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Post by derv on Dec 29, 2013 9:46:25 GMT -6
Does anyone have references for the size of the various armies involved? In reading the text, I've found only a few. It seems Dain had a force of 500 Dwarves. Thorin, of course included with the 13 others. The Elven King had 1000 spearmen. Though I'm not sure how many bowmen. I am unsure of the actual size of troops of Lakemen, Goblins, and Wargs.
In looking at the Chainmail write-up in Dragon #1, I'm not completely happy with how the forces are broken down. But more importantly, I lack 300+ goblin figures to run such a scenario. So, I'm trying to find a more accurate estimate of all involved so I could possibly increase the scale to more manageable numbers, if possible.
It's very possible I'm simply missing the references in the novel or that they are not present in exactitude. Any help would be appreciated.
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jacar
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Post by jacar on Dec 29, 2013 10:08:23 GMT -6
In looking at the Chainmail write-up in Dragon #1, I'm not completely happy with how the forces are broken down. But more importantly, I lack 300+ goblin figures to run such a scenario. So, I'm trying to find a more accurate estimate of all involved so I could possibly increase the scale to more manageable numbers, if possible. It's very possible I'm simply missing the references in the novel or that they are not present in exactitude. Any help would be appreciated. 300 Goblins is pretty rough though there are cheap alternatives out there. The Caesar Plastic goblins come to mind. You would still need something like 8 boxes! The other thing to consider with the Dragon #1 scenario is that there are also 100 wargs and you could mount goblins on those animals. So, really we are looking at 200 goblins and 100 wargs with riders! The plastic versions of those come 12 to a box so we are really looking at 5 boxes of goblins (about $50). The wargs come with 12 mounts to a box with 12 riders. That's 9 boxes for a total of $90. With that, it will take $140 to make the goblin host according to the Dragon #1 article. Tolkien was never very exact about anything. 10,000 seems to be a number he uses a lot. 10,000 Uruks at Helm's Deep and so forth. He tries to outnumber the good forces at about 5-1. More than that, the defenders would collapse under the weight of the onslaught. He doesn't mention archers simply because there may not have been any. The Lakemen were the archers. You figure, if the Lakemen had a similar sized force, there might be 1000 of them as well. The Dwarves were willing to make a go of it with the arrival of Dain Ironfoot and his 500. So against the Goblin host, you might have something like 1000 Elven spear, 500 Lakeman spear, 500 Lakeman archers, 500 Dwarves (+13), vs 10,000 Goblins. Maybe a quarter have wargs. At 1:20 scale that is even more goblins! From the LotR wiki, lotr.wikia.com/wiki/Battle_of_the_Five_Armies1000 Elves (spear) 200 Lakemen (bow) 500 Dwarves +13 companions (melee) 6000 Goblins melee 500 Wargs melee. So 5500 Goblin foot and 500 Wargs with riders. At 1:20 that's 50 Elves, 10 Lakemen, 25 Dwarves, 225 Goblins and 25 Wargs with riders. Much better. You still need the gobs of Goblins but not as many!
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Post by derv on Dec 29, 2013 12:12:31 GMT -6
This site suggested some values that seem plausible- tolkiengateway.net/wiki/Battle_of_Five_Armies1000 Elven spearmen and archers 2-300 Lakemen 500 Dwarves 13 Thorin and companions Many eagles 6-15000 Goblins & Wargs Beorn At 1:20, this would be 50 Elves, 10-15 Lakemen, 25 Dwarves (+1 for Thorin & companions), 300-750 Goblins & Wargs. If instead we would simply multiply the Goblins & Wargs by 4 compared to the combined forces of the others, this would yield 7200 (or 360 figures). 120 of these figures could be Wargs. This is still a pretty large number of figures. A possible solution is to break this number in half and introduce additional figures at a later part of the battle. This would actually follow the story line. So, the battle could start with 120 Goblins mounted on Wargs with an additional 60 Goblin footmen. More Goblin Footmen could be introduced into play later (using casualties as replacements). That being said, I like your final total of 225 Goblins and 25 Wargs as being much more manageable. In the same vein, I think the Eagles and then Beorn should be introduced later in the battle- possibly determined by a random die roll. Also, I really see no reason for Bilbo or Gandalf to be included in the battle besides the fact that they were present in the story.
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jacar
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Post by jacar on Dec 29, 2013 14:14:14 GMT -6
For Gandalf, I think he could be portrayed as a hero with a magic sword. No other magic.
Thorin and company could be a hero with magic blade.
Other leaders should also be heroes as per the Dragon #1 scenario.
I think the eagles should be part of he end game. The idea being that when time expires, the Eagles are assumed to have shown up and saved everyone. The Goblins should have to sew up victory before then.
I agree that Bilbo has no place in the battle, especially since he spent most of it sucking dirt anyway. Beorn could be a wearbear or something.
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premmy
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Post by premmy on Dec 29, 2013 14:56:59 GMT -6
I have the book in front of me, a couple of notes:
- According to the ravens bringing news to Thorin and company, there were "more than five hundred" dwarves with Dain, so for all we know, it might even have been 550 or slightly more. Each armed with a two-handed mattock, a shortsword and a round shield; wearing full mail down to the legs, iron caps and boots.
- Men of Dale: "'Fools!' laughed Bard, 'to come thus beneath the Mountain's arm! [...] There are many of our archers and spearmen now hidden in the rocks upon their right flank'." That suggests to me their archers and spearmen were of comparable number, rather than just, say, a few token archer skirmishers with a main spear infantry force.
- Regarding the elves, A: "their spears and swords in the gloom with a gleam of chill flame", and B: "Behind the arrows [of their initial volley] a thousand of their spearmen leapt own and charged." So, pro primo, some of them had swords, maybe the archers, since it probably wasn't the spearmen. Pro secundo, contrarily to previous claims, they didn't have 1000 archers + spearmen. They had AT LEAST 1000 spearmen ("a thousand OF their spearmen" might mean they had more in reserve, only the first thousand took part in the charge); also, their archer contingent was over and above the headcount of 1000, not a part of it.
- The bats coming with the goblin army are made out to be a not insignificant factor: "while still the great bats swirled about the haeds and ears of elves and men, or fastened vampire-like on the stricken". In wargaming terms, maybe not normal units, but some sort of "area of effect" that harms morale (and, I imagine, reduces the effectiveness of archers by impairing visibility and acting as ablative shielding).
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jacar
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Post by jacar on Dec 29, 2013 16:55:27 GMT -6
Good points Premmy. Regarding the arrows, who was shooting? Was it men or was it Elves? The statement is ambiguous.
We know the elves came with 1000 spear. We know the men have spear and archers. We know the dwarves not only have more than 500 and we know exactly how they are equipped. Mattock, sword shield and mail. Goblin we surmise are unarmored or poorly armored but may have shields. They have hooked blades according to the LotR companion which may even be poisoned. The bats could be played out as with darkness. I don't like making them a distinct unit either. This could be another function of Gandalf, to repell the bats in an area around him.
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Post by derv on Dec 29, 2013 17:32:26 GMT -6
premmy, you seem to be suggesting that the forces on both sides may have been even larger. There was an interesting comment on one of the wikis that Bilbo said the forces of men & elves was 10,000, but that it may not be an accurate estimate. If the ratio of allies to goblins was closer, it would be easier to handle the vast numbers by increasing scale and reducing the number of figures required. This is something I was considering. I took a look at point values and the following produces a decent balance based on jacar's numbers: 50 Elves(1/2 spears 1/2 bows)= 4 pts each= 200 pts 15 Lakemen (10 HF, 5 LF archers)= 2 pts & 4 pts= 40 pts 25 Dwarves= 2 pts= 50 pts Thorin, Thranduil, Dain, Bard= 20 pts= 80 pts 2 Eagles (Gwaihir)= 20 pts= 40 pts Beorn (in bear form)= 20 pts Allies total= 450 pts *If the Eagles & Bearn are not brought into play until later, the point difference would be 390.This is also leaving Gandalf and Bilbo out completely. 225 Goblins= 1.5 pts= 338 pts (if orcs= 2 pts= 450 pts) 25 Wargs= 3 pts= 75 pts Bolg= 20 pts Goblin total= 433 pts jacar, I searched for Ceasars goblins and they actually look pretty good. Though there are only 36 figs to a box, which would mean buying 7 boxes at $12! Not really a one time purchase for me But, I might pick a box up to check them out. What type of plastic are they? Soft like Airfix or harder like Zvezda?
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Post by havard on Dec 29, 2013 17:39:45 GMT -6
I could be misremembering this, but wasn't Beorn in the company of other bears (or shapeshifters)?
-Havard
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premmy
Level 5 Thaumaturgist
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Post by premmy on Dec 29, 2013 18:27:45 GMT -6
Good points Premmy. Regarding the arrows, who was shooting? Was it men or was it Elves? The statement is ambiguous. Sorry about that, I cut the quote too short. In the book it's made quite clear that it was the elves shooting, immediately followed by a 1000 elves charging into battle. And yes, I'm suggesting that numbers might be higher. In fact, here are a couple of bits about the geographical aspects of the battle: Note: they had enough troops to "man" two "great spurs" of the mountain surrounding a valley. Unless these "great spurs" were particularly small, they must have had a great deal of manpower. Also note: it was suggested that the goblins might be numerous enough to "overrun the Mountain". Not "send a few squadrons across the Mountain", but downright "overrun" it. I think you'd need a lot of goblins for that. Bard and some others climbing the Eastern shoulder to have an overview of the land to the North: I imagine that the entirety of "the Mountain's feet" (at least to the north) must be a rather large area, and turning it black with the crowd would mean a BIG crowd. The goblin vanguard alone was large enough to "swirl around" the spur - I take that to mean that, forming a line or some other formation, the vanguard would completely encircle the spur while advancing. Again, this is a "great" spur. Unless these two "great spurs" are really, really close together, that valley must be rather large; and yet, the goblins were "dense in the valley". Not "dense in a small spot of the valley while the rest of the valley was empty". How many troops does it take to fill up an entire valley? Following up on the previous notion, the goblins are being pressed on two point simultaneously, and those two points are at the opposite sides of the valley - reinforcing the notion that there were enough goblins to literally "fill" the valley from one side to another. It would be interesting to compare these bits with historical account of battles involving known numbers and data on just how much ground those armies occupied. I haven't got the time or particular inclination to make a serious effort at that, but here's a quick tidbit: According to Wikipedia (I know...), the Battle of Hastings involved 7000-12000 Normans and 5000-13000 Englishmen. That battle had a single frontline, with flanks protected on both sides by terrain, about... maybe 700-800 yards wide (including the curvature of the line)? In contrast the Battle of Five Armies involves two lines of battle initially - the two great spurs surrounding a valley -, enough goblins to fill the valley, and enough left over to climb over the mountain. Depending on one's definition of "great spur of mountain", that probably adds up to a total line of battle several times as wide.
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Todd
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Post by Todd on Dec 29, 2013 22:05:16 GMT -6
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Torreny
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Is this thing on?
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Post by Torreny on Dec 30, 2013 5:40:26 GMT -6
I am thoroughly enjoying the discussion at hand, haha! Good show.
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Post by derv on Dec 30, 2013 17:59:55 GMT -6
I could be misremembering this, but wasn't Beorn in the company of other bears (or shapeshifters)? -Havard During the Battle of 5 Armies Beorn appeared late on the scene in bear form ("in that last hour"). The story says, "he came alone". It goes on to describe him breaking through the goblin lines and bringing Thorin out of the fray before returning to crush Bolg. Your idea of Beorn being in the company of other bears is consistent with Chainmail though. In CM, lycanthropes have the special ability of gathering like animals, which "adds to their fighting ability".
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Post by Red Baron on Dec 30, 2013 18:01:30 GMT -6
I could be misremembering this, but wasn't Beorn in the company of other bears (or shapeshifters)? -Havard During the Battle of 5 Armies Beorn appeared late on the scene in bear form ("in that last hour"). The story says, "he came alone". It goes on to describe him breaking through the goblin lines and bringing Thorin out of the fray before returning to crush Bolg. Your idea of Beorn being in the company of other bears is consistent with Chainmail though. In CM, lycanthropes have the special ability of gathering like animals, which "adds to their fighting ability". Only near forests, and I'm pretty sure Smaug torched the entire area.
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Post by derv on Dec 30, 2013 18:33:18 GMT -6
This was a valuable account and I find it interesting that authorities also question the number of troops actually involved. The article suggests the Romans could have had between 54000 to 90000 and the Carthaginians from 45000 to 48000. Tactically, it presents the value of proper use of terrain and troop placement to your advantage even against a force of superior numbers. I would be curious to know if Tolkien modeled any of his conflicts on historical engagements. I've never heard any suggest that, but it would be helpful to the fantasy wargamer. As far as using historical engagements, the terrain they took place on, and the number of troops involved, to come up with a reasonable estimate of troop sizes in Tolkiens account, I'm not sure I could come up with an acceptable conclusion. The difference in the numbers suggested even in this engagement at Cannae have pretty large discreptancies when trying to come up with ratios. I was really hoping there was a Tolkien fan on the boards that was going to point me at some harder numbers.
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Post by makofan on Dec 30, 2013 20:18:50 GMT -6
In the TSR game Battle of the 5 Armies, not counting leaders and specials (Eagles, Beorn, etc), there were 10 Dwarves 10 Men (2 of them bow) 32 Elves (6 of them bow) 21 Wargs 54 Goblins I think. It was 40 years ago when I owned it, but I played it a lot
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jacar
Level 5 Thaumaturgist
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Post by jacar on Dec 30, 2013 20:22:23 GMT -6
The Romans had 4 consular armies which would amount to about 80,000 men. The Carthaginians had about 56.000 men of many nationalities and abilities including a big cavalry advantage. The Romans were drawn in on the center between two groups of Carthaginian veterans as the center made up of Spanish and Gallic troops fell back. The cavalry were to drive off their roman counterparts. As the Romans moved further into the void, the Veterans suddenly advanced, turned and attacked the Romans in the flank. At this point the cavalry had finished off the Roman Equites and turned in on the rear of the Roman main body. The rest is gruesome history. We can break down the numbers by dividing both sides by 10 giving 8000 to 5600. Note that this is not 6000 to perhaps 3000 or so. However, you must consider that 3000 might be enough to string out the flanks without encircling the goblin rear. So if the Goblins could fill the valley floor with troops, 2000-3000 allies would probably be enough to hold the flanks.
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Post by derv on Dec 30, 2013 21:28:50 GMT -6
In the TSR game Battle of the 5 Armies, not counting leaders and specials (Eagles, Beorn, etc), there were 10 Dwarves 10 Men (2 of them bow) 32 Elves (6 of them bow) 21 Wargs 54 Goblins I think. It was 40 years ago when I owned it, but I played it a lot Thanks for this makofan. I took a walk over to BoardGameGeek and they gave the contents as including 163 counters. 79 Goblins 20 Warg 10 Dwarves 10 Men 32 Elves 5 Eagles 6 named characters (Elf King, Thorin, Dain, Beorn, Gandalf, Bolg) It also had a fuzzy picture of the map for the game that seemed to have 43 x 25 hexes, with the valley between the spurs only 12 hexes at it's widest and narrowing down to 2 hexes at the gate to the Lonely Mt. What's really interesting about TSR's hex & counter game is that it was designed by Larry Smith, who's the same guy that did the write up for the Chainmail Battle of 5 Armies, in the Dragon. Now, if I can find out how large a hex is and how many troops a counter is worth, I might be on to something.
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Post by makofan on Dec 30, 2013 21:58:50 GMT -6
50 troops per counter I figured. You could stack gobloins on wargs to get more powerful warg riders, so 20 warg riders and 59 goblins seems about right
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Post by Red Baron on Dec 30, 2013 22:09:48 GMT -6
This would be a fun scenario to play out with 5 player, and no starting alliances. Each group has to try to make coalitions with other players for a share of the treasure.
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Post by cooper on Dec 31, 2013 13:12:15 GMT -6
I have a thread in this forum where I run through the battle. I made a mistake (I feel) when I used the catapult rules to cover the boulder that the dwarves use to kill goblins, I did in mass scale and should have run it in man to man (way too many goblins get crushed).
I used 1:50 scale. But in retrospect. If we try and reduce the battle ratio to a lowest common denominator. The 500 dwarves are all in one group, the elves are probably into two groups of 1000. I would probably run the battle in two scales. 1:250 and 1:1.
This gives you 2 units of dwarves to play with. 4 units of elves and 40 goblins. I might even be tempted to use 1:500 scale if the dwarves never split off into separate units.
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Post by derv on Dec 31, 2013 15:19:04 GMT -6
I'll look for the thread cooper. 1:50 was actually what I was thinking of using, but I wouldn't be opposed to a greater scale if it made the game more manageable.
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Post by derv on Dec 31, 2013 21:50:49 GMT -6
While I'm considering the size of the various forces and the best ratio to use, here's a question. Should ground scale also be increased and movement rates reduced? Since in Chainmail 1"= 10 yds. this translates into about a 1/4 mile x 1/2 mile playing area on a 4 ft x 8 ft surface. Recreating the Battle of 5 Armies including terrain might be questionable. How big of an area do you think existed between the spurs to the gate? I'm at a lost trying to find any information on distances on the net. I'm willing to make a judgement call and possibly concentrate the battle on a smaller part of the entire area to make it work, but was curious what others thought.
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Post by derv on Jan 1, 2014 16:51:07 GMT -6
I intend to make this scenario happen. It may be a little time until all the pieces fall in place ( maybe when the final Hobbit film is released ), but I'm working towards it. At this time I'm still leaning towards 1:50 scale with the following units: 1000 Elves= 20 figs/ 10 HF archers, 10 HF 300 Lakemen= 6 figs/ 6 HF 513 Dwarves= 11 figs/ 10 HF, 1 AF 100 Eagles= 2 figs/ fighting ability of 4 LH each Beorn= 1 fig/ fighting ability of 4 AF 4000 Goblins= 80 figs/ 79 HF, 1 AF 500 Goblin mounted Wargs= 10 figs/ MH Here's a picture of the intended layout: I'm going to have to scrounge up some solid foam insulation to create the hill sides and cliffs. As far as miniatures go, I think I'm going with the Prince August 25mm molds and casting my own. They seem to have all the figures I would need to bring many LotR encounters to life. shop.princeaugust.ie/25mm-scale-fantasy-armies-moulds/
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jacar
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Post by jacar on Jan 2, 2014 18:46:55 GMT -6
I went through and read the chapters for myself in the Hobbit as well as the description of the battle in th "New Tolkien Companion" 1978 (I think).
What we know. Dwarves number around 500 or so +13. Elves have at least 1000 spearmen. They also have an undetermined amount of archers. The two leaders made the initial approach with the blue banner of the Lakemen and the green banner of the Elves. There was a compnay which included Elven Archers. The elves were strong enough to defend one of the spurs on there own. The combined might of the Lakemen and the Dwarves manned the other spur. During the initial meeting with Dain Ironfoot, Bard seemed to think he had enough men to whoop up on the Dwarves. There is no reason not to believe that the Lakemen outnumbered the Dwarves by a significant number. I use only men here because it was only Bard who was at the initial meeting. I can assume it was only his men there. During their attack, the men charged in with longswords.
So for this, the elves have maybe 1000 spear and 500 archers. I'd doubt they would bring a high proportion of archers to be left undefended against a fast moving enemy. Men and Dwarves together might number 1200. 500 Dwarves and 700 men of which maybe 200 are archers. So for the battle, the allied forces would number a total of perhaps 2700 Men, Elves and Dwarves. Tolkien has used a similar number in other battles at least for the initial defense. In the defense of Helm's deep, 2000 men defended the Hornberg. At Pelennor Fields, 2300 men defended Minas Tirith. Both would be reinforced later and the battle turned.
Goblins? 10,000 is a pretty good number really. 4-1 odds is about all that a small army can manage according to Dr. Phil Sabin of Kings college. More than this and the outnumbered defenders would would collapse under the weight of the assault. 10,000 is also the size of the Orc force at Isengard. 500 Wargs is a nice round number. Mounting up some Goblins, you would be left with 9500 Goblins and 500 Wargs with Goblin riders.
BTW if you want a more manageable amount of Goblins, even 6500 with 500 wargs would be good. Leaves 6000 infantry and 500 mounted.
I think the battle would then be, if we use say 25:1 scale...
Good Thranduil (Hero) 40 Elven Spear (HF) 20 Elven Archers (HF/LF) Bard (Hero) 20 Human Melee (HF) 8 Human Archers (LF) Dain (Hero) 20 Dwarven Melee (HF)
Evil Bolg (Hero) 20 Body Guard (HF) 220 Goblin Melee (LF) 20 Warg Riders (MC)
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premmy
Level 5 Thaumaturgist
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Post by premmy on Jan 3, 2014 8:09:01 GMT -6
So for this, the elves have maybe 1000 spear and 500 archers. I'd doubt they would bring a high proportion of archers to be left undefended against a fast moving enemy. Actually, neither the elves nor the men of the Lake came prepared to fight the goblins; they came to potentially fight dwarves. The arrival of the goblin army was a surprise to all, so elven troop composition would NOT have been informed by "We'll be fighting goblins."
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Post by derv on Jan 3, 2014 8:19:53 GMT -6
jacar, I'm not sure how I will be handling Heroes yet. I may simply use them as commanders without any further advantages. I intend to use the Eagles and Beorn as seperate special figures that will not be in play initially and possibly not at all depending on how the battle plays out.
Anyway, looking at your totals for figures compared to my totals for figures, they both produce approximately a 2:5 ratio of Law to Chaos.
I'm not opposed to increasing the number of Lakemen, but I think that basing their numbers on Bards thoughts that he could beat Dains forces in a conflict is not solid evidience that he outnumbered them. This could have been as much to do with Bards ego, since he just defeated Smaug. Bards thoughts probably also included the Elven forces in his estimations.
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jacar
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Post by jacar on Jan 3, 2014 8:28:37 GMT -6
I'm not opposed to increasing the number of Lakemen, but I think that basing their numbers on Bards thoughts that he could beat Dains forces in a conflict is not solid evidience that he outnumbered them. This could have been as much to do with Bards ego, since he just defeated Smaug. Bards thoughts probably also included the Elven forces in his estimations. Understand, the 200-300 number comes from out of thin air. There is no hard and fast number of Lakemen at the battle. If they were to hold the ridge, they would need at least 1000 men. That is around the number the Elves had for melee. So, the Lakemen swordsmen would number at least 500 bringing the total on the ridge to at least 1000. Then we know they have archers as well. Or are they more like rangers? Then they would be dual armed with bow and sword.
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jacar
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Post by jacar on Jan 3, 2014 8:33:18 GMT -6
Actually, neither the elves nor the men of the Lake came prepared to fight the goblins; they came to potentially fight dwarves. The arrival of the goblin army was a surprise to all, so elven troop composition would NOT have been informed by "We'll be fighting goblins." I never said they did come to fight Goblins. Any enemy that is under fire would charge in quickly to negate that advantage. Archers would only be able to shoot as long as they were not in melee contact. Real armies of Medieval times are not that flexible. They come as they are. The General commits the resources available in the best manner possible. I suspect Tolkien had this in mind. None of the other armies of Middle Earth display any sort of flexibility in organization. If we apply your logic then the Elves came to storm a fortress. In which case, there will need to be a lot of melee troops.
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Post by derv on Jan 3, 2014 8:57:25 GMT -6
Understand, the 200-300 number comes from out of thin air. There is no hard and fast number of Lakemen at the battle. If they were to hold the ridge, they would need at least 1000 men. That is around the number the Elves had for melee. So, the Lakemen swordsmen would number at least 500 bringing the total on the ridge to at least 1000. Then we know they have archers as well. Or are they more like rangers? Then they would be dual armed with bow and sword. The 200-300 is not completely out of thin air. But I agree that the Lakemen probably had archers and that Bard could be considered a Ranger. The passage from the battle with Smaug says, "...there was still a company of archers that held their ground among the burning houses." How many would you consider to be a company? 100-200? Or more?
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premmy
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Post by premmy on Jan 3, 2014 8:59:44 GMT -6
But you DID say:
The thing is, as far as they knew, there were NO fast moving enemies anywhere near the mountain, so they had no reason NOT to bring more archers. Especially in a situation where they might want to make a show of force to sway some stubborn dwarves without necessarily coming to blows.
It seems to me you've decided to peg the number of elven spearmen at 1000 no matter what, and are trying to justify the rest of the elven army in light of that number. The thing is, we do not know there were only 1000 spearmen. In fact, as I've already pointed out, there were very likely more, hence the quote
Note the emphasised "of". If I say "a thousand OF", that means, best I can tell, that I have MORE than a thousand. "I have two thousand, a thousand OF WHICH".
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