Orcs and the "gamefication" of Middle Earth

[wolfen]

Joining the chorus, chanting in my best sports fan voice:

 "Let's go Northstar, LET'S GO!" <clap, clap>

What's sports? 

[Daniel36]

What's sports? 

It's basically a LARP version of Blood Bowl...

[Hobgoblin]

That brings up another thing: those uruks - were they still loyal to Sauron, even acting as envoys between him and the balrog, or were they completely under the balrog's rule? (If the balrog had no affinity with Sauron) I'd guess no Bolgs or Azogs or almost-man-high chieftains were among the revenge-seeking northerners in Rohan?

I suspect that the "black Uruks of Mordor" description is just an indication of the type of creature they are. We get no mention of the Eye on the Uruk chieftain's hide shield, for example. There have been Uruks there for 500+ years by this point, so there's plenty of time for communications to fray. And presumably Sauron wouldn't be keen on the Balrog learning about - or acquiring - the ring.

The northerners in Rohan seem to have been generally small (though there were those "larger and bolder" ones who stayed with the Isengarders). But they were just one of the revenge-seeking parties that issued from Moria in pursuit of the Fellowship. We learn of another in Lothlorien that was led astray and destroyed by the Elves. And there may well have been more.

A more general point: in playing Middle Earth games with miniatures, there seems to me to be a tension between "simulation" and "illustration". "Simulation" is the respect in which gaming Tolkien is like gaming a historical period: you can do research and try to get it right. So, for example, if you're playing Dragon Rampant with Middle Earth forces, you might impose an additional penalty on Orcs fighting a shieldwall (Wall of Spears/Wall of Shields), to reflect the fact that their difficulty with the formation is mentioned twice by Tolkien (in UT). And that suggests that you should use miniatures that reflect the small stature of Orcs in Middle Earth (which is something that Tolkien emphasises repeatedly throughout his writings). And just as you'd paint the Red Eye or the White Hand on your Orcish banners, you wouldn't field crossbow-wielding Orcs or Dwarves, or regenerating trolls, or pig-faced Orcs, or knights in full plate armour.

On the other hand, there's nothing wrong with taking an "illustrative" approach and stylising your game however you please. My favourite Tolkien illustrations are those done by Ian Miller for the Tolkien Bestiary (useless text, wonderful pictures). In his Helm's Deep, he doesn't bother anything so mundane as S-runes on helmets or White Hands on shields, but instead gives us all manner of fantastical dragon helms and the like. But he conveys the essence - Orcs, Men and Orcish Men attack a fortress with overwhelming numbers - wonderfully. Or take Jemima Caitlin's rather nice illustrations for The Hobbit: her goblins are taller than Elves. Now, this contradicts absolutely nothing in The Hobbit, but it doesn't fit with the wider "Legendarium". But so what? (And I like the expression on her Great Goblin's face too!).

Transfer this approach to miniatures and gaming, and you get a lot more freedom. I've already said that I'd have no problem using my "fish-white" Citadel Orcs in a game of the Battle of the Five Armies (again, they contradict nothing in the text of The Hobbit). And you'd have to have no soul whatsoever not to welcome Cubs' exquisite C15 Orcs onto a gaming table (even if you were playing a Napoleonic game!). For those of you who remember the White Dwarf with the Joe Dever/Gary Chalk article on fighting the Pelennor Fields, the accompanying photos showed Minifigs pig-faced Orcs beside a scratch-built Grond.

On the other hand, when you combine the two approaches, you might run into problems. If you're "simulating" the wars of Middle Earth in a pseudo-historical fashion, then you'll want to penalise Orcs for a lack of stature in certain situations. But if you're using towering C15 Orcs, that will "break the spell" to some extent. And so on.

I suppose that part of the attraction of Middle Earth for wargamers is that there's so much to delve into and allow to try to "simulate". I don't think any other fantasy author has that sort of depth - not even GRR Martin (though the word count might mislead you there). Indeed, there's probably more info on how the armies of Middle Earth fought than there is on various historical armies ...

[Hobgoblin]

It's basically a LARP version of Blood Bowl...

Ha!

But as the Six Nations approaches, I feel geekery wane and jockism (on two counts!) wax ...

[Captain Blood]

But as the Six Nations approaches, I feel geekery wane and jockism (on two counts!) wax ...

Me too 

In fact, I think many modern front row forwards could be a good model for orcs - hugely muscled across the shoulders and down the thighs, slightly bandy legs, thick necks, low sloping foreheads and beetling brows, pot bellies, bashed around faces, preternaturally long arms...

They are the blueprint we need to work to!



(But then you see, I've always seen Tolkien's description of orcs as simply portraying ugly, slightly deformed men, rather than some kind of out-and-out animalistic green space alien... )

[Cubs]

In fact, I think many modern front row forwards could be a good model for orcs - hugely muscled across the shoulders and down the thighs, slightly bandy legs, thick necks, low sloping foreheads and beetling brows, pot bellies, bashed around faces, preternaturally long arms...

Hey!! WTF?!

As a practising loosehead prop, I take great exception to that!

My forehead does not slope.

[Hobgoblin]

Me too 

In fact, I think many modern front row forwards could be a good model for orcs - hugely muscled across the shoulders and down the thighs, slightly bandy legs, thick necks, low sloping foreheads and beetling brows, pot bellies, bashed around faces, preternaturally long arms...

They are the blueprint we need to work to!



(But then you see, I've always seen Tolkien's description of orcs as simply portraying ugly, slightly deformed men, rather than some kind of out-and-out animalistic green space alien... )

I think it might have to be old-school, rather than "modern", front-row forwards! A few French exceptions aside, modern front-rowers are too tall!

(I speak as a fairly recently retired hooker/distinctly undersized prop.)

[Conquistador]

This has been a great thread.

I did not suspect I would need to review my concept of "goblin" armies (Never a big fan of the Orcs/Goblins dichotomy as recently popular) to fight my perennial favored dwarf armies in a Tolkien inspired setting as being simulation or illustrative when I started reading but that is a valid point to raise that I find myself internally debating this morning.

I find the LOTR films to be a "C" as books into movie, "B" as movie adaptation to bring the books onscreen [compare Aragorn's speech to the Orcs at Helm's deep in the book (much else the freaking presence of Elf warriors who must have arrived by teleportation/magic to participate) to that in the movie, total injustice to the tone of the original]  - there are so many more limitations than we like to admit in that process - and "A-" as stand alone great story.  My games try to take the tone of the books as much as possible, especially in the battles only tangentially mention in the book narrative played out on the table.

That said I would have armies of the old Der Kriegspieler "smiley faced" goblins if their current production was not so spotty.  How close that is to "book" goblins I dread to even think about.  Style over substance I fear.

Keep coming back to what new comments have been created.

[Hobgoblin]

I find the LOTR films to be a "C" as books into movie, "B" as movie adaptation to bring the books onscreen [compare Aragorn's speech to the Orcs at Helm's deep in the book (much else the freaking presence of Elf warriors who must have arrived by teleportation/magic to participate) to that in the movie, total injustice to the tone of the original]  - there are so many more limitations than we like to admit in that process - and "A-" as stand alone great story.

I wasn't bothered by the departures from the book, but I thought the script was very weak in places. And I couldn't stand the "out of universe" jokes - dwarf-tossing, mumak-surfing, etc. Also, Peter Jackson really needs someone sitting on his shoulder whispering "less is more" into his ear throughout. A judicious slicing down of slow motion, wide eyes, cliff-hangers and crumbling ruins would have gone a long way.

I actually think that the script suffered in places from trying to be too faithful to the books. For instance, that odd line about the Uruk-hai being produced by crossing "Orcs and goblin-men" sounds like someone misremembering "these creatures of Saruman, these half-orcs and goblin-men" as "these creatures of Saruman, these half-orcs and half-goblin-men"!

That said I would have armies of the old Der Kriegspieler "smiley faced" goblins if their current production was not so spotty.  How close that is to "book" goblins I dread to even think about.  Style over substance I fear.

Can you still buy those? They look terrific! And, by and large, very faithful to the books. I love the goblins of the White Hand in particular: note the long bows, badged helmets and short, straight swords.

It's interesting that the very old ranges of Tolkienesque miniatures - these, the Minifigs ones, early Ral Partha and Asgard - tend to be far less affected by the "distortions" I outlined in the first post. That's probably because those distortions largely arose as fantasy gaming really took off in the 80s.

[jthomlin]

Great thread!

I haven't seen them mentioned so far, but the classic Tom Meier Orcs should be available from Iron Wind soon.

Iron Wind site
Kickstarter

They are 25mm and frequently hunched over, so spot on for size.

The Bronze Age Orcs are very nice, but are at least human sized if not larger.

I also cringe at most the attempted 'wow' moments in PJ's Tolkien films. Particularly egregious was the cavalry charging down a 60 deg slope into a pike phalanx at Helms Deep. I know the orcs were 'blinded', but with that angle of slope the only outcome is a pile of dead/wounded horses, men and orcs.

PJ clearly thinks 'bigger is better', but he all too often just goes too far and ends up with 'silly and absurd'.

p.s. It was infantry, not cav in the book …

Cheers!
Joe Thomlinson

[Dilettante Gamer]

Great thread!

I haven't seen them mentioned so far, but the classic Tom Meier Orcs should be available from Iron Wind soon.

I still have a handful of those elves and orc from the original offering from the late 70's out in the garage somewhere.

While not quite my concept of Tolkein's orcs - anatomically they were the best sculpts of their day. 

Looking at the kickstarter, my teenage geek heart wants to snap them all up out of pure nostalgia, but they're quite twee compared to my modern collection.  Hmmm, given all this talk about how even big orcs are smaller than men (which I agree with) these might be scaled appropriately. Their only downside is they're a tad on the naked side - hairless skin and mail - and they're devoid of any kit aside from weapons.

[Vermis]

And presumably Sauron wouldn't be keen on the Balrog learning about - or acquiring - the ring.

Good point.

I've just recently discovered the blog of Andreas Deja, who was an artist and animator at Disney during the 80's-00's. Here's a post about the Black Cauldron, with a henchmen development sketch that might be vaguely pertinent:

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-f7vU5pxZizg/UlZNfyvyexI/AAAAAAAAH4U/60VENaOqaY8/s1600/TBCB+2.jpeg
http://andreasdeja.blogspot.co.uk/2013/10/trying-too-hard.html

Little more than angry chimp heads on cod-medieval bodies, but if you squint, and imagine bandier legs...?

[Hobgoblin]

Great thread!

I haven't seen them mentioned so far, but the classic Tom Meier Orcs should be available from Iron Wind soon.

I posted a couple of them a few pages back! They are indeed classic models - and about right for Mordor uruks, I think. Dilettante Geek is quite right to note their "stripped for action" aspect  (which extends even to a lack of underpants). And they are peculiarly hairless - though John Blanche used to remedy that with stubble. But classics and a pretty good fit none the less.

I also cringe at most the attempted 'wow' moments in PJ's Tolkien films. Particularly egregious was the cavalry charging down a 60 deg slope into a pike phalanx at Helms Deep. I know the orcs were 'blinded', but with that angle of slope the only outcome is a pile of dead/wounded horses, men and orcs.

PJ clearly thinks 'bigger is better', but he all too often just goes too far and ends up with 'silly and absurd'.

Couldn't agree more. The abandonment of visual logic (see also all those impossible escapes from crumbling staircases, etc.) is a major flaw in those films, I think. And why did the orcs bring pikes to attack a fortress?

[Ethelred the Almost Ready]

I think PJ tried to get the viewer to connect emotionally with characters through overblown sentimental scenes and excessive use of slow motion to make up for the fact that the script and characterisations made it difficult for us to make that connection.  The Hobbit was even harder to like than LotR.  A tale of comradeship, travel and adventure was made into an action movie, and even the action was repetitive and boring.  I still haven't seen the last Hobbit movie and only saw the Return of the King on DVD about two years after it's release at the cinema.
Luckily the movies haven't destroyed the way I imagine the characters and places in my own mind.

[jthomlin]

I posted a couple of them a few pages back! They are indeed classic models - and about right for Mordor uruks, I think. Dilettante Geek is quite right to note their "stripped for action" aspect  (which extends even to a lack of underpants). And they are peculiarly hairless - though John Blanche used to remedy that with stubble. But classics and a pretty good fit none the less.

Doh! So you did. 
But I did say I didn't see them ... 

Some of the English at Agincourt went pantless because of dysentery, so why not the less civilized orcs?

The Ral figures are hairless, but then again apart from top knots there haven't been many truly hirsute orc or goblin miniatures over the journey that I can recall.

Couldn't agree more. The abandonment of visual logic (see also all those impossible escapes from crumbling staircases, etc.) is a major flaw in those films, I think. And why did the orcs bring pikes to attack a fortress?

No idea, but at least they had a pointy stabby bit on the end. The business end of some the Orc pikes in the Hobbit are so curved as to make them useless as thrusting weapons, which is kind of the 'point' for pikes! 

Classic case of 'Form over function'.

So many questions from that movie:

• Where does the 'spoil' go from the 'Were Worms'?
• Why doesn't the north of Middle earth resemble Swiss cheese?
• Why does plate armour seem to offer no protection at all? (It seems that Thorin and the boys clearly knew this because they didn't wear theirs when they joined the battle, but the real reason as explained in the DVD extras was that the armour costumes were so bulky and constricting, they couldn't actually fight in them!)

and so on ... and on ... and on ...

Anyway, back on topic ...

Mr Northstar, put me down for a box or five of mongoloid orang-outangs. 

Cheers!
Joe Thomlinson