I was trying to build a melee chainsword character.

I think the best role is heavy gunner. It works if you have a regiment that grants BS as an aptitude so that you can take the Weapon Skill aptitude for your duplicate. Else, you could ask your GM to allow you to change BS to WS aptitude. You would also need to either requisition a chainsword or just ask your GM for one instead of your standard heavy weapon (it's lower rarity anyways).

Given Weapon Skill from another source, heavy gunner seems like the best matchup for chainsword use. You get a toughness bonus and the toughness aptitude (one of the most important things for a melee build). You also get the offense and defense aptitudes. You can take things like counter attack, true grit, etc that make melee builds awesome, and you can afford to level up your strength, toughness and weapon skill because of your aptitudes.

I was trying to build a chainsword specialist with commissar and ministorum priest, but I just couldn't afford any talents because of missing aptitudes. Offense and defense seem very rare and I couldn't find anyone with offense and weapon skill (except ogryns). I'm only using the base book of course.

I also take a shield (very easy to find/req)

I was wondering if anyone had a different take on chainsword builds or sees something I'm missing.

I think that doing what you did you are making your comrade orders or special traits to be not useful at all.

If you used a sarge, ogryn, comissar or priest instead you could still build a fairly good chainsword fighter without losing the special habilities of your specialty...

Also, your character would fit only in a veery special regiment, because it's not fluffy at all!

You have no problem with totally unfluffy Orks though.

I have thought about this. If I were making a feudal regiment, I actually might go with something like this. (Note that some of the feudal-ish regiments in HotE get melee weapons as favoured regimental heavy weapons.)

The viability of the "melee build" (not terms in which I think, really, I don't think in terms of builds but of characters) is something that is very campaign-specific, I think, depending on what you are going to be fighting.

In a "standard" Only War game, in which the opponents are Imperial rebels equipped like the standard Guard units or Orks (or Tyranids), melee builds don't make much sense because you're either never going to get into close range or will be butchered when you do. It would be akin to, in TT, equipping your sergeants with power swords and sticking Ecclesiarchal Priests and Commissars in every unit and having their units charge the enemy. Of course they will all die (if the enemy is not Tau firewarriors or Gretchen).

On the other hand, if the campaign is based around fighting some Chaos rebels in a hive city or ruins, it might work, because a) your opponents are not close-combat monsters and b) you will often have the opportunity to begin at close range. Watch out for flamers though!

EDIT: or scouts/jungle fighters, somewhere where you can get close. Melee builds on the battlefields of WWI or WWII don't live too long.

In those terms, I suppose it makes a lot of sense that most of the classes in the game don't support pure melee builds. Thanks for the info.

Yes I agree that 'heavy as melee' seems a bit unfluffy. It just surprised me that they seemed like the best class to pull it off.

I don't think Ogryns can use a chainsword.

The thing is, 40K has a bunch of factions that specialize in melee combat, fighting a faction (factions, if you include Tau) that work vaguely more or less like modern real-world armies with guns.

Naturally, a modern real-world army will butcher a real army that depends on melee combat. (In fact, an 18th-century army could butcher an army that depends on melee combat -- and they did). Those 40K factions that engage in this "run up and hit them with swords" strategy are able to get away with it because they are absurdly tough, absurdly well-armoured, absurdly fast, or absurdly numerous (or some combination of all four). 100 Orks can charge across a 200-meter open field at an enemy gunline and have a reasonable chance of some making it to the other side. One hundred humans cannot do that (though 10 Space Marines might). And the game is designed, based on the TT, with this paradigm in mind.

Ogryns CAN do this, sort-of, but they aren't that numerous.

A US Marine in Afghanistan who specialized in running up to the Taliban and smacking them on the head would not live very long.

Yeah, I don't want to break the fluff of the game and relying on rushing into melee seems like it forces your squad to fight a certain way. I think the closest thing I could do to this build would be to throw together a heavy weapons guy whose secondary thing is melee fighting. I mean, you don't need a lot of talents and perks to make a heavy absolutely deadly at medium to long range (just stabilize will probably do it), and many of the melee upgrades will save your ass at long range too (true grit).

Our heavy is always a little confused at what to do when she gets an ork in her pillbox (although now that we know that you aren't in 'melee' until you're attacked she can just waste it if he just moves instead of charging). She usually resorts to sidearm, though a similar build that whips out his chainsword could be cool.

I ran into this bit, too. I have a special character I made, here and elsewhere, for IG. For the most part, he is a shameless knockoff of Marneus Calgar, if he was Ursarkar Creed, and so he acts as though he wants to get into melee. In the story he's in, it works (because I write it to ), but in the RPG or TT, he's sorely lacking someone to accompany him, and being a General/Governor-Militant fighting Orks, he WANTS backup. Personally, he's rather built to do it, but there's painful little to assist him in this endeavor.

Sadly, in my opinion, the IG tend to subscribe to the school of thought "Assaulting = Death", and they get it down really well. With massed gun lines, rapid-fire base guns, and hard-hitting artillery, there is little place for assault troops in the IG; in an actual military exercise, barring meat-grinder sympathies, too much care would have to be taken NOT to art. barrage your own assaulters. Better to hit the foe with battle cannons and earthshakers, then strafe them with las-fire, and if a few get up to you, you can assault them, and maybe have that one Sergeant with a power sword/fist, just to make sure those stragglers biff it. If you GET assaulted, your group should have enough to hold them up for a bit, but one hopes it wasn't your game plan, and also hope it's just to buy time to move another gun-blob into range, far enough away to not get consolidated into, but close enough to rapid-fire, because that first group, you might already be writing them off as a casualty. If you really need Assault, in TT, you might think to Ally some Space Marines; they are good at that.

Some of this might not so accurately apply to an RPG, but it is one based in no small part on the minis game, so I've babbled all of this.

For easiest access to the chainsword as standard equipment is the Sergeant for the Imperial Guard, followed by the Commissar.

If you get access to Hammer of The Emperor any Imperial Guardsman can take Brawler or Commander as advanced specialties that will also get you access to the chainsword.

Yeah, splatbooks are always an option. How is the power creep in Hammer? I don't want to bring super heroes into a campaign world like this. I think that the relative commonness of chainswords makes getting one fairly easy eventually for any class.

Not much power creep really by the look of it. I haven't tried out the specialty options yet but they appear balanced.

Power creep is all in how one uses the rules, for my group Hammer Of The Emperor is a blessing allowing the Players to tailor their generic characters into specialists.

Chainswords shouldn't be as common as you make them out to be, in my opinion.

The way I also see it, is character creation comes from the regimental build based on the home world.

As part of the Imperial Guard a character should be part of the squad not considered an individual. The character is part of squad, which in turn is part of a platoon, which is one of many in a company where there maybe several of in a regiment.

Individuality is not lost as the Player's background and evolution of character takes a path from recruit/fresh meat to the go to squad of seasoned vets called upon to get things done. Through various missions and campaigns the character can accumulate new gear and training.

Part of the fun for my group comes from the attempts to get equipment (regimental or otherwise acquired) replaced by the Dept. Munitorium.

Remember in a war story there is more than enough ways for a character to die from enemy encounters to friendly fire. Actually come to think about it there is more than combat that can get the characters killed - traps, squad politics, being declared a heretic or coward....

Limited Fate points can only go so far...

As part of the Imperial Guard a character should be part of the squad not considered an individual. The character is part of squad, which in turn is part of a platoon, which is one of many in a company where there maybe several of in a regiment.

Individuality is not lost as the Player's background and evolution of character takes a path from recruit/fresh meat to the go to squad of seasoned vets called upon to get things done. Through various missions and campaigns the character can accumulate new gear and training.

Actually, I've really been enjoying this aspect of the game compared to more traditional role playing games that emphasize individual and unique characters. It's kind of cool as we slowly figured out that the 'medic' class is a lasgun warrior that sometimes uses first aid, and the operator class is a lasgun warrior that sometimes gets to drive a sentinel.

By the way, if you can ever get your hands on an uplifting primer it's a pretty cool read.

By the way, if you can ever get your hands on an uplifting primer it's a pretty cool read.

Will do thanks for the suggestion

You have no problem with totally unfluffy Orks though.

A fluffy Ork wouldn't be able to strike an Eldar in close combat! (I'm not talking about the tabletop game, which has no rules for evasion)

With your particular reading of "Furious Assault" you are not building fluffy orks, IMHO.

This is not the place to discuss this, anyway.

Ork Boy WS: 4

Eldar Guardian/Dark Eldar Warrior WS: 4

= 50% chance to hit, per attack.

Which is, oddly, almost what it comes to in Only War rules with their listed stats.

Now of course with your super-eldar Guardsmen should never be able to hit them either, whether in close combat or not, so what they're doing as adversaries is anybody's guess.

I have no idea where this idea comes from that a run-of-the-mill Eldar is some kind of dancing dervish. That's Wyches and Banshees, not Bob the Craftworld Eldar.

It comes from all the fluff that describes the Eldar and their cat-like grace. They are fleet of foot (pardon the pun) and quick of motion; a race so physically fragile kind of has to be. Any Eldar would probably hit an Ork in ranged almost every time, by the fluff; with their skill over centuries, and the sheer number of Orks mobbing up in a single spot, they almost HAVE to hit something. It's just that, much like against Imperial weapons, the Eldar's hits aren't fatal; Ork resilience makes them shrug off hits. Eldar, on the other hand, can't do this, and so they have to avoid getting hit, at all, thus their evasiveness. For the most part, they are no better than Guardsmen, otherwise, stats and armor, and would die in droves, like IG are built to do, but unlike the Orks and IG, they severely lack the numbers to be able to afford it. The accuracy of this, and indeed the mechanical application may vary, but that's how I read the fluff. Eldar are quick and agile, and enhanced by the psychic might of their Farseers, while the Orks are big, burly, and can be hit by a truck, or a round that would penetrate one, and laugh it off. When the most common thing an Ork fights is another Ork, they can't help but be tough.

As far as chainsword-wielding Guardsmen in the fluff goes, the 4thEd Codex IG introduced 6-man 'Special Weapon Squads', and one of the weapons options was laspistol-and-melee-weapon.

It comes from all the fluff that describes the Eldar and their cat-like grace. They are fleet of foot (pardon the pun) and quick of motion; a race so physically fragile kind of has to be. Any Eldar would probably hit an Ork in ranged almost every time, by the fluff; with their skill over centuries, and the sheer number of Orks mobbing up in a single spot, they almost HAVE to hit something. It's just that, much like against Imperial weapons, the Eldar's hits aren't fatal; Ork resilience makes them shrug off hits. Eldar, on the other hand, can't do this, and so they have to avoid getting hit, at all, thus their evasiveness. For the most part, they are no better than Guardsmen, otherwise, stats and armor, and would die in droves, like IG are built to do, but unlike the Orks and IG, they severely lack the numbers to be able to afford it. The accuracy of this, and indeed the mechanical application may vary, but that's how I read the fluff. Eldar are quick and agile, and enhanced by the psychic might of their Farseers, while the Orks are big, burly, and can be hit by a truck, or a round that would penetrate one, and laugh it off. When the most common thing an Ork fights is another Ork, they can't help but be tough.

And yet, in TT, Eldar use Craftworld Guardian civilians as soldiers, who do die in droves.

EDIT: Eldar aren't physically frail; ll the stat blocks put them as being above human average in terms of strength and toughness., about on par with human warriors (i.e. Guardsmen).

Eldar, esp. Dark Eldar in TT, survive by being sneaky and fast and clever and devious, not by being superhuman acrobats. That's Wyches and suchlike, who have devoted themselves specifically to that aspect (if I can use that term for Dark Eldar). If you are a dying race small in nunber, you don't get into direct combat at all. You sneak. You dive at the enemy's rear flank with your incredible speed and holo and flicker fields and shoot they crap out of them with your magiscience weapons. You dart out of cover, you shoot from behind, you vanish. Better yet, you get the enemies to kill each other for you. THAT is the classical "elf" archetype, not some kind of pointy-eared Spiderman.

Catlike grace is fine -- that's why Kabalite Warriors have around a 70% Dodge, which is close to being superhuman. And Unnatural Agility, which is superhuman. Catlike does not mean "totally unhittable." Note that they do NOT have Step Aside. I don't think even Wyches have Step Aside, actually.

I realize that I am digressing, so I will shut up after this post, but...

A realistically played combat between a squad of Guardsmen and a group of Eldar, with the latter played intelligently to their strengths as revealed in their stat blocks, would go something like the following.

Guardsmen are having dinner. "Isn't this a pleasant forest? I'm so glad everything is so peacef..."

Half the Guardsmen die.

"What the hell? What was that? EMPEROR EMPEROR"

"I don't see anything!!! What happened?!!?"

Other half of the Guardsmen die.

Because that's what happens when you are fighing opponents with Stealth of 57, Unnatural Agility (3), and fully-automatic Toxic weapons.

Every time I start a thread guys, it turns into Dark Eldar vs Ork combat discussions.

Not that I don't find it endlessly entertaining, and since my question has already been answered, do carry on

ORKZEES RULES!!!!! ELDARS ARE THE SUXXORS!

Anyway as you know I did a couple of Ork vs. Eldar combats over there in my big time-waster thread, and it's pretty obvious how it works. In an enclosed area, the Ork usually wins, In a place with space to maneuver, the Eldar usually wins.

Because the Ork's big Eldar-stomping ability is Furious Assault, which is a Full Action, and every Eldar has high Acrobatics if not full-fledged Assassin Strike, which means that they can just hop out of its range.- every time after they attack in melee. And given that an Eldar is literally faster on foot that most Imperial Guard vehicles, they can stay out of melee forever if they want.

IN FACT a Wych on combat drugs has a higher half move than the Ork can Charge, meaning that she can hit him and assassin strike away completely out of his reach. Then Charge again on the next round, and Assassin Strike after that attack. And so forth. As the Ork just runs around in circles, losing new body parts at each pass.

This, my friends, is what actual evasion is, not standing there at close range bopping you head from side to side like some mon-keigh idiot begging to get hit.

Ork Boy WS: 4

Eldar Guardian/Dark Eldar Warrior WS: 4

= 50% chance to hit, per attack.

Which is, oddly, almost what it comes to in Only War rules with their listed stats.

Now of course with your super-eldar Guardsmen should never be able to hit them either, whether in close combat or not, so what they're doing as adversaries is anybody's guess.

I have no idea where this idea comes from that a run-of-the-mill Eldar is some kind of dancing dervish. That's Wyches and Banshees, not Bob the Craftworld Eldar.

remember in the table top eldar get an initiative of 5 i think (regardless its higher than orcs) so they always strike first unless the orcs have special weapons.

On the original topic, Brawler and Scout both make excellet chain sword fighters. I'm playing a scout now and they get strength, weaponskill and stealth cheap. Then they get amazing ambush ability. They also, as scouting guys, get perception and awareness cheap...so it's hard for opponents to sneak up on them.

On the nature of eldar vs orks, i know nothing about either really, as i'm a player and not a GM and i prefer it that way.

I really want to know what the best ranged chainsword role is...

Joking aside, how awesome would a chainsword-a-pult be?