Chainaxe

Lore & history

Whereas a chainsword can still be used by a disciplined duellist to parry and thrust, the chainaxe is a weapon of pure, unbridled offensive savagery. Top-heavy, wedged and roaring like a starved predator, a chainaxe is built for one purpose alone: to be brought down with two-handed or servo-driven fury onto the helm, collarbone or shield of an enemy until armour cracks and heads roll in the dirt. For ten thousand years, the screaming chorus of revving chainaxes has been the unmistakable signature of the World Eaters Legion and the blood-mad Khorne Berzerkers who follow in the wake of the Red Angel.

During the early Great Crusade, before their reunion with Angron on Nuceria, the Twelfth Legion—then called the War Hounds—already favoured heavy boarding axes for close-quarters ship actions. Once Angron took command and had the Butcher's Nails cortical implants hammered into the brains of his sons, the Phobos-pattern and Barbarus-pattern chainaxes became the universal obsession of the World Eaters. Loyalist Chapters after the Horus Heresy largely abandoned the chainaxe as an undisciplined, overly brutal weapon tainted by its association with the Arch-Traitor's butchers—with only rare exceptions such as the Flesh Tearers or Space Wolves retaining comparable patterns.

Within the Eye of Terror and the Maelstrom, however, every Khorne Berzerker treats his roaring chainaxe as an altar to the Blood God, chaining its haft directly to his vambrace in the ancient gladiator custom of Nuceria.

Design, mechanism & battlefield effect

A chainaxe concentrates its mass at the end of a reinforced iron or adamantium haft in a broad, bearded axe-head. Instead of a solid steel wedge, the curved striking edge of the axe-head—and on many Chaos patterns, both sides of a double-bitted head—houses a high-torque promethium or micro-reactor motor that drives a continuous chain of hooked tungsten-carbide, adamantium or beast-fang teeth around the perimeter.

Because the weight of the motor and housing sits at the far end of the lever arm, a downward chop from a chainaxe lands with the bone-crushing kinetic impact of a maul even before the teeth bite. The instant the edge strikes ceramite or carapace plate, the spinning teeth catch on the dented metal and chew straight through the fracture line, turning a glancing blow into a fatal dismemberment.

Chaos Space Marines frequently strip away the safety cowls and tooth-guards used on Imperial chain-weapons so that the exposed track can rip wider, more ragged wounds and fling a blinding spray of blood across the brass skull-icons of their armour.

Patterns, variants & doctrine

Across the Traitor Legions and Khorne daemonkin warbands, chainaxes range from one-handed Phobos-pattern boarding axes to massive two-handed Berzerker Glaives and Heavy Chainaxes. In the Era Indomitus, Khorne Berzerker squads commonly pair standard Berzerker Chainblades with huge two-handed Khornate Eviscerators—oversized chainaxes and chainswords fitted with crude disruption fields that can cleave a Space Marine Dreadnought's leg in two.

Even more terrifying are the mutated lacerators and heavy chainaxes carried by the Eightbound—World Eaters warriors who have survived possession by eight Daemons of Khorne within the Bloodfane—whose chain-weapons fuse directly with their swollen, brass-veined forearms.

Notable patterns & relic examples

• Khorne Berzerker Chainaxe: The iconic one-handed and two-handed roaring war-axe of the World Eaters XII Legion.
• Khornate Eviscerator & Heavy Chainaxe: Massive two-handed chainaxes augmented with disruption fields to split Terminator plate and light vehicles.
• Eightbound Lacerators & Heavy Chainglaives: Warp-fused chain-axes wielded by the possessed Eightbound of Angron's host.
• Gorechild & Gorefather: The twin Primarch-forged mica-dragon-toothed chainaxes of Angron and Khârn the Betrayer.

Wielded & Fielded By

Characters (7)

• 
  Khârn the Betrayer · Champion of Khorne
• 
  Angron · Primarch of the World Eaters, the Red Angel
• 
  Huron Blackheart · Tyrant of Badab, Master of the Red Corsairs
• 
  Konrad Curze · Primarch of the Night Lords, the Night Haunter
• 
  Astorath the Grim · High Chaplain of the Blood Angels, Redeemer of the Lost
• 
  Skarbrand · The Exiled One
• 
  Khorne · Chaos God of Blood, War and Martial Honour; the Blood God

Related weapons & vehicles

Guardian SpearChainswordPower FistPower SwordThunder HammerPlague Knife & BaleswordSonic Blaster & BlastmasterBlade of the Laer

Primary Faction

Heretic Astartes (Chaos Space Marines)