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Seriously? Chainswords are counted as generic close combat weapon. There is NOTHING special about them, unless you are talking about Eldar Scorpion Chainsword. All the novels describe them gloriously, but they have the power similar to kitchen knife on the tabletop. Again, why manufacture complex and expansive chainswords when they are just the same as combat knives?

Also, why does Lysander of the Imperial Fists Defender of Terra have Terminator Armor, Iron Halo and Storm Shield, giving him 5++, 4++ and 3++ respectively? Isn't it be nicer if we could get entire squads of dudes wielding Thunder Hammer, Storm Shield and Artificer Armor that can overrun enemies in close combat?

Is there any other wargear compulsory equipment that does not make sense do you think?

bibotot wrote:
Again, why manufacture complex and expansive chainswords when they are just the same as combat knives?

Because (fluffwise) they're not. The difference is simply not great enough to be represented within the power scale used in the game. In the same way that an Ork Boy is stronger (fluffwise) than a regular human, but (ruleswise) they are the same.

Chainswords should be AP4 or AT LEAST ap5. Drives me nuts.

AP4 would be too strong; at that point Power Weapons would only exist as Marine Killers.

 insaniak wrote:

bibotot wrote:
Again, why manufacture complex and expansive chainswords when they are just the same as combat knives?

Because (fluffwise) they're not. The difference is simply not great enough to be represented within the power scale used in the game. In the same way that an Ork Boy is stronger (fluffwise) than a regular human, but (ruleswise) they are the same.

Unless one counts back in 2nd edition where that actually mattered since the Chainsword did have stats.

The problem is they seem to have issues with abstraction between the scales of Skirmish and War, so that it seems like there should be more variety, but less because things just get lumped in with CCW.

I am an advocate of making Chainswords have shred with a point cost of 1 for anyone who has it as an option and have people that come with it normally have it at no extra cost.

 ZebioLizard2 wrote:
Unless one counts back in 2nd edition where that actually mattered since the Chainsword did have stats.

Even then, it depended on who was holding it. Marines and Chainswords were both S4, so the fact that you could Parry with swords was the only thing that made a Chainsword any better than a Marine's left hook.

Chainswords honestly wouldn't make great weapons.

They'd be awful at penetrating armor, especially if utilized in a traditional sword hack/slash, broken teeth and thrown chains galore, you'd stand a wonderful chance of getting a snapped chain slapping right back into your face. One will notice real chainsaws are not slammed against the material they are cutting for a reason.

In terms of wounding flesh, again, you'd risk the same thing (again, such devices are meant to be placed against a material and carve their way through, not to be slashed or hammered against something), and be remarkably poor at stabbing anything, and whatever damage you'd get probably wouldn't be all that much different than if you'd just swung a normal sword anyway.

The imagery of them is wonderful, but really, they don't really need special rules, and there's a reason such things aren't used in real life. Chainswords are something can can exist today if we want them to, there's just no reason.

Having them as just basic combat weapons is fine. Just as the rules don't differentiate between an axe, sword, mace, bayonet, lance, or fist unless they've got a powerfield, the wounding differential wouldn't be enough to merit its own rules.

 Vaktathi wrote:
One will notice real chainsaws are not slammed against the material they are cutting for a reason.

Real chainswords also don't have adamantium blades with teeth sharpened to a monomolecular edge...

While true, that's another thing that would really be as ideal as is made out to be. Having what is described as a monomolecular edge would be very bad for a battle instrument, and would either fail to hold that edge after the first stroke or two, or would potentially critically weaken areas of the blade.

There's a reason real swords aren't particularly sharp either, they don't need to be to do their job of putting a big nasty gash where all the important stuff leaks out of, and making it super sharp can cause issues with the blade's strength or interaction with an opponents blade.

Stresses on the chain likewise would be intense, even if the blade teeth are extraordinarily strong, you get one of those good and stuck in bone or armor while the chain is trying to keep going, and that suckers going to jam, snap, or fry the motor, some of which has been aluded to in 40k fluff before.

That said, close combat weapons in 40k and their rules are silly in general. Swords make very poor armor penetrators just as a general rule. When plate and heavy armor became commonplace, halberds, maces, warhammers and other such instruments became dominant over swords. When faced with a very heavily armored opponent, you really want something like that as it imparts kinetic energy through the armor and/or can cave it in (hitting an armored arm with a warhammer and caving it in will usually shatter any bone underneath and pulp flesh), but in 40k the poweraxe and powersword are the armor defeaters instead of the mace

Saying that chainswords don't work because chainsaws wouldn't neglects that chainswords were specifically designed to work in this fashion. If you swung a chainsaw heartily at something, it wouldn't be awfully effective - but it would still do damage. Surely a weaponised version would be better. The teeth are also very much like bladed hooks, which would be a very unpleasant thing to get hit by. Furthermore, they have been represented as being swung into an enemy and pressed into them as the teeth eat into them (shown best in the Space Marine game).

Melee weapons aren't really a thing in real life because specific conditions that warrant them in the 40k setting do not exist. In these conditions, a chainsword is advantageous. Where a simple blade might get stuck into the flesh of an unflinching Ork, a chainsword would either tear off a sizable chunk of flesh or, if held down, cut right through.

I'd like to see re-rolls on To Wounds of 1, at the very least.

EDIT: There's no way they have a monomolecular edge. As I have discussed many a time on Dakka, GW have no idea what that means and apply it to absolutely everything.

EDIT2: Power weapons follow totally different rules to conventional weapons. It's not the weapon doing the damage, it's the power field around it.

Well at least they got it half right. Axes are decent at chopping up armor. Maces, hammers, and picks are better.

 Vaktathi wrote:
While true, that's another thing that would really be as ideal as is made out to be. Having what is described as a monomolecular edge would be very bad for a battle instrument, and would either fail to hold that edge after the first stroke or two, or would potentially critically weaken areas of the blade.

I'll have to take your word for that. I think I must have slept through the 'Properties of Fictional Metals in the Manufacturing of Similarly-Fictional Weapons in the Far Distant Future (Where There Is Apparently Considerable Warfare)' component of my high school physics course.

That said, close combat weapons in 40k and their rules are silly in general. Swords make very poor armor penetrators just as a general rule. When plate and heavy armor became commonplace, halberds, maces, warhammers and other such instruments became dominant over swords. When faced with a very heavily armored opponent, you really want something like that as it imparts kinetic energy through the armor and/or can cave it in (hitting an armored arm with a warhammer and caving it in will usually shatter any bone underneath and pulp flesh), but in 40k the poweraxe and powersword are the armor defeaters instead of the mace

This assumes that weapons technology remains in front of armour technology. A mace is only better at dealing with armour if you can make a mace that is capable of battering through the armour you are using it on. If the armour is sufficiently robust, then you're better off with something pointy that you can slip between armour plates or into joints.

Maces are better because they actually bypass the armor entirely. It doesn't matter how strong your armor is(to a point) because the shockwave will still transition right through it into your body to break bones. cause internal bleeding, and turn organs into jelly.

You might have armor which couldn't be penetrated by anything, but you're still vulnerable to impact and having your joints ripped apart. Its why a marine can die when he gets run over by a tank. The impact ended up being forceful enough to incapacitate him.

If it simply a question of getting through armor, then lots of things simply couldn't kill a marine at all. But armor is only part of the equation.

I always said Chainsword attacks should be -1 to your armor save.

 insaniak wrote:

 Vaktathi wrote:
While true, that's another thing that would really be as ideal as is made out to be. Having what is described as a monomolecular edge would be very bad for a battle instrument, and would either fail to hold that edge after the first stroke or two, or would potentially critically weaken areas of the blade.

I'll have to take your word for that. I think I must have slept through the 'Properties of Fictional Metals in the Manufacturing of Similarly-Fictional Weapons in the Far Distant Future (Where There Is Apparently Considerable Warfare)' component of my high school physics course.

Eh, just going off of GW's descriptions of it and the general properties of super sharp things.

This assumes that weapons technology remains in front of armour technology. A mace is only better at dealing with armour if you can make a mace that is capable of battering through the armour you are using it on. If the armour is sufficiently robust, then you're better off with something pointy that you can slip between armour plates or into joints.

Well, if you've got armor so advanced that a mace doesn't impart kinetic energy through it, one would hope it doesn't have any vulnerable openings for a knife

 Vaktathi wrote:

This assumes that weapons technology remains in front of armour technology. A mace is only better at dealing with armour if you can make a mace that is capable of battering through the armour you are using it on. If the armour is sufficiently robust, then you're better off with something pointy that you can slip between armour plates or into joints.

Well, if you've got armor so advanced that a mace doesn't impart kinetic energy through it, one would hope it doesn't have any vulnerable openings for a knife

Every armor has a weak point. Even Full Plate had eyeholes. Offensive and Defensive technology both advance, so while there is power armor, I'm assuming lore wise, there is also power daggers.

 jreilly89 wrote:

 Vaktathi wrote:

This assumes that weapons technology remains in front of armour technology. A mace is only better at dealing with armour if you can make a mace that is capable of battering through the armour you are using it on. If the armour is sufficiently robust, then you're better off with something pointy that you can slip between armour plates or into joints.

Well, if you've got armor so advanced that a mace doesn't impart kinetic energy through it, one would hope it doesn't have any vulnerable openings for a knife

Every armor has a weak point. Even Full Plate had eyeholes. Offensive and Defensive technology both advance, so while there is power armor, I'm assuming lore wise, there is also power daggers.

Alpha Legion gets them back in the HH, they are -1S and AP3.

 Pyeatt wrote:
Chainswords should be AP4 or AT LEAST ap5. Drives me nuts.

No, oh no, no, no. No.

In a game with 100+ models on the table we need LESS granularity not more.

40k games are at a scale where it just does not matter that trooper Jones has a Mars Pattern Las carbine while trooper Franz has an Armageddon Pattern Long Las.

We don't have time to care that Battle Brother Jan has a Goodwyn Pattern Bolter with a sickle clip while Battle Brother Don has an M37 Pattern bolter with a chain bayonette.

Leave that stuff to the RPGs.

If anything GW needs to get rid of about half of the wargear unique snowflake stuff. the whole power axe vs power maul vs power sword thing drives me nuts.

I mean yes, one can make the case a chain saw is a scarier weapon than a knife, but then SM players will want to always put Chainswords on their assault marines, whereas now you can arm them with spears, or flails, or swords, or karate chops.

Granular wargear rules LIMIT MODELING and that should not happen.

The mace/blade thing applies to real maces, swords and plate armour, but becomes irrelevant when transitioned into power fields. They don't damage the same way.

We know that power fields can be used to deliver extremely high cutting force (enough to penetrate power armour easily) when applied like a blade, but when used in brute-force applications, power fields just kind of explode. The more the field is charged, the greater the power behind it, the better the effect. This is why a mace is AP4, acting like a smaller thunder hammer.

They scale differently. This is why a power sword is AP3 Str User and a mace is "only" AP4. Meanwhile, the power axe is a middle ground - it delivers a greater force (they are so heavy as to be Unwieldy) but retains a cutting edge.

There is no bladed equivalent to a power fist or thunder hammer, both of which operate on the principle of charging their power fields with immense energy and releasing it all at once, resulting in a highly destructive blast.

It is true that the monomolecular edge stuff is pure nonsense, though, for several physics reasons that can't be ignored. Also important is that these supposedly monomolecular weapons in no way act in-fluff like the incorrect-but-common meaning of the word, either.

 Kid_Kyoto wrote:

If anything GW needs to get rid of about half of the wargear unique snowflake stuff. the whole power axe vs power maul vs power sword thing drives me nuts.

I mean yes, one can make the case a chain saw is a scarier weapon than a knife, but then SM players will want to always put Chainswords on their assault marines, whereas now you can arm them with spears, or flails, or swords, or karate chops.

I dunno. I think 6/7e struck a nice balance between the encylopaedia of weapons that 2e had, and the oversimplified 'they're all just weapons' that 3e featured.

I think that Chainswords should at least have AP6... Anything to make using a Chainsword slightly more powerful than punching an opponent with my fist.

In regards to other terrible wargear interpretation, well I always thought that perhaps the standard lasguns could also feature AP6, the idea being that they could at least penetrate the weakest infantry armor. However that would nullify the point of having 6+ saves so perhaps that's not the best idea.

Ah for the good old days of 3rd edition, where you could buy a commander and a chain sword for him and not see any difference.

I think the problem is their stance on weapons. I never understood why power weapons were so special that they needed their own subcategories to such a degree (counting the grey knight stuff on top of the basic stuff). Meanwhile the original problem with ccws still exists.

Isn't a power hammer a thunder hammer? And i don't buy the axe speciality - axes are heavy, they're not *that* heavy, especially when the powerfield is doing the work. They shouldn't be striking as slow as a fist.

 Kid_Kyoto wrote:

 Pyeatt wrote:
Chainswords should be AP4 or AT LEAST ap5. Drives me nuts.

No, oh no, no, no. No.

In a game with 100+ models on the table we need LESS granularity not more.

40k games are at a scale where it just does not matter that trooper Jones has a Mars Pattern Las carbine while trooper Franz has an Armageddon Pattern Long Las.

We don't have time to care that Battle Brother Jan has a Goodwyn Pattern Bolter with a sickle clip while Battle Brother Don has an M37 Pattern bolter with a chain bayonette.

Leave that stuff to the RPGs.

If anything GW needs to get rid of about half of the wargear unique snowflake stuff. the whole power axe vs power maul vs power sword thing drives me nuts.

I mean yes, one can make the case a chain saw is a scarier weapon than a knife, but then SM players will want to always put Chainswords on their assault marines, whereas now you can arm them with spears, or flails, or swords, or karate chops.

Granular wargear rules LIMIT MODELING and that should not happen.

I totally agree with this sentiment. The rules made some weapons basically pointless (looking at you power sword). Instead of injecting flavor into the game where you could model your characters with different weapons that they got passed down from their tiny, plastic grandpa, you now have to introduce game mechanic considerations when determining how to arm them.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Torga_DW wrote:
Ah for the good old days of 3rd edition, where you could buy a commander and a chain sword for him and not see any difference.

I think the problem is their stance on weapons. I never understood why power weapons were so special that they needed their own subcategories to such a degree (counting the grey knight stuff on top of the basic stuff). Meanwhile the original problem with ccws still exists.

Isn't a power hammer a thunder hammer? And i don't buy the axe speciality - axes are heavy, they're not *that* heavy, especially when the powerfield is doing the work. They shouldn't be striking as slow as a fist.

Right. Instead of just saying "oh power weapon, cool" and moving on with the game, we now have to bend over and take a look at what the guy is hefting. Complexity begets complexity. Now I sit around wondering why a power axe isn't "semi-unwieldy" and striking at I2. Wouldn't it have more reach than a power fist? Perhaps power lances should be able to strike without having to be withing two inches of a model base to base in combat?

Well the way i'd do it if i were going that route is to make different weapon classes, period. So swords, axes, hammers, lances etc. And then 'power' adds something, 'chain' adds something else, 'standard' is just baseline normal.

But yeah, as kid kyoto said, with 100+ models on the table its probably best left to rpgs. I was always happy with just 'power weapons' being one type.

I want me some power nunchucks!..

You can get a bit creative if you use non-standard weapon bits. I have a raptor aspiring champion using a possessed limb. It's a big, clawed fist that I've used to represent lightning claws, a power fist, or just a generic ccw.
So long as the weapon looks like it could fulfill the role, your opponent shouldn't have any room to complain.

Complaining that different weapons are different is a bit like complaining that you can't just use a bolter as a meltagun. The power lance is absolutely pointless, though.

I've been saying several editions now that chainswords should be ap5. It's sad and pathetic to watch superhuman astartes sergeants unable to cut through t-shirts.

Mechanic-wise, I think assault marines could seriously use the help.

Yes, lets make flak armor even MORE pointless and have the guardsmen die even faster in CC, sure as sure.