It's not very clear from that picture but it's supposed to be like the size of a baseball bat

jesus

It is not a precision instrument

Even more than a traditional mace, this is just a weapon for breaking bones

You get a good swing with that and armor isn't really going to help that much

Oh fuck

I took one look at that thing and I'm just like fucking nope

"I have honed my sword's blade it a razor's edge. If I drop a hair on it, the hair will be cut just by gravity" that's nice

How long did that take?

My bar mace has a bunch of nicks in it from breaking razor sharp swords

But it still works

I have been very slowly developing an interest in historical weapons

weaponized screwdriver

this just looks like the historical equivalent of getting whacked in the shins with a fucking i-beam

This interest has revealed a truth within my soul

And that is:

Swords are overrated

Bludgeons are where it's at

I maintain that swords are better for visual media because MUCH easier to draw the wounds they inflict
but bludgeons are cool

Depends

There are plenty of ways to depict a mace wound even if it's just like "oh that arm should not bend there"

I wanna see a fight between TWO guys with these

it would sound. so horrific.

CLANG CLANG CLANG CLANG

an advantage edged weapons have in fiction is that it's easier to buy someone getting a cut stitched up and healing from it relatively fast

whereas getting hit by a bar mace just changes the shape of your leg, forever

Okay here's a thing I heard once that really resonated with me

Swords are a symbol of nobility

although if people involved are super strong

then bludgeoning is cool as shit

just trade huge smashes to the face while screaming

They were expensive to make because they took a lot of metal

If your commoner hero is given a sword then, symbolically, you are elevating them into the ranks of the upper class

They are now someone who MATTERS

Heavy armor is also a symbol of nobility, but in a different way

Poor people don't own plate mail

Typically you have people who's job is to help you put it on

While you're wearing it you're a faceless menace

the bar mace is a decent bit of metal but it doesn't need the material quality required to hold an edge

Plate Mail is representative of the POWER of nobility

Warhammers and maces are weapons designed to fight guys in armor

So if you want to have your hero's energy be focused on dismantling unequal power structures

Give them a mace or warhammer

know what's an underappreciated place to put maces, I think?

A sword lets the hero ascend to nobility

mecha.

a warhammer lets the hero bring nobility DOWN

quinn2win: Say more right now

a mech with a flanged mace is a mech designed to make your opponent's mech be impossible to repair

you aren't just beating them you are RUINING that equipment

You are on to something here

looks at iron-blooded orphans, obviously

Parts of IBO are very much "this is how and why people used particular weapons in the middle ages"

Anyway I am with Cobalt in the Polearm Supremacy camp but maces are also very good

I'm pretty neutral on Polearms

(Polearms are great for dealing with that other great symbol of nobility, the horse)

Something there

I think the guy with a shardhammer in stormlight is smart. the armor already kind of disperses damage into the plate rather than get cut

so just hit it with some actual weight

(As well as being nicely symbolic of densely packed, highly cooperative formation fighting)

I am now imagining a mecha whose primary armament is what I am going to call the Ruiner.

Shardammers a pretty common equipment for people who own a suit of shardplate but no shardblade

thus, the lucerne hammer is the ultimate knight slayer

you know how warhammers have the head but then the spike on the other side

They tend to break after a while and need to be replaced regularly because shardplates are ridiculous

the closest Mikazuki ever gets to using an actual sword in season 2 is that for awhile the Barbatos Lupus has a mace that is vaguely sword shaped

but still definitely a bludgeoning weapon, not a cutting one

and I love that for him

Didn't Mikazuki have a katana for a little while

And he's like "This kinda sucks"

yeah

And then went back to ridiculous maces

for awhile in season 1, but he never uses it aside from delivering the coup de gras to the Season 1 Final Boss

love the bit in the Hashmal fight where he grabs that ridiculous huge guts sword from that one guy and is like "hey I'm borrowing this"

the weapon I am imagining is just. a giant mace. but beam emitters on one side to just make a kind of beam wall.
beam side shears the armor off the enemy mecha. the mace side then mangles it beyond repair.
is it as effective as just the beam melting whatever it destroys? no. but it sends a message.

and that's even sort of a desperation tactic because all his other weapons have been wrecked by that point and he's had to make a deal with Barbatos to give up part of his body's functioning to have mpre power.