Genghis Khan fo sho

He fathered a serious portion of the world. Conquered an even bigger part of it. Not even a contest.

Badass of course, is a somewhat ambiguous term.

It can mean being a jerk, being awe-inspiring, being shockingly pigheaded, being incredibly good at what they did, being really cool and novel... up to you.

Just 1- Name your pick 2- Explain why they were so badass 3- Name some other really Badass but not as Badass as #1

I'm going to go with Hannibal (seeing as G K is already taken).

Seriously, leading a scruffy gang of spearmen, mercenaries, African conscripts, and elephants, this guy crossed two mountain chains, and then proceeded to march around the homeland of what would end up being the greatest military power of (possibly) all time.


Can it hurt to mention that he wasn't supplied for YEARS? Or that he defeated army after army while fighting from the front line?

Yeah...


Honourable Mentions go to:

Tamurlane
Vlad the Impaler
Muhammed

It's obviously Edi Birsan.

George Patton

1) Otto Von Bismarck
2) He's the father of Austria as an industrial power and gave the Blood and Iron speech, among others. He expanded Austria hugenormously.
3) Hannibal, Genghis Khan, and Spartacus are all close to Bismarck, but none involve epic industrialization like Bismarck.

Are you sure you meant Austria? Not some other German-speaking power?

Otto Von Bismarck was from Prussia, not Austria, He was a chancellor of Germany. So he didn't really do much for the Austrians except screw them over.

Also, Hannibals army may have been scruffy, but Genghis's army surely was much scruffier. Plus they drank their horses blood to stay alive on long rides. So yeah.

1) Friendly Sword
2) He's so pointy, if that's not badass, I don't know what is :P.
3) My honourable mention goes to Sicarious, for being an anarchist.

Well, I'll have to go with Scipio Africanus
Hero of the Roman Republic, only person ever to defeat Hannibal on land, and still got backstabbed in the end.
Also prevented a coup and saved his father before reaching the age of majority, Pretty bad-ass.
Second has to go to Saladin, for obvious reasons. disregarding the lies on swordfighting and historical inaccuracies and bad acting, watch kingdom of heaven
Third is hannibal, for reasons mentioned before

Honorable mentions:
Ghengis Khan
Erwin Rommel
Alexander the Great

not Timur. seriously? how can you nominate someone with 'the lame' in one of the translations of his name.

*Sicarius, not "Sicarious"

PS is "bad-assiest" even a word :P?

Scipio Africanus got lucky with a vastly larger army. Also, Saladin couldn't even beat Richard the Lionheart oon his hometurf. Rommel got pretty whipped as well. Why do you guys like losers?

Chuck Norris... 'nuff said

"Are you sure you meant Austria? Not some other German-speaking power?"

This is what happens when I'm talking about Germany and talking TO Austria in one of my games. <_<;

Vastly larger? Scipio was lucky (literally) to have any army at all, even after taking all of Spain, he still didn't have the support of the Senate

Last i checked, Saladin won, and Palestine is no longer Crusader kingdoms (UN mandates are another story)

Rommel is simply cool for his tactics. Also one of the greats who was under supplied.

XCurlyXFries got it right. Chuck Norris. You know what's behind Chuck Norris's beard? Another fist! Chuck Norris had a stare down with the "Eye of God" and the "Eye of God" blinked.

P.S. The Eye of God is an astronomical reference, not blasphemy, so don't go there.

Theodore Roosevelt

Why? Quit his job as Assistant Secretary of the Navy to form his own vollenteer Cavalry regiment. Fought the Battle of San Juan Hill (Kettle Hill - so badass he lied about the name to the press) from the front. Got elected President. Left to go hunt big animals in Africa. After shooting a bunch for 4 years, came back to get rid of the guy who replaced him (Taft). Forms his own political party to do so (the Bull Moose Party).

Now for the really bad ass story: He's making a speech. An anarchist runs up and shoots him in the chest! What does he do? While bleeding, he goes up to the podium and says "It'll take more than a single bullet to kill a bull moose like me!" and proceedes with his hour long speech. Only then does he go to a hospital.

When he died, a friend remarked "Theodore had to die in his sleep, because if Death came for him while awake, he would have gotten quite a fight."

William Techumseh "Total War" Sherman gets an honorable mention.

You guys are sad. GOD is the bad-assiest guy in history. He created all those other people you deem to be "badd-assiest."

Well, if we're including fictional characters, Raven from Snow Crash beats God. Just because.

Fidobot, I was going to argue Jesus Christ. After all, he tore open the gates of hell and returned from the dead. Only one other person named in history returned from the dead, and that was at Christ's hand.

I was going to name him, but too many people view the Bible (sepcifically the New Testament) as a fairy tale and not a record of history.

All right, disregarding religious and fictional characters, I will say....Canute. Not only was he king of the north, he was also the greatest multi-accounter that ever lived.

Adrian Peterson! hes freaking amazing 1700 rush yards this season and 1800 his rookie year!!

Attila

Timur was lame? Lets see;

If you were him, this is your life;

You're a bastard child of Mongol Warriors and grow up in Central Asia.
In the wake of Mongol destruction, you rise to power among the miny states in the region as a war leader.
Then you capture Samarkand, and begin an Empire- named after YOU
You decide that Politics is a worthless proposition- this reflects your ruling style; Do what I or my lackeys say (or die!)
Then you decide some expansion is necessary, and attack the Russo-Mongols North of you, the Persians south of you, and Azerbaijan to the west.
To convince people you mean business, everyone belonging to a city that resists you is slain and every building destroyed.
You hear about civil war in India, so you go check it out. Muslims and Hindus are fighting (you are a de facto muslim). You slaughter all the Hindus, and then slaughter all the Muslims that they are secret Hindus.
You notice that the Ottomans are getting powerful, so you crush thier eastward expansion. They fight back, so you get pissed and rampage around the Middle East for a while.
Worried about the leniency of your soldiers, you require them to kill everyone the capture, and show you two heads- each, whenever they are inspected.
You go back to your Empire, but you get bored so you back to the Middle East to see if anyone is left to massacre. You find the Assyrians.

Then you hear that China is no longer Mongol, and you decide to reconquer the most populous region on earth. No big deal.

You are on your way through Mongolia but you get a really serious fever. And then you get frostbite. And then you get the plague. And then you die at 69. You were lame for much of your life because of a spear through the leg.


Sorry, was that just the definition of badass?

Alexander the Great was fairly BadAss...then again in the name of the club in the San Francisco Bay area is called:
Bay
Area
Diplomacy
Association or
B.A.D.,Ass.

Ghengis Khan without a doubt.

How can there be any other? Came from absolutely nothing to being a world ruler. He did it in the most unorthodox way imaginable.

No one else started from scratch like that, he literally built up everything he had.

Oh I almost forgot that he conquered more land than anyone else ever has. That little part.

Ernest Shackleton - Antarctic Explorer

In December 1914, Shackleton set sail with his 27-man crew, many of whom, it is said, had responded to the following recruitment notice: "Men wanted for hazardous journey. Small wages. Bitter cold. Long months of complete darkness. Constant danger. Safe return doubtful. Honour and recognition in case of success. —Ernest Shackleton."

Ice conditions were unusually harsh, and the wooden ship, which Shackleton had renamed Endurance after his family motto, Fortitudine Vincimus—"by endurance we conquer," became trapped in the pack ice of the Weddell Sea. For 10 months, the Endurance drifted, locked within the ice, until the pressure crushed the ship. With meager food, clothing and shelter, Shackleton and his men were stranded on the ice floes, where they camped for five months.

When they had drifted to the northern edge of the pack, encountering open leads of water, the men sailed the three small lifeboats they'd salvaged to a bleak crag called Elephant Island. They were on land for the first time in 497 days; however, it was uninhabited and, due to its distance from shipping lanes, provided no hope for rescue.

Recognizing the severity of the physical and mental strains on his men, Shackleton and five others immediately set out to take the crew's rescue into their own hands. In a 22-foot lifeboat named the James Caird, they accomplished the impossible, surviving a 17-day, 800-mile journey through the world's worst seas to South Georgia Island, where a whaling station was located.

The six men landed on an uninhabited part of the island, however, so their last hope was to cross 26 miles of mountains and glaciers, considered impassable, to reach the whaling station on the other side. Starved, frostbitten and wearing rags, Shackleton and two others made the trek and, in August 1916, 21 months after the initial departure of the Endurance, Shackleton himself returned to rescue the men on Elephant Island. Although they'd withstood the most incredible hardship and privation, not one member of the 28-man crew was lost.
(from WGBH website describing a NOVA special on Shackleton)

"Difficulties are just things to overcome, after all. " - Shackleton