Parry does not work with B12

[Potjeh]

Uhm, no, Grani obviously successfully parried multiple times before Narfi finally managed to get a hit through. Gunnar disarmed his opponent and thus won. I'll give you the haft breaking episode, but that's why hafts were sometimes reinforced with strips of metal (and a B12 has an all-steel haft). But if blocking with hafts was a stupid thing, why would it even be attempted? Fact is, a two handed axe is essentially a polearm, and if you look in any medieval combat manual you'll see techniques for blocking with a polearm haft. There is of course a bias towards failed parries in the sagas because they're more dramatic, but if failure was very common parrying with an axe wouldn't even be a thing, and thus wouldn't show up in the sagas at all.

[Teleskop]

i think the second attempt is not sword being literally stuck in the axehead material but like uh getting hooked by the axe

[MagicManICT]

Battleaxes were designed in such a way as to parry swords. They worked much like a sword-catcher or sword breaker in this manner. The design actually served both to parry and as a longer cutting edge.

A good haft only needs to be wood with leather reinforcings. It takes a lot of hacking to cut through many hardwoods once dried and cured. Saw? sure, fast enough. But just chopping and hacking isn't going to do it quickly.

[jorb]

Will look at it.