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A friend asked me this, and I couldn't help him, so I thought I'd check with you learn'd gents and ladies. Any help appreciated.

"Quick fluff question - could a standard metal blade catch and turn a powered up lightning claw or would the claw slice through it?"

You know, the Rulebook says that:

A power weapon is sheathed in the lethal haze of a disruptive energy field that eats through armour, flesh and bone with ease. (Warhammer 40,000 Rulebook. "Power Weapons". 7th Edition. digital)

So I suppose they can't cut through a mundane metal blade, since it's neither armour nor flesh and bone.

 lcmiracle wrote:
You know, the Rulebook says that:

A power weapon is sheathed in the lethal haze of a disruptive energy field that eats through armour, flesh and bone with ease. (Warhammer 40,000 Rulebook. "Power Weapons". 7th Edition. digital)

So I suppose they can't cut through a mundane metal blade, since it's neither armour nor flesh and bone.

Hmm Designed with a very specific purpose then... Has a job and does it well.

Yes, it can cut a mundane blade in half. It's like trying to fight a jedi knight who has a light caber and here you are with this pathetic metal sword. Just dodge the attacks mate, that's the best you can do lol

Cheers mate!

 lcmiracle wrote:
You know, the Rulebook says that:

A power weapon is sheathed in the lethal haze of a disruptive energy field that eats through armour, flesh and bone with ease. (Warhammer 40,000 Rulebook. "Power Weapons". 7th Edition. digital)

So I suppose they can't cut through a mundane metal blade, since it's neither armour nor flesh and bone.

I'm pretty sure that isn't a comprehensive list of everything they can cut through. Papers not on there but I'm sure they'd get through that pretty easily.

They'd cut through a metal blade, yeah.

 lcmiracle wrote:
You know, the Rulebook says that:

A power weapon is sheathed in the lethal haze of a disruptive energy field that eats through armour, flesh and bone with ease. (Warhammer 40,000 Rulebook. "Power Weapons". 7th Edition. digital)

So I suppose they can't cut through a mundane metal blade, since it's neither armour nor flesh and bone.

Trouble with taking that as all they can cut through, is that it leads to ridiculous situations where by a power weapon can cut through metal armour, but not a metal blade

 Lord Tarkin wrote:
It's like trying to fight a jedi knight who has a light caber and here you are with this pathetic metal sword.

I know its a typo but I find the idea of a Jedi whirling a tree made of plasma around hilarious

On a serious note I think that this analogy displays the situation perfectly, I always assumed power weapons burnt through material like a saber. Although since they are still solid you could pheasibly deflect the first hit or more if the mundane weapon was dense enough, your mundane weapon would just be useless thereafter.

 statu wrote:
Trouble with taking that as all they can cut through, is that it leads to ridiculous situations where by a power weapon can cut through metal armour, but not a metal blade

Which is why they should have wrote: ...through armour, flesh and bone alike with ease.

 ImAGeek wrote:
I'm pretty sure that isn't a comprehensive list of everything they can cut through. Papers not on there but I'm sure they'd get through that pretty easily. They'd cut through a metal blade, yeah.

...As if I seriously believe if there existed a blade that could cut through armour made of high-density unobtainium, yet it couldn't cut through a reasonable amount of paper. Then again, who knows, it states only three things that be cut by a power blade with ease, so maybe they can cut through paper, but it'd take a bit of work because of how the magical sciency energy-fields work.

 ferret61 wrote:

 Lord Tarkin wrote:
It's like trying to fight a jedi knight who has a light caber and here you are with this pathetic metal sword.

I know its a typo but I find the idea of a Jedi whirling a tree made of plasma around hilarious

On a serious note I think that this analogy displays the situation perfectly, I always assumed power weapons burnt through material like a saber. Although since they are still solid you could pheasibly deflect the first hit or more if the mundane weapon was dense enough, your mundane weapon would just be useless thereafter.

Haha you're right...I meant SABER! Lol

Plus, in every book I've read, people always duck power weapons instead of parrying them. Captain Loken in "Galaxy in Flames" was fighting Abaddon (who had a power weapon) and instead of parrying his attacks with his chainsword, he ducked and twirled and did all sorts of gymnast moves to avoid it. I can accurately assume that should he have used his chainsword, it would have been destroyed.

 Lord Tarkin wrote:

 ferret61 wrote:

 Lord Tarkin wrote:
It's like trying to fight a jedi knight who has a light caber and here you are with this pathetic metal sword.

I know its a typo but I find the idea of a Jedi whirling a tree made of plasma around hilarious

On a serious note I think that this analogy displays the situation perfectly, I always assumed power weapons burnt through material like a saber. Although since they are still solid you could pheasibly deflect the first hit or more if the mundane weapon was dense enough, your mundane weapon would just be useless thereafter.

Haha you're right...I meant SABER! Lol

Plus, in every book I've read, people always duck power weapons instead of parrying them. Captain Loken in "Galaxy in Flames" was fighting Abaddon (who had a power weapon) and instead of parrying his attacks with his chainsword, he ducked and twirled and did all sorts of gymnast moves to avoid it. I can accurately assume that should he have used his chainsword, it would have been destroyed.

Indeed. Even in Dark Heresy a weapon that is not equipped with its own power-field, or a Force Weapon, has a 75% chance of being utterly destroyed if used to parry a power-weapon. When you're fighting Abaddon, you don't want to risk losing your only CCW when dodging is a viable alternative.

Technically, isn't a powerblade a wrist-mounted Eldar energy sword? I seem to remember them from the 3e codex as being especially perplexing, because I could not figure for the life of me who actually got to use them since they weren't an option anywhere (I think it turned out to be a warp spider exarch upgrade).

 Psienesis wrote:

 Lord Tarkin wrote:

 ferret61 wrote:

 Lord Tarkin wrote:
It's like trying to fight a jedi knight who has a light caber and here you are with this pathetic metal sword.

I know its a typo but I find the idea of a Jedi whirling a tree made of plasma around hilarious

On a serious note I think that this analogy displays the situation perfectly, I always assumed power weapons burnt through material like a saber. Although since they are still solid you could pheasibly deflect the first hit or more if the mundane weapon was dense enough, your mundane weapon would just be useless thereafter.

Haha you're right...I meant SABER! Lol

Plus, in every book I've read, people always duck power weapons instead of parrying them. Captain Loken in "Galaxy in Flames" was fighting Abaddon (who had a power weapon) and instead of parrying his attacks with his chainsword, he ducked and twirled and did all sorts of gymnast moves to avoid it. I can accurately assume that should he have used his chainsword, it would have been destroyed.

Indeed. Even in Dark Heresy a weapon that is not equipped with its own power-field, or a Force Weapon, has a 75% chance of being utterly destroyed if used to parry a power-weapon. When you're fighting Abaddon, you don't want to risk losing your only CCW when dodging is a viable alternative.

Right on.

Power Swords will most definitely cut through pretty much anything used to parry their strikes. The only things I could think of standing up to them are weapons made of pure adamantium tanking the molecular dissolving fields for a couple seconds. So if you chainsword has adamantium teeth, it may be able to parry a power sword once without being cut in half from the first blow. It certainly wouldn't cycle anymore however.

It's also worth noting that the power field cuts through things like armor/flesh/bone "with ease". That doesn't imply effortlessly. It might still be possible to save your life by throwing your chainsword/lasgun/big shoota up there between the power blade and your flesh. It would almost certainly damage the parrying object, but it might still slow it down enough to turn it aside, or minimize the effects on your armor/flesh/bone.

A last gasp attempt, to be sure, but you're not gonna be using that chainsword if you are dead, are you?

 Furyou Miko wrote:
Technically, isn't a powerblade a wrist-mounted Eldar energy sword? I seem to remember them from the 3e codex as being especially perplexing, because I could not figure for the life of me who actually got to use them since they weren't an option anywhere (I think it turned out to be a warp spider exarch upgrade).

You might be thinking of something like the witchblade. Power weapons are all over the place, even the Orks have their own Power Klaws.

 ProwlerPC wrote:

 Furyou Miko wrote:
Technically, isn't a powerblade a wrist-mounted Eldar energy sword? I seem to remember them from the 3e codex as being especially perplexing, because I could not figure for the life of me who actually got to use them since they weren't an option anywhere (I think it turned out to be a warp spider exarch upgrade).

You might be thinking of something like the witchblade. Power weapons are all over the place, even the Orks have their own Power Klaws.

http://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Powerblade

Thank you, Ashi.

Note that powerblade and power weapon are not interchangeable terms.