How effective are the peasant mobs lore wise ?

[PlayerOnline]

In the game, peasant mobs are very weak, but how good are they in warhammer lore and in real life ? How would peasants with pitchforks and in cloth or leather armor fare against an average enemy soldier with spear ?

[chickabumpbump]

I would say they would lose to Skaven slaves, zombies and goblins if were talking chaff. Peasants would be more scared and less vicious than a confident Skaven slave IMO

[Zane87]

Not to mention that the usual peasant also has way less hygiene than your ordinary Skaven slave or goblin.

[chickabumpbump]

They have less to live for too

[PlayerOnline]

In real medieval warfare, how did peasants with pitchforks really fare against an invading army ? And also in a one to one fight against an average soldier ?

[chickabumpbump]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_Peasants%27_War

[Andrewbh2003]

poorly equiped

likely poorly fed and weakened due to misstreatment etc

just ask yourself IRL who would win a guy in peak physical condition or a exhausted poorly fed diseased person

i would say about equal to skavenslaves and stronger than zombies but that is it

if you want to see what a "peasant" that is more better equiped and received at least basic training looks like well...thats what men-at-arms are

[Ardariel]

Originally posted by chickabumpbump:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_Peasants%27_War

its not a good idea to xompare fantasy setting with real wars. A LOT of stuff in warhammer is taken from pop-culture presentation of smth, not real one. Like brettonian man-at-arms are really, really far away from what in reality man-at-arms were.

[A.Pot]

Lorewise they are not even a thing but would unsurprisingly be a very terrible unit.

[KOS]

Originally posted by chickabumpbump:

I would say they would lose to Skaven slaves, zombies and goblins if were talking chaff. Peasants would be more scared and less vicious than a confident Skaven slave IMO

They are way better than skaven slaves and zombies.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uLp-LDHknXE

[Hex]

They are random dudes in normal clothes using wood-cutting axes with no training. How do you imagine they fare.

And please, this "Well in real life hurrdurr" nonsense has no place here. The life of a Bretonnian Peasant would be considered a crime against humanity in real life. Real middle-ages peasants lived in a lap luxury by comparison.

[Bryan tries tanking]

A whole peasant mob fairs well if it’s just one low ranking moussilon vampire or a really weakened individual monster but for like say, a whole skeleton unit; just beg for the local bretonnian duke to send in some knights (or say that they stole one of your horses).

[Kinja]

Lorewise, as far as i'm aware anyway, they'd don't fare at all since Bretonnia doesn't use peasant mobs in warfare. They use Men-at-Arms which are basically just there to pin down the enemy until the nobles flank and heroically... charge them in the back.

As for real life, the only time you'd see anything resembling the peasant mobs from the game in real warfare would be during various peasant uprising and it would usually go about as well as you'd expect once the nobility got there with soldiers actually wearing weapons and armor.

[General Nuclear]

Pretty much as effective as a wet paper towel vs a forest fire.

[Toaster Maximus]

Picture this is why a court wizard is kept handy in the school of blight magic, coould put the mob in place rather quickly, or just send out a large war horses to run them over.

But lore wise its not really a thing most peasants are ill suited for warfare, the healthy ones get drafted ad conscripted basic training and so on to be in a empire state army or has a man-at-arms for some lord.

[yuzhonglu]

Once given enough armor, they're as tanky as stormvermin. One of the most cost effective units in the game since they're FREE.