Throwing axes in Viking Conquest

[Kuti]

I'm not quite sure anymore... Are they present in Viking Conquest? Because I remember that some time ago I couldn't find any.

I would appreciate an answer =)

[Brummbär]

Still no throwing axes in VC.

[Kuti]

>.< Meyla krafla mikli thur syr I'll wait then...

[Joe]

they will not be adding them period i think the devs are someone of the thought process that only franks used them . which we know is not true look up mammen axes

[FourGreenFields]

Originally posted by DIRTYJOE1st:

they will not be adding them period i think the devs are someone of the thought process that only franks used them . which we know is not true look up mammen axes

Even if only franks used them... we have frankish horsemen mercenaries, as well as a frankish battle axe... we could definitly do with a frankish throwing axe I'd say.

[Philippe_at_bay]

By the middle of the 11th century (and almost certainly a lot earlier) the term 'Frank' had become a generic catch-all designation for just about anyone from Western Europe, regardless of ethnicity. The distinction was being made between Franks and Romans, the latter being citizens of the Byzantine Empire that we would be more likely to think of as Greeks.

In the fifth century the Franks were a barbarian tribe, though even that term referred to a collection of ethnic groups from the mouth of the Rhine. It's been a dog's age since I read him, but I'm pretty sure that Tacitus, a great ethnographer of the ancient Germans as well as a venomously partisan historian and flaming misogynist, never used the word even though he discusses the different tribes that supposedly coallesced into the Franks during the migration period in a fair amount of detail.

I'm not an authority on the francisca, but my general impression was that it was in use in Gregory of Tours' day, though I think I've heard people cast doubt on whether or how it was used as a throwing weapon. But to make a long story short, Clovis' and Merovech's troops probably had franciscas, though that may not have been their primary weapon (can't be your primary weapon if you throw it away).

By the time we get up to the 8th century, the people ruled by Pepin the Short and Carloman are certainly Franks in the broader 11th century sense, and some of them may even be descendants of the people that Tacitus didn't call Franks. I don't recall any francisca-tossing in the Chanson de Roland, and I suspect that it would have been considered a curious and useless antique weapon by the few descendants of Clovis' henchmen who were still running around. In any case, by the time of Charlemagne Frank was just the way people said French (same word, really), and it didn't mean that a raider who may or may not have been from Lotharingia was going to have an extremely antique weapon in arsenal.

So when you see the word Frank in Viking Conquest you probably shouldn't take it too literally, and you certainly shouldn't expect them to be tossing around three hundred year old antiques on the battlefield.

[And I really don't know anything about Mammen axes, but nothing that I saw when I looked them up indicated that there was any evidence from the period (i.e. pre-Hollywood) that they were being used as throwing axes. But I may have been looking in the wrong place -- what's needed is a bunch of axe-throwing quotes from the Icelandic sagas and as much as I love Icelandic literature...]

[General Sherman]

Originally posted by Philippe_at_bay:

By the middle of the 11th century (and almost certainly a lot earlier) the term 'Frank' had become a generic catch-all designation for just about anyone from Western Europe, regardless of ethnicity. The distinction was being made between Franks and Romans, the latter being citizens of the Byzantine Empire that we would be more likely to think of as Greeks.

In the fifth century the Franks were a barbarian tribe, though even that term referred to a collection of ethnic groups from the mouth of the Rhine. It's been a dog's age since I read him, but I'm pretty sure that Tacitus, a great ethnographer of the ancient Germans as well as a venomously partisan historian and flaming misogynist, never used the word even though he discusses the different tribes that supposedly coallesced into the Franks during the migration period in a fair amount of detail.

I'm not an authority on the francisca, but my general impression was that it was in use in Gregory of Tours' day, though I think I've heard people cast doubt on whether or how it was used as a throwing weapon. But to make a long story short, Clovis' and Merovech's troops probably had franciscas, though that may not have been their primary weapon (can't be your primary weapon if you throw it away).

By the time we get up to the 8th century, the people ruled by Pepin the Short and Carloman are certainly Franks in the broader 11th century sense, and some of them may even be descendants of the people that Tacitus didn't call Franks. I don't recall any francisca-tossing in the Chanson de Roland, and I suspect that it would have been considered a curious and useless antique weapon by the few descendants of Clovis' henchmen who were still running around. In any case, by the time of Charlemagne Frank was just the way people said French (same word, really), and it didn't mean that a raider who may or may not have been from Lotharingia was going to have an extremely antique weapon in arsenal.

So when you see the word Frank in Viking Conquest you probably shouldn't take it too literally, and you certainly shouldn't expect them to be tossing around three hundred year old antiques on the battlefield.

[And I really don't know anything about Mammen axes, but nothing that I saw when I looked them up indicated that there was any evidence from the period (i.e. pre-Hollywood) that they were being used as throwing axes. But I may have been looking in the wrong place -- what's needed is a bunch of axe-throwing quotes from the Icelandic sagas and as much as I love Icelandic literature...]

The term "Frank" was a catch-all term for Western European Catholics, for people who were not Western European Catholics.

The game is set in the late 9th and very early 10th centuries. Tacitus was writing in the 1st century A.D., what he has to do with the ethnography of the 800's is lost on me.

The OP is about throwing axes in general, not the francisca specifically. The idea that throwing axes would become "antique" while javelins, spears, boss-held-shields, swords etc . . . did not seems strange to me.

What makes you think throwing axes would be out of place in the reign of pepin or carloman? What makes you think the Song of Roland would mention a cheap, low class, infantry weapon? Its an epic aristocratic romance after all, not an after action report composed on or even near the battlefield.

The game features people who aren't Saxons using seaxes, is there a problem with that? Because there shouldn't be. Seaxes were used right across Europe and into Russia throught the "Dark Ages", the fact that the Saxons appear to be named after the weapon doesn't mean they were the only ones to use it, and the weapon didn't go out of use because of some arbitrary developmental threshold set by modern historians. So why should you make parallel assumptions about the Franks and the francisca? Asking where the throwing axes are in a game set in 9th century Britain/Scandinavia is a reasonable question to me. Not that I miss them very much.

[Tuidjy]

Throwing an axe that is not meant to be thrown is a desperation act. I have no problem with every short axe having an alternate throwing mode. It should have a range around 4-10 meters, depending on weight, and damage comparable to melee.

Having dedicated throwing axes is a bit strange. I'm not aware of any between the francisca and the hurlbat, and Viking Conquest is a bit late for the former, and way early for the latter. As for anyone suggesting in earnest that Mammen axes were designed as a throwing weapon...

But we are already finding some unique and extremely uncommon items in the game. The Elf Helm face protection is absolutely strange, the troll club is way too long, and the dragon standard is much too effective a weapon.

So I do not see a problem with having an unique composite bow, an unique pair of throwing axes, an unique menaulion from Byzantium, or even a curved cavalry sword. But it is up to the developers, and I think that they feel that such items aren't part of what they want Viking Conquest to be.

[Joe]

id like to see some valsgrade helmuts o my