The concept of an axe, and the fact we decided to issue them out as a close combat weapon, will never not be funny to me.

What's the main advantage with an axe in close combat?
Think of it like this; a sword slashes, a dagger stabs, a hammer beats, and an axe hacks. What's the action of "hacking" something with an axe? The same principle as beating something with a hammer, except its sharp. No finesse here, you gorilla grip it and slam it down as hard as possible, allowing you to put a shitload of force behind a cutting blade.

An axe is a sharp hammer.

We have axes of all kinds, like hatchets, normal axes, battleaxes and two headed axes. They get issued depending on either the situation, or whatever the legionnaire prefers to use. An Assault Vanguard might prefer axes over swords, and if they're more effective with it then that's what we're gonna issue to them.

Situationally, axes (by which I mean hatchets) do well when a legionnaire is stuck in an enclosed space and needs to start throwing harm around. Handguns, short barrel rifles, shotguns and knives are well and good, but sometimes you just wanna take full advantage of the leverage an axe handle gives you. Like for example, we've issued these to legionnaires that had to escort scientists through a cave system. Or, we give them to Superheavy tank crews in the event someone manages to breach the hull and board them. Last place you wanna go popping off Antler shots is in the vehicle's ammo vault.

Large battleaxes are suitable for legionnaires that need to put a whole lot of force into a smaller cutting edge. Like I'm serious when I say that I've seen some of our plasmatic edged battleaxes cleave an engine in half, so you can imagine what that'll do to body armor or some creature's carapace. At times, it's faster, quieter, and cheaper for us to have cav ride up to an enemy tank and chop it into inoperability than it is for us to waste a rocket or two.
Low ammo count for the mission? Easy, we'll just go medieval on their asses and do some Gargoth War reenactments behind enemy lines.

Again, I like to emphasize that we offer lottsa different options for close combat. Whichever the legionnaire displays the most proficiency with is what they'll get, unless the mission or their commander determines otherwise. Use a knife, use a sword, use a goddamn mace for all I care so long as you take care of business.
Buuuuuut if you wanna see what an enemy looks like bisected down the middle like a split log, take an axe.

With axes, we got ourselves the following classes:

-FrW Nahli Lok-Riveria