Deadliest Warrior

[Sabby]

Just gotten into it, and I can best describe it as 'Mythbusters 4 Fratboyz'. A fictional battle between historical fighters is brainstormed by researching the two's tactics and weapons, and using the typical high speed camera style science to determine how effective the weapons are. Even though the science is a bit thin sometimes, with no repeatable results, and only an unexplained 'simulation program' to handle the theorizing, I am enjoying it a lot.

The test dummies have flesh, bone, brain matter and blood, which is just obscenely awesome, and each episode seems to boil down to both sides just having a passive aggressive bitch fit over whose weapons are better.

Currently on Apache vs Gladiator.

[RubySlippers]

I want to see the ultimate match from seasons one and two - Vlad the Impaler verses the Spartan Warrior. Come on that huge shield is a devestating weapon and defense even against perhaps Vlads primitive gunpowder weapons and crossbow technology. And I'd like to see the CIA verses the James Gang that would be funny.

[Inkidu]

Some of their reasons are so stupid though. They give out weapons' edges because they think it's neat. They gave the Spetsnaz the hand held weapon because they had a spring loaded shooty knife and the Green Beret entrenching tool was not designed "to be a weapon".

I also saw the shooting course. The beret went down it no nonsense hitting the cardboard targets as they popped up. The Russian did all these stupid little rolls and you can literally count three seconds before he deals with a cutout enemy on his right. Guess what you're dead, idiot!

They're totally biased. Empirical... I doubt that.

[Shjade]

The tests get sillier as the season progresses, the final "simulation" is almost always hilariously off-base (especially when it comes to tactics - why on earth would a ninja, equipped for stealth attacks and sabotage, shout before striking to alert his heavily armored target that he should put his shield up? Because Spartans beat ninja, obviously! *facepalm*), the judging serves no purpose since what the two hosts of the show think of the test results is irrelevant to the final testing data...basically the show is a comedy dressed up as research and experimentation.

Good for watching when you need to blow off some steam laughing at people behaving foolishly without the faux-drama attached to 90% of reality TV shows.

[Sabby]

Very well put Shade.

The announcer cums a little every time he says DEADLIEST! xD

I'm only just starting season 2, and I can tell they ran out of ideas :/ they're choosing actual people instead of orders or cultures... which is fine, just makes me think they ran out of warrior types.

Favourite so far was Monk vs Maori. That was poetic justice right there >.> Big ignorant Kiwi with more neck then brains spending the whole episode being a smacktalking dick (even by the shows usual standards) only to see his warrior absolutely raped, and then blame it on the computer.

[Shjade]

Big ignorant Kiwi with more neck then brains spending the whole episode being a smacktalking dick (even by the shows usual standards) only to see his warrior absolutely raped, and then blame it on the computer.

Oh, yeah, I forgot to mention: the smack talk? It just gets worse as the shows go on, too. Good lord, the Mob episode was SO camp.

[Sabby]

I kind of like it. Loved when they were testing the morningstar and they kept heckling the pirate team like "Oh! Look at that! Imagine that's a pirate =D dead. Totally dead" "Cool. You hit half a man who wasn't moving >.>" "...D=<"

[Jag]

It's not been updated in a while, but I had a Dealiest Warrior thread some time ago if you want to check out what some of the people said about it about a year ago:

Deadliest Warrior

Despite all it's flaws and the issues I have with the computer simulations, it's a fun show to watch and think about.

[Funguy81]

I think its a fun show to watch just cause you get to see the effects of the actual weapons on dummies. While the outcomes of the battles and the choice of weapons are always questionable, but the real life damage done to the dummies by the "experts" are non-negotiable. By the ways, i'm stretching the definition of experts because some of them are not quite the experts they play out to be.

[Vandren]

The tests get sillier as the season progresses, the final "simulation" is almost always hilariously off-base (especially when it comes to tactics - why on earth would a ninja, equipped for stealth attacks and sabotage, shout before striking to alert his heavily armored target that he should put his shield up? Because Spartans beat ninja, obviously! *facepalm*)

As a friend put it: "The Ninja's going to sneak into the Spartan's camp at night, cut his throat, then show up at the match the next day and ask where his opponent is."

[Sabby]

Performing Necromancy here... why? Because George Washiongton and Napolean decided they wanted to kill each other.

Yup, season 3 has started. Thoughts on the episode?

[Jag]

I'm looking forward to next week. Joan of Arc vs William the Conqueror. It's their first female warrior.

[Sabby]

Yeah, looks like I called it right... they're running out of warrior archtypes and going more specific. I miss those battles with a type of warrior I wouldn't typicallly know of, like Apache and Zulu, but they weren't completely obscure, and now its all about history buffs.

Its still awesome though.

[Sabby]

I have a present for you all :)

SpoonyExperiment.com Deadliest Character

Your welcome.

[Oniya]

They did something like 'Deadliest Character' last year (everyone from Temeraire from Naomi Novic's Blackpowder War series to Drizzt, to Megatron [weakness:  Starscream]) in a tournament fashion.  I think Cthulhu made an appearance as well.  Mr. Oniya was following it with great amusement, because they did it by votes, and someone would write up a description of the battle and how the character that won the popular vote beat his/her opponent.  Sometimes, that involved a lucky shot or outright sneakiness.

[Sabby]

They finally gave up any semblance of realism.

Deadliest Warrior Season 3 Episode 10 -- Vampires vs. Zombies (1 of 5)

Vampires vs Zombies

[Jag]

They finally gave up any semblance of realism.

Deadliest Warrior Season 3 Episode 10 -- Vampires vs. Zombies (1 of 5)

Vampires vs Zombies

I saw that one. They actually used more science and realistic situations in that one than in most of their episodes.

[Oniya]

*nods*  They used an attack dog to simulate the jaw pressure of something that just doesn't care how hard it's biting, and an alligator to simulate the speed of a vampire strike.

[Jag]

I thought using blind folded muscle men to tear open the chest of a 'vampire' to see hold long it would take to get to the heart and destroy it was pretty neat.

[Sabby]

I couldn't see the rest of the episode, parts 4 and 5 don't seem to be uploaded yet, but I did see the speed test with the one vampire taking on a hoard with clawed gauntlets. Was like something out of The One.

[Chris Brady]

According to their site, they realized their mistake with season 1 and 2.  See, the big issue (for me) is that all they were comparing was weapon data and that was it.  Also, the Spartan vs. Ninja was actually more of a toss up.  Ninja aren't completely silent when stealthing (no one is) and the Spartan was trained to wake at a hair trigger of any 'odd' sound (what constitutes as odd was left to the imagination) so it would have probably be closer to 50/50, than the utter raping that happened.

The big turn off to me was the Knight vs. Pirate.  A) Pirates are NOT warriors.  They're raiders, they'd have run away long before the Knight showed up.  B) the Grenado was not something they used in a fight.  C) The technology gap was too wide.  The Gonne was designed to defeat plate, long before the 18th century Pirate even existed, giving him an unfair advantage from the beginning.

However, it was cool to see that broadsword myth busted.  Damn, that thing sheared right through that pig clean!  The saber/cutlass tore it's way through, leaving a ragged, if equally deadly, cut.

Season 3, they claimed would add things like tendancies, tactics and skills to the mix of data.  Haven't been able to watch any more episodes to see what sort of difference their talk made.

[Shjade]

Season 3, they claimed would add things like tendancies, tactics and skills to the mix of data.  Haven't been able to watch any more episodes to see what sort of difference their talk made.

The difference it made: not much. They talk about it more and there's more trash talk about how my dad would beat up your dad because my dad knows kung fu, but the tests just come out to weapon analysis in the end anyway. You can't input tactics as math into their simulation, I'd guess.

[Oniya]

I watch it for the porcine mayhem, myself.  Although, they do seem to be working with more contemporaneous opponents now.

[Sabby]

I've yet to see a weapon trump Vlad's sword. I know I'm parroting the show here, but until I see something better, that is one of the best designed weapons I've ever seen. It cut an entire pig in half with almost no resistance, and yeah, that's been done, but only by weapons so heavy they would class as clubs. This thing could be swung several times in one hand.

[Oniya]

The katana didn't do too shabby at making pork chops.

[Missy]

Katana's are razor blades so yeah, they cut all kinds of good things.

[Scarie187]

I enjoyed this last season more than any but this is definitely a show you take with several grains of salt.

[Crazy]

There's no doubt that the simulation is a bit arbitrary,  and the results are often a coinflip since the programmers really want to comeup with an unexpected result, but it's a fun and useful thought exercise.

Knight versus Pirate was upsetting,  but it points to the educational value of the show.  It's important to understand that ballistics renders armor useless,  just as Knight versus Ninja showed the value of superior protection.  There's no question a Spartan shield is the ultimate weapon,  any history book will show the superiority of the Roman Phallanx,   if only it could stop bullets.

Spetnaz was the most disputed result,   but the American didn't even notice that he had missed a target,  the Russian missed too,  and paid a few seconds to correct his mistake.  The treching tool did get the shaft, however,  that weapon is a battleaxe.  I think Afghanistan 1984 shows the supremacy of American determination to Russian elitism.

I'm loving the new season.  Vampires versus Zombies brought about the real life smack talk that the show portrays as I passionately maintained that the most impressive list of powers was everything in the face of sheer numbers, but the surprise ending was wholly satisfactory.

In truth the bottom line in any conflict is a question of morale. 90% of casualties occur when one side breaks and runs.  It is the same in modern warfare and ancient warfare.  Courage is the lion of battle.

[Chris Brady]

I've yet to see a weapon trump Vlad's sword. I know I'm parroting the show here, but until I see something better, that is one of the best designed weapons I've ever seen. It cut an entire pig in half with almost no resistance, and yeah, that's been done, but only by weapons so heavy they would class as clubs. This thing could be swung several times in one hand.

Knight Vs Pirate, the Knight's Broadsword sheered CLEAN through a pig.  The was no resistance either.  So I'm thinking it's more the class of blade, rather than any specific weapon.

[Oniya]

A curved blade typically slices better than an equally sharp straight blade - something to do with the physics of the contact.  You can press against a sharp edge as long as you don't add in any side-to-side motion, and the curved blade makes it difficult (if not impossible) to avoid that.  This is why the circus performers are able to climb a 'ladder' of sword blades.

[Sabby]

Knight Vs Pirate, the Knight's Broadsword sheered CLEAN through a pig.  The was no resistance either.  So I'm thinking it's more the class of blade, rather than any specific weapon.

As I said, claymore is a two handed weapon, Vlads sword managed that with a lot smaller and lighter sword.

[Chris Brady]

It was a one handed broadsword, Sabby.  SLIIIIICE through the piggy.

[Sabby]

Oh, it was o.o huh... might have to rewatch that episode.

[Oniya]

I think the difference is that the broadsword is heavier than the curved blades that the samurai and Vlad used.  That contributes to momentum on the pig-slicing.  The curved blades slide along the target, and slices like a paper-cut.

Then you have something like the kukri that's heavy and curved.

[Shjade]

Fun linguistic trivia: the direct english translation of "kukri" is "fucking hurts."

Srs.

[Sabby]

What was that weapon that was just a massive straight club with obsidian shards worked into the side? I remember it was enough to behead a horse.

[Shjade]

Sounds like something Aztec, maybe?

[Rinzler]

I think they should do a show about Oompa-Loompa vs Munchkin.

Oompa-Loompa would win, hands down. They've got the tech. All the munchkins have got is the militant wing of the Lollipop Guild.

[Magic Fingers]

I do hope they keep up the fictional characters.  The Spartans from Halo vs the Specters from Mass Effect as the next season's opener?

Though, I'm having a hard time ranking the show higher than Death Battle.

I mean, where else will you see Starscream fight Rainbow Dash?

[Jag]

What was that weapon that was just a massive straight club with obsidian shards worked into the side? I remember it was enough to behead a horse.

Wasn't that the Māori Warrior? The Shark Tooth Club.

[Oniya]

Nope - this one.

(Thanks for the wiki link!)

[Jag]

Nope - this one.

(Thanks for the wiki link!)

Ah, thank you. ^__^ I knew it was something like that. The Maori Warriors were just the first that popped into my head with a spiky club.

[Oniya]

I had to actually see it to remember.

[Sabby]

If they do keep up the fictional pairings, I'd love to see Aliens vs Predator, but... that one would be pretty hard to test. Even if theres enough lore out there to get a semi-realistic idea of how a lot of it works, I doubt they could replicate the Predators weapons or the Aliens blood, it would all be just in theory, and without the live tests, you don't really have an episode.

The Halo Spartan that Magic Fingers suggested would actually be a lot easier to do physical tests of. I'd rather put him up against a Terminator though. Just your standard T-800 model. The physical tests would be just as plausible as the Spartan and they're a surprisingly even match up.

Edit. Now that I think about it, the Terminators future weaponry is guna pose a problem if they go that way...

[Chris Brady]

The Kukri.

[Cold Heritage]

My favourite memory from Pirate vs. Knight was how all of the misfires that they actually showed had no effect at all on determining the deadliness of the pirate's firearms.

[Zealously Jaded]

I love Spoony ranting about deadliest warrior! George Washington V Napoleon

[Sabby]

I love Spoony <3 his response to the backlash over his DW game review was great.

[RubySlippers]

At least we learned Vampires are better than Zombies once and for all.

And that hypothetical ending that the plague of the zombies might have even affect a vampire is silly, they are undead so already pretty dead.

I want to see the match of Howard Holmes verses Jack the Ripper the two most notorious serial killers from America and England to see who is the deadliest warrior.

Also a friend thinks Danel Boone verses Blackbeard would be a good match.

[Oniya]

I want to see the match of Howard Holmes verses Jack the Ripper the two most notorious serial killers from America and England to see who is the deadliest warrior.

Oooh, I like that.  Although serial killers are not quite face-to-face combatants, so there might be some finagling to do, but I like it.

[Shjade]

Oooh, I like that.  Although serial killers are not quite face-to-face combatants, so there might be some finagling to do, but I like it.

Because ninja are totally face-to-face combatants. >.>

I don't think the DW crew can really deal with stealth.

[Oniya]

True enough, but at least the ninja was up against a face-to-face combatant.  If they'd done Ninja vs. Sniper - we just wouldn't see anything until someone materialized to claim the win.

[fancyfictions]

I enjoyed this last season more than any but this is definitely a show you take with several grains of salt.

I'll agree with you there. The scenarios aren't straight up fights. Too many variables when you deal with human combatants. My girlfriends think i'm crazy for being so into this show but I'm addicted to it. My favorite of this last season hands down would have to be vampires vs zombies (I was hoping the zombies would win but oh well). I hope they do more episodes like that one in the future.

[Crazy]

True enough, but at least the ninja was up against a face-to-face combatant.  If they'd done Ninja vs. Sniper - we just wouldn't see anything until someone materialized to claim the win.

Though I could point to an extensive simulation with Team Fortress 2 's sniper vs spy update.