Sorry, I`m sure this has been dealt with before but I tried to search the forums and came up blank.

I don`t understand why anyone would ever buy the 2-handed axe as starting equipment. It is exactly the same as the sword as far as combat dice, more expensive, takes two hands instead of one, and lacks versitility of being a secondary weapon. Is this a typo? I read all the errata I could find and found no mention. Maybe I`m missing something?

I appreciate the help

-niltrias

The axe is considered better because it does +1 damage for 1 surge, while the sword does +1 damage for 2 surges so its damage output for the same roll is higher than the sword, even with an offhand weapon typically.

The shop axe on a hero who has Weapon Mastery as a starting skill does a pretty good amount of damage on a consistant basis.

Hmm...my axe card (it is in my hand as I type) says

S S : damage +1

(where S is the surge icon)

Is this, then, a typo? I`m playing with the japanese version of the game, so it might be different than the english version. Actually, it says:

S S: ???? + 1

but same thing really.

So it should be

S: Damage + 1

right?

Yeah, yours must be a typo or something because my shop axe card says

Axe

Weapon: Melee

(surge) = +1 damage

Yeah if yours says that it takes two surges to get +1 damage with the axe then I can definitely understand why you wouldn't want to take the axe over the sword. Might want to contact FFG customer service and ask them about it.

Great thanks. I live in Japan, so I have the japanese language version. It`s probably errata`d on the japanese site, but I don`t really feel like digging through it. I can read Japanese, but sssslllooooowwwwlllyyy.

Makes a LOT more sense if it is only one surge.

Thanks for the help.

Another reason the Axe wins in my book is the green vs the yellow die. Much more damage potential

A while back I ran the numbers comparing a hero wielding an axe to one wielding two swords.

Long story short: Until you're rolling 3+ power die the sword is more likely to deal more damage.

This was a while back though, the new ToI mace (?) weapon (offhand bonus of 1 dmg, and 1 surge) changes the numbers.

Oboewan said:

I'm confused: The sword is Red Green, same as the axe. Or at least the swords in my set are.

My set is the same as Remy's. I tend to give the axe to the tanks just for the surge bonus. And when I draw Laughin Buldar, it's axe + mace all the way.

snacknuts said:

Yes, but two swords costs 50 coins more than an axe, which means one less vitality potion in the early game. An equal-cost comparison is Sword + Dagger, which is slightly worse than the axe in most circumstances, but gives you increased versatility in case you draw a shield or a one-handed weapon from a chest. In fact, it actually gives you more versatility than sword+sword, because a dagger makes a better off-hand weapon than a sword for any weapon in the game of copper level or higher.

The morning star is the same cost as a sword and is strictly better as an off-hand weapon than either a sword or dagger, though.

Big Remy said:

Yeah... for some reason my brain was trained on the Crossbow vs. Bow issue... THAT's the Green vs. yellow :-) My bad

The great thing about the two-hander axe is what it does when you have Cleaving. I have seen it clean out hallways and it would make me giggle if it wasn't me as the OL getting hammered. The dagger has a yellow + red die combo for a damage roll, so that does exist, but I have never seen a Hero use the dagger for anything other than a cheap off-hand bonus to a sword, thus never using the dice for it. Alot of my players just tend to use a cross bow in one hand and the sword in the other, untill they are all sold out... lol

I'm still not sure how that really works though... does the player using the crossbow + sword combo get the off hand bonus for the sword when making a ranged attack IF the target is within hand to hand range, or what's the deal guys?

No...

Crossbow is a ranged attack (even if it's adjacent), so you don't get the off-hand bonus from a melee weapon.

A sword or sword+dagger is still about as effective with Cleaving as an axe. Realistically, any attack that isn't almost guaranteed to kill a basic monster is usually not worth making, and even fighting with just a sword does more damage than any ranged or magic weapon available from the shop (assuming equal trait dice).

Also, starting with both a sword and a crossbow sounds like an amazingly bad strategy.

Antistone said:

Seconded. The only character I could MAYBE see this making any amount of sense and just for fun is with Ronan of the Wild, since with Pico he's effectively a 2 Melee/3 Ranged Hero to start.

Huge maybe though.

Funny you should mention that. I tried this strategy in our last game....

Honestly, with the extra power die, I never used the sword. I just stayed back and shot at short to medium range. First decent shield that came up as treasure, I sold the sword in town.

I would have been better off using the money to buy another potion.

Big Remy said:

I do this with Ronan often, who...as you can see from my "avatar" pic I'm a big fan of. It's not always worth it, but the versatility is fun. Bigger sword damage when you need it, crossbow damage when you just can't get adjacent. Sometimes, though..it's better to just go axe and sling with leather and (of course) a fatigue potion. I'm sure that someone will do some math now about why this is a bad idea, but...it's fun and sometimes you can't do an equation for that.

I'm still a big fan of Ronan (especially in Vanilla, though I am enjoying his free upgrade in rtl right now), because Pico lets him use multiple weapon types effectively if that's what he pulls out of a chest or if the party has extra of something. His speed generally means he's wearing armor that will let him equip whatever as well (if that mage is far away and you've got that breath rune and a couple of fatigue handy, etc.)