponent with a sudden stance-change). Speaking of which:

===Spears at Long Range===
So far this has all been about spears as melee weapons. Spears can also be thrown, though for best results you usually need specialized spears. Thrown spears (or '''Javelins''') are typically shorter and lighter than melee spears, but heavier than arrows. They don't have the same speed or range, but since they are heavier they can make quite an impact. Regular one-handed spears while not designed for it, could be thrown too, though at far less distances, and throwing your main close combat weapon at enemy is usually a bad idea, unless he retreats or is a giant hulking elephant you don't want to face in melee.

Notable users of throwing-spears were Roman legionnaires, whose ''pila'' were specifically engineered to sink into a shield, bend at the long, flexible barbed tip to make removal just about impossible, and then detach from their handles. This served the three-fold purpose of making the ''pilum'' unusable for the enemies thus attacked, ruining any shields they happened to sink into, and being nearly impossible to treat without heavy surgery off the field, and these were the days before penicillin, meaning you were more likely to die of infection even if the surgery went well. For these reasons Pila were effective at inflicting significant losses even on armored opponents.

Other famous throwing spear users were the Aztecs who used the ancient atlatl to throw stone-tipped spears with enough force to penetrate Spanish steel mail or brigandine armor. There is some evidence that Ice Age humans who first developed atalatls in the region could use them to penetrate into the armoured hides of glyptodonts, resulting in an extinction overkill event for the large mammals. The people of the Iberian peninsula were also famous historically for the use of javelins, and even kept using them from horseback to some degree while absolutely everyone else was shooting guns while mounted instead. Native Americans also used these. Ancient Greeks and Romans had leather straps called an amentum as a similar throwing device. Many throughout history experimented with better ways to throw spears.

== Long Spears (Pikes) ==
[[File:Pikemen.jpg|250px|thumb|right|Assume hedgehog formation!]]
Spears are good at keeping a enemy at a distance so one day some king from Macedonia made the spear three times longer, called it the '''sarissa''', [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_the_Great and then his son went and took over the known world with it.] A longer spear means that you can have more guys fighting at a time and so make dense blocks of men more dangerous.

You know how spears can fight three ranks deep in [[Warhammer Fantasy Battle]]? Well, real life Macedonian phalanxes could fight around five ranks deep, meaning [[RAPE|more spearheads than available targets]]. It was said that a pike formation facing forward could only be broken by a charge of elephants, though this probably has less to do with elephants being invincible and more to do with soldiers shitting themselves at being charged by elephants, especially since elephants aren't insane themselves either and probably wouldn't like to actually run into hundreds of pointy bits if the men holding the pointy bits were brave enough to stand their ground.

After Alexander's death, the idea fell by the wayside, mostly as the generals following him assumed their pike formations were invulnerable and forgot about combined-arms tactics and protecting the vulnerable flanks of their pike formations with spearmen, swordsmen, or their own cavalry. Thus, the first Roman-style professional armies could outflank the formation and take it apart (Though doing so required them to sacrifice a couple line of their own guys to tie up the blocks of pikes so they couldn't reorient themselves in time to prevent said outflanking). Then the stirrup was invented, which allowed cavalry to really charge home, putting the full weight of the horse behind the lance and allowing cavalry to overrun infantry formations.

But like a swinging pendulum, the pike's day was coming back. The Swiss are known today for clocks and little knives that do everything, but back in the 15th century, the Swiss were known for being the greatest mercenaries in Europe. There is a reason why the Pope chose the Swiss out of all of Christendom for his guards: the Swiss solved issues with pikes by having much stronger training programs so their pikemen could be much more aggressive by closing with the enemy rather than "poking" from seven meters away, giving guys in the front rank swords or daggers while the men behind him stabbed forwards. Later, the addition of early hand guns made a match truly from hell as pikemen could be used to protect the vulnerable musketeers from cavalry charges.

To understand 15th century tactics, go play Warhammer Fantasy as the Empire. Seriously, they're so similar to each other it practically a learning experience.

Also Oda Nobunaga had lots of ashigaru armed with the magae yari, which was 5 to 6 meters long. He would go on to unify half of Japan before being assassinated by a subordinate (Oda had other things going for him like how willing he was to use guns) and said subordinate and his rival, Toyotomi Hideyoshi continued this. After Hideyoshi fucked up bad at Korea and died, Tokugawa Ieayasu and the Daimyo opposed to him fought like this at Sekigahara too - by the end of the Sengoku era and the establishment of the Tokugawa Shogunate, Japan was basically in a Pike and Shot period of warfare that wouldn't have any real battles until the Boshin War and the Imperial Restoration, which had post-Napoleonic line warfare that was having its bad days with good artillery and breech loader rifles making it more and more impractical.

===Death of the Pike===
Guns and cannons finally killed the pikeman: a gun took only modestly more training than a pike, but a musketeer or rifleman can kill you from considerably farther than seven meters away (like ten meters for early firearms). That said, pikes and guns worked together for much of the 1500's to the late 1600's, where men with black powder guns were protected from dangerous cavalry rushes by being combined into mixed Pike and Shot formations with well trained pikemen.

However, as the development of ranged weaponry progressed, having large formations of men became tactically unsound. Massed firepower or artillery could easily wipe out blocks of soldiers. This meant that being a professional pikeman was quickly becoming suicide, as the enemies were less and less likely to engage you in melee and more likely to use you as target practice. So the "deep" formations of the past were phased out in preference to smaller, tighter "lines" of men, which meant that bouncing cannon balls would go through far fewer targets. Pikemen only really work in deep formations, since that's the whole point of a long-ass spear which is otherwise a bit cumbersome to use against someone within the 3-meter range.

[[File:Defenders NGM-v31-p369-A.jpg|thumb|right|300px|the spear is still in use in modern times, though given the length of those things they're more like Glaives]]

However, this was not the final deal breaker for pikes. After all, guns or not, cavalry were still a problem until rifles gave infantry enough range to overcome the speed advantage of cavalry. What truly finished off pike formations off were '''bayonets'''. Why let a man only have a spear when you could give a man a gun that could stab, or rather a spear that could shoot (since smoothbore firearms sucked in every regard except armor penetration and ease of training)? This dual purpose would allow formations of musketeers to ward off cavalry charges and protect themselves in melee engagements from other infantry just like if they had a pike while still keeping up with their barrage of shots while unengaged. Fortunately for the spear, the bayonet long remained a vital weapon even as guns improved - seriously, military officers for centuries never thought themselves as winning a battle until they expected to be able to drive the enemy from the field at a bayonet's point, and this viewpoint would have merit until the 20th century. Better practiced gunners with more advanced and rifled guns were later capable of achieving high enough rates of fire at long enough ranges to no longer need the help of pikemen to ward off incoming charges and phase out the need for bayonets altogether. Soldiers today still carry bayonets and the odd (successful) bayonet charge can occasionally be heard about, but most modern bayonets are meant pretty much just for aggression training and then to double as normal knives as well.

{{MedievalWeaponry}}

Spear

2021-10-06T06:27:26Z

2603:8001:3500:CB:903:7DAD:413D:2B28: /* Spears in Warfare after the agricultural revolution */

{{Stub}}
[[image:Yari_spear.jpg|thumb|300px|right|A Yari Spear]]

Behold the most simple yet [[OP]] weapon to have ever been made!

Several million years ago among our primitive ancestors who still walked on all fours, was an ape who figured something out about sticks. A long, solid pointy stick could penetrate the skin of an enemy, a predator, or prey at a distance. This sort of thinking caught on and became common. Eventually these primates worked out how to make sticks pointy by chewing or using tools to carve out a point. Much later they figured out that fire could make the points harder and better at poking through stuff, and eventually that a triangular pointy rock tied to one end was even better than that. This is the origin of one of the oldest and most extensively used weapons in human history: the '''Spear''', the first of the many types of weapons collectively known as [[pole-arm]]s. The spear, having been in use for over 500,000 years, is older than the human species and the only melee weapon [http://www.businessinsider.com/the-most-famous-bayonet-charge-of-modern-conflict-2012-10 still in common use today], and has occasionally been seen being used by chimpanzees (albeit in a far cruder form than any human-made ones). It is therefore an objectively correct statement to say that the spear is one of the most effective and versatile weapons ever devised.

In fantasy settings, spears are often a universal weapon, with all races typically making use of them in some way because of their tactical significance in warfare, relative simplicity of use (compared to other weapons), and ease in manufacturing, compared to other weapons.

== Spears in Warfare after the agricultural revolution ==
[[image:Greek_Hoplites.jpg|thumb|300px|left|A Group of Greek Hoplites demonstrating the phalanx formation.]]
First off, a general fact. Spears are designed to do one thing: poking the enemy to death. They do this very well, but they are pretty poor at other things. If they run at you, or you run at them (or better still, are on a horse running at them) that momentum makes the poking all the more effective. Two-handed spears can be longer, up to 7 meters and like a Pokémon get a new name, '''Pikes.''' One-handed spears leave the other free to hold a shield for better protection (granted, there certainly were ancient example of pikemen also holding shields, though they certainly weren't actively blocking with them and were just worn while hoping for attacks might end up into them).

In melee combat on foot spears have one big advantage as far as weapons go: reach. With a spear you can attack your enemy from further away than you could if you had an axe or sword. Your blade, after all, is at the end of a shaft of wood at least a meter and a half long. However, if your enemy should get past the point of your spear and has a sword, mace, or axe, you are at a big disadvantage and are generally screwed. The best way around this fact is to gather up a bunch of spearmen and stand shoulder to shoulder, with more men behind you in case you miss. Thanks to the length of the spear and the simplicity of its combat use (stabbing) it was possible for those in the back ranks to fight over the shoulders of the guys in front of them. These formations can be very resistant to cavalry charges since one: you can stab the guy off his horse. Two, horses' momentum is working against him, increasing the strength of the stab the faster he rides towards you. And three, horses often balk and shy away from charging headlong into spears killing the momentum of their charge and of the horses behind them. A major downside of spears is their cumbersomeness. Due to their length, spears work very well in narrow avenues, but are impossible to wield at very close quarters. That's why elite or well equipped spearmen usually carried short swords or daggers for when enemies come really close or their spear broke in the middle of battle (being made of mostly wood they tended to do this quite often).

Another important fact about spears is that they are dirt cheap and easy to train with. A perfectly adequate steel tipped spear could be made by a village blacksmith or farrier in about three hours. [[Katanas are Underpowered in d20|A good sword]] would take a whole lot longer to forge, more iron and fuel to heat, and generally require a more skilled smith. If you want to raise a bunch of conscripts or [[militia]] and can't/don't want to pay a lot of money training and equipping them, or you want it done fast; a spear is your go-to weapon.

Unlike with swords, axes or bows, spear wielders benefit the most not from the personal skill, but from discipline, as their strength is usually in formations that prevent their foes from coming dangerously close. While technically spears are a hard counter to cavalry, medieval knights [[rape|utterly curb-stomped]] undisciplined spear-armed militiamen, while similarly armed but heavily-drilled Italian and Swiss mercenaries with pikes [[anal circumference|royally buttfucked]] any heavy cavalry stupid enough to charge them... from the front. That is of course the other problem with spears, because they work best in tight formations outflanking and hitting the side of the formation is often a slaughter as the tightly packed men can't turn well to adjust to the new threat on their side. Alexander solved this by putting lighter troops on the flank, later the Europeans would use hand gunners to help repel charges. Swiss, however, solved this problem completely by training the everloving shit out of their soldiers so their pikemen blocks could switch direction in a matter of seconds, turning former flanks into new front and vice versa, all the way wile RUNNING at enemy in perfect formation (something no other spearmen in history had ever done before, though the descendants of [[Vikings|these nutters]] would later adopt the idea). They were so OP at their time, other nations ''waged wars'' for the right to hire them and in fact the modern Swiss constitution makes it outright illegal for the Swiss to serve as soldiers for other nations, with ONE exception: the Swiss Guard who have been guarding the Pope ever since 1506, yes, over 500 years, making them one of the, if not the, longest serving military units in history.

Spears were also perfectly functional naval weapons used by marines. Two vessels that came alongside for boarding actions would often have teams of fighters as dedicated spearmen to stop enemy soldiers coming on board by jumping between ships and clear spaces on the opposing vessel for their own swordsmen to board themselves.

Spears are often portrayed as being used overhand, meaning that if you point your fist outwards the tip is pointing down. While this may sound like a bad idea; it creates an incredibly unwieldy angle to use your weapon at, limits your thrusting strength and does not allow you to stab as far as an underhand grip, it does allow to stab over your shield and this style of spear use was widely practiced by the Greek Hoplites. (as the picture above shows). This is incorrect and a common misconception, spears, unless they were Macedonian sarissas, were held in phalanx formation at around belly height, underhand. As a nice trick it also doubles as throwing stance (so you can launch your spear in surprise attack without telling it to your opponent with a sudden stance-change). Speaking of which:

===Spears at Long Range===
So far this has all been about spears as melee weapons. Spears can also be thrown, though for best results you usually need specialized spears. Thrown spears (or '''Javelins''') are typically shorter and lighter than melee spears, but heavier than arrows. They don't have the same speed or range, but since they are heavier they can make quite an impact. Regular one-handed spears while not designed for it, could be thrown too, though at far less distances, and throwing your main close combat weapon at enemy is usually a bad idea, unless he retreats or is a giant hulking elephant you don't want to face in melee.

Notable users of throwing-spears were Roman legionnaires, whose ''pila'' were specifically engineered to sink into a shield, bend at the long, flexible barbed tip to make removal just about impossible, and then detach from their handles. This served the three-fold purpose of making the ''pilum'' unusable for the enemies thus attacked, ruining any shields they happened to sink into, and being nearly impossible to treat without heavy surgery off the field, and these were the days before penicillin, meaning you were more likely to die of infection even if the surgery went well. For these reasons Pila were effective at inflicting significant losses even on armored opponents.

Other famous throwing spear users were the Aztecs who used the ancient atlatl to throw stone-tipped spears with enough force to penetrate Spanish steel mail or brigandine armor. There is some evidence that Ice Age humans who first developed atalatls in the region could use them to penetrate into the armoured hides of glyptodonts, resulting in an extinction overkill event for the large mammals. The people of the Iberian peninsula were also famous historically for the use of javelins, and even kept using them from horseback to some degree while absolutely everyone else was shooting guns while mounted instead. Native Americans also used these. Ancient Greeks and Romans had leather straps called an amentum as a similar throwing device. Many throughout history experimented with better ways to throw spears.

== Long Spears (Pikes) ==
[[File:Pikemen.jpg|250px|thumb|right|Assume hedgehog formation!]]
Spears are good at keeping a enemy at a distance so one day some king from Macedonia made the spear three times longer, called it the '''sarissa''', [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_the_Great and then his son went and took over the known world with it.] A longer spear means that you can have more guys fighting at a time and so make dense blocks of men more dangerous.

You know how spears can fight three ranks deep in [[Warhammer Fantasy Battle]]? Well, real life Macedonian phalanxes could fight around five ranks deep, meaning [[RAPE|more spearheads than available targets]]. It was said that a pike formation facing forward could only be broken by a charge of elephants, though this probably has less to do with elephants being invincible and more to do with soldiers shitting themselves at being charged by elephants, especially since elephants aren't insane themselves either and probably wouldn't like to actually run into hundreds of pointy bits if the men holding the pointy bits were brave enough to stand their ground.

After Alexander's death, the idea fell by the wayside, mostly as the generals following him assumed their pike formations were invulnerable and forgot about combined-arms tactics and protecting the vulnerable flanks of their pike formations with spearmen, swordsmen, or their own cavalry. Thus, the first Roman-style professional armies could outflank the formation and take it apart (Though doing so required them to sacrifice a couple line of their own guys to tie up the blocks of pikes so they couldn't reorient themselves in time to prevent said outflanking). Then the stirrup was invented, which allowed cavalry to really charge home, putting the full weight of the horse behind the lance and allowing cavalry to overrun infantry formations.

But like a swinging pendulum, the pike's day was coming back. The Swiss are known today for clocks and little knives that do everything, but back in the 15th century, the Swiss were known for being the greatest mercenaries in Europe. There is a reason why the Pope chose the Swiss out of all of Christendom for his guards: the Swiss solved issues with pikes by having much stronger training programs so their pikemen could be much more aggressive by closing with the enemy rather than "poking" from seven meters away, giving guys in the front rank swords or daggers while the men behind him stabbed forwards. Later, the addition of early hand guns made a match truly from hell as pikemen could be used to protect the vulnerable musketeers from cavalry charges.

To understand 15th century tactics, go play Warhammer Fantasy as the Empire. Seriously, they're so similar to each other it practically a learning experience.

Also Oda Nobunaga had lots of ashigaru armed with the magae yari, which was 5 to 6 meters long. He would go on to unify half of Japan before being assassinated by a subordinate (Oda had other things going for him like how willing he was to use guns) and said subordinate and his rival, Toyotomi Hideyoshi continued this. After Hideyoshi fucked up bad at Korea and died, Tokugawa Ieayasu and the Daimyo opposed to him fought like this at Sekigahara too - by the end of the Sengoku era and the establishment of the Tokugawa Shogunate, Japan was basically in a Pike and Shot period of warfare that wouldn't have any real battles until the Boshin War and the Imperial Restoration, which had post-Napoleonic line warfare that was having its bad days with good artillery and breech loader rifles making it more and more impractical.

===Death of the Pike===
Guns and cannons finally killed the pikeman: a gun took only modestly more training than a pike, but a musketeer or rifleman can kill you from considerably farther than seven meters away (like ten meters for early firearms). That said, pikes and guns worked together for much of the 1500's to the late 1600's, where men with black powder guns were protected from dangerous cavalry rushes by being combined into mixed Pike and Shot formations with well trained pikemen.

However, as the development of ranged weaponry progressed, having large formations of men became tactically unsound. Massed firepower or artillery could easily wipe out blocks of soldiers. This meant that being a professional pikeman was quickly becoming suicide, as the enemies were less and less likely to engage you in melee and more likely to use you as target practice. So the "deep" formations of the past were phased out in preference to smaller, tighter "lines" of men, which meant that bouncing cannon balls would go through far fewer targets. Pikemen only really work in deep formations, since that's the whole point of a long-ass spear which is otherwise a bit cumbersome to use against someone within the 3-meter range.

[[File:Defenders NGM-v31-p369-A.jpg|thumb|right|300px|the spear is still in use in modern times, though given the length of those things they're more like Glaives]]

However, this was not the final deal breaker for pikes. After all, guns or not, cavalry were still a problem until rifles gave infantry enough range to overcome the speed advantage of cavalry. What truly finished off pike formations off were '''bayonets'''. Why let a man only have a spear when you could give a man a gun that could stab, or rather a spear that could shoot (since smoothbore firearms sucked in every regard except armor penetration and ease of training)? This dual purpose would allow formations of musketeers to ward off cavalry charges and protect themselves in melee engagements from other infantry just like if they had a pike while still keeping up with their barrage of shots while unengaged. Fortunately for the spear, the bayonet long remained a vital weapon even as guns improved - seriously, military officers for centuries never thought themselves as winning a battle until they expected to be able to drive the enemy from the field at a bayonet's point, and this viewpoint would have merit until the 20th century. Better practiced gunners with more advanced and rifled guns were later capable of achieving high enough rates of fire at long enough ranges to no longer need the help of pikemen to ward off incoming charges and phase out the need for bayonets altogether. Soldiers today still carry bayonets and the odd (successful) bayonet charge can occasionally be heard about, but most modern bayonets are meant pretty much just for aggression training and then to double as normal knives as well.

{{MedievalWeaponry}}

Spear

2021-10-06T06:12:43Z

2603:8001:3500:CB:903:7DAD:413D:2B28:

{{Stub}}
[[image:Yari_spear.jpg|thumb|300px|right|A Yari Spear]]

Behold the most simple yet [[OP]] weapon to have ever been made!

Several million years ago among our primitive ancestors who still walked on all fours, was an ape who figured something out about sticks. A long, solid pointy stick could penetrate the skin of an enemy, a predator, or prey at a distance. This sort of thinking caught on and became common. Eventually these primates worked out how to make sticks pointy by chewing or using tools to carve out a point. Much later they figured out that fire could make the points harder and better at poking through stuff, and eventually that a triangular pointy rock tied to one end was even better than that. This is the origin of one of the oldest and most extensively used weapons in human history: the '''Spear''', the first of the many types of weapons collectively known as [[pole-arm]]s. The spear, having been in use for over 500,000 years, is older than the human species and the only melee weapon [http://www.businessinsider.com/the-most-famous-bayonet-charge-of-modern-conflict-2012-10 still in common use today], and has occasionally been seen being used by chimpanzees (albeit in a far cruder form than any human-made ones). It is therefore an objectively correct statement to say that the spear is one of the most effective and versatile weapons ever devised.

In fantasy settings, spears are often a universal weapon, with all races typically making use of them in some way because of their tactical significance in warfare, relative simplicity of use (compared to other weapons), and ease in manufacturing, compared to other weapons.

== Spears in Warfare after the agricultural revolution ==
[[image:Greek_Hoplites.jpg|thumb|300px|left|A Group of Greek Hoplites demonstrating the phalanx formation.]]
First off, a general fact. Spears are designed to do one thing: poking the enemy to death. They do this very well, but they are pretty poor at other things. If they run at you, or you run at them (or better still, are on a horse running at them) that momentum makes the poking all the more effective. Two-handed spears can be longer, up to 7 meters and like a Pokémon get a new name, '''Pikes.''' One-handed spears leave the other free to hold a shield for better protection (granted, there certainly were ancient example of pikemen also holding shields, though they certainly weren't actively blocking with them and were just worn while hoping for attacks might end up into them).

In melee combat on foot spears have one big advantage as far as weapons go: reach. With a spear you can attack your enemy from further away than you could if you had an axe or sword. Your blade, after all, is at the end of a shaft of wood at least a meter and a half long. However, if your enemy should get past the point of your spear and has a sword, mace, or axe, you are at a big disadvantage and are generally screwed. The best way around this fact is to gather up a bunch of spearmen and stand shoulder to shoulder, with more men behind you in case you miss. Thanks to the length of the spear and the simplicity of its combat use (stabbing) it was possible for those in the back ranks to fight over the shoulders of the guys in front of them. These formations can be very resistant to cavalry charges since one: you can stab the guy off his horse. Two, horses' momentum is working against him, increasing the strength of the stab the faster he rides towards you. And three horses often balk and shy away from charging headlong into spears killing the momentum of their charge and of the horses behind them. A major downside of spears is their cumbersomeness. Due to their length, spears work very well in narrow avenues, but are impossible to wield at very close quarters. That's why elite or well equipped spearmen usually carried short swords or daggers for when enemies come really close or their spear broke in the middle of battle (being made of mostly wood they tended to do this quite often).

Another important fact about spears is that they are dirt cheap and easy to train with. A perfectly adequate steel tipped spear could be made by a village blacksmith or farrier in about three hours. [[Katanas are Underpowered in d20|A good sword]] would take a whole longer to forge, more iron and fuel to heat, and generally require a more skilled smith. If you want to raise a bunch of conscripts or [[militia]] and can't/don't want to pay a lot of money training and equipping them, or you want it done fast; a spear is your go-to weapon.

Unlike with swords, axes or bows, spear wielders benefit the most not from the personal skill, but from discipline, as their strength is usually in formations that prevent their foes from coming dangerously close. While technically spears are a hard counter to cavalry, medieval knights [[rape|utterly curb-stomped]] undisciplined spear-armed militiamen, while similarly armed but heavily-drilled Italian and Swiss mercenaries with pikes [[anal circumference|royally buttfucked]] any heavy cavalry stupid enough to charge them... from the front. That is of course the other problem with spears, because they work best in tight formations outflanking and hitting the side of the formation is often a slaughter as the tightly packed men can't turn well to adjust to the new threat on their side. Alexander solved this by putting lighter troops on the flank, later the Europeans would use hand gunners to help repel charges. Swiss, however, solved this problem completely by training the everloving shit out of their soldiers so their pikemen blocks could switch direction in a matter of seconds, turning former flanks into new front and vice versa, all the way wile RUNNING at enemy in perfect formation (something no other spearmen in history had ever done before, though the descendants of [[Vikings|these nutters]] would later adopt the idea). They were so OP at their time, other nations ''waged wars'' for the right to hire them and in fact the modern Swiss constitution makes it outright illegal for the Swiss to serve as soldiers for other nations, with ONE exception: the Swiss Guard who have been guarding the Pope ever since 1506, yes, over 500 years, making them one of the, if not the, longest serving military units in history.

Spears were also perfectly functional naval weapons used by marines. Two vessels that came alongside for boarding actions would often have teams of fighters as dedicated spearmen to stop enemy soldiers coming on board by jumping between ships and clear spaces on the opposing vessel for their own swordsmen to board themselves.

Spears are often portrayed as being used overhand, meaning that if you point your fist outwards the tip is pointing down. While this may sound like a bad idea; it creates an incredibly unwieldy angle to use your weapon at, limits your thrusting strength and does not allow you to stab as far as an underhand grip, it does allow to stab over your shield and this style of spear use was widely practiced by the Greek Hoplites. (as the picture above shows). This is incorrect and a common misconception, spears, unless they were Macedonian sarissas, were held in phalanx formation at around belly height, underhand. As a nice trick it also doubles as throwing stance (so you can launch your spear in surprise attack without telling it to your opponent with a sudden stance-change). Speaking of which:

===Spears at Long Range===
So far this has all been about spears as melee weapons. Spears can also be thrown, though for best results you usually need specialized spears. Thrown spears (or '''Javelins''') are typically shorter and lighter than melee spears, but heavier than arrows. They don't have the same speed or range, but since they are heavier they can make quite an impact. Regular one-handed spears while not designed for it, could be thrown too, though at far less distances, and throwing your main close combat weapon at enemy is usually a bad idea, unless he retreats or is a giant hulking elephant you don't want to face in melee.

Notable users of throwing-spears were Roman legionnaires, whose ''pila'' were specifically engineered to sink into a shield, bend at the long, flexible barbed tip to make removal just about impossible, and then detach from their handles. This served the three-fold purpose of making the ''pilum'' unusable for the enemies thus attacked, ruining any shields they happened to sink into, and being nearly impossible to treat without heavy surgery off the field, and these were the days before penicillin, meaning you were more likely to die of infection even if the surgery went well. For these reasons Pila were effective at inflicting significant losses even on armored opponents.

Other famous throwing spear users were the Aztecs who used the ancient atlatl to throw stone-tipped spears with enough force to penetrate Spanish steel mail or brigandine armor. There is some evidence that Ice Age humans who first developed atalatls in the region could use them to penetrate into the armoured hides of glyptodonts, resulting in an extinction overkill event for the large mammals. The people of the Iberian peninsula were also famous historically for the use of javelins, and even kept using them from horseback to some degree while absolutely everyone else was shooting guns while mounted instead. Native Americans also used these. Ancient Greeks and Romans had leather straps called an amentum as a similar throwing device. Many throughout history experimented with better ways to throw spears.

== Long Spears (Pikes) ==
[[File:Pikemen.jpg|250px|thumb|right|Assume hedgehog formation!]]
Spears are good at keeping a enemy at a distance so one day some king from Macedonia made the spear three times longer, called it the '''sarissa''', [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_the_Great and then his son went and took over the known world with it.] A longer spear means that you can have more guys fighting at a time and so make dense blocks of men more dangerous.

You know how spears can fight three ranks deep in [[Warhammer Fantasy Battle]]? Well, real life Macedonian phalanxes could fight around five ranks deep, meaning [[RAPE|more spearheads than available targets]]. It was said that a pike formation facing forward could only be broken by a charge of elephants, though this probably has less to do with elephants being invincible and more to do with soldiers shitting themselves at being charged by elephants, especially since elephants aren't insane themselves either and probably wouldn't like to actually run into hundreds of pointy bits if the men holding the pointy bits were brave enough to stand their ground.

After Alexander's death, the idea fell by the wayside, mostly as the generals following him assumed their pike formations were invulnerable and forgot about combined-arms tactics and protecting the vulnerable flanks of their pike formations with spearmen, swordsmen, or their own cavalry. Thus, the first Roman-style professional armies could outflank the formation and take it apart (Though doing so required them to sacrifice a couple line of their own guys to tie up the blocks of pikes so they couldn't reorient themselves in time to prevent said outflanking). Then the stirrup was invented, which allowed cavalry to really charge home, putting the full weight of the horse behind the lance and allowing cavalry to overrun infantry formations.

But like a swinging pendulum, the pike's day was coming back. The Swiss are known today for clocks and little knives that do everything, but back in the 15th century, the Swiss were known for being the greatest mercenaries in Europe. There is a reason why the Pope chose the Swiss out of all of Christendom for his guards: the Swiss solved issues with pikes by having much stronger training programs so their pikemen could be much more aggressive by closing with the enemy rather than "poking" from seven meters away, giving guys in the front rank swords or daggers while the men behind him stabbed forwards. Later, the addition of early hand guns made a match truly from hell as pikemen could be used to protect the vulnerable musketeers from cavalry charges.

To understand 15th century tactics, go play Warhammer Fantasy as the Empire. Seriously, they're so similar to each other it practically a learning experience.

Also Oda Nobunaga had lots of ashigaru armed with the magae yari, which was 5 to 6 meters long. He would go on to unify half of Japan before being assassinated by a subordinate (Oda had other things going for him like how willing he was to use guns) and said subordinate and his rival, Toyotomi Hideyoshi continued this. After Hideyoshi fucked up bad at Korea and died, Tokugawa Ieayasu and the Daimyo opposed to him fought like this at Sekigahara too - by the end of the Sengoku era and the establishment of the Tokugawa Shogunate, Japan was basically in a Pike and Shot period of warfare that wouldn't have any real battles until the Boshin War and the Imperial Restoration, which had post-Napoleonic line warfare that was having its bad days with good artillery and breech loader rifles making it more and more impractical.

===Death of the Pike===
Guns and cannons finally killed the pikeman: a gun took only modestly more training than a pike, but a musketeer or rifleman can kill you from considerably farther than seven meters away (like ten meters for early firearms). That said, pikes and guns worked together for much of the 1500's to the late 1600's, where men with black powder guns were protected from dangerous cavalry rushes by being combined into mixed Pike and Shot formations with well trained pikemen.

However, as the development of ranged weaponry progressed, having large formations of men became tactically unsound. Massed firepower or artillery could easily wipe out blocks of soldiers. This meant that being a professional pikeman was quickly becoming suicide, as the enemies were less and less likely to engage you in melee and more likely to use you as target practice. So the "deep" formations of the past were phased out in preference to smaller, tighter "lines" of men, which meant that bouncing cannon balls would go through far fewer targets. Pikemen only really work in deep formations, since that's the whole point of a long-ass spear which is otherwise a bit cumbersome to use against someone within the 3-meter range.

[[File:Defenders NGM-v31-p369-A.jpg|thumb|right|300px|the spear is still in use in modern times, though given the length of those things they're more like Glaives]]

However, this was not the final deal breaker for pikes. After all, guns or not, cavalry were still a problem until rifles gave infantry enough range to overcome the speed advantage of cavalry. What truly finished off pike formations off were '''bayonets'''. Why let a man only have a spear when you could give a man a gun that could stab, or rather a spear that could shoot (since smoothbore firearms sucked in every regard except armor penetration and ease of training)? This dual purpose would allow formations of musketeers to ward off cavalry charges and protect themselves in melee engagements from other infantry just like if they had a pike while still keeping up with their barrage of shots while unengaged. Fortunately for the spear, the bayonet long remained a vital weapon even as guns improved - seriously, military officers for centuries never thought themselves as winning a battle until they expected to be able to drive the enemy from the field at a bayonet's point, and this viewpoint would have merit until the 20th century. Better practiced gunners with more advanced and rifled guns were later capable of achieving high enough rates of fire at long enough ranges to no longer need the help of pikemen to ward off incoming charges and phase out the need for bayonets altogether. Soldiers today still carry bayonets and the odd (successful) bayonet charge can occasionally be heard about, but most modern bayonets are meant pretty much just for aggression training and then to double as normal knives as well.

{{MedievalWeaponry}}

Mace

2021-10-06T05:58:56Z

2603:8001:3500:CB:903:7DAD:413D:2B28: /* Flails */

[[image:Medieval Mace.jpg|thumb|100px|right|A flanged mace]]
Long before Australopithecus strode the savannah, one of our distant ancestors figured out that hitting something with a good solid stick was easier on the knuckles and harder on the target. Thus was born the [[club]]. Fast forward a few million years to a camp of more-advanced-but-still-primitive humans. One of them figures out that you could get an even better club by attaching a rock to the end of it to hit the target hit even harder. Thus was born the '''mace''', one of the oldest weapons much like the [[spear]].

== Maces in Warfare ==
The first thing about a mace is that, well, it's a stick with a hard bit on the end that you hit your enemy with. It's about as straightforward to use as you can get, even more so than an axe or spear. At the same time, basic maces are even easier to make than spears. Attach a stone to solid stick, or hammer some metal spikes or a metal ring around the end of it. Like spears, they had a bargain basement quality for equipping militia with cheap backup weapons. Even so, more complex maces made entirely of metal were employed towards the end of the middle ages (more on this later).

Unlike bladed weapons, maces did damage by blunt force trauma. They did not cleave apart or poke big holes into tissue and bone; rather, they shattered bones and pulverized organs. This has some advantages as their blows would often send force through rigid armor, though it was less effective against armor with padding behind it. For this reason, once plate armor became common, maces became one of the go-to weapons used by knights for use in close quarters against other knights.

Maces came in spiked (also known as "morningstars"), flanged and flat varieties. Morningstars and flanged maces had some (if not much) ability to penetrate armor and flesh, but their spikes and flanges were made mostly to dent into armor, not to pierce it; this ensures the strike would transfer as much force as possible onto a small point instead of glancing off, granting you a wider variety of effective attack angles against plate armor, which couldn't handle impacts very well on its own. In Japan, the most common type of mace was the ''kanabo'' and its many variants. These were essentially metal rods fitted with studs; variants made of wood with metal studs are believed to have existed, and would have been easier to make.

With a mace being a primarily kinetic weapon, a blow to the head is extremely dangerous, and has a fair chance of outright snapping the neck or caving in the skull, helm or no. But like axes, you needed a good swing to get the best results; a mace's blow is less likely to kill than a sword or axe strike, though, and a mace strike needs to be moving at high speed with room for maneuvering to do damage. These sorts of maces also had to be more heavily built than swords, which meant that a mace could not have the same reach. So you have a very close-quarters melee weapon which still requires a bit of free space to make the most out of.

==Maces Out of Warfare==
[[image:Maceoftheunitedstates.jpg|thumb|100px|right|Mace of the United States House of Representatives. Disciplining unruly Congressmen since 1842.]]
Maces became a symbol associated with knights and representative of their ideals; nobility, law, and education. As such, many groups co-opted the mace as a symbol of authority, especially universities and parliaments. These ritual maces were made more elaborate, decorated, and bejeweled to show the wealth and strength of the organization in question, and later became synonymous with the existing scepters used by royalty. They're still used today for formal occasions.

One variant of the mace popular with police is the expanding baton, a small metal mace which collapses into the grip. Less lethal, but quite possibly deadly. Unfortunately, the baton has been abused in several high profile cases, and a (completely wrong) public view that pepper spray and tasers are sufficient less lethal options has led to the baton being phased out in many departments. Replacing it is a weapon that's actually ''more'' likely to be lethal, but looks completely innocuous: Flashlights. While electronics have advanced so far that portable flashlights can easily be the size of a large pen, and really powerful ones can still be thinner than two fingers, large flashlights with heavy batteries and an endcap designed to transfer maximum force (while the untrained eye only sees it shaped for easier battery changes) make really good maces, and have the added advantage of being able to temporarily blind an opponent. This is a large part of why cops grip flashlights the way they do.

== Flails ==
[[image:EpicflailSCALE.jpg|thumb|250px|right|Rule №1: Never take a Flail unless you're absolutely fucking sure you know how to use it]]
Eventually, [[Flail Snail|a large snail evolved a pair of hard nodules on its antennae and ruled their patch of land]]. Some starry-eyed young blacksmith took from that the idea of separating the handle of the mace and one-or-more heads before stringing them together with a length of hardened chain, based on farming equipment meant to separate grain from its husks. And thus was born the '''flail''', the mace's younger, sexier brother with the same name as the aforementioned farm tool.

Flails pose many advantages over maces. The length of chain serves to add what amounts to a few extra feet of windup to the force of every blow, helping to counter some of the mace's space problems, and also gives the normally-short ranged weapon a little extra reach. Furthermore, due to the flexibility of the chain, a flail could circumvent certain forms of protection, striking blows around shields and parries to crash into secondary targets, or wrap around other weapons to disarm an opponent and open them up for a lethal follow-through. They weren't even that much harder to make than regular maces, though the addition of chain links ''did'' add significantly to the construction time.

However, all of these fun tricks were offset by a single, gigantic, unbelievable disadvantage that helped ensure that the mace remained common while the flail was stuck as a specialized elite weapon: training time. You think a ''sword'' takes a lot of work to use without being a danger to yourself and others? Flails were extremely unwieldy to handle and easy to lose in a fight, and that's before factoring in the problems of dealing concussive force rather than cutting or piercing an opponent that they share with maces. They had their place, but that place was primarily in the hands of a highly-trained knight slugging it out with another knight in full plate armor, not with a dude fumbling for a backup weapon because he couldn't use a ''[[spear]]'' properly. On a similar note, one-handed flails have had a rather small amount of historical data to them, with many supposed examples turning out to be forgeries and there are almost no textual references of them - certainly, they were highly rare at best.

And then there are heavy flails - ones with a long handle, short chain and long wooden (often steel-reinforced) heads - basically the same flails peasants used to thrash plants, only modified to better thrash people to a bloody pulp. Contrary to its knightly one-handed cousin, it had zero skill requirement and was commonly used by criminals and rebellious peasants, most famously Czech Hussites.

Lastly, there is a light flail - a single flat ball on a short rope. It was mostly used as a non-lethal weapon by bandits, kidnappers and other criminals, for it is very easy to hide and can concuss or even knock out even armed and trained victims without killing them (thus avoiding the issue of "where do I hide the corpse of the guy I just mugged?"). If you end up on the receiving end of a bandit ambush, don't forget that your purse, loaded with (very dense) golden coins can be used as a makeshift light flail. This could work the other way, as an exceptionally concealed weapon, if you load your purse with lead. Another popular improvised modern flail is a sock loaded with something dense, like a bar of soap or a rock. Since these are easy to construct, and the component items are near universal and impossible to restrict, it makes for a popular weapon in high-security places like prisons.

==Modern "Mace"==
In terms of spelling, pronunciation, and being a weapon, they are the same as what the article has gone over thus far. That is pretty much where the similarities end. "Mace" is a non-lethal chemical weapon that is applied to an opponent's face like spray paint, causing severe eye irritation that temporarily causes blindness. Like the products Kleenex and Band-Aid, Mace (originally "Chemical Mace") has fallen victim to what is known as "generic trademark". While the origin of the modern usage of Mace was tear gas, it is nowadays more associated with pepper spray.

==Maces in Fantasy==
Maces have been largely stereotyped as a brutish weapon in fantasy, and are thus the common go-to weapon for the large ogre-and-troll types. It's also a symbol of strength for characters, so maces (more commonly, warhammers) are also sometimes given to stoic warriors.

This stigma is due to their use: maces require a degree of strength to effectively crush their opponents. This is perfect for the absurdly muscular bloodthirsty monster who can just flail his arms around and he can swat away fighters left and right, or for the strong warrior who can put his entire strength behind the weapon to crush his opposition in a single blow.

Earlier editions of ''[[D&D]]'' included injunctions against holy men bearing bladed weapons, based in part on real life taboos about clergy being banned from "shedding blood"; as maces use blunt force trauma to kill, [[Rules lawyer|they were free game]] for any bishop with a militaristic bent to wield, so [[clerics]] that couldn't use spear and swords and such generally settled for maces and warhammers. Even now, maces remain on the "simple" weapons list for any cleric that would prefer not to use their deity's "favored weapon" for whatever reason.

{{MedievalWeaponry}}

Club

2021-10-06T05:43:14Z

2603:8001:3500:CB:903:7DAD:413D:2B28:

[[File:Monolith_Apes.jpg|250px|thumb|right|Good. Good. Your hate has made you powerful.]]

A long, long time ago, our ancestors discovered that in order to kill animals or prevent other bipedals from stealing their shit, hitting them with something was more effective than just punching them (unless you're a [[Monk]]). The first Homo Erectus that picked up a stick was soon imitated by others and soon, the '''Club''' was invented.

One of the oldest and most primitive weapons of the world with the [[spear]], the club is the older, less refined brother of the [[mace]]. Even more straightforward than a mace since basically any object sturdy enough to bash a face in can fit the bill, the club is the primitive weapon of choice, considered crude even by [[Barbarian|Barbarians]]. Mostly used by cavemen or tribals, the club is a firm indicator of a brutish, very technologically impaired or savage setting (when used by enemies, doubly so for the latter if they use improvised ones) or that the situation is dire (if used by adventurers, who have almost always better gear unless they blew their starting gold in useless shit). Clubs are also synonymous with angry mobs in virtually all settings, from the distant past to the furthest future. Note too that many forms of advanced clubs are, in fact, intended to be thrown in addition to be used as hand bludgeons.

== Types of Club ==

While the most popular form of this weapon is the "cartoon" variant, either a drumstick or bottle-shaped lump of stone or wood, clubs over the world have been used as mainstay weapons by cultures lacking access to metallurgy or the common folk, who either didn't have access to real weapons in order to prevent an uprising against their lords or couldn't carry around "peasant" weapons such as [[axe|axes]] or spears.

*'''Ball club''': A club made of a ball of stone or wood tied to a wooden handle, either on the side of the handle or on top (giving them a "drum mallet" shape). Mostly used by South American tribes as well as Huron and Iroquois tribes for the side-mounted variant, with the top-mounted variant more common among Central and South African tribes.

*'''Baton''': The one used by police officers and security guards to wallop the shit out of criminals, protesters and any lawbreakers they come across. One of their first documented uses was in Victorian England, where they were made of wood and known as ''billy clubs''. Modern one are made of plastic or rubber and come in several variants: the basic simple short variant (still called a baton or ''truncheon''), the longer version used by riot cops, tonfa-shaped and the retractable ones that are also popular for self defense in areas with strict gun laws.

*'''Blackjack''': Also called a ''cosh'' or ''sap''. The original blackjack was a flail-like weapon where a couple of hard objects like stones or lead balls were wrapped in a cloth bag, tied with strong rope, and then attached to a stick. Unlike medieval flails, blackjacks had lower reach as they were basically meant to be used like maces with extra momentum, but this meant that a lower degree of training was needed as it was less likely to harm the user while swinging it around. Blackjacks are also popular with mobster types as their close combat weapon of choice, although forgoing the stick with just a sturdy cloth bag filled with a few hard objects that they use to whack people with. This also had the added bonus of being very inconspicuous, as a nondescript bag with some mundane objects inside typically do not raise a lot suspicions from passer-bys.

*'''Beer / Wine Bottle''': A one time use club that becomes a stabby weapon thereafter. The cliché weapon of frontier bar brawls up through the present. A day does not pass in Texas without someone going to jail for busting a bottle over someone else's head.

*'''Improvised club''': Dear God, where to begin with this one? Baseball bats, crowbars, gun stocks... Hell, even a big enough stick laying around is an improvised club. If you don't know what this is, nobody can help you. A notable variant is the ''life preserver'', used as a self-defense weapon during the 19th century, which could be described as a DIY version of the ball club or blackjack above. Another of note are flashlights, especially among law enforcement, where sturdy housings and heavy batteries ensure they can be used as such. Axe handles were common on the Korean DMZ after an incident arose about removing a tree.

*'''Jutte''': Used by police forces and palace guards of Imperial Japan (and later by anybody on Imperial business), the jutte is a short iron rod with a single hooked guard. Used in the same fashion as a sai for strikes and jabs.

*'''Kanabō/Tetsubō''': Used in Feudal [[Japan]] by [[Samurai]], with kanabō being roughly the size of a baseball bat while tetsubō are even longer. These clubs tend to have studs embedded on one end in order to add to the impact. This is considered the iconic weapon of [[Oni]], being essentially a weapon of brute strength for a literal brute.

*'''Knobkierie''': Also called the ''iwisa'' in Zulu and ''induku'' by the Ndebele, it is a multipurpose walking stick/emergency throwing club that has multiple cultural uses. Fell out of style with the Zulu but remained popular in active combat with other Southern Africa peoples and is even used by protestors in modern times. Has a lot of modern symbolic cultural uses, but still packs a wallop if swung at a person.

* '''Nunchuku''': Two sticks connected by a short chain or rope, creating a simple form of flail; most likely made from repurposed agricultural flails. Although these weapons show up in martial arts movies, they have never been a really popular weapon and are mainly used for training or self-defense. As a flailing type weapon, nunchuku require a great deal of practice to not be just dangerous to the user. People seem to think that they are a much more dangerous weapon than they actually are because they are banned or restricted in many places.

*'''Shillelagh''': A knotty wooden stick with a large head, forever associated with Ireland, where it was both used as a walking stick and a weapon. Probably one of the sources for the "fighting Irish" stereotype.

* '''Tonfa''': A stick with a handle mounted perpendicularly near the bottom. Originated in Okinawa, repurposed from handles for small millstones. Interestingly, almost all the forms one can do with the tonfa can be done with empty hands. Nowadays mostly used in martial arts flicks or by cops.

* '''Torch''': The nemesis of witches, dark lords, and mad scientists the world over, the torch is the signature weapon of the premodern angry mob.

* '''Mere''': The traditional stone club of the Maori people of Polynesia, it is usually made of jade or greenstone and used much like a short sword in technique. Had a hole in the handle to allow for a wrist strap and for longer range flail like attacks.

{{MedievalWeaponry}}

Color Pie

2021-10-02T08:10:34Z

2603:8001:3500:CB:903:7DAD:413D:2B28: /* Colorless and Devoid */

[[File:Mtg elements pie.jpg|right|300px]]
The '''color pie''' is a set philosophies that inform much of the mechanics of [[Magic: The Gathering|Magic]]. Each color has certain themes and gifts that they are good at, as well as weaknesses that they cannot overcome without splashing into another color. If a card in a certain color does something that is generally considered outside of the Color Pie, it is called a Color Bend, or in the most severe cases, a Color Break.

== White ==
White embodies law, order, community, healing, and light.
White is the color of [[Paladin|goody-two-shoes]], as well as the zealous and totalitarian.
The White mana symbol is a sun, and its land is plains.

White characters include:
*[[Elspeth Tirel]]
*[[Gideon Jura]]
*[[Elesh Norn]]
*Konda
*Gerrard Capashen

White creatures include:
* Angels

White classes include:
* Soldier
* Cleric

White Keywords include:
* Lifelink
* Vigilance
* First/Double Strike

White is really good at:
* Gaining life
* Wiping the board
* Preventing damage (either by straight-up negating damage or tapping down creatures)
* Exiling things like artifacts and enchantments
* Pumping the board
* Making tokens

White is really bad at:
* Drawing cards and accruing card advantage
* Doing direct damage
* Ramping

=== The Dark Side of White ===

Don't conflate White with "good". White is Order, and there are plenty of [[Lawful Evil]] types in White. White is also frequently the color of hypocrisy, and not the kind born of weakness or ignorance, either.

In other words: More Lawful than Good.

==Blue==
Blue embodies logic, thought, observation, prescience, and arcane magic.
The Blue mana symbol is a droplet of water, its land is islands.

Blue characters include:
*[[Jace Beleren]]
*[[Jin-Gitaxias]]
*[[Richard Garfield]]
*[[Teferi]]

Blue creatures include:
* Aquatic life
* Changelings

Blue classes include:
* Wizard
* Pirate

Blue Keywords include:
* Scry
* Flying
* Flash

Blue is really good at:
* Drawing cards
* Bouncing threats
* Counterspells
* Mind control
* Tapping and untapping things

Blue is really bad at:
* Dealing with threats after they resolve (enchantments and [[Planeswalker| Planeswalkers]] are particularly sore for blue decks)
* Doing direct damage

==Black==
Black embodies self-interest, moral relativism, and power at any cost.
Black is the color of demons and undead, but also respect of the individual over the collective.
The Black mana symbol is a skull, its land is swamps.

Black characters include:
*Liliana Vess
*Drana
*Sheoldred

Black creatures include:
* Demons
* Undead

Black classes include:
* Cultists
* Necromancers

Black Keywords include:
* Deathtouch
* Menace
* Lifelink

Black is really good at:
* Sacrificing others for your own gain
* Killing creatures and Planeswalkers after they resolve
* Discarding your opponent's hands
* Card advantage... at a cost
* Reanimating the dead

Black is really bad at:
* Dealing with artifacts and enchantments
* Preventing threats from coming on the board
* Disrupting non-creature related gameplans

=== Non-Evil Black ===

One frequent argument is whether Black is "Evil" by definition; usually, the answer is taken to be "No, but only barely". For example, according to Mark Rosewater, Black is explicitly the color of the Constitution of the United States, creating an unusual situation where America is ''Black'' (Individual) Red (Freedom) and Blue (pursuit of perfection through knowledge).

The way this circle is usually squared is to note that Black is also a color of Realism and Pragmatism, of Trades, and of Individualism. It is the color of the rational check on White's more... let us say [[Lawful Evil]] tendencies.

==Red==
Red embodies passion, freedom, and [[rage]].
The Red mana symbol is a ball of fire, its land is mountains.

Red characters include:
*[[Chandra Nalaar]]
*[[Jaya Ballard]]
*Squee
*[[Urabrask]]

Red creatures include:
* Dragons
* Goblins
* Elemental

Red classes include:
* Barbarian
* Shaman

Red Keywords include:
* Haste
* Trample
* First/Double Strike

Red is really good at:
* Direct damage (which is good against creatures, Planeswalkers, and [[Red Deck Wins| your opponent's face]])
* "Chaotic" card advantage (through random effects or by exiling cards and allowing you to play them for a limited time)
* Destroying artifacts
* Destroying lands
* Going fast with hasty creatures and short term bursts of mana
* Temporarily stealing creatures

Red is really bad at:
* Dealing with enchantments
* "True" card advantage (you often have to discard cards if you want to draw cards, which is not true card advantage, it's card selection)
* Long term games (chances are you'll fizzle out if you don't win fast unless you're playing Chonky Red)
* Subtlety

==Green==
Green embodies destiny, nature-over-nurture, [[Tyranid|the food chain]], and [[Ork|really big, angry green monsters]]. The Green mana symbol is a tree, its land is forests.

Green characters include:
*[[Nissa]]
*[[Vorinclex]]

Green creatures include:
* Non-Aquatic Animals
* Most Elves

Green classes include:
* Druids

Green Keywords include:
* Trample
* Reach
* Vigilance

Green is really good at:
* Ramping and fixing your mana
* Making huge creatures, either through combat tricks, auras, or just ramping into a big boy
* Dealing with enchantments and artifacts
* Making tokens
* Drawing cards (but not as good as blue or red)
* Fighting creatures with other creatures (either through fight or bite effects)
* Uncounterable threats
* Dealing with fliers

Green is really bad at:
* Direct damage
* Straight up removing creatures without having a board presence
* Dealing with Planeswalkers
* Non-creature interaction in general

==Colorless and Devoid==
Basically the "color" of [[Construct|Artifact Creatures]] (though some colored ones have appeared) and [[Call of Cthulhu|eldritch abomination]]s, as well as a decent chunk of artifacts. Colorless costs can be paid with any mana, which means they can be put in any deck with room for them. Blue does this the most, as it has weak creatures on its own and many abilities which interact with artifacts. Once had an empty diamond as a symbol and "wastes" as a land, but this was dropped after the one set that used it as a gimmick.

[[Category:Magic: The Gathering]]

Color Pie

2021-10-02T08:04:05Z

2603:8001:3500:CB:903:7DAD:413D:2B28: /* Black */

[[File:Mtg elements pie.jpg|right|300px]]
The '''color pie''' is a set philosophies that inform much of the mechanics of [[Magic: The Gathering|Magic]]. Each color has certain themes and gifts that they are good at, as well as weaknesses that they cannot overcome without splashing into another color. If a card in a certain color does something that is generally considered outside of the Color Pie, it is called a Color Bend, or in the most severe cases, a Color Break.

== White ==
White embodies law, order, community, healing, and light.
White is the color of [[Paladin|goody-two-shoes]], as well as the zealous and totalitarian.
The White mana symbol is a sun, and its land is plains.

White characters include:
*[[Elspeth Tirel]]
*[[Gideon Jura]]
*[[Elesh Norn]]
*Konda
*Gerrard Capashen

White creatures include:
* Angels

White classes include:
* Soldier
* Cleric

White Keywords include:
* Lifelink
* Vigilance
* First/Double Strike

White is really good at:
* Gaining life
* Wiping the board
* Preventing damage (either by straight-up negating damage or tapping down creatures)
* Exiling things like artifacts and enchantments
* Pumping the board
* Making tokens

White is really bad at:
* Drawing cards and accruing card advantage
* Doing direct damage
* Ramping

=== The Dark Side of White ===

Don't conflate White with "good". White is Order, and there are plenty of [[Lawful Evil]] types in White. White is also frequently the color of hypocrisy, and not the kind born of weakness or ignorance, either.

In other words: More Lawful than Good.

==Blue==
Blue embodies logic, thought, observation, prescience, and arcane magic.
The Blue mana symbol is a droplet of water, its land is islands.

Blue characters include:
*[[Jace Beleren]]
*[[Jin-Gitaxias]]
*[[Richard Garfield]]
*[[Teferi]]

Blue creatures include:
* Aquatic life
* Changelings

Blue classes include:
* Wizard
* Pirate

Blue Keywords include:
* Scry
* Flying
* Flash

Blue is really good at:
* Drawing cards
* Bouncing threats
* Counterspells
* Mind control
* Tapping and untapping things

Blue is really bad at:
* Dealing with threats after they resolve (enchantments and [[Planeswalker| Planeswalkers]] are particularly sore for blue decks)
* Doing direct damage

==Black==
Black embodies self-interest, moral relativism, and power at any cost.
Black is the color of demons and undead, but also respect of the individual over the collective.
The Black mana symbol is a skull, its land is swamps.

Black characters include:
*Liliana Vess
*Drana
*Sheoldred

Black creatures include:
* Demons
* Undead

Black classes include:
* Cultists
* Necromancers

Black Keywords include:
* Deathtouch
* Menace
* Lifelink

Black is really good at:
* Sacrificing others for your own gain
* Killing creatures and Planeswalkers after they resolve
* Discarding your opponent's hands
* Card advantage... at a cost
* Reanimating the dead

Black is really bad at:
* Dealing with artifacts and enchantments
* Preventing threats from coming on the board
* Disrupting non-creature related gameplans

=== Non-Evil Black ===

One frequent argument is whether Black is "Evil" by definition; usually, the answer is taken to be "No, but only barely". For example, according to Mark Rosewater, Black is explicitly the color of the Constitution of the United States, creating an unusual situation where America is ''Black'' (Individual) Red (Freedom) and Blue (pursuit of perfection through knowledge).

The way this circle is usually squared is to note that Black is also a color of Realism and Pragmatism, of Trades, and of Individualism. It is the color of the rational check on White's more... let us say [[Lawful Evil]] tendencies.

==Red==
Red embodies passion, freedom, and [[rage]].
The Red mana symbol is a ball of fire, its land is mountains.

Red characters include:
*[[Chandra Nalaar]]
*[[Jaya Ballard]]
*Squee
*[[Urabrask]]

Red creatures include:
* Dragons
* Goblins
* Elemental

Red classes include:
* Barbarian
* Shaman

Red Keywords include:
* Haste
* Trample
* First/Double Strike

Red is really good at:
* Direct damage (which is good against creatures, Planeswalkers, and [[Red Deck Wins| your opponent's face]])
* "Chaotic" card advantage (through random effects or by exiling cards and allowing you to play them for a limited time)
* Destroying artifacts
* Destroying lands
* Going fast with hasty creatures and short term bursts of mana
* Temporarily stealing creatures

Red is really bad at:
* Dealing with enchantments
* "True" card advantage (you often have to discard cards if you want to draw cards, which is not true card advantage, it's card selection)
* Long term games (chances are you'll fizzle out if you don't win fast unless you're playing Chonky Red)
* Subtlety

==Green==
Green embodies destiny, nature-over-nurture, [[Tyranid|the food chain]], and [[Ork|really big, angry green monsters]]. The Green mana symbol is a tree, its land is forests.

Green characters include:
*[[Nissa]]
*[[Vorinclex]]

Green creatures include:
* Non-Aquatic Animals
* Most Elves

Green classes include:
* Druids

Green Keywords include:
* Trample
* Reach
* Vigilance

Green is really good at:
* Ramping and fixing your mana
* Making huge creatures, either through combat tricks, auras, or just ramping into a big boy
* Dealing with enchantments and artifacts
* Making tokens
* Drawing cards (but not as good as blue or red)
* Fighting creatures with other creatures (either through fight or bite effects)
* Uncounterable threats
* Dealing with fliers

Green is really bad at:
* Direct damage
* Straight up removing creatures without having a board presence
* Dealing with Planeswalkers
* Non-creature interaction in general

==Colorless and Devoid==
Basically the "color" of [[Construct|Artifact Creatures]] (though some colored ones have appeared) and [[Call of Cthulhu|eldritch abomination]], as well as a decent chunk of artifacts. Colorless costs can be paid with any mana, which means they can be put in any deck with room for them. Blue does this the most, as it has weak creatures on its own and many abilities which interact with artifacts. Once had an empty diamond as a symbol and "wastes" as a land, but this was dropped after the one set that used it as a gimmick.

[[Category:Magic: The Gathering]]