Historical Accuracy in this time period is highly contentious to say the least.
Relatively little is known for certain about the material culture of the period in most parts of the British isles for most of the cultures postulated.
If you follow the archeological and historical academic literature you will find that even the traditionally defined historic narratives and ethnic groups of the supposed Anglo-Saxon conquest are in doubt, many of the early dynasties and migration and settlement tales of these cultures are seen now as largely mythically derived, and later political and dynastic expediency has motivated the refashioning of History. Even Academia has been involved in discourse which is often motivated as much by the 19th - early 20th century ideals of racial superiority and purity, and modern cultural sentiments of English ascendancy or Celtic nationalisms, and the evidence in academia has been manipulated and misused over the years.
So this game can only be a subjective attempt to portray a subjective view of what might have been fairly historically accurate - If we say we want accuracy. The most unrealistic aspect of the game is the unlimited cash based market economy. The cash economy collapsed in the mid 5th century when the flow of coins from roman mints to pay soldiers and officials had ended, and the debased currency often made by dodgy empoerors was deemed worthless. Its understandable, because wouldnt it be a pain swapping all your loot for food, hides, cattle etc at every village and even in towns quite a lot of the time - you can be damn sure nobody was forking out piles of silver coin for assorted boots, slings, bent spears, cracked shields and other trash loot in the dark ages!
In terms of weaponry, there is a signal problem in that iron does not survive well over such a long time for a number of reasons - It rusts, and it is easily reused, which would have been especially important in an era of economic decline and relative material poverty.
Chain mail could have been as common as in the game, epic poetry from the period implies large numbers of armored warriors in the elite, but some see this as poetic license. Spears were certainly the most common weapon, archers were less common on the battlefield than later periods, but there were large numbers of throwing weapons including the francisca axe amongst some groups (not necessarily just franks!) including late romans and sub roman britains in the period immediately after the end of Roman rule.
Much of what is seen as 'Germanic' style equipment is in fact evolved from kit which is late roman in inspiration - the styles of helmet, buckles and personal adornments favoured by the 'germani' elite were largely direct copies of or inspired through contact with the late roman army, and so the late roman armies artistic styles and those of the near germanic tribes who interacted with them as both raiders and recruits, mercenaries or foderati became similar.
Anyway Ive ranted on enough but on the flail I will say that from what I have seen the Flail was never a particularly common in any time period, it is either a specialist custom made weapon, or, in some cases, was an agricultural tool adapted for use as a weapon - and this is in common with halberds and bill hooks, both of which were simp0ler and more practical weapons than the giant two handed threshing flails used by peasants. These two handed flails are attested in 16th C german fight manuals, they were used by some peasant rebels and low class religious radicals during the 16th C. Of course, we dont have many european fight manuals or weapon training manuals, I think none before the 15thC.
I think it is unlikely they were used in the 6th - 7th C in Britain but if they were they would have been rare.
However, from a game point of view it was a good piece of work to make them possible, and they are relatively rare. Id certainly want them in a medieval set mod just for **** and giggles.
I have never fought any enemy carrying a flail, and they are a rare occurrence in shops, I think only the specialist lordly armour vendors and the mystic merchant has them in this version, so if you dont like them, just dont buy them!
Now that I've finally read the first post carefully, I realize I am probably wrong. I'll let you know soon.
