Chain Knife

Space Marine Bolter with Chainblade bayonet attachment^[6]

Chain Knifes are known by a multitude of different names including Chain Blades, Chain Daggers, Buzz Blades, Vibro-Blades and Chain Rippers.^[1]

Overview

They function as scaled down versions of the chainsword, being concealable and giving their user a literal edge in knife fights. Ranging in size and profile from a wide dirk to a short cleaver, it is the smallest chain weapon available. Powered by a compact internal power cell, once activated, the chain teeth start rotating at extremely fast speeds, so much so that a mere glancing blow from a chain knife can easily rip a man’s flesh open. A stabbing wound can inflict massive tissue damage, accomplishing in one blow what would require scores from a traditional knife, allowing a wielder to literally disembowel a foe with but a single well placed thrust.^{[1][2][3][4][5]}

The chain knife see's common use amongst Hive World gangers from the infamous shredder gangs of the Sibellian underhive to the fighting cages of Malfi. On Landunder, the weapon is infamously the province of the labour gangs that control the docking airlocks of the eight cities, who are notorious for quelling dissent with a single ragged cut to the belly, the art of which is to leave the victim screaming as long as possible before death.^[1]

Space Marines are known to attach such weapons to their Bolters as Bayonets.^[6]

See also

• Transonic Weapons

Sources

• 1: Dark Heresy: The Inquisitor's Handbook, pg. 123
• 2: Black Crusade Core Rulebook, pg. 162
• 3: Only War: Hammer of the Emperor, pg. 116
• 4: Dark Heresy Second Edition, pg. 158
• 5: Necropolis (Novel), Chapter 10
• 6: Imperial Armour Volume Ten - The Badab War - Part Two , pg. 80