I'm horribly jealous. If there's any way you can get more of those, PM me and I'll be your best friend forever.
As far as I saw, I had the longest pole on the field at Octoberfest with my ~10.5' spear, which I love. As Kyrian says, you will be a huge mark for archers (as I'm sure you're already well aware using a glaive). I wouldn't be at all surprised if between the two of them Kegg and Kyrian shot me a dozen times just on Saturday at ock-fest
. You want friends with shields, though one slightly counterintuitive thing I've found is that the longer the polearm, the less you need support against charging melee fighters. There's such a large space between the inside end of my threat range and the outside threat range of someone with a sword that I have no problem pulling up my spear and readying the dagger I hold in my back hand. With a 20' spear you'd have even more time, though you also probably wouldn't be able to bring the spear up in defense and would have to rely on a slung shield or be ready to go florentine to defend yourself.
I don't think you would see much benefit in having a single 20' spear over a single 12.5' spear, and in fact I bet you'd probably be better off with just the 12. The problem is that at 20' out, you and archers are going to be the only things threatening an opposing line, and it's not that hard to defend against a single spear you're paying attention to. Also, 20' is so long that, as Kyrian says, you're going to have a hard time swinging down the line to rapidly switch targets and catch people unaware. The advantage of a single 12' spear would not be so much that you'd be able to attack people 4' before they can attack you (thou that certainly helps!) as that when the long weapons on both sides are engaged, you can attack many
more people than they can, and than your victims will expect.
That said, while a single 20' spear might not due you as much could as you could hope, 3 or 4 of them working together would be an unholy terror that I would
love to be a part of
. No offense intended, but one of my favorite times during octoberfest was when Hydra and Heidoran were lined up across from a bunch of your fellow Uruks, who appeared to be without much leadership and had no poles or bows. I think we had at least 5 working together, and we just slowly marched forward, butchering everyone and not receiving a single hit because they didn't charge and they couldn't respond at our reach.
Don't underestimate the value of just a few extra feet, either (depending on how many of these things you can get a hold of). Especially for a unit, just having two 10' cored spears could do you wonders - I regularly find myself at an advantage over opposing polearms using my spear, even though it's just two feet longer, as they spend all their time desperately not quite reaching me, and I can just send a few thrusts in at them every now and then to keep them safely back while I kill their comrades (or actually connect and kill them when they try to get in close enough to get me : ). It also probably helps that my 10.5' spear is amazingly light, though - I imagine 1.25" poltruded fiberglass is heavier than bandpole.
Oh, and Kyrian is right about people trying to snatch it. People tried that a few times at Octoberfest and succeeded once, though it was a bit of a pyrrhic victory since they actually wound up pulling me into their line, where I made a big whole and killed two or three of them
. IME, people tend to be pretty obvious about it. It's usually the guy straight in front of you (somewhat ironically, since they're also your worst target), and you can usually see when the switch their weapon to their shield hand even when they try to be sneaky and keep their free hand hidden behind their shield.
Posted: Fri Nov 25, 2005 12:21 am
