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Message: <blockquote data-quote="HeavenShallBurn" data-source="post: 3798166" data-attributes="member: 39593">Basics-Let's start with the basics, flails were agricultural implements.  Where fancier weapons got expensive quick they were cheap and plentiful.  Why? Because there were dozens on any single manor for use in harvest and every piddling blacksmith could make more with a couple lengths of wood and low quality iron.  Which means there wouldn't be a peasant alive in that agricultural society who wasn't quite familiar with their use.  Also as an agricultural implement they were something peasants could possess legitimately a very important thing.Shields/Parrying-They do not negate the benefits of shields, but they will reduce them if used properly.  Unless the head of the flail is caught squarely it's likely to skate on the surface of the shield and be jerked around the edge when the chain snubs up short.  Also a nice heavy flail has a tendency to bash a wooden shield to flinders or dent a steelshod shield (such as came into use by the renaissance) into uselessness.  They are harder to parry and doing so tends to tangle up both weapons if possible a flail user should avoid parrying situations.  This is less important on the varieties that remained closer in shape to the agricultural flail and more on the true warflails which were specialist armor-piercing weapons.Types-There are basically two types of flails, the agricultural and the military.  Agricultural flails were frequently used in war not just the fields.  Their construction couldn't be more simple, they were two lengths of wood sometimes set with iron studs sometimes not linked by a chain.  The chain was short and the spindles(yes I'm mangling terminology you get the point) were long.  The second is what many imagine when the hear the word flail, this is the military flail.  A specialized weapon that grew in popularity as the armour of knights grew heavier and more largely composed of rigid plate.  These had a single handle often made from iron and a long chain that ended in on or more metal weights often festooned with flanges, studs or spikes.  They had no agricultural purpose they existed solely to mangle armor and those who wore it and did a good job.Use-Flails are not easy to use, it sounds redundant when talking about a weapon but flails are dangerous to the wielder.  That spiked weight can crush your helmet as easily as his if you screw up and they're inherently far more unpredictable than a sword or axe or polearm.  When using a flail it's all about momentum, the damage you inflict comes from raw kinetic energy.  The business end needs to keep moving as fast as you can manage all the time, and this doesn't just take a lot of room it's tiring on a full-weight weapon.  More so the less experience you have because at first you'll be fighting the weapon to control it and using more muscle than you really need.  The key is one people tend to forget, like an axe a flail is a weapon for which offense is primary the more so the heavier the flail gets.  There are two overall techniques of use one far more common than the other.  The most common is the one you've probably seen wide arcing swings to build momentum it takes significant amounts of space and requires a lot of body movement.  The other technique was always far less common and far more dangerous.  This technique is solely associated with the military flail and has certain aspects in common with the use of the meteor ball.  While requiring less overall movement of the body it depends on very strong forearms.  Short-hafting the weapon you start a swing along the vertical to one side of your body then tighten it down into a continuous circular swing drawn from the wrist.  Basically the flail is being treated like a very heavy poi and you continue pushing the acceleration from the wrist as much as possible using the gyroscopic effect of the spinning weight to keep it nearly parallel to your side.  Then the blow is drawn underhanded at a diagonal across the centerline of the body by extending its arc of rotation.  At the end of the movement it can be recovered to a new position on the other side of the body or continued into a figure eight and back to the previous momentum position.  The extreme speed at the weighted end of a military flail possible with this technique can make it more brutal than the commonly practiced method but it's also a dangerous technique that requires strong forearms to control the flail once momentum is built.  Myself I broke one knee, several fingers and dislocated a shoulder while learning.</blockquote>

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