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> [there] was a creature requiring decapitation to
> kill
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Therefore, if someone manages to kill it, they must have decapitated it.
In HW terms, this means that if someone drives it to Complete Defeat, the description of how that was done must include decapitation. It does NOT mean that the final die roll against the creature must be with an attack using an edged weapon or using a Decapitate Foe feat.
For example, you could beat such a creature by binding it with ropes, strolling to a nearby woodpile for an axe and then chopping its head off. The opponent might have used Lasso as the ability that drove the creature to Complete Defeat. The axe use is just part of the description of what happened; there is no need to make a Close Combat (Axe) roll at any point.
So what is the difference between combating a creature that can be killed only by decapitation (e.g. a vampire) and a creature that can be killed conventionally (e.g. a wolf)?
First off, one of my hobbyhorses: no special rules! All the vampire's abilities must have a name and a rating. So the Narrator must choose a suitable ability rating for a 'Can be Killed Only by Decapitation' ability.
How does the Narrator use this ability? Well, it's really as if the vampire wore a suit of armour that happened to be weak at the neck, so using the ability as an augmentation for a defensive edge (which is how armour works in HW) or defensive bonus (if you don't like edges) is an option. The vampire could use the ability more offensively: 'The Daughter of Darkness smiles as you try to batter her with your ineffective mace swings, gliding towards your neck she bares her fangs and stoops to bite', attacking with her Can be Killed Only by Decapitation ability; defending against this attack using Close Combat would have an improvisational modifier, especially if the weapon used was not edged.
Gaining a defensive edge might not seem much; a rating of 1W would give an edge of about ^4, which is unlikely to make the vampire much more difficult to kill. Is this a flaw in representing a special ability, such as vampiric invulnerability, with an ability rating? No. The name of an ability is not what makes it powerful. Only a large ability rating makes it powerful; to make the vampire effectively invulnerable the Narrator must assign a very large rating for Can be Killed Only by Decapitation.
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