The "Myth" of the "Dacian Falx" as a super weapon

[Conal]

But that's the point--there is no reason to suspect that most blows in combat were full-force full-swing two-handed home-run smashes.

In fact there is evidence that initial blows were light to set up the coup de grace. The bodies recovered from Wisby 1361 indicate that initial blows were aimed at legs & arms as these showed up as light cuts to the bone with more traumatic blows when the opponent was felled by these. This was indicated by the positioning of cuts given from above or when the victim was likely to have been supine.

There was a lot of armour recovered as they were burried in a hurry due to weather being hot causing decomposition early. It appears that shots were made to limbs to defang the snake before a killing blow was made.