Chainsword - Battle and Maintenance: Despite their relative ease of manufacture, few weapons require as much maintenance as the Imperial chainsword. Fortunately, the maintenance is of a mundane nature -- easily performed by any ganger or warrior -- rather than something like plasma weapon technology which inevitably requires the sacred insight of a tech-priest in order to keep it functioning over time.Replacement teeth-tracks are found in vast crates alongside Lasgun power packs in every Astra Militarum drop zone, as well as being similarly stored aboard every Space Marine Thunderhawk gunship. The first concern is that even the most well-forged chainsword will blunt quickly against heavy armour, especially the dense, ablative layers bolted onto an Orkish warlord, or the tainted ceramite of a Traitor Marine.Chainswords lack the heavy cutting weight of chainaxes and their bulkier ilk, and are better served to cleaving through the joints of heavy suits of armour.Secondly, chainswords are thirsty weapons. Some variants are much more efficient in terms of fuel consumption, but those that aren’t powered by self-sustaining energy generators drink promethium fuel no differently to countless other low-tech Imperial machines, and emit the same crude, oily reek as any tank's engine. The final concern is one of skill.Chainswords can "throw" teeth when they're used in poorly executed parries, slapped blade-to-blade with other chainweapons, or simply wielded with all the precision of a club. While teeth are easily replaced and repaired, it is not uncommon for battles between chainsword duellists to end with both the victor’s and the loser’s blades missing several teeth, especially if the fighters wore heavy armour.Ork weapons, especially those with chain-teeth made from the alien "ivory" of an Ork's own sharpened fangs, are especially vulnerable to this kind of degradation. Anyone with a modicum of experience wielding one of these weapons knows to parry with the reinforced flat of the blade, rather than catch a blow on the toothed, moving edge.These issues of durability rarely apply off the battlefield. A hive ganger or sump-waste outlaw can own a chainsword his entire life without suffering the same degenerative annoyances as an Assault Marine of the Adeptus Astartes, because -- like any weapon –- a chainsword's use depends entirely on context.When used as intended against lightly armoured foes, a chainsword is lethality incarnate. No other blade in existence cuts flesh with the same vicious, ravening hunger as a chainsword.A fighter's strength will add to the blow's devastating effects, but where other melee weapons may rely purely on strength, a chainsword makes for a perfect duelling weapon; just as effective when wielded with grace and speed over brawn.Once the teeth even graze flesh, their motorised bite hooks deeper and saws through muscle, sinew and bone with the same, surgical ease.Just as nothing cuts meat and bone like a chainsword, nothing bleeds like a chainsword wound. Enemies losing arms and legs to these weapons (a practice commonly called "limbing" by Astra Militarum Veterans with unpleasant smiles) can look forward to one of the bloodiest battlefield deaths imaginable, as their life pours out through the uncauterised, mangled stump of flesh that remains in place of a whole limb.