Polearms! Knightly Poleaxe & Halberd: Differences & Use

You get a pollaxe when you breed a female spear with a male battleaxe, and you get a halberd when you breed a female battleaxe with a male spear. Hope this helps! :D

Funny thing about the names: "Halberd" comes from "Hellebarde" or "Helmbarte". A composition of the old words for staff/pole ("helm") and axe ("barte"). So "halberd" quiet literally translates to "poleaxe", despire them being different weapons.

Modern archeologists: Nooo! It's called pollax, you can't call it poleaxe! Medieval swordmasters: That thing? Yeah that's an axe.

the question of "which is better" does, as usually, boil down to the situation you're in. if you're a foot soldier on a battlefield then you probably want to have a halberd, you would also want the guys standing left, right and behind you to have halberds because then you can fight in proper formation, form a stiff line of pointy bits and repel cavalry charges. if you're a knight fighting a knight in a duel or on a battlefield after order has collapsed to the point where you can safely swing the thing without needing to worry about slaying your own men by accident, then the pole axe seems like the better choice.

Modern historians: "We must calssifie these simmilar looking armaments into precise categories." Medieval masters: "It's a weapon."

I saw another video one time describing the difference as: A poleaxe is thick and square handled with a metal pommel spike, plating, and the hammer pick head at the top. Its used in medium to close combat against heavy armor by using the spikes, hooks, and stout build of the poleaxe to yank the enemy's tools away from them with one end and strike with the other. Ideal for fighting in full plate on foot against another person in heavy plate armor. A halbird meanwhile is a short pike with an axe on it as well. Its made to be used like a spear or pike with the addition of a swinging head. Ideal for unarmored or lightly armored opponents since you can easily hew, stab, slash, and chop from a safe distance

Just to add to the confusion regarding the origin of pollaxe, the version I've seen was that the name came from a killing tool used by butchers for large animals like cattle and horses. It was usually either a particularly heavy axe or hammer that could drop an animal with one hit when brought down on the head, or as it used to be called the poll (which is why a poll tax is used to describe a tax levies on each person or "per capita" in Latin). If you read some older books written in the 1920-40's you'll sometimes see people describe a boxer knocking out some one with one punch as dropping him like a pollaxed stear.

What's crazy about pole arms is the variety they come in and all the shapes they allow You can have just about any shape on top of your polearm, as long as the weight is in check, it's a viable weapon. Edit: nevermind this does not extend to schythes, turns out you can still mess it up...

Currently writing a fantasy book with a particularly powerful character fighting in the poleaxe style with a modified halberd. So I was overjoyed, when I saw your video in my feed. During my research, I encountered the topics you covered. Every single one. And I came to the same conclusion. Somehow, this makes me feel like I did an at least adequate job in my research. As such: many thanks for your perspective! It really took a weight off my mind.

They both deal d10 damage and have the heavy, two-handed, and reach properties

I like to refer to the Poleaxe/Bec de Corbin/Lucerne Hammer as "The Medieval Can-Opener".

THANK YOU! Seriously, Skal, this subject has been driving me absolute nuts. I've been trying to work it out for a lot of my fantasy writing and just couldn't get a mental grip on the differences.

The difference is that the Poleaxe is the most versatile weapon used by the Lawbringers.

As an Italian, I would just like to point out that in modern Italian Azza specifically means Pollaxe, whereas a generic Axe is called Ascia. I do not know if at the time the terms were interchangeable, but now they are definitely not.

I always thought part of the definition, from a more knowledgeable position, was the use. There's a bit of a mode of use here. Poleaxe/pollaxe/pollhammer is an individual weapon. It's a deliberate anti-armour weapon, it's a weapon of the individual knight. It's meant and can be used close in and has a weakness in range. Sure, you have some range with it, but when you're capped out at 5ft, it's no spear in terms of reach. It's not just a 'knightly' weapon, it's a can opener, it's a brutal weapon and it's a deliberate weapon for defeating armour. It's the control of the user that makes the best of this weapon. A knockout blow or a lethal one. The halberd on the hand is a group weapon, a weapon of block infantry. Even perhaps cavalry. It's got the tools you need to make things interesting for the second and third ranks. More importantly it's not got a pointy/nasty backend to hurt your own guys with. It's about making an area uncomfortable to deadly for the other guy. This is a weapon of the mass drill, repeated drill, it's a weapon of rank and fill lines. On some level it's the definition of assault rifle and battle rifle, in a more modern context. Made even harder when you have a near enough definition of 'rifle' that fits both. Yet, really explains nothing. It's not something you can easily describe. Even with the old manuals, I feel there's some lost context to it that we have to use these specific names to try and cover. What was common, practical knowledge for them, isn't so for us.

The Italian term “Azza” is specifically referred to the Pole Axe, while the other axes (battle or great) are called “Ascia”

My favorite distinction, I don't remember if it was from Matt Easton or someone else, was distinguishing them primarily by what they're meant to be used for, rather than their length, composition, etc. that can easily vary and become somewhat muddled. Pollaxes are meant for heavily-armored (usually in full plate) knights to fight other heavily-armored knights in a one-on-one or small skirmish. Halberds are meant for lightly armored (relatively; often wearing brigandine or similar armor) infantry to fight other lightly armored infantry in large formations. Those two categories don't have all too much overlap, and while it's not always easy to know what a weapon was meant for when you dig it out of whatever hole it's been sitting in for the last few centuries, approaching it from that perspective makes it easier to classify some of the more ambiguous cases.

Halberd's always been my favorite weapon, even when I was a kid, I preferred the idea of staves or polearms to swords. Having reach is no joke

The pol(l/e)ax(e) is one of my favorite weapons. It is a Swiss-army-knife-weapon with elements of axe, hammer, spear, quarterstaff and war-pick, AND, unlike most other multi-tool weapons, it is actually practical! It is a rare case where combining a lot of different weapons does not make one that is not that great at anything.

One clear difference in my mind, is that the halberd, when used in formation, is long enough to repel calvalry, while the poleaxe was a strictly anti-infantry weapon.