Cold Steel Gladius

Everyone loves the machete because it's cheap, sword length, handy, and choppy-choppy.

And everyone loves swords because they tend to add a bit more control in anti-personnel situation.

So here's a machete that also a sword! It's the Cold Steel Gladius. The Gladius was the standard sword of the Roman Legions. It was originally used by some of their opponents, but the Romans found the shape incredibly useful for their way of way.

The Roman Legions were trained to fight in formation from behind shields. The sword would chops and stab, chop and stab, chop and stab, creating an action along the front of the formation like an enormous chainsaw ripping into the enemies. The short length of the sword encouraged the Legionnaires to close with the targets, and also brought them within the business end of their enemies' spears.

Most of us won't fight with shields, and while we don't really want to get too close to our zombie foes, we do appreciate the handiness of the shorter length. It's a good size for a one handed sword. And Cold Steel makes it cheap! AND they offer a polypropylene training version, so you can actually learn to handle the sword properly without risking your blade.