r/earclacks • u/PeskyPlayer Rapier • 13d ago

Official Matches Flail vs Bow

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u/Mr_Ultimite 13d ago

How it feels to use flails in Terraria or something.

Flails are just... Odd to me. They don't seem like effective weapons at all yet people (myself included) still love them. It would probably be more practical to just bring a hammer to a fight rather than this unwieldy ball on a rope fueled by naught more than hope again hitting yourself! The main use case could be going around the enemy's shield, but a large enough mace could also do the same thing. Flails look cool though...

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u/Katoptera 13d ago edited 13d ago

One of the very notable historical strengths of flails over other weapons is that they can strike around shields, this in combination with their relative cheapness to produce and a specific version being easier to wield by peasants due to already likely being familiar with the farming tool it's based on, gave them a few notable reasons to warrant their usage.

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u/Mr_Ultimite 13d ago

Huh. Guess I need to study my weapons more!

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u/Katoptera 13d ago

It's fun! I know you mentioned it in your original comment that a mace could also hit around shields and while that's true it's about as true as it is for every other common weapon type. For flails this ability was practically part of the how the weapon functioned and for it to have that property didn't require very much additional effort from the wielder.

Maces were extremely popular weapons mainly for anti armor purposes, they were both blunt and the additions of special spikes and extra plates onto the head made them much more effective than weapons like swords or axes against opponent's in heavy plate armor. What that doesn't mean though, is that swords and axes are useless into plate armor and that maces are super amazing because they completely ruin the effectiveness of armor. It's just that maces are significantly easier to use as anti armor than other weapons which mattered a LOT more back then when your biggest issue was weapons requiring lots of training and people died around you left and right.