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Alfirin · 12-15-2008, 08:17 PM

I for the most part agree that there would be some inherent dangers in use of the winged beasts as an attack force (most of that, as I said was predicated on a situation where Sauron did, though pre planning have hundreds or thousands of winged beasts at his disposal (i.e. he had though ahead and spend a good potion of his time in effor in his "hidden years" breeding winged beasts and incresing thier numbers.) but that theere would be advatages too, and that many of the difficulties, could be elminated, or at least minimized with careful planning. Winged beasts are indeed rather vulnerable to arrow fire, but that could be taken care of in two ways, you could keep the force high enough to be out of range of ground bowshot and still be able to shoot yourself as anything that falls from the sky eventually hits the ground (it might be hard to shoot accurately from that high up but in a piched meele you shoud still hit something (plus of course the Nazgul have the advatage of not really having a person to person care for thier troops and would likey be unconcerned with heavy losses due to "friendly fire"). With a little bit of pre planning you could also possibly get around the problem with the experident of equpping the winged beasts with light armor of thier own, as is understand was sometimes done to horses in the middle ages. It wouldn't neccarily have to be particularly heavy armor just something to block arrow and spear shots (this being pretty much the only weapon that could reach, unless the wraith in question was flying very low) fine chain mail (i.e. with rings small enough not to let an arrow through) around the belly region (maybe with a leather pad) might be enough. An no I don't know how easy it would be to get armor onto a winged beast, we dont see enough of them to really know how they behave to thier masters. (hey, for all we know, when not in battle a wraith may treat his winged beast as a man would treat his prized horse, giving it an affeconite rub on the beak, feeding it choice chunks of orc flesh as a treat, recieveing an affectionate lick from it long tounge.)

Oh, and not to be pedentic but isn't Gothmog the name of the Cheif Balrog? Do you maybe mean Khamul?

12-15-2008, 08:17 PM	#4
Alfirin Shade of Carn Dûm Join Date: Jun 2007 Posts: 435	I for the most part agree that there would be some inherent dangers in use of the winged beasts as an attack force (most of that, as I said was predicated on a situation where Sauron did, though pre planning have hundreds or thousands of winged beasts at his disposal (i.e. he had though ahead and spend a good potion of his time in effor in his "hidden years" breeding winged beasts and incresing thier numbers.) but that theere would be advatages too, and that many of the difficulties, could be elminated, or at least minimized with careful planning. Winged beasts are indeed rather vulnerable to arrow fire, but that could be taken care of in two ways, you could keep the force high enough to be out of range of ground bowshot and still be able to shoot yourself as anything that falls from the sky eventually hits the ground (it might be hard to shoot accurately from that high up but in a piched meele you shoud still hit something (plus of course the Nazgul have the advatage of not really having a person to person care for thier troops and would likey be unconcerned with heavy losses due to "friendly fire"). With a little bit of pre planning you could also possibly get around the problem with the experident of equpping the winged beasts with light armor of thier own, as is understand was sometimes done to horses in the middle ages. It wouldn't neccarily have to be particularly heavy armor just something to block arrow and spear shots (this being pretty much the only weapon that could reach, unless the wraith in question was flying very low) fine chain mail (i.e. with rings small enough not to let an arrow through) around the belly region (maybe with a leather pad) might be enough. An no I don't know how easy it would be to get armor onto a winged beast, we dont see enough of them to really know how they behave to thier masters. (hey, for all we know, when not in battle a wraith may treat his winged beast as a man would treat his prized horse, giving it an affeconite rub on the beak, feeding it choice chunks of orc flesh as a treat, recieveing an affectionate lick from it long tounge.) Oh, and not to be pedentic but isn't Gothmog the name of the Cheif Balrog? Do you maybe mean Khamul?