Yes, the Chainweapons are mediocre at best and yes, they need … something. But they are just iconic in lore (and fluff). TT-wise they are not good, I think even worse than Darktide pictures them
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I know a fair amount about edged weapons, and I’m willing to say that a chain weapon could be very good, in theory. most of the ones shown in w40k would be bad, but they -could work- well IRL if they were redesigned in a few ways.
Putting them in a game places the dev in the difficult position of giving life to a item that really only existed in cartoon form before that, and keeping true to the source while still producing something that works is going to be a hard tightrope to walk, and the results show they didn’t quite manage it.
That wouldn’t be so bad if they kept at it until it was good.
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I think they’re finally getting some love. Pretty sure they commonly have Sustained Hits these days compared to normal CCWs. But they’ve always been just ‘slightly better’ melee weapons. In darktide, though, they’re more like ‘definitely worse’ melee weapons. I’m grinding away on a very detailed look at the failings of chain weapons that echoes a lot of the sentiments I started this thread about, some months back. So I guess I’ll post that here at some point.
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Ah, this is the topic I really went deep dive on chain weapons as a concept. Everything Wrong with the Chainswords and Axe - Ideas to improve!
(not counting one that was in the beta forum and is gone.)
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I will be sure to reference it. I appreciate the effort you put in.
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Thank you. I wish I could still access the earlier one. I did a whole in-depth on serrated cutting swords… Seems they work rather well, though not so much it would justify the trouble of doing it on a regular basis.
Also after reading your bit on the paddle… I think you might like this take on how the thing feels to use. (aside, I suspect the original Aztec weapon likely was constructed more like an axe then a club with teeth, but I have no proof. It’s very possible though.)
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Yes, I believe that was likely constructed like an axe. IE, the cross section would have the blade meet the wood flush so it would penetrate. People in history were never foolish, they knew how things worked. Historic warhammers would have waffle patterns on the head so the hammer would ‘stick’ to plate armor instead of sliding off.
Just like historic chain weapons would have a frame that angled the sideplates in so they sat behind the chain and would follow it in… 
1h chainsword even looks like a club with spikes, there is a room to make teeth bigger/longer.
And it’s too short also, arming sword length is like ~90cm, so near the half of an average height of modern male, but medieval people were shorter.
There are new posses you can find via mods, and you can see how 1h sword is short, like backsword or machete. Its pommel should be somewhere at the chin level, so ~30% longer blade.
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I have noticed that both the Assault Chainsword and Assault Chain Axe both have great sprint stamina efficiency and tend to be more mobile. I’m wondering if “combat” patterns are going to come out that are longer and hit harder. The chainsword pattern pictured reminds me of a greek hoplite sword or a roman gladius in length. Its very much a short sword at best.
Also I just noticed this thread has been open since April 1st. I think this means that I’m the joke.
True. Now, we can make the case that a chainsword is it’s own thing, and would have it’s own points of balance, but it should most certainly be rendered in a way that looks like it’s functional.
As I show in my hammer vs boat shape design above and my mega topic on the subject, the idea of a wedge as a simple machine is to concentrate force on as small an area of space as possible.
Additionally, blades and saws cut not so much on the push as on the slide. You can hold a sharp knife by the blade without being cut, but if you pull it across your hand you will be cut deeply.
A bandsaw as used by butchers cuts by moving the edge for you, so you only have to push through.
A chainsword should be a sword with a chain integrated to move the edge of the sword by itself, so it would be as if you had a much longer sword pulling through the cut. Almost like an Odachi in the space of a tanto or a grossmesser in the space of a bowieknife.
For appearance, these chainswords should have the ‘side plates’ pushed in so they are not wider then the chain teeth, and the overall bulk should be reduced about 40% or more.
If that was done, you would still have something that is identifiable as a ‘iconic chainsword’ but would also ‘look functional.’
Next, increase the speed of the teeth by 300% or more.
Finally, remove the ‘on’ switch and make it a ‘reverse’ switch. It should always be on, but when used normally it should ‘pull’ a bit, and on reverse it should ‘fling’ things away.
This would no longer be accurate to the models. While I agree with you on accuracy from a realism standpoint, the setting is ultimately 40k and matching the models and just suspending disbelief is preferable to radically altering tabletop reference material. That said as you have pointed out the chain axe is a sour offender for looking more like a hammer than a chain weapon.
I think it would if you did it the right way.
w40K is pretty chunky as it is, and it could spare quite a bit of ‘chunk’ in cross section as long as you maintained something fairly close in profile.
When you go from tabletop model to cartoon to actually in hand, you have to make some adjustments to maintain the ‘feel’ of the thing as the thing moves from artform to artform. It still needs to be very recognizable as the thing, but it need to be that thing in a way that fits in the new environment.
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Just look at all this empty space!
You could get rid of all of it, and the profile would still be the same.
(Then you could make it a two handed weapon by giving it 2-3 times the handle, and increase the feeling of it’s usability for 1000%.)
Oh I am so very with you on the Chaxe.
I think this looks pretty good though:
That’s all I was saying. Its not a strong disagreement. By the way, did you see this?
Someone I follow on the tubes built something that actually works for once. It does remarkably well actually. Not so far off from how one might expect the theoretical 40k chain weapons to work. Obviously some liberties are taken since its sci-fantasy.
The only thing is I can’t even remember any game where models were drastically changed or redone, i mean probably there are some examples but it’s rather exception, so even increasing length of 1h chainsword would be a miracle thing.
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Eh, this is a debatable point. As things stand, I don’t see Fat Shark even making new maps, let along fixing problems. But… they already did change literally all the models in the game in tiny ways that are unobtrusive.
And that was necessary. All of it has to fit together in a way where someone looks at it and says “Yes! That’s w40k!” but if you were to get all the reference material and compare it inch by inch to what’s in the game, you’d find thousands of tiny differences. An ever so minor change to the curve of a guardsman’s helmet, a lever on the side of a lasgun.
One of the bigger changes is the Evisarator is too short by far. There was a whole thread about it and I’m unpopular there because some fool picked a fight with me and tried to prove me wrong with sources he hadn’t actually ready, but that’s another story. The long and short (heh) is a great many think the Evisarator should be much larger then it is in game.
Yeah, evi in game is also short. Especially in block and push attack animations you can see how it’s more like what 1h chainsword should be.
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