Ascended Crusader weaponry

By Daedalius, in Dark Heresy

So looking through the Ascension book and the Crusader class I read "Many Crusader Houses favour long, heavy power swords, their reach able to intercept any blow that threatens their charge. Others favour massive polearms, often wielded two-handed so that the mighty haft breaks the blade of any blow it parries."

So where is this Polearm weapon located in any of the books? because it does not appear to be in the Ascension book.

is there a pollarm primetive thing? then take that and up the damage up the pen and give it a power field hey presto power pollarm

I guess I just figured if it is breaking the blades of weapons it parries, it would have some sort of custom entry somewhere :)

Daedalius said:

I guess I just figured if it is breaking the blades of weapons it parries, it would have some sort of custom entry somewhere :)

Power fields already do this...

bluntpencil2001 said:

Power fields already do this...

I know, I just wasn't sure if they just meant the same thing. Although if it was a Great Weapon, which one would assume a polearm to be, it wouldn't be doing much parrying due to the fact it is unwieldy.

Although I suppose if it was a custom weapon made specially for the character, it probably wouldn't be unwieldy anymore.

I´d see it as a kind of 2-handed weapon with the genereal Greatweapon stats. Style not the more generic Maul, Greatsword or Greataxe, but more in the direction of Halberd or Glaive. Mono it up, and then add a Power Field if you have the ability.

new-polearm-thumbs.jpg

Lot of the shorter polearms (1.5 to 2m haft) like the halberd, spetum, glaive, partisan, ranseur and so on are actually very similar to fighting with staves, using the haft to block blows. A few of the later developments also had blade-traps, hooks and other nasty projections on them for dragging people to the ground so you can smack/spear the crap out out of them a lot easier.

Problem against a power weapon is that if you blocked with the haft, you'll end up with a piece of stick and some kind of sharp object on the other end, can't really have a field on the haft because... well, you'll have no fingers as quite a lot of the technique involves moving your hands along the length.

I checked out how they did the Nemesis Force Halberd in the Daemon Hunter book and that seems pretty reasonable. I think it is 1D10+3 Balanced, Energy Field, but adds tearing when wielded with 2 hands(which you can change your hand positions as a free action); so that seems pretty reasonable. Obviously it still wouldn't be a force weapon, heh.

Looking forward to art'ing up my character with something like that, but the eviscerator is pretty cool for now I suppose :) .

Even the Nemesis Force Halbard is 'Unwieldy'. Not really intended for parrying. I believe the IH has a Power Great Sword, it could be used as a template if need be.

Are you sure the NFH is unwieldy? I don't have the book in front of me... but I swear it wasn't when I was looking at it yesterday. If that is the case then that would be an exceptionally poor weapon to take if you were playing a GK in terminator armor, they couldn't parry or dodge!

I'll check out the power great sword in IH.

I could be confusing two different entries, I don't have the book at hand either... If I'm wrong, I'm sorry. Not trying to confuse anyone.

The Nemesis Force Halberd is not Unwieldy. Got the book in front of me, pg. 131 has all of the NFW's.

Thanks for the clarification.

Ok, so for an Ascended (note the emphasis to ensure nobody thinks this is supposed to be balanced for their Acolytes) Power Polearm, I would not stat it up the way Daemon Hunters apparently did.

Name Class Range Damage Pen Special kg Availability
Power Polearm (Generic) Melee — 2d10+3 E 7 Power Field, Balanced 10 Extremely Rare

*Requires two hands to wield

For fluff, lets say the Polearm has a biometric sensor built into the haft that fluctuates the power field in order to keep the wielder's hands from turning into a bright red mist.

Bear in mind, this is just a vague little half-hearted attempt to appease you based on the Omnissian Axe stats with reduced damage, boosted Pen, and added Balanced since this thing is supposed to be easier to block with. A have a buddy who does staff fighting, and two of us couldn't touch him. Granted he was trained and we were a couple a shmucks with beer and sticks, but the point remains. As it's an Ascension weapon, I also felt that the balance would not be too damaged by being able to parry with it.

Hey just make the base weapon from the same stuff as Lathe Blades and you can parry with the haft to you little hearts content because it is resistant to power fields.

Thanks BangBang, I may have to check that out once I hit an Ascended rank.

What do you think would be good stats for something like that for a regular level 5 Assassin? I managed to get my hands on an eviscerator, and then the first time I use it I almost cut myself in half like twice.

For anything non ascended, drop the damage down to like 1d10+7 base to bring it in line with a Power Axe, the offset of the Balanced trait being the requirement of using two hands. For dark heresy, I'd drop the Throne price around 4500-5500, depending on GM preference.

The trouble with Lathe Blades is that they are for pansies. They're like Power Weapons in the not-dying category, but they lack the "You thought you were going to kill me but instead I blew your chainsword into tiny, smouldering pieces" effect that makes you look like a badass.

Fighting is not about honour and discipline, like any eastern martial art would tell you. It's about Machoism and Badassery, like Chuck Liddell, Rambo, and Spartan 117 would tell you. That's right. I class those three together.

Deathwatch has "powerspear" statted out. Granted, this is an Astartes version, so the stats are a bit on the OMG side of things, but it would be easy enough to cut one down to "mortal" scale. For game purposes the differences between a spear and a glaive/halberd can be largely reduced to the cosmetic.

Astartes Power Spear Melee 1D10+6 E Pen 7 Power Field (note: requires two hands)

This beast of a weapon weighs in at 8kg, and requires 15 requisition points from a "distinguished" Deathwatch marine to pull one out of the armoury. Per fluff, most of these are aparently gifts to the Deathwatch from the Iron Snakes chapter.

By contrast:

Astartes Power Claymore Melee 2D10+6 E Pen 6 Power Field, Unwieldy, Devastating (1)

Same requisition and reputation requirements as above, but this monster weighs in at 18kg! It requires both hands to use and is a terrible choice of weapon in confined fighting areas due to it's massive length and bulk (about as long as the user is tall!).

Maybe your GM will be willing to adjust the stats to something more reasonable for a baseline human and let you get your grubby little paws... er, I meant worthy hands... on one?

18 kg? No big deal for an Astartes :) Though I admit your average Acolyte may find it a bit heavy ^^

But Crusaders definitely are supposed to be strong and tough.

Put him in a powerarmor!

Actually with the way I have been slanting my playstyle, sneaky ninja-ish with a sniper rifle, scouting ahead for the group, etc, I will probably end up going Death Cult Assassin once we roll around to Ascension, and they come with double power-swords (which I'd actually rather use at this point). My double power-blades tend to work pretty well currently :) and very concealable.