War Hammer Wielder

The war hammer bearer of the Late Middle Ages is the direct answer to the triumph of plate armor. By the fourteenth century, a man-at-arms in riveted steel plate was nearly immune to conventional cutting weapons — blades simply glanced off the smooth curved surfaces. Smiths responded with the war hammer: a hardened steel head, a sharp spike on the reverse, and a long haft for leverage, designed not to cut through armor but to deform it. A heavy blow crumples a steel pauldron inward, shatters the collarbone beneath, and renders the arm useless. Historical accounts from Agincourt to the Hussite wars describe knights being hammered to death by infantry who could not pierce their armor by other means. In the game he is the premier counter to all heavily armored units, dealing bonus damage against plated opponents while remaining slow and vulnerable to cavalry and ranged attack.