Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

I think the closest that we have at the moment is a plasma cutter or electro cutter. Both vaporise tissue/material they come into contact with and require at least some form of pressure to cut with (although significantly less than a standard knife would, for example). Also to note that some materials require more energy to vaporise than others, meaning some would require either a powering up of the blade, or more pressure/time to cut through the material.

Thus it is possible that if you left one switched on, gravity could cause it to cut into whatever the blade was sitting on at the time, though it would get stopped either by the handle or the thicker part of the blade.

Of course, real world =/= 40K world

I know it isn't always displayed on the models, but power weapons need a large energy source. That is why you often see power weapon users with a bunch of cables going up their arm towards some contraption on their back.

If a users arm was chopped off, then the sword would lose it's power anyway. If it was merely dropped or the user died then it would have a bunch of cables preventing it from going to far.

As for it sinking into the ground... I don't think this would happen at all. Every action has an equal and opposite reaction. If you dropped a chainsword would you expect it to sink into the ground eternally? No it would more likely bounce and drag itself around churning up a bit of top soil. I think a power sword would behave similarly. As it repulses the atoms in front of it, it would at the same time be repulsed and pushed back.

I also think that being under continuous load like that would burn the generator out quite quickly.

Yes, power weapons do require a large source of energy.

the reason you say it isn't represented is many power weapons are running off of Batteries in the hilt. others are attached to a bockpack power supply.

there are 1,000s of different types of power weapon in the impierium, some older ones will use the back pack, others a hilt carried power pack like a lasgun does.

Power Fists almost exclusivly use Backpack power packs as they require much more energy(both to generate the field AND to power the gauntlet's digits)




LCs can be seen as turbo-charged power weapons. they have had the energy levels placed even higher causing the energy field to cause even more damage(represented by rerolls to wound) and leap between 2 claws. still can't do much to vehicles(compared to other weapons)

This makes me wonder what happens when phase blades are dropped. As far as I can tell they are even better at cutting things. And since the C'Tan's bodies are made of the same stuff could they just float through things disintegrating it or whatever?

Phase weapons utilize extremly short cross-dimentional travel to bypass protection.


the weapon is able to sense the presense of protection and "phases" the portions of the blade that are about to come in contact with the protection, whether that protection is energy field, plasteel and ceramite, or psychic energy.

the blade then "rephases" once it has passed the protection and subsequentially does the physical damage.



so phase blades, and power weapons, don't really do more, or have a higher chance of, damage then a mundane blade made out of iron. in the sense of actual damage to flesh. the difference is the bypassing of protection.

Kommissar Kel wrote:Power Swords/Axes still need to be Sharp to cut; the power feild just makes it even easier to cut.

Power weapons don't need a material blade, Eisenhorn used a power sword that was described similarly to a lightsaber. I would imagine that the blade would be used to help shape the power field, and as a fall-back if the field fails, but it evidently isn't essential to the function of the weapon.

Kommissar Kel wrote:I think of it as being similar to other Sci-fi genres "vibro-blades" the hypersonic oscillation of the blade means that while the blade seems to be a solid, unmoving, peice of solid metal the impact of the blade also creates a sawing action that increases it's ability to cut.

Vibro-blades can also in 40K, in the Gaunt's Ghosts novels Tona Criid had one.

I love that physics and chemistry are no strangers to 40K discussions. Oddly enough I had this exact conversation w/ a friend of mine years ago. Back then it was the strength of the weapon not the wielder, but the debate settled on the concept of power weapons being similar to a welder (albeit a lot faster and much more powerful one). A crackling field of energy. Against living tissue it damages via something akin to electrical shock (as well as choppy / stabby / crush damage) and against a vehicle it would melt into the armor like a welder cuts through steel when it's turned up too high, but in both instances it needs inertia. A dropped Power Weapon would not melt a hole in the plant. But I concede that it's a cool idea.

Purposeless debate over imaginary situations that results in intelligent and plausible reasoning. That's awesome.

Æscholt wrote:

Kommissar Kel wrote:Power Swords/Axes still need to be Sharp to cut; the power feild just makes it even easier to cut.

Power weapons don't need a material blade, Eisenhorn used a power sword that was described similarly to a lightsaber. I would imagine that the blade would be used to help shape the power field, and as a fall-back if the field fails, but it evidently isn't essential to the function of the weapon.

Kommissar Kel wrote:I think of it as being similar to other Sci-fi genres "vibro-blades" the hypersonic oscillation of the blade means that while the blade seems to be a solid, unmoving, peice of solid metal the impact of the blade also creates a sawing action that increases it's ability to cut.

Vibro-blades can also in 40K, in the Gaunt's Ghosts novels Tona Criid had one.

I don't really read(or trust) much of the BL novels. Besides which Eisenhorns "lightsaber" was also described as both "unusual" and "Unique" which can be read as "the Fanciful dreamings of the author".

I had not known of Tona Criid's Vibro blade; I would expect the described result was at least similar to a power weapon(in end result not necessarily in form). Although i would also expect it was far less effective vs armor than a power weapon, but more effective vs flesh.

Bloodaxe: Real world Physics and Chemistry definitely have a place in 40k discussions, as most of the stuff in 40k could work in today's world barring of course psychically attuned items, and some of the more fantastical items. the Authors really have done their homework in many cases.

Kommissar Kel wrote:I don't really read(or trust) much of the BL novels. Besides which Eisenhorns "lightsaber" was also described as both "unusual" and "Unique" which can be read as "the Fanciful dreamings of the author".

BL novels are canon, y'know. If you're trying to extrapolate how power weapons work based on the available fluff, you shouldn't ignore the bits that don't fit your ideas, but rather rework your ideas to fit with all the available information. If GW had said somewhere else that the material blade is essential to the workings of a power weapon, then one of the two contradictory bits of fluff is obviously mistaken, and can be ignored. But to my knowledge, they haven't, so it stands that there are power weapons without a physical blade and so the blade is not essential to the workings of the power weapon.
And while power swords lacking a material blade might well be unusual, they're certainly not unique. Dark Heresy has a set of rules for what it calls "Sollex-Aegis Energy Blades", which are similar in description to Eisenhorn's sword.

Kommissar Kel wrote:I had not known of Tona Criid's Vibro blade; I would expect the described result was at least similar to a power weapon(in end result not necessarily in form). Although i would also expect it was far less effective vs armor than a power weapon, but more effective vs flesh.

As far as I recall (it's been a while since I read the Gaunt's Ghosts series), the result was much the same as a regular knife. I don't believe it was ever compared to a power weapon.

Kommissar Kel wrote:Real world Physics and Chemistry definitely have a place in 40k discussions, as most of the stuff in 40k could work in today's world barring of course psychically attuned items, and some of the more fantastical items. the Authors really have done their homework in many cases.

Conversely, much of the stuff in 40K couldn't work in today's world, or would at the least be hideously impractical. I mean, we've got genetically enhanced super-soldiers running around in ceramic armour, wielding fully automatic RPG launchers, the ammunition of which has a hydrogen core to give it extra mass. There are tank desgns that would be outdated even by WWII standards, 100ft tall humanoid mecha walking around, and spacecraft are essentially naval warships, even to the extent of having decks parallel with the direction of thrust and manoeuvring to deliver broadsides to enemy vessels.
In many cases, I feel the authors skipped their homework and lounged around reading pulp novels instead.

I think that what we need to understand here is that a power weapon's field does not "destroy anything on its own. What it does is it weakens molecular bonds, which, in effect reduces a space marines ceramite armor to the consistency of butter, allowing the blade, with the force of the wielder behind it, to cut though the armor and the flesh behind it, which would probably also be reduced to mush.

With this in mind, the blade would probably slice through the ground much more easily and quickly than a normal blade would, but the same problem with the hilt catching on something is inherent with both forms of weapons.

Also, I personally agree that power weapons would have something akin to a dead-man switch as a safety precaution, although it may be slightly more advanced due to the futuristic nature of the device.

And my final point is that most power weapon/power fist wielding models carry them with some form of external power source. IG sergeants with power weapons carry a power source in their backpack (I may be wrong on that though, as I am not familiar with IG models) and even the mighty Terminators of the Adeptus Astartes have their power fists wired into the systems of their armor. With that in mind, most power weapons/power fists would be rendered useless and powerless as soon as they were removed from their owners (i.e. limbs being ripped off, energy cables being cut, or anything equally devastating to the owner of the weapon) which would prevent them from cutting into the ground or being picked up by an enemy soldier.

Therefore, the question is not about chemistry or how a power weapon penetrates armor, but more of a question about how that particular weapon is designed.

Anyone else find it a bit suspicious that Gaunt used the flat his Power Sword bladed to cauterise Larkins amputated foot stump?

I don't recall that, but maybe power weapons heat the material underneath somewhat. The surface of a fist or a sword after being turned off would still be hot without giving off the damaging effects they have when powered up.

I'm going to once again bop in and reiterate my point:

You're all wrong.

Power weapons do damage relative to the strength of the user. They do not make the user more powerful, nor do they allow the user to cut through things that they couldn't otherwise cut through.

Power swords ARE REGULAR SWORDS.

Once you understand this, then you add on the disruption field, which helps the user against exactly one thing: infantry armor. This means that the power weapon gives you a little bit of "free" penetration up to the distance from the blade to the edge of the disruption field (which isn't very far). Once you get that little disruption field edge, you're pushing through whatever you're pushing through just like it was a regular sword. This is why power weapons are worthless against tanks.

Which is why a powersword falling to the ground would bounce off the ground and then lay flat, just like a regular sword, except that it would settle slightly lower (the range of the disruption field).

Ailaros wrote:Power weapons do damage relative to the strength of the user. They do not make the user more powerful, nor do they allow the user to cut through things that they couldn't otherwise cut through.

Sure, on the tabletop they don't make the user more powerful. At least, in the current edition of the main 40K rules.

Before 3rd edition, while regular CCWs attacked at the strength of the user, power weapons were at their own set strength (which was usually higher than the user, and so would carry a greater armour save modifier). Necromunda still uses similar system, swords are strength "As User" while power swords are strength 5, with a -3 save modifier. In Inquisitor, power weapons do significantly more damage than their non-powered counterparts, and even Dark Heresy gives power weapons increased damage as well as armour penetration.

I thought that the concept of a power weapon had no bearing on any sort of cutting implement.

The oldest description of power weapons and fists (in my experience) comes from 2nd edition wargear book from the 2nd edition starter box.

In this description, the weapon or fist is encased in some sort of electric field that is delivered at the point of impact, i.e. it's a massive blast of electromagnetic energy (e.g. similar to being hit by lightning) followed by a mechanically enhanced fist pummeling you into oblivion.

This has to be one of the best questions I have ever read! Would it fall into the centre of the earth, drop out the opposite side? It would never reach escape velocity to it would continue to fall through the earth over and over until the powerpack failed? PSEUDO- SCIENCE the best kind!

Unless it encountered a Levitating Cat, that has buttered toast strapped to its back, toast always lands butter side down and the cat always lands on its feet therefore the cat would levitate. A good replacement for Landspeeders, Hot buttered Cat's with Power Swords. But then I digress....

Ailaros wrote:I'm going to once again bop in and reiterate my point:

You're all wrong.

power weapons are worthless against tanks.

Eh? Power fists, chainfists and thunder hammers are useless against tanks?

In Necromunda power weapons strike at S5 with a -3 save mod. In Inquisitor and Dark Heresy they do more damage than regular weapons and break objects used to parry them but don't do anything special to armor. They don't magically slice through everything effortlessly in any of the systems so they'd just scratch the floor.

Leigen_Zero wrote:The oldest description of power weapons and fists (in my experience) comes from 2nd edition wargear book from the 2nd edition starter box.

Barring White Dwarf articles, the oldest description would be the one in Warhammer 40,000: Rogue Trader. In that, power swords are described as "a powerful energy field surrounding a thin, taut wire". Power axes were described as vibro-weapons, and power gloves (which later became power fists) were gauntlets "surrounded by a powerful energy field" allowing them to "tear and punch through thick metal, bulkheads and even the toughest sorts of armour".
2E and 3E had the field around a power fist "disrupt the surface of solid matter", while other power weapons had their "disruptive energy field" generating a blast of energy upon impact. 4E changed the effect of power weapons' energy field, they now "eat through armour, flesh and bone with ease", and 5E stuck with that. Nowadays, it's usually only thunder hammers release a blast of energy upon impact.

Æscholt wrote:

Leigen_Zero wrote:The oldest description of power weapons and fists (in my experience) comes from 2nd edition wargear book from the 2nd edition starter box.

Barring White Dwarf articles, the oldest description would be the one in Warhammer 40,000: Rogue Trader. In that, power swords are described as "a powerful energy field surrounding a thin, taut wire". Power axes were described as vibro-weapons, and power gloves (which later became power fists) were gauntlets "surrounded by a powerful energy field" allowing them to "tear and punch through thick metal, bulkheads and even the toughest sorts of armour".
2E and 3E had the field around a power fist "disrupt the surface of solid matter", while other power weapons had their "disruptive energy field" generating a blast of energy upon impact. 4E changed the effect of power weapons' energy field, they now "eat through armour, flesh and bone with ease", and 5E stuck with that. Nowadays, it's usually only thunder hammers release a blast of energy upon impact.

Show's the last time I bought a rulebook with actual fluff in it! didn't get 3rd, 4th, and only got the AoBR minibook

cadbren wrote:Eh? Power fists, chainfists and thunder hammers are useless against tanks?

No, just power weapons.

Those other things you just mentioned affect the user's strength. That a power weapon doesn't only further shows my point.

And yeah, if power weapons still used the old rule where the user's strength was immaterial to the damage the weapons did, I could see them being more like light sabres and less like regular swords. As it is...

Alllllll the way to China.

Ailaros wrote:I'm going to once again bop in and reiterate my point:

You're all wrong.

Power weapons do damage relative to the strength of the user. They do not make the user more powerful, nor do they allow the user to cut through things that they couldn't otherwise cut through.

Power swords ARE REGULAR SWORDS.

Once you understand this, then you add on the disruption field, which helps the user against exactly one thing: infantry armor. This means that the power weapon gives you a little bit of "free" penetration up to the distance from the blade to the edge of the disruption field (which isn't very far). Once you get that little disruption field edge, you're pushing through whatever you're pushing through just like it was a regular sword. This is why power weapons are worthless against tanks.

Which is why a powersword falling to the ground would bounce off the ground and then lay flat, just like a regular sword, except that it would settle slightly lower (the range of the disruption field).

a good example of this is in rebel winter, where the hatch on a chimera is stuck and they are forced to work through it with power swords, whilst it did go through the hinges and locks, it didn't go through like butter or anything of the sort

so what keeps the energy/disruption field from destoying the sword itself?






magic?

Ailaros wrote:Those other things you just mentioned affect the user's strength. That a power weapon doesn't only further shows my point.

And yeah, if power weapons still used the old rule where the user's strength was immaterial to the damage the weapons did, I could see them being more like light sabres and less like regular swords. As it is...

But that's daft, it's like saying that since frag grenades can no-longer cause wounds, the shrapnel must be unable to penetrate organic tissue. The background says power swords "[eat] through armour, flesh and bone with ease", it doesn't matter that the tabletop rules no-longer have them striking at their own strength. These are the same sets of rules which has the same strength scores for every human, from the lowly conscripts to the elite Kasrkin, and the same combat skills with a SM scout and a Vanguard veteran. They're not going to perfectly reflect the background, they're there to enable you to play a game.

NuggzTheNinja wrote:Alllllll the way to China.

Only if you live in certain regions of Argentina or Chile. (Or bits of Paraguay if we're going to include the Republic of China, a.k.a. Taiwan.)