What's your favourite type of sword?

I like flaming swords.

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鬼殺し wrote:

This is why I deliberated. If we're talking personal use and defence...say, in some stupid Zombiepocalypse scenario, I'll take any melee weapon over a katana or any other curved sword. Fuckers are a bitch to use in close quarters, restricted environments, etc. Machete? Sure. Hachet? Definitely.

But 'favourite' didn't indicate to me personal use, because...eh, I'm not that sort of sad.

Katanas give me the impression that it could break easily if you are stupid.

I'm stupid...

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If I had to choose a sword it would be this one:


It looks like I can do some serious chopping with it, and also poking if I need to. I also like how the tip curves downwards.

If I had to choose another one it would be this one:


I prefer short one-handed swords, because I just feel that even if I had a 2 handed one with more range, I would probably not be able to use it effectively. (probably swing once, miss, and get done by whatever I'm fighting while I try to recover).

Since it's one handed it leaves the other hand free, instead of another sword I rather have a small wooden shield, at most a mix between iron and wood like this one:


I don't think I would be able to use anything heavier.

I do like rapiers, against people it must be very useful, but I'm not sure if you can use it against animals. Let's say a boar comes rushing at you, I don't think that poking him might help. I mean, yes they use rapiers o kill bulls, but I don't have any confidence that the sword won't break the first time I poke a heavy animal with it.

@soneka that's a falcata, which is also my choice of sword.

Second image seems to be a simple short sword.

I found shields, even very heavy ones, rather easy to use because of how you are using your whole arm strength rather than your forearm (forearm is used for lifting, arm for moving, for the most part).

First one is kopis, not a falcata.
Second one is a Pompeii type gladius.

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torturo wrote:

First one is kopis, not a falcata.
Second one is a Pompeii type gladius.

I'm looking at both and honestly, they look exactly the same.

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faerwin wrote:

I'm looking at both and honestly, they look exactly the same.

Googled kopis vs falcata and the first forum I found had the most consensus that it was parallel development, just two different cultures (Iberian, Greek) happening to solve the same problem at the same time

That's because most of the pictures you can find are historically inaccurate replicas, or are more "modern" variations of these swords, as they of course evolved.

Kopis was used for both thrusting and cutting, you can recognize it by its pointy edge aligned with the blade, blade was also more straight.

Falcatas were used for cutting only, the blade was more curvy and also broader. Falcata was also heavier.

That's a picture of a replica which is close to the original, just imagine the blade a bit shorter and even broader. Also mind the handle - it's the typical falcata hand guard, it's "closed".

I really like the kind of swords that are meant to be used in a skillful way rather than just "let's slash some stuff and parry the attacks". Don't really know how else I could describe it.
Generally speaking, on the one hand I really like thrusting swords like rapiers, foils and the like (might be because I'm fencing a bit, dunno. Who cares.), on the other hand I'm a huge fan of katanas (here the reason might be because I find it interesting to watch them being made and because their fighting style inspired the light saber fighting styles).
Oh, and let's not forget about this last one. It also requires quite a bit of skill to use it in actual combat, you need to be able to read your opponent well to draw out its macimum potential. I even got one of those myself:

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soneka101 wrote:

I do like rapiers, against people it must be very useful, but I'm not sure if you can use it against animals. Let's say a boar comes rushing at you, I don't think that poking him might help. I mean, yes they use rapiers o kill bulls, but I don't have any confidence that the sword won't break the first time I poke a heavy animal with it.

This is a widespread misconception about rapiers. Unlike some other related but in fact rather different swords, rapiers are quite sturdy and are a bit on the heavy side as far as swords go due to their great length.

Rapiers are substantial and not easy to cut through or snap

Cutting through a rapier with another sword - possible?

Of course, a rapier - or any sword at all, for that matter - is hardly an ideal weapon to use against an animal. The reason is, you may very well run the animal through, but it might still manage to reach you and do bad things to you. Even lethal wounds aren't immediately lethal.

Talking about boars, it's not by coincidence that the spears used for boar hunting had cross guards - to stop the boar from reaching you.