Power Maul vs Power Axe, which better?

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**mrhappyface**

Well you have a Marine, S4 base, Axe makes them S5 and the Maul makes them S6.

Now ask yourself what you are likely to face more of with your Power weapon wielding marine: MEQs or GEQs? Versus MEQs you are wounding on 3s with both weapons but MEQs get a better save against the Maul. But you wound GEQs on a 2+ with the Maul and still a 3+ with the axe.

If you want a Horde killer for chopping through Guard and Eldar troops with ease, take the Maul, but if you want to take on Orks and Marines then the Axe is a better bet.

**mrhappyface**

bobafett012 wrote:
My rule of thumb is to get to str 5 with the best AP. So generally that's going to be the axe. If you have another method to get +1 strength, blood angel sanguinary priests, for example, then swords become better.

with the way the new wound chart is, str 6 and 7 are nearly equal to str 5 in most cases, so i'd never bother with mauls in the current edition. They have lower AP and a strength characteristic that usually will be no better than 5.

Well they all have their places when it comes to the most common toughnesses: 3, 4, 7 and 8.
S1/2 are crap.

S3 wounds T3 on 4s.

S4 wounds T3 on 3s, T4 on 4s and T7 on 5s.

S5 wounds T4 on 3s and T8 on 5s.

S6 wounds T3 on 2s.

S7 wounds T7 on 4s.

S8 wounds T4 on 2s, T7 on 3s and T8 on 4s.

S9 wounds T8 on 3s.

They all do something different for the points step up.

**mrhappyface**

bobafett012 wrote:
The most common of toughness is 4. A majority of people play some form of marines, be it chaos, imperial marines, grey knights among many other armies that have T4 such as orks etc. So when a discussion is what's best, you have to look at what your going to come up against the most. I suppose if your personal meta is something off the wall, then your weapon of choice may be different, but if it's like dozens of stores/tournaments i've played at since 2nd edition, MEQ is what your going to face most of the time. This makes axes the best, and swords a close 2nd if you can get to str 5. If your equipping mauls to deal with multi-wound, and/or higher toughness targets, then your doing something wrong. IMO, your options are sword, axe, or fist/chainfist/thunder hammer. Mauls are still in a bad place and not worth taking, even more so when you compare the points for each weapon.

I've been in a meta for several years now where I was the only CSM player and there was only one space marine player, everyone else played Orks, Eldar, Tau, Necrons, Guard, Daemons, etc. Lots of T3 infantry, lots of T7 vehicles. There is a certain animosity against the Imperium around here, even the Guard player isn't particularly pro Imperium. Though the Blood Angel player (the one SM player) and out local Knight player are very pro Imperium.

All depends on your meta. And Tournaments? Don't see many baseline, T4 Marines in competitive tournaments.