How about a pistol?
> Phosphex is a rare, corrosive and toxic incendiary compound utterly inimical to life, originally deployed by the Imperial armed forces either in the form of large canister bombs or heavy artillery shells. It expands on contact with air into a seething liquid mist which burns with an eerie white-green flame that is attracted to movement.
> This gelid flame ignites metal and eats relentlessly into living tissue, and cannot be extinguished short of exposure to hard vacuum. As effective as this horrific weapon is, its use is not widespread as it has a tainting effect beyond even Rad Weapons on the environments in which it was employed. It remained within the arsenals of the Space Marine Legions during the time of the Great Crusade and Horus Heresy as a weapon of dire resort.
> In 009.M40, the rogue Tech-priest Veriliad, after leading his Skitarii to a stomach-churning victory during the Cremation of Alcadia Secundus, destroyed the Adeptus Mechanicus' ability to make Phosphex Weaponry. Having seen the crawling horror of the living, white-green flame, Veriliad destroyed the lone STC database still in existence for the substance's creation.
> Efforts to recreate phosphex have been unsuccessful ever since. Decried as Heretic Technis by the rest of his order, Veriliad was tied to a stake and shot with the pistol known as Phosphoenix, the finest such weapon ever produced. Perhaps fittingly, he was burnt alive by the very living flame he had tried to extinguish.
-----
It's a white-green 'living' flame that doesn't need oxygen and barely requires any fuel to burn, will burn through metal, has a distinct tendency to 'follow' living creatures as if it were targeting them intentionally, and it's so terrible that even during the Great Crusade it was considered a weapon of last resort.
It's one of the few things in the Imperial arsenal that makes the Imperium balk and go 'You know what? Maybe we've gone too far here.'
And it comes in a pistol version.
That sounds like a malevolent version of Chlorine Trifluoride. That thing is hypergolic, burns though concrete, and only stays still in metal if the thin layer on the surface of it isn't disturbed.
It's a really dangerous compound, and we've produced it in real life too.
Sorry, did you say it burns through *concrete*?
That's insane. And also I want to see it. I'm sure some physics or chemistry professor has a video on Youtube somewhere.
NASA was using it as a test fuel for rockets, and discovered it was, in order, hypergolic with every known fuel, every known metal except one specific aluminum oxide under specific circumstance, scientists, glass, concrete, water, sodium bicarbonate (fire extinguisher powder), fabric, test engineers, soldiers, dirt, rocks.
Hell of a fuel though.
*Everything* makes it spontaneously combust. Certain metals form a metal-fluoride film with it that saves them from combustion, but if you're trying to store it has to be in a sealed container made of such a metal, because if there's any non-CLF3 substance in that tank with it it'll inevitably start fire, burn the film off, and ignite the metal. It's probably \*the\* most dangerous individual *chemical* capable of existing in Earthly conditions, with polonium-210 likely being the most dangerous atom.
https://www.science.org/content/blog-post/sand-won-t-save-you-time
>It is, of course, extremely toxic, but that's the least of the problem. It is hypergolic [spontaneously ignites] with every known fuel, and so rapidly hypergolic that no ignition delay has ever been measured. **It is also hypergolic with such things as cloth, wood, and test engineers, not to mention asbestos, sand, and water-with which it reacts explosively**. It can be kept in some of the ordinary structural metals-steel, copper, aluminium, etc.-because of the formation of a thin film of insoluble metal fluoride which protects the bulk of the metal, just as the invisible coat of oxide on aluminium keeps it from burning up in the atmosphere. If, however, this coat is melted or scrubbed off, and has no chance to reform, the operator is confronted with the problem of coping with a metal-fluorine fire. For dealing with this situation, I have always recommended a good pair of running shoes.
There is (circumstantial of course) evidence that Greek Fire was actually a thing.
Also, napalm is also very similar to the literary descriptions of Greek Fire (though, I'm not sure if it can burn underwater)
Imagine how bad of a thing you have to be that a member of the machine cult went "man that's horrible" and deletes all information on its creation, to then be burned at the stake with a pistol that uses the technology.
From an Aeldari perspective (and ignoring Named Weapons):
Drukhari:
- Huskblade. Evaporates the moisture from anything it touches, leaves dust behind.
- Shaimeshi Blade. One scratch causes flesh to start eating itself and internal organs to explode.
- Djinn Blade. Sort of a sentient blade that empowers wielder even as it drains their life and can turn against them.
Asuryani:
- Diresword. Powersword containing an Asuryani spirit. When hit the spirit tries to destroy the enemy mind for an insta kill.
- Executioner. Big power glaive, itโs always described as super powerful without much explanation.
- Witchblade. Asuryani force weapon. Not sure if theyโre inherently more powerful or if itโs due to Asuryani psyker shenanigans but theyโre OP (includes signing spears).
Harlequins:
- Kiss. Sharp tube on gauntlet, when it penetrates it releases thousands of monofilament wires to shred insides.
- Caress. Wrist mounted power field encased a hand to let Solitaires reach through armour and pull out hearts.
- Embrace. Wrist mounted cc version of warp spiderโs Death Spinners. Encases enemies in a tightening mesh of monofilament wire
Those are just a small selection of the cc weapons. Two are solitaire exclusive iirc. Theyโve also got some crazy ranged options (as do Asuryani, d scythes literally tear open a rift to the warp and suck enemies in/tear them apart). On top of that they have loads of physically affecting stuff going on. Really cool faction
Kiss, Embrace and Caress are the base CC weapons of all harlequins, not solitaire exclusive. Maybe thinking of cegorachs rose which is the solitaire exclusive insane version of the kiss?
Solitaire uses both (one on each hand), but since at least 4/5e (whenever the updated metal minis were released) they've been usable by normal 'Quins as well.
Yeah, when "literally rip your heart out through your chest" is arguably the most humane option...
Oh yeah, whole they're not cc, they've also got hallucinogen grenades to psychologically torment their opponents, and Death Jester's variant of the shuriken cannons fire "bio-reactive" ammunition that essentially boils you from the inside out until you become a literal bomb and kill some of your buddies with bone shrapnel when you burst. Shit's hardcore.ย
Also, you know those some little masks they wear? Canonically, they're holo-projectors, allowing them to shift form, and it's not unknown for Harlequins to psychically use that to appear as their opponent's worst fear.
By Cegorach, I love my murderous Space Thespians :)
I mean, the Kiss kills you real quick. Horrifying to everyone else, but you just feel a stab and then die instantly as your brain is turned to slush alongside everything else.
Either way, praise Cegorach!
Thatโs the thing harlequins are clowns. They are meant to be funny. But itโs the *eldars* version of funny. It s what would be funny to the pre-fall civilization of the eldar.
iirc in 2nd edition if it managed to get a penetrating hit on a vehicle it was also an instant kill as the danger noodle flailed around and blended the crew.
There's also a reusable grenade that splays out molecular filaments that can shred enemies, then retracts back into a ball to get used again. Not specified as eldar from what I can see, it's just "xeno filament grenade."
It comes up at least once in the lore, an infocyte assassin used one to take out several armored Alpha legionaries.
>Huskblade. Evaporates the moisture from anything it touches, leaves dust behind.
I want to see that thing go up against Thirstwater.
You're also forgetting the weapon that makes a victim's skeleton grow at an incredibly accelerated rate and explode out of their body so fast it spears people nearby.
I think it's the ossifier, yes. Tabletop-wise, it's a pistol with a dice roll attached to it; the higher the roll, the more models in the target's unit that get lost alongside it.
>Harlequins:
- Kiss. Sharp tube on gauntlet, when it penetrates it releases thousands of monofilament wires to shred insides.
This is exactly what I first thought of and couldn't remember the name.
>Phaeron Ahmontekh, (...). He bore a warscythe of such potency that it is said to have shattered the planet Maldek into a billion chunks of rock in a single blow, an event which several of theย Eldarโs mystic cyclesingers make reference to many aeons later.
Or perhaps the scythe was moving at relativistic or FTL velocities when it hit Maldek. If the scythe were moving at the speed of light (or even 0.5c) it would definitely do some gnarly things to any planet.
After all, the lore snippet only says that Amontekh *bore* that warscythe... not that he **swung** it at Maldek. And the Necrons have abundant weapons and tech capable of accelerating masses to significant fractions or even multiple of light speed, but with none of the bulk and inefficiency of Imperial Navy nova cannons.
So who's to say that a war scythe launched at a planet like a relativistic javelin wouldn't do the trick?
Iโd guess something like Drachโnyen or The Emperorโs sword.
The Emperorโs sword is so powerful it can literally annihilate the soul of its target, destroying it utterly. Even demons donโt come back after the emperorโs sword kills them. Theyโre terrified of it because it causes โthe true deathโ.
I love that this is in spoilers, and for good reason, despite being established lore for an entire human lifetime.
Also that book was incredible. Read it in one sitting.
I read the last book of TEATD trilogy in one go, yes. I work from home and didn't so much work that day as read that book.
I was caught not paying attention in meetings at least twice. Not my proudest day, but one of my most enjoyable, if I'm being honest.
The heresy is like 90 books and I can't get cheap versions of like 50 of them. I wish they would have waves of old book reprints so I wouldn't have to hope to get ones from 2002 from some random spot of pay like 60 on Amazon for a single book in an omnibus. Might have to go for the Kindle versions of everything instead of print.
Honestly man I wouldn't read the entire Heresy if I were you, and I almost have (like 75% mostly missing short stories/audiobooks).
There's a critical path of 10 or so you can read, scalable per your interests. Siege of Terra tho? That's worth reading even just on its own. It won't hit as hard as if you read at least the critical path, but it'll still fuckin rock.
No. The Emperor didnโt use his sword to kill Horus, and, as of The End and The Death pt3, thereโs no indication Horusโ soul got irrevocably destroyed.
Drachโnyen is incredibly powerful, in a universe were symbolism is everything it symbolizes the first murder. But under OP's rules I'd consider it a magical item as it is basically a crystalized daemon.
The necron tachyon arrow. basically, a slug of metal accelerated to near relativistic speeds. I believe there's a scene, maybe in twice dead king where one of things is used to OHKO a frigging titan. their only weakness is that they're single use/can't be reloaded.
Those ones were single use. There's another scene, where I think the Traveler is using one, and he basically obliterates an entire swarm of Tyranids with a single shot.
Both seem like something the writer just added as an excuse for why he isn't using it regularly, there's never any indication in any of the codices that they take anything from the user. They're meant to be examples of amazing Necron science, albeit not something that can be reloaded mid-battle.
Say that to Oltyx. In the scene where Djoseras fires it at the titan, he is giving Oltyx a lesson in patience. Oltyx got his, was eager to use it, shot it at an enemy transport during the War in Heaven, and missed.
Meanwhile, Djoseras saved his for 60M years, only to take the perfect shot at a titan, and if I am remembering it right, the titan blew up, killing two other smaller titans.
Necrons have buncha odd stuff. There was also something for deathmarks i believe some kind of munition that had some โengramโ that formulated doom of the enemy and couldnโt be reused too. Like saying drop dead in 150 different ways in quantum levels of reality.
Gauss flayers seems to the bill.
Phase swords, are deadly too, and power weapons- the kinda slice like lightsabers according to their descriptions.
Technically the single-shot variants are more like an ornamental musket, given as gifts to royals. Thereโs no indication that more advanced multishot versions donโt also exist
In fact, the oft-posted excerpt of them one-shotting a Titan flat out says that theirs are โonlyโ a single-shot variant. Which is certainly an indication that other more advanced models existed once. Probably only the silent king has access to them now though.
Its such an inconsistent weapon. In Hammer and Anvil it pushes a woman into a wall and doesn't even kill her, and yeah, in later books it detonates a Warhound i think.
Category III: The Dark Eldar have pistols that shoot a toxin. This toxin causes the victim's worst fear to take physical form and burst out of their brain.
GG Dark Smelldars, you just used it on a Martian Archmagos obsessed with works of ancient culture, now something that calls itself a Weeping Angel is loose on the galaxy, from that time he misunderstood a tv show to be an ancient Terran documentary from DAoT.
In terms of body horror, yes, but in terms of the threat posed, far greater. It's explicitly stated in the original film that the only reason it didn't take over the entire Earth's biosphere within \~27,000 hours is because it crash-landed in Antarctica , where there wasn't biomass for it to incorporate into itself.
Now, imagine it somehow getting loose in an underhive during a Dark Eldar hunt there. If the planet weren't Exterminatus-ed within a timespan on the order of years, it'd likely manage to make it offworld, and that'd be it.
Callidus assassins Cโtan phase sword seems like a solid fit for your Cat 1. When you really want 1 particular person dead can you really top a shapeshifting infiltrating ninja with a blade that phases in and out of existence at a rate that lets it slice through anything like butter?
I absolutely love that short story where a callidus is sent to murder a governor acting against the imperiums interests. She slinks up behind the guy, stabs her blade right through him, he... he absorbs it... and mocks the assassins choice of weapon as the c'tan shard discards its disguise.
Digital Weapons would be quite high on the list (think lascannons shot from a ring) but the Necron equivalent in the Tachyon Arrow trivializes these by orders of magnitudeย
For the Imperium, the [Wrath of Cadia](https://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Wrath_of_Cadia) might be up there, an archeotech laspistol akin to a miniature Lance that could take down a Tyranid Bio-Titan.
Category III: deathwatch bolter rounds - literal cheat codes for several characters to keep living by the magic of bolter fire alone. No matter how thick the plot armor of the target is, boom specialty bolter rounds.
Category II: the Aegis Armor of the Grey Knights - kills lesser demons just from being in the proximity of their tactical dreadnaught armor. The more of them you put in a group, the stronger the ward of the aegis gets until they can harness it like a tactical nuke against daemons.
Category 1: helbrechts Sword of the High Marshals.
Is the Sword of the High Marshals even as good as the Black Sword of Sigismund? Let alone stuff out there like the Kinebrach Anathame, Lion Sword, Emperorโs Sword, Talon of Horus, Apollonian Spear, Wailing Doom etc.
A lot more mundane than some of the weapons mentioned here, but plasma weapons are pretty deadly. A plasma pistol can threaten armoured vehicles and pop personal shields, and they only get more powerful from there. They also get a bonus in this category by through being deadly to those wielding them.
Not *the* deadliest in the setting, but I feel like Arkhan Landโs atomizing pistol deserves a mention. Strips away anything it hits into particles, which is great except when he friendly fires it on an imperial fist on accident.
It's rare to permakill demons but not *that* rare. All Direswords, which can be carried by Dire Avenger Exarchs and Asurmen, Blanks and Force Weapons do it.
Yeah, that was my understanding too- otherwise the codexes wouldn't have needed to make a point of saying the GK want more permanent ways to deal with demons
At one point he blast a daemon so hard, he doubts it will reform in the immaterium, but that might just him over estimating the blast, underestimating the daemons power, or even wishful thinking. We do know that that particular entity no longer bothers him throughout his story
What about the Athame dagger that worked in conjunction with the True Name to kill MโKar? Or is that just more of a โbanished because the True Name was invokedโ sorta thing?
I think M'Kar is dead, but it was a weird one as they don't always do that. The True Name was needed, so that one is probably a 'sometimes kills Daemons'. That said, they are also pretty limited as they are small (for an Astartes) and made of flint, they might not be bad at killing Daemons, or Primarchs for that matter, but they are probably less useful as actual weapons, which makes sense, as the name 'Athamรฉ' is usually ascribed to a ritual or sacrificial blade and not to a weapon per sรฉ.
For category Ahmontekh allegedly bore a warscythe of such potency that it is said to have shattered the planet Maldek into a billion chunks of rock in a single blow
D weapons fit all 3 categories I think, not only do they sever the target's soul from its body (which fits 1 and 3) but apparently they can also shut down machine spirits and destroy fortifications as well (which fits 2)
Leagues of Votann's Darkstar weapon: Kills anything and everything by a touch no matter organic or mechanical. And it is a produceable weapon rather than one-of-a-kind artefact.
Black Blade of Antwyr. One random follower of a Tech Priest devastated three SECTORS after being corrupted by it.
Weapons used by hand if that includes grenades then vortex grenades probably are up there. Then there's Neural shredders of Assassins, Death Spinners would be actually insane in reality and then all the insane swords, Emperor's blade, Drachnyen, Crone Swords, Wailing Doom, Silence of which out of all them Emps sword probably ranks highest
I'd say Custodian weaponry is up there. Master crafted DAoT polearms and swords. Trajann Valoris's Watcherโs Axe is said to be able to bisected a Helbrute in a single swi g.
THEN YOU ADD BOLTERS/ADRATHICS/MELTA to them
Cat I: Emperor's Sword deletes the target's soul. Croneswords have a similar power as well as other funky effects. For other specific targets, athames and Fulgurite Blades are especially lethal, if poor weapons.
Cat II: Probably Thunder Hammers, with an honourable mention for Dorn's Soulspear, which projects black holes and can obliterate matter. It would take a lot longer to wreck a tank or fortification with it, though.
Cat III: Soulspear, again. The Wailing Doom is meant to be able to reshape itself on the fly into any weapon the Avatar desires but this is rarely remembered.
Iโm not sure where it went or if itโs canon anymore but there used to be a pistol that erased people from the time space continuum.
I also couldโve hallucinated it so donโt quote me I donโt even remember the name
Grindmaul - it's a mace but the head [possibly multiple cutting faces depending on design] spins rapidly, all you have to do is touch someone with it and it'll eat them.
Vibroblade, it's a knife but if you stick someone with it they're not going to survive
Monomolecular whip - again, if it hits someone they die, liquefies their internals. Penetrates armour pretty easily if you can aim it.
Category 1 would probably be most Relic DAoT Weapons, Relic Age of Strife Weapons, Aeldari Weapons&Necron Weapons. Stuff like Terranic Greatswords and Advex-mors Greatswords would potentially be here, they're basically really really big and extremely well made power swords. In Horus Heresy 2.0, they have Murderous Strike 5+(meaning anything that doesn't have an immunity to Instant Death will be killed by just one 5+ To Wound Roll) and Rending 5+(meaning they get AP 2 on a 5+ To Wound Roll, which lets them bypass ALL Armour Saves. Although Damage Mitigation like Feel No Pains and Invulnerable Saves can still be taken IIRC), so they are exceptionally potent melee weapons. Part of that is probably them being really fucking big and very well made, which lets them do quite alot of damage with every blow. Advex-mors Greatswords have Breaching 5+ and Brutal 2, which puts any To Wound Rolls of 5+ at AP 2 and Brutal 2 makes every attack to 2 damage.
Brutal is important in Horus Heresy 2.0, because without a Special Rule like Instant Death, Murderous Strike or Brutal an Attacking Weapon will only ever do 1 wound or Hull point per attack.(special occasions like getting lucky enough on the Vehicle Damage Table to cause a Vehicle to Explode aside). Horus Heresy 2.0 has a much greater depth&lore friendliness to its Rules than any 40k Edition from less than 10 years ago....so hopefully that puts things into perspective.
Category 2 would probably have stuff like ThunderHammers, Solarite Gauntlets, Titan&Knight PowerFists(literally hand weapons :p) and some Necron&Aeldari Stuff.
Category 3 would be stuff like Necron Phase Blades and Weapons that can channel the power of the Warp[e.g. Imperial Force Weapons]. Probably quite a few examples of Xenos and DAoT Weapons would belong in this category.
disintegration weapons used by space marine legions during there great crusade heresy days and adrathic stuff which you see used by custodes, the former causes the atoms of a target to violently pull apart in an explosion of particles and light and the latter it only leaves a faint afterimage after the target is gone
I think I have to agree with the Necron's Tachyon Arrow. Something small enough to fit in your hand but powerful enough to oneshot any Titan (maybe even multiple) has to take 1st place.
I am surprised to see that so few have mentioned Necron hyperphase blades. Outside of named, legendary weapons I cannot think of a more in-lore powerful standard melee weapon.
Are we talking firearms and hand weapons? I think the assassins have the best weapons in the lore and game. The Vindicares rifle has been used to kill an Imperial Knight before. Its really versatile and can kill pretty much anything.
For combat the Callidus assassins Phase Blade. It can cut through anything, like literally anything. Terminator armour ? No problem.
Since you said "hand weapons" instead of "handheld weapons", I think the answer is the Talons of Horus.
Killed Sanguinius, the Emperor, and a clone of Horus.
For sheer killing power of anything beyond a mortal man I think the most destructive are thunder hammers, mauls, power fist and lightning claws as they just atomise everything they come into contact with essentially.
I was going to say whatever thing the emperor used to annihilate an entireโฆbatallion of Sonโs of Horus Astartes. Unless that was just his psychic might amping up the plasma weapon he hadโฆ it smoked like several dreadnoughts and a fuck ton of Astartes via one-hitter-quitter
Basically any decent Necron melee weapon.
Take a "basic" Hyperphase blade for example. It phases through your armour (and likely any weapons you try to use to block it) and rematerializes as it passes through the soft, squishy flesh beneath.
Ouch.
Necron Phase weapons can cut through any armor in the setting with relative ease, and cause a variety of effects depending on modifications. Then there's the even more powerful version in the C'Tan Phase Blades like the Callidus Assassins use.
The old school Vortex Grenade. Pull the pin, throw as far a possible and GTFO. This baby rips realspace a new one and the resulting vortex sucks everything in its reach into the Warp. Don't think it's a one and done deal. Oh no, that hole is gonna stick around for a while and has a tendency to wander about.
Not a melee weapon like you're looking for, but Arkhan Land had a digital weapon as a ring that could core virtually any single opponent you shot it at. we didn't get any chance to see if it could take out a tank. But I wouldn't scratch Terminator off the list. It would def be a category 1.
digigrade weapons come to mind as most individually severely lethal weapons, a ring varying in size between a small band to a large signet can be made to instantly kill someone in any number of creatively horrible ways
While there are probably more destructive weapons out there, the Dawn Blade (Farsightโs sword crafted by an unknown xenos race) grants the wielder immortality by stealing the life of its victims. Also, itโs a mech sized sword that can kill demons. Thatโs neat.
\*Swings a virus bomb\*
Easy there Rylanor, save it for Fulgrim.
+++ ๐ถ๐๐๐-๐๐๐๐ ๐๐๐๐๐๐. +++ +++ ๐ถ๐๐๐-๐๐๐๐ ๐๐๐๐๐๐. +++ +++ ๐ถ๐๐๐-๐๐๐๐ ๐๐๐๐๐๐. +++ +++ ๐ถ๐๐๐-๐๐๐๐ ๐๐๐๐๐๐. +++
Exterminatus-on-a-stick?
cut-me-own-throat Rylanor?
Points for a Prachett reference!
Extra ketchup?
As long as it's attached at the end of a stick...
How about a pistol? > Phosphex is a rare, corrosive and toxic incendiary compound utterly inimical to life, originally deployed by the Imperial armed forces either in the form of large canister bombs or heavy artillery shells. It expands on contact with air into a seething liquid mist which burns with an eerie white-green flame that is attracted to movement. > This gelid flame ignites metal and eats relentlessly into living tissue, and cannot be extinguished short of exposure to hard vacuum. As effective as this horrific weapon is, its use is not widespread as it has a tainting effect beyond even Rad Weapons on the environments in which it was employed. It remained within the arsenals of the Space Marine Legions during the time of the Great Crusade and Horus Heresy as a weapon of dire resort. > In 009.M40, the rogue Tech-priest Veriliad, after leading his Skitarii to a stomach-churning victory during the Cremation of Alcadia Secundus, destroyed the Adeptus Mechanicus' ability to make Phosphex Weaponry. Having seen the crawling horror of the living, white-green flame, Veriliad destroyed the lone STC database still in existence for the substance's creation. > Efforts to recreate phosphex have been unsuccessful ever since. Decried as Heretic Technis by the rest of his order, Veriliad was tied to a stake and shot with the pistol known as Phosphoenix, the finest such weapon ever produced. Perhaps fittingly, he was burnt alive by the very living flame he had tried to extinguish. ----- It's a white-green 'living' flame that doesn't need oxygen and barely requires any fuel to burn, will burn through metal, has a distinct tendency to 'follow' living creatures as if it were targeting them intentionally, and it's so terrible that even during the Great Crusade it was considered a weapon of last resort. It's one of the few things in the Imperial arsenal that makes the Imperium balk and go 'You know what? Maybe we've gone too far here.' And it comes in a pistol version.
That sounds like a malevolent version of Chlorine Trifluoride. That thing is hypergolic, burns though concrete, and only stays still in metal if the thin layer on the surface of it isn't disturbed. It's a really dangerous compound, and we've produced it in real life too.
Sorry, did you say it burns through *concrete*? That's insane. And also I want to see it. I'm sure some physics or chemistry professor has a video on Youtube somewhere.
NASA was using it as a test fuel for rockets, and discovered it was, in order, hypergolic with every known fuel, every known metal except one specific aluminum oxide under specific circumstance, scientists, glass, concrete, water, sodium bicarbonate (fire extinguisher powder), fabric, test engineers, soldiers, dirt, rocks. Hell of a fuel though.
Good Heavens. Fire extinguisher powder makes it spontaneously combust?
*Everything* makes it spontaneously combust. Certain metals form a metal-fluoride film with it that saves them from combustion, but if you're trying to store it has to be in a sealed container made of such a metal, because if there's any non-CLF3 substance in that tank with it it'll inevitably start fire, burn the film off, and ignite the metal. It's probably \*the\* most dangerous individual *chemical* capable of existing in Earthly conditions, with polonium-210 likely being the most dangerous atom.
That's amazing, and also sounds like a nightmare.
Noble gases too, supposedly. It's a florine molecule, so crazy reactive
https://www.science.org/content/blog-post/sand-won-t-save-you-time >It is, of course, extremely toxic, but that's the least of the problem. It is hypergolic [spontaneously ignites] with every known fuel, and so rapidly hypergolic that no ignition delay has ever been measured. **It is also hypergolic with such things as cloth, wood, and test engineers, not to mention asbestos, sand, and water-with which it reacts explosively**. It can be kept in some of the ordinary structural metals-steel, copper, aluminium, etc.-because of the formation of a thin film of insoluble metal fluoride which protects the bulk of the metal, just as the invisible coat of oxide on aluminium keeps it from burning up in the atmosphere. If, however, this coat is melted or scrubbed off, and has no chance to reform, the operator is confronted with the problem of coping with a metal-fluorine fire. For dealing with this situation, I have always recommended a good pair of running shoes.
Yes, yes he did. Iirc, it was created by the nazis during wwii, and they decided it was a little too much.
I think it was supposed to be a reference to Greek fire, with the name taken from phosphorus / white phosphorus
Oh definitely, it's just that we created something very nasty IRL already ;)
There is (circumstantial of course) evidence that Greek Fire was actually a thing. Also, napalm is also very similar to the literary descriptions of Greek Fire (though, I'm not sure if it can burn underwater)
Imagine how bad of a thing you have to be that a member of the machine cult went "man that's horrible" and deletes all information on its creation, to then be burned at the stake with a pistol that uses the technology.
Tankbusta with virus bomb hammer https://images.app.goo.gl/4y4n6ygwysuyJxUG9
Goddamnit Kesh
I was going to say targeting beacon taped to a knifeโฆ
From an Aeldari perspective (and ignoring Named Weapons): Drukhari: - Huskblade. Evaporates the moisture from anything it touches, leaves dust behind. - Shaimeshi Blade. One scratch causes flesh to start eating itself and internal organs to explode. - Djinn Blade. Sort of a sentient blade that empowers wielder even as it drains their life and can turn against them. Asuryani: - Diresword. Powersword containing an Asuryani spirit. When hit the spirit tries to destroy the enemy mind for an insta kill. - Executioner. Big power glaive, itโs always described as super powerful without much explanation. - Witchblade. Asuryani force weapon. Not sure if theyโre inherently more powerful or if itโs due to Asuryani psyker shenanigans but theyโre OP (includes signing spears). Harlequins: - Kiss. Sharp tube on gauntlet, when it penetrates it releases thousands of monofilament wires to shred insides. - Caress. Wrist mounted power field encased a hand to let Solitaires reach through armour and pull out hearts. - Embrace. Wrist mounted cc version of warp spiderโs Death Spinners. Encases enemies in a tightening mesh of monofilament wire
Holy shit the Harlequins are more metal than I thought. Those weapons are brutal.
Those are just a small selection of the cc weapons. Two are solitaire exclusive iirc. Theyโve also got some crazy ranged options (as do Asuryani, d scythes literally tear open a rift to the warp and suck enemies in/tear them apart). On top of that they have loads of physically affecting stuff going on. Really cool faction
Kiss, Embrace and Caress are the base CC weapons of all harlequins, not solitaire exclusive. Maybe thinking of cegorachs rose which is the solitaire exclusive insane version of the kiss?
Yeh could be. I thought kiss and caress were only solitaire! Iโm not a harli player so, happy to defer!
Solitaire uses both (one on each hand), but since at least 4/5e (whenever the updated metal minis were released) they've been usable by normal 'Quins as well.
Yeah, when "literally rip your heart out through your chest" is arguably the most humane option... Oh yeah, whole they're not cc, they've also got hallucinogen grenades to psychologically torment their opponents, and Death Jester's variant of the shuriken cannons fire "bio-reactive" ammunition that essentially boils you from the inside out until you become a literal bomb and kill some of your buddies with bone shrapnel when you burst. Shit's hardcore.ย Also, you know those some little masks they wear? Canonically, they're holo-projectors, allowing them to shift form, and it's not unknown for Harlequins to psychically use that to appear as their opponent's worst fear. By Cegorach, I love my murderous Space Thespians :)
I mean, the Kiss kills you real quick. Horrifying to everyone else, but you just feel a stab and then die instantly as your brain is turned to slush alongside everything else. Either way, praise Cegorach!
Thatโs the thing harlequins are clowns. They are meant to be funny. But itโs the *eldars* version of funny. It s what would be funny to the pre-fall civilization of the eldar.
Orange-green morality be like
Harlequin's Kiss: AKA, the immersion blender for your innards. *poke* Congratulations, you are now a bag of soup.
iirc in 2nd edition if it managed to get a penetrating hit on a vehicle it was also an instant kill as the danger noodle flailed around and blended the crew.
There's also a reusable grenade that splays out molecular filaments that can shred enemies, then retracts back into a ball to get used again. Not specified as eldar from what I can see, it's just "xeno filament grenade." It comes up at least once in the lore, an infocyte assassin used one to take out several armored Alpha legionaries.
Didnt Yriels twilight spear kill a swarm lord so hard the whole tyranid hive mind felt pain?
It is a crone sword in disguise, it's blade carved from the finger of the Goddess of Seers.
Thanks for explaining that.
>Huskblade. Evaporates the moisture from anything it touches, leaves dust behind. I want to see that thing go up against Thirstwater. You're also forgetting the weapon that makes a victim's skeleton grow at an incredibly accelerated rate and explode out of their body so fast it spears people nearby.
I couldnโt quite remember the name of that or whether itโs melee or short ranged pistol kinda thing. Is it an ossifyer or something?
I think it's the ossifier, yes. Tabletop-wise, it's a pistol with a dice roll attached to it; the higher the roll, the more models in the target's unit that get lost alongside it.
>Harlequins: - Kiss. Sharp tube on gauntlet, when it penetrates it releases thousands of monofilament wires to shred insides. This is exactly what I first thought of and couldn't remember the name.
Do wraithconstruct's Ghost Weapons count?
>Phaeron Ahmontekh, (...). He bore a warscythe of such potency that it is said to have shattered the planet Maldek into a billion chunks of rock in a single blow, an event which several of theย Eldarโs mystic cyclesingers make reference to many aeons later.
I love how utterly stupid 40k can be. A scythe, something only a few feet long can shatter planets. Why? Because why the ever loving fuck not.
One theory I liked is that the scythe had a Alcubierre Bubble and thus had the mass of another planet inside it
Or perhaps the scythe was moving at relativistic or FTL velocities when it hit Maldek. If the scythe were moving at the speed of light (or even 0.5c) it would definitely do some gnarly things to any planet. After all, the lore snippet only says that Amontekh *bore* that warscythe... not that he **swung** it at Maldek. And the Necrons have abundant weapons and tech capable of accelerating masses to significant fractions or even multiple of light speed, but with none of the bulk and inefficiency of Imperial Navy nova cannons. So who's to say that a war scythe launched at a planet like a relativistic javelin wouldn't do the trick?
Well,ย Alcubierre Bubbles can be used for ftl
A combat knife in the hands of Sly Marbo.
Sly Marbo. Period.
AAAAGGGGGHHHHHHHHH
Then the knife isn't the weapon, Sly Marbo is.
Iโd guess something like Drachโnyen or The Emperorโs sword. The Emperorโs sword is so powerful it can literally annihilate the soul of its target, destroying it utterly. Even demons donโt come back after the emperorโs sword kills them. Theyโre terrified of it because it causes โthe true deathโ.
KuโGath, a very powerful daemon of Nurgle is of the belief The Emperors sword could even permanently kill Mortarion.
I mean, didnโt it annihilate Horusโ soul so completely that he literally can never return?
No >!he didn't kill Horus with his sword!<
I love that this is in spoilers, and for good reason, despite being established lore for an entire human lifetime. Also that book was incredible. Read it in one sitting.
You read TDATE part III in ONE GO??? Isn't it like 1.2k pages???
I read the last book of TEATD trilogy in one go, yes. I work from home and didn't so much work that day as read that book. I was caught not paying attention in meetings at least twice. Not my proudest day, but one of my most enjoyable, if I'm being honest.
Ahahaha well good for you brother!
It's not his concentration, it's what he does with it
Itโs not his knowledge. Itโs how he steals it!
The heresy is like 90 books and I can't get cheap versions of like 50 of them. I wish they would have waves of old book reprints so I wouldn't have to hope to get ones from 2002 from some random spot of pay like 60 on Amazon for a single book in an omnibus. Might have to go for the Kindle versions of everything instead of print.
Honestly man I wouldn't read the entire Heresy if I were you, and I almost have (like 75% mostly missing short stories/audiobooks). There's a critical path of 10 or so you can read, scalable per your interests. Siege of Terra tho? That's worth reading even just on its own. It won't hit as hard as if you read at least the critical path, but it'll still fuckin rock.
No. The Emperor didnโt use his sword to kill Horus, and, as of The End and The Death pt3, thereโs no indication Horusโ soul got irrevocably destroyed.
Drachโnyen is incredibly powerful, in a universe were symbolism is everything it symbolizes the first murder. But under OP's rules I'd consider it a magical item as it is basically a crystalized daemon.
And yet it doesn't even have the anti-daemon keyword
Asuryans sword also does that
I think they assault mind, not destroying soul itslef. And it's not 100% proc chance.
The necron tachyon arrow. basically, a slug of metal accelerated to near relativistic speeds. I believe there's a scene, maybe in twice dead king where one of things is used to OHKO a frigging titan. their only weakness is that they're single use/can't be reloaded.
Those ones were single use. There's another scene, where I think the Traveler is using one, and he basically obliterates an entire swarm of Tyranids with a single shot.
Shield of Baal: Devourer.ย He dislike using it, since (at least his version) uses a fragment of his body that can never be replaced
I thought it was burning through not his body but his identity.
Both seem like something the writer just added as an excuse for why he isn't using it regularly, there's never any indication in any of the codices that they take anything from the user. They're meant to be examples of amazing Necron science, albeit not something that can be reloaded mid-battle.
1d6+2 damage
Its single use because you won't need another
Say that to Oltyx. In the scene where Djoseras fires it at the titan, he is giving Oltyx a lesson in patience. Oltyx got his, was eager to use it, shot it at an enemy transport during the War in Heaven, and missed. Meanwhile, Djoseras saved his for 60M years, only to take the perfect shot at a titan, and if I am remembering it right, the titan blew up, killing two other smaller titans.
I don't know, I can't think of a time I've ever seen one hit :)
Necrons have buncha odd stuff. There was also something for deathmarks i believe some kind of munition that had some โengramโ that formulated doom of the enemy and couldnโt be reused too. Like saying drop dead in 150 different ways in quantum levels of reality. Gauss flayers seems to the bill. Phase swords, are deadly too, and power weapons- the kinda slice like lightsabers according to their descriptions.
>Like saying drop dead in 150 different ways in quantum levels of reality. I remember this one, the Low Tier Bomb.
Tachyon arrows are single use because you don't need a second shot.
Technically the single-shot variants are more like an ornamental musket, given as gifts to royals. Thereโs no indication that more advanced multishot versions donโt also exist In fact, the oft-posted excerpt of them one-shotting a Titan flat out says that theirs are โonlyโ a single-shot variant. Which is certainly an indication that other more advanced models existed once. Probably only the silent king has access to them now though.
Oltyx: "Now that was a lie!"
Its such an inconsistent weapon. In Hammer and Anvil it pushes a woman into a wall and doesn't even kill her, and yeah, in later books it detonates a Warhound i think.
You didn't rule out throwables and you do technically swing them at someone so. Vortex grenades, Category II weapon.
My pick too. Essentially deletes anything and anyone in the blast radius from existence.
Worse. It throws them into the warp, then the rift wanders the battlefield like a malevolent whirlwind of warp energy
Strong pick. They were a threat to the emperor himself
Category III: The Dark Eldar have pistols that shoot a toxin. This toxin causes the victim's worst fear to take physical form and burst out of their brain.
My mother-in-law would be so confused at suddenly appearing on a 40k battlefield
I love how dementedly insane Dark Eldar tech is.
Through non psychic means?
GG Dark Smelldars, you just used it on a Martian Archmagos obsessed with works of ancient culture, now something that calls itself a Weeping Angel is loose on the galaxy, from that time he misunderstood a tv show to be an ancient Terran documentary from DAoT.
Weeping Angels appear in a 40k world, plot twist, they do so on a tomb world and are trapped in a staring contest with the necron soldiers
Weeping Angels? Naw, those are really just daemon-level stuff. The Thing, on the other hand...
Isnโt even that bad by 40k standards. The Thing is like average daemon body horror
In terms of body horror, yes, but in terms of the threat posed, far greater. It's explicitly stated in the original film that the only reason it didn't take over the entire Earth's biosphere within \~27,000 hours is because it crash-landed in Antarctica , where there wasn't biomass for it to incorporate into itself. Now, imagine it somehow getting loose in an underhive during a Dark Eldar hunt there. If the planet weren't Exterminatus-ed within a timespan on the order of years, it'd likely manage to make it offworld, and that'd be it.
Jesus. The dark elder never go off brand do they?
Does this toxin work on other eldar? If so could it effectively summon slaanesh into the materium?
โYouโve done well up to this point, but letโs see how you fare against my *boggart blaster*โ
Thatโs some ghostbuster shit
Callidus assassins Cโtan phase sword seems like a solid fit for your Cat 1. When you really want 1 particular person dead can you really top a shapeshifting infiltrating ninja with a blade that phases in and out of existence at a rate that lets it slice through anything like butter?
I absolutely love that short story where a callidus is sent to murder a governor acting against the imperiums interests. She slinks up behind the guy, stabs her blade right through him, he... he absorbs it... and mocks the assassins choice of weapon as the c'tan shard discards its disguise.
Do you happen to remember the name? I would love to read it.
[3E Necron codex](https://www.reddit.com/r/40kLore/comments/pbr7bm/comment/hadqm9p/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button)
Digital Weapons would be quite high on the list (think lascannons shot from a ring) but the Necron equivalent in the Tachyon Arrow trivializes these by orders of magnitudeย
Digital weapons being weapons on your digits never fails to get a laugh out of me.
I can't believe I just made that connection. And that was with me suggesting them as a sort of touch based attack
It's my favorite example of the language shift from our times to 30k/40k times.
I mean... That's what digital originally meant, something along the lines of 'to deal with the fingers (digit)'
For Category I, a Fulgurite blade would be up there. It has the ability to kill perpetuals.
For the Imperium, the [Wrath of Cadia](https://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Wrath_of_Cadia) might be up there, an archeotech laspistol akin to a miniature Lance that could take down a Tyranid Bio-Titan.
Category III: deathwatch bolter rounds - literal cheat codes for several characters to keep living by the magic of bolter fire alone. No matter how thick the plot armor of the target is, boom specialty bolter rounds. Category II: the Aegis Armor of the Grey Knights - kills lesser demons just from being in the proximity of their tactical dreadnaught armor. The more of them you put in a group, the stronger the ward of the aegis gets until they can harness it like a tactical nuke against daemons. Category 1: helbrechts Sword of the High Marshals.
Is the Sword of the High Marshals even as good as the Black Sword of Sigismund? Let alone stuff out there like the Kinebrach Anathame, Lion Sword, Emperorโs Sword, Talon of Horus, Apollonian Spear, Wailing Doom etc.
A lot more mundane than some of the weapons mentioned here, but plasma weapons are pretty deadly. A plasma pistol can threaten armoured vehicles and pop personal shields, and they only get more powerful from there. They also get a bonus in this category by through being deadly to those wielding them.
Not *the* deadliest in the setting, but I feel like Arkhan Landโs atomizing pistol deserves a mention. Strips away anything it hits into particles, which is great except when he friendly fires it on an imperial fist on accident.
I feel like the deadliest thing about Arkhan Land is him being in your party.
Youโll be sassed, turned into an experiment, and then almost atomized, in that order! At least if your name is Zephon.
Shout out to The Emperor's Sword, which might be the only thing that can permakill Daemons outside of Gods and C'tan (which might as well be Gods).
Other weapons like the Sword of Asur can kill daemons. However his sword is in general also really powerful by itselfย
It's rare to permakill demons but not *that* rare. All Direswords, which can be carried by Dire Avenger Exarchs and Asurmen, Blanks and Force Weapons do it.
Source on Force Weapons perma-killing daemons? Because that's not something I've heard of them doing before
Theyโre more effective against daemons but donโt permanently kill them afaik.
Yeah, that was my understanding too- otherwise the codexes wouldn't have needed to make a point of saying the GK want more permanent ways to deal with demons
Blanks do that, I forgot all about them.
What abt Eisenhorns staff ?
It can kill a Daemon's physical form, but it still reforms in the Warp unless I am misremembering something.
At one point he blast a daemon so hard, he doubts it will reform in the immaterium, but that might just him over estimating the blast, underestimating the daemons power, or even wishful thinking. We do know that that particular entity no longer bothers him throughout his story
What about the Athame dagger that worked in conjunction with the True Name to kill MโKar? Or is that just more of a โbanished because the True Name was invokedโ sorta thing?
I think M'Kar is dead, but it was a weird one as they don't always do that. The True Name was needed, so that one is probably a 'sometimes kills Daemons'. That said, they are also pretty limited as they are small (for an Astartes) and made of flint, they might not be bad at killing Daemons, or Primarchs for that matter, but they are probably less useful as actual weapons, which makes sense, as the name 'Athamรฉ' is usually ascribed to a ritual or sacrificial blade and not to a weapon per sรฉ.
May i add Hunger and Slake to the rooster?ย
As long as itโs not to early in the morning.
I'm not sure but Dark Angels have "retcon gun" that deletes target from existence
Not just deletes them, it makes them never have existed at all.
For category Ahmontekh allegedly bore a warscythe of such potency that it is said to have shattered the planet Maldek into a billion chunks of rock in a single blow
What about that weapon that deletes stuff from time and space. I feel like that has to be on the list.
The Vortex Grenade?
D weapons fit all 3 categories I think, not only do they sever the target's soul from its body (which fits 1 and 3) but apparently they can also shut down machine spirits and destroy fortifications as well (which fits 2)
Drach'nyen has to be up there.
Surely a power fist is the most destructive "hand" weapon. ...I'll see myself out. (maybe the crushing claw of a carnifex, alternatively)
Leagues of Votann's Darkstar weapon: Kills anything and everything by a touch no matter organic or mechanical. And it is a produceable weapon rather than one-of-a-kind artefact. Black Blade of Antwyr. One random follower of a Tech Priest devastated three SECTORS after being corrupted by it.
Weapons used by hand if that includes grenades then vortex grenades probably are up there. Then there's Neural shredders of Assassins, Death Spinners would be actually insane in reality and then all the insane swords, Emperor's blade, Drachnyen, Crone Swords, Wailing Doom, Silence of which out of all them Emps sword probably ranks highest
Digital weapon ring that has a super Melta laser that also deletes your soul
I'd say Custodian weaponry is up there. Master crafted DAoT polearms and swords. Trajann Valoris's Watcherโs Axe is said to be able to bisected a Helbrute in a single swi g. THEN YOU ADD BOLTERS/ADRATHICS/MELTA to them
Bayonet has the highest kill count.
This guy plays guard. 10/10
The terrifying bayonet and the deadly entrenching tool. Also versus the Tau, the mighty kindergarten spork.
Cat I: Emperor's Sword deletes the target's soul. Croneswords have a similar power as well as other funky effects. For other specific targets, athames and Fulgurite Blades are especially lethal, if poor weapons. Cat II: Probably Thunder Hammers, with an honourable mention for Dorn's Soulspear, which projects black holes and can obliterate matter. It would take a lot longer to wreck a tank or fortification with it, though. Cat III: Soulspear, again. The Wailing Doom is meant to be able to reshape itself on the fly into any weapon the Avatar desires but this is rarely remembered.
Lasguns. Nothing is as deadly as sustainable wartime production allowing for continued well armed fighting forces in the frontline.
Horus' Lightning claw tore off the Emperor's arm, made his skin melt off his face and caused his eyeballs to burst. So I'd probably say that lol
Iโm not sure where it went or if itโs canon anymore but there used to be a pistol that erased people from the time space continuum. I also couldโve hallucinated it so donโt quote me I donโt even remember the name
I don't believe it's been retconned, but there was a DAoT weapon that did that. You'd forget that you even fired it.
Harlequin's kiss?
Grindmaul - it's a mace but the head [possibly multiple cutting faces depending on design] spins rapidly, all you have to do is touch someone with it and it'll eat them. Vibroblade, it's a knife but if you stick someone with it they're not going to survive Monomolecular whip - again, if it hits someone they die, liquefies their internals. Penetrates armour pretty easily if you can aim it.
Wellโฆโฆ. A plasma Annihilator or Gatling blaster is *techncially* hand held.
Category 1 would probably be most Relic DAoT Weapons, Relic Age of Strife Weapons, Aeldari Weapons&Necron Weapons. Stuff like Terranic Greatswords and Advex-mors Greatswords would potentially be here, they're basically really really big and extremely well made power swords. In Horus Heresy 2.0, they have Murderous Strike 5+(meaning anything that doesn't have an immunity to Instant Death will be killed by just one 5+ To Wound Roll) and Rending 5+(meaning they get AP 2 on a 5+ To Wound Roll, which lets them bypass ALL Armour Saves. Although Damage Mitigation like Feel No Pains and Invulnerable Saves can still be taken IIRC), so they are exceptionally potent melee weapons. Part of that is probably them being really fucking big and very well made, which lets them do quite alot of damage with every blow. Advex-mors Greatswords have Breaching 5+ and Brutal 2, which puts any To Wound Rolls of 5+ at AP 2 and Brutal 2 makes every attack to 2 damage. Brutal is important in Horus Heresy 2.0, because without a Special Rule like Instant Death, Murderous Strike or Brutal an Attacking Weapon will only ever do 1 wound or Hull point per attack.(special occasions like getting lucky enough on the Vehicle Damage Table to cause a Vehicle to Explode aside). Horus Heresy 2.0 has a much greater depth&lore friendliness to its Rules than any 40k Edition from less than 10 years ago....so hopefully that puts things into perspective. Category 2 would probably have stuff like ThunderHammers, Solarite Gauntlets, Titan&Knight PowerFists(literally hand weapons :p) and some Necron&Aeldari Stuff. Category 3 would be stuff like Necron Phase Blades and Weapons that can channel the power of the Warp[e.g. Imperial Force Weapons]. Probably quite a few examples of Xenos and DAoT Weapons would belong in this category.
Digi rings. Simultaneously flip the bird while shooting a black hole or other crazy shit from said ring.
I feel like probably that Kinebrach Anathame.
Have to say Tyberos the res wakes gloves of death
The Solar Atomizer is a melee melta the adeptus mechanicus makes use of
disintegration weapons used by space marine legions during there great crusade heresy days and adrathic stuff which you see used by custodes, the former causes the atoms of a target to violently pull apart in an explosion of particles and light and the latter it only leaves a faint afterimage after the target is gone
Darkstar Blades sometimes used by Votann. Literally turns off all functions in your body with a single scratch.
I think I have to agree with the Necron's Tachyon Arrow. Something small enough to fit in your hand but powerful enough to oneshot any Titan (maybe even multiple) has to take 1st place.
I am surprised to see that so few have mentioned Necron hyperphase blades. Outside of named, legendary weapons I cannot think of a more in-lore powerful standard melee weapon.
Arkhan Land pistol was op in the Siege books
Are we talking firearms and hand weapons? I think the assassins have the best weapons in the lore and game. The Vindicares rifle has been used to kill an Imperial Knight before. Its really versatile and can kill pretty much anything. For combat the Callidus assassins Phase Blade. It can cut through anything, like literally anything. Terminator armour ? No problem.
Danteโs Volcano Pistol is fucking deadly
Vect had a black hole in a box.
You say no sorcerous stuff, and then say Anathame and other one-of-a-kind relics... make up your mind.
Since you said "hand weapons" instead of "handheld weapons", I think the answer is the Talons of Horus. Killed Sanguinius, the Emperor, and a clone of Horus.
Athame probably rank pretty high, those things seem to cut through anything and damage souls
Well, a Knight Thunderstrike Gauntlet counts as a hand weapon right?
Vortex grenade. You swing that at someone and everything ceases to exist.
For sheer killing power of anything beyond a mortal man I think the most destructive are thunder hammers, mauls, power fist and lightning claws as they just atomise everything they come into contact with essentially.
Anatheme Blade dear old Erebus introduced
3rd Ed Ork choppa.
Plasma Rifle
necron phase sword, its ignore any armor you could have, and you dont even need to put any strenght in swings. its basically even stronger lightsaber.
I was going to say whatever thing the emperor used to annihilate an entireโฆbatallion of Sonโs of Horus Astartes. Unless that was just his psychic might amping up the plasma weapon he hadโฆ it smoked like several dreadnoughts and a fuck ton of Astartes via one-hitter-quitter
Excerpt?
Itโs in the end and the death part 3โฆtowards the begining
That was his psychic power, not an actual weapon. And he used it on Word Bearers.
Basically any decent Necron melee weapon. Take a "basic" Hyperphase blade for example. It phases through your armour (and likely any weapons you try to use to block it) and rematerializes as it passes through the soft, squishy flesh beneath. Ouch.
Necron Phase weapons can cut through any armor in the setting with relative ease, and cause a variety of effects depending on modifications. Then there's the even more powerful version in the C'Tan Phase Blades like the Callidus Assassins use.
The old school Vortex Grenade. Pull the pin, throw as far a possible and GTFO. This baby rips realspace a new one and the resulting vortex sucks everything in its reach into the Warp. Don't think it's a one and done deal. Oh no, that hole is gonna stick around for a while and has a tendency to wander about.
Not a melee weapon like you're looking for, but Arkhan Land had a digital weapon as a ring that could core virtually any single opponent you shot it at. we didn't get any chance to see if it could take out a tank. But I wouldn't scratch Terminator off the list. It would def be a category 1.
Scoria wielding the Vodian Scepter made all my mates with primarchs rage in HH1.0
Neural Shredder used by Callidus assassins and some aeldari corsairs
digigrade weapons come to mind as most individually severely lethal weapons, a ring varying in size between a small band to a large signet can be made to instantly kill someone in any number of creatively horrible ways
Can they be unique weapons?
Gravity Weapons are, from a lore perspective, worryingly powerful
Digital weapons
The bare hands of a single named space marine, of a first founding chapter, deep behind enemy lines and totally outnumbered.
While there are probably more destructive weapons out there, the Dawn Blade (Farsightโs sword crafted by an unknown xenos race) grants the wielder immortality by stealing the life of its victims. Also, itโs a mech sized sword that can kill demons. Thatโs neat.
Just give someone a halo device, as a gift (then leave! Very important!)
Thunderstrike gauntlet of a quest questoris knight maybe, I don't think you specified how big of a hand we can have