In Dominions 5, a unit's attacks are represented through the "weapons" present on their unit card. Despite the name, weapons range from ordinary armaments such as spears and swords to fists, breath attacks and psychic mind blasts.

During combat, units act in intervals called 'rounds'. With the introduction of simultaneous combat in Dominions 5, these rounds are no longer synced up across entire armies but are instead tracked on an individual basis. When a unit enters a new round, it uses all of the weapons relevant to its situation (i.e. melee if in melee, ranged if at range), takes fatigue according to encumbrance, and then waits until its next round activates. Units with Quickness (from spells, items or the heroic ability) have a reduced delay until their next round, causing them to attack more often than ordinary units at the cost of faster fatigue gain.

Equipping commanders with items will cause their default weapons to be replaced if the appropriate slot is filled. Weapons considered intrinsic are an exception to this rule, and will never be replaced regardless of equipment.

There are two types of weapons in Dominions 5:

• Melee weapons are the most common type, and are only used when a unit is directly adjacent to an opposing unit's square. Melee attacks check the attacker's Attack Skill vs. the defender's Defence Skill to determine whether an attack lands.¹⁾ Melee weapons are also subject to repel, awe, and a number of other effects.
• Ranged weapons may only be used when an opponent is within a listed range. There are several subtypes:
  • Most ranged weapons are projectile weapons. Their chance to hit is somewhat opaque, but essentially has a chance to deviate from the target square depending on the attacker's Precision score. See the Precision Rolls page for more details.
  • Ranged weapons with a precision of 100 will not generate a projectile and will always hit. These are mostly mind blast-type attacks.
  • Beam weapons have an area of effect instead of being limited to one target. They are usually intrinsic and fairly rare. Unlike most ranged weapons, some beam weapons may be used while in melee combat.

Each kind of weapon has unique properties that will determine how units use them during combat.

• Damage: in most cases, a unit's strength is simply added to a weapon's damage to determine that weapon's damage on that unit. For example, a Heavy Infantry has a strength of 10. This is added to their Broad Sword weapon's damage score of 6 to get a final damage of 16.
  • Two-handed weapons will instead add 1.25× strength to weapon damage
  • Most ranged weapons add 1/3 strength; some add 1/2.
  • Intrinsic weapons often do not add strength at all. This is most commonly seen in cavalry's Hoof attacks.
• Attack: some weapons will provide a bonus or malus to Attack Skill, making them more or less likely to hit. This is added to the unit's base Attack to determine the Attack Skill of that weapon only.
• Defence: any defence bonuses from weapons are added to the unit's overall Defence Skill, improving or decreasing their ability to dodge incoming attacks.
• Length: this is only relevant for melee attacks. Shorter weapons have a chance to be repelled; see the dedicated page for more details. Size 4+ units add +1 to the length of all of their melee weapons.
• Number of Attacks: most weapons only generate one attack per round, with a select few making two or more.
• Ammunition: this is only relevant for ranged attacks. The number of ranged attacks possible in any one combat is limited to this number.

If an attack lands, its final damage is usually checked against the protection of the hit location on the target to determine how many hitpoints are lost.

• Some weapons are Armor Piercing or Armor Negating - these ignore 50% and 100% of the target's protection, respectively. Armor Piercing stacks multiplicatively with Piercing-type damage for a total of 60% of target protection ignored.

Most weapons have a damage type. Damage types may be resisted by the appropriate resistances. See the main article for more details.

• Blunt: 50% bonus damage to head after protection, 25% bonus damage for the purpose of breaking shields.
• Slash: inflicts 25% more damage after protection, 50% bonus damage for the purpose of breaking shields. May sever limbs.
• Pierce: ignores 20% of target's protection when calculating damage.
• Untyped: no advantages, but is not resisted by any physical resistance type.
• Elemental: various effects depending on the type.

Some weapon traits are quite rare or have fairly specific interactions:

• Ferrous: deals additional damage to iron vulnerable units.
• Magic Weapon: usually indicated by a star next to the damage type, magic weapons ignore certain effects such as Mistform and ethereal.

: add devour, life drain decay damage types.