The Way We War

[Farael]

Originally Posted by davem

And the whole point of a longer weapon is that you don't let your opponent get as close as you're envisioning. Your enemy would also probably be using a longer weapon,

Yes, but how many enemies can you keep away at the time? One? Two? As many as they come? (This is an honest question, I BELIEVE you can only keep one or a couple at bay, but I could be wrong)

In almost all situations, the "good guys" (Dwarves, men of Gondor, elves...) were heavily out-numbered. If each acted as an individual, they'd be overwhelmed by sheer numbers but if they kept together and acted as a unit in formation they'd have a chance to defend themselves from an enemy that was (very likely) using poorer weapons and armour as well as (possibly) less trained.

So, if a dwarf with an axe can keep three or four orcs at bay (or seven or eight) then I'll concede the point, I started off my discussion by saying I didn't know much about medieval fighting.

Morthoron, Michelangelo may have been a very special person, and as I said before, Thorin was the son of a ring-bearer and we know that the rings brought out the worst of the dwarves.

Even if Thorin never wore a ring himself, you'd expect him to learn less-than-stellar behaviours from his parents, eh? So I wouldn't say he is representative of dwarves as a whole.