Sarge, Red Team’s gruff and regimented leader from Red vs. Blue. 

The Soldier, the militaristic mercenary from Team Fortress 2.

The military reaches out to the best of the best. The skilled, the committed, and the dedicated. Only disciplined soldiers can go beyond the call of duty and fight for their beliefs…or you could be these two. While they certainly do fight with military firearms, they’re not exactly top brass military personnel. And now we see which of them is superior…or at least the least incompetent. Will Red Team’s unorthodox leader face his final mission, or will the mercenary get Sarge’d? Time to find out who would win a DEATH BATTLE!

Before We Start…

As far as overall media is concerned, this should be really straightforward. Team Fortress 2 especially is easy to understand, it’s just the game, the animated shorts, and the comics. 

For Sarge, we’re examining the entire Red vs. Blue series, from all the seasons to the last Restoration movie. While it is true that the Shisno Trilogy as well as Restoration are technically simulations of what could’ve happened after Season 13, making both of their levels of canon questionable, they are both still within what Sarge and other characters are capable of as well as adds to their stories, so they will be analyzed. It should also be worth remembering that Red vs. Blue is a Machinimated Halo series and as such, borrows a lot of Halo’s lore and mechanics. Because of this, while we’re obviously not going to be pulling feats or scaling from Halo, we will be using descriptions and information from Halo to provide further context.

Background

Sarge

“You just got Sarge’d!”

It’s the age old question: You ever wonder why we’re here? This one single question has plagued the minds of a bunch of losers in a box canyon in the middle of nowhere. These so-called “soldiers” were enlisted into the United Nations Space Command and forced into Project Freelancer, one of their many “golden bullets” to win the war with the alien Covenant. Thanks to poor test scores and field skills, these men were dumped into a canyon called Blood Gulch and told they were at war with the team of the opposite color, with the objective to kill the enemy and take their base’s flag. There was Red Team and Blue Team, and the leader of Red Team was the gruff and regimented soldier known only as Colonel Sarge…yes that is his full name and rank.

After enlisting in the UNSC, Sarge was made into an Orbital Drop Shock Trooper, an elite branch of the Marine Corps that specialized in dropping into battles from orbit. Unfortunately, Sarge developed a fear of heights during his time there, and so was discharged, only to be picked up by Project Freelancer. After being deployed to Blood Gulch, Sarge was put in charge of his fellow Reds: Dick Simmons, Dexter Grif, Franklin Delano Donut, and their robot Lopez the Heavy, in a war against the “dirty Blues”. The “war” for Blood Gulch went on for years, with no side gaining any sort of meaningful advantage…probably because both teams spent more time standing around and talking instead of actually fighting. In particular, Sarge was always hard on Grif, always making jabs at his expense and wishing him to die in any brutal way. But while Sarge never fully trusted the Blues, he and the Reds have worked with them when faced with threats larger than them, like the maniacal O’Malley, the scariest mute in the galaxy known as the Meta, and even, after realizing how much of a hoax the war with the Blues really was, worked with Freelancer agents Carolina and Washington in taking down the very organization that used him and his friends in the first place  

After bringing Project Freelancer to justice, Sarge and the rest of the Reds and Blues took a ship to go back to Blood Gulch, but it turns out that ship was a cargo ship on its way to a planet called Chorus, a remote planet basically forgotten by Earth and the UNSC, and the ship was brought down by tractor beams, and this combined with several of the Reds and Blues antics, including Sarge trying to change the engines, resulted in the ship being split in half and crash landing. While crashing in yet another box canyon was business as usual for Sarge, it just so happens that the crew crashed in the middle of a planet-wide civil war, and were told that the New Republic was the side that was fighting for the planet and wanted to keep the Reds and Blues alive in exchange for their help. Soon after hearing this, Sarge, Donut, Lopez, and Washington were “captured” by the Federal Army, the opposite side of the coin, and were told that the Rebels were the real enemy. After eventually reuniting with the Reds and Blues that were enlisted with the Rebels and comparing notes, the two sides realized that this whole civil war was a charade, orchestrated by an umbrella company named Charon Industries, particularly its hired mercenaries Locus and Felix, and its CEO Malcom Hargrove. It took some time, but the Reds and Blues managed to convince the two warring armies to work together to take down Charon, and eventually they succeeded, though lost the Epsilon AI, also known as Leonard Church, in the process.

And this is where things get a bit… complicated. Before his death, Church ran millions of simulations of what could happen after the battle on Chorus. In one scenario, after arresting Hargrove, the Reds and Blues decide to retire to a moon called Iris, though Sarge wound up hopelessly depressed after not dying heroically. At his core, Sarge is a soldier, a man broken by war, who can’t ever adjust to life outside the normal military chain of command. With this in mind, Sarge coped by creating enemies of his own, and even went so far as to make his friends his enemies, briefly joining another Gulch crew called the Blues and Reds in their crusade against the UNSC. Though Sarge would quickly return to his old gang, take down their leader Temple, and save the world. And then they got caught in a time travel fiasco…geez, talk about escalation. After gaining access to time machines, Sarge went back in time and tried to fix his errors, recruit new Red Team members(including Achilles, Alexander the Great, George Washington, and John Wayne), before eventually banding back together with the crew in taking down a being who wanted to bring chaos and mischief to the timeline, Chrovos. What happens to Sarge after that is unknown.

In another scenario, one of the Blues, Lavernius Tucker, went mad after having his suit implanted with the fragments of the Epsilon AI, becoming a new Meta. Sarge, the Reds, and Michael J. Caboose of the Blues were tasked by a recording of Epsilon to find an old AI capture unit, which will trap all the AI inside and free Tucker. They succeeded, though not before encountering the Meta, who proceeded to beat them down and then target Caboose after realizing he had “Epsilon” with him. The Reds initially were going to leave Caboose behind to save themselves, but Sarge had a change of heart, realizing that the Reds and Blues really are the same, and went back to save Caboose. Sarge would succeed in pinning the Meta down long enough for him and Caboose to escape, but just before they could take off, Sarge was impaled by the Meta’s Energy Sword. In his last moments, Sarge made his team promise to look after each other, and gave Simmons his shotgun, telling him he was ready to be the new leader of Red Team. He also told Grif that the reason he was so hard on him was because he always had faith Grif could be better, and wanted him to live up to his real potential. With that, Sarge died surrounded by his comrades, and was buried in Blood Gulch with honor. But while that mission was a failure, Sarge did not die in vain, as Grif and Simmons would work together to accomplish the true mission: Take down the Meta, trap the AI, and free Tucker. Proof positive that what Sarge said was true: That day was indeed, a good day to die.

Soldier

“If fighting is sure to result in victory, then you must fight!.”

No one knows what the Soldier’s Real Name is (he has gone under the identity of Jane Doe but that’s not his actual name). All we do know is that the Soldier had a deep passion and love for his country; as such, he wanted to join the army in order to kill Nazis but they rejected him every time. With that in mind, the Soldier decided to take it upon himself to go to Germany and become a rogue, only stopping when the war was declared to be over. After the war, he would gain a reputation as a mercenary and would find himself stuck in an endless conflict.

This was perpetuated by rich industrialists called the  Mann Family and a woman called Elizabeth. She stirred up a deep rivalry between the Mann’s family successors Redmond and Blutarch (as ordered by the leader of the Mann Family, Zepheniah Mann). Even past Mann’s death, Elizabeth wanted the successors to the Mann Fortune to fight on until death so that neither one would inherit the fortune. 

In order to continue this endless feud, Redmond and Blutarch would hire mercenaries to constantly fight each other in order to gain full access to the Mann Family Fortune creating two companies: Reliable Excavation & Demolition (RED) and Builders League United (BLU), in order to achieve this end. Decades later, the Soldier alongside eight other mercenaries – the Scout, the Pyro, the Demoman, the Engineer, The Heavy, the Medic, the Sniper, and the Spy – were recruited by Miss Pauling and the mysterious Administrator in a fight for the fortune.

Eventually after many misadventures, the Soldier (alongside his other mercenaries) would discover the truth behind this conflict, that it was all one big revenge scheme against Zephaniah Mann. After defeating the robots of Grey Mann and finally bringing down the Administrator, the Soldier eventually retired, marrying the Heavy’s Sister Zhanna and having two children, General Patton Doe and Georgia Washington Doe. While he may have put down his rocket launcher, he is still a Soldier at heart and will be freely happy to take on anyone, because at the end of the day, there is one thing that keeps the Soldier feeling truly alive: combat. 

Experience & Skill

Sarge

Sarge may appear to be unorthodox and not really all that great of a soldier, but don’t let his demeanor fool you. Remember, Sarge was an ODST, giving him plenty of genuine military experience and training. In fact, Sarge possibly has the most military experience out of anyone in Blood Gulch. With these skills, he battled in the Battle of Broken Ridge, where his men were pinned down for days, captured Freelancer Agent Texas, took out multiple Tex clones in an all out brawl, saved an entire planet from civil war, saved Earth from being destroyed by a time machine, outsmarted Agent Washington, and even saved the timestream itself from getting shattered by Chrovos. And he’s not just skilled in combat, he’s also got a keen eye for attention to detail. When he and Grif were on an away mission, he called Simmons for a status update, and was able to determine that Simmons and Doc were being held prisoner by Wash and the Meta and that Donut and Lopez are dead just by the conversation he had, even when Simmons wasn’t intending on giving any hints as to the situation.

But his bread and butter skill wise is mechanics and robotics. Sarge has built several robots over the years, from Lopez, his successor, two robots identical to Lopez, a Mantis-class military assault droid, and even a robot army to attack himself. He’s also turned Simmons into a cyborg, really just because he could. Sarge has also shown skill in vehicle maintenance as well, helping Lopez fix the Warthog, building a Mongoose out of spare Warthog parts, and upgrading the Warthog to use similar technology to an EMP the Reds encountered. He even came up with blueprints for a holographic simulation room, which would let the Reds test the designs of equipment by projecting holographic versions of whatever they want, even people. Sarge may seem like an insane lunatic, and he is, but never let it be said that he’s a complete moron.

Soldier

The Soldier is actually a pretty skilled combatant all things considered (he has no formal training as according to Scout, he has never been in the army). Through his own self-training, he has managed to specialize shotguns and rocket launchers as his primary weapons of choice and he has certainly put it to good use. During WW2, he once went on a Nazi killing spree until the war ended in 1949 and is considered on an equal level to his fellow mercenaries and has even come up against a robot army that was designed to keep up and kill the other mercenaries and was completely fine after tearing them with his bare hands. All in all, the Soldier is a living weapon that shouldn’t be underestimated. 

Equipment

Sarge

Mark VI Mjolnir Armor

The pinnacle of UNSC engineering. Typically, only superhuman Spartans can wear these suits, as the force required to operate them can kill a normal soldier. In Red vs. Blue, these suits have been stated to block bullets and absorb explosions, and they come equipped with slots available for AI, motion trackers to detect invisible enemies, magnifying functions built into their helmets that can zoom up to 5x, a read-out of their equipment they have on hand, cooling fans inside the helmet, waste disposal units, and an air recycling system that allows them to breathe underwater. Other features may include:

• Replicated and improved Jackal energy shields
  • Which recharges if depleted
• Outer shell comprised of many layers of strong alloy and a refractive coating to disperse energy weapon hits
• Internally, the suit regulates temperature and can reactively change in density as necessary, which can even let the Spartan survive indefinitely in almost any environment
• Hydrostatic gel that can protect the Spartan by automatically pressurizing when subjected to high-g levels
• Heads-Up Display
  • Ammo In Clip
    • Can cross-reference temperature readings to track charge-depletion of Covenant weapons
  • Ammo
  • Grenades
  • Targeting Reticle
    • Even shows when an enemy is in or out of reach
    • Displays warning indicators below the reticle to provide valuable information(such as when the user is low on ammo or about to overheat Covenant weapons)
  • Navigation Point
  • Flashlight
    • The flashlight drains power from the battle suit
  • Health
  • Shield
  • Direction of Fire
  • Motion Tracker
    • Can detect allies and enemies
  • Can monitor the status of two weapons simultaneously
• A failsafe fusion reactor that, when overloaded, would burn everything within a 10 meter radius
• Jet boosters in the back that’s helpful for orienting themselves in space and boosting them forward, which can even boost their striking power during melee, called the Spartan Charge.
• A refractive coating to avoid enemy sensors
• Hydration tubes, which can deliver a monosaccharide-glycogen solution that provides energy, rejuvenating the wearer

Shotgun

Sarge’s bread and butter weapon of choice. As of Restoration, Sarge had an entire armory of shotguns in Blood Gulch, and has cycled through several shotgun models over the years, but the latest one is the CQS48 Bulldog, which fires 8 12-gauge rounds per rotating drum, with a better range of fire and range in comparison to previous models.

SMG

While shotguns are Sarge’s personal pick for weapons, he has been shown carrying other weapons as well, including the M7 Submachine Gun, a small handgun that can fire a sustained burst of 5mm rounds from a 60-round magazine. It’s not particularly accurate over long distances, but it can provide withering fire at close range. Weirdly, Sarge has never been shown actually firing the weapon, but he has shown he does carry it around from time to time, and similar models were weapons that ODSTs would never jump without.

Pistol

Every soldier from Blood Gulch carry secondary weapons apart from their primary weapon of choice, and more times than not, they all carry pistols as their secondaries. Like with the shotguns, Sarge has cycled through several models in his career, but the latest on here is the Mk50 Sidekick. This specialized handgun fires 12 10x31mm SAP rounds per magazine, and while its not as powerful as pistols in the M6 series, its more responsive and accurate, especially at shorter distances.

Storm Rifle

During the war for Chorus, Sarge and the other Reds and Blues received alien weapons and tech to even the odds against Charon’s forces. Sarge in particular was given the T-55 DER/A Storm Rifle, which fires superheated plasma at either automatic and semi-automatic rates. However, extended use can cause it to overheat, which will temporarily disable the gun and deplete its energy core.

Rocket Launcher

While brief, during a conflict with the UNSC after meeting the Blues and Reds, Sarge picked up a rocket launcher to take out flying drones. In particular, the model in question was the M41 SSR MAV/AW, also called the SPNKr. Man-made, shoulder-fired, and with a single 2x scope, this model holds 2 102mm shaped-charge, high explosive tracking rockets. This model can also lock onto targets.

Soldier

Primary Weaponry

The Soldier’s main playstyle is relying on long-ranged combat through firing Rockets out of his Rocket Launcher

• Rocket Launcher: This is the Soldier’s primary weapon and stores up to four rockets and explodes on contact with any surface or enemy, creating a blast radius. If it hits an enemy, it will knock them backwards. The Soldier can also use the rocket launcher in order to Blast Jump, allowing him to reach higher locations as well as speed around the battlefield.
• Original: Based on the original Quake Rocket Launcher, the main difference between this and the Rocket Launcher is that it fires straight rather then at an angle. 
• Direct Hit: Fires significantly faster and deals more damage but at the consequence of significantly reducing the blast radius, meaning that the Soldier has to rely more on directly hitting the enemy and as such, it is infamously called “the Direct Miss.”
• Black Box: This Rocket grants the Soldier restored health based on how much damage they deal to the enemy target (the maximum is 20 health). However, its main downside is that it has one less rocket in its clip, meaning that the Soldier will have to reload more often which could catch them out in an extended fight. 
• Rocket Jumper: Called a “joke weapon”, it deals no damage but as a side affect also inflicts do damage onto the Soldier when he performs a blast jump. This allows it to be an excellent training weapon for blast jump practice but it can also be used with the Market Gardner (though this is a very situation playstyle). It also gives the Soldier 40 extra rockets. 
• Liberty Launcher: The Liberty Launcher has an extra clip and fires significantly faster but as a consequence deals less damage. The Liberty Launcher is more designed for Soldiers who want to be mobile and prioritize accuracy over raw damage. 
• Cow Mangler 5000: The Cow Mangler 5000 fires off energy blasts that are better suited for damaging buildings than the standard rocket launcher (about 20% more damage). The Soldier can also charge the Cow Mangler with energy that when hit at an opponent causes a mini-crit and 6 seconds of afterburn. It also has unlimited ammo but requires the Soldier to crank it four times, since it only holds four shots.
• Air Strike: The Air Strike does less damage and has a smaller explosion radius then the standard rocket launcher, but as a trade off, every time you kill an enemy it gains an additional rocket in its clip (up to 8). It also has increased attack speed whilst the Soldier is in the air, meaning it is better suited to be used in tandem with rocket jumping to surprise your targets. 
• Beggar’s Bazooka. Made by the Soldier himself out of literal garbage, this rocket launcher may seem like a strange weapon, but it is actually pretty strong; just ask Soundsmith. To use it, the Soldier loads the rockets into the Beggar, and when he releases them all, they are fired off at an increased speed compared to stock, at the consequence of an increased spread (that is to say that the rockets won’t entirely go where the Soldier wants them to go). The weapon can also misfire after reloading too many rockets, which hurts the Soldier. However, this can be secretly helpful as with the blast damage, the Soldier can do mid-air jumps, making him even more mobile. Essentially, this is high-risk but extremely high-reward.

Secondary Weapons

• Stock Weapons: These weapons don’t have any secondary effect and just deal damage on hit.
• Shotgun: The Soldier’s trusty side-arm; it deals damage at a close range but has a damage fall-off and low accuracy unless the Soldier is up in the enemy’s face.
• Buff Banner: This backpack and flag combo allows the Soldier to fill a RAGE meter (which increases when the Soldier gets hit). When filled, it grants him 10 seconds of mini-crits, increasing his damage output
• Gunboats: These nifty boots reduce the amount of self-damage that comes from rocket launchers. These are particularly helpful for aerial Soldiers or Soldiers who like to play the Marker Gardner playstyle.
• Battalion’s Backup: Similar to the Buff Banner; it uses a Rage Meter, which when filled gives the Soldier complete immunity to critical damage and makes him more tanky through damage reduction, while granting him more health.
• Concheror: While the Buff Banner was for offensive and the Battalion Backup was for defense, the Concheror focuses on speed. When the Conch’s bar is full, it grants the Soldier increased movement speed as well as health when they deal damage to an enemy target. 
• Mantreads: These boots give the Soldier better control while he is in the air as well as reduce the pushback from other enemy weapons like a rocket launcher or an airblast.
• Reserve Shooter: This shotgun deals mini-crits depending on whether the enemy is blast jumping, knocked back, launched by a Thermal Thruster stomp, or using the grapple hook.
• Base Jumper: The Soldier can deploy a parachute which slows down his descent, at the consequence of making him an easier target.
• Righteous Bison: Fires off energy pellets so it doesn’t use traditional ammo but also as a consequence can fire far less shots then the standard shotgun.
• Panic Attack: This shotgun sacrifices damage in favor of being much faster, allowing the Soldier to easily switch to it whilst in a pinch.

Melee Weapons

• Equalizer: This pickaxe decreases the Soldier’s health during use, but increases the Soldier’s damage output. 
• Half-Zatoichi: When the Soldier kills with this katana, it grants him 50% of his base health and has longer melee range. As a consequence, it has a slower deployment time.
• Disciplinary Action: When the Soldier hits an ally with this whip, it grants them increased movement speed but deals less damage on hit. 
• Market Gardner: The main tool for the “Market Gardner” playstyle; while the Soldier is in the air, he deals mini-crits while using this shovel. Its best used if you see an enemy Soldier whilst in the air, or when dive bombing a target from the air. 
• Escape Plan: Similar to the Equalizer, but increases movement speed whilst decreasing the Soldier’s health. 

Abilities

Sarge

Slow Motion

During a battle at Crash Site Alpha on Chorus, the planet’s defenders were put on the backfoot and were forced to retreat, so Sarge’s plan was for him and the Reds to jump in the Warthog and punch through the enemy’s defenses with an “adrenaline-fueled slow-motion car crash”, which would give them an opportunity to escape. And thanks to a smokescreen caused by Simmons tinkering with the crashed ship’s engines, he managed to do it. How did he just make something slow motion, you ask? “If it’s epic enough, “life finds a way.”

Super Hearing

At times, Sarge has shown the ability to hear conversations happening from several feet away. The Reds managed to hear Epsilon and Caboose’s conversation, despite being too far away for that to be possible, and the two Blues trying to be subtle in their conversation. 

Endurance

For whatever reason, Sarge and the other sim troopers have shown incredible endurance. During the Blood Gulch “war”, the two teams ran out of water for months, surviving off of stuff like ketchup, soy sauce, gravy, and in his words “the blood of his enemies. And occasionally a strawberry Yoo-hoo.” Sarge canonically doesn’t have a kidney, and also went at least five straight days without sleep. 

Soldier

Pain Tolerance

It should be noted that the Soldier has an extreme intolerance to pain, as shown when he had his hand chopped off by Pyro. He also suffered no side effects when a Doctor reattached his hand. He also survived a brutal Interrogation and was extremely happy over it, to the point he was smiling in front of the person who did it. 

Unpredictability

It should be noted that Soldier has… well, a tenuous grip on reality at best, as shown both by the games and the comics. He often says sentences that make no sense as well as imagining the ghost of George Washington and Benedict Arnold. This lack of common sense does actually benefit him, as it makes him extremely unpredictable and a very difficult opponent to read. He will do literally anything to win, even if it means using unconventional weapons or jumping at the opponent with a shovel. 

Soulless

Due to the fact that Medic made a couple of deals, all the mercenaries including Soldier don’t have souls and thus they can’t be collected after death 

Magic

During Halloween Events, every TF2 Merc is able to to use  magical spells that come through either the Fancy Spellbook, Secret Diary or the Spellbook Magazine. These spells have widely different effects. It is debatable if they can be considered to be standard, but the sake of completion we might as well mention them.

• The Fireball spell creates a ball of fire that sets enemies on… well, fire.
• The Shadow Leap spell allows the Soldier to throw a dark-small ball. Wherever that ball lands, the Soldier can teleport to it
• The Blast Jump spell recreates the Soldier’s own rocket jumping, but since he can do that already, it is pretty useless for him.
• The Stealth Spell temporarily turns the user invisible.
• The Overheal Spell  greatly heals the user and all allies nearby.
• The Minify Spell shrinks them down and makes them harder to hit.
• The Meteor Shower Spell creates a small shower of meteors that deal damage to the enemy mercs.
• The Swarm of Bats spell shoots a glowing ball. If it hits, bats will swamp the enemy merc, doing damage.
• The Pumpkin Spell creates a ring of pumpkins that explode when made contact with the enemy.
• The Ball O’ Lightning spell fires a ball of energy that sucks enemy targets in.
• The Monoculus Spell summons a Monoculus which attacks the enemy mercs. 

Feats

Sarge

Overall

• Was buried 6 feet underground while still alive
• Deleted the Blue Team from the UNSC’s records
• Technically won Blood Gulch
• Helped save Epsilon from the UNSC
• Assisted in taking down Project Freelancer
• Succeeded in bringing a crashed ship’s record and manifest, something the Blues couldn’t
• Raided a Charon intelligence base
• Responsible for Achilles’ heel
• Defeated Wyoming, the Meta, Tex clones, Felix, Charon Industries, Surge

Power

• Pushed the Warthog out of a shadow with Simmons
• Kicked a Pelican off the cliff it was dangling over
• Weapons can pierce through stone pillars (1.7 megajoules)

Speed

• Dodged a shot from a rocket launcher (Mach 0.32)
• Drove a Warthog in front of bullets before the firing squad could shoot Grif and Simmons
• Dodged a shot from Surge’s Railgun

Durability

• Survived a bullet wound to the head long enough to be saved by CPR
• Survived being in the Warthog as it was shot by Sheila
• Got pinned against Red Base by the Warthog
• Survived the Warthog self-destructing 
• Survived a 10 megaton bomb
• Survived his equipment exploding
• Survived being underwater for an unspecified amount of time
• Survived getting slammed through several sheets of metal by Tex
• Survived the Warthog being destroyed by Freckles
• Survived a Sticky Detonator exploding right at his feet

Soldier

Overall

• With the help of the other Mercenaries and Ms Pauline, foiled the Director’s plots and stopped a petty feud that had been going on for decades
• Bested the Mercenary Robots despite them being designed to be better then the Mercs in everyway
• Killed many Nazis in World War 2 despite having no formal training
• Defeated a bear in combat and managed to snap its neck
• Alongside his fellow Mercenaries, managed to defeat the previous generation of TF Mercs, the TF Classic Mercs. 
• Has shown to be equal in skill to the lines of the Sniper and the Spy who are extremely skilled marksman and sniper respectively
• Fully justified that he was in the legal right to murder Tom Jones (wait..)
• Despite his crazy life (that would spell an early end for just about anybody else), was eventually able to settle down with Zhana and have two children (and become the Heavy’s brother in law)
• Defeated The Spy, The Pyro, The Medic, The Demoman, The Heavy and The Scout 

Power

• Is easily strong enough to snap a a person’s neck without much effort  
• Is strong enough to grapple with a bear and neck snap it 
• Punches the Old Spy so hard that his neck snaps 
• Tears robots apart with his bare hands 
• Rocket Launcher instantly kills Pyro, Demoman and Soldier (00:04-0:10)
• A couple of shotgun shots completely decimates the Demoman (00:30-0:34)
• Oneshots the Medic with his Rocket Launcher
• Smashes the Spy’s face with his shovel

Speed

• Dodges out of the way of an enemy Soldier’s rockets (00:40-00:50) (Mach 0.34)
• Reacts to a Spy about to stab him from behind and smashes him in the face with his shovel (1:03-1:05)

Durability

• Can survive the explosions of his own rockets when fired against the ground 
• Was repeatedly tortured with his teeth getting drilled full of holes and his hand collapsing and was able to get up and fight.
• Was fine after being rammed by the Heavy in a wooden door
• Was fine being in the vicinity of grenades fired by a Robot Demoman
• Gets slammed into the ground by a giant break monster (12:27-12:32)

Scaling

Sarge

Reds & Blues

Generally, the Reds and Blues are all around the same level in terms of physical stats. While it’s pretty clear that Caboose is probably the strongest soldier in Blood Gulch, Donut has the best throwing arm, and the Freelancers definitely kick his ass in skill, Sarge never lags behind when the Reds and Blues are working together, implying he should be at least on a similar level to his comrades, helped by him beating up people like Grif or Tucker.

• Simmons jumped over twice their height
• Grif and Simmons fall into a cave
• Grif survived being shot by Sarge, Donut, and Simmons point blank
• Simmons and Lopez dodged a shot from the Meta’s Brute Shot
• Doc survived a punch from the Meta that embedded him into a wall (2.3 megajoules)
  • Typical UNSC bases can withstand shots from tanks
• Grif and Simmons survived being crushed by a shipment crate
• Grif and Simmons consumed radioactive mushrooms, which Simmons described as “crystal meth on crystal meth”
• Simmons threw a capture unit at Tex, which Wash dubbed the “best throw, ever…of all time”
• Tucker survived getting beaten up by an Elite for a significant time
• Tucker side-stepped out of the way of a speeding Warthog
• Tucker survived being blown up by a grenade
• Tucker blew up a tank by punching the radiator
• Grif’s suit let him walk the English Channel
• Donut survived being shot by missiles
• Tucker kicked Lorenzo’s head high into the sky

Miscellaneous

• Insurrectionist Demo Man reacted to a MAC gun, and survived being hit by its shell (1.2 tons of TNT)
  • MAC guns in Halo hit with this much force
• Cronut survived a Rocket Launcher shell being thrown back at him
• York survived the top half of a pillar being slammed into him hard enough to shatter it
• Palomo survived being run over by a Warthog
• Carolina and Sharkface busted through concrete (31.4 megajoules)
• Huggins is directly said to move at light speed and flew from Blood Gulch to the Moon in a second (3.85c) (likely outlier)

Soldier

Mercs

The Soldier should be both comparable to the other mercenaries considering they can all kill each other as well as the Classic TF mercenaries who they fought in combat in the comics. 

• Scout dodged rockets and bullets 
• Scout survived the explosion of three rockets at once (28 Megajoules)
• Pyro survived this massive explosion (0.15 tons of TNT)
• Heavy threw someone hard enough to shatter a thick wall and punch metal 
• Heavy survived a grenade explosion
• Zhana ripped apart robots with her bare hands and dodge faster than the TF2 Classic to react. 

Weaknesses

Sarge

Sarge may be more skilled than you might think, but don’t get it wrong, when it comes to military strategy, there’s a reason why he ends up relying on strategies from more intelligent people. Most of Sarge’s strategies do one of four things: Protect himself, kill Grif, involve the construction of a complicated device instead of something that actually works, or all of the above. While this may be hyperbole, Lopez noted that Sarge could be presented a detailed infographic describing a problem, and he’d still find a way to screw things up.

And to add to his insanity, Sarge has a…weird sense of honor. For one, he would never hit a girl, no matter how easy it would be to win battles otherwise. Even when the only Blue in Blood Gulch was Sister, who’s probably the worst fighter in Blood Gulch by a mile, Sarge refused to just attack her and win because she’s a girl. On top of that, Sarge prefers to kill his opponents up close, and refuses to use weapons like a sniper rifle for anything other than a microscope or a scare tactic because he considers it a “coward’s weapon”.

Soldier

There’s no gentle way to put this, the Soldier is an idiot. While his recklessness and unpredictability have gotten him out of a few scrapes in the past, it has also landed him in just as many bad situations, as shown when he recklessly tried taking on a giant plant monster and got swatted away.

His blast jumping, while his best tool for mobility, deals decent damage to himself unless he wears specific boots. Even then, a fast enough opponent can react and shoot him out of the sky (with specific Soldier strategies such as Market Gardner relying solely on unpredictability and taking the enemy by surprise). He also wears very little in terms of armor and can put down quickly if caught in unfavorable situations.

Verdict

Stats

In terms of physical stats, Sarge and the Soldier were a bit more fascinating to compare than expected. Starting with strength and durability, on the low end, both sit pretty comfortably in the megajoule range. The Soldier scales to Scout surviving 3 rockets at once, which gets to 28 megajoules. On the other hand, Sarge should scale to Carolina and Sharkface busting through concrete during their battle, which got to 31.4 megajoules, slightly more than the Soldier. However, on a higher end, the Soldier scales to the Pyro surviving an explosion that had a yield of 0.15 tons of TNT.

Impressive, but even then, Sarge has it beat by scaling to an Insurrectionist surviving a MAC cannon shot directly. Its general destruction has a yield of 1.2 tons of TNT, over 8 times more powerful than the Pyro’s feat. However, you can argue that it’s even more powerful. MAC guns are products of the Halo universe that Red vs. Blue is a Machinima series of, and they can hit with a force of 64 kilotons of TNT, thousands of times stronger than the best that the Soldier can scale to. And this is all without mentioning the infamous 10 megaton bomb feat which, for what it’s worth, both researchers are generally ok with, which makes the gap even worse. Even without it, though, the gap in power and durability is very much in Sarge’s favor. 

As far as speed is concerned, it was actually kind of surprising how small their feats are. Both of them have dodged shots from rocket launchers, but while Sarge’s gets Mach 0.32, the Soldier’s gets Mach 0.34, just slightly above Sarge’s feat, though considering the more casual nature of Sarge’s feat, especially compared to Soldier’s, it’s likely Sarge could get even higher at his best. Both franchises have potential bullet timing feats, though trying to get in-tandem movement from either isn’t really possible when they’re either frame one, or we the viewer don’t see the bullets at all.

You could scale Sarge to Huggins through Genkins catching her with a black hole gun, which given she can fly to the Moon and back at 3.85 times lightspeed would make Sarge lightyears faster than the Soldier, though obviously jumping from slower than Mach speed to faster than light is kind of insane. Generally though, both are roughly around the same level of speed with more consistent ends.

Regardless of the speed though, Sarge has an extremely solid lead in power that would allow him to win in a straight brawl. Sarge takes the edge in stats.

Arsenal & Abilities

When it comes to weaponry both specialize in shotguns and rocket launchers, though Sarge’s is generally a higher take. It can be said that Sarge has a great variety of ranged weaponry, fundamentally all of Soldier’s primary weapons are rocket launchers and most of the Soldier’s secondary weapons are shotguns. In comparison to Sarge, who has Shotguns, SMGs, Pistols, Storm Rifles, Rocket Launchers and more. While the Soldier does have some variety due to his banner buffs, it is still not enough to make up the difference in terms of variety. None of Soldier’s arsenal is all that strange to what Sarge has experienced, and he has weaponry that is equal to Soldier’s at all ranges. In terms of primary weaponry, Sarge is better but its on the closer end. 

It’s no secret that the Sarge has a secret weapon that puts him a step up when compared to the Soldier: the Mark VI Mjolnir Armor. The Mjolnir armor is the perfect counter to the Soldier, as it can block bullets and absorb explosions, which are the two main attacking methods that the Soldier relies upon in order to do damage and that’s not all that benefits Sarge. It can analyze all of the Soldier’s equipment in order to get a better understanding of how they function, meaning Sarge will have a much better understanding of the Soldier’s equipment than vice versa. The armor also gives him much greater protection than the Soldier (in multiple trailers, the Soldier has been taken out by getting shot or stabbed) meaning in a prolonged fight, it is much more likely that Sarge will simply outlast Soldier due to his greater defense. 

Now lets get a certain elephant in the room: would magic help the Soldier significantly in this fight? The answer is well… not really. 

The Soldier has several spells that would be really useful against Sarge, such as the Minify spell, which shrinks the Soldier down and makes him harder to hit. Combine that with the Soldier’s more damaging spells including summoning meteors, an argument could be made that the Soldier catches up to the Sarge in terms of arsenal. However, even with all this, the Mjolnir Armor turns the tide back in Sarge’s favor by neutralizing Soldier’s options; it can track invisibility and smaller targets, and is durable enough to tank the meteors that Soldier can throw at him. 

Overall, with the Mjolnir Armor’s greater protection, Sarge gets the edge in arsenal.

Tertiary Factors

Generally, in terms of intelligence, it’s… interesting. Both are extremely insane and bordering on idiotic. Even if you want to argue any sort of military tactics and strategy that either could come up with, they’re both more likely to either just go in guns blazing or come up with the most batshit insane strategies that obviously won’t work. So as far as intelligence and strategy goes, neither is holding a solid advantage.

When it comes to skill and experience though, this is actually really straightforward. It’s pretty explicit that the Soldier has no actual military training, and relies heavily on his self-training and heavy weaponry during combat. And sure, he’s still been able to massacre a bunch of Nazis and kill robotic mercs with his bare hands, but in comparison to Sarge, who has actually been through military training as an ODST and has been through actual wars, not just scuffles over plots of land, it simply pales in comparison. Not only has Sarge fought mercs(who again, have actual military experience and training unlike the Soldier), but he’s also been up against robotic soldiers, corrupt businessmen, and even artificial intelligence units that pose as gods. To be blunt, Sarge has fought basically everything that the Soldier has and more

Overall, while neither are particularly winning the brain game, Sarge is the only one here with actual military training, while the Soldier is working off of self-teaching and explosive weapons. Sarge once again takes the edge in this segment.

Conclusion

“Today is a good day to die!”

Advantages:

• Physically superior overall 
• Wider variety of weaponry 
• Mjolnir armor cancels out basically all of the Soldier’s options 
• Weapons are strong enough to kill the Soldier
• More skilled and experienced
• Red vs. Blue kicked off the internet giant that is Rooster Teeth

Disadvantages:

• Smaller arsenal overall
• Soldier’s magic offers more useful abilities
• Batshit insane

Soldier 

“This is my world. You are not welcome in my world.”

Advantages:

• Much larger arsenal
• Better at range
• Magic could help keep Sarge at bay for a while…
• TF2 came out in 2007 and still has an active player base 

Disadvantages:

• Much weaker overall
• …but Sarge’s armor can detect or survive pretty much all of it
• Less experienced and skilled
• Has historically been taken down by gunfire before
• Batshit insane

Overall, this match is extremely clear cut. For what it’s worth, the Soldier is a capable warrior and has been shown to be a threat that stands among his fellow mercenaries. Even here, his larger arsenal and magic spells could keep Sarge at bay for a time. But against Sarge’s own weaponry, extremely durable armor, and military training, there’s only so much that the Soldier could do. On top of Sarge matching the Soldier’s speed and arsenal variety, it’s quite problematic that he’s the only one here who wears bulletproof armor that has survived massive explosions, while the Soldier’s primary armor is a helmet.

Sarge’s armor alone is a perfect counter to the majority of the Soldier’s arsenal, while his own arsenal is more than strong enough to put the Soldier down for good. The rocket-jumping mercenary may have been a good Soldier, maybe even the best, but the Super Colonel’s weaponry, experience, and armor allowed him to walk away the victor. The Soldier wasn’t Red-y for this fight, and ended up getting Sarge’d.

The winner is Colonel Sarge!