Well, it's not because your dad doesn't wield his staff two-handed that spear fighters didn't fight one-handed.
I did a lot of reading on pikes lately, and apparantly the huge pikes in phalanxes were held one-handed, and those are by far the heaviest spears in history. It's all in the technique...
the doru (light pike), used by hoplite formations, were 2.5-3 m long primarily held single-handedly and used in the manner i tried to describe. Sarissas on the other hand, the double-ended 20ft pikes carried in phalanx, were also used single-handed on offense, but on defense were braced using both hands and the ground.
in europpean recorded history there have never been infantry
spears designed to be used primarily with both hands. All weapons designed to be used by infantry using two hands have been blunt or have employed cutting edges, and therfor cannt be considered spears but rather staves, swords, or other polearms. Two-handed spears have always been a weapon exclusive to horsemen.
the spears here are going to be more along the lines of hastae, 1-2 m spears, since anything longer is hardly worth equipping as our men move not in formation. It does have the benefit though of having range 2 instead of 1. the difficulty like i said comes from having no understanding of short spears, but only of pikes, lances, and non-spear polearms.
again, thanks for all the help!
A question to Fil - is there any chance that we could have the greatswords reach 2 squares as well? a 4 foot sword should have the same reach as a 6 foot spear i think. both are masterclass knighly weapons so it would hadly effect the balance of things.
« Last Edit: March 28, 2007, 01:34:05 am by Adarias »
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