need to find the game play video now. The gameplay looked just as good as the trailer. They are probably using in game assets for it.
okay, while this looks awesome, why do I suddenly feel an irrational need to make a parody... FOR HODOR!
You know, it would take an extraordinarily good samurai to take down a typical European knight in full plate. Japanese armor and weapons never developed anywhere near as far as their western counterparts. I'm not trying to be mean, it's just that the iron ore available to them wasn't as good. It has been shown several times that a katana just cannot penetrate chain armor, much less plate, so your samurai would have to get a damn lucky shot in to win. On the other hand, a longsword will go right through a Do.
most of the time in sword fights in western weapons and full plate armor there were 3 main areas knights typically tried to go for the most because of the lethality and less likelihood of damaging your sword. this was the under arm area (arm pit), neck, and eye slits. Eye slits were normally done with a dagger and not your sword but if done with your sword you normally gripped the blade so it would be easy to slip into the eye slit. . You have to remember knights typically didn't try to damage there sword. because a broke sword is useless and will get your killed faster then anything.
Engine limitation? Or maybe their game test team has been cut in size. Lots of people say "mongols/japanese/aliens" "would've kicked butt in Europe" but the reality is that Europe had incredibly fierce landscape in terms of military technology and military tradition. Europeans had all their own top of the line martial arts, endless impregnable citadels and some of the heaviest troops ever fielded. The thing with Europe was that not even the europeans kicked butt in Europe. No one could do much anything in Europe. The only way to gain any significant lands in Europe was to marry some princess and hope her family dies. Which lead to some of the largest middle age empires in Europe such as the empire covering Spain and Holy Roman Empire.
The combat looks flashy but the combat system seems abit meh. That might be me being biased though since I really like the game chivalry and the combat system that they use.
And there's the real problem. Until the invention of reliable firearms, European armor advanced faster than their weapons could damage it. For a period in the late middle ages,anyone who could afford full plate was basically invincible with the exception of heavy bows and a couple of small areas around the joints.
yes and no, yes, it was terribly difficult to deal with a man in plate while he's fresh, and rarely is a man in plate ever -alone- because if he can afford full plate, he sure as hell can afford some allies, however, in the event that said man in plate is ever fighting one on one against a lighter armored oponent (such as a samurai, just as a for instance) the plate wearer would have to be more conservative, in order to conserve energy while the lighter armored combatant could either be more aggressive and aim for those weak points in the armor, or, play it safe and wear the man down. It's called heavy armor for a reason XD That's not to say that a well trained plate wearer was at a disadvantage to a lighter armored foe, obviously he wouldn't need to get nearly as many strikes in before his opponent is cat food, it simply means that a savvy opponent could use the very strength of the armor as a weakness under the right circumstances. Truthfully though, a shield is often a far greater advantage in the field, protection against ranged and melee in one, and easily used as a weapon if needed.
isn't full plate armor along with chain mail underneath in the ball park of 100 to 110 lbs? I remember when I was in the marines and have to hike with 120 lbs of gear. that shit sucked. was not fun, and you couldn't move fast for shit. you also don't have the manual dexterity of a samurai or the flexibility. Plate armor hinders a lot of movement. The combats texts normally follow two different books for fighting during that time. One for no armor and one for with armor. This is because you cant use the same tactics and style of fighting as if you were unarmored. it just wont work because you cant preform the moves because of the hindrance the armor. edit for grammar
I think between 70 to 90 lbs is considered normal. Average height back then almost never went above 6 feet, so that helps too. The key is that the weight is distributed across your entire body instead of most of it being on your back, and these people were in AMAZING condition. Also, it's more flexible than it looks.
It was never really a standardized thing, instead it was common for the things to be first of all hand made but also they would be originally built for a person taking into account the skill of the smith and the preferences of the person. Very wealthy people would have multiple armor. French king Henry II had an armor that was embelished with gold and silver accents. (pictured is a replica of the original) The armor was rich in detail and took roughly 10 years to make according to one source. It was apparently considered a 'parade armor'. Another one of Henry II's armors. So, at the end of day if you were very wealthy you could actually have heavier and lighter versions of the armor and even ones for parades etc. The less wealthy would at least have one made for themselves specifically and the poorest (of those who could afford them in the first place) would have used pieces, sometimes reworked used pieces. Also, while it is said that "strong bows and firearms penetrated plate mail" it is dumbing it down quite a bit. Range is always a big factor as it affects the velocity and thus the energy for penetration. Other factors are things like the material and shape of the tip or bullet, with bullets the caliber of the bullet and of course the material properties of the armor, point and angle of hit and so on. And yes, bulletproof was a thing as soon as firearms were introduced. Usually you'd have one bullet on the breast piece sticking out there as the ultimate proof that the armor indeed stopped an arquebus or musket round (depending on period etc etc etc). And armor specially built to stand bullets is also going to be pretty good against other things too. So at the end of day your "knight killer" bow or rifle might not penetrate every armor you came across. And that would really suck. And of course as mentioned above by Damion, they're never alone, they usually had a whole bunch of other plate mailed people around them covering each other and then everyone of them had a bunch of men at arms, squires and whatever else that belonged to their personal retinue that were responsible for defending their master and often heavily trained and well equipped. And of course they'd usually have not a warhorse but a whole collection of horses that their servants brought to battle, as well as several lances and a whole range of 'secondary' weapons from which to choose from from maces to swords etc. And like Damion said, having a shield can be really useful. Well, having a plate mail AND a shield and having access to multiple horses and servants who help you get back up, bring you new weapons to replace damaged ones and bring you new horses should you lose your mount.. While your personal troops at the same time defend you. Those things really go a long way ensuring that you live to tell tales of your battles at royal court afterwards. In fact having those squires and other servants etc. and multiple horses was such a given thing that iirc. it was the relief force for Great Siege of Malta where the king had to persuade the knights to give up from having their usual retinue of squires etc. with them on the ships so that more combat troops could be loaded aboard and this was considered extraordinary and a great gesture from the knights. And of course as the knights landed on Malta, seeing turkish retreat and cities in flames they didn't think twice but charged while being ordered to hold and have the main force assemble and form up. Their commander had little choice but to order general charge to rest of his troops and the turkish force was slaughtered as they tried to retreat to their ships. Finally, knights while having typically access to several mounts could thus choose whether to fight mounted or on foot, depending on situation. So there's rarely the situation where a knight would be forced to run after a lightly armed trooper on his own. More appropriately knights are the heavy troops. Lighter units lean to the formation of heavy troops, using them as their rock and the heavy troops crush through the enemy where needed and hold the line elsewhere. Of any troop type during medieval era it was pretty good to be a knight. It was equally awful to be a mercenary. If mercenaries die you don't have to pay their wages! On the other hand if there was a noble lord who was challenging the king it would be all too convenient for the king to order that lord to charge enemy pikemen and knights while personally going after ranged troops (remember all that about having plate mail, armored horse and a shield?)
Officially it was pretty much their primary job and occupation to train to fight in their armor as well as possible. Just like if you find a good budo teacher, he will tell you that you can't always expect to fight in your highly light and flexible training gear and in a ring. You might only have a long weapon and be forced to wear cumbersome gear and then fight in confined spaces. And you have to know how to do that even though it's not how you would want to fight because otherwise you're even more vulnerable in those conditions. At least by training to fight with your disadvantages as well it'll be that much harder to use them against you. 100lb = 45kg. That was our average backpack weight. Imho, 35c (95F), 100lb backpack, rifle and everything else, flackjacket etc.. and running with your gas mask on and wearing the rain gear after 'chemical' warning being called out.. that was tough! I was in a better than average unit and I saw people fall on their faces after running out of air. Out of 60 guys we had like 6 people be able to make it to destination, yours truly included. But shit. I felt like dying at the finish, vision blurring, chest pains, lung pain, it literally felt like being kicked the shit out even after I had stopped running. More than anything long marches in hot sunshine with the full backpack. And when on rapid reaction duty we'd get an alert and we'd have to form up by apc's with the backpack no matter where we were at when we got the alert. At least you get to die inside the apc trying to catch your breath. Some of the lighter guys actually had it easier imho, I had like 30kg (66lb) more weight than some simply because I'm a lot bigger than the lean recons and such. Leaner guys can weigh like 60kg or so and I weighed 90kg. That said I lost 12kg in very short time. Theory: it might actually be a good idea for a knight not to be a body builder type but rather a relatively lean but very fit. It's not about swinging those weapons with raw muscle. It's got more to do with proper technique where the movement begins from the pelvis region. With proper technique you can swing a lot while avoiding getting over exhausted too fast. With bad technique you not only get exhausted immediately but you also risk damaging your body. Most of the time with melee it's better to have really good fitness and even greater technique than a lot of muscle. If you can move really fast the speed itself translates to energy - and it allows you to strike and block faster than the other guy. And when moving around you have less weight to carry around. Just a thought. But then:
