ARRR! Happy Monkey Monday mateys! It is spring break for us here Carroll students. For some, it involves vacation. For me, I shall be working my big boy aerospace assembly job and reading books all week! Well, hope you enjoy today’s issue, and have a great Monday!

Monkey Monday 3 #8, swashbuckling in…

Alright y’all, we’ve got another tier list. This time, we are ranking WARRIORS FROM HISTORY. I’m going to rank them not necessarily by strength, but by how awesome I think they are. Maybe that includes their strength, maybe it’s their swagger, let’s find go.

Also, the morality and HEINOUS ACTIONS of these warriors will NOT BE CONSIDERED. I’m well aware MANY of these warriors are disgusting and vile, but let’s pretend for a second they are just combatants.

You know how this goes; here are our tiers:

Lame tier

Peltast - Greek warriors that look lame and throw javelins. These are not the cool greek warriors you have in mind. Those are hoplites, and they weren’t on the tier list sadly.

Longbowman - They have a longbow, and they shoot arrows.

Kyudo - Basically a longbowman but is considered a Japanese martial art, which makes it more epic.

Highlander - Not the Toyoya model, these are Scottish warriors. They wear kilts and wield swords and guns.

Mamluk - Warriors in various Muslim societies, they stereotypically had super cool mustaches, and really awesome curved swords.

Blowgun Hunter - Exactly how it sounds. Hunters who hide in bushes and shoot darts. I think darts are pretty cool. Imagine some crazy warrior with a spear/blowgun hybrid, riding around on a jaguar, thrusting the spear and shooting darts. But that doesn’t exist.

Janissary - Sultan warriors of the Ottoman empire, my google results portray these gentlemen as savvy dudes with swords and small bows. I reckon they are like a slightly more dapper Mamluk.

Cossack - Slavic warriors, important in expanding the Russian empire, these guys wore those awesome Russian hats, sported big facial hair, and rode horses. They used spears, curved swords, guns, and one picture I found has a guy playing some lute looking thing on horseback! Maybe they swooned their enemies with beautiful song.

Apache - Finally, a warrior I was familiar with. These guys are a mix between the traditional indigenous Native American, and the cowboy. Native American’s with (at the time) modern weaponry. These guys are pretty cool, riding around on horseback with traditional Native American garb wielding a rifle.

Persian Immortal - A pretty standard sword/shield/spear/bow warrior of the Achaemenid army. HOWEVER, some depictions give them a super menacing mask that makes them look 10x more intimidating.

They’re alright, I reckon tier

Maori - A people group of the indigenous people of Aotearoa (New Zealand), these men are quite large and intimidating. Add the traditional tribal tattoos and the war chants, and you’ve got some scary, scary combatants.

Bedouin - Warriors in the Syrian and Arabian Deserts, these guys charged against enemies ON CAMELS. Enough Said.

Mongol Horse Archer - Mongolian warriors defined by their archery from horseback. Pretty epic. I love the shape of their bows, and they were renowned for their skill with them.

Zulu - Menacing warriors from Southern Africa who used short stabby spears and wore awesome headdresses. Traditionally, they wear these super awesome furry white shin sleeves.

Cool like beans tier

Amazon - The only female-exclusive warriors on here, these Greek ladies were pretty cool. However, they are mostly a myth, which makes me wonder how they made it onto the list actually…. shoutout women though!

Knight - The prototype for warriors. Knights are pretty much the vanilla flavored warrior. They’re cool.

Gladiator - These freaks engaged battle for the love of battle itself. I do not promote murder, nor romanticize it. These guys were pretty metal though.

Monk - Not sure why monks are on this list actually, they aren’t even warriors. Even more perplexing is why I put them this high on the list. I might’ve just been picturing Aang, sorry.

Musketeer - The SWAGGIEST of warriors. That’s all.

Awesome sauce tier

Shinobi - The NINJA. Young me would be so mad to find the ninja anywhere but first place. They’re still super awesome, buuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuut not as awesome as the 5 above em.

Spartan - Oh man these guys are awesome. Possibly the coolest helmet ever, these guys are so cool. Definitely the coolest of your basic European armored-sword-shield-spear land warriors.

Viking - Going back to my roots (maybe, I don’t really know actually), we have the VIKINGS. Man, these guys are straight up ROID RAGE. They are made up of warriors from the physically largest people groups (I think, I do not have a source to cite). Sailing the seas, these guys seek battle for the sake of the glorious warrior life. Not sure I agree with them there, but from a cool factor, these guys are near the top.

SO EPIC tier

Outlaw - Man I LOVE me a cowboy. This town ain’t big enough for the both of us. DRAW! Pew pew! YEEEEHAW.

Samurai - There are two versions of Samurai that come to my mind when I hear the word. The awesome, terrifying, armored, horseback, sword-spear-bow wielding warriors, but also the robed, disciplined, art of the blade, way of the samurai warriors. Both of these exist at the same time. Shoutout ART OF THE BLADE ZINQUER. Iykyk.

Pirate - ARGGGHHHH MATEY ARGHHHHH I’MA HERE TO STEAL YER TREASURE! X MARKS THE SPOT ON THE MAP! LAND HO! YE SHALL WALK YE PLANK. SET THE CANNONS AND FIRE!

Behold, our final list:

-Nate

Another artist introduced to me by good ol’ George is Tyler Childers! I’ve listened to a good chunk of his Discography by now, but I enjoy his live album Live on Red Barn Radio I & II the most. Shake the Frost is a beautiful song, and I adore adore adore Childers’ cover of Rock Salt and Nails.

Give it a listen.

-Nate

Scary black metal/ambient noise album, I listened to Damp Chill of Life by None while driving up to my sister’s house this weekend. Pretty bleak and hopeless sound, but I’m pretty sure that’s what they’re going for. Sick album, probably not for everyone. This is XXXTENTACION for GROWN MEN. No bad words needed! Just agony.

-Nate