Alright, I was willing to not bring this up or make it an issue because there were no real-life chainswords to prove it either way. That time has passed though, and a real, functioning Warhammer 40k chainsword has been constructed in real life. View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5gj8pAN7Y7E As such, I can no longer stay silent on this. The depiction of chainsword attacks, in every WH40k video game, that has ever existed, has been totally, thoroughly, and completely wrong in every detail imaginable. The situation in 40k lore that resulted in the invention of chainswords during the Imperium's biggest expansion around the 30th millennium had the Imperium's main foe being Orks. Orks, as we all know, are large, incredibly tough, resilient melee monsters. The Imperium required specialized weaponry to deal with the Orks, resulting in the invention of the Bolter and the Chainsword. The bolter's purpose was to inflict massive, massive damage with every hit, requiring large-caliber explosive rounds. The chainsword's purpose was to fend off Orks that made it to melee combat. This required a weapon that could hold an Ork at bay while still killing them. An ordinary power weapon would simply slice through, it would not stop an Ork who was able to psychologically ignore the injury. They needed instead something that could be held against an Ork's body, physically preventing them from moving forward, while dealing massive damage constantly without requiring moving the blade away. The chainsword is such a weapon. The spinning blades deal constant damage, and the heavy, durable construction can hold back an Ork. However, the combat animations for chainswords in all 40k games have depicted these weapons as slashing weapons like an ordinary longsword. Nothing could be further from the truth regarding a chainsword. You absolutely do not slash enemies quickly with a chainsword, for the same reason you don't slash a piece of lumber quickly with a chainsaw. Instead, you press the blade against the foe as much as possible, so the spinning teeth can keep dealing damage. The longer you sustain contact between blades and enemy, the more damage you deal. Slashing does not, in any way, improve the damage deal by the weapon. Slashing is the worst fashion imaginable to use a chainsword. For proof, examine the weapon demonstration in the video provided. It's toward the end. All of the objects cut apart by the blades required pressing it firmly against them, and continuing to press the blade against them until the teeth saw their way through. Not a single demonstration involves any sort of slashing, though admittedly doing so in real life would be an incredible danger to the person wielding it. Which is also part of the point. These things are not only wielded by Space Marines in six inch thick metal power armor that might take the damage with some scratches or gouges, they are wielded by, Imperial Guard, Chaos Cultists, Orks in general, and all sorts of different beings whose armor could not take a hit from something like a chainsword. Proper chainsword fighting techniques are completely different from those depicted in Eternal Crusade, and really all 40k video games to have ever existed, and likely a fair amount of the artwork. Treat their animations as though the wielder were holding a one-handed chainsaw as a weapon, not a longsword.
My point wasn't at all that the weapon is bad. For what it's supposed to do, the chainsword is pretty much perfect, with the only imaginable upgrades being technological improvements to the individual parts and dimensions of the weapon. As a concept, it is perfect for what it does. But it is being used very, very improperly.
@Pouncey I seriously doubt, that if the devs can't fix texture problems with night lord armor, or fix the very powerful Orc melee weapon. I doubt they would go to all of the effort to change the melee animation or changing the screwed up melee system by making the chain sword do damage the longer it is held against a target. Sure neat observation, but it's ultimately redundant when they're actual problems need fixing.
You make a good point in terms of lore accuracy, but were the devs to do chain-sword combat right, melee would turn into quick-time based shoving matches where the fastest button masher would decide who lives and who dies. The Melee system would become even more idiotically simple than it already is now, i mean there's an auto-aim function for locking onto your target in melee for crying out loud. This sadly, would serve more to the games detriment I think, than to it's benefit.
Actually, I don't think that two chainsword wielders would really be able to have a duel of any sort. It would be kinda like two people with chainsaws both trying to fight to the death. Attacking with your own weapon would require you leave yourself vulnerable to the enemy as you are unable to defend yourself while attacking. Also, well, double-sided chainswords like what some Chaos guys use would be quite pointless.
Lol what the fu-... what's with your signature? I can't stop giggling at this. We're just going to imagine that in the far future, they invented a way to make extremely sharp and extremely fast+resilient chainsaws that can cut as fast as a man can swing a sword. So that whenever anyone dead locks, they'd just bounce against each other.
To be honest, chainswords have always been a bit iffy. Not helped is that in order to, y'know, keep cutting you'd need sloping on the guard, otherwise you'd reach the guard and either not be able to keep cutting or jam as gunk gets stuck between the guard and the blade casing. Striking Scorpion blades without the guard are probably not as safe but much more efficient in cutting devices. Either way, as much as a lore headache it is for functioning, I doubt it'll be changed cus let's face it- by now an Astartes throwing a chainsword around like a fancy ballerina's pretty damn iconic and could partly be handwaved with them being superhumans, thus they'd be able to 'force' the blade deeper faster and, with this being M41, the chainsaw motors and mechanics would be more rugged and robust allowing more RPM to compensate it. It's when you got Priests flailing about with Evicerators that stuff gets a bit headscratching.
