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[Game of Thrones] has been on our television screens since 2011

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    TheStigTheStig Registered User regular
    edited August 2017
    He was total pushover and let a religious uprising take over the throne.

    Robert would have put them down right away.

    TheStig on
    bnet: TheStig#1787 Steam: TheStig
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    TubeTube Registered User admin
    Robert lost his beloved, married politically and ruled for a decade and a half. Tommen lost his beloved and walked out of a window. Tommen was a bad king.

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    InquisitorInquisitor Registered User regular
    Tube wrote: »
    Robert lost his beloved, married politically and ruled for a decade and a half. Tommen lost his beloved and walked out of a window. Tommen was a bad king.

    Tommen, to be fair, was also like 13 years old.

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    Carson VendettaCarson Vendetta Registered User regular
    Recognition by the lords of the autonomous north makes Jon as legitimate as any other recognition would make him.

    The only thing I want is for Jamie to take patch face's place. Abandon his stories lines and have him Be a broken man giving cryptic prophecy. I'd really like to know that there's no plot armor again and the lady olenna and sand snakes didn't quite do it for me.

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    AnzekayAnzekay Registered User regular
    Inquisitor wrote: »
    Tube wrote: »
    Robert lost his beloved, married politically and ruled for a decade and a half. Tommen lost his beloved and walked out of a window. Tommen was a bad king.

    Tommen, to be fair, was also like 13 years old.

    Yeah I imagine Tommen with a proper small council, his mother not around, and given the chance to actually grow up with proper tutelage could've been a good king. He had a Queen who was fairly capable, and he had a good heart if it was a bit soft (though, you know, 13 years old and protected by his mother constantly)

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    Blake TBlake T Do you have enemies then? Good. That means you’ve stood up for something, sometime in your life.Registered User regular
    Robert plunged the crown into what is now revealed to be near crippling debt and was going to marry his son into a family that was not considered rich.

    While the kingdom had a good fifteen years, shit was still about to go sideways.


    f
    Xeddicus wrote: »

    I mean, yeah, Dany's "right" to rule is bullshit. So is Jon's. And Cersei's. And Robert's. And the Mad King's and on and on. They're all just grabbing for the throne for whatever reason.

    .
    Jon is democratically elected (well at least by the lords) his claim is pretty darn strong. As it is a bunch of people saying. Yea. Please rule us.

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    SolarSolar Registered User regular
    Robert was a good King insofar as the structure of Westeros means that the list of people who can be King is very short and theoretically should only be one at a time.

    He was a better King than the guy he replaced, and everyone who came after him. The pretenders who died, well, being a good King does involve actually retaining the crown.

    Robert's biggest problem was that he spent too much money on frivolities. But his council also didn't tell him how much debt the Crown was in. That Robert gave up most responsibility to a small council of more qualified people is hardly a bad thing, though.

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    Blake TBlake T Do you have enemies then? Good. That means you’ve stood up for something, sometime in your life.Registered User regular
    I compare Robert a lot to one of our old Prime Ministers John Howard.

    John Howard at the time seemed ok. He gave loads of people tax cuts because the economy was good. They weren't huge, but they were regular, and it made everyone happy enough.

    Now we aren't pulling enough money in, because he continually lowered tax margins and the impact that he just did on public education is finally clearly laid out and its horrendous.

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    HobnailHobnail Registered User regular
    John Howard was also of course a noted master of the polehammer

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    MrMonroeMrMonroe passed out on the floor nowRegistered User regular
    Tube wrote: »
    Docshifty wrote: »
    But he was a bad king. He just had a council capable of running a kingdom in his drunken absence.

    That's part of being a king.

    Aegon, Robert, Joffre, Tommen, Cersei.

    Of those five rulers, which is the only non-disaster? Robert. He was a good king. Everything went to shit when he stopped being king.

    I've played enough CK2 to understand that providing for the permanence of the kingdom given your own inevitable mortality is like job number one of any king.

    Everything went to shit after Robert died because Robert had utterly failed to plan for any of it. He's (somehow) convinced he has a lawful heir when he does not, which loses for his heir the North and their allied kingdoms. He's failed to provide his brothers with something meaningful to do with themselves which loses his home kingdom.

    Robert's death was always going to start a war. His reign was an armistice, not peacetime.

    Really it's all Aegon's fault. How many Targareans managed to sit on the throne without letting everything go to shit before him?

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    HobnailHobnail Registered User regular
    So I was reading up on polehammers, because that's the sort of life I lead, and man there's a lot more pole than hammer on them things

    eQrud5K.jpg

    It's almost entirely pole!

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    SolarSolar Registered User regular
    Pole-hammers, pole-axes, bec de corbins and so on are all basically the same weapon as varied around a bit by different makers

    Four feet of pole, a variety of nasty killing tools on the end for stabbin' choppin' and bashin'

    It's really interesting to see the fighting styles that they used, too. Swords are romanticised but that's your late medieval knightly weapon right there, in reality

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    KingofMadCowsKingofMadCows Registered User regular
    MrMonroe wrote: »
    Tube wrote: »
    Docshifty wrote: »
    But he was a bad king. He just had a council capable of running a kingdom in his drunken absence.

    That's part of being a king.

    Aegon, Robert, Joffre, Tommen, Cersei.

    Of those five rulers, which is the only non-disaster? Robert. He was a good king. Everything went to shit when he stopped being king.

    I've played enough CK2 to understand that providing for the permanence of the kingdom given your own inevitable mortality is like job number one of any king.

    Everything went to shit after Robert died because Robert had utterly failed to plan for any of it. He's (somehow) convinced he has a lawful heir when he does not, which loses for his heir the North and their allied kingdoms. He's failed to provide his brothers with something meaningful to do with themselves which loses his home kingdom.

    Robert's death was always going to start a war. His reign was an armistice, not peacetime.

    Really it's all Aegon's fault. How many Targareans managed to sit on the throne without letting everything go to shit before him?

    It's kind of hard to plan for the revelation that your son actually belongs to your wife and her brother. And that revelation came as a surprise to almost everyone.

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    InquisitorInquisitor Registered User regular
    Solar wrote: »
    Pole-hammers, pole-axes, bec de corbins and so on are all basically the same weapon as varied around a bit by different makers

    Four feet of pole, a variety of nasty killing tools on the end for stabbin' choppin' and bashin'

    It's really interesting to see the fighting styles that they used, too. Swords are romanticised but that's your late medieval knightly weapon right there, in reality

    Viciously nasty dueling weapons, swords make good backups.

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    SolarSolar Registered User regular
    Inquisitor wrote: »
    Solar wrote: »
    Pole-hammers, pole-axes, bec de corbins and so on are all basically the same weapon as varied around a bit by different makers

    Four feet of pole, a variety of nasty killing tools on the end for stabbin' choppin' and bashin'

    It's really interesting to see the fighting styles that they used, too. Swords are romanticised but that's your late medieval knightly weapon right there, in reality

    Viciously nasty dueling weapons, swords make good backups.

    I should probably have said your main medieval knightly weapon for a knight on foot (a knight on a horse wants a lance and then probably, like, a long mace or something)

    Swords are sidearms, yeah. And against lightly armoured troops they are good for sure

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    SolarSolar Registered User regular
    edited August 2017
    On the topic of what makes a good King;

    It does depend on the period but if you look at some of these later rulers, the situation they are raised in makes them so isolated and distant from the common people that they find it almost impossible to get a sense of what the average guy on the street is dealing with. Tsar Nicholas II was surprised at the Bolshevik uprisings and the arrest of him and his family. He literally didn't know that he was so hated. It came as a bit of a shock to him, because he was so insulated from such things.

    Robert was at least a good King in that he displayed a definite understanding of a common person's situation. When he's talking to Cersei about the Dothraki he knows that you can't just hide in a castle and expect the people to be fine with that. He's got a good sense of what the smallfolk experience and how they feel. Joffrey reacts with instant violence when they express unhappiness with his reign, Robert wouldn't have done that. He wouldn't have been in that situation anyway, but if he was, he wouldn't have done that. He cared for the smallfolk. He cared for the lords, too, he didn't want them to die in horrible wars that could be avoided. He regrets having to kill the people he did in the Rebellion even if he doesn't regret the rebellion. He's got compassion and mercy in his heart.

    He expressed more Kingly virtues than most of the other Kings, and there was no question of his rule while he was alive. The reason that the Kingdom fell apart after he died didn't have anything to do with his misrule. It was because of Cersei and Jaime being the parents of Joffrey getting out at exactly the wrong time, basically. If Ned Stark had kept his mouth shut Joffrey would have still been King and the Realm would be at peace. If Robert had found out about it beforehand then he would have (probably with great regret) had Cersei and Jaime executed and named Stannis heir. The War of Five Kings wasn't Robert's fault.

    Solar on
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    FiendishrabbitFiendishrabbit Registered User regular
    Hobnail wrote: »
    It's almost entirely pole!

    Look. It has a hammer, which is perfectly hammer sized. And it has a pole, which is kind of small for a pole (compare: Telephone pole or dancing pole). So I would argue the opposite. The Hammer is perfectly proportioned, it's the pole that's kind of small.*

    *Insert obligatory "That's what she said" joke.
    Solar wrote: »
    Swords are sidearms, yeah. And against lightly armoured troops they are good for sure

    The main advantage of a sword has always been that can be carried comfortably, drawn quickly and it's much harder to disarm someone with a sword than it is to disarm someone with an axe, mace, spear or dagger. With the exception of the dagger no other weapon combines the features of "quick to draw" and "comfortable to carry". Which means that unless you live in a world of plate armor (in which case your ideal sidearm is an axe with a dagger as a second backup) the sword is the ideal weapon for daily carry.

    "The western world sips from a poisonous cocktail: Polarisation, populism, protectionism and post-truth"
    -Antje Jackelén, Archbishop of the Church of Sweden
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    InquisitorInquisitor Registered User regular
    Why is it harder to disarm a sword than a different weapon?

    Why would you want an axe as a backup weapon against plate armor?

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    AnzekayAnzekay Registered User regular
    My preferred backup weapon is a literal dragon

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    MrMonroeMrMonroe passed out on the floor nowRegistered User regular
    Most of a sword is not amenable to grabbing by someone not holding the handle

    Most of a polearm is a handle

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    InquisitorInquisitor Registered User regular
    MrMonroe wrote: »
    Most of a sword is not amenable to grabbing by someone not holding the handle

    Most of a polearm is a handle

    Sword blades are very grabbable and most historical systems I've looked at include grabbing blades.

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    FiendishrabbitFiendishrabbit Registered User regular
    edited August 2017
    Inquisitor wrote: »
    Why is it harder to disarm a sword than a different weapon?

    Why would you want an axe as a backup weapon against plate armor?

    1. Because it's painful thing to grab it with anything but a mailed hand. It's all edges. Most of the edge on a sword is actually not for offensive cutting, but to make it harder to grab if you're not the guy holding the hilt. The ideal cutting point is normally 1/3rd from the tip, so it's that part and the tip+the edge around the tip that are the killing points (Also pommel+hilt which function like brass knuckles). Against a dagger you can grab his wrist. Against a mace or axe it's possible to step inside the blow, get hit by the shaft only and then grab it (even if you're not wearing any armor).

    2. Because an axe can be carried in your belt (and if you are wearing armor too you don't have to worry about getting cut) and it's a weapon where you can project alot of force through a very small surface area. It basically a single-flanged mace. It usually has an extra spike on top and on the backend to give you additional killing points. The edge of the axe is strongly rounded so that if swung properly it's designed to deliver maximum force regardless of the curving of the armor (the circular curve means that the maximum amount of force is delivered perpendicular to the surface of the armor)..

    Fiendishrabbit on
    "The western world sips from a poisonous cocktail: Polarisation, populism, protectionism and post-truth"
    -Antje Jackelén, Archbishop of the Church of Sweden
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    HobnailHobnail Registered User regular
    Inquisitor wrote: »
    MrMonroe wrote: »
    Most of a sword is not amenable to grabbing by someone not holding the handle

    Most of a polearm is a handle

    Sword blades are very grabbable and most historical systems I've looked at include grabbing blades.

    Man you have a way more relaxed grabbability matrix than I do, I'd rate like a banana as "very grabbable", your typical sword blade would receive from me a grabbability rating of "marginally grabbable" or "technically grabbable"

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    InquisitorInquisitor Registered User regular
    Inquisitor wrote: »
    Why is it harder to disarm a sword than a different weapon?

    Why would you want an axe as a backup weapon against plate armor?

    1. Because it's painful thing to grab it with anything but a mailed hand. It's all edges. Most of the edge on a sword is actually not for offensive cutting, but to make it harder to grab if you're not the guy holding the hilt. The ideal cutting point is normally 1/3rd from the tip, so it's that part and the tip+the edge around the tip that are the killing points (Also pommel+hilt which function like brass knuckles). Against a dagger you can grab his wrist. Against a mace or axe it's possible to step inside the blow, get hit by the shaft only and then grab it (even if you're not wearing any armor).

    2. Because an axe can be carried in your belt (and if you are wearing armor too you don't have to worry about getting cut) and it's a weapon where you can project alot of force through a very small surface area. It basically a single-flanged mace. It usually has an extra spike on top and on the backend to give you additional killing points. The edge of the axe is strongly rounded so that if swung properly it's designed to deliver maximum force regardless of the curving of the armor (the circular curve means that the maximum amount of force is delivered perpendicular to the surface of the armor)..

    Swords are definitely able to be grabbed with bare or gloved hands, armored hands obviously work the best for grabbing. You may get some scratches, or maybe a cut if you really mess up your grab. Yes, the ideal cutting point is 1/3rd of the way up, but, you don't always get ideal circumstances in a fight, and there are uses for having the entire blade being sharp other than to dissuade grabbing (draw cuts and schnitts come to mind). You can step into a sword as well to get inside the blow, especially if armored. Closing in on someone with a sword, by entering into a close bind and then disarming them is a technique seen in many manuals.

    An axe can project force into a small surface area, but not as much as a spiked weapon. The rounded edge of an axe doesn't seem to be a particularly great fit for plate armor, you aren't going to cut through plate. As far as I know as plate armor progressed the use of axes (specifically one handed) decreased while the emphasis became on two handed weapons and piercing weapons. An estoc can also be carried at your belt, and used two handed to provide much more precise thrusting for weak points, puts all the force directly into the tip, and is an incredibly useful two handed tool for creating leverage for grappling other knights in plate armor. My knowledge of these things is hardly exhaustive, but personally I've seen lots of manuals with about full harness fighting that include lots of work with pole weapons, wrestling with daggers, and half-swording, but I don't think I've ever seen a one handed axe in any manual. If you know of some, send a link my way and I'd love to read through them.

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    InquisitorInquisitor Registered User regular
    edited August 2017
    Hobnail wrote: »
    Inquisitor wrote: »
    MrMonroe wrote: »
    Most of a sword is not amenable to grabbing by someone not holding the handle

    Most of a polearm is a handle

    Sword blades are very grabbable and most historical systems I've looked at include grabbing blades.

    Man you have a way more relaxed grabbability matrix than I do, I'd rate like a banana as "very grabbable", your typical sword blade would receive from me a grabbability rating of "marginally grabbable" or "technically grabbable"

    It takes a bit of getting over at first, I will admit, but, when you are wearing any kind of glove you basically can't get hurt once you've grabbed a sword. Once you have a good grasp of the opponents blade, honestly, they are not going to get any kind of cutting movement out of that blade, they would have a hard time cutting your skin, let alone your hand. I've grabbed sharp swords in learning contexts, in sparring contexts it's obviously dull stuff. But grabbing someone else's blade is INTOXICATING because you basically have absolute control over their weapon, your weapon is still free, you are pretty much in a position of ultimate power. They can try and tug all they want but that blade is going nowhere.

    Edit: Matt Easton, unsurprisingly, has a great video on it:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7eQ0VB68_qk&t=

    Inquisitor on
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    FiendishrabbitFiendishrabbit Registered User regular
    In terms of grabbability a sword rates somewhere around "A slightly upset venomous snake covered in grease".

    You can do it during the right circumstances with the right technique, with protective gear greatly increasing the chances of success. If it's dead (not held by someone else) it's pretty safe unless you grab the pointy bits in a stupid way.

    "The western world sips from a poisonous cocktail: Polarisation, populism, protectionism and post-truth"
    -Antje Jackelén, Archbishop of the Church of Sweden
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    TrippyJingTrippyJing Moses supposes his toeses are roses. But Moses supposes erroneously.Registered User regular
    Game of Thrones but about fictional 80s NYC gangs.

    b1ehrMM.gif
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    BlankZoeBlankZoe Registered User regular
    TrippyJing wrote: »
    Game of Thrones but about fictional 80s NYC gangs.
    Go on

    CYpGAPn.png
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    ZonugalZonugal (He/Him) The Holiday Armadillo I'm Santa's representative for all the southern states. And Mexico!Registered User regular
    TrippyJing wrote: »
    Game of Thrones but about fictional 80s NYC gangs.

    hqdefault.jpg

    STARKS, COME OUT TO PLAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!

    Ross-Geller-Prime-Sig-A.jpg
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    DarmakDarmak RAGE vympyvvhyc vyctyvyRegistered User regular
    Hobnail wrote: »
    Inquisitor wrote: »
    MrMonroe wrote: »
    Most of a sword is not amenable to grabbing by someone not holding the handle

    Most of a polearm is a handle

    Sword blades are very grabbable and most historical systems I've looked at include grabbing blades.

    Man you have a way more relaxed grabbability matrix than I do, I'd rate like a banana as "very grabbable", your typical sword blade would receive from me a grabbability rating of "marginally grabbable" or "technically grabbable"

    I laughed really fucking hard at this. Brayed like a donkey, even

    JtgVX0H.png
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    OlivawOlivaw good name, isn't it? the foot of mt fujiRegistered User regular
    Zonugal wrote: »
    TrippyJing wrote: »
    Game of Thrones but about fictional 80s NYC gangs.

    hqdefault.jpg

    STARKS, COME OUT TO PLAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!

    Yeah they literally already made this, it was called The Warriors and it ruled

    signature-deffo.jpg
    PSN ID : DetectiveOlivaw | TWITTER | STEAM ID | NEVER FORGET
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    FiendishrabbitFiendishrabbit Registered User regular
    Inquisitor wrote: »
    An axe can project force into a small surface area, but not as much as a spiked weapon. The rounded edge of an axe doesn't seem to be a particularly great fit for plate armor, you aren't going to cut through plate.

    The idea isn't to cut through it. It's to dent the armor to deliver concussive force, just like a mace and with about the same force and effectivness as a flanged mace (Except you also have a spike on the rear of your axe). The problem with a spike is that it's more likely to be deflected since it relies on the spike to bite in, while an axe always hits with a maximum amount of force possible (limited by angles etc). It's also more likely to get stuck than an axe blade.
    As far as I know as plate armor progressed the use of axes (specifically one handed) decreased while the emphasis became on two handed weapons and piercing weapons. An estoc can also be carried at your belt, and used two handed to provide much more precise thrusting for weak points, puts all the force directly into the tip, and is an incredibly useful two handed tool for creating leverage for grappling other knights in plate armor. My knowledge of these things is hardly exhaustive, but personally I've seen lots of manuals with about full harness fighting that include lots of work with pole weapons, wrestling with daggers, and half-swording, but I don't think I've ever seen a one handed axe in any manual. If you know of some, send a link my way and I'd love to read through them.

    There aren't any fighting manuals that I know of that covers the axe, just like there aren't any for the pike, halberd or mace. They all have in common in that they're:
    1. Exclusively battlefield weapons. A sword or staff is much more useful against a brigand.
    2. Not Judicial weapons (unlike the pollax, dagger or sword).
    A manual like Talhoffer is fairly typical. It doesn't cover a battlefield situation, but instead deals with weapon use for defense against brigands (using the messer and dagger) and a metric fuckload of different weapons for the judicial system. Which includes the Pollax, a traditional weapon for the foot knight (but also one of the choices for a judicial duel between nobility).

    However, we have a shitload of archeological evidence, which includes single-handed axes (and maces) produce en massé right up until the end of the 16th century.
    From literary texts we know that these were primarily used by horsemen (for example among the polish hussars many still wielded axes during the Polish-Swedish wars of the early 17th century) where it's difficult to hit with precision OR use two-handed weapons, but found significant use on foot as well (as a weapon that could be carried in the belt but still be used as a primary weapon while on horseback or a secondary while on foot).

    "The western world sips from a poisonous cocktail: Polarisation, populism, protectionism and post-truth"
    -Antje Jackelén, Archbishop of the Church of Sweden
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    TrippyJingTrippyJing Moses supposes his toeses are roses. But Moses supposes erroneously.Registered User regular
    Olivaw wrote: »
    Zonugal wrote: »
    TrippyJing wrote: »
    Game of Thrones but about fictional 80s NYC gangs.

    hqdefault.jpg

    STARKS, COME OUT TO PLAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!

    Yeah they literally already made this, it was called The Warriors and it ruled

    My previous ideas were Far Cry but The Warriors, and Fallout but in NYC where all the factions are 80s themed gangs.

    b1ehrMM.gif
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    PonyPony Registered User regular
    isn't The Warriors itself based on a Greek play or book or something?

    I'm pretty sure it's based on Anabasis, come to think of it

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    BlankZoeBlankZoe Registered User regular
    The Warriors ain't got enough focus on inter-gang politics to be GoT

    It's all The Warriors vs. Everyone Else until the fact that they were framed is revealed and then it is Everyone Else vs. The Rogues.

    I would be super down for an actual 80s Gang GoT

    CYpGAPn.png
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    SolarSolar Registered User regular
    Axes were effective battlefield weapons but it's my understanding that the axe blades you saw on a late medieval battlefield (i.e. the world of full plate knights etc) were almost certainly on a poleaxe or a halberd and really by that point people used crushing weapons like Maces and Hammers as one-handed weapons, plus swords which were still rather popular, over axes.

    You can definitely grab a sword. It's tricker to immobilise than a mace or axe though as the weight on a sword is down towards the hilt, which gives the wielder more leverage. But you can grab an enemy's sword. You're more likely to grab your own to give yourself leverage to whack 'em with the pommel

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    TrippyJingTrippyJing Moses supposes his toeses are roses. But Moses supposes erroneously.Registered User regular
    Blankzilla wrote: »
    The Warriors ain't got enough focus on inter-gang politics to be GoT

    It's all The Warriors vs. Everyone Else until the fact that they were framed is revealed and then it is Everyone Else vs. The Rogues.

    I would be super down for an actual 80s Gang GoT

    Instead of political marriages, it's all stuff like, "My sister's boyfriend used to run with Furies, he'll hook you up."

    b1ehrMM.gif
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    UnbreakableVowUnbreakableVow Registered User regular
    I am really glad the remake of The Warriors never came to pass

    But that's because Tony Scott was making comments about it being on the scale of Lord of the Rings in its depiction of gang warfare

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    StragintStragint Do Not Gift Always DeclinesRegistered User regular
    I am really glad the remake of The Warriors never came to pass

    But that's because Tony Scott was making comments about it being on the scale of Lord of the Rings in its depiction of gang warfare

    Ents and giant flying eagles?

    PSN: Reaper_Stragint, Steam: DoublePitstoChesty
    What is the point of being alive if you don't at least try to do something remarkable? ~ Mario Novak

    I never fear death or dyin', I only fear never trying.
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    UnbreakableVowUnbreakableVow Registered User regular
    Just the scale

    Not the stupidity

    I assume he just meant he wanted big impersonal CG armies clashing with one another

This discussion has been closed.