The one thing that is very legitimate (c.f. that lindybeige video mentioned earlier) is that these were not common armament; these were specialist weapons for

The one thing that is very legitimate (c.f. that lindybeige video mentioned earlier) is that these were not common armament; these were specialist weapons for specialist troops. These were for a few very heavy "shock troops", only - the large masses of regular soldiers used swords, which were much better for fighting people in general. It was only for dealing with the heavily armored "core" of an enemy force that a few guys would use these.