Space Marine Chainsword?

[Johnny Angel]

I don't have much experience with Warhammer, but I've seen a lot of 40k videos in which the Space Marines use a weapon which can only be described as part sword and part chainsaw. After doing some research, I discovered that it is called a Chainsword.

The Chainsword is the preferred close combat weapon of the Imperium. It is not unlike a modern chainsaw, but lighter and able to be wielded with one hand. It is often used in conjunction with a Laspistol. All forces of the Imperium make use of it as a standard close combat weapon. The weapon is designed to quickly slice through an opponent. These swords are very crucial in combat allowing easy swipes to behead or rip an enemy in two. Although it is not the mightiest of close-combat weaponry, it gets the job done. The chainsword is a weapon of choice for most Space Marines. The Orks, who call them "Chain-Choppas", also steal them for Mad Doks and Meks and it has been reported Slugga Boyz use them. Some Warbosses have been known to attach them to their hands instead of claws.

There is a fairly good picture of one here: http://media.photobucket.com/image/c...y_NeonDuck.jpg


I'm at a slight loss for how to define this in GURPS. The easiest solution seems to be to use a sword skill and have it deal damage comparable to a chainsaw. I imagine it would be fairly heavy too. While the Space Marines seem to easily swing it around, they are also somewhat beyond normal human beings from what I can tell. I had wanted to label Ultra Tech due to the genre, but it seems as though it would be possible to build one before TL9. It might just be a vibroblade of some sort in GURPS terms, but it seems a little different.

I'm not very familiar with Warhammer though, so I was hoping maybe someone more familiar with the product could shed some light on it for me. Even if you're not familiar with Warhammer, I know there are plenty of people on here with stronger GURPS-fu than what I have, so input is always nice.

[blacksmith]

From what it says there it seems to be used by individuals in powered armor or of superhuman strength. So likely it does something like sw+2d cut or maybe more. It could also have an armor divisor, but I would be reluctant to give it more than a (3). Probably give it a strength of 20 also.

[kirbwarrior]

Well, for one thing, chainsaw damage in gurps confuses me in the first place. But it might not even be different from a normal chainsaw, except without sound and gas. Wielding that chainsaw one handed requires a lot of strength.

[David Johansen]

Okay, first thing you need to understand is that it's a weapon that uses the Strength of the user, that's okay so are grenades. Hey it's 40k!

Now if we take GW at their word that the Imperial Guard are the cream of the unaugmented armies. (Really the fluff doesn't bear this out half the time) and we put a high gravity Catachan jungle fighter at Strength 3 and an eight foot tall super human Space Marine in powered armour at Strength 4. Well, let's call it Strength 15 and Strength 30 in GURPS.

Chainswords come in various shapes and sizes. The ork ones are more like chainsaws and the human ones are about the size of a bastard sword. Spacemarine chainswords are probably 5 feet long regardless of what the measurements of the actual models are.

Personally, I'd make it a +1d6 weapon that can accumulate if held in place long enough but can burn out if it fails to penetrate DR and has a Malfunction rating of 15.

Then there's the plasma guns which have Malfunction 12 and do 4d6(5) damage to the user.

[Kale]

Originally Posted by kirbwarrior

Well, for one thing, chainsaw damage in gurps confuses me in the first place. But it might not even be different from a normal chainsaw, except without sound and gas. Wielding that chainsaw one handed requires a lot of strength.

Chainsaw damage is Swing +2d6 depending on the chainsaw. Instead of Sw+4 or some other fixed number the chainsaw actually adds dice to your basic ST damage. For 40k I'd slap an armor divisor on top of it and call it done.

[Mailanka]

tl; dr: Use Vibroblade stats, call it a chainsword.

First, a chainsword does not require gobs of strength: you often see Imperial Guardsmen, Inquisitors, Sisters of Battle and Necromunda Gangers wielding them, none of whom are super-human like Space Marines are (and only the Sisters, possibly the Inquisitor, in power armor). Likewise, you see chainswords in the hands of acolytes in Dark Heresy. Thus, it's a weapon any human can wield, though it is a signature of Space Marines, presumably because it's the only melee weapon sufficiently awesome.

As the text says, it's a one-handed weapon, and you always see it paired with a pistol, even in the hands of mere mortals like the gangers above. This might be because the game lacks the granularity to discuss the equivalent of a bastard sword, but given it's portrayal in more detailed systems, I think it's safe to call it a variant of a broadsword.

Furthermore, the weapon usually uses "razor sharp" edges or "mono-wire edges." This suggests a super-fine blade at a minimum, but mono-wire is certainly a possibility. This gives us +2 to damage and either an armor divisor of 2 or 10(!), though I will note that on those rare occasions when monowire shows up in 40k, it's usually portrayed as more penetrating than a chainsword and, in particular, that the Eldar Biting Blade specifically uses monowire and is superior to the chainsword, so this suggests that a standard chainsword is "merely" super-fine.

Finally, we add the Chainsaw, which, according to High Tech, deals sw+1d6. It's easy enough to simply say that the Chainsaw component merely adds +1d6, and thus, we get a damage of (broadsword) +2 +1d6(2). Now, all you'd need to do is figure out what the cost/weight of such a weapon would be, and perhaps figure out how to make that a little more elegant.

But I'd like to offer what I think is a slightly easier solution: A vibroblade also offers +1d6 damage, has power requirements already listed, and can accommodate a super-fine variant very easily (it cannot accommodate monowire, but we can simply up the armor divisor if we wanted to make it "monowire"). It's perhaps not as true to the source material as you could possibly be, but it's very close, it's quite simple, and let's you worry about converting other elements faster. That's how I'd do it.

[kirbwarrior]

That's exactly my point. Why add variable damage? Dice Adds almost seems manditory to me, and that's not really any different then.

[Johnny Angel]

Chainsaw damage in GURPS actually makes perfect sense to me. The swing damage comes from the strength of the user, and the variable damage comes from the fact that the damage is high, yet not consistant due to the many variables involved with trying to cut something with a rotating blade. This is something I can relate to from both having used a chainsaw and from using tools in a wood shop. Even the most skilled user will have times when a piece of wood (or in this case bone) doesn't cut properly, the saw sticks, or all manner of other things that can happen.


Getting back to the topic.... this is a rough draft of what I was considering for the stats.

Two-Handed Sword (DX-5, Broadsword-4, or Force Sword-4)
weapon.......damage..........reach..........parry. ......cost.....weight......ST
Chainsword......sw+2 cut.........1,2..............0.........$1050...... ..8..........11*
.....................or sw+1d6 cut....1...............0U



At first glance, the price seems a bit high, but, on second thought, it might not be high enough because a lot of advantages come with this weapon. Normally, you can't use a chainsaw to parry at all, so, with this, you get the high damage of the chainsaw without the drawback of not being able to parry. You are also able to use it with the sword skill which opens up a lot of options.

I'm not sure how to make some of the symbols in the book online. The ST is supposed to indicate that it is normally two handed weapon, but, with 1.5 of the listed ST you can use it one handed though it becomes unready after an attack with it. If you have at least twice the ST listed (in this case 22) you may use it one handed with no readiness penalty. The version I listed is also intended to be something which might reasonably be used in a non-Ultra Tech game; a more advanced version which is more in line with what is used in 40k would probably be made of superior materials (as others have mentioned) and have an armor divisor. Borderline TL8/TL9 is what I was going for. I'm a little lost on what kind of power source would be appropriate without using gasoline and needing a fuel tank.

I originally wanted to use a one-handed sword skill for the weapon, but making it a two-handed weapon by default and then requiring more ST to use it in one hand seems to fit with the idea that 40k Space Marines are simply (at least from what I can tell) a lot more B.A. than a normal person.

I was unsure how to do some of the more cinematic moves such as attacking and then following up by sawing the opponent. It then hit me that the solution for how someone could do some of the cool moves shown in the videos might be to create a Martial Art based around how the Space Marines fight in close combat.

[MattStriker]

Originally Posted by Johnny Angel

I originally wanted to use a one-handed sword skill for the weapon, but making it a two-handed weapon by default and then requiring more ST to use it in one hand seems to fit with the idea that 40k Space Marines are simply (at least from what I can tell) a lot more B.A. than a normal person.

Regular imperial guard officers (and certain less-than-heroic commissars :P) use chainswords one-handed with ease, so either they're not that heavy or there's two one-handed sizes, for superhuman marines and for regular mortals. In either case, the chainsword is pretty much always used as a one-handed weapon, although there's a two-handed version (Eviscerator, I think?) as well.

I was unsure how to do some of the more cinematic moves such as attacking and then following up by sawing the opponent.

Rapid strike, possibly?

[Kale]

Originally Posted by kirbwarrior

That's exactly my point. Why add variable damage? Dice Adds almost seems manditory to me, and that's not really any different then.

The saw/chain does damage, and then your ST adds to it. If the saw was running and you bumped against it, you would still take the SAW's damage of 2d or whatever. The extra bit added on via strength only comes into play if you are swinging it. This lets the weapon act as an independent damage source even when it is not being 'used'. In the case where you bump into it and take 2d damage, a low roll means you just brushed it, whereas a high roll means you fell or tripped into it.