Anyone who's actually cut wood should know that using a splitting axe with one hand is a quick and easy way to break your wrist. Even the actual woodcutting animation shows the Dohvakiin swinging the axe with two hands, so why shouldn't the attack animation reflect the proper way to hold such a tool?

This is a simple mod that aims to do just that. I'm well aware that the woodcutter's axe is just about the most useless thing in the game and is almost never used by players as a weapon (although more than a few NPCs use one) but every time I picked one up I just felt wrong and that I had to do something about it.

To accommodate the new animation, I tweaked the woodcutter's axe's stats a bit. I brought the swing speed down to 1.0 down from 1.3 (it's still faster than every other two-handed weapon in the game) but bumped up the range and damage to compensate.

This mod does not affect the Poacher's Axe, which share's the woodcutter's axe model, because I use the excellent Unique Weapons Redone mod which gives the Poacher's Axe a unique one-handed model. If there's interest, I can release a second version that also modifies the Poacher's Axe (although anyone familiar with the Creation Kit should be able to whip one up in about two seconds).

Note that this mod does use the Unofficial Skyrim Patch as a master file; I don't know what will happen if you use this mod without the USKP, but frankly you should be using it whether you use my stupid mod or not.

Special thanks to ghosu for this awesome walkthrough which helped me make this mod.

If anyone's interested, the mods seen in the screenshots are the eminently excellent Expanded Towns and Cities and Superior Lore-Friendly Hair; go and show them some love if you know what's good for ya.