Opinion Question: Middle Earth Crossbows

[LouieN]

Hello,

A simple opinion poll. 

Are crossbows in Middle Earth acceptable?  What would the good professor think?

I have a 15mm unit of Old Glory armored crossbowmen.  I am debating not painting them as they would not fit with the lore/style.   

But I can be convinced to include them. 

Thanks

[Melnibonean]

There is no mention of crossbows in any Middle Earth literature. They don't fit in with any of the cultures, races or historical references. However, if any group were to have crossbows I'd say it would be Saruman's troops due to his delving into unknown law and his crafty mind is certainly capable of creating a new weapon of this kind.

[tikitang]

This is a Tolkien quote from The Nature of Middle-Earth:

"But no man wore a sword in Númenor, not even in the days of the wars in Middle-earth, unless he was actually armed for battle. Thus for long there were practically no weapons of warlike intent made in Númenor. Many things made could of course be so used: axes, and spears, and bows. The bowyers were a great craft. They made bows of many kinds: long bows, and smaller bows, especially those used for shooting from horse-back; and they also devised cross-bows, at first used mainly against predatory birds. Shooting with bows was one of the great sports and pastimes of men; and one in which young women also took part. The Númenórean men, being tall and powerful, could shoot with speed and accuracy upon foot from great long bows, whose shafts would carry to great distance (some 600 yards or more), and at lesser range were of great penetration. In later days, in the wars upon Middle-earth, it was the bows of the Númenóreans that were most greatly feared."

In the Third Age, though, if that's where you want to set your games, my instinct would be to make them a 'foreign' weapon, used by those of Rhun, Khand or Harad.

The 11th Century Byzantine princess, Anna Komnene, said:

This cross-bow is a bow of the barbarians quite unknown to the Greeks

[Ethelred the Almost Ready]

I think Tikitang is spot on. 
Certainly, not for Elves or Dwarves or peoples of the West.
Never ever in the First Age.

[armchairgeneral]

I am not so sure. With Dwarves being masters of crafts and highly skilled in the making of weapons and armour, I can see them with crossbows. They would suit races with a shorter stature snd a shorter reach. I know the Dwarves in the Battle of the Five Armies are mentioned as having bows. I just remember the old Minifigs Dwarves with crossbows which just seemed to suit them.

[LouieN]

That text is a great find.  Thank you for sharing. 

It reminded me of Feanor showing up armed with swords at the council after the Tress where destroyed.  It was a great shock.  It appears Tolkien used the wearing of swords as symbol of the state/mood of the realm.   

I have enough bow armed minis that my Gondor ranks will be flush with missile troops. 

[FramFramson]

I think the difference is that Numenor was and remains the high-water mark of human progress and achievement in Middle Earth, at least until well after the end of Third Age and the events of any Tolkien's works, and that the situation at the time of LotR is a fair step down.

Dwarven craftiness might get you there if you really wanted to force it, but Warfare in late Third-Age Middle-Earth has generally been presented as something roughly akin to a lean sort of Merovingian or middle-era Byzantine in nature, having fallen off from a higher medieval peak at the time of the Numenorean invasions and wars of the later Second Age; the best weapons and techniques are preserved rather than created from new, and far more has been lost than retained.

[KGatch113]

I am not so sure. With Dwarves being masters of crafts and highly skilled in the making of weapons and armour, I can see them with crossbows. They would suit races with a shorter stature snd a shorter reach. I know the Dwarves in the Battle of the Five Armies are mentioned as having bows. I just remember the old Minifigs Dwarves with crossbows which just seemed to suit them.

Thorin and company have bows. The dwarves of the Iron Hills do not.

[tikitang]

Warfare in late Third-Age Middle-Earth has generally been presented as something roughly akin to a lean sort of Merovingian or middle-era Byzantine in nature

That's why I think it would be cool to have Eastern enemies be equipped with crossbows; it could be a sort of mirror to the situation in real history reflected by the quote from Anna Komnene above, where she says crossbows are a barbarian weapon, unknown to the Greeks, despite the fact that the Greeks in ancient times used crossbow technology for centuries in the BC era, yet by circa 1100 AD they see it as utterly foreign.