Postby Benjamin Smith » Thu Oct 23, 2008 12:42 pm
There are some serious differences in some of the basic motions and stances with two hand weapons of those types, but they often reflect the longsword in half-sword positions much of the time. I honestly have no real experience in axes (hammers should function similarly). I can speculate though:
DISCLAIMER: The following is all speculation as I have no experience with this weapon .
Take for example the Danish Axe, a large double hand cutting weapon. The high vom tag position would probably function almost identically. Ochs on the other hand becomes much more clumsy on the right, especially because this weapon doesn't threaten a thrust, and though stronger on the left it still doesn't offer nearly the variety of cuts that a longsword does. Pflug with this weapon would be limited to hooking and short blows that would be much less devastating, unless one moved their top hand farther forward to use it more like a poleax, and would be more equivalent to some of the half-sword positions, particularly those in the mortschlag grip where the longsword is completely reversed. I've never seen an alber equivalent with the mortschlag grip, and I would think that this weapon would make little use of this guard, except for a few specialized cuts and leg hooks. Your tail or wechsel guards could be viable on the other hand.
I'm seeing the weapon making a lot of wide sweeping cuts and ending in vom tag by following through as well as significant use of Ochs to tail zornhau and reverse true edge unterhau follow ups. A fighter would use Pflug a lot like longsword in the half sword when in close for hooking, and short chopping blows where there is less weapon rotation and more power from the musculature of the person. Alber might be useful for some versetzen, as well as hooking.
Again take that with a grain of salt.
Respectfully,
Ben Smith