Middle-Earth:Lord of the Mods (XI)

[AlcTrv]

But is there any time in the books where the men/elves don't have bows for ranged weapons? I mean, they seemed to be using them right off in the Silmarillion. But whatever, I haven't read it lately

 

[The Last Conformist]

Irrelevantish points:

i) Ælfwine indeed means "Elf-friend", ie, the same as Elendil. It may be noted that, in the Latinized form Alboin, this name was carried by the Langobardic leader who led the invasion of Byzantine Italy.

ii) The Pechenegs are actually in CivIII, as a barbarian tribe name "Patzinal", which is a typo for the Byzantine Greek form Patzinak.

iii) Instead of ditching the Archer in favour of the Skirmisher, why not get rid of the Composite Bowman? "Archer", "Bowman" and "Skirmisher" can all refer to troops using pretty much any variant of bows.

iv) I'm quite aware of the strength required to wield a longbow. I don't have it!

v) If the Orkish Archer turns up noticeably later than the Orkish infantry, I think that's OK.

vi) I don't normally have much opinion re: graphics, but I must say that zipangoid Elves looks wrong.

 

[mrtn]

...vi) I don't normally have much opinion re: graphics, but I must say that zipangoid Elves looks wrong.

Well, I may join the "Post while pissed" crowd here, but what the heck means zipangoid? If it means Japanese, why didn't you say so in the first place?

What is stranger, a Lipizzaner or a eight legged horse born from a male?

A male god! If gods can impregnate girls with a golden shower they can do anything. (Has anyone else thought about the precise meaning of that? )

I'm not fond of Incan slingers in a ME context.

 

[Mithadan]

Not only are there some long posts in this thread, but we have just hit 19 pages. Is this the longest LotM thread ever?

But is there any time in the books where the men/elves don't have bows for ranged weapons? I mean, they seemed to be using them right off in the Silmarillion. But whatever, I haven't read it lately

Not that I can think of. I don't know much about what the first Men were doing outside Beleriand, though. Probably bent-stick bows, anyhow.

iii) Instead of ditching the Archer in favour of the Skirmisher, why not get rid of the Composite Bowman? "Archer", "Bowman" and "Skirmisher" can all refer to troops using pretty much any variant of bows.

Sounds good to me!

Well, I may join the "Post while pissed" crowd here, but what the heck means zipangoid?

I'm perfectly sober, and I don't quite know what zipangoid means either. Let me look it up...

...it lies not in my Oxford (Canadian English) dictionary. (Maybe us Canadians don't use that word very often? ) Let me google it...

Geen resultaten voor "zipangoid".

Well, that sez it, don't it? Okay TLC, enlighten us!

I'm not fond of Incan slingers in a ME context.

I'll consider your opinion when you're sober, mrtn.

Actually, I know it's an odd suggestion, but I think early Mannish units that are NOT Edain -- i.e., Men of Darkness wallowing under the Shadow of Morgoth in the parts of Middle-Earth outside of Beleriand -- could very well be represented by "primitive" units. The Drúedain, even though they were no friends of Sauron etc., were half-naked dudes with little poison arrows or blowdarts or whatever (I actually can't remember at all what they were armed with, quite honestly). I have no problem extrapolating from this that the pre-Numenorean-contact Mannish races would be analagous somewhat to the pre-European-contact peoples of the Americas and elsewhere. So for first era NON-BELERIANDER-MANNISH units (i.e., generics for Northmen, Haradrim, etc.) we could feasibly get away with using Polynesian, Sub-Saharan African, American Indian units...they don't get "medieval" (ahem, sorry: "Dark Ages") until later.

But I'm not going to argue for this. It's just a thought that will likely sit-ill with most of you, which is fine. No biggie, eh.

 

[PCHighway]

Great links, PCH! They all support what I've been saying!

That breastplates were around in Northern Europe only 100 years after the date you gave?

I don’t see much else to comment on in your post, other than the fact that the Roman picture is legit. I can’t actually vouch for that, but I assure you such armor was used in the ages. I assume you have heard of the Dendra finds?



Sceptics (like yourself ) thought that no such level of advancement was used in that time frame, and viewed Homers descriptions of Mycenae heros of Troy being “bronze shirted” as false, lacking archeological evidence. Breastplates were of course in existence during the ancient ages. As for you saying that they were purely for “show” is ridiculous. No one invents an armor that is completely useless, except to make them look like metal on parade marches. It was no doubt used, even if in a much more primitive form. A history book says that it was probably inflexible, and there are traces of a quiver on the armor. They suspect it was used by a charioteer.

I do not know for sure, but I am willing to bet that such a breastplate would help a phalanx unit. Phalanx combat was very common in Greece, obviously. Many battles, it is said used formations that had a heavy right (?) phalanx. And some battles of that era consisted mainly of seeing whose right phalanx would overcome the other sides left wing and gain the advantage first. I could find quotes on this, as well as legit websites. I remember posting about this very thing when talking about warfare with RRnut a while ago. In such ‘slugfest’ battles I would imagine a breastplate would come in handy to supply at least some of your troops with.

Here is a quote from my main history source, where I gather much of my information (a book).

“ Antiochus III of Syria had three thousand horses with iron beastplates. Only much later did the Romans adopt this idea. In the third century A.D. (Fairly close to the dark ages, no?) their heavy cavalry, the “shock troops” of the army, was fitted out with armor. One tower at the Roman fort of Dura-Europos, in Syria, collapsed during a Persian siege about A.D. 250, burying much of the military equipment that had been stored in it, including two horse covers of iron and copper-alloy scales to protect the animals against arrows”

This is obviously about animal armor, but I found it relevant to armor in general. Here is a site showing the copper scale armor.

Um, this was supposed to be the men, or?
The reason I propes to change the elven gfx was that both the Bab bowman and the Longbowman has beards, something very unelvish in my book.
I think however that those two fit well as men units. Oh, and IIRC the proposal was to use the Otomo archer and the AoK archer as elves.

I thought we agreed on Kinboat’s Samurai Archer? That would keep the AoK one solely for the Elves and hobbits.
The graphics don’t look incredibly wrong. The only problem is the ‘bun’ in its hair.


I think the Otomo unit looks fine for an Elven unit. It doesn’t yell “Japanese” to me, the only problem is the feather in its hat. Or wait, why would that be a problem? (It does indeed have a breastplate, Mithadan)

I don't see why Robin Hood is put as the longbowman, as he doesn't have a longbow?

Not sure, I think that it is just generic bow prop, but it doesn’t look composite, it looks contiguous. I don’t think that is such an important issue, as the unit definitely has the lonbowman vibes for me. Robin Hood and his yeoman, afterall.
If Aluminum ever comes back, we could goad him into converting the AOK Longbowman, but the problem is it has a yellow English lion on the front cover. It is hardly visible though, and could easily be mistaken for some-other design.

The vanilla archer is a bit too lightly clad IMO.
But on the other hand I have no problems having a bowman upgrade to an archer, they're just names, after all, and we'll do stuff like that numerous times.
What about something like this?
Bowman: vanilla Bab bowman
Archer: AoK Archer
Composite Bowman: Robin Hood
Longbowman: vanilla longbowman

This looks passable if we follow The Last Confomists logic of renaming the Composite Bowman to Skrimisher. I like that logic, btw .
I am strongly against relying on civ colors to differentiate the Elves and Men racial characteristics. There are some green-brown men civ colors too, like the Northmen and Rohan. And I believe we have the Sindar down as Grey.

BTW PCH, why did you eat cow brain and post that LEGO pic? And no, that isn't a shotgun, it's a sword.

I dunno if I ate any, I didn’t go to Canada recently (sorry Mithadan! Couldn’t pass it up ).
The point of my post was to both make fun of Google, as well as to put on a mini satire about Mithadan implying I didn’t post accurate pictures.
Also, I was debating whether it was a shotgun or overly large sword, that was part of the point.
And just for the record Mrtn, I didn’t add the Skirmisher off the top of my head. I got that from when I posted the Mannish unit graphic lines, I just remembered a little too late, is all.

No Mithadan I didn’t forget you suggesting the Robin Hood graphics. But incase you haven’t noticed, we are quite short on archers . I would propose using the non-hooded version as a Mannish units, and the hooded version as the Elven UU.
I am not fond of the Incan Slinger either. It 1.) Fits as its intended purpose, a meso-american unit, or 2.) Might work as some middle-eastern\sumerian style slinger, but certainly not in ME. AlcTrv has a point too, it sounds like they used bows from the start. Prefering them over slings, which AFAIK Tolkien never mentioned.
Also, I just realized you (Mithadan) are much more open to weird weapons being used in ME, than you are to a breastplate! Dwarvish Pole-slingers, Nothmen Indians armed with rocks and a leather strap, and yet I get ripped of on the freaking breastplate !

I also said I would post the overview sometime on Sunday. We have some 16 page threads unless I am wrong. I will PM Celeborn and see if he is here, otherwise I need a volunteer to post the next thread.

 

[Mithadan]

Why do you need a volunteer to post the next thread?

 

[The Last Conformist]

Well, I may join the "Post while pissed" crowd here, but what the heck means zipangoid? If it means Japanese, why didn't you say so in the first place?

It means "Japanese-like", and I believe I invented the word myself (I've been using it for some years now). I had thought it would be pretty transparent - Zipango as a name of Japan* is pretty well-known, isn't it? - but I'm apparently wrong. Oh-well ...

The archer PCH posted looks acceptable, just about.

* The Zipan- part is the same as "Japan", only taken from another Chinese dialect, while -go represents Chinese guo "country".

Addendum: I too think we'd should stick away from units only differentiated by civ colour. It's asking for confustion.

 

[Mithadan]

I had no idea "Zipan" meant Japan, but in a Chinese dialect. I must not be the linguist you are, TLC! The only other name I know for Japan is "Nippon," which I thought was the Japanese word for their own country.

 

[The Last Conformist]

"Zipango" is the name that Marco Polo, and after him certain other medieval writers, used for Japan.

Nippon, or Nihon, is a Japanese adaption of the same, from yet another Chinese dialect. The modern Mandarin Chinese version is Ribenguo, which simply means "Sun Origin Country". The -guo "country" part has, as you see, tended to fall off when it's borrowed to other languages.

 

[[Ant]Wimp]

Antiochus III of Syria had three thousand horses with iron beastplates.

Iron breastplates??? I find this very hard to believe. But I must say that I dont know much about the subject.
Anywho, note that the earliest platemail was just Chainmail with semispherical pieces of iron attached to it. Comments about Greek bronze breastplates are just irrelevant, cuz we're not questioning the existence of bronze breastplates.

 

[Mithadan]

Thank you, [Ant]Wimp! Solid breastplates there were in antiquity, but not afterwards -- the Dark Ages were "dark" for various reasons, not one being the loss of much of the ancient's "advancement." (I was not being skeptical regarding the existence of ancient breastplates, PCH, but was merely pointing out how they were on the outs well before the Fall of Rome and the "dawn" of the Dark Ages!) How did solid cuirasses make a comeback, then? By starting off with sticking a bunch of dinner plates inside one's jacket, eventually coalescing into something solid by the early 1300s, but NOT being used in any sort of numbers until the end of the 1300s. THAT, my dear PCH, is pushing 400 years since the Norman Conquest. And that does NOT justify a unit wearing a cuirass, as in the AoK dude you've got there. Need I rustle up Pauline Baynes' Farmer Giles of Ham pics to show you the sort of early plate armour that Tolkien ix-nayed? Ik moet [Ant]Wimp danken voor dat in zo klein een stuk te zeggen. (Ja, mein Nederlandse grammatika is slecht, maar u kan mijn bedoeling verstanden, nee? )

And I am now the wiser with regards the old name for Japan, thanks to TLC!

 

[The Last Conformist]

Your Dutch can't be that bad - even I can read it.

 

[Mithadan]

You can read (write, and speak) anything, über-linguist boy!

 

[The Last Conformist]

If that were so ...

 

[[Ant]Wimp]

geen dank But somehow your "dinner plates" sounds better then my "semispherical pieces of iron"!

Ontopic: The AoK Cavalier unit just seems too armored, perhaps anoter one is better. Are we though gonna use Utahjazz's Gondorian Soldier? He is pretty 'plated' IIRC...

 

[PCHighway]

Mrtn, I’m unsure, but highly doubt the Greeks have a double meaning for the translated “golden shower” . And yes, that is less weird than a male giving birth to an eight legged horse!
Happy birthday!



Very good point Wimp, regarding the Gondor Tower Guard. However, I refuse to decline utahjazz7's hard work that was made specifically for this project. Especially since team members, such as SoCalian, participated in describing how the unit should look! (Link)
Wimp-
What, are you calling Dr. Nick Thorpe (an archalogist),Peter James (graduate of Birmingham and London universities), as well as the countless historians and archalogists they got to help them, liars?

Comments about Greek bronze breastplates are just irrelevant, cuz we're not questioning the existence of bronze breastplates.

No one is questioning the existence of iron ones either. The only thing under question is their use in Northern Europe during a specific 400 year span limit, set by Mithadan! There were iron breastplates in the 13th century (100 years after Mithadan’s date) and by some accounts the late 12th century, even close to Mithadan’s date.
Of course Iron breastplates existed in the Middle-east during the dark-ages as well, whether they were common, I don’t know. Another point would be Japan and China. China was years ahead of everyone though, they even had a highly lacquered “paper” armor in the 1100 A.D. area, but their own advancement in crossbows made it obsolete.

“[...]Chen Te-Hsiu requested permission from central authorities to trade 100 sets of iron armor for 50 sets of the superior paper type. At much the same time the captains of two pirate ships that surrendered during an official amnesty handed over 110 suits of paper armor.”

I told you Mithadan, Celeborn isn’t here to post the thread and I hate posting new threads (raises my post count), I want no such responsibility of posting or answering new-comers questions. I just want to work on the MOD.
Aside from that, the overview is up! A little late but not overly so. I sent a PM to Celeborn, hopefully we will get a reply within a day, if not we will need someone to be temporary thread starter for a day.

EDIT: Calling all brainstormers! We need another resource, that would replace iron in the later eras! Perhaps make the early iron called "iron lode" and the later iron simply "iron". I know that doesn't make sense, but I don't see a lot of options here, we really need two strategic resources.

 

[Mithadan]

Ontopic: The AoK Cavalier unit just seems too armored, perhaps anoter one is better. Are we though gonna use Utahjazz's Gondorian Soldier? He is pretty 'plated' IIRC...

Yeah, I know, that's a shame with utah's unit. I think we'll have to use it anyhow, because it was made specifically for our mod. It's Peter Jackson's fault that utah's unit looks that way. I'd prefer not to use it, but in this case, I think it would be wise to use it anyhow.

On Mannish cavalry, here are my suggestions for graphics...I was going to make it a longer post with Elvish cavalry and Mannish flavours and UUs, but I haven't finished it yet...I suppose the time is ripe for a partial post, at least:

Generic Mannish Cavalry:

1st Era
Horseman (Vanilla civ) Name: Horseman
For stats, please see here.

2nd Era
Slavic Horseman (utahjazz7) Name: Cavalry

I suggest we rename this dude "Raider," as in the early second age Generic Mannish races weren't exactly complexly organised societies capable of fielding "cavalry" (at least in my initial opinion ).
For stats, please see here.

3rd Era
Arthurian Knight -- the one lacking a helmet (Kindred72) Name: Heavy Cavalry

I suggest we rename this dude "Cavalry," for the same reasons as suggested for Mr. Raider above there.
For stats, please see here.

4th Era
Generic 12th/13th Century Knight (BeBro) Name: Knight

For stats, please see here.

Here is one Mannish Cavalry UU, anyhow:

4th Era? (could be both 3rd and 4th Era, I suppose)
Norman Knight (Kinboat) Name: Rider of Rohan

For stats, please see here.

No one is questioning the existence of iron ones either. The only thing under question is their use in Northern Europe during a specific 400 year span limit, set by Mithadan! There were iron breastplates in the 13th century (100 years after Mithadan’s date) and by some accounts the late 12th century, even close to Mithadan’s date.
Of course Iron breastplates existed in the Middle-east during the dark-ages as well, whether they were common, I don’t know. Another point would be Japan and China. China was years ahead of everyone though, they even had a highly lacquered “paper” armor in the 1100 A.D. area, but their own advancement in crossbows made it obsolete.

Good golly, PCH, I'm starting to think you must be a bad listener! Let me do this in point form:

1. Tolkien explicitly relates the "appearance" of the peoples of Northwestern Middle-Earth to those of the "Heroic Age" of the Germanic epics (Beowulf etc.). Find me a cuirass there. Don't show me Chinese or Mycenean breastplates, they don't really fit with the whole Beowulf feel, now do they? If you find me suggesting primitive unit graphics from non-European cultures, that's not because I figger those non-European cultures represent the Germanic Epic feel that well. It's rather because they represent the primitive feel rather well, and that's important for primitive units!

2. Tolkien gives us an explicit timeline (it's not Mithadan's!) from c. 500 AD (the Germanic Migrations leading to the Fall of Rome) to c. 1066 AD (the Norman Conquest). Find me a cuirass there. Try not to push the limits of the date, too. We are talking Dark Ages, not the edges of twilight. Tolkien explicitly backs away from even a pot-helmed, mail-clad knight in a surcoat -- which makes even my vote (above) for BeBro's Generic 12th/13th Century Knight a compromise (should we compromise?) that exceeds the boundaries!

3. European cuirasses (i.e., a solid breast-plate + a solid back-plate) did not take form until the 1300-1350 AD period. Previous to that, "coats of plate" were simply dinner-plates stiched onto a fabric backing. This is all you've got for "plate" in the 13th century (i.e., 1200s AD), and it sure ain't a cuirass like your AoK dude! Find me a solid cuirass like your AoK dude deep in the 12th century. Even better, find me a picture where that solid cuirass is NOT obscured by a surcoat.

4. European cuirasses (i.e., a solid breast-plate + a solid back-plate) did not reach any sort of popularity until the 1350-1400 AD period. That means most knights of the 14th century (i.e., the 1300s AD) would NOT be wearing breatplates etc. like your AoK dude is. If the "most accurate time frame would be to put them in use when they were most used and at their zenith" (source), then it would be entirely improper to have a graphic showing a fully-plated chest cavity as representative of the knights preceding the latter half of the 14th century! (And that, my dear sir, is a long time from 1066AD.)

5. Scale mail is NOT "plate mail." Scale mail fits Middle-Earth to a T. (Bronze scale mail would be PERFECT for cultures outside the Northwest of Middle-Earth.)

I told you Mithadan, Celeborn isn’t here to post the thread and I hate posting new threads (raises my post count), I want no such responsibility of posting or answering new-comers questions. I just want to work on the MOD.
Aside from that, the overview is up! A little late but not overly so. I sent a PM to Celeborn, hopefully we will get a reply within a day, if not we will need someone to be temporary thread starter for a day.

I'll do that for you, ya wierdo!

 

[The Last Conformist]

I told you Mithadan, Celeborn isn’t here to post the thread and I hate posting new threads (raises my post count), I want no such responsibility of posting or answering new-comers questions. I just want to work on the MOD.

Why don't you like your postcount raised?

I notice my postcount is bigger than the combined one of the others that have posted on this page yet ...

 

[Mithadan]

Indeed, and what, it would increase his post count by a whopping 1?!

Awwww, we love you, PCH, your idiosyncracies are so cute!

 

[[Ant]Wimp]

PCH - I never called them liars, I just said "hard to believe" And indeed we should use Utahjazz'z towerguard, which is great IMO.

I find it hard to choose betweens BeBro's and the AoK cavalier...

edit - happy Birthday mrnt!