History VideoGame / Mordhau

** DropTheHammer: Warhmmers and mauls are good weapons against armored foes and structures. Peasants also get a sledgehammer, to act as a poor man's maul. Patch 18 added polehammers to the mix, combining the crushing power of a hammer with the reach and bladed point of a halberd.

** Introduced in patch 19 are the Tank and Dwarf perks, the first perks that visibly affect your character's appearance. While the Tank perk is perfectly viable, the Dwarf perk gives you a significantly smaller hitbox in exchange for taking much more damage than normal. Furthermore, Dwarfs are fairly slow, making the perk a general hindrance. This doesn't prevent you from seeing the numerous players in any given match who run around the battlefield as midgets.

** BladeOnAStick: All manner of polearms are available to use. Save for the short spear, they are invariably two-handed weapons, and require significant points to buy in exchange for having excellent range and damage.

** DropTheHammer: Warhmmers and mauls are good weapons against armored foes and structures. Peasants also get a sledgehammer, to act as a poor man's maul. Patch 18 added [[BladeOnAStick polehammers]] to the mix, combining the crushing power of a hammer with the reach and bladed point of a halberd.

** The Mordhau's done with longswords and estocs, and as usual involves grabbing the sword by the blade and smashing people's faces in with the pommel and crossguard — practically mandatory when fighting someone with tier-3 heavy armor that'll shrug off a blade.
* HealThyself: Bandages are a cheap way to regain half of your health, if you can't wait for the RegeneratingHealth to kick in (or, in Horde mode, if you can't risk playing offensively to regen through damage-dealing). Medic bags are even more effective and can be thrown on the ground to be shared with other players.

** In horde mode, all the enemies have access to an attack in which they pull out a turd and throw it at you, with no apparent limit. It does minimal damage, but they only start doing this when they can't reach your current location, which usually means you will be completely surrounded by angry enemies that will ''all'' start pelting you; it's not unheard of to end up lethally buried in crap in a matter of seconds.

* GlassCannon: Any low-armored player with a high-damage weapon is this. Notable examples include the maul and the Zweihander, and certain polearms; many powerful weapons have high point costs that leave less room for armor.

** Half-swording can be done with Greatswords and Zweihänders to make stabbing and blocking easier and make sure swings don't get caught in a corridor's walls.
** The Mordhau's done with Longswords and Estocs, and as usual involves grabbing the sword by the blade and smashing people's faces in with the pommel and crossguard — practically mandatory when fighting someone with tier-3 heavy armor that'll shrug off a blade.
* HealThyself: Bandages are a cheap way to regain half of your health, if you can't wait for the RegeneratingHealth to kick in (or, in Horde mode, if you can't risk playing offensively to regen through damage-dealing). Medical bags are even more effective and can be thrown on the ground to be shared with other players.

** The titular mordhau grip, which involves your character ''holding a longsword by its blade'' and hitting enemies with the pommel or crossguard. Especially useful against heavily-armored enemies, as blunt strikes goes through armor better than cuts or thrusts. Subverted in that this is actually a case of TruthInTelevision: the [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mordhau_(weaponry) mordhau]] is a real technique that was taught in [[UsefulNotes/HistoricalEuropeanMartialArts several schools of fencing, such as the German Lichtenauer or the Italian Fiore styles]].

** Intorduced in patch 19 is the Tank and Dwarf perks, the first perks that visibly affect your character's size. The Dwarf perk gives you a significantly smaller hitbox in exchange for taking much more damage than normal. Furthermore, Dwarfs are fairly slow, making the perk a general hindrance. This doesn't prevent you from seeing the numerous players in any given match who run around the battlefield as midgets.

** The map "Crossroads" features carrots on the ground that can be used as melee weapons. They function similarly to the carving knife, but are the only weapon in the game that deals ''zero damage'' with certain attacks (stabs to the head and swings to the legs).
* KillItWithFire: The fire bombs can set the ground ablaze.
* LargeAndInCharge: The Commander and Warden of Grad, and the three nobles of Feitoria, stand head-and-shoulders taller than the Free Guard mercenaries fighting to protect them.

--> "YOUR BONES ARE SOFTER THAN A NEWBORN CHILD'S!"

* LifeDrain: The Bloodlust perk fully heals a player after killing an enemy. Without the perk, killing an enemy grants 25 HP, helping to reward successful kills and keep players fighting for longer. In Horde Mode, players heal based on the damage they deal to enemies.

* ManOnFire: Stepping into an open flame, such as those created by a [[MolotovCocktail fire pot]], will set your character on fire for a few seconds and deal damage over time. [[InfernalRetaliation You can get an achievement by killing someone while still on fire.]]

* MolotovCocktail: Firebombs are a medieval version, likely using oil. The effect is the same, setting a small chunk of terrain on fire and burning people alive.
* MoneySink: Unlocking some of weapon skins or armor pieces takes a ridiculous amount of money, like 50000 gold. For comparison, unlocking weapons themselves only needs 300 to 500 golds. Although, given that there are no microtransactions in the game, the only thing required of the player is to fight in battles and earn their battle pay.

* NoFairCheating: Horde mode enemies can't jump or climb, which means there are places in a given map they cannot reach. Hiding in one of those places, however, may under certain circumstances lead to them pelting you with minimal-damage turds until you get back down or die. They almost ''never'' do this otherwise, despite apparently having an infinite supply of crap.

* OneHitKill: A strike from the maul can deliver instant death to any enemy [[BoomHeadshot if it hit in the head]]. The attack speed of it is quite slow, though. Being hit by a catapult or ballista is also as appropriately lethal as you'd expect.

* FriendOrFoe: Your attacks will hurt and kill your teammates too, and you'll suffer a point reduction as consequence. This is especially common when players use big weapons with wide swing arcs in packed melees. Siege weapons can also kill allies very easily if misused, particularly the catapult's area-of-effect projectiles. Probably because of this, a "Friendly" perk exists to make players with it deal less and take less damage from friendly fire. It was later removed along with Renacious from the perk list and instead implemented into the game automatically.

* AcceptableBreaksFromReality: Bladed weapons cannot cut through plate armors in real life. In fact, swords were mainly used as sidearms rather than primary ones. However, it would be very pointless having such a huge variety of weapons in the game if only 20% of it is viable.

* SpiritualSuccessor: Of ''VideoGame/ChivalryMedievalWarfare''. In fact, a good chunk of the dev team is composed of competitive ''Chivalry'' players, and a frequent joke in the community is that former ''Chivalry'' pros are the bane of everyone's existence.

* YouFightLikeACow: Each voice pack has a pool of insults that you can hurl through the voice command menu.

* ArmorIsUseless: [[AvertedTrope Not in this game]]. Having good armor can mean the difference between dying from a single stab to taking dozens of hits without dying. Of course, wearing that much plate [[MightyGlacier will slow your character's movement speed]]. However, actions such as weapon swing speeds are not influenced by this, meaning a fully-armored character wielding one weapon can attack and defend at the same rate as a lightly armored opponent with the same weapon.
** It also matters ''where'' you have armor - [[HelmetsAreHardlyHeroic going without a helmet]] will leave you vulnerable to OneHitKill blows to the head, while bear traps will [[AnArmAndALeg dismember]] anyone lacking leg armor.
* ArtisticLicenseHistory: As mentioned above under AnachronismStew, the equipment available in game is jumbled together from roughly 1000 years of history for the sake of variety. Apart from this, there are some minor inaccuracies here and there in regards to the equipment itself:

* AsskickingEqualsAuthority: Grad and Feitoria's second halves on Frontline mode take the best-scoring players of the blue team and reassign them to special classes representing the leaders the Free Guard are protecting - Grad has a commander and dungeon warden, while Feitoria has a trio of noblemen.
* AuthorityEqualsAsskicking: The latter half of Castello, Feitoria and Grad's Invasion mode sees the Iron Company players trying to kill the commander and warden (or in the case of Feitoria, the three nobles) of the besieged fortresses. Both are heavily armored and armed, have tons of health, and [[LargeAndInCharge tower head-and-shoulders above their subordinates]]. Furthermore, both of these roles are handed to the two players of the Free Guard team who had the highest scores at the end of the match's first half, doubling as AsskickingEqualsAuthority.

** AnAxeToGrind: Varies from small throwing axes to massive pole axes ([[MixAndMatchWeapon for when you can't pick between a spear, an axe, or a hammer]]). In general, axes deal massive amounts of damage on swings at the cost of pathetic thrusting attacks, and are particularly good at hacking structures apart.

* WeaponOfChoice: There are many weapons in Mordhau, and they have diffrent traits.

* EvilLaugh: Some of the voicesets' laughs can be pretty malevolent. Raiders and Barbarians often sound absolutely bloodthirsty, and Cruel voices sound appropriately malevolent.

** The in-game representation of the coat of plates has the plates bare on the outside of the garment, rather than having an extra layer of padding over them as in real life. A more accurate version was added in a later update.

** SimpleStaff: Quarterstaves are available as weaker polearm weapons.

** KnifeNut: You can equip the carving knife which as stated earlier is JokeItem that's great only at DeathOfAThousandCuts. There's also throwing knives as ranged weapon. They are especially good against unarmored opponents.

* FriendOrFoe: Your attacks will hurt and kill your teammates too, and you'll suffer a point reduction as consequence. This is especially common when players use big weapons with wide swing arcs in packed melees. Siege weapons can also kill allies very easily if misused, particularly the catapult's area-of-effect projectiles. Probably because of this, a "Friendly" perk exists to make players with it deal less and take less damage from friendly fire.

** Similarly, greatswords allow for [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Half-sword half-swording]], holding the sword by its blade half-way like a spear to facilitate stabbing. This stance also allows greatswords to be used in narrow areas more efficiently, as shorter swings are less likely to get caught on obstacles such as walls and doorways.

* JokeCharacter: Picking the Peasant perk restricts your gear selection to farming tools and other {{Improvised Weapon}}s a medieval serf would likely have access to. On top of that, the only armor a peasant mercenary can wear is a one-point helmet (i.e: a hat) of their choice.

** DropTheHammer: Hammers and mauls are good weapons against armored foes and structures. Peasants also get a sledgehammer, to act as a poor man's maul. Patch 18 added [[BladeOnAStick polehammers]] to the mix, combining the crushing power of a hammer with the reach and bladed point of a halberd.

* AuthorityEqualsAsskicking: The latter half of Grad's Frontline mode sees the Iron Company players trying to kill the commander and warden of the besieged fortress. Both are heavily armored and armed, have tons of health, and [[LargeAndInCharge tower head-and-shoulders above their subordinates]]. Furthermore, both of these roles are handed to the two players of the Free Guard team who had the highest scores at the end of the match's first half, doubling as AsskickingEqualsAuthority.

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* LowFantasy: Ogres exist in the Horde mode, establishing that certain fantasy elements exist in the world. Then again, the 'ogres' take the form of oversized human models.

** GoodOldFisticuffs: When nothing else is available, you can always fall back on your fists. It actually deals noticeable damage, more so if you pick the appropriate perk, and you can hold your guard up infinitely like a shield ([[RealityEnsues even if it won't actually block a real weapon]]).

* PurposelyOverpowered: [[ImproperlyPlacedFirearms The 1411 handgun]] is very powerful given the medieval setting, because it's [[RealityEnsues a firearm]]. It's also a admin-exclusive spawn, so the average game likely won't see it.

* RealityEnsues:
** Anyone [[HelmetsAreHardlyHeroic going without a helmet]] will find themselves dying from a single strike to the head an awful lot.
** Swinging wildly in a crowded melee tends to result in you striking and even killing teammates, while doing so in tight quarters will likely get your weapon caught on walls and other obstacles.
** While you can perform swings and thrusts with any weapon, many weapons are better suited for one technique. [[SliceAndDiceSwordsmanship Stabbing somebody with the flat head of an axe]], for instance, will do negligible damage.