Will there be flails?

[Beiss]

Well? I hope there will be. Imagine a knight coming at an infantryman, swinging a spiked ball on a chain to crush his poor skull and send him flying away a yard or two. Has anyone heard or seen anything that suggests such things will be part of the game?

[The Mongol]

I sure as hell hope so, flails are the epitome of badassness. Nothing like turning your enemies head into a canoe with one swing.

[swabian]

a swordfighter is clearely superior to a flailist, if none of'em uses shields. but packed in armor and equipped with a decent shield, the follower of the flailism would probably have an advantage, since both tend to be slow and the flail is much more effective against a shield and armor. as for the military aspect, i think flailism is uperior two swordfighting, because flails don't need much training but offer decent effect though. hence flail-dumbasses are more available and quite effective, if well armoured(... is this the victory of stupit raw power over tactical elegance, ending with the nuclear weapon?)

but apart from this i absolutely agree with the mongol who said

I sure as hell hope so, flails are the epitome of badassness. Nothing like turning your enemies head into a canoe with one swing.

.... lovely


if CA cannot implement flails, i hope the implement nice maces and hammers.

[InvaderCanuck]

Im curious where the idea came that you had to "wind" up to effectively deliver a blow with a flail.

According to my understanding of Physics, the reason why a flail is an effective weapon at dealing damage, is because it is able to accelerate and achieve a much higher velocity due to the flexible nature of the weapon.

Everyone is familiar with the acceleration at the tip of a sword. You move your arm a foot, the tip of the sword moves 4 feet or whatever. What the flail does, is due to its non-rigid nature, the distance it travels is increased, meaning it moves faster.

To swing a flail all you need is to swing it once. You don't need to twirl it around for 12 seconds to build momentum. You can just simply strike with it and it will cause far more damage than a normal mace or sword.

The practical use of a flail is different however, you DO have to take into account the follow through motion of the flail if you are to miss your target, so as a previous poster said, swinging the weapon in a figure eight pattern down in front of you and then back over your head is advisable. However, as long as you strike something, the kinetic energy the weapon has will be absorbed by what you hit, allowing you to cock your arm again and unload.

It is a fearsome weapon, in individual combat and in massed combat. I will say that it is a more intensive weapon to use, requiring MORE skill than a mace, it was probably more expensive to create as well. This might be able to account for the relative light use the military flail saw in actual battles. Knights and mounted soldiers used lances, spears and swords primarily. Infantry made use of spears, polearms, maces and swords. If you look at what weapon the flail would replace in both groups of soldiers, the sword for mounted troops and the mace for infantry, there is a fairly obvious reason why it was not used.

The sword was the symbol of martial prowess in medieval europe. The mace was more economic and less complex.

[Beiss]

Amen.

[Sitarus Originalus PM-30+]

i think those weapons should be in game... afterall it suppose to be historical correct and hopefully CA didnt forget to use that, though i am not sure how often they used weapons such as that in real battles
-> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flail_%28weapon%29
... here they say:
"Some of the confusion over this weapon may stem from its rare usage among the knighted class throughout history, which held the sword in much higher esteem. (The Hussites used the flail as its "national weapon", since they were all footmen rebelling against the class system.) There is no reason to believe that the military flail is appreciably more damaging than either the sword or mace, and it is not so heavy that it needs to be swung in circles to gain momentum before striking. (It is likewise not light enough to be used as a whip.)"

[Beiss]

Historical correctness is arguably not one of CA's top priorities. Flails are fun, and there should be at least some units that have them. Also, since MTW2 allows units to include troops that have different armors and such, would it be so difficult to make a couple of soldiers wield flails every so often?

[The Mongol]

They could totally do that but I have this feeling I'll never see flails in M2TW for whatever reason. How do you NOT put them in, it's a damn spiked ball on the end of a chain!

[Beiss]

The animation would probably look ugly or they'd have to put in a real physics engine (fat chance).

[hsimoorb]

As I understand it flails were not realy popular weapons. In fact they rather innefective compared to thier closer bretheren the mace. Far too easy to get fowled in combat, considering they're entirely reliant on momentum. If they put them in the game I would think they'd have an attack rating of about 1/2, slightly below that of a bamboo rod.

[Beiss]

Shut up. They can't be that bad. Imagine having a steel ball with spikes on it swung to your head. You think it'd hurt less than a bamboo rod? Plus, flails are intimidating. They might have been difficult to use, but once proficient enough, I think it must be a quite potent weapon.

[Sitarus Originalus PM-30+]

As I understand it flails were not realy popular weapons. In fact they rather innefective compared to thier closer bretheren the mace. Far too easy to get fowled in combat, considering they're entirely reliant on momentum. If they put them in the game I would think they'd have an attack rating of about 1/2, slightly below that of a bamboo rod.

rofl and lol
... but i actually agree, the reason they didnt use such a weapon in real battle is you need quite some time to make 1 hit and that just simply is that! in real battle you dont have 20 seconds to hit an anemy! that was also my reason i looked in wikipedia to see what history say about such a weapon that cannot be practicaly used in battle.

[Ringeck]

Sure there will be a lot of flails. Every non-visible peasant in the game will use it for treshing. :original: They don't seem to have been all that common in professional armies, although they appear here and there, and even in armies with roots in the peasant classes (such as the hussites) they were hardly the sole weapon used.

[God]

Yes but CA isn't into this 'historical accuracy' stuff...

[Lusted]

Plus the flail itself would require its own seperate animation, and that is a lot of effort for a not too common weapon.

Oh, and maces own flails, who needs a flail when you can just bash someones head in without any swinging.

[mark0701]

Plus the flail itself would require its own seperate animation, and that is a lot of effort for a not too common weapon.

Oh, and maces own flails, who needs a flail when you can just bash someones head in without any swinging.

Agree, but the flail has the advantage of range.

Quite useful if you are on horse back.

[Beiss]

Plus it looks cool. Again.

[Beiss]

Scythed chariots were one of the most useless units in RTW. But they were able to intimidate enemy troops. I think flails could do the same... but still be more useful than the chariots, hopefully.

[Confederate Soldier]

The flail is not a bad weapon. It started after some French peasants.(Or somewhere around there) Had been using a tool. This tool was the flail in its basic form. It was used to swing at bushes and trees. It would plow them over. Once the knights started to push the peasants around a fight broke out. In one swing of this flail the knight and his horse were knocked down. The other knights ran away. They did come back only a few minutes later. They charged with sword drawn. And were too slaughtered. The flail was a two handed wooden tool. The head was in the shape of a odd triangle. Soon after a combat version was made. It was still too big. and then it went smaller and smaller to what we see when we think of a flail. But with this progress many different versions were made. From one handed to two handed. I have seen flails with anywhere from 1-head (Ball and chain) to 4-heads. I haven even come across a whip that had the same idea as the flail. The flail was swung in the form of a figure eight formation. One swing of a flail=two swings of a mace.
This information was from the show that was once on the History channel called Conquest. Of course its in my words since the last time I saw the episode with this information on was like 3-4 years ago. The flail should be in the game. But as stated it would be hard for animation to be done for it.

[Sitarus Originalus PM-30+]

i dont say flail is a bad weapon ... if i did i must say i didnt mean it that way. what i wanted to say and explain is that it isnt much useful in a battle because you are much faster and dangerous with a sword, but ofcours you can make a lot of damage to person IF you hit him with flail (if he doesnt kill you before becos he is faster with his sword lol). =) hopefully i was clear this time =)