The Cell

It seems to me that many of you are neglecting one of Achilles key attributes, besides his invulnerability of course... Achilles was an extremely skilled warrior, even with Excalibur, Arthur, even though I love him, would be no match... not even in the slightest...

Naomasa298

Wart was pretty handy with a sword himself. No reason why he wouldn't be able to handle a semi naked Greek coming at him. He didn't get to become King of the Britons without being able to look after himself.

Whyte

Agreed. Cutting into enemy ranks and single-handedly killing 460 of them is plenty badass enough. Or killing a Giant big enough to squish an armored knight in one swipe of his club. And some other battlefield duels. No doubt he was kicking some major butt in his other battles as well, but who cares if you are just barely in the triple digits in the bodycount... :P

okamido

To be fair, a historic Achilles probably wore something like this.....which would still give the advantage to a historic Arthur dur to his lighter armaments.

Cav

That's one ugly armor haha. I believe that Achilles would update his armor and weapons, and adapt to them. So technology wouldn't be changing the odds.

okamido

I haven't heard that name in 23 years. Beautiful.

Bart Dale

Arthur was not the greatest fighter in the Arthurian legends, Lancelot was, and I believe that Lancelot actually beat Arthur, Excalibur or no.

Achilles was by far regarded as the greatest of the Greeks, and was 1/2 god himself. Although the Iliad didn't make him invincible, he had armour made by the master smith of the Gods. Without his sword, Arthur is nothing, and while Excalibur had a super edge, I don't recall it having another magical properties. Achille would through a spear, and pierce Arthur through the heart. The Achilles spear had a longer reach than Excalibur also. Achilles all the way around.

As for reality, they both are pretty unsubstantial. The Arthur of legend is a complete myth, no history, since (a) He never was king of all England. and (b) he really didn't build the great shining fortress of Camelot. At best, Arthur might have been some minor warrior that led the remain Celts to a few victories against the Saxons, but ultimately lost. They conquered of all England anyways.

I lean toward Achilles reality, because the real Achilles could match his legend pretty closer -a peerless warrior, who had a falling out with the leader of the expedition, but eventually defeats the Trojan champion in a one-to-one fight. The real Arthur, if he existed, wouldn't match his legend at all. He didn't have armoured horse riding knights to lead, he wouldn't have pulled a sword in the stone to make him king, no quest for the Holy Grail, magic sword of Excalibur, he wouldn't be a king of all of England, etc. When you take all the mythic elements out, there is very little left. The real person who inspired the legend of Arthur would be so different that we wouldn't recognize him as Arthur.

AlpinLuke

A further reason we could make is about the characteristics of Excalibur. Even in its "evolved" version, the one with the fairy scabbard.

The weapon had a blade impossible to be broken [at least without magics or the wrong attitude of Arthur using it] and the scabbard gave defensive magics to the warrior.

But as for I know, nor the sword neither the scabbard gave to the warrior the certainty to hit the opponent who, if he was enough able, had the possibility to dodge the slashes.

So the athletic skills of Achilles would have played anyway a certain role.

Naomasa298

Depends on the version of the myth. There were certainly knights who were stronger than Arthur. In some versions, for example, King Pellinore was the strongest knight of his time. And of course, Galahad was the man later on. But that doesn't mean Arthur was a weakling by any means.

cataclysmic

Batman vs. The The Joker.