Walking Armory

8 weapon types: sword, axe, spear, bow, daggers, staff, shield, and his own two hands.


In a lifetime, most are only skilled enough to properly use one weapon, let alone two.

And there's this guy.

He strolls into danger at a leisurely pace... and strapped to his back are enough weapons to make the U.S. military jealous. He doesn't even seem to have some magical satchel that he can just dump his weapons into for storage. Surely the weight must be doing a number on his back, right?

But no worries. The character is bona-fide Badass, so they manage to pull it off. They are the reinforcements, and they've taken the necessary precautions for the upcoming fight; hauling as many weapons as they possibly can. You can bet your sorry behind that they're gonna use 'em all too. They are often Multi Melee Masters or Multi Ranged Masters (or both).

Compare More Dakka, which is most likely the result when the character is packing heat. If so, expect them to be wearing quite a few Badass Bandoliers if their ammo supply isn't unlimited.

Generally goes hand-in-hand with a Wall of Weapons.

Compare Hammerspace, Hyperspace Arsenal, Extended Disarming, Choice of Two Weapons.

Examples of Walking Armory include:

Advertising

Anime and Manga

Comic Books

Film

  • Anyone else remember the infamous scene from The Matrix? "Guns. Lots of guns."
  • Characters in John Woo movies are known for bringing duffel bags or other transportables full of guns to major gunfights, such as Ah Jong and Inspector Li from The Killer's church shootout, and the bad guys from Hard Boiled's tea house shootout. This is mainly because characters in John Woo movies tend to throw their guns away instead of reloading.
  • Machete is this, but with machetes and knives instead of guns.
  • In the film I'm Gonna Git You Sucka, one character has a Lock and Load Montage where he puts nearly a dozen different guns and pistols on his person. "You can never have enough guns!" he says. Shortly afterwards, he trips, setting off all the guns and putting him out of commission.
  • In TMNT (the 2007 movie), Leonardo ends up tangling with one of Max Winter's Stone General siblings and is sent flying into a stand of various ancient weapons. When he re-emerges, Leo's seen with multiple swords (including a BFS) strapped to his back in addition to his trademark twin katana and tells his foe, "Come to daddy." He loses the extra weapons as the fight goes on, though.
  • In Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome, Max is ordered to disarm upon entering a secure area and it takes a full minute for him to drop all his weapons. It turns out the one thing he brought in with him, a flyswatter, was itself a concealed weapon (an iron rod inside the handle).
  • Nicholas Angel from Hot Fuzz during the street shootout. "Morning."
  • The Boondock Saints has Il Duce, one guy with six guns, who battles the McManus brothers and Rocco in the deadliest shootout of the movie.
  • In the films, Optimus Prime takes this to extremes. He already has 2 rifles and FOUR swords built-in in the first two films, but in the 3rd movie, he has all of that plus a trailer filled with gattling guns for each arm, missle packs, an axe, a shield, more swords (handheld this time), a flight pack, and more stuff we don't even get a close look at. This is possibly the most armed Transformer ever.
  • By the end of Truth or Dare?: A Critical Madness, the killer is packing a handgun, a machine gun, knives, a machete, a chainsaw, a spiked club, and a pair of nuchuks.

Literature

  • In Rakkety Tam, one of the squirrels and a vole raid the vermin's encampment, coming back with more weapons than they can wield correctly, making about how to defeat the enemy just by falling over.
  • In Pyramids, Teppic's Lock and Load Montage ends with him falling over from the weight.
  • As described in some of the Dragaera novels, Vlad Taltos prepares for trouble by keeping a number of weapons on his person including several knives and a garrote.
  • Butler from Artemis Fowl provided the former page quote (see the Quotes section).
  • War in The Heritage of Shannara and Risca in First King of Shannara. Its justified in both cases, as the former is a Horseman of the Apocalypse and comes armed accordingly, while the latter is a Warrior Druid and channels his magic through his weaponry.
  • Chase in The Sword of Truth has been described to carry enough weapons for a small army. When asked if he'll really need all of them, he answers "if I'll leave any behind - yes".

Live Action TV

Tabletop Games

  • The Trope Namer is a perk from GURPS that lets a character avoid the issue of where and how he carries all of his guns, no matter how many he has or how big they are.
  • In the Champions setting Dark Champions the vigilante superhero Harbinger of Justice uses a Hyperspace Arsenal to store his many weapons.
  • Shadowrun has a claim to this trope via cyberware and drones. A character can install numerous holsters or integral weapons into their person, allowing a character to, at any moment, literally pull a heavy caliber pistol out of their arse.
    • That last gets used as an example because one character completely derailed a GM's story by literally pulling a gun out of his ass to shoot the guy holding him hostage. GM was a good sport about it, though.
  • Most melee fighters in Dungeons & Dragons 3rd and 3.5 edition. Most mid-level fighters are liable to carry around the following: A) A spiked chain. You gotta have a spiked chain. Alternatively, some other big two-handed sword/axe for a main weapon. B) A secondary two-handed or one-handed weapon in case the first is disarmed/sundered, commonly of a special material (see E). Shield may be included. C) A mace to deal with skeletal undead. D) A dagger/short sword/handaxe for grappling (or both). E) If not covered under D, a handaxe for chopping wood and hacking down doors. F) A bow for those rare moments when an enemy is beyond sword range. G) Any number of weapons/arrows with obscure special materials/enchantments to get around some of the more exotic damage reductions, as long as these do not overlap with weapons A-F. These include but are not limited to: Adamantium, cold iron, silvered, good-aligned and/or dealing blunt, slashing or piercing damage (in any given combinations).
  • The Yu-Gi-Oh! TCG: Sword Hunter, for starters.

Video Games

  • A Dead Horse Trope in regards to protagonists of pretty much every first- or third person shooter released before Halo. Limiting the total amount of weapons a protagonist can carry has become somewhat widespread since then to the point when having a Hyperspace Arsenal is uncommon enough to stand out.
  • In Dissidia Final Fantasy, as a Mythology Gag to Final Fantasy II's unique experience-gaining system, Firion (pictured above) wields virtually every equippable weapon from that game (a sword, knives, a bow & arrow, an axe, a lance, a spellcasting rod, and a shield) in honor of his crew. Unlike the other heroes, who summon and disperse their weapons at will, Firion decides to be a man and wear 'em all at once. He's the slowest of the Warriors of Cosmos, and understandably so.
  • Link, especially in his ALTTP incarnation. Official art for the game shows him carrying all of his equipment on his back.
  • Warhammer 40,000, as if the image for the More Dakka page wasn't a good enuff illustration.
  • Mega Man 5 introduces us to Napalm Man, who is essentially a human-sized tank. Mars from Mega Man V (the Game Boy Rockman World series) would appear to be an Expy of him, albeit not quite as armed.
  • The intro for Neo Contra showed one of the protagonists putting bullets into ammo clips, then panning out to reveal he is surrounded by stacks of hundreds of clips.
  • Jason in Rise of the Argonauts. Even the box art makes no effort to hide that he carts around a sword, spear, mace, and shield everywhere.
  • The protagonists in the various Mark Of Kri games all carry at least four weapons at any given time, generally in golf-bag-style leather packs on their back.
  • Reiji Arisu, Xiaomu, and Saya of Namco X Capcom. Reiji wields two katanas, two guns, and a shotgun, while Xiaomu uses a shikomizue and two pistols. Saya, going for the gusto, carries three katanas as well as lugging around a M203 Grenade Launcher. Seeing as their styles involve constantly swapping out their weapons, using the swords in concert with their guns, and spicing up their attacks with magic, expect a lot of Gun Kata and Guns Akimbo.
  • Geralt of The Witcher has no less than five weapon slots. One for a steel sword (used on mundane creatures), one for a silver sword (used on supernatural creatures), one for a torch, axe, or mace, one for a dagger and smaller hand axes, and one for bombs. Only one weapon for each slot may be carried at a time, and all of them are stowed visibly somewhere on Geralt's body.
    • In the sequel, he just uses a steel sword, silver sword, throwing daggers and bombs however.
  • KOS-MOS of Xenosaga half-subverts this trope. Aside from her ability to transmute her arms into various weapons, she can utilize the U.M.N. Transportation Gate to summon BFGs, all of which she dual-wields. The most iconic (and weakest) special weapons are a set of triple-barreled tri-gatling guns (that's three sets of barrels each, making for a grand total of nine barrels per gun; in other words, she's using eighteen barrels of firepower in all).
  • In the first Mass Effect, every member of your party would carry a handgun, a shotgun, an assault-rifle and a sniper-rifle on them at all times (regardless of whether they had the actual talents for them). They're all "collapsible", but they still wind up with their backs utterly covered in guns. In the sequel, this has been dialed down noticeably—each NPC only carries 2 weapons from the list (now with one more weapon type, SMGs), while most PC's carry 3 or 4 weapons at most. But Soldier!Shepard actually takes it even further than before. Not only does s/he carry each of the above-mentioned weapon, s/he also carries a "Heavy Weapon" of choice, which can range from a Flamethrower or a Lightning-Bolt Gun to a Portable Nuke Launcher. (Infiltrator!Shepard and Vanguard!Shepard can reach a similar level of ridiculousness if he/she picks an additional Weapon Specialization in the Collector Ship, instead of upgrading to a better Sniper Rifle/Shotgun. Soldier!Shepard just gets the choice between the aforementioned Sniper/Shotgun upgrades, and trading in his Assault-Rifle for a Heavy Machinegun.)
    • In one of the conversations before the Eden Prime mission, Shepard can describe Nihlus as "carrying enough weapons to kill an entire squad". He doesn't have more guns than Shepard, but he doesn't have fewer, either.
  • Parodied in the opening of Total Overdose. Ram sorts through weapons in the back of a truck, then kicks in the gates of a mobster's compound with every one of them bundled in his arms, and dynamite clenched in his teeth.
  • Altaïr in Assassin's Creed is a master of several weapons, including a sword, a dagger, throwing knives, and a hidden blade. Ezio in Assassin's Creed 2 takes it a step further by carrying a second hidden blade (potentially filled with poison) and a gun. He also apparently can use any weapon he can find with equal effectiveness, from a dagger to a giant axe or a spear. In Brotherhood, he also gets a crossbow and can throw heavy weapons with deadly accuracy. Finally, Revelations gives Ezio up to 15 bombs of different types and configurations. And people wonder why guards get suspicious of a guy wearing a hood and carrying an arsenal on his person. He also has no trouble using Leonardo da Vinci's inventions (tank, bomber, boat-mounted artillery, machinegun) without even reading the manual.
  • In X-COM you could turn your soldiers into this though it would severely cut down on their mobility. A single soldier could carry four rifles, two pistols and fill out the rest of the slots with assorted ammo, grenades and high explosives. Heavy weapons like auto-guns and missile launchers required the same space as two rifles.
  • In Ryu ga Gotoku 4 (aka Yakuza 4), the hulking brute, Saejima, makes his debut by arming himself with six revolvers: two in his pants, two in his hands, one stuck in his coat pocket and one clenched in his teeth. He winds up using every last one of these bullets (since he was planning on going on a rampage to kill off nearly the entire heads of a rival yakuza family, he wouldn't have any time to reload).
  • Mousehunt has the Master of the Cheese Fang.
  • Saica Magoichi from Sengoku Basara carries around a shotgun, a tommy gun, hand grenades, a brace of magnum pistols, and a heat-seaking four-chambered rocket launcher all inside her pretty dress. Depending on the super art you pick, she may also add a portable detonator and explosives to the above.
  • Each Player Character in The Elder Scrolls games can be armed with a two-handed or one-handed sword, along with an axe and a bow, to say nothing about numerous daggers, especially if these are glass weapons. The amount of weapons carried around is limited only by the PC’s strength and players’ imagination

Web Comics

Web Original

  • The Rooster Teeth show Immersion tested this in an episode, basing the arsenal that their subjects would carry on their respective persons (total weight about 200 pounds or slightly below) off of Doom and using two test subjects walking through a course. One managed to walk through the course, albeit slowly, and the second subject fell over where he stood before taking even a single step.

Western Animation

  • More than a few of the Transformers in Beast Wars. Optimus Primal's original body had two swords, a double-barelled gun fixed to his wrist, and a pair of missile launchers on his back. Predacon Terrorsaur took it even further, carrying a short-barelled pistol, a longer pistol, a medium-sized gun, a rifle, laser Eye Beams, and a pair of short-barelled guns on his neck/shoulders.

Real Life

  • A few decades before The Roman Republic became The Roman Empire, a consul named Gaius Marius demanded that armies stop using beasts of burden to carry weapons and armor: If it's your weapon, it's your responsibility to carry it. Initially, this rule was ridiculed, and the soldiers who were now forced to carry a whole bunch of weapons and armor rather than rely on pack animals were called "Marius' Mules"... Then people realized how much it improved the army's mobility and overall effectiveness...
  • One would-be bank robber attempted to pull this off in real life, and demonstrated exactly why more people don't do this: he fell over on his way out of the bank and couldn't get back up because his weapons were too heavy. He remained there until the police arrived and arrested him.
  • In the wake of the Columbine shootings, Garett Metal Detectors did an ad showing a high school student in regular clothes who proceeds to pull out 8 pistols, an Uzi submachine gun, and a full length pump action shotgun concealed in his pants. One wonders how a person is supposed to walk with a shotgun down one pantleg.
  • During the Classical/Renaissance periods, it was not unusual for combatants to carry at least six pistols, as well as assorted melee weapons. This was bred out of necessity, as reloading times and misfires were notoriously poor.
  1. ↑ It should be noted that the Battlizer is an American concept, and thus did not originally exist in Super Sentai. The only exception is Jack Landor's Battlizer being adapted into Tokusou Sentai Dekaranger for Banban "Ban" Akaza/DekaRed (Jack's Japanese equivalent), but the only common element was appearance.
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