Greatest Fantasy Warriors?

[GreyLord]

Only one person has really mentioned Tolkien's Middle Earth Historical figures, many who fought Deities and their direct servants in hand to hand combat and many times won.

I saw Turin, but no Beren or Hurin, and then no Earendil (sp?).

 

[DrunkonDuty]

IIRC Turin is actually described in The Silmarillion as "the greatest human warrior." (I paraphrase.) Unless that was his dad, Hurin.

But I think when we're discussing "greatest fantasy whatever" it's got to be more than the power with which they are ascribed in the works in which they appear. They've gotta have something more interesting going for them. So the first "greatest fantasy warrior" I thought of was Aragorn even though canonically Turin would hand him his arse. Aragorn has something, possibly just many words dedicated to him in the literature, that Turin doesn't. Not saying Turin isn't a good character. He is. But for me Aragorn just has that something.

 

[Maxperson]

IIRC Turin is actually described in The Silmarillion as "the greatest human warrior." (I paraphrase.) Unless that was his dad, Hurin.

Hurin is said to be the greatest.

"In the end, Húrin stood there alone, there he threw his sword and shield on the ground and he took a grand battle-axe of an Orc captain. He waded alone into Gothmog's bodyguard of Trolls, and with every one he slew he yelled with all his voice: "Aure entuluva!" ("Day will come again!") This battle cry was heard seventy times."

And even with that, Fingolfin would beat him.

 

[Maxperson]

I may have missed it, but I don't remember seeing Benedict of Amber listed. He should be on the list for sure.

 

[the Jester]

I don't think anyone has yet mentioned the badasses from the Malazan books, so I will throw in these three-

Dassem Ultor
Karsa Orlong
Icarium

 

[Voadam]

Worf from Star Trek.

I think it'd be a stretch to get his name on a conference room though.

 

[Voadam]

I am mostly approaching the OP's request as the coolest fantasy warriors, not greatest in a theoretical duel.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

I don't think anyone has yet mentioned the badasses from the Malazan books, so I will throw in these three-

Dassem Ultor
Karsa Orlong
Icarium

You forgot the most ridiculous of all Malazan warriors, Anomander Rake, who is what would happen if you got a 14-year-old to eat a whole bucket of halloween candy and then try and come up with "A BETTER ELRIC".

Details (in all caps because that's kind of how I feel the author thought of them in whatever D&D/GURPS campaign Anomander is from):

ANOMANDER RAKE IS A COOL DROW NOT A LAME MELNIBONEAN
ANOMANDER RAKE IS SEVEN FEET TALL
ANOMANDER RAKE IS BUILT LIKE A WWE WRESTLER NOT AN UNHEALTHY WIMP
ANOMANDER RAKE ALSO HAS A SWORD THAT EATS SOULS BUT ITS WAY BIGGER THAN STORMBRINGER AND WAY MORE POWERFUL
ANOMANDER RAKE HAS A WHOLE ASS FLYING CASTLE NOT A LAME EARTH BOAT
ANOMANDER RAKE CAN TURN INTO A DRAGON AND ITS WAY TOUGHER AND BIGGER THAN OTHER DRAGONS
ANOMANDER RAKE IS ALSO A SUPER POWERFUL WIZARD NOT A WEAKSAUCE ONE LIKE LAME ELRIC

And that's kind of the tip of the iceberg.

Most of the best fantasy and mythological warriors have already been discussed, but I always liked Ash from the Book of Ash series by Mary Gentle. Continuing the "obscure books" theme, I really liked Asmander and Venat from Adrian Tchaikovsky's least-read series, Echoes of the Fall, about shapeshifters involved in series of fairly desperate wars. I don't think any of them are top-tier but they're pretty cool.

I'm excluding assassins because I could list a lot of extremely cool assassins, but I feel like that's a different genre (and pretty much rules out 90% of Unhewn Throne characters for example).

 

[DrunkonDuty]

Yeah. Nothing I've heard about the Malazan books makes them sound in anyway an appealing read.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Yeah. Nothing I've heard about the Malazan books makes them sound in anyway an appealing read.

They're definitely unique. It's a strange mixture of cool perspectives that aren't always well-explored in fantasy, some of which are done well (undead cavemen, for example), some of which serve to illustrate why they're rare attempted, some pretty cool war scenes (which sometimes feature excessive or gratuitous sexual violence though, note), and an awful lot of really cheesy power-fantasy which, when you know all the most "XTREME BADAZZ!!!!" characters come from their home 1E>GURPS game really colours how you perceive them. For me it completed it's final shark jump (of many) by introducing a character somehow really significantly worse than Anomander Rake, Tehol Beddict. If Anomander Rake is a sugar-rush early teens too-much WWE take on Elric, Tehol Beddict is a particularly smug male college sophomore's idea of what "badass" looks like after he's taken like, Economics 101 and watched too many episodes of House (or the like). Tehol (what a name!) is a dressing-gown-wearing, get out of bed at noon, smug, superior, condescending, snippy dude who inexplicably all the ladies love, and who is also, in ways implausible for even "xtreme fantazy" like Malazan, is so "good at economics" that he can rapidly but without magic cause economies to crumble and so on. He also allegedly acts like a dumbass to conceal that he is secretly the smartest guy on the planet - in actuality he mostly acts like a guy who spends too much time on Reddit - and as a bonus he is of course totally ripped despite doing zero exercise.