Which is better for melee, chainswords or lightssabers?

[Stark]

I'm not sure if the books etc talk about how its driven, but you can see from pictures



that anyone using it improperly (or hitting something they're not ready for or of strange composition) will almost certainly run into problems. I guess if it's electric it can't be stalled, but that might just mean it's easy to jam/break/have it pulled out of your hand/etc.

[adam_grif]

Yeah, lightsabers are better, but both are stupid as weapons anyway. Lightsabers require a magical plot device to be even remotely effective on any kind of battlefield, even in-universe where the blaster bolts move slow enough to be deflected by swinging a sword at them. Chainswords don't even have that going for them, and their weaknesses have already been addressed above.

I'd rather have a lightsaber, because at least it's useful as a tool, if not all that much as a weapon.

[Stark]

What are you talking about? We're talking about swords. Deflecting bullets is a side issue, and the force is hardly a 'magical plot device' in Star Wars.

[Starglider]

Can you open foot-thick blast doors with a fucking chainsaw?

Yes. Space Marines have done it.

No, you can't. The armor penetration on a chainsword is pretty limited and in the games where 'cutting through a bulkhead' is a specific action, the chainsword couldn't do it. The tool used for that job is a chain fist, which is a different weapon entirely. Specifically it is a heavy duty short blade chainsaw with an integral power field generator, and it has ridiculously high armor penetration. However it is far too unwieldy to be an effective weapon in a duel.

[adam_grif]

What are you talking about? We're talking about swords. Deflecting bullets is a side issue, and the force is hardly a 'magical plot device' in Star Wars.

Yeah, I already said that Lightsabers were better for that. And are you saying that the force isn't magical, or that it isn't a plot device? Because other than giving the Jedi their magical powers, that's all it does.

[Shroom Man 777]

Lightsaber cuts through chainsword. Chainsword melts. Lightsaber man stabs chainsword man in the face. Chainsword man dies. The end?

[Lord of the Abyss]

In fact, plate the chainsword with that cortosis stuff and the contest just got more even.

Err-how? You can now block a lightsaber with a chainsword. That makes the chainsword a competitive melee weapon-how, exactly?

Not to assume I know what Lord of the Abyss is thinking, but I understood it as making a situation of two weapons that can parry and such without one being sliced to pieces with minimal effort.
Not even, but more even as was said.

Yes, that's what I meant. It's not much of a fight if your weapon gets turned to scrap two seconds in.

[Oskuro]

GW doesn't know how chainsaws work

But Lucasfilm certainly knows how energy beams work? Ooooops!

Firstly, I agree with Connor's analysis. A weapon's worth depends heavily on what you use it for. If you want a weapon to terrorize your opponents with, go chainsword; If you want a lightweight concealable weapon, go lightsaber; If you want a duel weapon, go flamethrower! Errrr, I mean, lightsaber. Yes.

One thing I'm thinking, though, is that the chainsword is supposed to be wielded by a massive Space Marine with power armor (or an Ork), isn't it? So considerations regarding the use of said weapon have to account for the wielder or its gear, thus meaning that this scenario is even more retarded. Unless you have Jedi in power armour (or Vader) with specially designed chain-lightsabers the size of a surf board (or four lightsabers, two of them spinning like crazy).

[Shroom Man 777]

Normal humans like Ciaphas Cain can use chainswords. They're the standard melee weapon for commissars.

[Oskuro]

I see. I thought regular humans used regular swords. Oh well, can't expect much sense from the "Drive the tank closer to the enemy so I can hit them with my sword" universe.

[Serafina]

Well, let's take a number of situations and criteria:

-Stealth: The lightsaber is clearly superior - it's small and quite silent
-Weight: The lightsaber is clearly lighter
-Utility: A lightsaber is clearly better for cutting trough doors etc.
-Unarmed opponent: Both are pretty lethal and can cut straight trough. A chainsword-hit on a limb etc. might be more lethal due to blood loss.
-Armored opponent: Chainswords can cut trough, but the lightsaber needs much less effort
-Parrying: The chainsaw throws enemy weapons out of the way due to it's rotating teeth. However, the lightsaber will cut trough them, which is clearly superior.

Well - chainsword vs lightsaber pretty much goes to the lightsaber in all but possibly one aspect.

However, why don't we take a more equal comparision?
40K has an abundance of power weapons.
A power sword is in all aspects equal to a lightsaber, except that it is bigger (but that also reduces the amount of necessary skill and offers a handguard). However, 40K actually has pure-energy blades. They are pretty much considered playthings - they are quite lethal, but they simply require more energy and offer few advantages over a powersword.

Oh, and FYI, there are normal swords that are capable of withstanding 40K-powerfields. It seems logical that they could therefore also resists lightsabers.

[Crazedwraith]

Serafina: the words is through with a H for future reference.

As to stealth; lightsabers are not silent. They also glow quite a bit so the idea they are stealthy is pretty silly. Alright, you are actually arguing they are simply more stealthy than a chainsword but still.

[John Chris]

Serafina: the words is through with a H for future reference.

As to stealth; lightsabers are not silent. They also glow quite a bit so the idea they are stealthy is pretty silly. Alright, you are actually arguing they are simply more stealthy than a chainsword but still.

Only if you ignite them do they glow and make noise. Otherwise, they're quite stealthy as it is, seeing as it could be mistaken for an mechanic's tool pretty easily.

[Rossum]

Lightsabers win in a fight due to them regularly being shown to cut through solid metal easily. Battle Droids, doors, support beams, and huge chunks of machinery being thrown at your head with the Force. They can also deflect Blaster shots if the user has the skills to do so (heck, even without the skill needed they could provide better protection than nothing).

In a Lightsaber vs Chainsword fight the saber would cut right through the chainsword as easily as they cut through Battle droids (which is like cutting warm butter with red-hot meat cleaver), battle droids were supposedly built with at least a little armor to protect their internal components from damage and they go down in less than a second. Even if a chainsword is made up of some sort of super metal that is stronger than battle droid armor then its going to take less than two seconds of contact to cut it in half just by parrying.

Plus, while lightsabers do emit light and noise, a chainsword would be loud as heck and announce your presence to everyone who isn't completely deaf.

In combat... a chainsword might have the advantage of not cauterizing wounds and leaving bloody wounds for damage but lightsabers can just whack right through a persons torso with about the same effort as going for a limb.

Plus, Necrons and droids don't bleed and are made out of metal. Chainswords one advantage of leaving bloody wounds would be useless and it can't be easy to try and saw your way though enemies made out of metal.


A jedi might have trouble if they went up against a suitably huge group of imperial guardsmen armed with lasguns (or better yet guns that shoot bullets). I'm not 100% sure on how lasguns would compare with blasters but I think they emit a single solid beam which would make deflecting 'blaster bolts' harder. Soak the Jedis area with a dozens of distinct continuous beams of energy and they can't deflect them all.

But, the Jedi could just jump into melee and start whacking off heads and limbs so yeah.

[LordOfWolves]

I agree with the whole "lightsabers are more stealthy than chainswords" argument, but there's a problem here:

If I want to use my lightsaber, I must activate it, which could take about five seconds (or less) for it to reach full length. If I were to use my chainsword, all I have to do is depress the starter-handle-thingy and start swinging, trying to hit my opponent because the whirring-steel-teeth-of-nasty-cutting-death are about to do their job.

[Srelex]

I agree with the whole "lightsabers are more stealthy than chainswords" argument, but there's a problem here:

If I want to use my lightsaber, I must activate it, which could take about five seconds (or less) for it to reach full length. If I were to use my chainsword, all I have to do is depress the starter-handle-thingy and start swinging, trying to hit my opponent because the whirring-steel-teeth-of-nasty-cutting-death are about to do their job.

Uh, no. A lightsaber takes about a second to ignite, whereas chainswords would need a moment to spin up.

[Ghost Rider]

I agree with the whole "lightsabers are more stealthy than chainswords" argument, but there's a problem here:

If I want to use my lightsaber, I must activate it, which could take about five seconds (or less) for it to reach full length. If I were to use my chainsword, all I have to do is depress the starter-handle-thingy and start swinging, trying to hit my opponent because the whirring-steel-teeth-of-nasty-cutting-death are about to do their job.

When the fuck...ever in canon or EU has a lightsaber taken that long to ignite or you're just using the five seconds as some number you pulled straight from your ass? And yes, I want something to back up that the Chainsword motor is 2-3 second speed since this is your arguement.

This is one of the dumber fucking points given you are massively skewing one and not displaying the reasoning for the other.

[Stark]

Does anyone know how chainswords are driven? I'd assume electic, but it's 40k so who knows, and if it's some kind of mechanical drive there's no way it's going to be 'ready to go' at a moment's notice. Even direct electric is going to need to speed up.

But hey, the practicality of using a heavy chainsaw with variable speeds effectively in combat is pretty awful anyway. If only chainsaws effortlessly chopped through things like in the art? Good thing lightsabres do, I guess.

[Sinewmire]

Those of you asking for a power weapon/power sword vs Lightsaber duel...well, the chainsword is more iconic to a degree.

I'd hotly dispute that. Lightsabers are one of the most recognisable iconic items from Star Wars, especially the sound effects.

The only real advantages I can see the chainsword having over a Lightsaber is it's stopping power/mass which can be used to hurl enemies back, it's intimidating factor - a loud, angry brutal weapon, and of course that it's relatively cheap to make, especially compared to a Lightsaber which only a Jedi or at least Force Sensitive can make, if I'm not mistaken.

[Batman]

Those of you asking for a power weapon/power sword vs Lightsaber duel...well, the chainsword is more iconic to a degree.

I'd hotly dispute that. Lightsabers are one of the most recognisable iconic items from Star Wars, especially the sound effects.

I very much assume he meant more iconic FOR WH40K

[harbringer]

In a small number of the 40k books a chainsword is said to emit smoke and sound like a chain saw I haven't got page numbers etc handy as this wasn't a topic I ever imagined being debated. Now im not completely sure how reliable some of the 40k authors are seen to be (ie. documentary evidence as compared to tabloid reporting) but if anyone knows of a conflict with this I hope you will let me know.

[Connor MacLeod]

Except lightsabres are lighter, smaller, cut without as much force, don't make you deaf, are longer when extended, etc I guess?

I freely concede the first two points (too light, since the blade is effectively massless or near massless) but for the third: Ligthsabers basically cut without ANY significant force. In fact the only time force seems required is tied to the heating mechansim (EG the blast door, which may suggest friction or something) and it was hardly extensive. Lightsabers are almost totally thermal weapons (which has advantages, but also has some fairly significant drawbacks to it as well.) In fact its quite possible that swinging too hard is one reason for disparate effects (if you stick a lightsaber into something for a prolonged period it probably will transfer more energy to the target than if you are swinging through it in a fraction of a second. And the harder you swing, the faster it goes and the less time it spends in contact with the target in question.)

As far as "making oyu deaf" I've never run across evidence chainswords actually DO that, and I haven't exactly compared the lengths (since Chainsaws can vary as can lightsabers by design and length and whatnot.)

Cutting giant doors is just an example of lightsaber capability; obviously it's meaningless in a swordfight. But this guy is talking about preferring the chainsword for some reason, and there are obvious reasons to prefer the saber (not least the ability to tape it to your gun and use it as a megabayo).

As I said, it depends on what you use them for. As I noted in my analysis, a Chainsword has some significant drawbacks to it. As I said myself, I would rather be hit by a lightsaber (cauterization and for the most part I probably won't lose a limb) instead of a chainsword.

The hypocrisy of complaining about power use for lightsabres is laughable. I'm going out on a limb and saying that a fucking battery powered chainsaw might have a larger problem there, and it might be pretty bad depending on how it's gears/electric drive/etc.

And you base this conclusion on what? I'm actually curious, since you seem to have access to evidence or sources I either have forgotten or do not have. **

GW doesn't know how chainsaws work

We're talking about a fucking melee laser vs a fucking one handed chainsaw. I'm pretty sure "intelligence" isn't a driving motivation here. Besides which, if we start invoking "Authors don't know..." we're basically breaking SoD and this debate becomes irrelvant because nothing works like it ought to.

Does anyone know how chainswords are driven? I'd assume electic, but it's 40k so who knows, and if it's some kind of mechanical drive there's no way it's going to be 'ready to go' at a moment's notice. Even direct electric is going to need to speed up.

Probably electric. As I recall they either run off batteries or a built in powerplant.

Normal humans like Ciaphas Cain can use chainswords. They're the standard melee weapon for commissars.

I dont think we can consider Cain (and probably Commissars by extnesion) "Normal humans". Cain can fucking duel with CSMs (however briefly.) even when you include the Jurgen Effect.

[Ryan Thunder]

"Jurgen Effect"?

[Korgeta]

An unusal topic, obviously lightsabers are the prefered weapon, however whilst wielding a lightsaber would give someone a high level of confidence in that their wielding something remarkably advance. The person wielding the lightsaber would have to be either a 'trained jedi' or someone not easily intimidated. One factor a chainsaw does have that it is a very intimdating weapon, perhaps more so then the lightsaber, with a chainsaw you get the noise and that anything it cuts just goes about anywhere. It's a very messy weapon, and whilst in star wars characters like obi-wan recived wounds by dooku in the clone wars, with a chainsaw there is no surgical precsion, flesh will be ripped and you'll be at risk of signficant blood loss. Of course you move slower with a chainsaw then you do with a lightsaber, as a lightsaber is effectively weightless.

However a conflict with the two blades won't go well for both users, the lightsaber would slice it off but it would result in seeing the cutting chain just going everywhere as molten or not. Sufficent force has to be applied in wielding a chainsaw for an effective cut. (Ironically chainsaws don't need much force themselves to make a deadly cut)

Lightsabers don't cut through everything in one go other then the issue of how much strength has to be applied to make a effective cut there is the matter of what te chansaw could be made of, for example Beskar is a SW metal that hinders a swift cut nor as you have to wear a lot of protective clothing to use a chainsaw would mean that person would be armoured, perhaps with Beskar as well. Now if a chainsaw was to be made out of that or if someone wore beskar armor then that could cause a few problems. Though as the wielder of the lightsaber would have greater movement (and is brave enough) he could strike a flesh wound on the arm and leg of the attacker greatly crippling his chance to use the weapon. Though if a jedi was struck with a chainsaw then it would be almost fatal.

[NecronLord]

On the topic of noise; why are we assuming this is an Imperial chain-blade? Eldar examples are generally described as running near-silently. They may have invented the weapon, and certainly make the best examples.

However, 40K actually has pure-energy blades. They are pretty much considered playthings - they are quite lethal, but they simply require more energy and offer few advantages over a powersword.

What?

Wherever did you get this idea. Energy blades are (in the Imperium) exceedingly valuable and rare weapons used by imperial agents. There are two known examples, one as a relic of the Golden Age of Technology in the original Chem-Dogs writeup, and the other the Sollex pattern energy blade produced in the Calixis sector by a mechanicus order devoted to understanding the laser, and based on technology reclaimed during the Angevin Crusade. They are rare and expensive.

The Eldar (who must possess the technology, as their knowledge of lasers exceeds the Imperium's by far) may not deem them fit for full scale battlefield deployment but that may be for a number of other reasons.