[quote=Voltaire]
I was actually taking the possible mass variables into account when making my estimates. I figure the alternate materials can't be that much heavier than steel otherwise they wouldn't make very good weapons. What's the point of having an ultra sharp weapon if the wielder has to be TEH AHNOLD to use it effectively?And I'm going to say no on the balance thing, or that it has minimal effect. Mainly because I'm fairly certain that lizards don't rely on their tails for balance as much as swimming. When comparing a lizard's tail to a cat's or dog's or most other tailed animals for that matter, it's not nearly as... pliable? Maneuverable? It pretty much just moves from side to side unlike mammal tails which move all different directions. Plus, he still has most of it. Just the tip is gone. And thank you! I do love my extravagant action scenes. No I haven't heard of those techniques. I just started digging deeper into the history of martial combat recently. But I'll look them up. I actually watched a few videos on scimitar techniques to get an idea of how the Alikir might be fighting as well.
[/quote]

You said you needed techniques? Well, for any Yurop-style weapon in the hands of a fighter, they'll fight like Europeans, of course, and here's how Europeans fought:

[url=http://www.hroarr.com/damn-beautiful-sword-buckler-fencing/]Sword and Buckler[/url]

Notice how the buckler is always held far away to let the wielder more time to parry with it as the point needs to travel a farther distance from the edge of the buckler to reach the wielder.

Roland Warzecha is a goddamned KING when it comes to this stuff and he's where I pulled Vendel's fighting style from.

[url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dkhpqAGdZPc]A pretty good seminar on leverage and how viking shields and shields like them were used.[/url] Most TES shields that are round like the iron shield and the steel shield have only a handle, meaning that they very well may be used like the shields in this video...but they're so fucking small ingame. You can just jump around the video if you don't fancy all the talking about finer points of swordsmanship.

[url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mjT4JepA-Vc&index=85]Longsword.[/url] Not quite the big greatsword, but they're very similar and could be used the same way. The Nordic greatsword is more like a Zweihander and those were used to chop the head off of pikes and halberds, so they're in a league of their own when it comes to this.

[url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pLTcVJGMBkQ]Talwar.[/url] This is the closest thing I've come to to figuring out how Redguards might fight. Of course, it is a Punjabi system of combat but it's the only thing I could find. My main gripe about this guy though is that every time he's like, "Oh, he think's he has me. BUT WAIT, I CAN ALSO STOP TIME AND DO THIS."