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I've never liked Bat'leths. They're bad. They make zero sense as a weapon.
Wielded in both hands, it have all the reach of a large knife, but none of the maneuverability.
You can kind of use a Bat'leth one-handed, but it's clumsy and not at all balanced. It makes for wild swings that are more likely to hurt you or your friends than the enemy.
You can sort of block with them, if the opponent is going to make an overhead chop. That looks cool on screen, but if the warrior with a Bat'leth was facing a warrior with a simple sword and shield, the warrior with the Bat'leth would fucking die.
It's just a bad weapon, and looks like it was made to impress mall ninjas.
Oddly enough, the poor design is on purpose. Think of it this way:
"Cause it'll hurt more."
I always figured the block and struggle maneuver was the whole point. Like arm wrestling except the loser gets his eye poked out.
It will hurt the user more, yes.
It's a bad weapon design.
The guy who designed it for Worf in TNG, was inspired by a Chinese single-handed weapon. That weapon was not widely used because it wasn't actually that good.
Still, the deer horn knives are theoretically a sound choice for a weapon, provided your goal is to disable the opponents while likely getting skewered from range.
The Bat'leth is just a useless hunk of metal.
It was designed to be showy and look interesting on camera, not as a practical weapon, and it really does fail as a practical weapon.
Agreed to a point. Klingons are a proud people. Any petaQ can pull a disruptor or transport you into space (O'Brien looking around suspiciously), but a true warrior will triumph even with a ridiculous handicap. "A fucking pencil!"
I do understand the drive for hand to hand combat. That's how I'm rating it. And even compared to other kligon weapons, the Bat'leth is just bad.
Have you ever held a Bat'leth? Because it makes you feel powerful. Klingons are interested in feeling powerful and striking fear in their enemies, and for that the Bat'leth is pretty freaking great.
I mean, we're human, so I get the whole Indiana Jones "Ima just shoot the guy" thing. But we're talking about Klingons. Even if the weapon is objectively bad, there is honor in killing an enemy the hard way.
"We choose to use the Bat'leth in this war and others not because they are easy but because they are hard!" JFKlingon.
But today is a good day to die.
