[armakh]

Like you, with my first party, I had an axeman for my fighter, because that's just the way that I do things, but that was one of the many reasons that I restarted to use my current party. I am really disappointed by the lack of axes in the game. I never got to use the plague axe, which looks pretty cool, but I didn't see anything between the woodsman's axe and the plague axe, and that really hurt my fighter. Second time through the game, I might consider using an axewielder, but first time through while you're still discovering everything, I'd sadly say that you might want to use a sword. It didn't really take my guys all that long to become fairly proficient with the sword. My mook ranger got that cool giant's sword a few levels ago after using the bow exclusively for about 15 levels, and he has never missed with it much, and his sword skill and close combat are just skyrocketing.