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So the design of the Unforgiven blade weapons have been sort of eating away at me for a while.... What's up with the "spade" design on the tips of their weapons? Is it just a design they have on thier blades for loos, or does it add weight to the slashes of the Super Soldiers? Is there any historical blades that shared this design?

I don't really know, actually. Privateer Press also follows this design with some of their sword-wielding models. I do find the look to be a positive one, though.

This is just sepculation, but my idea is that light swords where generally not very effective on ancient Caliban when the knightly orders where combating the giant monsters. Slashing and stabbing might not do enough damage to slay the monsters and therefore the orders developed a sword specifically for hacking with a heavier tip. As with most of the Imperium the dark angels don't realy want to develop new weapons and so the design has stuck.

You get some historical swords with heavier tips, cetain types of scimitar for example. It would mess with the balance and makes it harder to swing, but its momentum would help the impact damage. Given that Marines are super-strong and have power assisted armour to boot means that issues of balance and suchlike are probably less important as they can just brute force the sword around.

A wide head would bleed more on a thrust and cause more damage. Other than that though, it just seems there for show and would only make the blade harder to balance.

The weighted tip gives it more cutting power when slashing than would normally be achievable.

It would make the sword more suited to being used with two hands as the weight wouldn't be balanced, but a marine would have no such problems.


Its the same principal behind an Axe. Its got a lot of weight at the tip which gives it its cutting power. This idea simply puts that principal into a sword.

 Grey Templar wrote:
The weighted tip gives it more cutting power when slashing than would normally be achievable.

It would make the sword more suited to being used with two hands as the weight wouldn't be balanced, but a marine would have no such problems.


Its the same principal behind an Axe. Its got a lot of weight at the tip which gives it its cutting power. This idea simply puts that principal into a sword.

The problem with this is that it would break easily. With a regular sword, you strike a body two thirds up the blade and slide it along as you finish the swing. Having more weight at either end would put more stress on the centre of the blade. You would have to strike people with only the tip of the blade, where it is heavier and tougher.

That is if the blade is made with steel.

Depends on how thick the sword is at its narrow point. It could still be pretty thick, and thus stronger.

And yeah, material would make a difference.


But steel can flex a lot and still return to its original shape.

Makes sense that the blade of caliban is unwieldy then. It is one of the biggest swords DA can get when not in Terminator armor.

I believe the sword is designed to look like a pen is.

If yours looks like a DA sword its probably doctor time

Yeah, all swords are innately phallic. The DA one would represent something HORRIBLY wrong!

 Tiger9gamer wrote:
Makes sense that the blade of caliban is unwieldy then. It is one of the biggest swords DA can get when not in Terminator armor.

Still dosen't explain the lack of AP2 that most unwieldy weapons get .