I've Always Thought That The Flail Was Rather Unwieldy


Gamer Life General Discussion


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Interesting article about whether the flail actually existed


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The comments poke a few holes.

Sharoth may be interested in this.


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Interestingly enough, I keep a flail under the bed for home defense.


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Still, I never thought it was a very practical weapon.


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One interesting comparisons that many in the comments point out, is with the nunchaku.

One of the main problems I find with that comparison, is that the nunchuck is not used against steel-armored foes (limiting the bounce back), has no spikes, and is balanced and arranged in a very different manner. It's like comparing an odatchi and a gladius and a pike. While an odatchi is a sword, it works nothing like a gladius; and while it is an anticalvary weapon, it is nothing like a pike.

Also worth noting, the harvest flail explicitly exists and is different from the military flail.

While I am not convinced it "didn't exist" I do suspect that it may well have been a technological dead-end/never actually saw legitimate use.


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Also remembered that my family has some short whips from argentina that have the proportions of a one-handed flail, in between a riding crop and a stockwhip in proportions and flexing characteristics, although at least with these, if you do accidentally hit yourself, you are less likely to do serious damage (as long as you don't hit an eye. These definitely wouldn't get the reach of a Pathfinder Whip, which corresponds to a bullwhip. The Wikipedia article on whips notes that weaponized whips require expertise on the part of the whip wielder to avoid self-injury or injury to bystanders -- such would be the case for flails (thus, it makes some actual sense to put both into the same Fighter Weapon Group, but they should really ALL be Exotic Weapons, except that with Martial Weapon Proficiency one can use them but with the risk of self-injury or friendly fire in case of a miss, except that the threshing flail and its weaponized derivatives would get you off the hook for self-injury as long as you didn't try to choke up on the haft).


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As someone that has a character that uses a flail I absolutely disagree they should be exotic weapons.

No real reason, just don't want to blow the feat. :-)


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This article came up on the HEMA Alliance or HEMA International Discussion Facebook page. General consensus among the very knowledgeable folk was that the article is wrong on nearly every count.

For those interested, here is an image of a 1 handed, multi-headed flail in a fencing manual.

https://blogs.princeton.edu/notabilia/files/2012/01/Perez_de__Mendoza-836x1 024.jpg


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More armchair weapon nerds debate fairly well-documented European weapon history, news at 11


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I have to wonder if they are confusing the flail with the activity of flailing about....


One apocryphal story that I read (I think it was on Wikipedia but then disappeared from there) connected the two . . . Something to do with a blind king who nevertheless waded into battle . . . .


What a garbage article.

Dexion, thank you for posting actual information. I'm glad the comments section of OPs article had a few decent historians in it as well.

As someone who has trained with all manor of HEMA weaponry, I can say that a skilled flail user is an absolute nightmare to face. The combination of flail and shield is so effective that it's what we give to young or unskilled fighters in order to equalize bouts. Flails are referred to as "skill on a stick."

It definitely has it's drawbacks. Pole weapons have a distinct advantage over flails. However, against most other weapon combinations the flail is considered an "advantage" weapon.

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