Well no-weapon (fist) battles can be overcome. I was in the battle of Mazen and we had pelt coats as defenders and no weapons, none, zip, zilch. We were able to gang up on one attacker and get his weapon and from there we slowly started arming our whole defense, if we had 50 more tickets we would have won the defense after starting with no weapons.
It can be done, but it requires ganging up on one or two people and just punching the hell out of them. Also, you get good at chambering really quickly when that's your only way to block an attack.