MilkyDamBusters wrote:

 Bobthehero wrote:

 Grey Templar wrote:

 thefarseerofnorthryde wrote:

 Snrub wrote:
I don't see why an Assault marine of all things wouldn't/couldn't use both a chainsword and combat knife at once. Its like having a rapier and a parry dagger.

Because dual wielding is very hard.

Not really, there is an entire style of swordfighting with a rapier and parry dagger. Its actually the highest evolution of European Sword fighting styles. The ultimate dueling form.

Its only hard if one of the weapons is not meant to be wielded one handed. And a chainsword is designed to be wielded one handed.

However there's no such thing at dual wielding on the battlefield itself, its ever only been for civilian duels, at least in Europe.

This is 40k hahaha...anything can happen from a Gretchin discovering a WMD and head butting it causing a planet to blow up.

 Grey Templar wrote:
Lots'o quotes
Vikings man.

Those guys would fething duel wield axes

Granted, magic mushrooms will do that to ya.

Void__Dragon wrote:

Melissia wrote:I'm fairly certain that we humans would call Astartes combat knives "swords".

^
IIRC Astartes combat knives have been described as about three feet long. About the length of an arming sword.

 Themanwiththeplan wrote:
Would it be fluffy for a Assault Marine to have a combat knife on his hip?

 Bobthehero wrote:
Realistically, no, duel wiedling is dumb.

 thefarseerofnorthryde wrote:

 Snrub wrote:
I don't see why an Assault marine of all things wouldn't/couldn't use both a chainsword and combat knife at once. Its like having a rapier and a parry dagger.

Because dual wielding is very hard.

 Bobthehero wrote:
However there's no such thing at dual wielding on the battlefield itself.

 thefarseerofnorthryde wrote:
A gun and a CCW, yeas, but 2 CCW's? maybe. Having done medieval fencing for 3 years, believe me when I say it is not easy at all

 Lynata wrote:
I'm going to assume it's the fabled 9-feet variant of Space Marines that is wielding those.

 thefarseerofnorthryde wrote:
A gun and a CCW, yeas, but 2 CCW's? maybe. Having done medieval fencing for 3 years, believe me when I say it is not easy at all

 Anfauglir wrote:

This man says "hi". See also this, this, this, this... I could go on (and on).

 Anfauglir wrote:

 Bobthehero wrote:
However there's no such thing at dual wielding on the battlefield itself.

Have a source for this? I'm pretty sure it's categorically false... and am pretty sure dual wielding styles have existed for almost as long as warfare itself. On and off the battlefield.

 Anfauglir wrote:
Models use heroic scale for weapons, everybody knows this...

For a more reasonable looking sized arming blade, see here (use the zoom on the frontmost standing Guardsman).

 Bobthehero wrote:
I heard from people who practised with real weapons that dual wielding is pretty hard to (see a few post up, actually) some even mentionned that they'd prefer to use a single weapon and use their other hand to grapple and whatnot, but YMMV.

 Themanwiththeplan wrote:
No, just working the idea into my story on Fan Fiction and I didn't want him to have a serrated combat knife as well as a chain sword to.

 Bobthehero wrote:
Good luck piercing the armor with one handed weapons

Dueling is generally done outside of armor, and pray tell, how does one pierce through the plate with a rapier when knights struggled to do it using half swording techniques and using both hands and a longsword.

 Lynata wrote:
And a three feet long "knife" would be nearly as long as his leg also, when the man wielding it is seven feet tall.

I doubt anyone would call that a knife, Space Marine or no. But apparently everything needs to be supersized, else it isn't "cool".

Due to hero scale, knives are fairly oversized regardless of whether you're looking at Space Marine, IG or Necromunda minis. Here's an example from a Necromunda street gang - don't tell me this is any smaller than what is in the Marine sprue. Come to think of it, the only to-scale knife I can recall are those IG bayonets you can affix to the lasguns.

Of course, in the end it just comes down to personal interpretation once again - I do not doubt that some non-GW sources state those knives are 3 feet long, just like some of the same sources say Marines are 9 feet and bigger. Which brings me back to my previous post. Maybe I should have expressed the entirety of my thoughts earlier, but I assume the purpose became clear now.

PS: ... did you really say the leg of a Space Marine Scout is "five to six feet long" just now?

Void__Dragon wrote:I mean, surely you must have noticed that 40k has a "bigger is better" view towards warfare?

Void__Dragon wrote:Check the 5e codex entry for Scout Marines. Notice that the scout in GW's art carries a knife that is nearly as long as his arm. My own arm is just shy of two feet long, and I am over a foot shorter than a Space Marine.

Void__Dragon wrote:It's interesting, how quick you are to scoff at supposed Marine combat knife length, but tell me Lynata, how big is an Astartes combat knife then? If you deny three feet, surely you have a reason?

Themanwiththeplan wrote:Whats the most bizzarest way you have read/seen or killed/had killed a Space Marine?

 Lynata wrote:
That's true. I just think it is unnecessary and unfounded to - on top of this already obvious progression - add a sort of "sub-layer" that makes Space Marine stuff even larger by some sort of principle, only to remove them further from normal humans than they already are. It's like all those people "dissatisfied" with Marine bolters "only" firing cal .75 rounds because that's the same calibre used by those puny, uncool normal humans.

I just cannot subscribe to this "+1" kind of thinking. In fact, I severely dislike this "drive" to expand the gap between Astartes and normal humans, which is why I'm posting here in the first place to give a counter-point. Bottom line: a bolter is a bolter, and a knife is a knife. Certainly there can be some subtle difference such as (pulling this out of my arse now) Astartes bolters having a slightly larger grip, thicker casing and 1 or 2 more internals, or an Astartes knife being somewhat longer ... but 1 meter? Really? When it is going to be wielded by a man who is just a little over twice that size? Naah. That ain't a knife anymore.

There are also artworks for Catachans wielding those same oversized "knives" - though I am unsure if that really counts as a knife still, or if that would already be a machete or short sword. I suppose the exact borders between these categories are somewhat blurred.

Even though the transition between these categories of bladed weapons are fluent, I just think it's pretty safe to say that something that is about half your size does not qualify as a "knife" anymore.

As for what length *I* would guess ... hmmh, that's tricky. I kind of like the Inquisitor RPG miniature (this line still suffers from hero scale, but not nearly as much as the smaller standard 40k minis) of Captain Artemis who has a combat knife strapped to his left lower leg. Here, the size actually makes sense, because it's small enough to be sheathed like a knife rather than a sword. So I would assume about 1.5 feet - which is still fairly large and touching upon short sword size, but only barely. Plus, you can carry it on more places than just your belt or your back. And, as you can see from the mini, it does not render the normal sword obsolete.

Just my two bolter shells, ofc.

 Lynata wrote:
Of course, power armour is the first item in an author's toolbox of things that make his protagonist live longer, so various legends or novel stories feature a wide range of how power armour can have its wielder shrug off anything from bolter salvos to orbital bombardment.

Void__Dragon wrote:Catachans are the Guardsmen posterboys for overcompensation. That isn't all that surprising.

Void__Dragon wrote:And when you have guys who can choke out creatures capable of tearing through a Space Marine, is a huge knife that hard to believe?

Spoiler:

Void__Dragon wrote:The normal sword was rendered obsolete when soldiers in 40k started using monomolecularly-edged chainsaw swords.

Void__Dragon wrote:Right, like how multiple times in the 4e Chaos Marine codex Marines took bolters to the chest or even one time in the fact, or in the Grey Knights codex where Marines survival an orbital bombardment of barrage bombs.

 Themanwiththeplan wrote:
Barnowl wrote: Arrows were never really an issue with plate armour.

Tell that to the French at Agencort (not a dig, just stating history). The longbow was able to pierce armour at at something like 300 meters or yards, and effectively at less with their armour piercing arrow heads, and be fired up to 16 times a minute by a good bowman (well they had been practicing since they were 4 or there abouts because it was the law that they had to)