IIRC, in the period analogous to the Empire (in historical terms), even wealthy samurai were known to go into battle with a belt full of swords. Since they were being mass produced, they were known to frequently break. So back-ups were carried.
Final point on swords was that the lower the social scale the poorer the weapons you had. However, Asian peasantry tended to be equiped with spears and swords could only be afforded by those higher up, hence a very high average quality of blade. On the other hand swords were more widely available in Europe with the peasantry and so on having access to cheap low quality blades. The higher classes would still afford the better swords. This meant that on average the majority of Euopean swords were poorer then their Asia equivalents.
No, that would mean that there would be a difference between the classes. So fantasy European knights armed with a hand weapon would be roughly equivalent to samura armed with a hand weapon.
Also, more often than not European commoners were armed with pikes, spears, daggers, axes, etc. Not swords.
On a more practical note I would like to see some changes in missle weapon rules.
Me too. Everyone knows that the superior craftsmanship of the atlatl makes it a more devastating weapon than the European crossbow. Not to be outdone by the poor quality Japanese steel, the Mesoamericans didn't use the stuff at all. This means that they were able to do amazing things with sharpened sticks and chipped rock. Thus, I propose that the atlatl should be:
Range: 36"
S: 6
Armour piercing.
Penetrates ranks like a bolt thrower.
No long range penalty, because its design was based on increasing range.
No move and shoot penalty since it's technically a thrown weapon.
To stick with the historical inspiration, this weapon would be available to skink skirmishers and the new Clan Pestilens skirmishers who learned it through secret training in the jungles, similar to the Eshin OMGninjas.
