# Polearms

*The Fantasy Armory, Eighty Melee and Thrown Weapons for Exodus NDS. Source: https://exodusnds.com/sourcebooks/fantasy-armory/polearms*

Polearms carry **Reach** like spears, but on a forged head that cuts, punches, hooks, or in one case simply closes around a neck. That head is a complex piece of smithing, so they are costed as **Standard** construction and their prices sit alongside the two-handed swords rather than the levy spears.

Three entries cover more than one damage type: the Poleaxe and Halberd switch between two as a maneuver, and the Lucerne Hammer carries two natively. No other family manages that in a single weapon.

Every entry carries **Awkward**, which adds Bane in corridors, stairwells, doorways, and crowds. Most of the places adventurers fight are on that list.

**Construction:** All entries are **Standard** (design-doc §5.0). The head is the expensive part and there is a lot of it.

**Skill:** Heavy Melee throughout. At tables using a single undifferentiated Melee skill, use Melee.

<img class="framed" src="https://exodusnds.com/assets/sourcebook/fantasy_armory/fantasy-armory-polearms.jpg">

##### <span class="weapon-bar cut"></span>War Scythe
<span class="weapon-aka">Fauchard, Peasant Scythe, Battle Scythe</span>

<div class="weapon cut">

<span class="dmg">+3</span>
<span class="crit">4</span>
<span class="range short">Short</span>
<span class="enc">4</span>

</div>

<div class="weapon-detail">

<span class="skill">Heavy Melee</span>
<span class="price">20</span>
<span class="avail">Common</span>
<span class="type">Cutting</span>
<span class="qual">Reach, Sweep 2, Inaccurate 1, Awkward 3, Fragile 1</span>

</div>

A harvesting scythe with the blade re-set in line with the shaft. It is what a village arms itself with on the day it decides it has had enough, and it is very good at exactly one thing: reaching several people at once in an open field.

##### <span class="weapon-bar cut-thrust"></span>Bill
<span class="weapon-aka">Billhook, Guisarme, Bill-Guisarme, Hooked Polearm</span>

<div class="weapon cut-thrust">

<span class="dmg">+3</span>
<span class="crit">3</span>
<span class="range">Engaged, Short</span>
<span class="enc">4</span>

</div>

<div class="weapon-detail">

<span class="skill">Heavy Melee</span>
<span class="price">200</span>
<span class="avail">Rare</span>
<span class="type">Cutting, Thrusting</span>
<span class="qual">Reach, Disarming 2, Ensnare 1, Cumbersome 3, Awkward 2</span>

</div>

A pruning hook grown into a weapon: a heavy curved blade with a back spike and a forward hook. The hook is the point of it. **Disarming 2** is the best in the book, and a bill is the standard tool for pulling a rider off a horse or a weapon out of a grip.

##### <span class="weapon-bar crush"></span>Mancatcher
<span class="weapon-aka">Sasumata, Catchpole, Man Catcher, Neck Fork</span>

<div class="weapon crush">

<span class="dmg">+0</span>
<span class="crit">5</span>
<span class="range short">Short</span>
<span class="enc">5</span>

</div>

<div class="weapon-detail">

<span class="skill">Heavy Melee</span>
<span class="price">30</span>
<span class="avail">Restricted</span>
<span class="type">Crushing</span>
<span class="qual">Reach, Ensnare 3, Disarming 1, Inaccurate 1, Cumbersome 3, Awkward 3</span>

</div>

A pair of sprung iron arms on a two-handed shaft, pushed closed around a neck, a waist, or a limb and held there. It is the only entry in this family not trying to injure anybody.

**Ensnare 3** ties the strongest immobilisation in the book, and unlike the net the mancatcher keeps hold: the wielder is still on the other end of it, at Short range, where the prisoner's arms are not. Watchmen, gaolers, and temple guards carry them because a live prisoner is worth something and a corpse is paperwork.

+0 damage and Crit 5 are honest. If the plan is to kill someone, this is the wrong tool.

##### <span class="weapon-bar cut"></span>Bardiche
<span class="weapon-aka">Berdiche, Voulge, Pole Cleaver</span>

<div class="weapon cut">

<span class="dmg">+4</span>
<span class="crit">3</span>
<span class="range short">Short</span>
<span class="enc">5</span>

</div>

<div class="weapon-detail">

<span class="skill">Heavy Melee</span>
<span class="price">190</span>
<span class="avail">Restricted</span>
<span class="type">Cutting</span>
<span class="qual">Reach, Sweep 2, Cumbersome 3, Awkward 2</span>

</div>

A long cleaving blade mounted along a shaft, closer to an axe on a pole than to a spear. It has no thrusting function and no subtlety. It reaches, and it takes down more than one person doing it.

##### <span class="weapon-bar cut"></span>Glaive
<span class="weapon-aka">Naginata, Guandao, Sovnya, Pole Blade</span>

<div class="weapon cut">

<span class="dmg">+4</span>
<span class="crit">3</span>
<span class="range short">Short</span>
<span class="enc">4</span>

</div>

<div class="weapon-detail">

<span class="skill">Heavy Melee</span>
<span class="price">260</span>
<span class="avail">Military</span>
<span class="type">Cutting</span>
<span class="qual">Reach, Vicious 2, Guarded 1, Cumbersome 3, Awkward 2</span>

</div>

A single-edged blade on a six-foot haft. It is the most elegant weapon in the family and the least complicated: it cuts, it keeps people at arm's length, and it rewards a wielder who strikes and then holds their ground.

##### <span class="weapon-bar crush-thrust"></span>Lucerne Hammer
<span class="weapon-aka">Pole Hammer, Luzerner Hammer, Bec-de-Faucon</span>

<div class="weapon crush-thrust">

<span class="dmg">+4</span>
<span class="crit">4</span>
<span class="range short">Short</span>
<span class="enc">5</span>

</div>

<div class="weapon-detail">

<span class="skill">Heavy Melee</span>
<span class="price">260</span>
<span class="avail">Military</span>
<span class="type">Crushing, Thrusting</span>
<span class="qual">Reach, Pierce 2, Knockdown, Cumbersome 4, Awkward 2</span>

</div>

A multi-pronged hammer head backed by a long spike. It carries **two damage types natively** rather than switching between them, which makes it the simplest anti-armour answer in the book: no maneuver, no choice, just the right kind of force arriving at reach.

##### <span class="weapon-bar switch"></span>Halberd
<span class="weapon-aka">Hellebarde, Ji, Swiss Voulge</span>

<div class="weapon switch">

<span class="dmg">+4</span>
<span class="crit">3</span>
<span class="range">Engaged, Short</span>
<span class="enc">5</span>

</div>

<div class="weapon-detail">

<span class="skill">Heavy Melee</span>
<span class="price">300</span>
<span class="avail">Rare</span>
<span class="type">see profiles</span>
<span class="qual">Reach, Versatile, Disarming 1, Cumbersome 3, Awkward 2</span>

</div>

<div class="weapon-profile">

<span class="pname">Axe blade</span>
<span class="pdmg">+4 Cutting</span>
<span class="pqual">Sweep 1</span>

</div>

<div class="weapon-profile">

<span class="pname">Top spike</span>
<span class="pdmg">+4 Thrusting</span>
<span class="pqual">Pierce 1; loses Sweep</span>

</div>

Axe blade, thrusting spike, and a rear hook on a single head. The definitive polearm and the reason town guards carried them for four centuries: it does every job a foot soldier needs doing, and the hook works whichever face is forward.

##### <span class="weapon-bar switch"></span>Poleaxe
<span class="weapon-aka">Pollaxe, Hache, Ravensbill</span>

<div class="weapon switch">

<span class="dmg">+4</span>
<span class="crit">3</span>
<span class="range short">Short</span>
<span class="enc">4</span>

</div>

<div class="weapon-detail">

<span class="skill">Heavy Melee</span>
<span class="price">300</span>
<span class="avail">Rare</span>
<span class="type">see profiles</span>
<span class="qual">Reach, Versatile, Cumbersome 3, Awkward 1</span>

</div>

<div class="weapon-profile">

<span class="pname">Axe head</span>
<span class="pdmg">+4 Cutting</span>
<span class="pqual">Vicious 1, Sunder</span>

</div>

<div class="weapon-profile">

<span class="pname">Hammer head</span>
<span class="pdmg">+4 Crushing</span>
<span class="pqual">Knockdown</span>

</div>

Shorter and better balanced than a halberd, with an axe on one side and a hammer on the other. This was the weapon armoured men chose to fight other armoured men, and the reason is on the stat line: it answers both ends of the armour economy by turning the haft over.