Power Weapon Profiles

In the rush of beloved armchair theoryhammerists to get information out quickly after FAQ's or other releases, they are not able to provide the level of detailed analysis needed to make the right  choices for specific codices, especially one ours (because it's the best, right?).

Credit

Our Red Thirst blessings:

Deep within the psyche of every Blood Angel is a destructive yearning, a battle fury and blood-hunger that must be held in abeyance in every waking moment. Few Battle-Brothers can hold this Red Thirst in check unceasingly- it is far from unknown for Blood Angels to temporarily succumb to its lure at the height of battle.

Red Thirst provides the Fearless and Furious Charge rules to replace And They Shall Know No Fear. For today, we only want to look at the Furious Charge rules:

Furious Charge
In a turn in which a model with this special rule charges into combat, it adds +1 to its Strength characteristic until the end of the phase. A model that has made a disordered charge that turn receives no benefit from Furious Charge.

You will have to balance different kinds of reliabilities. Do you want to reliably strike, or do you reliably want to kill? Do you mix your weapon types up to provide balance to your squad or will you take one type and specialize?

A really durable unit like Death Company it might be advantageous to take Power axes because you have a good chance at surviving to strike at initiative one. However, your Sergeants might be interested in a Power sword, lance or maul to make sure they get a chance to swing at enemies.

Let's look again at the list if we are getting a Furious Charge off (remember, no multi-charges or you lose the bonus).

Power sword      S+1 AP3
Power axe          S+2 AP2 initiative one
Power maul        S+3 AP4 concussive
Power lance       S+2/User AP3/4

Looking at the To Wound Chart



we know it is just like our blessed bolters- Strength four is generally adequate and you need to be prepared to bring something stronger when the vile horde/xenos/traitor scum bring something tough.

Strength five and six are nice sweet spots to be hitting if you hitting at initiative and cutting through 3+ armour. That makes your regular Power sword a nice weapon to have if your enemy makes it to the second round. The Power lance really isn't enough of a buff to go back to AP4 for subsequent rounds when there is so much 3+ power armour running around. Taking a Power axe and Power maul are going to be for specific reasons which will be for a later post.