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Rumil · 05-25-2009, 11:35 AM

Hi JeffF,

absolutely excellent description of the campaign and the Battle of Dagorlad !!!

Who was it said that amateurs talk tactics, professionals talk logistics? Reminds me of Napoleon's invasion of Russia in which enormous quantities of stores were prepared, but were found insufficient.

I agree that the 'all living things' comment must be partly metaphorical, otherwise I'd be most concerned by the rampaging flocks of Sauronic killer sheep and the perils of evil daffodils! Not 100% convinced by talk of rebel orcs, though might consider rebel trolls (after all Perry the Winkle's mate seemed pleasant enough

). Maybe it could be read as 'all free peoples', which also avoids the need for evil eagles and allied dragons. There might be giants on both sides and I agree the ents/huorns could be split, eg. Old Man Willow and his ilk. Interestingly no mention of any hobbits! The birds could be split also with crebain etc versus the thrushes and ravens in an aerial recce capacity.

I think the Black Numenoreans (the King's Men) may have made up a quite significant part of Sauron's forces, after all their main settlements were in Umbar and to the South, while the more northerly Numenorean outposts were mostly settled by the small proportion of the Faithful. Given that the army of Numenor had so over-awed Sauron & co earlier, I guess the Black Numenoreans would be very prominent (and probably took disproportionately large casualties, given their superior morale to orcs etc). Probably they would have had 'native contingents' of Haradrim etc subservient to their colonial masters.

I also think that there must have been a fairly large number of Beleriand veterans left with Gil-Galad, Cirdan and Elrond, possibly even a reasonable number of those that had seen the light of Aman. Lindon seems to have been a powerful kingdom during the Second Age, although weakened during the War of Sauron and the Elves to the point of needing Numenorean help.

On the Elven and Numenorean cavalry I'd imagine that they were fully accomplished in both horse-archery and melee tactics, able to do either as the situation demanded. Similar to Ancient cataphracts but not so heavily laden down with horse armour I'd guess. 'Of Men and Dwarves' might imply that the dwarves had human horse-archer allies, possibly the proto-eotheod?

Was impressed by your reconstruction of the battle. Key thing here is the lighting condition, trolls (v1.0) would be no use if it was sunny and orcs less effective than usual. Probably Dagorlad is close enough to Mordor for Sauron to use the dark-brown-ashy-cloud technique, though a bat-cloud is a possibility, if so then seen off by allied hawks and the like?

On Fan Fiction, you might be interested to read 'Isildur' by Brian Crawford

http://home.comcast.net/~crawford.b/...r/isildur.html

It's a fascinating take on the end of the Second Age but suffers from being written before CT released some of the key material. Though checking now I see an updated version is available as a paid download.

05-25-2009, 11:35 AM	#2
Rumil Sage & Onions Join Date: Aug 2002 Location: Britain Posts: 894	Second Age -tastic!! Hi JeffF, absolutely excellent description of the campaign and the Battle of Dagorlad !!! Who was it said that amateurs talk tactics, professionals talk logistics? Reminds me of Napoleon's invasion of Russia in which enormous quantities of stores were prepared, but were found insufficient. I agree that the 'all living things' comment must be partly metaphorical, otherwise I'd be most concerned by the rampaging flocks of Sauronic killer sheep and the perils of evil daffodils! Not 100% convinced by talk of rebel orcs, though might consider rebel trolls (after all Perry the Winkle's mate seemed pleasant enough ). Maybe it could be read as 'all free peoples', which also avoids the need for evil eagles and allied dragons. There might be giants on both sides and I agree the ents/huorns could be split, eg. Old Man Willow and his ilk. Interestingly no mention of any hobbits! The birds could be split also with crebain etc versus the thrushes and ravens in an aerial recce capacity. I think the Black Numenoreans (the King's Men) may have made up a quite significant part of Sauron's forces, after all their main settlements were in Umbar and to the South, while the more northerly Numenorean outposts were mostly settled by the small proportion of the Faithful. Given that the army of Numenor had so over-awed Sauron & co earlier, I guess the Black Numenoreans would be very prominent (and probably took disproportionately large casualties, given their superior morale to orcs etc). Probably they would have had 'native contingents' of Haradrim etc subservient to their colonial masters. I also think that there must have been a fairly large number of Beleriand veterans left with Gil-Galad, Cirdan and Elrond, possibly even a reasonable number of those that had seen the light of Aman. Lindon seems to have been a powerful kingdom during the Second Age, although weakened during the War of Sauron and the Elves to the point of needing Numenorean help. On the Elven and Numenorean cavalry I'd imagine that they were fully accomplished in both horse-archery and melee tactics, able to do either as the situation demanded. Similar to Ancient cataphracts but not so heavily laden down with horse armour I'd guess. 'Of Men and Dwarves' might imply that the dwarves had human horse-archer allies, possibly the proto-eotheod? Was impressed by your reconstruction of the battle. Key thing here is the lighting condition, trolls (v1.0) would be no use if it was sunny and orcs less effective than usual. Probably Dagorlad is close enough to Mordor for Sauron to use the dark-brown-ashy-cloud technique, though a bat-cloud is a possibility, if so then seen off by allied hawks and the like? On Fan Fiction, you might be interested to read 'Isildur' by Brian Crawford http://home.comcast.net/~crawford.b/...r/isildur.html It's a fascinating take on the end of the Second Age but suffers from being written before CT released some of the key material. Though checking now I see an updated version is available as a paid download. __________________ Rumil of Coedhirion Last edited by Rumil; 05-25-2009 at 02:45 PM. Reason: more typos!