... of shield or weapon, especially later era bearded axes. And axe has one extra advantage, being top heavy it not only cuts but bludgeons more armoured opponent, if you don't raise shield enough expet your head to be pummeled, speaking from experience here

And yeas spears were more common, but we do have relatively poor and one sided view on norsemen warfare. I have fought in shield wall with axe and I didn't feel too cramped to not be able to swing axe, spear and swords do allow going under the shield, but axe is better for taking control...

@Ovnidemon My bad should have specified the shield bit. Don't aim at the shield but past it. Axe is one of the few weapons that can hit the person behind the shield when part of weapon impacts the shield. Also short swords or long knives, too long of a sword just makes you expose your arm.

I think you got a lot of things wrong in this one. War axes, especially one-handed ones, are small and nimble. They are an excellent side-arm to the spear, should the enemy get through the spear line. They're good against shields, and they're better than swords against some armors. Deserves better.

“Axe” is a pretty broad term. You can have small single hand axes to 2m long pole axes, light or heavy, they are used in different situations and with different fight styles.
@Beast Wolf I think this whole series is Anne rewriting Vic.

@Jaegerrants Resume: viking Axe: Pro: cheap; versatile (thrown, melee, tool); great against poorly trained men (an axe wound is more severe than a sword wound)

Cons: bad in formation (no stabbing and require big moves); very little defense; more momentum thus harder to recover from a missed hit

@Jaegerrants Also: spear/javelin were more used than axe. It's just that axe had a cultural importance and wasn't used as much in other regions, hence we remember that.

Also, for the shield you are dead wrong. One handed Axe had a bigger tendency to be stuck in the shield, making you weaponless

@Jaegerrants Not the Viking Axe. If you search a bit, you will see that viking axe and Wood axe are pretty similar. The war axe as we know was europeaon, not viking.

For the sword, yes, it was mainly used for rituals or duels. But wealthy viking had swords when fighting. It was about the cost.

@Onvidemon Use of axes was not due to breaking doors,waraxe and lumber axe have very different profile. Also swords were expensive, most people could not aford one. And against shielded opponent, sword hits shield, axe hits person.

She is speaking as a weapons master at which point sword is more usefull in most situations. How ever to a peasant army spears and axes suit better. Also axes and spears are cheaper and faster to make so for military purpse they trump sword. Also if your opponent has a shield, axe is better.

@Scarifar
When Joe has run out of jokes or gets bored of it of course.
She has to be especially displeased that it gave Victoire so much attention for so long too.

@Kevin_Kuo Why use a hammer instead of a metal club? This is more or less the same with sword/axe.

Exploring Weapon Master Victoire is cool and all, but are we ever going to get back around to Anne's accidental fudging of her character sheet?

Axes are still revelant even in the post-medieval age: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LDldf2DGBas
Easy to drag away opponent's weapon (using as a hook). Decent at crushing through armor. Can be used skillfully.

Axes waxed and waned in popularity. Robert the Bruce was one of the last to have an army of Axemen. They used a high energy flourishing axe style that kept the axe twirling in front of them. The axe was both offense and defense. The weakness was drawn out combat where they would get exhausted.

Axes (one handed variety) had advantage over swords in that they were very effective at dismembering enemies. A sword is extremely weak against armor due to their weight and inability to put much weight behind it (without the sword bending).

They were also great tools to break shields.

Also, for those talking about vikings: Vikings were raiders, not soldiers. They mainly attacked defenseless villages and the likes. So an axe was more useful for breaking doors (Europa was the same: we had engineers with axe on the battlefield for breaking doors). And vikings had swords and spear

Serious question: why have you written "Do you want to also use a shield? Swords exist" while talking about spear the sentence before? I know it's the trend in video game to put spear as 2 handed weapon, but the spear shield combo was the staple of war for a very long time.

I see the algorithm's underboob suggestion was not wasted. Excellent.

can you do maces next?

As a certified axe-lover... you're not wrong. Historically speaking, most people fighting with an axe did so because axes are common tools. The stereotype of axe-wielding brigand exists because the only way to regularly get away with using an axe is to surprise attack someone who's unarmed.

Gaming wise, though, axes are consistently some of the most powerful weapons in the game. Who needs defense when a single critical strike takes care of the enemy? Build your tank accordingly!

Lack of range does make it a B-tier weapon. Milk drinkers need not apply

Historically, axes (in particular the two handed sort) were mostly offensive weapons that rely on momentum to smash the opponent's defenses. 9 out of 10 viking raiders can't be ALL wrong. Would pillage again.

Axes lose to swords but they beat spears. Didn't you learn your weapon triangles in school, Anne?

The Vikings pretty much honed the War Axe into the best multi tool/weapon they could for their time. Mainly because it was cheaper to have a decent Steel Axe over a costly Steel Sword. Or a Damascus steel which was the top tear of its time.

Celtic armor (patches of sacred blue paint and nothing else) is the best!

Ohhh! Weapons ranking! Love the idea.

IMO axes are great but have the problem of defense and reach. It's defensive potential is zero AND it has less reach that a thrusting weapon (like a spear or a mace) so you need a shield or be a polydrug addict viking and wear two axes. So I agree with C

If she puts polearms anywhere below an A, we will have to have words with her. It will be one word that some from a piece of metal. And the word will be ‘BLAM’.

@John McCann Ya, it made me sad because I had been waiting for that game for forever.

Even in the story they forget the main thing about Homeworld, the ships are the main characters of the story, that's why they never used human faces for the portraits in the previous Homeworld games.

By itself the axe is limited, but don't underestimate it.
A one handed axe is great for hooking and controlling shields, and two handed polearm axes, the poleaxe, were the weapon of the day and great in formation combat.

The thing that bothered me about axes is that only a small part at the tip cuts stuff. Why not make the entire handle edged sorta like an axehead-tipped scythe at least? Or better yet, just use a sword with a weight at the tip to add force to your swings.

Completely off-topic, but did you see what they did to Homeworld? The new game is a complete travesty.