Sword and Gun

aka: Gun And Sword

Time to buckle some swash...

I first produced my pistol, and then produced my rapier,
Said 'stand and deliver', for he was a bold deceiver.

— The Dubliners, "Whisky in the Jar"

The child of Guns Akimbo and Dual Wielding — a character simultaneously wielding a gun in one hand and a sword in another, or another combination of projectile and melee weapon. This might sometimes seem impractical, as you might want that other hand free to help you steady or something, but it is much, much easier to handle a weapon with one hand in fiction. However, this isn't as impractical as it may seem - this was pretty much the standard armament for officers and cavalry in European-style armies for the better part of three, perhaps four, centuries between the 16th/17th and early 20th - carrying a pistol in the offhand for a bit of extra firepower was so commonplace that most swords became one-handed rather than two-handed in this period.

The Sword and Gun combo is strongly favored by pirates, traditional or otherwise, and highwaymen. As such, it's a classic for any sort of swashbuckling type. With piratical characters, the trope is actually somewhat accurate. Many pirates in real life would carry a pistol in one hand and a cutlass in the other. When their opponent attacked with his sword, the pirate would block the slash, put his pistol in the enemy's stomach, and shoot him. Nowadays the pirates carry AK-47s and machetes, but the effect is the same.

The sword and gun combo was also considered the preferred combination for cavalry. There is even a specific kind of pistol holster called a Cavalry Holster that is worn to facilitate an easy cross draw for your off hand. The saber was considered the primary weapon and the pistol a secondary. The general idea was the pistol allowed the cavalryman to engage threats beyond the reach of their saber.

Often justified in historical settings, since old-fashioned pistols were almost entirely single-shot and inaccurate enough to make it essentially pointless to use both hands. Once you'd "had your shot", a single-shot pistol became nothing more than an elaborate club or a tool for parrying blades, until you got the thirty-plus second respite required to reload. Early cap-and-ball revolvers increased the number of shots, but still took long enough to reload that carrying a blade could be useful. This is often seen with the Samurai Cowboy. Folk who could afford it would often carry extra guns to increase their firepower.

Replace this with a rifle and a spear, then mash them together for handling purposes, and you have the concept behind the bayonet.

A modern version of this trope has the wielder carrying a gun in one hand and a knife in the other. To some extent, this is actually Truth in Television, as soldiers are still issued knives or machetes for use as tools or emergency weapons. Many special forces units are well-versed in the use of knives for close-quarters combat, with some techniques advocating the use of both in tandem with each other. The difference is that hardly any warfighter today wears a full-length sword, since they're harder to draw or wield in close quarters, lack a knife's Mundane Utility, and are too inconvenient to wear considering how rarely they would be used.

For guns that shoot swords, see Abnormal Ammo. For weapons that are both a sword and a gun at the same time (such as gunblades from the Final Fantasy series), see Mix-and-Match Weapon.

Compare Bow and Sword in Accord, which substitutes guns for a different kind of projectile weapon and doesn't necessarily use them simultaneously, Sword and Fist, where the character punches and kicks you instead of shooting in-between armed attacks, and Gun Fu, where the character punches and kicks you in-between shooting attacks. Like other fighting styles with multiple weapons, this may be a manifestation of Heroic Ambidexterity.

Not to be confused with the show GUN×SWORD, or The Musketeer (a person proficient in both sword and gun, but who doesn't generally dual-wield them).

---

Examples:

Anime & Manga

• The various versions of Black★Rock Shooter's titular character all do this in some form. Classic BRS has a katana and a BFG, Insane Black Rock Shooter wields a jagged sword alongside a massive gunblade, and Black Rock Shooter Beast uses a BFS with the addition of a handgun.
• In Bleach, Starrk and Lilynette end up fighting with this combination, although never simultaneously. The two start out with one sword each, but upon Resurrección, Lilynette turns into Starrk's pair of guns. Starrk is capable of producing reishi swords by himself after Lilynette (in her gun form) transforms into a pack of exploding soul wolves.
• Captain Harlock and his Distaff Counterpart Emeraldas carry both gun and sword, but they usually avoid it for two reasons: the guns are ludicrously powerful (Emeraldas once shot down a starfighter with it, and Harlock's the same model) and the sword can also fire laser beams.
• Omegamon of Digimon; one hand is a WarGreymon-themed Grey Sword, the other is a MetalGarurumon-themed Garuru Cannon.
  • Omegamon's counterpart Chaosmon works the same way, although with opposite hands. The BanchouLeomon-themed hand is has the sword, while the Darkdramon-themed hand has the cannon, although the cannon doesn't stick out like the Garuru Cannon does.
  • Digimon Ghost Game: Siriusmon has two gunblade arms, which can alternate between swords and guns. Siriusmon can either go two swords or two guns or one sword and one gun.
• In Fullmetal Alchemist, Action Girl Olivier Armstrong wears this trope when she takes part in Roy's rebellion against Central, using her sword and a gun she snagged from one of the generals. She easily took down a whole floor of soldiers with only these two weapons. Too bad Sloth came too early to end the festivities.
• In the final episode of Ga-Rei -Zero-, Yomi uses this style. Bonus points for having a katana and a P-90.
• Gintama's Isaburo Sasaki's fighting style is to use both a sword (common among the samurai in the series) and a gun. This and his overall impressive form gives Hijikata some trouble when they fight in the Thorny arc. At one point Sasaki shoots a bullet at him and sets it up so that Hijikata will either get shot by the bullet or get slain by Sasaki's sword while dodging the bullet. Hijikata goes for the third option and slices the bullet with his own sword while he charges at the bewildered Sasaki and gets a good hit.
• This is the standard loadout for Mobile Suits in the Gundam franchise, since enemy suits are usually either too tough or too agile to engage with guns alone (and/or there's some sort of Applied Phlebotinum that limits engagement range). Some standout examples:
  • It seems to be quite popular in Mobile Suit Gundam 00. Such as when Alejandro's Alvaaron exited its base mobile armor he carried two guns only to toss one away and draw a beam sword. Ribbons' Gundam in the Grand Finale also does this, but mostly it seems to be because the rifle is mounted on the arm rather than being purely hand-carried. Also two Trinities, Graham, Exia, and Dynames near the end of season 1.
  • Exia and 00 Gundam have swords with built-in guns.
  • Mobile Suit Crossbone Gundam, being about space pirate Humongous Mecha, naturally does it, but with a special twist. Their pistol and sword (modeled on the flintlock and cutlass) can combine into a standard beam rifle that can fire rifle grenades, meaning both weapons are always right at hand.
    • The X1 and X2 play this straight but the X3 has the "Muramasa Blaster" instead, a beam rifle that happens to have 12 beam sabers built into its sides.
  • Klim Nick, an Ace Pilot in Gundam: Reconguista in G, takes this trope to the next level with his Signature Move, killing two enemies at once by shooting one as he cuts through the other.
• In Kämpfer, Sakura wields a katana in one hand and a modified Beretta 92G Elite II pistol in the other post-reveal.
• As Teana Lanster of Lyrical Nanoha dual-wields a pair of Devices that can switch from guns to daggers and back, this trope was inevitable. She employs this during her final confrontation with the Numbers cyborgs.
• Maria Grace Fleed, a character of the Mazinger trilogy wielded a ray gun and a sword in her first appearance.
• Gandolfini, the dark-skinned mage teacher in Negima! Magister Negi Magi. While most mages are shown using staves or wands, his weapons of choice are a 9mm handgun and combat knife that he dual wields.
  • Chachamaru turned one arm into a sword, and the other into a gun.
• If it's a pirate trope, One Piece will have it (not counting eyepatches... yet). In this case, it appears to be the fighting style of none other than the Pirate King, Gold Roger, according to a canon chapter promoting the tenth One Piece movie, One Piece Film: Strong World.
• Rebuild World: Akira runs into a problem: Due to lacking a melee weapon, he ends up using Gun Fu in close quarters which typically leaves him with a Wrecked Weapon. So when Shiori comes to him offering a favor, he asks for her high tech sword. After this, he uses it to cut many opponents into Half the Man He Used to Be. This despite Akira originally having Opposing Combat Philosophies preferring guns (but seeing Nelia and Shiori’s sword skills impressed him.) He eventually gets a sword that functions as liquid metal contained within a force-field, allowing it to take different shapes, with each attack using up that Abnormal Ammo.
• In The Red Ranger Becomes an Adventurer in Another World, Tougo can wield both his Handshake-Calibur and his Marriage Beam Gun to go to town on a small army of monsters with ease.
• Sword Art Online has its protagonist Kirito dual wield a LIGHTSABER and an FN Five-Seven pistol in the GGO arc of the series. He can even fight by using the pistol as an alternative to a sword and even pull off his Dual Blades skills with it.
• A fairly common weapon combination for all-rounder combatants in World Trigger, who are skilled as both attackers and gunners. Notable examples are Shuji Miwa, Ai Kitora and the protagonist Osamu Mikumo, though he uses the Raygust as a shield more often than a sword.

Comic Books

• In a bid to have her Rescued from the Scrappy Heap, Kennedy of Buffy the Vampire Slayer had gone full Slayer Commando using blades and firearms with silver bullets.
• Grimjack, seen above, carries both for a simple reason. His home city of Cynosure is a multi-dimensional nexus where the laws of reality can change with the crossing of a street. Magic works some place, guns in others, but swords work everywhere.
• All of Rob Liefeld's creations, including:
  • Deadpool usually has a gun in one hand, a sword in the other, a gun in the other and a sword in the other.
  • Cable is known for his Big Freaking Gun, but also frequently carries a sword. The traditonal Cable has a blade that focuses his psionic powers, called a Psimitar, while Kid Cable in the Krakoa era acquires a Spaceknight sword called the Light of Galador, which he later gives to his older self.
• Teen Titans antagonist Deathstroke is skilled in both melee weapons and guns, and regularly carries examples of both types at once.
• In the climax to Sin City: Hell and Back, the main character has Guns Akimbo and a machete.
• Wonder Woman:
  • Wonder Woman (1942): Capt. Storm is depicted with his sword in one hand and a pistol in the other when he's not dual wielding his pistols with his sword in its sheath at his hip.
  • Wonder Woman (1987): Sakritt wields a Laser Blade and blaster together. In combination with her long sharp teeth she makes a great imposing factor when Diana is trying to convince pilots and their crews to surrender.
• X-Men: Corsair, space pirate and father of Scott Summers (aka Cyclops).

Fan Works

• The Firefly fanfic Forward has both River and Book fighting in this style.
• Hands has Spike briefly shown armed like this when he shows up as part of The Cavalry at the end of the Wedding Arc.
• The Keys Stand Alone: The Soft World : The Circle's Master-Schemer L'le is festooned with weapons, some of which are swords and guns.
• The Night Unfurls:
  • Kyril generally uses his Saw Cleaver and Hunter's Pistol together.
  • Leaning towards a Cainhurst style, Hugh's setup is the Chikage and Evelyn, a katana-pistol pair.
• Queen of All Oni: Both Blankman and Ramirez are both armed this way when entering the Vault of Endless Night.
• Free-duelling in The Rigel Black Chronicles permits any combination of weapons, but the most common choice is a wand in one hand and a knife in the other. When training Harry, Leo emphasises that the wand is her primary weapon, with the knife mostly being to hold off an opponent who closes the range, since she's smaller and weaker than most opponents, but fast and has a lot of magic. He himself, however, when fighting seriously, encases his wand in a special crystal rod that doubles as an extra knife, giving him three weapons.
• "The Road Not Taken" has Morgaiah t'Thavrau dual-wielding her Romulan saber with a looted Jem'Hadar pistol. At one point she kills an opponent with her sword and immediately turns and headshots another Jem'Hadar that Eleya is in a grapple with.
• The second Spirits Of The Force film, featured Kyle Motherf'ckin Katarn shooting mooks with his blaster in one hand while deflecting shots and cutting up sentry droids with his lightsaber in the other.
• In Star Wars: The Sith, Zero Louise picks up a blaster after murdering some insane soldiers, she pairs it with her Training Saber and later her Lightsaber for an edge.
• Star Wars vs Warhammer 40K: Episode 35 has Quinlan Vos and Commissar Terrandor duel each other this way. Quinlan is wielding his lightsaber in one hand and a blaster pistol in the other while Terrandor is simultaneously fighting with his chainsword and laspistol.
• Tattered Capes Under a Shattered Moon: Lillie uses an ice axe with one hand and uses her arsenal of revolvers with the other.
• Jeremiah Cross in This Bites! starts fighting like this by the end of the Enies Lobby arc... although the "gun" is a 1-ton cannon that can turn into a dog and the sword can turn into an elephant.

Films — Live-Action

• Blackbeard in Disney's Blackbeard's Ghost. He carries a Cutlass and multiple pistols, including some modern pistols.
• Blade has done this a couple of times.
• The climax of the Turkish war/action film, Col Kartali, have the hero Yüzbasi Murat (played by Turkish badass Cüneyt Arkın) fighting off a desert fortress full of bandits with a sabre in one hand and his trusty revolver in another.
• Evil Dead 2, Ash Williams wields a shotgun and a chainsaw in either hand. The shotgun is sawn down to wield in one hand, while the chainsaw is attached to his arm-stump.
• The protagonist of Gangland Odyssey is a ex-Hong Kong triad enforcer who escaped to Japan during his youth and spent 15 years there, learning some serious skills with a katana alongside his already-present expert marksmanship. In the film's final shootout where he takes on Yakuza / triad mooks, he wields a pistol and his katana simultaneously - his Hong Kong-based partner in contrast relies entirely on guns.
• Snake-Eyes in G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra.
• Shaw and Forbes use this combination in Glory, using their revolvers and swords in concert to dispatch Confederate troops when their opponents charge at their line.
• Gunpowder Milkshake: After Dr. Ricky paralyzes her arms, Sam gets Emily to tape a scalpel in one hand and her handgun in the other. Even if she can't move her arms, she can swing her arms and she ends up taking out the three "boneheads" sent after her like that.
• Indiana Jones, with his iconic whip and revolver.
• In The Last of the Mohicans, Nathaniel and his fellow Indians keep switching from shiny old rifles to hatchets and knives.
• Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World
• At one point in The Matrix Reloaded, Morpheus had a machine pistol in one hand and a katana in the other. He then proceeded to use both to dispatch The Twins.
• Mel Gibson during the final battle of The Patriot (2000), with a pistol and hatchet.
  • Earlier, in the ambush scene, using two rifles, one pistol, a hatchet and a knife. Mel had a good time.
• Pirates of the Caribbean, natch.
• In Rob Roy, the titular hero Rob Roy MacGregor finds himself killing two men with some rather pretty pistols before Killing Archibald Cunningham with a large broadsword.
• The battle at the river barricade in The Sand Pebbles.
• Luke Skywalker in The Empire Strikes Back. Luke is equipped with both a blaster and a lightsaber when he enters the Cloud City.
• Baby Doll in Sucker Punch uses a katana in one hand and a nickel-plated 1911 Colt .45 in the other. As you can guess, the action scenes in this movie run exclusively on the Rule of Cool.
• Long John Silver in Disney's Treasure Island (1950).

Literature

• A humorous example: In a letter purported to have been written during the Irish Revolution, the anonymous writer says "Whilst I write this, I hold a sword in each hand and a pistol in the other."
• In the Aubrey-Maturin series, this is par for the course for Jack Aubrey. After he's fired his pistol, he'll use it as a makeshift buckler while killing people with his cutlass.
• CIAPHAS CAIN, HERO OF THE IMPERIUM uses a Laspistol and a Chainsword.
• In the Deathstalker novels, humanity of the distant future uses disruptors that can blast through almost anything, but the power crystals take two minutes to recharge. As a result, many people carry swords, and those who can afford (or are supplied by them by the Empire) carry a sword, disruptor, and a force shield. Full-on duels involve using all three weapons (force shields block swords but reflect disruptor bolts.)
• Orson Gregory in The Dreamside Road sometimes uses this combo, but greatly prefers wielding only his sword.
• Common in The Dresden Files with notable examples being Sanya, a black Russian who wields a cavalry saber with a nail from the true cross in the hilt and an AK-47 and Thomas Raith, a vampire who wields a saber and a sawed off shotgun, or sometimes a Kukri and a Desert Eagle. Harry carries a sword and a pistol on occasion, but rarely pulls both out as per this trope. Murphy counts as this when she borrows one of the three Swords of the Cross for the assault on the Red Court in Mexico. Young, savvy Wardens tend to be this, including Carlos, who has a Desert Eagle and his Warden Sword.
  • Vampires in general are known to do this. It helps to have literally-supernatural accuracy and proficiency with just about any weapon. The equally-supernatural strength to bear and use those weapons helps, too.
  • At least partially justified by many supernatural threats being more or less Immune to Bullets and the Walking Techbane status of wizards making any straightforward attempts to combine magic and gunpowder to get past that likely to have literally explosive results. Magical swords at least aren't going to outlive their usefulness for quite a while yet in this setting.
    • Sort of. The Fae are particularly vulnerable to iron and many creatures have a vulnerability to silver (and custom-made bullets have been used in the setting). Also, it is pretty well established that the anti-tech field wouldn't cause explosive failure, and instead results in frequent jamming. Which is why most of the guns featured are famously reliable (Sanya's kalashnikov and all the revolvers Harry uses).
  • Lampshaded by Thomas in Small Favor, when he starts whistling "Froggy Went A-Courting" (see Music, below) while so-armed.
• In Dune, most infantrymen prefer to use this combination. Though there are various context-appropriate subversions throughout the series.
  • Justified because of personal shields, which stop anything moving quickly (e.g. a bullet) but permit slow-moving objects through. The guns are for when the opponents don't have shields (or don't have them on, because they're uncomfortable to wear for long periods), the blades are for when they do.
• Lieutenant Walter Hamilton VC charges into his last fight with revolver and sabre in M.M. Kaye's The Far Pavilions. Essentially Truth in Television, as this is a historical novel dealing with events spanning the Indian Mutiny and the Second Afghan War.
• In the Courts of the Crimson Kings. As the biotech weapons of the Martians take a few seconds to reload, swordwork is still important.
• John Carter of Mars: Swords and Firearms are the standard weapons for most Martians. The guns are used mostly for long-range battles between large armies or naval engagements; Martian culture emphasizes personal combat, and there's a code of honor which prohibits the use of a weapon superior to that used by your adversary (if someone challenges you with a sword, you can fight him unarmed or attack with a sword yourself, but shooting him would brand you a coward).
• Used by a dwarven character in "No Need for a Core?" as part of a skirmishing fighting style that lets him reload his single shot pistol regularly, which uses black-powder paper bullets for ammo.
• In the later books of The Parasol Protectorate, Alexia occasionally wields Ethel in combination with her trademark accessory. It's mostly for effect though. She's a terrible shot with the former, and the latter is actually least dangerous as a melee weapon.
• Solomon Kane is the embodiment of the trope, for all the reasons noted above. Plus he has a nifty hat.
• In the Temeraire series, set during the Napoleonic wars in ~1805, has a justified example. Lawrence typically carries a number of black powder pistols, which he uses in conjunction with a cavalry saber when fighting boarders on his dragon. However, as the pistols are slow to reload — doubly so when airborne — he switches to pure sword fighting in prolonged battles.
• The Three Musketeers tend to feature this trope in their various incarnation.
• Wars of the Realm: Angels and demons use swords as their primary weapons, but if they want to fight at range, they'll translate pistols from the human realm and use them alongside their swords. A typical engagement will begin with each side unloading the magazines of their pistols before throwing them away and switching to melee combat.

Live-Action TV

• Arrow. As with his comic book persona, Slade Wilson carries both sword (twin machetes on Lian Yu, and a katana in the present day) along with a pistol or submachine gun. He can be seen using both at once when he's carving his way through the Jackals in "Deathstroke Returns".
• As the characters prepare for the Headless Monks to attack in the Doctor Who 2011 mid-series finale, Rory can be seen dual-wielding a gladius and pulse pistol combo.
  • Given how Rory spent 2000 years protecting the Pandorica armed with only an Arm Cannon and a gladius, it's safe to say he's had a lot of experience with this style of combat
• Horatio Hornblower: Several characters.
• Power Rangers/Super Sentai:
  • In one episode of Power Rangers RPM, Summer takes on Tenaya with a Nitro Blaster in one hand and a Nitro Sword in the other. Given how nearly every ranger team has the core rangers carrying identical weapons, it's quite frankly surprising that this sort of thing doesn't show up more often.
  • Played straight in Kaizoku Sentai Gokaiger/Power Rangers Super Megaforce — each ranger carries a sword and gun. Apparently someone at Toei was keeping tabs on the RPM example above, because they start swapping weapons from the first episode - Green and Pink are better with guns, apparently, while Blue and Yellow like swords. Red favors one of each.
  • Zyuden Sentai Kyoryuger and its American counterpart Power Rangers Dino Charge: Both shows use a gun for the Transformation Trinket, with a sword as the primary sidearm. The Gold Ranger's is a wrist blaster, but he still uses a sword. Many of the Rangers use the two in differing combinations, plus they can combine into a Hand Cannon. The Purple Ranger even uses the blade as a small bayonet.
  • Mashin Sentai Kiramager, much like Gokaiger, has a sword and gun available as weapons to the entire team, however, only Red usually uses both - with Blue and Green preferring the swords and Yellow and Pink the guns. Like in Kyoryuger, the two weapons can combine to form a Hand Cannon.
• Ahn Eun-young in The School Nurse Files carries a plastic toy sword and a BB pistol as her weapons against the jellies.
• Richard Sharpe from Sharpe is an interesting variation in that he uses a sword and rifle in combat.

Music

• The traditional song "Froggy Went a Courtin'", recorded by hundreds of people including Bob Dylan and Bruce Springsteen, says the title character rides with "a sword and pistol by his side". Alright, I admit, there's no mention in the song of either of these being used much less simultaneously, but still the image of an anthropomorphic frog with a sword and pistol is pretty funny for a song that's Older Than Steam.
• And then there's "Whiskey in the Jar", an Irish folk ballad recorded by a whole bunch of artists (most notably Thin Lizzy and Metallica), in which the first-person narrator encounters the rich Captain Farrel, whereupon our intrepid highwayman "first produced my pistol/ And then produced my rapier/ And said, stand and deliver/ Or the Devil, he may take ya..." (of course, some versions replace the rapier with an equally (badly) rhyming saber).
• The title character in the Irish ballad "The Highwayman" is described carrying a rapier and a couple of pistols.
• Keeping with the highwayman theme, another song called "Highwayman" (written by the Highwaymen) mentions the titular highwayman having "sword and pistol by my side."

Tabletop Games

• Sister product d20 Modern has surprisingly little support for this. Rules as written, firing a pistol provokes an attack of opportunity from foes in melee (essentially, trying to point-blank someone gives them the opportunity to shove the gun away), and there are very few ways to get around this. That said, if you can manage to overcome that difficulty, the regular two-weapon-fighting Feats are all that you need.
• Dungeons & Dragons:
  • It does not have many settings where guns are common or even exist. It does have the next best thing; the one-handed hand crossbow. Some feats exist that allow a character (typically a ranger or rogue) to fight well using a hand crossbow in conjunction with a melee weapon, particularly in Fourth Edition. This fighting technique seems to be especially favored by Drow for some reason. Drow introduced hand crossbows to the D&D rules way back in 1st edition. Although weak, the Drow poison the bolts.
• Games Workshop games:
  • In Warhammer, the more technologically advanced armies, such as the Empire, the Skaven and Dwarfs are able to arm their characters and unit leaders can do this. For dwarfs it's the only way many of their characters can get "two hand weapons"; Skaven can do this together with a tail weapon.
  • In Warhammer: Age of Sigmar, the majority of Kharadron Arkanauts are generally equipped with an aether-powers pistol and a close combat weapon known as an Arkanaut cutter that release a burst of energy when they cut their target. The more successful Arkanauts often wield elaborately designed and decorated version of these weapons.
  • Warhammer 40,000:
    • This style is extremely prevalent in most armies due to the fact that a pistol nets you the same benefits as wielding another close-combat weapon—usually for the exact same cost—and you can also shoot with it. Oddly enough however you have to put quite a few points into the right weapon skills to do this in the RPGs, despite it being an almost universal practice in the setting for anyone carrying a pistol and also that it just plain looks cool.
    • In previous editions, some units of the Space Wolves chapter and Nurgle's Plague Marines could use bolters/boltguns instead of bolt pistols. To elaborate, boltpistols classify as Hand Cannons thanks to the fact that they shoot can-sized explosive bullets and the boltguns/bolters are the full-sized version of that and is standard issue for most Tactical marines that is also regularly used with both hands. The Space Wolves use it one-handed at the same efficiency, plus the bonus of also being able to carry a melee weapon in the other hand.
    • The bolt gun and chainsword is almost the prerequisite armament for Space Marines that prefer melee engagements especially the Assault Marines whom combine this with a Jump Pack.
    • The basic armaments for the Loyalist and Traitor Terminators is a storm bolter (the More Dakka version of a standard bolter that has a large box magazine and double barrels for increased firerate), alongside a one-handed power weapon on the other hand. Usually a Power Fist of some sort.
    • Both to instill fear and inspiration to their guardsmen, Commissars are all armed with chainswords, power sabers or swords alongside a bolt pistol or las pistol. Expect them to use that melee weapon against the enemy while that pistol will be used to dome a cowardly Guardsman's skull just to "inspire" his fellow soldiers.
• Agent Carr and the second version of Sgt. Drake Alexander in Hero Scape.
• Not an uncommon combo in Ironclaw, especially for noble characters who are both allowed to have swords and guns and can afford them. The Dilettante career starts with a rapier and a pistol, as well as a main gauche for after shooting.
• Pathfinder variant includes rules for guns, as well as (under rare and controlled circumstances) various high tech weapons and even has a special Gunslinger class. With the right feats, this is entirely workable.
  • The Swashbuckler Hybrid Class lends itself well to this, with the Picaroon and Musketeer Archetypes being the most natural avenues available.
• In Rocket Age Space Pirates frequently use cutlasses and low caliber pistols in boarding actions, due to the fact that heavier weaponry can easily pop a hole in the side of the space ship.
• The Master Privateer in Star Wars: Saga Edition has a series of three talents for this. When you have all three of these talents, you have the ability to move and make up to 6 attacks in the same round (three with each weapon). Oh, and the melee weapon can be a two-handed (and thus more powerful) one like a vibro-ax.
• Vampire: The Masquerade had no shortage of characters that were designed purely for the purpose of being dangerously awesome, but only a select few lived up to the notoriety of Francisco Domingo de Polonia, Sabbat Archbishop of New York. Appearing in numerous supplements and novels, he was easily one of the company's favorites. One of the supplements he appeared in not only gave him impressive Firearms and Melee stats, but his character description actually pointed out that when in battle - in a modern, American setting, with all the legality that attends - he was always seen with a machine pistol and a shortsword simultaneously drawn.
• In the tabletop game War Zone, this is pretty much a standard configuration for heroes, usually with an SMG and a chainsword, and mortificators (McNinja in service of the inquisition), with a one-edged sword and a large pistol.
• This was the default go-to pose denoting officer figures in many Airfix sets: the French Foreign Legion, both sides in the American Civil War, WW1 French Infantry, and as late as WW2 Japanese Infantry. ^note Their WW2 American Infantry set had a General Patton figure with a pistol in both# hands

Video Games

• In Anno 1701, the third installment of the Anno Domini series, the militia men wield a pistol and a saber each (strange thing though, that those pistols are able to fire after every second saber thrust - so once every three seconds... in 1701!!)
  • Also, it should be noted, that the militiamen, being armed with sabres and pistols, are, purely theoretically, better armed than any other unit in the game (Grenadiers, for instance, fight with grenades and knives, pikemen with halberds, and Musketeers are nonexistent).
• A basic "balanced" loadout for Armored Core mecha includes a Laser Blade and some sort of mid-range firearm (either a plasma rifle or SMG).
• In Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood, Ezio can use both a one-handed sword or bludgeon and his hidden gun together in combat, unlike in II where they were separate. A variant is using a Short Blade together with throwing knives. Swiss Guards carry both a pistol and a sword.
  • From Brotherhood onward, this has become a standard for both protagonists and enemies in time periods where handguns are commonplace. While pistols make for potent weapons, their drawback comes from the fact that they tend to be primitive and therefore slow to reload.
• Bayonetta has an interesting take on this concept, while Bayonetta herself cannot use a melee weapon in one hand and a ranged weapon in the other, due to her abuse of Armed Legs she can have a melee weapon equipped on her hands and a ranged weapon equipped to her heels, or vice-versa.
• Subject Delta of BioShock 2 can wield a projectile plasmid in one hand and a drill in the other.
  • Similarly, Booker DeWitt of BioShock Infinite has a gun in one hand, and the Skyhook in the other (the same hand used for the powers, mostly projectiles - except one which is explicitly pushing Booker towards the enemy for Skyhook skewering).
• In Blade Strangers, Quote from Cave Story wields King's Blade (in a Reverse Grip) alongside his first gun, the Polar Star (as well as the Fireball and the Missile Launcher in certain attacks). Most notable is his second Ultra Skill, which has him lay into the opponent with a barrage of slashes and blasts, ending with a Wave-Motion Gun in its stronger form. (In his original game, he could only wield one weapon at any given time, so this fighting style was impossible.)
• In Bloodborne, the common gear set-up for Hunters in Yharnam is generally a Trick Weapon on your right hand and a firearm on your left. This trope is inverted however as in Yharnam, guns are used for parrying while melee weapons are actually the primary weapons.
• Rayne from BloodRayne is able to Dual Wield a pair of guns and a pair of blades at the same time; her blades are mounted on her forearms, leaving her hands free to wield a pair of submachine guns.
• After a few games' worth of Discard and Draw, Django of the Boktai series can wield both melee weapons and his Gun Del Sol in full by the third game. His successors in Lunar Knights divide the trope among themselves, with each of the main duo taking one weapon, but are defined as one with it.
• Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 adds the "Tactical Knife" attachment for pistols, which increases the speed you can perform melee attacks at while you're holding a gun with it.
• Saint Germain from Castlevania: Curse of Darkness does this.
• In Captain Morgane and the Golden Turtle, it looks like Pirate Girl Morgane is being set up for this, since she gets a nice sword and a pistol quite early in the name. However, the trope is subverted by the fact that she never once uses them for their intended purpose. The sword is used to cut shrubbery and fabric, while the pistol spends most of its time without gunpowder and ammunition, being used occasionally as a hammer. Then, finally, some gunpowder is acquired and the pistol is fired... only once, to scare some seagulls.
• Thanks to both the versatile costume creator and the equally versatile power system of Champions Online, it is possible to create a character who wears a pistol on one hip and a sword on the other, and to create one who can use a pistol for one attack and a sword (or two) for another. No single power animation uses one in each hand, however.
• Spark Blade in City of Heroes combines this with electric-charging powers. Since there's no actual way to depict this in the game yet, he has so far only existed in the lore and a couple of promotional trailers.
• Like in the tabletop version, most close combat units in the first Dawn of War carry this kind of equipment.
• Clive Barker's Jericho has Billy Church, a sanguimancer (blood mage) who carries an SMG and a katana. She prefers the katana.
• In Curse of the Dead Gods, your starting weapon loadout is a machete and pistol (though you can find other weapons to replace them both).
• Dark Chronicle's characters wield a gun and a wrench, and a magic-zapping armband and a sword, in their left and right hands respectively.
• The Highwayman in Darkest Dungeon wields a custom flintlock pistol on his left hand and a dirk on his right.
• Dark Forces Saga: Kyle Katarn is occasionally depicted holding both a lightsaber and his Bryar pistol... itself a cut-down rifle.
  • Kyle Katarn is one of the few Jedi seen using a blaster as a regular weapon, with good reason. He spent much of his life as a Muggle soldier/mercenary. It's not until Jedi Knight: Dark Forces II that he finally gets Force powers and a lightsaber. Most Jedi are trained from a very young age. Kyle knows how to use a lightsaber, but is also pragmatic enough to know not to rely exclusively on a close-range weapon, something he also teaches to his students in Jedi Knight: Jedi Academy.
• Hayden from darkSector wields a pistol in one hand and the bladed Glaive in the other hand. Notably, the Glaive is also dual-functioned as it can be used in melee or thrown as a Boomerang Sword.
  • In the spiritual successor Warframe, the Tenno are often portrayed as doing so in advertisement, primarily Excalibur with a Skana and Lato (the starting sword and pistol). Equipping a glaive-class melee weapon with a one-handed sidearm offers a unique combat stance involving holding the pistol and deploying the glaive simultaneously to maximize damage.
• Dead Cells's 'Everyone is Here' update, as an official crossover event, added a number of weapons, skills and outfits based on several other indie games. Among them is the Machete and Pistol, representing Curse of the Dead Gods seen above. As the name implies, it's a combo of the 2 weapons wielded as one. You normally strike with the machete, and every 3rd hit of a combo is a shot from the pistol.
• Demon Hunter: The Return of the Wings: Gun has both the sword and guns equipped at all times, but has to switch between them in-combat.
• The Fallen Dregs from Destiny carry a pistol in the right hand and a knife in the left. Somewhat justified in that the Fallen are Space Pirates.
• Devil May Cry 3: Dante's Awakening: Dante can fight with a sword on one hand and a gun on the other, such as when he takes on the Blood-goyles in mid-air after he just acquired his Devil Trigger in a cutscene.
• Devil May Cry 4: Nero wields his Red Queen sword using his left hand and switches to his double-barreled Blue Rose revolver when he needs to shoot. When he uses his Red Queen and Blue Rose in tandem (usually in various promotional art), they form this trope.
• Any humanoid character in Disgaea 4 is capable of wielding both a Magichange sword and a Magichange gun at the same time.
  • Disgaea 5 introduced the Sub-weapon system, allowing a unit to have an off-hand weapon for quick-switching in combat. The "Dual Bladed" Evility makes this trope stand out if your unit has a sword and gun as their weapons of choice, or Bow and Sword in Accord, or whatever combination you wish.
  • Disgaea 6: Defiance of Destiny: Party member Piyori Nijino is shown to have equal mastery with Swords and Guns.
• Corvo Attano of Dishonored has a shortsword and a pistol (or crossbow, if you like) as his primary weapons. Officer-type guards and DLC Player Character/Boss fight Daud are similarly equipped.
• In Doom Eternal, the Marauders wield an energy axe used to fire Sword Beams in tandem with their own versions of Super Shotguns used to blast you if you get too close.
• Dungeon Fighter Online has the "Agent" class, which uses a sword and firearm in conjunction. Each subclass has their own weapon preferences: Secret Agents use bayonets and pistols, Hitmen use odachi and SMGs, Troubleshooters use square swords and shotguns, and Specialists use Core Blades and Core Pistols.
• Several entries in the Dynasty Warriors franchise from Koei Tecmo feature characters that wield a blade and firearm simultaneously.
  • In Samurai Warriors Chronicles, your customizable character, if male, gets to use a 2-handed katana and a rifle in tandem during combat. That is: he holds the katana one-handed and fires his rifle one-handed. He can also do this while running.
  • In the main numbered Samurai Warriors titles, this applies to Ieyasu Tokugawa, Masamune Date, and Magoichi Saika. Ieyasu carries a thick spear, where the blade actually acts as a lid for a cannon hidden underneath. Masamune wields two flintlock alongside his blade in tandem during combat. Magoichi has a knife mounted to the barrel of his rifle, allowing him to both shoot and slash at enemies. In the fifth game, the "Mature" variation of Mitsuhide has a sword and a matchlock as his primary weapon (though the game allows any other character to use said weapon with the right skills).
  • In Hyrule Warriors Legends, Tetra wields the classical cutlass and flintlock pistol combo, fitting for a Pirate Girl.
• Characters in Elona have separate equipment slots for melee and ranged weapons. Try to walk into a space with an enemy and you'll attack with the melee weapon, or if you tap the fire key you'll shoot with the ranged weapon. This allows for things like a swordsman quickly pulling out a grenade to deal with a distant enemy, or for a gunner to use the melee slot for Stat Sticks.
• The End Times: Vermintide and Vermintide II: Victor Saltzpyre carries a pistol in his off-hand when using rapiers. It's treated as a sort of Secondary Fire that drops off rapidly with distance, but consumes no ammunition and can be fired while blocking.
• Etrian Odyssey III: The Drowned City: The Buccaneers use Rapiers and Guns as their weapons of choice. While the player cannot have them equip both^note unless their primary class is the dual-wielding Shogun, mastering both weapons is key to unlocking their best skills: Swashbuckling, which lets them strike multiple times with every normal attack, and Pincushion, their ultimate Attack technique which can be used with either a sword or gun.
• Evil Genome grants you a high-tech Laser Blade as your default weapon, and a futuristic shotgun that fires laser shells halfway through. You can use them in tandem in gameplay, allowing you to suddenly whip out said gun and blast apart large groups of enemies from close range while slicing them apart.
• E.Y.E: Divine Cybermancy allows players to wield certain pistols and swords at the same time. Players can carry the fully automatic .45 ACP pistol with a katana, for example. Or the Damocles high-explosive sword with a .444 anti-vehicle revolver
• From Fable II onwards, the game mapped each type of combat to a different button. So if one has a pistol as their ranged weapon, they can do this. In fact, there's nothing stopping you from liking it off with a rifle in 2 or 3 either. So long as the melee weapon you have equipped is light enough for your strength. You can whack someone with a hammer, then instantly whip out your rifle and nail them in the gut. Realistic? No. Awesome? Yes.
• Lightning from Final Fantasy XIII actually uses a gun as a part of her sword attack combo when her ATB gauge reaches level 4, in addition of showing her carry it in cutscenes once in a while.
• Yae from the Ganbare Goemon series wields both a katana and a bazooka.
• The Heaven and Hell stance in Granado Espada, one of the possible stances the Fighter can utilize. This turns the Fighter into a Glass Cannon, as it forgoes their defensive capabilities to increase their power.
• In Guild Wars 2, Rytlock Brimstone does this. However, we don't really see the gun much because Rytlock is ALWAYS marketed with his nice sword. Mesmer and Thief characters can both wield sword and pistol.
• Most of the artwork in the online game GunZ: The Duel depicts characters with such weapons. K-style makes this somewhat possible through a combo of close-up sword-slashing and ranged shotgunning or revolver fire. It had the downside of making the shotgun one of the most overused weapons in an online game.
• Gordon Freeman of Half-Life is often shown in art with a gun in one hand and his crowbar in the other. That doesn't apply to the gameplay, though, where they're used separately.
• Julie from Heavy Metal FAKK 2 can wield a melee weapon and a ranged weapon (pistol, UZI, or crossbow). Sadly, it is Awesome, but Impractical as for the most part, you need either a shield in the off-hand or dual guns to max out the firepower.
• Hellgate: London allows its Templar classes to do so, with the guns ranging from grenade launchers to chaingun pistols.
• Genn Greymane, in Heroes of the Storm is an interesting example. He fights with both sword and gun, until he discards both to turn into a wolf and ravage his enemies with fang and claw. Doesn't matter where they go while he's transformed. Hammerspace?
• The Eclair class in Kritika uses a gun and a floating sword.
• Gangplank, the pirate champion in the online game League of Legends, fights with a cutlass and a pistol. As a result, he is rather squishy, but he is capable of a low-cooldown, short-to-mid range blast from his hand cannon that deals incredible damage.
• Sara Valestein in The Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel uses sword and gun as her weapon of choice. Both of them are sold in one package instead of separately since the game has no right-left hand equipment system.
• Listen To The Wind have "Fast Sword" Rogerio, the Token White member among a series of bosses who uses a sabre and a large-bore flintlock rifle in tandem. He'll use the rifle on you if you're at a distance, and you can prevent him from firing by forcing him in a corner and spamming close slashes and kicks.
• The protagonist of Luminous Arc equips swords, but uses a rifle for most of his special attacks.
• In Lunar: Eternal Blue, the Phantom Sentry wields a sword and a pistol in his first encounter with the party (which is deleted from the remake).
• Mad Stalker: Full Metal Force's protagonist mecha, Hound Dog, carries a sword and cannon that shoots fireballs.
• In Mass Effect 3, Shepard gains the Omni-blade for melee attacks. Promotional artwork and cinematic trailers heavily featured Shepard wielding both a gun and an Omni-blade, cutting down husks with both in rapid succession.
  • In the multiplayer, this is the preferred style of Cerberus Phantoms and N7 Shadows (Infiltrator) and Slayers (Vanguard).
• The protagonist of the "Katana" mod for Max Payne can opt to wield his title blade and a Sawed-Off Shotgun together.
• In Mega Man ZX Advent, the titular Model ZX. It's the only form in the game that has both a blade and a gun. This might also apply to the Z-Saber from Mega Man Zero too.
  • And Model OX.
• Both X and Zero from Mega Man X. Zero wields the Z-Buster alongside the Z-Saber in all his incarnations bar X1 (where he only had his buster) and X4 (where the buster was removed to balance him versus X), while X can use Zero's saber in X3 and X6.
  • Mega Man X DiVE allows for this by equipping secondary weapons to pretty much every playable character available. Rathalos Armor X has it as his default weapon set, wielding a BFS along with a Bowgun-like Buster.
• In Mega Man Legends, Mega Man can equip the Blade Arm as a subweapon and use it in conjunction with his Mega Buster.
• Metal Gear:
  • Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater's Naked Snake. CQC is based around holding a gun and a knife at the same time, in particular the knife held in reverse alongside the pistol in a two-handed grip that can easily separate. He is even shown whittling the grip of a pistol so he can hold the knife handle flush with it without sacrificing the stability of his grip. The Boss, having created CQC, does likewise, albeit with a BFG.
  • Down the line, Old Snake would later use a version where he could carry a knife and rifle at the same time, albeit using an odd two-fingered grip; however, in gameplay the knife is not actually used with the rifle, since the melee attack is a smack with the rifle's stock. (One of the odder Metal Gear-related pictures around is characters from Metal Gear Online using this grip without a knife.)
  • In the final release of Metal Gear Online, the knife is always present. In Guns of the Patriots, Snake makes better use of the knife + rifle combination in cutscenes, although never lethally; it's clear that the intent is the same as with a pistol, just more limited with the rifle's bigger size. In gameplay, Snake can't make a direct attack with the knife while he has a pistol equipped, either. Finally, some of the rifle grips are really bizarre, when having the off-hand in the "traditional" position under the barrel would result in the knife poking the magazine, Snake or online characters resort to a strange claw grip.◊ It should be noted that while all of this is visually awesome, it would be completely ridiculous in reality.
  • Knife + Gun = Knifegun!◊
• The Space Pirates in the various incarnations in Metroid Prime typically wield both a handheld scythe and mounted blaster.
• In Mortal Kombat X, Erron Black's Outlaw variation gives him a Cool Sword created from a blade ripped out of a Tarkatan's arm in addition to his revolvers.
• Mount & Blade encourages the player to act like this in the modules for later weapons, either because (in the case of black powder firearms) the firearms are generally inaccurate and slow, or (even in the case of more modern eras) ammo is limited and a clipping error prevents you from shooting somebody who is too close to you. Of course, there is also the option of just switching the firearm to melee mode and bludgeon the poor sap to death with it, but it's not as recommended. If you don't have firearms enabled, pretty much the same effect can be had by equipping a throwing weapon of some sort.
• In Neptunia, Neptune herself starts off with a sword and a gun.
• In No More Heroes 2: Desperate Struggle, Skelter Helter has a revolver that is twelve revolvers, and a katana that is three katana. His brother Helter-Skelter from the trailer for the original game had a different variant, where his revolvers turned into swords.
• Reiko from the Onechanbara games favors a sword and a shotgun (or sub-machine gun).
• A one-handed sword/one-handed gun combo is one of several possible stances in Phantasy Star Universe, albeit Enforced due to how equipment works. One-handed melee weapons (sabers and wands, to name a few) can only be used in the right hand while one-handed guns can only be used in the left hand. In order to use Guns Akimbo or Dual Wielding you'd have to go and buy the two-handed weapon version that gives you two guns or two sabers. You can't just buy two one-handed sabers for the same effect.
• Phlegethon grants you a combat knife and pistol by default, and the former works surprisingly well against the lowest-level zombie enemies. Later in the game you can use large-bore handguns and automatic weapons alongside one-handed maces and handsaws, and use them simultaneously.
• Pirates: Legend of the Black Buccaneer have you playing as a pirate, and in classic swashbuckler fashion you get to kick ass wielding your cutlass and flintlock pistol on either hand.
• The player's titular hero in Pirate Hunter is armed with his trusty cutlass in one hand and his pistol in another. There are actually two buttons for each attack, one for slashing and another for shooting.
• Each crew member in Pixel Piracy can have a variety of ranged and melee weapons at once, ranging from daggers and rocks to cutlasses and pistols.
• In Oniblade/X-Blades, this is taken even further. Ayumi wields the gun and the sword with single hand: she's using a gunblade, which is basically a shortsword with revolver welded into it, and she's carrying two
• Red Steel 2 allows you to switch between guns and katana at any time, as opposed to the segregated shooting and dueling segments of its predecessor.
• Kay Loren, the Unlikely Hero of Regalia: Of Men and Monarchs, wields a sword in one hand and a pistol in the other. However, his role as a field commander gives him skills more suited to aiding his allies (boosting their attack and defense, or marking targets on the battlefield to make them easier to hit), so his weapons only tend to get situational use.
• Rise of the Third Power: Rowan wields a sword and a pistol in each hand, though his weapon in the equipment screen only shows his current sword. His Fury skill has him throw a molotov cocktail at the enemy, shoot the cocktail, and then slash the enemy.
• The titular character in Rising Zan: The Samurai Gunman wields a katana named the "Demon Slayer" in his right hand and his gun named "Johnny No More" in his left. Both have dedicated combo attacks, or he can use both in sequence.
• Like a Dragon: Ishin!, the first Yakuza game for the PS4, has this as one of the styles you can use, called Wild Dancer. While fast and able to dish out extreme amounts of damage, that speed and power comes at the expense of being unable to block.
• In Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice, Isshin the Sword Saint during his second and third phases will sometimes pull a gun on you while still carrying a big-ass spear in his other hand.
• In Sengoku Basara, Nobunaga does this with a Sawn-Off Shotgun. He can chain them together for a combo.
• Many Shin Megami Tensei games have the main character wield swords, knives, and guns. Specifically, the protagonists of the first, second, and fourth games, fifth games, Raidou Kuzunoha, among others. Except for IV and Apocalypse, they also count as Badass Normal, since unlike the other protagonists, they can't use magic, excluding the use of elemental bullets or special swords.
  • This is much more evident in the Raidou games, as it's an Action RPG compared to the other SMT games, which are turn-based.
• Parasoul of Skullgirls actually wields an umbrella in tandem with her pistol, but it definitely evokes the same imagery as a sword. Her official portrait◊ has her swinging it around in a sword-like fashion.
• SoulCalibur has Cervantes, a zombie pirate, who wields Soul Edge and Nirvana, a dagger with a pistol inside it. He only has a few attacks that use the gun, though.
• Haken Browning of Super Robot Wars OG Saga: Endless Frontier packs the Night Fowl, a Swiss-Army Weapon that's basically an assault rifle, pile bunker and bayonet rolled into one. At times, in conjunction with the Night Fowl, Haken will pull out the Longturm Special, a revolver that doubles as a portable Wave-Motion Gun. Namco × Capcom import Reiji Arisu carries two katanas and two guns (revolver and shotgun). In both cases, there will be lots of juggling of weapons...among other things...
• The first two games in the Super Star Wars trilogy allowed Luke Skywalker to switch between a blaster and his lightsaber on the fly, but since the lightsaber was better in almost every way, there was little need to use the blaster. He sticks to just using his lightsaber in Super Return of the Jedi, much like in the movie proper.
• Shantae: Half-Genie Hero: Pirate Queen's Quest's cover image is Risky Boots holding both her gun and her scimitar.
• In Star Wars Jedi: Survivor one of the combat stances that Cal can use is the ability to use a blaster alongside his lightsaber. Aside from shooting enemies with it, he also weaves in some Pistol Whips into his combos.
• Sword of Paladin: Will's body portrait shows that he wields a cutlass and a gun, but in gameplay terms, his weapon slot is only used for guns.
• Slade from Take No Prisoners can use his Laser Sword and a firearm at the same time, allowing him to shoot and slice simultanously.
• Hubert Ozwell of Tales of Graces is not content with just this trope, so he decides to wield a double-bladed sword. Composed of two short swords. That can turn into double pistols. And a bow.
  • Again in the Tales Series, precisely in the Radiant Mythology subseries, more precisely in the two titles not released outside of Japan, there's the Pirate class that fights with both a dagger and a gun◊ and looks cool too.
  • Alvin from Tales of Xillia plays this straight, wielding a huge one-handed sword and a pistol.
• Tenchu has done this a few times, having a boss who wields both at the same time. Usually he's a pretty horrible and limited swordsman, but if you don't kill him quickly he can open up some powerful combos on you with both the gun and sword.
• During the attract mode of Time Crisis 3, Giorgio Zott can be seen holding a sword and an assault rifle.
• It's possible to do this with every class in Torchlight.
• Mutsunokami Yoshiyuki in Touken Ranbu due to historically being made and used in a time when swords were going out of fashion and guns were starting to be favored, as well as being owned by a master who prefered guns over swords himself.
• Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines was supposed to feature this, but it was eventually left out.
• Witch Hunters in Warhammer Online use a rapier and a matchlock pistol.
• Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine allows you to equip a pistol and a melee weapon simultaneously — see the Tabletop Games example above — but it's also possible to switch between melee and ranged attacks so quickly that this effect can be achieved with, say, a power axe and a grenade launcher.
• Rudy in the original version of Wild ARMs uses a sword for his normal attacks and an ARM for his specials. Picturing him in this fashion is almost irresistible.

Web Animation

• In Duel of the Fates, Applejack's lightsaber has a removable blaster attachment, and she uses both Laser Blade and blaster in combat.
• This is the primary fighting style of Jebus, the primary antagonist from the Madness Combat series, wielding a sword in one hand and a revolver in the other, particularly in Inundation. Hank has also made use of the style from time to time, particularly in Apotheosis when he gets his hands on his first katana and promptly skewers a mook with it before lifting him up and unloading an MP5K into his face at point-blank range.
• Happens all the time in Madness Combat. Most commonly, it's Hank (sword plus MP5, axe plus P90, etc.) or Jebus (sword plus S&W.500)
• Tucker, of Red vs. Blue fame, goes armed with an Energy Sword and a Battle Rifle. He's surprisingly effective with both, able to hold off a squad of mercenaries lead by a Freelancer, though one of the least of them. He prefers using his sword. It doesn't stay up for other people.

Web Original

• Atop the Fourth Wall: Linkara will sometimes wield his Green Dragon Dagger and Magic Gun in combination.
• Percy in the first campaign of Critical Role uses his pistol for preference but carries a sword for close-quarters combat or if the gun is damaged, sometimes dropping or discarding one to use the other in a hurry.
• Jason Kiehart of League of Intergalactic Cosmic Champions has both a sword and a gun enhanced by alien technology. He can actually change the setting of the gun from firing armor piercing rounds to paintball pellets.
• Averted, much to the dismay of Found. During the Serial Killer Arc, he wears a trenchcoat styled after old noir films and Sherlock Holmes. He reasons that dressing the part is crucial to tracking down a serial killer (much to Az's annoyance), but unfortunately, he can't use both his pistol and sword at the same time with the constricting clothing.

Western Animation

• Talia al Ghul starts off her fight with Batwoman in Batman: Bad Blood armed with a Luger and a katana.
• Star Wars Rebels:
  • "Fire Across the Galaxy": Kanan combines this with Dual Wielding when he duels the Inquisitor with both his lightsaber and Ezra's, which doubles as a blaster.
  • "Stealth Strike": This time, Kanan does a more traditional version using his lightsaber and a standard-issue stormtrooper blaster.
  • Starting in Season 3, Ezra seems to have adopted this as his signature style, used most prominently in the hallway fight in "Steps Into Shadow" and in the space battle in "Zero Hour".

Real Life

• The pistol originated as a knightly weapon. After abandoning the lance in the 16th century, knights took the pistol as their primary weapon. The favoured tactics were either caracole (counter-march on horseback) or attacking the enemy in gallop, and shooting two pistols at the enemy without re-loading at close distance and then hitting him with sword. From the mid 16th to the mid 19th centuries, every cavalryman in European armies (or offshoots thereof like the American settler colonies and European-style sepoy forces in India) would be equipped with a sword (usually a saber) and guns, either a carbine or multiple pistols.
• Although swords are now generally restricted to ceremonial use, knives are still useful in battle in tandem with pistols.
• Thirty Years' War heavy cavalry (cuirassiers, etc.) attacked the enemy in full gallop, shooting at close distance with pistols and then drawing the sword to charge into melee combat, aided by the fact that they retained heavy armor at a time where dew other troop types did.
  • Practically every soldier in the Thirty Years War and contemporary conflicts carried some kind of sword, so this trope also apies to light cavalry and musketeers/arquebusiers. Though, unlike heavy cavalry, those guys weren't expected to regularly engage in melee combat.
• Grenadiers in most European armies continued to carry swords along with their flintlock muskets and bayonets in the 18th and early 19th centuries, even as the rest of the infantry abandoned swords in favor of solely relying on the bayonet for close combat (either that or using the gun as a club). Officers and NCOs would also carry swords along with their guns, plus usually some kind of bladed polearm to denote their rank like a partisan or halberd.
• Golden Age pirates, most famously Blackbeard, would carry both a sword and multiple loaded pistols on their person. Blackbeard tended to carry as many as he could manage, even adding extra pockets to his clothes just to make room for more. This was in addition to the dozen carried on a bandoleer over his shoulder. Blackbeard was a walking armory.
  • In the same vein, naval encounters also tended to involve both sword and pistol. This was due to the fact that in the middle of a battle on a ship at sea, reloading wasn't an option, so you had to carry multiple guns if you wanted to have more than one shot, and have a backup for when you run out.
• During the American Civil War, this was actually very common. Officers, whether actually in the cavalry or not, had the trappings of cavalry due to European military tradition. As such, while the rank and file had rifles with bayonets, officers were outfitted with revolvers and sabres: while less effective at range, this combo made attacking an officer in close quarters an extremely dangerous prospect for a rifle-armed infantryman. To see a cinematic example of how this can be both effective and awesome in the context of warfare that sits at the transition between pitched battles on open fields and WWI trenches, see Glory.
  • The first mass-produced single-action revolvers were designed to be held in the left hand, specifically with the cavalry in mind, who would have held their swords in the right. US Army pistol holsters from that era are all designed to be worn on the right for a cross-draw using the left hand. The reason was the pistol was considered secondary to the saber.
• Not surprising considering how many songs mention it, but highwaymen often carried both sword and pistol.
• The French elite warriors, the musketeers were skilled with both muskets and rapiers. It is somewhat humorous that they are now famous for their swordwork, when at the time it was their guns that made them famous (hence they're called musketeers). Muskets were something to open the battle with — after that the chances were high that a musketeer had to rely on his sword for the rest of the fight. The muskets just happened to be more iconic at the time than rapiers that were carried by just about any officer or nobleman.
• During WW2 there was a British soldier by the name of Lieutenant Colonel John Malcolm Thorpe Fleming "Mad Jack" Churchill.(Try saying that 5 times fast). He was notable for being a total badass who not only carried a pistol and claybeg◊ into battle, but also a longbow. When asked about his bizarre choice of weapons, Mad Jack replied, "In my opinion, sir, any officer who goes into action without his sword is improperly dressed". On one night he took 42 German prisoners, and captured a mortar position single-handedly, using only his broadsword. He often went into battle playing the bagpipes. Some historical accounts make his sword a claymore instead of the basket-hilt claybeg. Let's hope this is true
  • Jack Churchill is reputed to be the last British soldier to have killed an enemy with a longbow. This was in 1944, after the Normandy Landings.
  • The last cutlass action in the British Navy occurred in 1940, during the Altmark Incident.
• This was actually very common well until the 60's. While by no means an everyday occurrence, many, many soldiers - particularly officers - carried swords as well as guns into battle. The Japanese military are the obvious example, but even the Soviets and Germans (who probably did it the least) provide some.
  • This was partially he result of widespread use of conventional cavalry on the Eastern Front, who would usually fight dismounted^note Which, by older classification, would make them dragoons; and since they used standard-issue carbines, they were closer to The Musketeer, but did in several cases resort to the sabres.
• During World War I, the Italian officer Gabriele D'Annunzio (in the sense he was actually a poet who had joined the army) charged Austrian trenches with a gun in each hand and a knife in his mouth.
  • Carrying melee weapons was actually a regular practice in World War I. Soldiers took to creating improvised clubs and knives because a lot of fighting in the trenches took place in confined spaces, where the length of a standard infantry rifle (especially with a bayonet attached) proved to be a distinct disadvantage.
• Dress swords are still part of the formal dress uniform of the military in many countries.
• While not quite swords, many American soldiers and Marines in the Vietnam War carried machetes. Some soldiers in the war in Afghanistan also brought tomahawks with them, though these were personal items and not standard-issue equipment.
• The Spartan Blades CQB tool is designed to be used as a quick access dagger when grappling with an opponent. The ring at the pommel is designed for you to slip your index finger through, so you can transition to a pistol or a long arm without having to sheathe the knife. There are numerous copies, such as the Benchmade SOCP knife or the Hardcore Hardware Australia Special Operations Tool.
• Matt Easton of Schola Gladiatoria has made a few useful videos for understanding historical usage of guns in conjunction with swords and knives:
  • Pistols, revolvers and swords in the mid-19th century
  • The carbine and bayonet in hand-to-hand close combat (also Bowie knives and kukri)
• During the Second Sino-Japanese War, warlord soldiers were often armed like this, using a Dadao sword in conjunction with a Mauser C96. This was because many only had a handful of ammunition for their rifles and machine guns, with some getting no rifles at all (and having to use Japanese ones instead). Although warlord troops were infamous for retreating in fear, the "Big Sword" brigades of shock troops would frequently engage the Japanese in hand-to-hand combat, such as during the Battle of Taierzhuang. The Japanese were notably stunned by the Dadao's combat effectiveness, although this was because most warlord soldiers had plenty of experience using them to hack rival soldiers to death during the chaos-wracked China of the 1920s.
• American cavalrymen used sabers throughout the 19th century, not just the Civil War. They were used during the Mexican-American War, the Indian Wars and even as late as the Spanish-American War. Sabers though were used as a last resort if the soldier had no ammunition left. These weapons were disparagingly known as "Old Wrist-Breaker".
• As mentioned in the description, officers (commissioned and NC Os) in most European-style militaries carried swords and pistols from somewhere around the 17th century (and probably earlier) into the 20th, when their soldiers were generally carrying muskets or rifles (pike-armed officers in the 17th century usually also had a pike). Essentially, the idea is that a sword is a much better defensive weapon than a long gun, even with a bayonet - it's important for the officer to stay alive, more than to have one more person shooting at the enemy. Originally, these swords would have been basket-hilted broadswords and backswords, smallswords, or rapiers, but they gradually mophed into spadroons and sabres, and then mostly sabres; the pistols went from matchlock and wheellock to flintlock and then cap-and-ball and cartridge revolvers. And, yes, officers in the 19th century did go charging into battle with a sabre in one hand and a revolver in the other, fully expecting to use both. This was especially true in areas where you might expect someone to attack you with a sword, since revolvers provide you with a lot of firepower, but are pretty much useless in hand-to-hand except as a slightly clumsy parrying device, and are slow to reload - and basically impossible to reload in close fighting. Some people doubted the usefulness of the sword, and only carried a pistol... and there are a number of anecdotes about those people firing their six shots at someone charging at them with a sword, hitting them with all six, and the person they're shooting at manages to live just long enough to close and hit them with the sword. And these are generally British accounts, where the revolvers are the .442 Beaumont-Adams, the .476 Enfield or the .455 Webley - so you definitely can't blame small calibre ammunition, it's just that sometimes people miss or don't hit somewhere vital enough to kill the person they're shooting at before they close. Or even that they don't get a chance to draw their pistol - the 19th century solution to the Tueller Drill is to have a sword that you can draw much faster.

---