Deadliest Warrior: Attila the Hun vs. Alexander the Great pits against one another two of history’s greatest conquerors, who were also lean, mean fighting machines in their own right, leading their armies from the front.
Spoilers surely follow.
The choice of a ballista as Alexander’s “special weapon” was an interesting one, since the ballista was primarily an artillery weapon, designed to attack walled towns or massed troops in battle formation. One suspects that the guys just wanted to see how a ballista bolt would do against their ballistic gel dummies. They were not disappointed.
Alexander was also armed with a kind of cavalry lance, a belly fired crossbow (an interesting revelation), and his sword and shield. Alexander was also trained in the Ancient Greek pugilistic arts, which should have been an advantage. He wore bronze armor and an iron helmet.
Meanwhile Attila the Hun had compound steppe bow, a Scythian ax, a lasso, and his own legendary “Sword of Mars.” Attila had lighter, leather armor.
Both of the legendary conquerors fought from horseback, which required re-enactors with special skills, i.e. to use weapons without falling off their horses. The tests of the various weapons went well, with lots of gory damage to targets and lots of boasting from both sides about the effeminate Greekling vs. the stupid barbarian.
It would have been interesting had the combat been between the massed armies of Alexander and Attila the Hun. Alexander was undefeated in his reign of terror across the ancient world. Attila, though fearsome, was soundly whipped by the Roman General Attius at the Battle of Chalon with a mixed army of Goth barbarians and Romans who were long past the prime they had been under the earlier Caesars.
But this is Deadliest Warrior and not Deadliest Army. The combat was between Alexander and Attila with each getting two companions.
The start was promising with the Macedonians using the ballista as a sniping weapon to take out one of the Huns, engaged with their King in drinking and feasting in the ruins of a sacked village. The Macedonians charged, led by their King, resplendent in his shining armor.
The companions of each combatant were dispatched in short order, leaving Alexander and Attila to fight it out. Every weapon was used, as is customary on Deadliest Warrior. But in the end, barbarian ferocity won out over Hellenic training and technology. That was a disappointment. Both men were great killers, but while Alexander brought the glory that was Greece all the way to the Indus, Attila helped to usher in the Dark Ages and the eventual Fall of Rome. I was really rooting for Alexander, therefore, to win.
Source: Deadliest Warrior, Attila the Hun vs. Alexander the Great, TV.Com
