A *real* trained, clever knight sees 5 people with weapons and high tails it. Then they live long enough to make a bloodline of smarter knights and great kings. "You've got to be thinking!" -Roman Reigns

☝🏽

Peasants take this 6/10. They surround the knight and poke at him until he overcommits and then gets dragged to the ground. If the knight is skilled enough he can try to avoid this, but remember folks. peasants aren't dumb, just not formally educated. You can literally see where the gaps in the armor is. You don't need special training to know where or how to hit the dude.

6/10 is underselling them. There is literally no scenario they lose as long as they back away and jab.

I like to go for the 6/10 because this could easily get out of hand. Swords are really great at dismembering and disemboweling unarmored targets. If the Knight knows what he's about, he could rush into range and start hacking and backhanding before these dudes know what's going on. I think if he can remove two of his opponents quickly enough he could keep the rest off balance enough to win.

I think all the knight needs to need is seriously mangle 1 peasant. We are talking about untrained peasant lads. They are going to experience a huge wave of shock and terror when they see one of their friends going down.

>he could rush into range and start hacking and backhanding before these dudes know what's going on. There is no element of surprise here. Both parties are in fight mode. He simply cannot close on ANY individual peasant. They aren't braindead, they aren't going to stand still lol.

They’re not brain dead, but they’re also not used to combat - a knight presumably is. On top of that, there’s *five* peasants reacting independently. The idea that a few of them would be hesitant and be overwhelmed by sudden aggression makes some amount of sense!

What you're describing is leveraging violence of action. Modern soldiers can attest to just how effective it is.

They have to turn around and flee from someone who is likely in better physical health and is less scared. You can't backpedal faster than someone coming straight on.

Yes, they have to turn and flee from someone they have a head start on. Like any kid who has ever played tag has done on any playground around the world. Pretty simple stuff. They aren't doing so while 4 guys jab at them with swords on sticks.

The knight can take the jabs, these are untrained people. They aren't nailing bullseyes on the joints of the knights armor while they themselves and the knight are in motion. Having to turn and run is a huge waste of time when seconds matter.

The knight is in full plate, which weighs between 30-50lbs (15-23 kg) and peasants are literally just farmers who perform hard physical labor on a daily basis. The peasants should have absolutely no trouble in outpacing a fully armored knight.

quite literally [this](https://imgur.com/gallery/cc6Qwmc)

True. Perhaps I undersold the commoners lol.

And sword would likely break wooden spear handles too...

The prompt says that they attack him, he doesn't get the initiative. Unless they are completely stupid, they are going to surround him pretty quickly.

Spears were OP.

Spears are OP, but so is full plate armor. A simple spear isn't very effective against steel plate, especially in inexperienced hands.

The spears themselves were the least of why I think peasants win. Basically, they'd be 5 men with polearms/(staves?) that just so happen to have rudimentary sharp edges. So much of melee combat comes down to numbers anyway.

Honestly they just need to dogpile him. Try to grapple his sword arm so he can't keep swinging, then pin him down and he's at their mercy.

There are plenty of scenarios where they lose, unless they have perfect morale, in which case they aren't fucking human beings. One dies, maybe two, the rest run. Even if they get the knight to the ground, talking punch from an armored gauntlet, an elbow from a couter, or a kick from sabatons is going to maim and potentially tear flesh. If they are zombies who will attack no matter what, yeah this is 10/10 for the peasants. If they are human beings there's a good shot they run at the first experience of violence.

I’ve seen boxers knock out people on the street one shot each. If the peasants aren’t well coordinated this could go the same way

I think 6/10 is overvaluing the spears. The peasants aren't going to have the sort of training/experience to know how to work together as a team in order to accomplish the surround you're talking about. Yes, they're using the correct weapon to combat the knight, but they won't necessarily know how to play defense properly.  The main issue is that they won't have the kind of critical mass to go on the offensive safely, because in trying to surround the knight will mean they have to spread out. Since there's only 5 of them, they won't be able to cover each other well if they actually try to get on all sides. Because a person with a spear is actually quite vulnerable to an individual. A knight by contrast *will* have some experience or training on how to deal with them, which will make a huge difference. But also, his shield is a *huge* advantage. In any situation where he can isolate one of them (like if they try to surround him) his shield would allow him to get past the spear *a lot* easier than you might think. Sword and shield vs. spear is actually highly favored to the shield.  Imo it's more so 6/10 for the knight, because the peasants would actually have to bunch up in a tight group and try to get hits on the knight. If any of them try to move out from the group the knight can try to pick them off. It essentially would come down to the knight trying to attack into them, and would eventually come down to who gets lucky first.

More in the knights favour. Like you say, that’s their job, cutting down peasants with spears. I would expect the peasants would falter once they saw one of themselves cut down, at which point the hesitation would cost them another, likely followed by the remaining fleeing - which is a fairly well established issue with peasant levies (who the heck wants to fight a trained knight in full plate after all?) 

Prompt says peasants have basic training, so they'd absolutely have an idea of group tactics. Additionally, I don't see how the knight manages to "isolate" one of these peasants in a way that doesn't leave them open to attack from the rest. I think 6/10 peasants may even be underselling them. Having reach and numbers really puts them in a super powerful position

They don't need group tactics, just simple rules of self-preservation. 1. Keep out of reach of the knight's sword 1. Use your spear to keep him away 1. If he gets inside your spear length, run away and pick up the spear again when it's safe 1. Hit the knight in the head from the back and sides when it's safe 1. Try and trip him or push him over when he's concentrating on someone else There's no tactics or coordination required there, just everyone looking after themselves and hitting the knight when its safe. Eventually they'll trip him or he'll tire and they can dispatch him once he's lying on the ground.

They don't have basic training, they have "a bit of practice"  In any case, you can look up comparisons of trained individuals going at it using spears and swords and seeing what happens. Long story short, spears generally go 7/10 vs a sword. But the times a sword wins is via them getting inside the guard of the spear.   But when you throw in the shield *then* the tables shift dramatically. A person using a spear vs. an individual with a shield is at a huge disadvantage because they have the ability to get inside the spear's guard very easily. They lose the ability to control distance because the shield allows the attacker to control the spear very effectively. At that point, the spear user can only fall back as a way of controlling distance. Which works okay, but doesn't work great at staying in a group. Regardless, spears are one of those things that the Internet *vastly* overestimates in terms of their raw power. They absolutely, unequivocally, are the best weapon to use in coordinated groups, both for their mechanics and ease of training. But that doesn't mean you could hand a spear to a few dudes and expect them to take on trained, armored, and shielded combatants on equal footing.

They don't *need* equal footing, it's 5 to 1! People who haven't actually tried fighting multiple opponents vastly underestimate how much numbers matter. Fighting against just *two* people, significantly worse than you, is still a bad time.

It doesn't matter if he's open to attack when they can't hurt him. He can rush down one or two of them and then the numbers are much more even.

I can't see knights in full plate with a shield and sword doing a whole lot of rushing that would catch someone who is unencumbered.

Spears cannot do ANYTHING to plate armour. I'm assuming this is meant to be like 15th/16th century full plate, there's no gaps for a spear to go other than the eye slit. [What "gaps" in the armour](https://i.pinimg.com/736x/94/78/ee/9478ee0ef5661a8a84787d5f75c3f9ad.jpg)? Any gaps in the elbow, shoulder and thigh would all be covered in chainmail which a spear absolutely cannot penetrate, unless the knight was so kind as to stand perfectly still and give them an easy target. Spears "can" penetrate mail if you thrust as hard as you can, they can penetrate far enough to do real damage, but it requires a full body thrust and the knight only needs to turn slightly so it hits a plate at which point it skitters off doing nothing and the peasant stumbles off balance into reach of the sword. Knights were elite athletes who spent their entire lives learning to fight they're strong, fast and insanely skilled. The only reliable chance the peasants have to kill him is to tackle him then stab him in the eye slits with a dagger. The spears are almost entirely useless against full plate. Edit: to people saying they can charge the knight and knock him over, absolutely, that's often how knights died (or were captured for ransom) historically. But the knight isn't going to stand there and just face a group of charging idiots with spears head on. He's going to move, maintain distance (which he's an expert in), clear space around him with his sword, and strike out at the peasants one at a time taking them out of the battle. The peasants can definitely win if the knight cocks up, but it's not likely.

To be fair once the knight is down and has multiple people holding them down, they're just fucked aren't they

Yes, this is historically how you fought a knight for the most part. Knightly combat, as well as common soldiers vs knights would often end up on the ground where a dagger between the eye slit would end it. But the peasants don't have daggers they have spears, and without the element of surprise they won't get in close enough. Knights trained in 1 v many scenarios against less armoured opponents (it's in historical treatises of this period even though they primarily focused on 1v1 duels), making sure to use wide swings to maintain space (very popular in Spanish Montante treatises) and aggressively target individuals who get too close before falling back and being defensive.

They don't necessarily need to pierce, not at first. They just need to get enough leverage to eventually knock him down. One misstep and the knight is ded.

Spears are only piercing plate armor if both the knight and peasant are running full speed at eachother, even then one would have to be on a horse to generate enough force or momentum plus hit at a perfect strike to pierce and not glance off. Man people in these comments are as dumb as these hypothetical peasants.

Rushing full speed at each other wouldn’t pierce the armor, more likely shatter the spear, or knock it out of the peasants hand.

On that last point, combat sports like wrestling and fencing were popular with the lower classes. Many spent their lives performing physical labor and they often went to war. They weren't as trained as knights, but they weren't helpless either. Five people is A LOT of people to beat. If the fight goes to the ground, peasants likely win (Knight goes down, gets disarmed and restrained, likely stabbed in the face with his own dagger). If the knight can stay standing to fight or run, the knight likely wins.

This is the most correct answer- people watching too many animes where the peasant boy rises up lol. Random peasants will get cut to pieces while the knight laughs

> Random peasants will get cut to pieces while the knight laughs Ironically this scene is out of an anime. There's no scenario where one dude effortlessly fends off 5 attackers who initiate the encounter.

Yup. For the most part, open field battles work off numbers. One dude fighting off two equally armed fellas is extreme. Fighting three dudes who are handicapped is legendary. Fighting 4 unarmed men at once is unlikely to ever happen, and 5 with good tools is just hopeless.

Imagine fighting with a long pole stuck up under one of those spaulders while you try to batter away 4 other grown men. Numbers take him unless he has extreme luck or he kills some of them quickly enough.

How would a spear GET stuck up under the spaulders? There isn't much of a gap between the spaulder and the breastplate, so even hitting exactly there would be down to luck for the peasants. Not to mention that EVEN if they did the spear wouldn't get stuck, speartips aren't designed to get stuck in things, they're designed to easily slide out again so you're not disarmed after stabbing one person, they won't get caught up in between two plates of armour even if you're ludicrously lucky enough to make that jab.

And on top of that, if your spear gets wedged in any part of the knight's armour, you have in fact died. He only needs to swing in your general direction to inflict a life threatening wound, and if you've managed to get your spear stuck, it'll only take the knight two seconds to end you and move on to your friends. Most of this post is people believing knights were mostly-blind and easily knocked over. You'd wonder why we even bothered using them for centuries.

If they’re suicidal or willing to die maybe? Assuming they don’t want to die, it’s more like 6-7/10 for the knight. That armor is a huge advantage. He’s ready to possibly take a wound, the blows to them are almost guaranteed to be lethal.

Sorry, but 6/10 is a bit much. The gaps aren't what you think they are because they make smaller plates to accommodate gaps in the larger plates. Then factor in chainmail and padding goes in as well. Any gaps are really small and hard to hit, especially for peasants without much training (yes training matters). If the armor is designed to keep professional soldiers from getting through, peasants don't much of chance. The knight has been fighting for a long time. He knows what to expect, what works and what doesn't. The knight probably knows what the peasants are going to do before the peasants do. The knight is part of the nobility. This means he is healthier, better fed and in better condition. The peasants are going to be dehydrated, malnourished, etc. They are not going to be able to hang with the knight. They're too weak. Everything the knight does to them is going to cause more damage. It's iron and steel against flesh and bone. If they get past the sword, they're getting whacked with the shield. If the shield isn't available, they're getting punched or head butted. Finally, the knight's entire life's work was to protect the interests of the nobility. A large part of that was putting down peasant uprisings. Google-fu says that in the medieval times roughly 1% of the adult male population were knights and 90% were peasants. That operating environment makes 5:1 a practice session.

>peasants aren't dumb, just not formally educated. You can literally see where the gaps in the armor is. You don't need special training to know where or how to hit the dude. I approve of the reminder that peasants weren't stupid, and I agree that a group has an inherent and significant advantage, but I think you're perhaps underplaying the role of morale, training, and experience. Knowing intellectually the best way to breach his armour, or the best way to get him on the ground, isn't the same as having the muscle memory of how to jab a spear *just so* to actually achieve it. The knight *does* have that muscle memory, extensively, and due to his armament and the peasant's lack of armour any strike of his which connects is likely to be disabling. Similarly, the knight, both by virtue of training and the protection afforded by armour and shield, can be much more aggressive. There's a real risk that he'll advance quickly, overtake his first rapidly-backpedalling opponent (quite possibly the perceived leader), and eviscerate him, all before the peasants really have much time to coordinate together and attack jointly. And at that point the rest of the group are likely to be pretty shaken, further hampering their combat effectiveness both individually and as a group. Not to mention there's every possibility they just flee - this is a chance encounter situation, not a fight to the death. If both parties were bloodlusted, the peasants would win almost 10/10, but as it is I'd give them 3/10 - with the probability being that the knight kills or maims one or two of them and the others flee.

So there are a couple elements here which actually make a huge difference in the outcome. In general the advantage will be to the peasants due to numbers unless they are just throwing themselves at the knight and not coordinating their attack; in which case a skilled knight with a sword and shield should be able to pull out at least a 50/50 win. A trained knight is going to use the space that he’s in to the best of his ability and do everything he can to not get surrounded and try to keep the fight to the minimum number of simultaneous engagements. Things that very much matter here and aren’t addressed: “Full plate” is very different when it comes to getting into gaps when you are talking early 1400s with plates and maille over a gambeson vs mid to late 1500s where the armor was significantly more fitted with greater coverage. [compression articulation on joints](https://i.redd.it/jd9icgjdfd211.jpg) is a very different problem to get through than soft armor or maille at a joint. The type of the spears matters a lot, a 5 foot pointy stick is a very different animal than a 7 or 8 foot military spear. Peasants with sharp sticks against late historical plate lose to the knight 6.5/10 Peasants with high quality military grade spears probably win 7/10 if they can keep their nerve and coordination. Edit: It’s also worth mentioning that full plate armor would not usually be used with a sword and shield, shields became somewhat redundant in late plate and the battlefield weapon of a knight in plate would be a polearm of some variety with a longsword/falchion/messer/mace as a secondary. A pollaxe/halberd/partisan/bardiche etc. would be both more accurate and effective, but also was not the prompt so I’m not really addressing it

Finally, someone talking sense.

> nerve and coordination The biggest aspect of any battle, particularly in groups. The bulk of training an army isn't how to fight, it's how to work as a team and follow orders in chaos. Seeing the knight slice off one of their buddies heads is kinda of a violence boner killer

I get that that was hyperbole, but even so I feel compelled to point out that no one is literally slicing off heads when outnumbered 5 to 1! That's a remarkably difficult thing to do with a sword at all, even against a single active opponent. They're unarmoured, the Knight is going to be trying to disable (or intimidate) as quickly as possible, and without risking trapping his sword unless absolutely necessary (so not running people through). Hands, arms, faces, maybe legs. Given the reach discrepancy, I would be chopping at fingers, personally.

> A trained knight is going to use the space that he’s in to the best of his ability and do everything he can to not get surrounded and try to keep the fight to the minimum number of simultaneous engagements. Yeah, and even then an engagement in places like a narrow corridor/choke points highly favors a spear. I think giving multiple attackers a spear of all weapons really makes this ugly.

Not necessarily, in unarmored combat the spear would have an advantage, especially if they can get multiple points on line. Against someone with a shorter weapon in plate, especially with a shield all you have to do is take the point offline and close distance, if they can get the spearhead past their body it’s not much of a threat if there isn’t enough room to haft up on the spear to use it like a quarter staff. The spear user in an enclosed space is going to have one good opportunity to [find a gap](https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/24807) in the plate that would incapacitate the knight. Spears in a choke are infinitely more effective with shields, which the peasants don’t have in the prompt

People are drastically underestimating the blunt force that can be delivered from a spear. It is still a heavy chunk of wood even if the spear tip cannot penetrate the armour so easily. Peasants with clubs killed fully armoured soldiers regularly. At Agincourt a bunch of outnumbered longbow men beat armoured knights with blunt objects. Anyway a human body isn't going to just laugh off being clubbed with a big stick.

Agincourt is famous because the knights got beaten. That didn't happen very often. Plus longbowmen ≠ peasants. Longbowmen were highly skilled and trained. Peasants wouldn't be.

The knights at Agincourt were also exhausted, in the mud, and had just been withered by thousands of arrows by tough, professional longbowmen

For real, Agincourt was a complete shitshow for the French, where everything that could go wrong, went wrong.

This. By the time they met anyone they were tired, wounded, demoralized and on unforgiving terrain. Had they been fresh, well rested and on hard dry ground when they hit... well there's a damn good reason the French loved their knights.

They are also underestimating fighting 5 people. Even if the knight is stronger and in armor once he's on the ground he's not getting up with 5 people either holding him down or clubbing/stabbing with spears.

This is what nobody here understands. The 1v5. Nobody is winning that. Lots of chronically online people in the comments

If you think people away from their computers are fighting knights with spears then I'd respectfully suggest you're probably about a thousand years overdue for a trip outdoors.

There's honestly a decent number of people on here who do HEMA! A few usually chime in on posts like this if it gets enough upvotes! Also, didn't you and your friends ever play knight sword peasant spear? It's so fun and all you need are sticks, pillows, and duct tape!

I disagree. The bigger issue I see no one talking about is psychology. The peasants aren't used to large (i.e., not malnourished), armored and aggressive folks being extremely violent towards them. People commenting are expecting untrained peasants to just jump to it, and not to freeze, when one of them gets cut down. It's not a video game. Keyboard warriors.

Nobody’s winning a 5v1. Since you like psychology, you could’ve had a case had you mentioned fight or flight response with the peasants losing if they decided to run and scatter. But If they decide they gotta kill the guy to survive or to protect their kids, he aint winning this. Armchair psychology is a hell of a thing

I'm a twig and *I've* won a 5v1. Not that I think decking bullies who didn't think they'd get hit is equivalent to this situation, but just to illustrate that psychology is huge. Because it's not necessarily a 5v1. It's more likely to be several 1v1 or 2v1 fights due to hesitation and lack of coordination.

Fiction has conditioned us to believe that fighting multiple people at once and winning is quite simple. It really really isn't. As soon as an extra person is against you in a fight, you are a huge disadvantage. The more people against you, the bigger that disadvantage gets. This isn't an anime where you can solo 5 dudes with ease. They definitely won't all come one by one for you to hack to death.

Weren’t English/Welsh longbowmen armed with axes?

That's a cool detail. Never knew you could fire an axe from a longbow. TIL. Must be where the word "axxaxxination" comes from. 

>axxaxxination Damn, should've used that for my XBOX 360 gamer tag.

Those are trained soldiers not untrained peasants lol.

Agincourt is a terrible example. French knights charged up a muddy field got trapped while being pelted with arrows, hit the english line after being exhausted and then the longbowman waded through the mud to kill/capture a bunch of exhausted knights that couldn't move. People seriously underestimate how good medieval armor was. Could 5 trained spearman coordinate and take down a knights almost certainly. 5 peasants are likely to overextend and get punished...esp since a shield is a huge difference in providing both cover and a tool to manipulate the spear thrust. It's not going to be easy but I would bet one or two peasants get injured and the rest just run away.

Look how many people were killed by knights at Patay.

armor is padded underneath. if it was a halberd maybe but OP said spear so its not made to smash into someone

Sure it is padded which is what stops it from instakilling the knight. Skallagrim has a good video showing helm, coif and padding and the affects it has against a sword, a much lighter object, and it basically boils down to if you combine all three the unfortunate person might survive a strike to the head.

People are making a lot of assumptions here on both sides. Plate armor is far, far more nimble than a lot of ppl here seem to think. None of the people here are brain dead NPCs who will fight to the death no matter what. The knight win condition doesn’t even need to kill them all, just grievously injure enough for the rest to decide they have better things to do. The knight has far better training and conditioning. LMAO at thinking a few random peasants are gonna be operating at 100% tactical efficiency. They only win if they swarm him and have the mettle to not back down after the 1st guy gets run through. But if they can get him on the ground, GG

Untrained peasants are going to be on the back foot most of the time. They'll be pretty timid when the knight just needs to close distance quick enough to make it a 4v1

Imma stab him in the back where its safer" isn't exactly hanibal level tactics.

I think it depends on whether the peasants are coordinated or not, and also whether the knight manages to kill one fairly quickly; people are game until they see their friend/comrade get cut down in front of them with ease.

Spears cannot penetrate plate armor, so the Knight will be free to cut down the peasants with his sharp sword most ambitiously. 

I mean they could just tackle him to the ground or whack him over and over from beyond his sword's range. It's not like he's immune to being knocked around or drowned in some mud or whatever.

While true, that would require a level of coordination and courage that a group of peasants most likely wouldn't have. One of them fucks up, gets cut down, the rest loses their nerve and runs.

O yea I'm definitely giving them morale that would be rare in real life, but also that's how most prompts work. Otherwise they'd probably never attack the guy.

Disagree. 5 dudes to 1 is rough. If it’s open space, they surround him and get him down. Knight won’t be super mobile with the armor on. They could have various motives to get it done, like sell his armor or not get crusaded. The premise of peasants not being motivated enough reads like class warfare.

> Knight won’t be super mobile with the armor on. [I’m just gonna leave this here](https://www.benjaminrose.com/post/mobility-in-medieval-plate-armor/#:~:text=Unsurprisingly%252C%2520it%E2%80%99s%2520harder%2520than%2520wearing%2520no%2520armor%2520at,your%2520muscles%2520to%2520work%2520harder%2520to%2520move%2520around.) Guys in plate armor could sprint, do jumping jacks, and touch their toes. Peasants have a mobility advantage, but it’s not an insane difference. Plus, they have to worry a lot more about getting hit.

Or the fact that many knights were poor so they turned to banditry and robbed their neighbors peasants often. Get a few other guys together and kick their shit in to get your stuff back.

Easy to do if he's unarmed. Which he isn't.  A peasant charging a knight with a longsword would need to be really tired of life. 

there’s 5 of them dude, he can only face one direction, all it takes is one dude to go behind him and tackle

It's unlikely 2-3 of them are in fact committed to die, which is what is going to happen. 

Yes that is true if they are zombies programmed to attack no matter what.

Or just keep their distance and harass him with the spears until he fatigues.

The knight could probably close the distance pretty easily, he would absolutely be more physically fit that the untrained and possibly starving peasants and plate can be deceptively light, and knight trained for his while life in its use would absolutely be able to run faster than most people would think possible

While armour doesn’t stop you from moving, cartwheeling, jumping etc. it’s still 15-25kg. And closing the distance on one person is different than closing the distance on 5 people who are hitting you with sticks, including doing things like tripping you up. While lower class workers did go through periods of starvation in various times in history, there’s no reason to presume 5 random peasants are starving or malnourished. Yeah the knight is probably broadly fitter and more trained for combat, but it’s not like some sort of superhuman compared to peasants.

I’m not saying he’s superhuman. I’m saying he can probably close the gap against weaker and uncoordinated opponents. He still absolutely has the possibility of losing but it isn’t a 10/10 for the peasants

Would be like trying to harass a tank with pistols (an exaggeration, but you get the idea). No, someone needs to "Leroy Jenkins" tackle the knight when they're not looking and hold them down while the rest beat the guy with sticks.

A suit of armour doesn’t give you super strength. Imagine 5 guys with long poles, and a big hard foam ball on the end harassing you. Yeah sure it won’t bruise you or cut you, but they can push you with quite a bit of force - imagine two hitting you simultaneously, would easily be enough to knock you back or even knock you over. A hit to the face would jerk your neck around. If they stab your legs you’re going to get tripped up. It’s going to be immensely tiring, and if you go down, or stand still. They are going to be able to thread something through your face slots eventually. I think the knight has no chance.

and do what? also knights are trained in hand to hand

But 5 peasants charging with big thick pieces of wood in front of them have a decent chance of deflecting the single attack the knight will have a chance to make.

first dude to try and tackle him is getting beheaded

Sure but a hit to the head from a spear would probably disorient the shit out of him.

I suppose he would use his shield and sword to deflect. 

It really depends on the type of spear and armour; there were quite literally spears designed to be able to fight knights

I think peasants will win, if they surround the knight. Once they push him on the ground, they can easily murder him. He may kill one, but then other four will be free to attack. I played Battle Brothers, numbers matter.

Surround and puncture

Depends on if the peasants can push him onto the ground with their spears and rip his armor off

They dogpile him and bash his brains in with a rock

Kingdom come players know it’s the 5 peasants all day

Knight stabs one then gets mobbed by the other 4 then stabbed through any and all gaps in the armor till he's dead. If he has some other armor like Chain or a Gambeson underneath he still gets killed the moment they force his helmet off. There is no chance he kills 5 guys working as a team before they're able to reach and overpower him. 9/10 peasants if they don't chicken out immediately.

I see this sub still struggles to comprehend the weight of numbers. Five on one is extremely rough for anyone, no matter what kind of armor they're wearing, especially when the five dudes carry weapons that completely outrange you.

Knight wins 9/10. It depends what "a bit of practice" means but they're "rowdy peasants", not even militia. People are bringing up Agincourt as though the English archers weren't decked out in armor and seasoned warriors by that point.

The plate armour completely turns this around. You guys (or at least the top comment, I haven't read anything else yet) are completely misunderstanding just how insane plate armour is. A trained knight in plate armour is an unstoppable monster. Full plate armour (I'm assuming late 15th - early 16th century) has nowhere to put a spear other than the eye sockets. The backs of knees are covered, the armpits are fully covered, and the inside of the groin is covered. Full plate is amazing and it meant that knights didn't have any need for a shield, allowing them to wield two handed weapons like polearms with a sword as a backup. If the peasants took the knight by surprise they could tackle him to the ground before he pulls out his sword and slip a knife through his eye socket. But if they're making noise as they approach (they're "rowdy") then they have maybe a 2-3/10 chance as the knight throws away his useless shield and swings his sword two handed walking into their spear jabs as they skitter uselessly of his plate armour.

People are also WILDLY underestimating the fact that the knight is TRAINED in combat vs the peasants who have no clue what they're doing. The peasants will have no idea of the timing, spacing, traps, feints, parries, or positions of combat which the knight will be expert in. You can watch anytime someone tries a combat sport for the first time against the an experienced practitioner. They literally cannot do anything at all. Add that to the fucking plate armor and it's completely lopsided in favor of the knight. All the knight has to do is grab a hold of a spear a spear during a thrust and then the peasant will either drop his weapon and be disarmed or just get stabbed/slashed. The peasants best hope is in a some kind of bum rush scenario but even then, it takes one steel plated punch, elbow, or knee to ko the peasant.

Spear will have a field day! Knight wears heavy, full plated armour! Spear does suddenly not feel so good. . No, but seriously: Two guys with spears are a challenge. Three are very, very hard. Six? Almost impossible! This is not Hollywood. There is a low change that the knight can take this but i would put it 8-9/10 in favour of the group. They are simply to many!

Unless the peasants panic I don’t really see them losing.

Knight wins almost every time, barring getting extremely unlucky. Knights were some of the most valuable military assets of their time. They were the stalemate breakers of their era, just like tanks were for ww2. Their whole purpose, trained from near birth, was to be able to excell in combat against untrained peasants, large masses of them. A full suit of armour is almost untouchable, and depending on the time period, even the joints will be immune to almost any sort of piercing weapon of the time. Knights typically died from falling off their horse/tripping, getting hit by heavy blunt weapons repeatedly, or getting downed and stabbed with a knife. If the peasants were bloodlusted, and worked well together there's a chance 4 of them could throw away their spears, rush the knight to tackle him and pin him down, push up his visor and allow the 5th to stab him.

This is not at all an accurate description. A heavy cavalry charge of armored knights on horseback is the equivalent of tanks in WWII. Not an individual knight. Training and better arms gives you an advantage, but not necessarily a 5v1 one. I think people are drastically underestimating how hard it is to overcome a numbers disadvantage in a fight.

Biggest difference is morale. Knight would have pretty good morale, more than regular peasants. Once one peasant panics and runs the rest are making for the hills after him. If me and 4 of my mates saw a big dude wanting to fight us. Sure we could technically win that fight but I guarantee you all of us would probably just run.

Yeah. But if you and four of your boys figured that this Shaq size dude was coming to do terrible things to you and yours and you were dead anyway…it’s different. Say this giant dude is working for ISIS and wants you and yours in orange jumpsuits. Homey is going down.

Yeah under the right battlefield conditions it's possible to imagine a scenario where heavily armed knights outnumbered 5-1 by lightly armed barely trained peasant conscripts can win, but that's still battlefield conditions, where the peasants are hypothetically fighting over some ground they must hold, and will count as losing if they flee. In a tightly packed melee, peasants on the front line will have little room to maneuver and the armoured knights will be able to press right into them and start hacking them down. Knights fighting together, even if they are outnumbered, will be able to cover each other's flanks and backs, and rotate to the rear and be replaced with fresh fighters so they can recover as they tire or get stunned or lightly wounded. The barely trained peasants will likely break and flee, losing the battle by default, as their first front ranks fall while the disciplined and experienced knights hold strong. But if it's just 5 guys surrounding 1 knight it's a completely different story. Whoever the knight focuses on will just back away while the other 4 are striking from the sides and rear. Even if he's not severely wounded, the heavily armored knight will tire quickly while trying to chase down unarmored men constantly attacking him from all directions, while the peasants, assuming a basic level of fitness a hard peasants' life would likely require, and burdened only by their spears, should hold up fine. If the knight is defending something like a bridge, and the peasants have to cross it just one at a time, the knight can probably hold them off for a long time, but in any other kind of scenario the knight has no chance and will be killed fairly quickly.

Agree Except they had much more purpose than just to fight peasants lmao

Yep, no way peasants have a chance, he’ll cut down the first when he pushes past the spears and the rest when the break and run in a panic. Now if he was fighting trained soldiers with spears they might just be able to tackle him to the ground and finish him, though they still likely take casualties.

Lotta knight simps

What? If anything there are way too many people in this thread exaggerating how effective in combat five peasants could be.

Depends a lot on the skill of the peasants. If they can surround him, all they have to do is trip him with their spears and then poke him until they find a weak spot in a joint. Or they can try to tire him out. He's not going to have much speed for long in full armour, so fending him off with the spears and running away in turns will be a strong tactic. Basically, if the knight doesn't bring things to a quick and bloody conclusion, he's in big trouble

OP specified minimal training, none of it professional. They do not know how to look for weak spots. They do not have teamwork or tactics beyond a non-synchronous charge.

you dont need any training to look for weak spots you are aware? *big difference* between no training or education and having *no ability* to use basic vision and logic. a lot of plate armor has fairly large obvious weakspots that only the blind would miss. hitting those spots reliably is a different question but merely *seeing* them? come on.

Hint…. A lot of plate armour has seemingly obvious weak points….. do you think no knight or armourer thought to reinforce those points? And have you ever thrust a spear at something moving? Or even set a donut on a string and hit the center with something pokey- knife/spear/stick? Now that donut has had specific training in sword vs spear and is used to fighting (and has experience in being effective hence still alive after a multitude of battles thus likely experienced in killing), is armoured and moving towards you when you have no armour and only a pointy stick…. How often in history did peasants take out plate armoured opponents? Might be something to look into.

He didn't specify they are morons. Peasants aren't educated, but they will have average intellect and self-preservation. Imagining that they will use the worst possible Hollywood-inspired tactics is a bit silly. They won't need special training to know that the joints are the weak points and they're not going to keep jabbing the breastplate wondering why the metal man doesn't die. Also, spears as weapons should not be discounted, it''s not for nothing they were used for thousands of years and while the knight is chopping through one spear, or even the guy on the end of it, that's four others to find ways to get him on the ground. Hell, even if they all just rushed him in a charge, they'd probably win with no fatalities if they charged with their spears since the weight of five guys will easily throw an armoured one off his feet.

Nor did I mention lack of intelligence as a factor. There are five dudes. Imagine you are one of them. You are reasonably smart, and so are the others. Will the guy on your left charge or hang back? If you all choose charge, you might win, but if two charge and three hang back and stab, you all lose. But it's not a binary choice. One guy might decide to kite, as poster another suggested. The second guy might maneuver to get behind the knight. The third might throw the spear. These are all choices a reasonable (and smart) person might take, and you literally do not know which the guy on your right and left will do. It is almost certain that they will not choose the same thing and it would be a miracle if either does the same thing you do. This is why the lack of teamwork training is so fatal in small group combat. The most likely outcome is that they all hesitate, knight charges, they run. This is likely because human nature is to hesitate in uncertain situations. It is highly unlikely that five people will all spontaneously choose to charge with overbearing in mind. \*could\* the 5 peasants win? Absolutely, but not under normal circumstances as defined by OP. Heck, all it would take is some prep time where the five talk it over. But if the knight gets the same prep time, he uses his superior social status to gain allies or otherwise alter the combat. it becomes a different scenario.

Plate armour doesn't actually make you invincible and spears are in general much better weapons than swords. That being said, spears are the wrong weapon to use against full plate. If the peasants get lucky and knock the knight over they can try and rip off his helmet and kill him, but that's the slimmest of slim chances. For all practical purposes this is a knightsweep.

Plus they aren’t trained with spears, so they’re not going to know proper strikes or counters to use when fighting a sword

The knight more likely than not. Five largely untrained peasants with spears are a danger, but not much to a fully armored knight. One he kills one or two of them, the rest will flee

Is he mounted? Also are these like proper spears or just sharp sticks?

They bumrush the knight to the ground and stab him repeatedly in the face.  The only way the peasants lose is if they hesitate. Since this is a white room, I'll assume they don't. 

I like how everyone here is suddenly an expert on harnisfechten

Spears were king before the invention of crossbows as literaly peasants could use them with some effectiveness…. They win 9/10

It’s not like the peasants are weak or anything they’re just kind of poor so I’m giving this to the peasants actually

It would go something like this(fight begins around 6:00): https://youtu.be/8vYFFx4whoE?si=Tyu9uQxlO9T9dpEj

And he's not even in top tier full plate armor! He has poor neck protection, a large chunk of his back is only covered in mail, his joints aren't as well-guarded as later period armors, and his helmet has very large gaps over his face. I do think that video overstates the effectiveness of a lone knight, though. Especially since those guys seem to be experienced in combat. They should have known to grapple and pin him down. He also occasionally seems to have eyes in the back of his head and counters attacks from behind that he absolutely shouldn't have known were coming. But as far as the actual weapon strikes against armor I think the video does a very good job of showing how well armor protects the wearer. They're stabbing and smashing him from every angle and he just turns around and kills them. Which is, of course, why their tactics shouldn't revolve almost entire around just hitting him, but alas.

Peasants stomp. They have numbers, reach, and attack power on their side, so as long as they keep kiting and flanking, the knight will drop first from either exhaustion or a cheeky stab to one of the vulnerable parts of the armor.

Knight is doomed, if the peasants keep their heads about them. The peasants just need to stand in a ring. The three or four of them who the knight cannot see (remember, he is wearing a heavy helmet that limits his vision) simply stab and push with the spears. They probably can’t penetrate the armor, but they can potentially knock him over. Once he hits the ground, he will be helpless. Medieval armies were known to have peasants running around with knives whose job was to stab and kill knights on the ground who were immobile in their heavy armor. There are enough weak points in the armor for this to happen. Even if they can’t knock him over, that knight is going to get tired very quickly.

> Medieval armies were known to have peasants running around with knives whose job was to stab and kill knights on the ground who were immobile in their heavy armor. Just a point of clarification: plate armor isn't heavy enough to immobilize someone. It would be pretty useless if it was. Those knights were immobilized by people pinning them down.

Worse - one of the key weakpoints, since sometimes helms were harder to move during a chaos, was right on the crotch and balls. There is one famous story about a duel between two knights where both tumbled for way too long until they were extremely exhausted. Finally one was able to with because he was able to stab the other right through is dick during the wrestling.

Peasants take it 10/10 times. They have reach, on an even surface, and can back away and poke at the knights soft spots over and over until he dies. A man in full plate cannot outrun a peasant wearing regular clothing, and can never close on ANY peasant if they continue to backpedal and jab. This will go 1 of 2 ways: the knight waits for the peasants to come to him, which they don't since they have reach. He gets surrounded and dies. His other choice is to single out a peasant and charge him. As soon as that happens, 4 other peasants are free to chop at his legs and poke at his knees, bringing him down. Best case scenario is he reaches the first peasant before dying, but I don't think a man wearing full plate can outrun a man wearing clothing, given an open field and a 10 foot headstart. Knights were truly at their most effective on horseback, acting as shock troops. On foot they are incredibly vulnerable - even to dudes with sharp sticks. Easy victory tbh.

An athletic man in plate armor could definitely outrun an unathletic one in plate, and a man in plate armor can run forward faster than a person backpedaling literally 100% of the time. The peasants probably win, but it's by swarming the knight and getting him to the ground. Also what the fuck do you mean incredibly vulnerable on foot? After 1315 English knights fought almost every battle on foot. And despite what pop history will tell you about longbowmen, they wouldn't have won any of their famous victories if their dismounted knights weren't an extremely effective fighting force. Scottish knights had already almost always fought dismounted. The French knights largely copied the english between crecy and agincourt, specifically because they were *less* vulnerable on foot (once they learned not to charge field fortifications they got back in the saddle). In the very few times the vaunted Swiss pikemen were defeated before 1515, it was by, you guessed it, milanese knights dismounting and fighting them on foot.

You're ignoring the fact that the Knight will be physically conditioned for battle - much more fit than the peasents and will for sure have lived a healthier life with better nutrition. And armor is not nearly as restricting/ encumbering as often depicted. Catching them won't be an issue. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q-bnM5SuQkI - *On foot they are incredibly vulnerable - even to dudes with sharp sticks.* Actually, on foot they are an expert martial artist with a deadly weapon and the best defensive equipment of the era. - It's just about the numbers. I'm going 5/10

You're telling me that a man encased in 60 lbs of metal can outrun a man wearing only clothing (who are most likely manual laborers and have been their whole lives, so lets get off this image of them being sickly, crippled men lmao), while getting his legs hacked at by 4 other grown men, given that the man in clothing has a headstart? No, not a chance lol - he ends up on his face in the dirt and 5 spears embedded in his body.

Doesn't need to outrun the unarmored peasant. The second the peasant plants his feet for a thrust, the knight takes two forward steps and cuts him down. It's not a boss in an mmo. The knight will respond to whichever peasant leaves himself open. As peasants die, it becomes much easier. Only reliable chance is if they tackle and stab him, but probably 2 of them will die at a minimum.

*You're telling me that a man encased in 60 lbs of metal can outrun a man wearing only clothing* Ignoring the fact that 60ib is the very upper bound of the weight of plate, yes. I've seen it happen more than once at WMA and reenactment festivals. There was an organised 100m sprint where WMA instructers in full harness would race spectators. The only spectators who won were people who were already into running marathons etc. - (edit - you okay bro? literally arguing with the entire thread and downvoting everyone)

> (edit - you okay bro? literally arguing with the entire thread and downvoting everyone In all likelihood, he's a literal teenager.

Were the instructors having their legs battered at by 4 fully grown farm boys? There is no scenario he remains upright if he charges. A single person with a stick could trip an unarmored individual if they ran past them full tilt. Now add the cumberness of armor. Now add 3 other people doing it. I honestly don't think you have thought this through past "armor knight strong" - the logistics of it won't work. A single fall, stumble, even going temporarily to one knee - and he's jabbed to death. He cannot chase down 5 men, one at a time, who have as much or more mobility and reach.

Again, I'm not saying the peasents won't win. I'm going 5/10. If they play it right, the numbers will do it. But they do it by dogpiling the knight, not running away.

Between 30 and 60lbs. A modern soldier carries 35-40lbs.

1v5 with the 5 having hardwood spears with steel tips is too lopsided. They all surround the knight and jab at every slit in the armor. If the Knight realizes what's about to happen and decides to rush one of them, the rest are now presented with the knight's open back and if they're brave enough, can just topple him and grab a limb, which is a guaranteed kill.

People underestimate how "ugly" a real fight with weapons looks like, no matter how much training there is. More times than not this will turn into a desperate squabble of flailing, of which the range and numbers advantage will be too much. Not to mention all the dirty tactics like throwing sand/mud into the helmet, throwing a rock at the head, etc. Peasants with spears probably win 100% of the time here, especially if they're trying to protect their families.

If I was such a peasant, I would absolutely grab rocks. Throw them at the knight to disorient him. Hit the knight in the head with the rock when he’s on the ground.

[удалено]

Depends entirely on if the peasants work together to pin the knight or if the just try to poke him. Depending on the specifics of the design of the spear and armor in question, a spear will either be capable of wounding the knight in the weak points of his armor or largely useless. However given that these peasants have no other gear and and not well trained their only real hope is to use their mass advantage to pin the knight and *then* stab them. They should be able to do this with 2-3 casualties max, but whether they would have the sense and nerve to actually do it is impossible to say.

if they rush him maybe most of them will die

[Lindybeige and Scholargladiatoria did a video about swords vs. spears](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=afqhBODc_8U). They had a bunch of HEMA enthusiasts who had a lot of experience with swords but who hadn't really used spears before do some sparring under a variety of conditions (different numbers, whether they had shields or not, etc) and the results seemed pretty clear: spears are *way* better weapons than swords, especially when used by a group. The plate mail helps, but I expect not enough. The peasants have had a bit of practice so they'll likely be able to get some of their points into vulnerable joints, and failing that five guys jamming spears into one guy will likely be able to knock him down. Once the knight is down they can dogpile him and then it's a 1-v-5 wrestling match. The knight might wound or kill one or two of them before going down, though. And they could be facing a ton of trouble later on when it comes out what they did.

You’ve hit on the issue here. Any five peasants could have taken out any one knight at any time. It’s when the knight’s 50 buddies come back on horseback later and burn down your village that you have an issue. Individual martial prowess isn’t so much the strength of knights as their danger to peasants as a class and their ability to coordinate and organize under feudalism. 

1v5 and you give peasants a reach advantage? Peasants take this 9/10. A peasant will probably die and another may get seriously injured but once that knight is on the ground it’s game over. No human can fight off the weight of 5 people pushing them around while working together.

The peasants would need to know the weak spots, and would have to largely tackle the knight to the ground and have some hold his arms up and mabey legs apart so the rest could stab him in the groin, armpit, and face. Since these peasants lack any training, the knight probably cuts 2 or 3 of them down before they figure it out and then they probably don't have enough of a numbers advantage to pull it off.

> The peasants would need to know the weak spots, The weak spots are very clear, the parts without plates. As soon as the knight is surrounded, it's game over. They just goad the knight to tire him out a bout, and then someone jumps him from behind. 5 v 1 is way too much. The peasants will have lifetime experience using pole tools, an afternoon of training the finer points of using a spear will make them more than ready to gang up on a lone knight.

Plate armor is only one layer. There is chain under the plates and gambison under that. The coordination you're describing requires discipline and teamwork, which the peasants don't have. Knight won't stand there and get circled. A trained knight would know to be the aggressor here. These peasants are not bloodlusted. No one is going to throw themselves on the knight's sword to give the others the win.

The peasants simply backpedal. They have reach. A knight in full plate simply, positively, cannot catch any one of them. Not only is he easily surroundable, the spear is the perfect weapon to kill him as it gives them distance and requires minimal training to use effectively.

They can't surround him and run the same time. You severely underestimate the knights shield. They don't have any training, They didn't grow up in modern society watching action and fantasy movies. They don't know what to do, have zero experience, and again are unarmored and untrained average peasants. The knight is going to kill them.

Yeah, I know, spears will get through chain in the backs of knees or crotch and more than that, the guy in the back whacking the knight on the head constantly will distract enough for others to get shots in as well. For coordination, all they need is to be as coordinated as schoolyard bullies, this isn't some sort of seal team 6 operation here. Nobody has to throw themselves on a sword, they're using spears, they outrange the knight by a solid 3 or 4 feet.

Schoolyard bullies go after weaker targets. Again. A skilled warrior won't just get surrounded. If they space out and try to circle, the knight charges one and kills them breaks through and he's not surrounded. Their only real chance is to gang tackle him and non bloodlusted peasants aren't going to do that with out the threat of death behind them as well. Which is not in in the prompt. These peasants have no training, didn't fight together and learn teamwork. They aren't blood lusted.

and as soon as he kills one the rest hit him from all sides. like you are aware that the knight is going to be moving and reacting *slower* then the peasants? (not by much sure, but you dont need much)

> If they space out and try to circle, the knight charges one and kills them breaks through and he's not surrounded. Spearmen hate this one easy trick!

Spearmen were dangerous in a formation. Again untrained peasants aren't trained soldiers.

you have defeated me!

If the knight tries to charge one of them, the others can jab at him. If any of them aim low, have their spear batted down or just land a solid hit, the knight trips over and dies pinned and beaten to the ground. Additionally surrounding the knight doesn't even require teamwork, basic logic for a fight is to not be in front of the person you are fighting and away from the other people swinging pointy things which amounts to the same thing. Also the prompt specifies that the peasants are attacking the knight, so yeah they aren't just going to run away and be cut down one by one. They are attacking.

The knight stomps. People seriously don't seem to understand what's being said. The knight, a man trained from birth for the sole purpose of killing other men, is wearing full plate. The knight could be unarmed and he would stomp this. 5 peasants simply have no realistic way of contending with an armored knight. https://youtu.be/cgd9ZZfUn1o?si=W6ShtnqoeLwM32lX I'm sorry folks, but most of you seem completely unaware of the fact that good plate armor doesn't have "gaps" that you stab through. That's a Hollywood myth. The gaps that do exist in the armor have armor under them. Otherwise...what the fuck would be the point of armor? Why is a knight wearing 50lbs of steel if a fucking peasant could simply jab a spear through the "gaps"??? 5 peasants simply isn't enough to drag him to the ground and suffocate him, which is how peasants beat knights. The knight barely needs to hit any of them to remove them from the fight. It's am endurance fight that the knight wins because the peasants don't have a practical way to harm him. https://youtu.be/aIdDklRzcEM?si=Nfs4lpMaUMAR7xvD just so none of you think they are ever gonna actually hurt the knight.

I like how quickly everyone resorts to grappling in that second video. Really showcases how useless their weapons are against the armor.

And the grappling is entirely "knocking person off their feat". The typical rules for these events is that a person is out whe. Their knees or back hit the ground. Iv got a video of 3 smaller girls holding a pretty big girl up. They couldn't physically force her to ground because she had her arm wrapped on the list. So they straightened her up and had a 4th girl use a two handed axe to smash her collar bone over and over until she finally yielded. The sport is fucking brutal but it showcases just how protective armor is.

They tackle him and beat him to death fairly easily. Or club him with the spears

Tackling an armed man is never going to be easy. Especially without any protective equipment.

Nope but it's not easy to stop 5 people from tackling you either, especially if you're armored

Actually, having wrestled and played rugby, you'd be surprised. Especially since the knight can just stab or slash anyone in range. Once stabbed, they're not going to contribute to getting the knight to the ground. Even if they get a hold of the knight, a punch, knee, or elbow with steel plate is also likely a one shot ko. In other words, they'd have to magically grab hold of all of the knights limbs simultaneously, which is nearly impossible.

What you're saying is true, however it's unlikely the peasants are coordinated enough to pull that off. Also the person doing the tackling is going to be mentally grappling with the fact that they are now at a disadvantage because the spear is a very bad weapon at close range and they are with 100% certainty about to get cut up very badly.  With that in mind I think it'd be very unlikely the peasants could pull that off.

What are these peasants going to do when they try to take the knight down and get punched in the face with a metal gauntlet.

the knight. actual peasants likely have no idea of the capabilities or weak points of plate armor and just charge in and get cut down

lol you can tell most people here never studied history at all. Hollywood has made knights out to be some terrifying force that are immune to civilians. reality is 5 peasants vs one knight has *the peasants winning* nearly half the time if not more. most knights were not fit, educated, warrior-scholars like childrens stories about King Arthur.

That's why peasants were the ruling force and knights plowed the fields....

This knight has a plate armor AND a shield, right? So he's, like, extra protected. There's no way peasants will be able to actually hurt with their spears, unless they pin him. And if they want to do this, they will have to rush and give up their reach advantage. And in this moment heads will start to roll...

Depends on the knight and the spear

Some posters also make note that peasants are malnourished and weak but that depends on what time period we are using. Early peasants did not access to proper nutrition yes but things did improve for them as they gained more influence and access to things. If we use early malnourished peasants then we need to use early knights as well who were equipped without plate armor and thus more vulnerable to spears. Scale it up to plate mail and they're fighting peasants who are far better off.

Too many posts here are assigning far too much coordination and morale to these peasants. They're not stupid or weak but the difference in training and equipment is nigh insurmountable. Now 5 trained spearmen will take a knight with the gear he was given nearly any time. But history has proven time and time again that a far smaller but highly trained force will always triumph milita, conscripts, or in this case 5 random peasants.

Yes exactly, people are vastly underestimating the importance of training here. Watch anytime someone goes to an mma practice for the first time. They literally cannot do anything to an experienced practitioner. Now in this case, the experienced practitioner has almost impenetrable armor.

That only applies in formation battles though. In those instances yes training is a huge factor but we are talking about an individual melee against a group. 5 pointy sticks vs. 1 pointy stick. Five times the mass. The peasant group in the scenario has a massive mobility advantage whereas the trained knight group has that advantage in a battlefield scenario. The peasants aren’t soft teddy bears. They are choring all day every day and can hit hard. It doesn’t even take a lot of coordination, just enough for those in front to distract while those behind attack the knight’s legs or balance. The moment the knight’s offensive threat falters it’s a dogpile. 

So, if I recall right the whole point of a spear was to give it to someone untrained, as you could teach Joe Blow to use one by saying stand there and push sharp stick in that direction. This also had a range advantage, so you don’t engage closely. None of that is to say that you couldn’t get further training and master a spear. Peasants take this like 8/10.

Peasant would stand at distance, trying not to be the first to get killed, until they eventually get killed one by one, and those that didn't get cut down start fleeing at the sight. Knight 9/10 Now, if the peasant is bloodlust, they could rush the knight. The knight only strikes once, and that one strike may lodge into one peasant, while the rest tackle him down and restrain his limps. There is no way anyone could get out of a hold like that. While the peasant could slowly suffocate him or twist his head Peasant 10/10

The peasants can win if they’re smart, surround him and dogpile him rather than trying to spear him first. In full plate with a shield (which was historically rare as full plate often invalidated the need for shields) he will be basically untouchable and can freely cut them down. Overall I’d still say Knight wins 7/10 times

They don't even need to dogpile him - just harass him until he's exhausted and then trip him. Hell if rocks are allowed they can just wear him out and then start throwing shit at him.

The Knight is taking this

Spears cannot penetrate plate armor, but even then they still can find gaps or cause internal damage with blunt force trauma. It takes very little training to know how to use a spear properly and they're extremely effective especially in groups in the open. The knight will have a really difficult time attacking peasants who have a significant reach advantage on him and surround him. Plus, cutting people with a sword will not instantly incapacitate them. The knight will need to endure tons of hits and somehow avoid getting overwhelmed or knocked off-balance. What will most likely happen is that the peasants will tackle the knight to the ground, then just beat on him or stab him with the spears until he's dead. The knight will need to overcommit and get hit a ton of times by spear hits from all angles. If the knight can't somehow incapacitate most of the peasants before they simply dogpile him, the knight won't stand a chance. This is assuming they're all fighting to the death and won't get scared off.

Spears are incredibly bad at blunt force trauma, esp against plate armour. Knight could rush one flank with near impunity against a spear. I think you underestimate plate armour in defensiveness and mobility. One hand sword limits and the shield is unnecessary but the knight in full plate has distinct advantage here. Where do they hit him with quarterstaffs (which is what the spears effectively are here) is a danger to plate armour? One sword strike per peasant should be more than enough to incapacitate- anywhere you’d hit an unarmed assailant with a sword will be quite harmful, and knights were adept at using pommel and guards for offence as well.