Warhammer 40,000: Mechanicus – Melee Weapon Stats

by Falagar / Articles, Warhammer / 29 Nov 2018

Although they fit into several different equipment slots, these count as melee weapons for the Explorator and Dominus top-level abilities. All weapons have a 10% critical chance as a base, modified by equipment and skills.

Melee Weapon Stats

Power Axe, Tier 1

Slot: Melee Weapon

CP cost: 1

Range: Adjacent target

Damage: 3-5 Physical

Machine Spirit: 1 use to charge, hit destroys 1 Energy Armour and 1 Physical Armour

Aug Slots: 1

Special: Triggers opportunity attacks

Power Axe, Tier 2

Slot: Melee Weapon

CP cost: 1

Range: Adjacent target

Damage: 5-7 Physical

Machine Spirit: 1 use to charge, hit destroys 2 Energy Armour and 2 Physical Armour

Aug Slots: 2

Special: Triggers opportunity attacks

Power Axe, Tier 3

Slot: Melee Weapon

CP cost: 1

Range: Adjacent target

Damage: 7-9 Physical

Machine Spirit: 1 use to charge, hit destroys 3 Energy Armour and 3 Physical Armour

Aug Slots: 3

Special: Triggers opportunity attacks

Power Axes are your basic melee weapon, and at the very beginning of the game, are one of your best sources of damage. Enemies that don’t have melee attacks will need to move out of melee reach to shoot, so positioning yourself in melee with an enemy will let you hit them with the power axe once, plus a free attack during the enemy turn when they try to move away.

You only get one opportunity attack from the end of a TechPriest’s turn until the start of that same TechPriest’s next turn, so be mindful of your positioning and initiative order (which you can see at the top of the screen) to ensure that your free attacks land on the targets you want them to. Unless you’re going with a Dominus build that entirely eschews ranged weapons, you’ll want most of your TechPriests to carry at least a basic Power Axe if they can spare the augmentation slot. Note that opportunity attacks don’t cost CP to use.

Omnissian Axe, Tier 1

Slot: Melee Weapon

CP cost: 1

Range: Adjacent target

Damage: 2-4 Physical

Machine Spirit: 1 use to charge, hit immobilizes the target for one turn

Aug Slots: 1

Special: Triggers opportunity attacks

Omnissian Axe, Tier 2

Slot: Melee Weapon

CP cost: 1

Range: Adjacent target

Damage: 4-6 Physical

Machine Spirit: 1 use to charge, hit immobilizes the target for one turn

Aug Slots: 2

Special: Triggers opportunity attacks

Omnissian Axe, Tier 3

Slot: Melee Weapon

CP cost: 1

Range: Adjacent target

Damage: 6-8 Physical

Machine Spirit: 1 use to charge, hit immobilizes the target for one turn

Aug Slots: 3

Special: Triggers opportunity attacks

The Omnissian Axes are usually given as a mission reward. They deal 1 point less damage than the power axe, and instead of shredding some armor, they will immobilize the target for the remainder of the turn. The same advice on positioning and opportunity attacks with Power Axes applies to the Omnissian Axe as well, with the additional concern that your immobilization effect only occurs on every other attack due to needing to charge up the Machine Spirit. Take note of this when choosing where to place your attack, as an immobilized target can’t attempt to move out of melee reach and provoke an opportunity attack.

If the machine spirit isn’t charged, you’ll probably want to attack the target you wish to immobilize to charge it up so that the opportunity attack will immobilize it, while if the machine spirit is already charged up, you might want to forgo your attack to avoid killing the target if you’re using that target as cover from ranged attacks and might kill it with the first hit. Note that opportunity attacks don’t cost CP to use.

Infestus Mechadendrite, Tier 1

Slot: Mechadendrite

CP cost: 0

Range: Adjacent target

Damage: 2 Physical

Machine Spirit: None

Aug Slots: 1

Special: Pushes the target back 1 space.

Infestus Mechadendrite, Tier 2

Slot: Mechadendrite

CP cost: 0

Range: Adjacent target

Damage: 4 Physical

Machine Spirit: None

Aug Slots: 2

Special: Pushes the target back 1 space.

Infestus Mechadendrite, Tier 3

Slot: Mechadendrite

CP cost: 0

Range: Adjacent target

Damage: 6 Physical

Machine Spirit: None

Aug Slots: 3

Special: Pushes the target back 1 space.

Infestus Mechadendrites have a couple of significant uses. They use up a Mechadendrite slot instead of a melee slot, allowing you to supplement how many attack actions you can take in a turn. Since they also have no cost and no cooldown, this makes them useful for a free poke to finish off a downed Necron and prevent reanimation. Also, they’re useful for pushing a target away to avoid suffering an opportunity attack when you move out of reach or circle enemies to push them into more advantageous positions. Currently, there seems to be an irregular bug that pushing an enemy along certain stairs may push them at an angle instead of straight back or fail to push them at all.

Large enemies (destroyers, Spyders, Agrolehk) cannot be pushed back. As of patch 1.06, these do deal damage to destroyers and Necron panels properly (1.05 and earlier had a bug that prevented them from doing damage to something that couldn’t be pushed). It’s generally worth it to have at least one Infestus on most of your TechPriests up until mid-game just for the push effect and the free hit to finish off a downed Necron, but they become less relevant in late-game.

Arc Scourge

Slot: Ranged Weapon

CP Cost: 3

Range: 2.5m (which is effectively 2m with a rounding error)

Damage: 3-10 Energy

Machine Spirit: 1 use to charge, attack costs no CP

Aug Slots: 1

Special: Hit chains to other targets within about 2m, dealing 3-6 energy damage to each

The Arc Scourge is a special weapon offered for purchasing the Omnissiah Edition of the game, is available at the beginning of the game after completing the tutorial, and occupies a unique niche. It’s the only melee weapon to use a ranged weapon slot, the only melee weapon to hit multiple targets, the only melee weapon to hit targets further away than the adjacent space, and seems to be the only weapon that can hit multiple targets but doesn’t cause damage from friendly fire. It’s also the highest damage weapon that only uses 1 augmentation slot, though that comes with the drawback of being the highest CP cost weapon in the early game. In the very early game, the high CP cost makes it much less useful than it would appear, though the Cognition Freedom ability for Tech-Auxilium 1 makes it one of the best options for the first half of the game.

Because it only takes one use to charge up the machine spirit, and the machine spirit effect is that the attack won’t cost any CP, that effectively means that combined with Cognition Freedom; you can fire it at no cost for 2 out of every three turns. With that combination, the early game is drastically easier, which feels a bit like an unfair advantage for those who’ve purchased the Omnissiah edition. By late game, the effectiveness of the Arc Scourge drops off, but it remains a solid weapon through about 60% of the game. Note that because it deals Energy damage, it doesn’t synergize that well with an all-melee explorator, despite counting as a melee weapon. Still, it can be used to provide a bit of variety of damage types to a class that is otherwise purely physical damage.

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Falagar

He is the founder and editor of Magic Game World. He loved gaming from the moment he got a PlayStation 1 with Gran Turismo on his 7th birthday.
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