I’ll go first. Mine is the instant knockout drug. Like Dexter’s intramuscular injection that causes someone to immediately be unconscious. Or in the movie Split where there’s the aerosol spray in your face that makes you instantly be unconscious. Or pretty much any time someone uses chloroform.
I don’t think cutting clran through chainmail is realistic - thrusting is very much so though!
An axe could presumably split into chainmail. Although I suppose it’s just as likely to just break whatever is behind it. It’s not a great armour for large blunt impacts.
Oh yeah, axe I can see. I was thinking swords.
Just like there were many forms of armour (plate was very expensive), there were many forms of hand weapons. And although the novels (3ven of the time) tended to romanticise the sword, it was mostly a secondary weapon, much like a handgun nowadays.