I recieved my copy of the new rules yesterday, and had a good flick through the whole thing, but something stood out to me, and it puzzles me why such an has occured.
As we now know. POWER weapons, and FORCE weapons have diffecret characters based of what the MODEL is equiped with, as per WYSIWYG rules. However, if you look closely, CHAIN weapons don't have this destinction. Why would this be?
Now onto why I mention Khorne Berzerkers specificlly. As per our kit, we can equip our Zerkers with Chain Axes. Now looking at the rules for Power and Force weapons, if Chain Axes followed the same characteristic convention, then they woul increase the Zerkers strength, while reducing his Initiative.
Can anyone think of why Chain-weapons aren't the same as Power and Force weapons?
Isnt a chain weapon essentially just a basic CCW? With the exception of the Fist of course.
As part of the Chain weapons entry of the Rulebok, it lists the Eviscerator, and another I can't remeber the name of.
I'm mostly puzzled over the fact that they've changed specilist weapons, but haven't changed how certain normal weapons act.
Granted, Axe Khorne Berzerkers, with the strength modifier, along with their Furious Charge? Holy hell, that would rip anything to shreds.
My gut instinct is that it's because whilst there are a large number of different power swords out there amongst the kits and a small, but appreciable, number of power axes (mostly amongst Space Wolves kits, but still), the only source of Chain Axes are the Khorne Berzerker kit.
Even with this throwback to 2nd Edition (of having multiple rules for different power weapons), it makes a lot of sense to homogenise the basic close combat weapon, especially since everyone comes with one for free (even if it's not listed in their unit entry, as per the rulebook).
I guess that makes sense.
Perhaps Chaos may get Chain Axes with unique rules in their next codex? I guess we'll wait.