Eisenhorn had that "laser sword", but is there one stated-out in any of the books?

Temple Calix elite advance = Jedi.

The Powersword they have to build themselves is pretty much the lightsaber, more so when you read the conditions on what they have to go through to make the thing...

Really? Cool! I'll take a look. Um, IH, correct?

@ Velvetears

That would be a Forceweapon . Slightly different from a Power weapon.

@ Muffin

Eisenhorn's weapon was an ancient Powersword which did not have/require the "physical" blade. The ability to create such weapons has been lost over the millennia. More the pity after what happens to the poor thing. Information on Forceweapons is referenced to pages 187 and 245 of the InqHB .

-=Brother Praetus=-

TalkingMuffin said:

I belive the "energy Blade" found in the Inquisitor's Handbook would be the "Laser Sword"


GLV

Brother Praetus said:

You are of course quite correct on this and i submit myself for re-education and psycho-doctrination.

GLV said:

Ooh! Have I looked right over that? I found Force weapons, but I can't find the "lightsaber". Got a page?

The Sollex-Aegis Energy Blade in the IH on page 135

Luthor Harkon said:

That would be the one.

And personally I think the blatant Star Wars reference is stupid. I hate Jedi and I hate their STUPID light sabers! Light just doesn't conveniently "stop" at a certain length for you to use as a "blade"! At least the power weapons described in WH40K provide a slightly more plausible explaination with their power weapons...

Jedi could be awesome if Star Wars didn't revolve around them.

Varnias Tybalt said:

Well, the Sollex-Aegis Energy Blade is described as being a blade of coherent high-energy plasma and not simply light as such. The plasma is most probably held coherent by some kind of strong magnetic field or some sci-fi power field.

Varnias Tybalt said:

They're clouds of ionized gas contained within a force field of some description, IIRC

TalkingMuffin said:

If by that you mean that every single jedi WON'T suffer from "plot protection" then I guess they could be nice. But bearing the Star Wars movies fresh in my memory i just find them to be silly. Take a situation for instance where Jedi whatshisface is surrounded (and by that i mean a SOLID RING) by battle droids, all of them armed with laser weapons and even have the ability to rapid fire at master whatshisface. Yet still the idiot droids CONVENIENTLY fire their laser blasters in a polite and easily parriable fashion for the Jedi to block every single blast with his ridiculous "lightsabre".

But then again, these droids could simply be of a crappy quality, which means they are stupid enough to fire as slowly as possible when they got this über-killing-machine Jedi surrounded.

If the droids didnt suffer so badly from stormtrooper syndrome (oh yeah! Thats right! Star Wars invented that f**king phenomena, how could I forget?) that pansy Jedi would've been quite perforated, even if the ridiculous twerp managed to block a few shots.

As of now, there is nothing to like about Jedi. Boring personalities, stupid looking weapons and too much plot protection. As soon as you pay some attention to a Star Wars movie You simply know that if one of the Jedi has a line or two in the movie then NOTHING will be able to kill them except maybe another Jedi or Sith, which by definition takes out all the excitment when they happen to find themselves in any kind of combat involving stormtroopers, battledroids, aliens and what not. BOOORING!

Luthor Harkon said:

Yes I know, but I still dont like it. It's so obvious that it is a copycat action of Star Wars ("Hey, we're writing a WH40K RPG! Lets toss in a lightsabre from Star Wars too!"), and even if I usually don't have a problem with borrowing ideas from other franchises you could at least make the effort to borrow GOOD ideas instead of copying a weapon that is inherently stupid to begin with and then just toss in a sci-fi retconning of how the weapon functions.

Chainswords and Chainaxes? No problem sounds cool like hell!

Powerswords and powerfists utilising disruptive energyfields to cut and smash through anything? Hell yeah, bring 'em on!

Blatant Star Wars copyied pansy-ass "lightsabres"? No thank you, im quite sick of seeing them in the movies anyway, no need to taint a wonderful RPG with their heretical prescence.

Let's keep Star Wars and Warhammer 40.000 as separate as possible shall we?

Locque said:

Plasma = ionized gas

magnetic field = force field

Varnias Tybalt said:

Sure, but the Energy Blade is described as a blazing, roaring column of blue-white fire that can hit the user in the same way as the potential target and not some funky neon light stick. Sounds 40Kish enough if you ask me...

In my head, it sounds like an Emergency Flare or something, with like.....fire spewing out the end or something.

Something cool like that.

And Yeah, if Jedi had no Plot Protection they'd be awesomer ten fold, purley ebcause you'd know they survived through skill and not inept enemies who can't fire properly.

Luthor Harkon said:

I was referring to lightsabers, which had been criticised for being an unrealistic portrayal of the properties of light.

The sollex-aegis is a giant, roaring cutting torch, driven by a belt-fed power source. I would say that while it resemblesa lightsaber quite heavily, it's been given a definite 40k makeover. Eisenhorn's sword was much more of a lightsaber.

cyclocius said:

I wouldn't use the term "awesomeER" because they are not particularly awesome to begin with. But at least they would be a bit more likeable than they are now. I mean even Adeptus Astartes die to enemy fire and quite often in fact, and they are Power Armoured Supermen usually able to wade through small arms fire like it was horisontal rainwater for chrissake!

But then again George Lucas only likeable character he ever created was probably Han Solo, the rest he failed with most of the time. Take revenge of the Sith for instance. I know that George Lucas' intention was for the audience to be horrified when Anakin Skywalker went to the Jedi academy to butcher the young Jedi students, but all I thought of during that part of the movie was: "Hell yeah! Go and put an end to those Jedi scum! Finally their ridiculous plot protection and almost elvish-like super hero powers will get their karmic come-uppings!"

Seriously! When you are so sick and tired of characters on-screen ego-masturbation that you actually smile with glee whilst they are being butchered by one of their own having turned to the dark side, you must have done something wrong as a director/screenwriter/character designer.

Funnily enough, the light sabre actually is a less-roaring energy blade, based on pretty much the same principles as the IH weapon.

http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Lightsabre

Varnias Tybalt said:

Very true I remember snickering when he got Vadered towards the end And him strangling Padme....Bliss

But I digress, by awesome, the one filling that class was that Ki-Mundi guy, with the really tall skull. He makes me larf. All the others suck

I disagree. While I can understand it is vogue to hate Star Wars because it is so much like 40k - with a puppies and bunnies enema - it had a lot of good things going for it. A large and interesting galaxy full of interesting alien races; a long history full of epic level wars and betrayals; and a fun good vs evil, shining knights vs dragons, theme.

And I liked the jedi. That is to say, I liked about a dozen of the jedi. The writing of Anakin ruined his character - and Darth Vader - forever more, and most of the jedi introduced in the new films/cartoons were disappointing and forgettable. But there were some interesting personalities to be had among their number. ( one of my favorite jedi being "Darca Nyl" )

Sure the Jedi were baddass, but they were the defenders of peace in the Galaxy - and there were only about 6000 at the begining of the clone war era. (I once figured it out and it came to something like 1 jedi for every 200 planets in the republic.) Jedi are supposed to be the heroic figures we see in myth and fantasy.

Each setting has its benefits and drawbacks ... I have a friend, and good roleplayer, who dislikes 40k for almost all the reasons it isn't Star Wars ... so it really is a matter of taste.

Jack of Tears said:

I don't think it's all the rage to hate Star Wars because it is anything like 40k. There are a heck of a lo9t of folks that hate Star Wars and have no clue that 40k even exists. I hate Star Wars and it has nothing to do with 40k in any way shape or form.

I used to love Star Wars (well, not when i was 3 as after my parents took my brothers and I to see it at the drive-in, I had nightmares about Chewbaca waiting for me under the car). But I remember being sad that the movies ended with Return of the Jedi, i had all the toys, etc, and I loved it for many, many years... until George Lucas came out of his cave, stole my ice-cream, and kicked sand in my face.

Usually, a bad sequel won't make me hate the original movie (I still like Highlander after all) but the remastering of the originals as well as the last three abortions completely ruined Star wars for me. I can't see the originals without knowing what horrors await (well that and Luke's whining dose get to be a bit grating) as well as the fact that the non-remastered copies are damned hard to find anymore (unless they aren't, but I haven't looked for them since the late 90's).

I think most folks who have strange raging hatred for Star Wars have developed the hatred after seeing three of their favorite childhood movies raped and used like a five dollar *****. My hatred for what Lucas did to them interferes with my any kind of enjoyment I could squeeze out of them anymore.

For the most part I try to pretend the prequels never happened. I did like Ewan Mcgregor's portrayal of Obi-wan, for the most part, though it takes a director like Lucas to get such a mediocre performance out of a rather tallented actor. I also liked Padme in the first two movies, though she transformed completely for the last and ruined her - or would have if I bothered to recall that movie in the least. I find it rather sad and amusing that the deleted scenes for all three films were entirely story/character development based and would have added a good deal of redeamable material had they been left in. (not that they could have redeamed the films, merely made them less awful)

Luke stopped whining in the third film and became fairly cool overall. Amusingly the prequels have, in fact, made me appreciate Luke all the more - certainly more than his worthless father. (funny how that whiny nature is hereditary)

You can probably still find the non-remastered originals on vhs, (or possibly dvd on the internet) which is how I still own them.

Jack of Tears said:

I can't say I hate Star Wars in general, it works fine for a brainless space opera thrill. ( I usually get a very: "Oooh! Look at the pretty colours!" when I watch a Star Wars movie). However I hardly believe that people dislike Star Wars because it is like 40K, simply because Star Wars and WH40K are MILES apart. Sure you have one or two innuendoes that plays between them, but I cant find many similarities between a space opera and the gothic science-fantasy/war setting of 40K. Both the topics and general mood of the two are so different, and I like it that way. Which is why I feel it to be unnecessary to steal ideas from Star Wars (especially the bad ones like stupid lightsabers) and try to implement them in the 41st millenium. They two worlds can stand on their own two feet on their own (even if I think that the world of 40K stands a lot better than Star Wars ), they hardly need to steal ideas from eachother.

That being said I must say that WH40K have the extreme potential of culminating in a movie that surpasses every Star Wars flick ever made, providing that it i made by a director not suffering from hollywood sickness (which means, someone who can get a good grip of the source material instead of arbitrarily writing out stuff he or she dont like and implement his or her own stupid ideas. Someone who have the "balls" to do a movie that portrays mankind as evil by our standards, and a movie that by necessity glorifies harsh dictatorships, war and fanaticism. Someone who understands the importance of keeping out hollywoodesque happy endings, and appriceates that bitter endings can be for the better of the movie).

Oh well, a man can dream...

First, Star Wars does, indeed, suck balls. And not in a good, "ooh, it's tingly!" sort of way.

Second, I think that a 40K film, were gravity to reverse, 2 + 2 to equal 5, and one actually made, would work best by eschewing the whole space opera aspect and approach it is as a dystopian middle-ages-in-space horror setting, sort of like Brazil meets the Exorcist meets Seven meets the Return of Martin Guerre.

Do it as a cop drama-***-horror piece -- low-level enforcer on a hive world gets wind of a chaos cult. You could even make the cultists darkly sympathetic, for lo their lives in the Imperium do suck (even more than Star Wars).