Polearms

**Polearms** are a type of melee weapon in Totally Accurate Battle Simulator.

## Characteristics

Polearms are long shafted weapons that allows units to stab or slice enemies from a longer distance. While it lacks the flexibility of Swords, an on-point hit with polearms can often multiply its damage greatly, rewarding high damage output for high accuracy. Their attacks deal high damage with slow speed, and their moderate range is augmented by high-momentum attacks that carry the wielder moderately long distances forward.

## Trivia

Despite how it's shown in game, Halberds were mainly a thrusting weapon rather than a chopping weapon,(which is why it's here), they would have been used in tightly packed formations making swinging it around difficult, the axe head was more likely to be used to kill enemies with Lamellar or Hauberk armor (but only when they are on the ground) were heavy bludgeoning attacks are more effective while the pike head is more effective for hitting weak points in Plate armor, plate was extremely common when the Halberd was used. Similar to the pike, this weapon was very commonly used against mounted soldiers. The Sparring Lance is the weapon of the Jouster, real Jousting required tournament armor(which was about 110 pounds, this is opposed to battlefield armor in which full plate is only 55-60 pounds) which tells you the damage capabilities of mounted combat. This Lance would not be used in real combat because the weapon is not designed to pierce large, deep holes in armor, this is why the tip is blunt. The Cavalry Lance is similar to the Sparring Lance, except it has a sharp tip allowing for deeper penetration. Cavalry who used this weapon would often be called "Lancer".

The Guandao was a Chinese weapon very similar to the Glaive, it was very common in martial arts in the 19th century and still can be found today. Its use is somewhat similar to the Halberd, as they were both somewhat used against mounted attackers. A Japanese weapon similar to this exist called a Naginata, also, in other parts of Asia a simialar weapon was used in Elephant Combat.

The Macedonian Spear is a short spear based on a real Sarissa (Sarissa is the name of the pike ). This will still talk about the Sarissa as the unit is called a Sarissa and the design is similar to a real Sarissa. Sarissas in real life could be 20 feet, they were very heavy and must be used two-handed. It was originally used to replace the Dory spear and when combined with Macedonian tactics, outperformed it well. The Sarissa was used in pike walls, the butt spike of the pike could be anchored into the ground to help with holding it. The Sarissa was very effective with mounted enemies however the length made it almost unusable if an enemy was able to pass the wall, but if the spear was cut in half, the butt spike could be used as a weapon.

The Greek Dory is a spear similar to a Sarissa, only about 10 feet long, in game, it's used with a Hoplon shield. Real life Dory spears would be used very similar to the Sarissa but with one hand.

Using improvised weapons like the Pitchfork and either Scythe was real. If a town was poorly armed then often tools would be used as weapons, some of which were very effective weapons.

The Pike in TABS is actually a realistic length, real life pikes measure 10 to 20 feet. They were used in "spear wall" formations against mounted enemies and charges, or for protecting Musketeers as they reloaded. Gunpowder weapons caused shorter ranged weapons to fall out of favor outside of the Cavalry, making polearms more popular weapons for infantry combat during the Renaissance.

A **glaive** (or **glave**) is a European polearm, consisting of a single-edged blade on the end of a pole. It is similar to the Japanese naginata, the Chinese guandao and pudao, the Korean woldo, the Russian sovnya and the Siberian palma.

Polearms such as the pike are more ranged rather than melee considering there massive length and there units attack type. polearms such as the scythe are more melee rather than ranged considering there small size and there units attack type, get the picture?