All the players in my game have equipped themselves with power weapons, thus making a large number of weapons much less of a threat since the weapon will quickly break. So any time my players are facing a melee battle meant to be challenging, I will need to change the enemy melee weapons. That isn't a problem, the problem is I don't want to go the boring route of giving power swords to almost everyone.

So what weapons exist in the various supplemental materials that can be threat to characters in power armour*, won't be broken by a power field, and are not power weapons themselves ?

Even if it is only a threat for an enemy with a high SB it is still useful.

*Even worse, the arch-militant started with a toughness of 50.

Lathe Blades are immune to the Power Field special rule. Its basically a butch version of a Mono upgrade. Force Weapons are another possibility, as well as Daemon Weapons. Oh. And my favorite. Warp Weapons, they ignore armour thats not blessed, or made from psychoactive materials.

I've been looking into this a bit on my own and found two weapon qualities that help here:

- Flexible. Power fields only destroy a weapon when they parry it. If you can't parry the weapon, you can't destroy it with the power field.

- Fast (inquisitors handbook). Because this gives a -20 penalty to parry, it is probably enough to make my players attempt a dodge instead of a parry.

So dangerous weapons with these qualities will also be useful. The only one I've found so far is the grox whip which sits between the chain sword and chain axe in terms of damage output, though I may want to only use it with high strength enemies.

And for enemys, where it would be a little strange that everybody has hightech blades, you could try to disarm the characters and turn their toys against them

Nids

Don't have Creatures Anathema on me, but I seem to remember Genestealers and Lictors having pretty nasty attacks (natural weapons so power field immune).

Natural Weapons and Improved Natural Weapons (the latter are not Primitive).

Also the Psychic Blade that Pskyers can make. There are several options to expand on this in DH, such as the Hammerhand and Molten Man Powers.

Note that Phase Blades and Ghost Swords are not Power Weapons, but have the Power Field quality. Note that Ork weapons may have this quality, but only if owned by a very rich and powerful Nob or Boss.

Generally, a major threat should not be easily disarmed with Power Weapons, but most of his lesser allies, if they are humanoid, should have mono weapons that are easily shattered against a Power Blade.

I'm curious as to why "guns" aren't an option.

RocketPropelledGrenade said:

They are, unless the combat is forced into melee.

Guns ! generally your stock standard bad guy won't have access to a power weapon or a lathe blade or other melee weapon to combat power weapons your bigger bad guys will have better weapons and the other posters have given plenty of melee weapons they can have but if you are concerned about your regular grunt bad guys then give them autocannons, flamers, plasma guns and grenade launchers - your PC's should think twice before trying to assault them with their power weapons when theri is a rolling wall of liquid flame, plasma, exploding grenades and thundering autocannon between them and the bad guys

Bilateralrope said:

If you give them enough guns, getting into melee at all should be acceptable win condition. A bad guy at even medium range on a Basic or Heavy weapon will take a while for them to reach. And even underhive scum are known to tote around Heavy Stubbers and the like.

Kordos said:

Given that we are talking about Rogue Traders, most of their enemies are likely to be groups with similar levels of resources. So most of the serious threats are likely to be from at least one of the following groups:

- Xenos

- Warp linked (chaos, daemons, etc)

- Other Rogue Traders

So it won't seem too strange if they face a lot of power weapons or even warp weapons. But I want other options.

RocketPropelledGrenade said:

But at the same time if the difference is large enough, I know that my players will call down an orbital strike. Or return fire with their heavy weapons.

Not to mention that if I stick to only using guns, that means I have to avoid having major battles in tight areas or with other effects. But if I have more weapon options, that means I can have more variation with the battles I throw at them.

Fair enough. I was just trying offer an angle I didn't see anyone else providing.

As all the melee options I can think of have been covered, I'll settle for wishing you good luck and good gaming!

RocketPropelledGrenade said:

Well, guns are a good option here.

Does the Radicals Handbook have any options that would help here ? (it's the one supplemental book I don't have access to)

Remember that weapons with the qualities fast or flexible are especially useful because such weapons will allow me to make enemies that are more threatening in melee that guys with quickly broken weapons, but less threatening than NPCs with the high end gear.

But at the same time if the difference is large enough, I know that my players will call down an orbital strike.

Calling down an orbital strike on someone close to your position would be somewhat risky. Those things are bound to have a quite large blast radius and the crew left on the ship won't be all that skilled. Just saying.

A question yet unasked: how good are those powerblade-wielders in melee (what is there WS)? In order to shatter the blade, they have to parry it (assuming that the attacker isn´t stupid enough to parry an E-Weapon if he isn´t wilding one himself).

Weapons with the "Quick/Fast" quality (introduce in the IH) are an option. These are harder to parry (-10, as far as I remember). Those weapon are normaly blades like rapiers, light sabers and the like (so a little less damage).

In addition, your attackers could simply start to make use of the "feint" manouvre. If successfull, the follow-up attack can´t be parried.

Outnumbering is always a valid tactic. It will not stop the weapon from "shattering", but if it is 3:1 it will take much more time to shatter all the weapons... especially if one of this three attackers has a "Quick" weapon and another one (or all of them) are smart enough to make use of the "Feint" manouvre.

Those dreaded multi-parry-talent not taken into account...

Well an easy route for mooks is just a mono great weapon with a backup weapon or 2 in case it gets parried. A hell pistol or even a laspistol with hotshot will burn through most armor. Plus they can be used in melee normally. The radicals handbook doesn't have a lot of melee weapon. Other than a spear which ignores all armor, and toughness, but doesn't get SB or work against non living things.

Gregorius21778 said:

They haven't taken any WS upgrades yet. But they are still in the first rank and all but one of them already have power swords (the RT variant with a total of +15 to parry).

Fast is -20 to parry, so it will be useful.

I'd forgotten about feint. That will be useful to remember, even with power weapon users, because it is another way to let the NPCs personality show in how they fight.

Outnumbering is always an option. I would complain about the extra dice I have to roll, but I've already written a program that can do it for me.

Don't forget that in RT, defensive stance gives you an extra reaction.

http://www.fantasyflightgames.com/edge_foros_discusion.asp?efid=100&efcid=3&efidt=260390

I do not know if you / your group are willing to houserule and/or what will boil out of this topic... but it could reduce the eagerness of an energy weapon wielder to parry a chainsword....

3 people grappling are the meanest thing I came up with. Grappling is soooo mean.

Gregorius21778 said:

That sounds nasty, I might use it.

Then there are the energy critical effects to consider. Ammo cooking off or the target catching fire will not be good for those attacking it in melee.

Bilateralrope said:

Gregorius21778 said:

Fire by e-sword will only be happening when the critical effects table says that it would. I'm not adding any new drawback with it.

As for the exploding chain weapon, I'm going to compare its damage range against the PCs in their typical armour* when I get a chance. Then I'll think about altering how much damage it does or how often it triggers.

*The RT doesn't like wearing power armour, the others wear it whenever they think it appropriate. They all have, or are trying to acquire subskin and cranial armour implants. So at least half the time they won't take any damage from it.

Bilateralrope said:

Remember that Power armour has a 1-5 hour battery life, give enemies +10 to hit, makes a butt load of noise, and isn't that much better than best quality carapace.

From experiance I can tell you that an Orc with a chainsword can still do plenty of damage to a player is best carapace. Hell, I remember a player scoffing at three attackers with mono-knives, only to be furied for 8 wounds (after toughness ect.).

The context of my post was in reply to Gregorius21778's house rule about a chain weapon breaking, not who was wielding it when it broke.

Besides, my players are aware of the trade-offs and there are times they prefer other armour. But the increased carrying capacity means I doubt I'll be able to talk them out of taking it if combat looks unavoidable and they expect the battery to last long enough. And the explorator in my game has best quality dragon scale armour (Inquisitors handbook page 137), so she doesn't have to worry about the battery life.

You may take weapon quality into account.

I think a blessed (good or best craftsmanship) chainsword shall not be destroyed by a common quality power weapon.