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This comes mainly from a model and ruleset standpoint, but the lore also counts to some extent. However, despite the model variety, melee weapons in this game are severely narrow.

Why so many melee units in this game are equipped with a sword/axe/fist/claw and a pistol? I don't recall any period in human history where this fighting style is common. As the title suggests, this combat style is mainly for pirates. If you watch Pirate of the Caribbean, you will see a lot of it. But for conventional armies in open battles, this makes no sense.

Why is there no option to equip 2 swords, 2 pistols, or two-handed melee weapons on regular (non-character) Assault Marines, Howling Banshees, Ork Boyz, and Chaos Space Marines? Why do the Necrons have no chaff melee units aside from a bunch of diseased lunatics? Poleaxe weapons were extremely common, far more than swords in human history, but are suspiciously absent from pretty much all factions except the Asuryani. Why are there no Guards with halberts to repel melee attackers so they wouldn't me massacred in melee? Why do the Orks completely lack club weapons?

Instead of giving bigger and more ridiculous guns and tanks with each model release, GW could just give more practical weapons to their factions to make them look cool but also believable.

Because in a game like 40k, being a badass is more important than being realistic.

I mean if we are being realistic, halberds get massacred by guns.

Also giving guard halberds so they can last 1.5 seconds more in combat with an Ork seems inefficient. The value of guardsmen is being cheap and expendable, if the IoM wanted them to live it would give them carapace armor.

bibotot wrote:


Why so many melee units in this game are equipped with a sword/axe/fist/claw and a pistol? I don't recall any period in human history where this fighting style is common. As the title suggests, this combat style is mainly for pirates. If you watch Pirate of the Caribbean, you will see a lot of it. But for conventional armies in open battles, this makes no sense.

You've obviously missed the fact that 40k is NOT based on real world human history.
Inspired by it is some cases, sure, but this is still a setting firmly rooted in dystopian science-fiction/fantasy & pulp adventure.

As for options? If it ain't on a modern spue.... :(
That said there's nothing stopping you from modeling your melee weapons as clubs, pole-axes. Etc.

It’s Science Fantasy, not Science Fiction.

It draws on Fantasy tropes, up to and including the First World War, where Officers were issued with swords and that, as much as it draws on stuff like Star Wars, Samurai and so on.

Plus, it just looks bloody cool.

The Imperium is full of archaic WW1 designs. the Leman Russ is a very stocky and tall tank; the Landraider original is a straight up WW1 trench tank with the modern variation just featuring a top plate of armour over the tracks.

They are a billion miles from modern theories on tank design and evolution; they are ancient and archaic and this bleeds in all over the place.


The Imperial Guard are basically a fantasy extreme version of a WW1 army. Straight down to commissars shooting troops for desertion in the field to charging over the top of trenchs to engage in close combat.


Now I do actually agree that GW are very tame with weapon choices in both AoS and 40K. They do keep it quite simple when they could go all out with way more. I think part of it is that the game mechanics arne't tight enough (nor stable enough) to create lots of niche situations for different weapon types.

In fact in current 40K and AoS we've even seen GW making close combat even more simplistic with one profile for all close combat weapons for a unit.

Rules wise this means there's no "need" to create lots of different weapons because there's no profiles for them to use for the player to make choices with.
Now of course you can flip that over and say "well if its all the same profile you can go wild and give people even more choice". Agreed, but I don't think its the direction GW are going.

A rifle with a bayonet is a modern polearm, so having dedicated polearm units outside of some exotic options like Grey Knights and Custodes would be redundant.

Necrons have chaff melee units; they are called scarabs. They were supposed to be melee screens since 3rd edition.

Pretty sure historically cavalry had both a sword and a pistol. Pistols were originally cavalry weapons after all, before development of the carbine. And even then cav and officers tended to be the ones with pistols. Swords were still given to officers in WW2, mostly for ceremonial reasons and tradition, although the Japanese did use them frequently in combat, iirc.

Not that it matters, because 40k is not a historical game and conventional is not an applicable term. Oh sure, it takes a lot of inspiration and theming from history, but that doesn't mean that's its going to completely ape historical military practice 1:1.

It's pulp. I feel like you have a hard time grasping this. It's not doing hyper-realism.

While the ork boy models only ever had axes it's indeed repeatedly stated that a choppa could be anything an ork hits you with. Clubs, swords, maces, a chair, your own arm.

 RaptorusRex wrote:
It's pulp. I feel like you have a hard time grasping this. It's not doing hyper-realism.

Yeah, if you're expecting Isaac Asimov prepare to be disappointed. It's a lot closer to John Carter of Mars...or 2000AD for that matter, which was a primary source of inspiration and was concurrent with 40k.


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Sgt. Cortez wrote:
While the ork boy models only ever had axes it's indeed repeatedly stated that a choppa could be anything an ork hits you with. Clubs, swords, maces, a chair, your own arm.

The ork's own arm, your own skull. The ork cares not if it's not physically possible

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:

 RaptorusRex wrote:
It's pulp. I feel like you have a hard time grasping this. It's not doing hyper-realism.

Yeah, if you're expecting Isaac Asimov prepare to be disappointed. It's a lot closer to John Carter of Mars...or 2000AD for that matter, which was a primary source of inspiration and was concurrent with 40k.


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Sgt. Cortez wrote:
While the ork boy models only ever had axes it's indeed repeatedly stated that a choppa could be anything an ork hits you with. Clubs, swords, maces, a chair, your own arm.

The ork's own arm, your own skull. The ork cares not if it's not physically possible

...or practical.

bibotot wrote:


Why is there no option to equip 2 swords, 2 pistols, or two-handed melee weapons

I'm a fan of the Pistol + Sword, but options are good. I always thought Pistoleros were cool- Seraphim are favourites. I always wanted a Pistolero Palatine or Canoness.

Cynically? For a long time I think it was a legacy of rules.

I.E. a pistol lets you operate in a whole phase of the game - whereas not having one doesn't. So fully abandoning it feels like a loss which is hard to value.

Equally for a long time 2 weapons (iirc including pistols?) = extra attack, which was mathematically usually better than 1 basic 2-hander, despite in real life this making no sense. Running around with two of the same weapon (i.e. two swords, two axes etc) has I think been just as rare as sword/pistol. There's no real point versus trading up for power/range, or tactical variety (say a shield.)

GW have started to move away from this, so arguably they are free to model whatever they like and apply stats as appropriate for the game rather than producing them from the gear. So maybe we'll see halberd-armed guardsmen down the line.

Weirdly, polearms have featured in rules fairly frequently but rarely had models. Ork nobz could take two handed choppers, Some Space Marines could take relic blades (big two-haned power weapon) and power spears/lances were in the core rules for 6th and 7th as an option (these counted as single-handed but a spear can obviously be used in both hands if wanted).

Obviously not counting bayonets.

Sgt. Cortez wrote:
While the ork boy models only ever had axes it's indeed repeatedly stated that a choppa could be anything an ork hits you with. Clubs, swords, maces, a chair, your own arm.

I have a lot of Ork boyz with choppers shaped like crude cleavers or short, chubby chainswords. They haven't been all axes since... at least 3rd edition, and I'm not convinced they were all axes prior to that too.


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Tyel wrote:
Cynically? For a long time I think it was a legacy of rules.

I.E. a pistol lets you operate in a whole phase of the game - whereas not having one doesn't. So fully abandoning it feels like a loss which is hard to value.

Equally for a long time 2 weapons (iirc including pistols?) = extra attack, which was mathematically usually better than 1 basic 2-hander, despite in real life this making no sense. Running around with two of the same weapon (i.e. two swords, two axes etc) has I think been just as rare as sword/pistol. There's no real point versus trading up for power/range, or tactical variety (say a shield.)

GW have started to move away from this, so arguably they are free to model whatever they like and apply stats as appropriate for the game rather than producing them from the gear. So maybe we'll see halberd-armed guardsmen down the line.

Agreed. There was a period in 40k where "specialist" weapons only gave an extra attack with other "specialist" weapons. So then you would see combos like twin lightning claws, twin power fists, or thunder hammer/lightning claw or power fist/lightning claw. Otherwise yes, no point losing the ranged attack.

Historically, pistol/sword has seen a lot more battlefields (since the invention of pistols) than two single-handed melee weapons. The latter is almost exclusively a dueling combination for civilian life, where it was frowned upon to walk around with military get up like armour or shields or polearms, and carrying them is a pain whereas two swords or sword and dagger could be worn easily at the hip. On a battlefield, if someone didn't need a shield they'd carry a polearm as you mention, or a firearm/bow/other ranged weapon of some kind.

 Haighus wrote:


Historically, pistol/sword has seen a lot more battlefields (since the invention of pistols) than two single-handed melee weapons. The latter is almost exclusively a dueling combination for civilian life, where it was frowned upon to walk around with military get up like armour or shields or polearms, and carrying them is a pain whereas two swords or sword and dagger could be worn easily at the hip. On a battlefield, if someone didn't need a shield they'd carry a polearm as you mention, or a firearm/bow/other ranged weapon of some kind.

Outside of Japan perhaps. In Japan, the Daisho (Katana + Wakizashi) was fairly common at various points in history. This didn't mean that everyone who carried a Daisho fought two-handed; the Katana was impractical for some indoor fighting, and many carried the Wakizashi only for use in such situations. In modern Kendo, Niten Ryu is still practiced, though this is the dueling application that you wrote about, so perhaps that point is moot.

I'm pretty sure Musashi used two blades... But then Musashi could pretty much kill you with anything and isn't necessarily a "typical" sword fighter.

 PenitentJake wrote:

 Haighus wrote:


Historically, pistol/sword has seen a lot more battlefields (since the invention of pistols) than two single-handed melee weapons. The latter is almost exclusively a dueling combination for civilian life, where it was frowned upon to walk around with military get up like armour or shields or polearms, and carrying them is a pain whereas two swords or sword and dagger could be worn easily at the hip. On a battlefield, if someone didn't need a shield they'd carry a polearm as you mention, or a firearm/bow/other ranged weapon of some kind.

Outside of Japan perhaps. In Japan, the Daisho (Katana + Wakizashi) was fairly common at various points in history. This didn't mean that everyone who carried a Daisho fought two-handed; the Katana was impractical for some indoor fighting, and many carried the Wakizashi only for use in such situations. In modern Kendo, Niten Ryu is still practiced, though this is the dueling application that you wrote about, so perhaps that point is moot.

I'm pretty sure Musashi used two blades... But then Musashi could pretty much kill you with anything and isn't necessarily a "typical" sword fighter.

Musashi used two blades in duels. He developed one of the few fencing styles using two full swords rather than sword and dagger (which as you say was katana and wakazashi in early modern Japan) which is pretty cool, but it wasn't developed for battlefields. Neither were the twin sword traditions found in some Italian fencing schools in the Rennaisance.

Katanas were generally used as sidearms in Japanese warfare, not main weapons*. Samurai carried bows, firearms, or polearms as their primary weapon, and only drew their sword as a back up. Generally speaking, someone with a polearm or a sword and shield has a strong advantage over someone with two swords (swords can be interchanged with other single-handed weapons).


*With the caveat that Japan didn't really have a proper military tradition during their isolationist phase after the Sengoku Jidai ended. So the few battles that happened during this time probably did use odd weaponry compared to their forebears as they essentially turned their military into a civilian police force.

 Haighus wrote:


Katanas were generally used as sidearms in Japanese warfare, not main weapons*. Samurai carried bows, firearms, or polearms as their primary weapon, and only drew their sword as a back up. Generally speaking, someone with a polearm or a sword and shield has a strong advantage over someone with two swords (swords can be interchanged with other single-handed weapons).

*With the caveat that Japan didn't really have a proper military tradition during their isolationist phase after the Sengoku Jidai ended. So the few battles that happened during this time probably did use odd weaponry compared to their forebears as they essentially turned their military into a civilian police force.

Certainly all samurai would have been proficient with bows, and in warfare, those weapons likely played a more important role than katana. I'm not an expert, but other things that you have mentioned are inconsistent with what I have been taught. That doesn't necessarily mean wrong- history is composed of several eras, affected by geographical situations, so painting in broad strokes can lead to inaccuracies on both sides.

First up, the Japanese Tanto is closer to a dagger than a wakizashi; the former had a maximum length of 12 inches, which is the minimum length of the latter, whose max length is 24 compared to the daggers 15. (While google says daggers are 15 inches, I'm sure I've seen blades of up to 18 described as daggers... But that still falls short of the wakizashi).

As for firearms, they came to Japan in 1543. The Sengoku period has multiple start and end dates depending upon the historian you're reading- from 1454 -1493 as possible starts and 1568-1638 as possible end dates, so by some accounts, firearms would have been in use for less than half the period. They were also frowned upon by many and at the time of their introduction would have been both expensive and rare.

As for pole arms, I'm somewhat familiar with the Yari and the Naginata. In modern Kendo, the related art of Naginata-do is primarily practiced by women... Although researching the history, it does in fact appear that Naginata were considered main weapons by the time Sengoku began, while Yari were only began to be used in great numbers by the end of the 15th century.

Shield use is kinda weird in Japan. Hand-held shields weren't used a lot during the age of the samurai, though tower shield supported by poles were used as cover for archers.

The mobilzation of Ashigaru also had an impact on the tools of war, as these soldiers were far less likely to use swords than Samurai. Your caveat is also quite important, as it is certainly true that much of the romanticism of the Daisho reached its peak post Sengoku in an era of relatively little actual warfare.

This is one Gaijin's humble recollections of thinks told to me by various Japanese friends and Sempai, and it feels dangerously close to cultural appropriation, so I am certainly willing to defer to those wiser or more learned than I.

The whole Naginata is a woman's weapon thing is another Edo era convention, iirc. Most noble ladies were trained in use of the naginata during that period for self-defense, so just as the sword became associated with samurai the naginata became associated with women.

During actual warfare Samurai used the naginata quite often.

Firearms might have been frowned upon by some daimyos, but other daimyos were quite happy to use them, especially Nobunaga who developed sophisticated tactics for them long before the Europeans did. Even Takeda wasn't against using guns, being the first one to use them in battle. Ironically, Takeda's most crushing defeat, the battle of Nagashino, was due to firearms.

Shield use wasn't weird, just redundant. Why give up using two handed weapons (such as bows and tanegashima), when you can incorporate it into armour and have a lot more flexibility? That's what those shoulder pads on samurai armour were, shields.

You see a similar evolution in Europe; soldiers that had access to decent full plated tended not to use a shield as armour already provided enough protection. Not to mention that to kill other soldiers wearing full plate you either need a two handed weapon or to be able to grapple him, and a shield would just get in the way. That fantasy trope of full plate wearing warriors using a shield is just that, fantasy.

Why is the game obsessed with swashbuckling? Because an unbuckled swash is a liability on the battlefield - and untidy, to boot!

bibotot wrote:
This comes mainly from a model and ruleset standpoint, but the lore also counts to some extent. However, despite the model variety, melee weapons in this game are severely narrow.

Why so many melee units in this game are equipped with a sword/axe/fist/claw and a pistol? I don't recall any period in human history where this fighting style is common. As the title suggests, this combat style is mainly for pirates. If you watch Pirate of the Caribbean, you will see a lot of it. But for conventional armies in open battles, this makes no sense.

Why is there no option to equip 2 swords, 2 pistols, or two-handed melee weapons on regular (non-character) Assault Marines, Howling Banshees, Ork Boyz, and Chaos Space Marines? Why do the Necrons have no chaff melee units aside from a bunch of diseased lunatics? Poleaxe weapons were extremely common, far more than swords in human history, but are suspiciously absent from pretty much all factions except the Asuryani. Why are there no Guards with halberts to repel melee attackers so they wouldn't me massacred in melee? Why do the Orks completely lack club weapons?

Instead of giving bigger and more ridiculous guns and tanks with each model release, GW could just give more practical weapons to their factions to make them look cool but also believable.

Look up the codex ultramarines for 2nd edition 40k, there are all the options you are talking about for the assault squad. You could have two pistols, two combat weapons, power fist and power axe, lots of different combos available. Then GW nerfed the assault squad, then for some reason they made "vanguard veterans" to make a different assault squad instead of making assault squads great again.

I'm working on my own house game taht kinda brings back the flavor of 2nd edition with a lot of streamlining to the rules. Not ready to share but I'm ok talking about it now.

To the broader question of "why swashbuckling?", because its cool.

Who the hell needs polearms???


Evert kriegsman will tell you that all you need is a good shovel.

WarHammer 40k is a future grimdark fantasy game, so all the realism has to contend with the rule of cool and also what would be fun to play. For most people who don't have any historical combat knowledge swords and claws are cool. and cool stuff is fun. Also this takes place in the 41st millennia so who know what happened between now and then to cause that shift.

 Overread wrote:
Now I do actually agree that GW are very tame with weapon choices in both AoS and 40K. They do keep it quite simple when they could go all out with way more. I think part of it is that the game mechanics arne't tight enough (nor stable enough) to create lots of niche situations for different weapon types.

Laughs in 400 varieties of Bolter.

 PenitentJake wrote:

 Haighus wrote:


Katanas were generally used as sidearms in Japanese warfare, not main weapons*. Samurai carried bows, firearms, or polearms as their primary weapon, and only drew their sword as a back up. Generally speaking, someone with a polearm or a sword and shield has a strong advantage over someone with two swords (swords can be interchanged with other single-handed weapons).

*With the caveat that Japan didn't really have a proper military tradition during their isolationist phase after the Sengoku Jidai ended. So the few battles that happened during this time probably did use odd weaponry compared to their forebears as they essentially turned their military into a civilian police force.

Certainly all samurai would have been proficient with bows, and in warfare, those weapons likely played a more important role than katana. I'm not an expert, but other things that you have mentioned are inconsistent with what I have been taught. That doesn't necessarily mean wrong- history is composed of several eras, affected by geographical situations, so painting in broad strokes can lead to inaccuracies on both sides.

First up, the Japanese Tanto is closer to a dagger than a wakizashi; the former had a maximum length of 12 inches, which is the minimum length of the latter, whose max length is 24 compared to the daggers 15. (While google says daggers are 15 inches, I'm sure I've seen blades of up to 18 described as daggers... But that still falls short of the wakizashi).

As for firearms, they came to Japan in 1543. The Sengoku period has multiple start and end dates depending upon the historian you're reading- from 1454 -1493 as possible starts and 1568-1638 as possible end dates, so by some accounts, firearms would have been in use for less than half the period. They were also frowned upon by many and at the time of their introduction would have been both expensive and rare.

As for pole arms, I'm somewhat familiar with the Yari and the Naginata. In modern Kendo, the related art of Naginata-do is primarily practiced by women... Although researching the history, it does in fact appear that Naginata were considered main weapons by the time Sengoku began, while Yari were only began to be used in great numbers by the end of the 15th century.

Shield use is kinda weird in Japan. Hand-held shields weren't used a lot during the age of the samurai, though tower shield supported by poles were used as cover for archers.

The mobilzation of Ashigaru also had an impact on the tools of war, as these soldiers were far less likely to use swords than Samurai. Your caveat is also quite important, as it is certainly true that much of the romanticism of the Daisho reached its peak post Sengoku in an era of relatively little actual warfare.

This is one Gaijin's humble recollections of thinks told to me by various Japanese friends and Sempai, and it feels dangerously close to cultural appropriation, so I am certainly willing to defer to those wiser or more learned than I.

Further to what CthulusSpy said, you have essentially given the pattern. Samurai originated as primarily bowmen. They later diversified with some adopting polearms, whilst others replaced their bow with a firearm. Swords (not just katana, but tachi in the earlier period and Chinese-style swords if you go back far enough) were always a sidearm on the battlefield, not a primary weapon for the vast majority (possible exception of nodachi/odachi, which are greatsword equivalents and functionally closer to a type of polearm rather than a wearable sword).

As an aside, 1543 is when Portuguese firearms arrived. Japan did have basic, indigenous, hand-cannon designs prior to that but they were not popular and quickly phased out for the more advanced European matchlock arquebus. Shield use is indeed weird- not by the Sengoku Jidai, by which point armour is sufficiently good to allow for shields to be dropped (as CthulhusSpy points out) but shields are almost absent even in earlier periods when armour was much less effective (especially for the commoner troops). Shields are found in basically every culture across the globe so Japan is something of an outlier here.

Essentially two single-handed weapons lack the reach of polearms, and lack the protection of shields. So their niche is in civilian life where they can be comfortably worn (and where it is socially acceptable to be worn), with polearms, ranged weapons, and shields for the battlefield. As an example, I think the Italian traditions only evolved once it became socially unacceptable/illegal to wear bucklers in those areas, because sword and buckler is a very strong combination for duels and bucklers are small enough shields to wear comfortably.

Fair point on the wakazashi being a short sword not a dagger, but in terms of fighting style it is used in the same rough manner as a mainly defensive tool, whereas symmetrical full blades can both be used aggressively to the same degree by a skilled user. Apparently much harder to master, but better than the asymmetric combination once mastered due to the extra versatility of two aggressive weapons.

Ultimately it is because Warhammer 40,000 originates in being a ruleset to let you glue guns on to GW's existing range of fantasy models and say they are in space. The other hand of those fantasy models was usually holding a sword.

You know, when I saw this thread, I wasn't expecting it to turn into a discussion on historical Japanese weaponry and tactics.

However, it's proved to be a very insightful read.

The Japanese did use shields prior to the rise of the Samurai (so pre-kamakura, earlier than 14th century), however as warfare moved towards heavy use of bowmen (often mounted), polearms and yari they quickly fell out of favor as it was too inconvenient to have a bow, spear and shield.

Japanese shields (or tate) looked strikingly similar to Roman scutum, interestingly enough.

Kofun era shield, 4th-6th century.


Painting from 13th century, apparently, so mid Kamakura, just when the Samurai were coming in.


Apparently yaris are not like dorys or even sarissas either; they tended to be longer and heavier on average and had a longer blade on the end (15-60cm as opposed to the sarrisa having around a 13cm long blade). It was common to use them as both a striking / slashing and thrusting weapon, which would have made shield use impractical. They therefore would be closer in function to Swiss pikes or halberds.

Very informative discourse about military history, ya'll.

Cant go anywhere on the internet these days without the weebs taking over

BanjoJohn wrote:

Look up the codex ultramarines for 2nd edition 40k, there are all the options you are talking about for the assault squad. You could have [dual] pistols, [dual] combat weapons, power fist and power axe, lots of different combos available. Then GW nerfed the assault squad, then for some reason they made "vanguard veterans" to make a different assault squad instead

Yeah you tell em

This had huge effects, even on the way people act IRL.