As a TTRPG derived from a tabletop war game, WFRP has always had a category of weapon that seems incongruous to a lot of other games: the "hand weapon."
It's a common abstraction in tabletop wargames to, if there is no other specified weapon on a unit for melee, to give them an abstracted "close combat weapon" or "hand weapon." Naturally, Warhammer in every version has these (aside from age of sigmar, but that's its problem.) Chainmail had these.
Speaking to the old category of TTRPGs derived from tabletop war games, though, you can see an immediate divergence. In D&D, the opportunity to be more specific was taken to put every possible type of weapon into a big table of weapons with minute differences. WFRP took the other route: it keeps the generic Hand Weapon category, unless it wants to get specific.
What constitutes a hand weapon though?
A sword, a club, a mace, a nailbat, a hammer, a meat cleaver, a boat hook... all these "weapons what you wield in a hand" are "hand weapons", undifferentiated in all ways rules-wise. There's no damage typing, weight difference, or damage difference in the system. You can imagine other games making hooks into some kinda Hooking weapon, giving maces Blunt Damage, etc. Not so much here.
Rules wise, they all use the same exact skill: Melee (Basic.) You can loot one off a battlefield and expect to be able to use it. This is important when only a minority of characters even start with hand weapons!
The minute you become more specific, though, you get into more specialized rules. But the takeaway here is, players can pick up a huge variety of weapons, expect to know how to use them, and they all use the same, very simple rule. There's no fancy tricks with hand weapons. There's no special exceptions in some circumstances. They just hit and do damage. The player buy-in at low levels to participate meaningfully in a fight is very low.
Becoming more specific: More than just a Hand Weapon
Players "graduate" from hand weapons... or don't.
Hand weapons as a category are actually distinct for an interesting reason; they tend to be some of the most damaging weapons in the game, and trading off for a more specialized weapon is usually just that: a fairly major tradeoff. On top of that, those weapons introduce more complex rules.
I informally call this category of weapons "More than Just Hand Weapons."
Weapons that are More Than are characterized by the special rules they add. Your basic Buckler shield becomes more complicated if you get a larger shield that now grants you the ability to use your weapon skill to block ranged attacks, or you can switch to parrying daggers for better options against armed opponents. Your basic boat hook becomes a larger hooking polearm or a hewing axe, the first all about disrupting your opponent, the latter about damaging their armor directly. Your basic crossbow becomes a more complicated Gun, with stricter reload and risk/reward, but with a morale damage component from being, you know, a gun you shoot people with (it's scary to be shot at.)
And, crucially, these upgrades tend to not be damage upgrades. In fact, they tend to be overall less damaging. The attraction of learning a specialized weapon category in WFRP isn't to deal more damage but to impact a fight in a different way. They cost their own skills: Melee (Two-Handed) is a separate skill category entirely from Melee (Parrying).
The effect of this is this: if you want to buy into the more complex rules, you are rewarded. If you don't want to, you aren't punished. The hand weapon remains a relevant, low-buy in choice at all levels of player and character experience, with the minimum amount of rules needed to participate in fights using one.
The game rewards player buy in, but does not require it for gameplay.
The most complex possible melee character in WFRP4e is, in nearly every respect, more complicated to run than a wizard is. But that wizard, if forced into melee, can take out their trusty Hand Weapon and contribute meaningfully and significantly to a fight with it. They will not be "as good," or have as much to do or think about, but that's the point; they don't have to think too hard about it. If all you want is to contribute or "not suck" in a fight and then specialize characters in other ways, stick with your Hand Weapon. It will never betray you.
Add to this the aesthetic value - a character can have a mace, be a swordsman, be someone who stole a hook off a boat they worked on once. Add to it the people who don't invest in combat skills at all and still remain relevant in a fight, because a mass of bodies has its own value. There's a lot of upside to this approach!
The lesson, to me, is one of player psychology. A player like me wants complicated weapon arrangements to the point of dual wielding whips, whipping out a crossbow next turn, drawing a buckler and a sap to knock people senseless, and then lasso someone off a horse or grapple them into the mud. A character like my friend's, who can beat mine in a straight up fight most of the time in my estimation, wants to just up the number that makes them good at the fighting. Both are satisfying, engaging and rewarding. That's pure design, baybee.
