Battles of the late Third Age

[FingolfintheBold]

About eagles/wargs/Beorn, i tend to think that the eagles would be less effective at actually doing physical damage to orc ranks and would do more harm to morale. For example, just the coming of the clouds of bats caused great dread and distress for the dwarves and men and elves in the battle. What real harm can a bunch of bats do in battle? Not too much, and yet a brooding mass of them as harbingers of doom has a great effecton enemy troops. I imagine a cloud of heroic eagles filling the sky, sun on thier wings, lashing at the orcs faces while never presenting a clear target, picking up orcs and casting them on to the rocks...That would ruin my morale pretty quick!

Wargs were feared by horsemen and companys of lightly armoured men, and were wonderful at hunting fugitives and waking woodmen from sleep. But in an all out battle with fully armoured soldiery on rocky terrain their effect wouldnt be nearly as terrible.

Beorn: He is probably one of the biggest deciding factors in the battle. First of all, Beorn was a BIG guy. Lets say, for the fun of it, 10 feet tall. A normal man is about 6 foot, to a 12 foot grizzly bear. So that puts Beorn's bear right close to 20 feet (on hind legs, of course) of orc thrashing muscle and teeth. His hide could almost certainly turn all but the heaviest spears and arrows.