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Oan Mkoll vs Sly Marbo?

Oan Mkoll:

Master Scout - Chief of the scout platoon for the Tanith First and only. A division of basically super scouts. He was the best among them. His scout skills were basically legend, being able to take out a Chaos dreadnaught with a combat blade. Also assassinated the leader of a Chaos cult. Able to disappear from sight and hand to hand skills far beyond normal average human. Average Strength. At the end of the series, hes in his 50s (?).
His plot armor is that he survives despite impossible odds.

Sly Marbo:

Legendary Hero of Catachan Jungle Fighters. Most of his heroics are *REDACTED* as are his assignments and whereabouts. But his skills as a silent assassin, general baddass, and person to be feared are legend. Cutting through the memes of him Solo riding a drop pod into a Dark Eldar planet and taking it out with a toothpick, I mean more that "He grew bored of attacking and killing Orcs, so he began hunting Lictor's for sport".
His combat abilities make him an amazing assassin, and he has plot armor of basically never being dead.

Who wins?

On the table, Marbo takes it 5/5, but off the table, I think Mkoll takes him.

Marbo, being a special character since 2nd edition, is really "up there" when it comes to his skills.

Sly taken prisoner by Deldar: "/.../ standing alone and armed only with a knife, covered from head to toe in alien blood. Marbo was surrounded by destroyed vehicles, piles of alien bodies and the head of the Dark Eldar leader impaled on a spike beside him". How would Mkoll fare in a similar situation?

Chaos dreadnought? Cool. Sly has a Banelord Titan under his belt.

Infiltration, subterfuge, sabotage, assassinations, scouting. Sly is OP in all regards, and could pull it all off while in a catachan-equvivalent enviroment. He is rogue trader era over the top.
Mkoll does not have a chance againt the ridiculousness of early GW.

That being said, Mkoll is atleast an intresting character to read about.

 Forcemajeure wrote:
Marbo, being a special character since 2nd edition, is really "up there" when it comes to his skills.

*cough*

Mr Marbo didn't appear until 3rd edition - in Codex: Catachans, if I'm not mistaken.

"Iron hand" Straken was the 2nd ed Catachan special character.

 Dysartes wrote:

 Forcemajeure wrote:
Marbo, being a special character since 2nd edition, is really "up there" when it comes to his skills.

*cough*

Mr Marbo didn't appear until 3rd edition - in Codex: Catachans, if I'm not mistaken.

"Iron hand" Straken was the 2nd ed Catachan special character.

He’s not in the 2nd Ed Codex. I just checked.

I had to take a look aswell. There is no Catachan characters in the 2nd ed codex at all! Wierd given the cover art... I was not prepared for the mandela effect on that one

Oh well. Back on track!

Might also add that Oan Mkoll is clearly a bearded ninja assassin. Major Chuck Norris Energy. Sly Marbo can run through Jungle, but Oan Mkoll can swim through rockcrete.

Oan Mkoll has sex before his father did.

Please; it’s Sly Marbo! He was in 40k since the RT days, just lurking in ambush until 3rd when he struck and allowed himself to be seen. He was always there, watching and waiting. It’s just your skills at detection could not spot him in the old texts.

The guy has so much meme power, nothing in the ‘verse can stop him.

Both would have been silently slotted by Veteran Sergeant Naaman and his Scouts.

Obviously.

Common man, Sly Marbo is meme Legend and all that, but Mkoll is literally the lore version of that. Marbo doesn't have any books that even mention him. Mkoll has entire chapters. He is the master of the type of soldiers they wrote an entire book series about. Mkoll spent time on a Chaos infected planet to relax and sharpen his skills while everyone else, including two commissars, were going insane with PTSD.

Yeah, I mean, in the end it's likely Marbo. I wish they'd write some form of fluff featuring him going Solid Snake on an entire Chaos Astartes Fortress or something. Guard Regiment shows up and there's just Dead Chaos Marines everywhere.

Marbo doesn't get books because he is flat-out not an interesting character.
Even before the meme nonsense he's got nothing to him beyond "kills good".

 Gert wrote:
Marbo doesn't get books because he is flat-out not an interesting character.
Even before the meme nonsense he's got nothing to him beyond "kills good".

You could say the same about most of the Space Wolves chapter, Kharn, and all the other murder-hobo's that have been pushed through the fluff. Despite all his Sneaky Sneaky, Mkoll is just a really efficient killer. He's just a weapon used by a much more engaging character setup (Gaunt's Ghosts).

You could make a book about Sly becomming sly, when he's just a young Sgt. attached to a Catachan elite squad that gets wiped out by a yada yada yada, and does a (Insert Heroic Brutal knife move here) on the band leader, and as the lone survivor, the legend grows around him, ala Cain.

Kharn has very few books written about him post-Heresy when he loses his marbles.
He'll show up sometimes but it's either in a short story showing a rare moment of lucidity or as short snippets that show the madness.
The novels where he does well are Heresy books where we see the descent into madness and the wider tragedy that is the Heresy.

I'm not sure why you think the Wolves are murder-hobos when the Bill King books are considered very highly both in contemporary and critical circles and the Chapter has some pretty interesting traits and stories beyond what you read in a Codex.

With Marbo you don't even get the tragic aspect of his inspiration, Rambo, being a Vietnam vet with massive trauma.
Marbo has no character beyond that and GW knows it which is why, unlike every other Guard character with a novel Marbo has been left alone.

Forgive me, I came into the Wolf lore very late. My experience with their fluff is....modern. So all I ever see is very angry radicals settling every argument with blood or threats of the same. The DoW books did not paint Blackmane as a thinker, or a paladin of virtue. More of the braggart jock who needs a serious butt kicking. Wolves are just bezerkers and barbarians, and I don't think that's a leap. Their depiction is usually look at how angry I am, and how powerful that is making me!

 Gert wrote:

With Marbo you don't even get the tragic aspect of his inspiration, Rambo, being a Vietnam vet with massive trauma.
Marbo has no character beyond that and GW knows it which is why, unlike every other Guard character with a novel Marbo has been left alone.

The game setting isn't really equipped to deal with that. Rambo was about men who had fought and bled and died on behalf of a society that sent them to war, and then had that same society turn its back on them and reject them (in some cases attacking them because they served) when those men returned home. The closest that 40K is likely to get is veterans who fall through the cracks. That's still a potentially serious issue. But it's not quite to the same extent. Something like what happened could occur in a relatively free society like the US. But the Imperium - with its constant need for troops and fodder for the wars that its involved in - would see even the most mild attacks directed specifically at veterans as a serious threat to the Imperium's well-being.

In any case, Marbo's not about that. Rambo has become known as a one man army in popular culture, and Marbo is a flanderization of that specific aspect of the character.

There's a BL short story - I want to say it is an Eisenhorn one, but I'm not 100% on that - which involves the problems IG/PDF veterans can bring back to their homes.

Not quite a Rambo analogue, but an interesting read.

 Dysartes wrote:
There's a BL short story - I want to say it is an Eisenhorn one, but I'm not 100% on that - which involves the problems IG/PDF veterans can bring back to their homes.

Not quite a Rambo analogue, but an interesting read.

It is an Eisenhorn one, set on the world of Sameter.

FezzikDaBullgryn wrote:
Forgive me, I came into the Wolf lore very late. My experience with their fluff is....modern. So all I ever see is very angry radicals settling every argument with blood or threats of the same. The DoW books did not paint Blackmane as a thinker, or a paladin of virtue. More of the braggart jock who needs a serious butt kicking. Wolves are just bezerkers and barbarians, and I don't think that's a leap. Their depiction is usually look at how angry I am, and how powerful that is making me!

I think you perhaps need to read more novels around the Wolves because that's an extremely shallow look at them. They aren't berserkers at all, and the barbarian aspect is a facade deliberately kept up by the Chapter to keep the wider Imperium at arms length as the Wolves value their independence more than any other Chapter.
The Wolves specifically strive to keep their base instincts under control because of the Curse of the Wulfen and the Wolves that do embrace their power and more animalistic side are those who are younger, specifically the Blood Claws. Ferocity is not the hallmark of a berserker warrior, the loss of control is and control is vital to the Wolves.

Eumerin wrote:
The game setting isn't really equipped to deal with that. Rambo was about men who had fought and bled and died on behalf of a society that sent them to war, and then had that same society turn its back on them and reject them (in some cases attacking them because they served) when those men returned home. The closest that 40K is likely to get is veterans who fall through the cracks. That's still a potentially serious issue. But it's not quite to the same extent. Something like what happened could occur in a relatively free society like the US. But the Imperium - with its constant need for troops and fodder for the wars that its involved in - would see even the most mild attacks directed specifically at veterans as a serious threat to the Imperium's well-being.

In any case, Marbo's not about that. Rambo has become known as a one man army in popular culture, and Marbo is a flanderization of that specific aspect of the character.

Yeah, that was literally my whole point.

 Dysartes wrote:
There's a BL short story - I want to say it is an Eisenhorn one, but I'm not 100% on that - which involves the problems IG/PDF veterans can bring back to their homes.

Not quite a Rambo analogue, but an interesting read.

It is an Eisenhorn story. The veterans in that story are in a "fell through the cracks" situation. They all appear to be doing well enough for people of their economic tier. And the local members of the community probably have at least a minimal level of genuine respect for the former troops as members who faithfully served in the Emperor's military. So for the most part, they're fine. Any casual observer who looks at them will come away thinking that there aren't any issues.

[spoiler]Unfortunately, they're all a bit too tightly wound regarding potential traitors to the Imperium.[/spoiler[

First Blood (the original Rambo movie) is about a very talented former SF guy who was obviously screwed up by the war. The government that he served has chosen to ignore his problems, so he lives as a drifter, unable to settle down, and just wanting to be left alone to travel where he chooses. Problems arise when a local group of law enforcement not only arrest him for trying to stay in their town, but also antagonize him while he's in the local jail. But even when he finally flips out, he still tries to not kill any of his human pursuers.

Why Sly Marbo works in 40k so well, and it's not even funny, is because the theme is a perfect fit. Trautman is the Emperor. The Fat hick sherriff in way over his head might as well be the Lictor. But Rambo/Marbo was created by a greater evil. That's why he's still around. Because he's a perfect mirror. Eisenhorn isn't evil in the end, because he can justify his actions in the scheme of the Emperor.

 Gert wrote:

I'm not sure why you think the Wolves are murder-hobos when the Bill King books are considered very highly both in contemporary and critical circles

What? No they're not lol!

It is not even slightly hard to find even 40k fans gaking on Bill King's novels and critically? No literary critic gives a gak about expanded universe genre slop even in fantasy or science fiction literary circles.

There is not a single 40k book that is "Highly Considered" outside of the genre of bolter porn. It's all grimdark angsty teen drama pretending to be high drama. ADB is the closest thing 40k has to a credible writer, and even he's half way out there on some wild stuff. This is like when one of my fellow students in college tried to convince the professor that Starship Troopers was high art.