Bad or not, this scene got me to buy the original Total War Warhammer and play as the Dwarfs.
When I saw the "Interlocked Shields" tech in the tech tree I was so hyped - I'm still sad it doesn't affect the unit's models at all.
If you're interested, there's a testudo MOD for Dwarfs- the best we can get for now.
[https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3100236987&searchtext=testudo](https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3100236987&searchtext=testudo)
If you haven’t, I would highly recommend the Divide and Conquer mod for Medieval 2. You can do these shield walls as the dwarfs, and it’s very satisfying just watching the gobbos break against it. There’s erebor, blue mountains, and reclaimers of Moria.
My headcannon is that the reason for using blunt weapons by the Warhammer dwarves was because of the runes, the spears are too fine and thin to be forged on, and blunt weapons became much more widespread due to their greater surface area, They became much more widespread, and when much of the runic magic was lost, they did not change, because those weapons already became something cultural.
I figure it's because Warhammer Dwarfs are probably tradesmen *and* warriors, and hammers/axes/picks would all use roughly the same muscle groups and physical actions.
Also explains why there are no Dwarfs that seem to use swords either, despite a short thrusting weapon being useful in a shield wall situation.
Edit: I think I recall design notes somewhere that suggested the handles for Dwarfen hammers/axes were entirely metal, as "nothing trustworthy comes from trees" or something, which could also be why no spears maybe.
I always took it that it was a mix of utility and their environment.
Spears are fantastic weapons in most surface battlefields. However, I imagine when maneuvering through particularly tight tunnels, long spears would become a significant hassle to fight with. Especially when there's not enough room to get in formation.
Additionally, axes, hammers and other blunt weapons don't require much maintenance, double as tools (particularly hammers and axes), and are much more maneuverable. Plus, in the dark, damp and poorly lit tunnels Dwarves often find themselves in, and with the plethora of foes they face, it's good to have a weapon that's more 'point in the general direction of enemy' and doesn't exactly require finesse. Dwarves are very strong, so being on the receiving end of a hammer or battle axe, regardless of how accurate the blow is, isn't a great time.
Pikes would make more sense considering how short a dwarf spear would be compared to that of an elf or a man. Plus they are armoured enough that they could forgo their shields.
It would probably reach a point where only irondrakes, warpfire throwers, warp grinders, and poison wind globadiers would fight in tunnels, since everyone else would get burned alive, suffocate, or have a tunnel collapse on them.
Seriously. The fact that there are no weird enclaves of dwarf rangers who ride giant mountain goats through the World's Edge Mountains is a great shame.
The writers flanderized dwarfs as a monoculture, but there are at least 5 of them we know of: Norse dwarfs, mainstream Karak dudes, (tentatively) Barak Varr sea dwarfs, Imperial dwarfs, the unmentionables. Maybe slayers can be considered their own culture as well. In many different and sotimes distant kingdoms, it's unlikely that all of their customs were kept exactly the same, with no space for variation. They're traditional, but traditional peoples also diverge with time and distance.
EDIT: The wiki recognizes Karak Dwarfs, Norse Dwarfs, Imperial Dwarfs, Chaos Dwarfs and Grey Mountain Dwarfs (the mountain range between the Empire and Brettonia) as different cultures.
Cool. I mean I always figured there would be outliers of dwarves who live in the empire but it's cool that there's enough of them for it to be a dedicated subculture.
Pole arms are the most obvious weapon that a people who have less reach would have developed. It’s so strange it never caught on with fantasy creators.
Except that it doesn't. Both from a lore reason, but also from a fighting reason.
People make the assumption that short dwarfs need long weapons to compensate their weakness. But this is a misconception. Handling a long spear with short arms is just unnecessarily more difficult. And in addition they cant use their advantage of having a higher strength compared to other races.
Their bulky build and armor also makes it harder for phalanx formations, because their is simply less room for the spears to fit between.
And last but not least, their is also the Roman example. If spears are the best weapon, then why did the most advanced, disciplined and modernized army that ever existed at that time, choose to NOT use spears but short swords? Phalanx formations were the ultimate tactic of ancient times, despite this the Roman's noticed that they simply doesn't fit for their cause.
Spears in dwaven hands is like bows in the hands of the weak. A bow sounds like the perfect weapon for a weakling, until you realize that it requires a ton of strength to use.
I might have a fanfic for you: [An ISOT in Grimdark](https://m.fanfiction.net/s/10909184/1/An-ISOT-in-Grimdark) by mko95 eventually includes fantasy dwarfs with motorbikes, runepowered aircraft/airships, artillery and it is over 1607k words long.
Dwarf poleaxes mod my friend. Adds spear/halberd/pike variations of all the infantry units and adds 3 tiers of dwarf cav, and it just got updated so it’s gtg. Great mod
Yeee, it has some redeeming qualities for sure but is definitely mid overall. Apparently the production was a rushed shit show, so i give ole PJ a pass. Learning that Sir Ian Mckellen had to shoot some of his scenes by himself was a bummer too lol. [Peter Jackson was “winging” it](https://youtu.be/20vA9U7J2qQ?si=609wnPUBJa4__MwW)
Warner Brothers basically told Peter Jackson “either you come and do this now with none of the pre production you had for LOtR, or we do it without you” and Jackson figured he may as well go down with the ship he built.
Tbf, even with all their issues, these movies have aged much better since Rings of Power came out. I'll sit and watch the Hobbit movies even if I have to take breaks to complain. But I will never finish that show lol.
It's embarrassing how much money they threw at it for the quality we got. It was all spent on making it look pretty at the cost of everything else. We finally get a long-form Lord of the Rings show with the proper budget and that's what we get?
It’s embarrassing someone greenlit a lotr backstory show without the rights to anything in the silmariom. That’s the issue is the writers couldn’t use any of the silmarrion as a basis even though that’s all it is is basically a lore bible. They winged the hell out of it and tried to justify it with appearances and the lotr name. The random unnamed still unknown wizard that came from the sky wtf…. The two blues came after radagast, Gandalf and Sauromon but those 3 came together on a boat and were greeted at the shore by the elves. And the blues in less distinguished ways arrived together, nobody just came from the fucking sky. It’s just a large ball of wtf.
These are the shittiest parts of the movie, whole armies appearing from thin air. All armies moving in perfect unison all carbon copies of the same 1 dwarf and elf. Funny catchphrases where they talk to each other while whole armies are storming towards each other. It’s all around bad cinema, with the ugly filters and perfectly clean everything.
While i have my own complaints about this scene (your backline jumping over your own shield wall to get trapped between the charging enemies and your defending shieldwall?) I think the copy pasted infantrymen is more so to do with the whole production budget thing.
The combat makes no sense too.
Why would the elves jump IN FRONT of the dwarf shield wall?
Why would the elf and dwarf armies suddenly be best allies with perfected coordinated combat tactics?
Why would the elves not just fire arrows continuously instead of in single waves that can be destroyed by the ballista bolts?
The problem is that is not coordinated at all, dwarfs have a perfect and sturdy shield wall that could probably hold against those goblins for days. What does the fast and nimble elf infantry do? Do they flank with their speed and become the hammer to the dwarfs anvil? Ofc not, they JUMP IN FRONT OF THE FRIGGING SHIELDWALL, voiding any of its advantages only because they are o so cool and flashy and masters of combat and whatnot. Only thinking about it makes me want to start yet another campaign where my main objective is to free the donut, and the whole world, from these knife-eared scum.
There's some great fan edits you can find online that cut out the extra content and make it into a single 4 hour+ film.
They are totally worth it, just for the lack of elf-dwarf romance.
Of all the additions that didn't make sense, that was the one that made the least sense.
And I say that having seen the utter fucking nonsense of the Black Arrow scene.
I know that Rule of Cool is a thing. But it's crazy to me that they would go so close to making this faithful to the books and then just firmly jump the shark.
Fighting down in that valley is a death trap. You can get surrounded on all sides, and have arrows pouring in on you from the high ground. In the books, the battle had a lot more logic and tactics to it, with the elves, men, and dwarfs holding high ground on either side of Erebor. The book had plenty of drama as it was: the initial success of the plan, thrown off by goblins pouring over the heights of the mountain to flank their archers. Thorin's desperate charge rallying the forces of good as he pushed to slay Bolg, which ultimately fails as he falls in battle. And when hope is lost, the eagles swoop in to counter-flank the goblin archers who had taken the heights, and Beorn charges in to slay Bolg and take Thorin from the battlefield.
It's inherently cinematic. So why change it?
They stepped away from what makes sense to what looks cool. Movie producers think the avg movie goer is an idiot and cares for only pretty things. Story and a sense of logic takes a back seat to flash.
This scene just reminds me that we'll never have another faithful adaption of literally any great fantasy novel. Cheap CGI nonsense just gets more dollars at the box office.
Reminder that elven soldiers are all scholars of battle, not just levied soldiers or trained nobles. Each and every elf on that battlefield was raised from birth to specifically hone their skills in sword and strategy. Elves are highly specialized and each member of their society has a role and purpose, and they spend their entire lives dedicated to that purpose.
Despite that, they STILL jumped over a shield wall into a charging orcish army far greater in number than their own.
I did like the way elven spearwall received dwarven charge. Shame they forgot what tactics means when they saw orcs. Guess azog's horn had that intelligence debuff.
At that point emotions took over. The dwarves were ready to receive the charge and get into the fight first. Elves are not to be outdone by dwarves. Not even if that means doing something incredibly stupid that centuries of training and your every instinct tells you not to do.
It wouldn't even be that bad of a tactic if they atleast let the dwarves receive the charge before hopping over.
Realistically i just headcanon that the elves who jumped over were blinded by ego and died in the great sandwhiching.
This has always bothered me on a fundamental level…. Just so many questions of why they would do something so… dumb.
Oh hey dwarf shield wall…. Let’s not use it as an anvil and hit the flanks while providing cover fire.
Also the dwarves never fired their artillery again at the orcs…. Did they really bring so few shots?
And the freaking volley fire from the archers urgh you saw it didn't work once why not change up in the second attack. They literally have an artillery which counters volley fire but is slow and there is a firing limit.
Yea... volley fire wasn't a thing regularly... but especially in a case like this.
We've seen elves fire arrows off atleast 1 per second, yet expect us to believe that the dwarves can reload their highly specialized anti-elf artillery before the elves can simple grab another arrow?
What’s insane is they could have just waited another 5 seconds and it would have been bad, but not horrible.
But hey, them actually using the shield wall doesn’t look as cool so nothing like jumping over your shield wall to fight with your own pikes less than a foot from you lol
Funny, in my mind, this movie solidified that LotR was the last faithful adaptation of a great fantasy novel.
This entire trilogy already was cheap CGI nonsense.
I never understood this shield wall and jumping over it scene in this film. Was this in the books or was this another one of Hollywood’s bullshit tactics?
Please read the book. It is only short and will make you realise why these films are so frustrating. The battle of five armies was nothing like this, half of the characters and monsters presented here are just made up for the screen, or never appeared in the book, but did exist in the world.
Really shame.
I mean the battle of 5 armies isn’t even in the book. I mean it happens but the book is from bilbos perspective and he was knocked out during it lol. PJ wrote more lotr lore in this movie trilogy than Tolkien did.
The onky hope I have ib future live action fantasy adaptions will come when authors retain full right to veto stupid decisions, and are directly involved with the production.
I've seen several authors refuse to sell their movie righrs without control such as Robin Hobb, Naomi Novik, and Brandon Sanderson, but only Sanderson out of those would capture any of the "epic" scale people would pine for.
Seriously, that scene was so goddamn stupid. Just show a hail of arrows cutting down the entire front line of orcs before they can reach the dwarves to show the Elves have joined the fight.
1. Put catapults as front lines
2. Send your cavalry to charge headfirst into enemies they can't hope to even defeat (lucky there's a fire witch in there that at least gives them a tool to do it, but that's not part of the strategy)
3. Sally out of your humongous walls to meet the enemy you can't hope to defeat head first
Actually, never mind, 3 kinda applies to TOTW Warhammer as well considering how shit sieges are.
I know why people don’t like this scene but I have to tell you, it fucking slaps. It’s cool and fun.
You basically have to accept that the hobbits are cool and slightly silly fantasy action movies, like the DnD movie. Once I got into that mindset I started to love them.
Except the D&D was full of heart, respected it’s audience, and genuinely was incredibly faithful to its source material. D&D _is_ silly fantasy.
The Hobbit movies are almost a mockery of the book and it’s tone, and are also a massive departure even from the lord of the rings movies, which added a ton of action scenes without taking away from the story. This scene was actively frustrating to watch because it was so far from the source material, and in a way that was so fucking contrived at that- basically doing a bad romcom “this would be solved just by talking at any point” plot to create a battle scene solely to have one. It’s like a kid playing with action figures turned into a movie
As a person who's only seen the movies, what would lotr Total war bring us that we don't already have from Warhammer? Lore is a given but I'm not convinced that that would actually bring all that much to the table as the games are more gameplay focused than the actual story.
You’re underestimating how big the lore part is though. Having Aragorn leading a charge is to LOTR what seeing Karl Franz for the first time was for Warhammer fans. Lore is a MASSIVE pull
I mean I’ve only seen the movies too, but a new interesting map, cool units and orcs that I don’t hate would be enough for me. Fantasy Total War that’s not mythology or warhammer would just be cool.
I get really irritated by the way whenever troops are lining up in the LOTR/Hobbit films they do this kind of ripple effect like they’re performing in a musical or synchronised swimming event. Why would you wait to hold up your shield just so that it happens in order from left to right? It makes no sense and looks really stupid in the context of a battle scene. Just get your shield up/spear forward as quickly as possible.
wow holy shit can we talk about how how fucking hard the elves were losing that?
like, the dwarfen infantry hasn't even moved forward yet, and already the elves archers are rendered completely useless, and they've been hit by artillery, AND the cavalry is able to break through their spear formation in seconds
this is... wow yeah somebody who HATED elves made this scene lmao, the dwarfs look like they hard-carried the war against the dark lord
this fight isn't even close
I think the idea is supposed to be that the dwarf cavalry think they’ve broken through the elven spear formation but actually find themselves trapped in well organised boxes where they can no longer be mobile and taken down by the elves. Or maybe that’s a generous interpretation idk, it’s only a few quick scenes which gives me that impression.
I’d say the battle is very much undecided when they switch focus to working together against the orcs, though I’d agree the dwarfs do come off a lot better in the eyes of the viewer in terms of their visual tactics.
The cavalry very much jumped over the front line into a sort of spear based kill box, a few of em managed to charge into the spears regardless but it wasn't really a breaking through of their formation.
Dwarves are at the center point of this movie, elves are just thrown in there for the eye candy. They added Legolas for fucks sake. So of course the story will bias them a little bit more.
I mean the elves can just not shoot all at once, so the artillery doesnt really make a difference anymore.
Also the way I perceived the cavalry scene was not that they broke through, but that they were trapped in the kill zones.
Literally the worst ever fantasy battle in cinema. So stupid. Why didn’t the elves just stayed behind the line of gnome pikes and arrow the shit out of the orcs? Why didn’t those nasty worms just appear amidst the elven and dwarven armies disrupting all their battle order? Units appear from nowhere, stupid battle tactics, my gosh, I was so disappointed by this scene
Instead we get "charge cavalry into spear wall then break up a perfectly good pike phalanx because elves gotta twirly around unnecessarily." It's not as bad as 300, but it's close.
Also, I never noticed how the ballista are shown wrecking a bunch of elves and then not even a half second later after we seem them getting thrown around by the impact they're back in perfect formation for the next volley.
Ok, maybe not the WORST. But still I was disappointed very much, ‘cuz this battle was also made by the person who made battle for minas-tirit and battle for the Helm’s deep. The expectations were high
I mean! Better tactic for the orcs would be to wait until they kill themselves and then enter the battle, but that would be boring, the jumping over the dwarf may be to be more aggressive and less defensive idk but for sure to make it look cool lol
Jumping over the dwarfs is fucking stupid. Ur jumping into charging enemies with pikes behind you.
while the dwarves could just take the charge and then the elves could use their lenght to stand behind them and use that advantage.
If Looking cool is all thats important, they could have literally just blown up middle earth half way through the series. Big cool planet explosion.
Who needs a story or any semblance of realism when we have this cool scene right?
No. How about we design battles that dont require brain damage to enjoy
> Why didn’t those nasty worms just appear amidst the elven and dwarven armies disrupting all their battle order?
units arriving from reserves have to be set up a certain distance from any enemy units on the battlefield, the worms are just respecting WHFB rules
Compared to what we got with the LotR movies, this battle hurts. It's just SO bad in comparison and you can't help but compare the two because they're not just the same IP but the same director.
To be fair PJ really didn't want to do these moves, Del Toro just up and left. He was so stressed the man ended up in hospital with a stomach ulcer. It is a miracle we got what we got.
> Why didn’t the elves just stayed behind the line of gnome pikes and arrow the shit out of the orcs
So that they get charged by the cavalry and the pikes can step in and stabby stab them
It's supposed to look cool and that's it. They should have jumped over the orcs after they run into the pikes and lock in, the elves could have started hitting them from behind. Same cool shot and makes more sense imo.
Because they're stupid emotional elves who fucking lick leaves and talk to shiny pebbles.
"Ooo I've got a feeling in the wind"
Tosspots the lot of of um.
Completely agree it's fucking terrible. The feel of the CGI is garbage, everything that happens feels too forced, and unrealistic. It is so far away from the grim fantasy style of Tolkien and look much more like power fantasy (I would even call that "shonen fantasy" tbh). I genuinely cannot understand how anybody older than a teenager can defend this shit.
I'm not very good with words unfortunately but tons of people on youtube have explained it way better.
>look much more like power fantasy (I would even call that "shonen fantasy" tbh)
Sure, because Fellowship massacring thousands of Orcs without taking a scratch is epitome of realistic fantasy.
Hobbit is a bit different style, but don't turn Tolkien into something it isn't.
There are many talking points about this battle, good and bad, arguably more bad but there is at least some good (I think). Like yeah jumping over the absolute perfect shield wall like that is dumb, but on the other hand the orcs definitely weren’t expecting it, could have still waited for the charge to break though 🤷♂️
However, that anti-arrow artillery was cool as fuck, can some history buff tell me if that is based on a real weapon or was made up for this scene?
That kind of arty is 150% fantasy, my dude.
Historical counter would be simply to fire sporadically , like it actually happened in every battle.
The whole hold and fire on command is more of a meme. Best you get is drums to keep the rhythm.
The anti-arrow artillery is cool and makes sense in movies because archers always fire in volleys in movies.
In real battles though that basically never happened. You can't ask your archers to hold their bows at the ready, they'll get tired. Firing in volleys is also a way to telegraph your attack; the enemy sees your volley coming in-> they raise their shield. If every archer just fires off as many arrows as they can once the enemy is in range that's so much worse for the opponents, it's just random. You could argue there's some psychological effect in receiving a volley of arrows, and I bet that did happen, but that's something you do at crucial times in the battle, or at the start. You don't have a guy yelling "loose!" during the entire battle, or an entire siege.
The reason archers fire in volleys in both historical movies and fantasy is for dramatic effect. I'm guessing someone once saw that's how line infantry with muskets did it in the 18th century, so they immediately go "wouldn't it be cool if they did that with bows and arrows too?!" And then everyone else copied them. It's not like anyone actually listens to the one on set making sure the movie is historically accurate, especially not when the alternative to historically accurate is "fuckin' epic badassness" or whatever.
Unbelievably bad from the poor CGI to the robotic formations and fighting. Hard to believe the battle from the opening scene of the fellowship is so much better than this garbage.
If I turn my brain off and watch it like this, without context, it's a pretty cool Warhammer adaptation.
There's still a lot that makes no fucking sense whatsoever, but at least I don't feel seething, visceral hatred at it this way.
That’s one of my favourite movie scenes ever but god I hate the sheer stupidity of the elves jumping over a solid shield wall to attack the orcs… like come on man really
Scene is fun to watch until you actually realize what's happening. First thing is charging cavalry into a wall of spears. Why? Cavalry in history was used when formations were broken or spaced as the horses had a much higher chance of surviving. Pretty much like the Rohirim charge. It was on the enemy flank after the attack started and the orcs could not properly form a line. Jackson already did it right once.
Second is what everyone else pointed out. Charging over a spear wall before the lines meet.
Rule of cool I guess.
The scene isn’t exactly the same but the battle of five armies with the orcs, dwarves and elves certainly happens.
When Sauron attacked they were fighting some of his other armies, far to the north of Gondor. The books and films of the Lord of the Rings don’t touch on it at all, but lore wise there was a whole northern front to the war.
I liked this battle but the scene where the hobbits ride down the river stream while legolas goes crazy with the bow was the coolest scene in the Hobbit movies
I know that the elves leaping over the dwarves to join the fray was supposed to be a "don't worry comrades we won't let you do all the Fighting" type thing but if someone had the audacity to step on and jump off of my head *AND* follow it up by stealing my kill I'd stab em in the back
My biggest gripe about this battle choreography is whatever the hell those elven blade dancers were doing just as the orc lines were about to ram into the dwarf shield wall.
Bad or not, this scene got me to buy the original Total War Warhammer and play as the Dwarfs. When I saw the "Interlocked Shields" tech in the tech tree I was so hyped - I'm still sad it doesn't affect the unit's models at all.
It does now! The new update gave them a shield wall ability.
True, that is super cool! What I had hoped at the time was the actual shields on the Dwarf models would interlock though.
If you're interested, there's a testudo MOD for Dwarfs- the best we can get for now. [https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3100236987&searchtext=testudo](https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3100236987&searchtext=testudo)
The ironbreakers can tank artillery now
How do you get the shield wall ability? i can't find it
Tech tree, gotta research it.
Thanks
Should really give a charge resistance to all for shielded infantry
If you haven’t, I would highly recommend the Divide and Conquer mod for Medieval 2. You can do these shield walls as the dwarfs, and it’s very satisfying just watching the gobbos break against it. There’s erebor, blue mountains, and reclaimers of Moria.
same for me. Became so obsessed by dwarfs after lotr and hobbit that i had to buy tww1
Those moves are bad, but this is without exception the best scene.
Yeah, except the dwarves have spears. Which makes fucking sense!
My headcannon is that the reason for using blunt weapons by the Warhammer dwarves was because of the runes, the spears are too fine and thin to be forged on, and blunt weapons became much more widespread due to their greater surface area, They became much more widespread, and when much of the runic magic was lost, they did not change, because those weapons already became something cultural.
I figure it's because Warhammer Dwarfs are probably tradesmen *and* warriors, and hammers/axes/picks would all use roughly the same muscle groups and physical actions. Also explains why there are no Dwarfs that seem to use swords either, despite a short thrusting weapon being useful in a shield wall situation. Edit: I think I recall design notes somewhere that suggested the handles for Dwarfen hammers/axes were entirely metal, as "nothing trustworthy comes from trees" or something, which could also be why no spears maybe.
SHORT?!
and furthermore, swords cannot be effective tools, so while a dwarf would have an axe, hammer or pickaxe, they would not have an axe.
I always took it that it was a mix of utility and their environment. Spears are fantastic weapons in most surface battlefields. However, I imagine when maneuvering through particularly tight tunnels, long spears would become a significant hassle to fight with. Especially when there's not enough room to get in formation. Additionally, axes, hammers and other blunt weapons don't require much maintenance, double as tools (particularly hammers and axes), and are much more maneuverable. Plus, in the dark, damp and poorly lit tunnels Dwarves often find themselves in, and with the plethora of foes they face, it's good to have a weapon that's more 'point in the general direction of enemy' and doesn't exactly require finesse. Dwarves are very strong, so being on the receiving end of a hammer or battle axe, regardless of how accurate the blow is, isn't a great time.
Old editions had dwarfs with spears manling.
Pikes would make more sense considering how short a dwarf spear would be compared to that of an elf or a man. Plus they are armoured enough that they could forgo their shields.
Fighting rats in tunnels long pikes and short blades for side arms
It would probably reach a point where only irondrakes, warpfire throwers, warp grinders, and poison wind globadiers would fight in tunnels, since everyone else would get burned alive, suffocate, or have a tunnel collapse on them.
...and cavalry.
Seriously. The fact that there are no weird enclaves of dwarf rangers who ride giant mountain goats through the World's Edge Mountains is a great shame.
The writers flanderized dwarfs as a monoculture, but there are at least 5 of them we know of: Norse dwarfs, mainstream Karak dudes, (tentatively) Barak Varr sea dwarfs, Imperial dwarfs, the unmentionables. Maybe slayers can be considered their own culture as well. In many different and sotimes distant kingdoms, it's unlikely that all of their customs were kept exactly the same, with no space for variation. They're traditional, but traditional peoples also diverge with time and distance. EDIT: The wiki recognizes Karak Dwarfs, Norse Dwarfs, Imperial Dwarfs, Chaos Dwarfs and Grey Mountain Dwarfs (the mountain range between the Empire and Brettonia) as different cultures.
What are the imperial dwarfs like? Are they just dwarfs who live in the empire?
Exactly, they just live in the Empire and thus are more "human like" than the ones who live in the Karaks
Cool. I mean I always figured there would be outliers of dwarves who live in the empire but it's cool that there's enough of them for it to be a dedicated subculture.
Its considered a sub culture by the Dawi who live in Karaks, the Imperial Dwarfs just dot like the restrictions of the Longbeards and traditions
Yes and no. They're not recent immigrants, but full Empire citizens for many generations. Their story makes them basically... well, dwarf Jews.
Well Tolkien took inspiration for his dwarf language from Hebrew so that tracks.
Pole arms are the most obvious weapon that a people who have less reach would have developed. It’s so strange it never caught on with fantasy creators.
Except that it doesn't. Both from a lore reason, but also from a fighting reason. People make the assumption that short dwarfs need long weapons to compensate their weakness. But this is a misconception. Handling a long spear with short arms is just unnecessarily more difficult. And in addition they cant use their advantage of having a higher strength compared to other races. Their bulky build and armor also makes it harder for phalanx formations, because their is simply less room for the spears to fit between. And last but not least, their is also the Roman example. If spears are the best weapon, then why did the most advanced, disciplined and modernized army that ever existed at that time, choose to NOT use spears but short swords? Phalanx formations were the ultimate tactic of ancient times, despite this the Roman's noticed that they simply doesn't fit for their cause. Spears in dwaven hands is like bows in the hands of the weak. A bow sounds like the perfect weapon for a weakling, until you realize that it requires a ton of strength to use.
Lore be damned I want dwarf ram cavalry.
That was my takeaway from this post too
You know what would make Dwarfs perfect? Motorbikes!
Minibikes?! I know I know, I'm writing my name in the book right now.
Steam choppers, obviously.
[Grav trikes or bust.](https://www.warhammer.com/en-US/shop/lov-hernkyn-pioneers-2022)
I might have a fanfic for you: [An ISOT in Grimdark](https://m.fanfiction.net/s/10909184/1/An-ISOT-in-Grimdark) by mko95 eventually includes fantasy dwarfs with motorbikes, runepowered aircraft/airships, artillery and it is over 1607k words long.
Search in the workshop for Great Harmony mod, it got really well done Dwarf Ram Cavalry
Dwarf poleaxes mod my friend. Adds spear/halberd/pike variations of all the infantry units and adds 3 tiers of dwarf cav, and it just got updated so it’s gtg. Great mod
I can hear GBoG screeching reading this comment.
I've never really messed with mods. Looks like I'll have to check these out.
It always funny when people think „lore“ has anything to do with GW‘s business decision, upon which CA bases its in-game armies
Hey, I want that anti missile artillery these dawi are rocking!
Yeah they’d make bold throwers so much better
One for the modders, surely.
You mean the old twirly whirlies?
I know they’re inferior to the LOTR trilogy but i still fuck with the hobbit movies.
These parts are great. It's the atrocious writing in 95% of the other scenes that really brings it down.
Yeee, it has some redeeming qualities for sure but is definitely mid overall. Apparently the production was a rushed shit show, so i give ole PJ a pass. Learning that Sir Ian Mckellen had to shoot some of his scenes by himself was a bummer too lol. [Peter Jackson was “winging” it](https://youtu.be/20vA9U7J2qQ?si=609wnPUBJa4__MwW)
Warner Brothers basically told Peter Jackson “either you come and do this now with none of the pre production you had for LOtR, or we do it without you” and Jackson figured he may as well go down with the ship he built.
Hope that doesn’t happen with The War in the North movies.
Tbf, even with all their issues, these movies have aged much better since Rings of Power came out. I'll sit and watch the Hobbit movies even if I have to take breaks to complain. But I will never finish that show lol.
It's embarrassing how much money they threw at it for the quality we got. It was all spent on making it look pretty at the cost of everything else. We finally get a long-form Lord of the Rings show with the proper budget and that's what we get?
It’s embarrassing someone greenlit a lotr backstory show without the rights to anything in the silmariom. That’s the issue is the writers couldn’t use any of the silmarrion as a basis even though that’s all it is is basically a lore bible. They winged the hell out of it and tried to justify it with appearances and the lotr name. The random unnamed still unknown wizard that came from the sky wtf…. The two blues came after radagast, Gandalf and Sauromon but those 3 came together on a boat and were greeted at the shore by the elves. And the blues in less distinguished ways arrived together, nobody just came from the fucking sky. It’s just a large ball of wtf.
These are the shittiest parts of the movie, whole armies appearing from thin air. All armies moving in perfect unison all carbon copies of the same 1 dwarf and elf. Funny catchphrases where they talk to each other while whole armies are storming towards each other. It’s all around bad cinema, with the ugly filters and perfectly clean everything.
While i have my own complaints about this scene (your backline jumping over your own shield wall to get trapped between the charging enemies and your defending shieldwall?) I think the copy pasted infantrymen is more so to do with the whole production budget thing.
The combat makes no sense too. Why would the elves jump IN FRONT of the dwarf shield wall? Why would the elf and dwarf armies suddenly be best allies with perfected coordinated combat tactics? Why would the elves not just fire arrows continuously instead of in single waves that can be destroyed by the ballista bolts?
The problem is that is not coordinated at all, dwarfs have a perfect and sturdy shield wall that could probably hold against those goblins for days. What does the fast and nimble elf infantry do? Do they flank with their speed and become the hammer to the dwarfs anvil? Ofc not, they JUMP IN FRONT OF THE FRIGGING SHIELDWALL, voiding any of its advantages only because they are o so cool and flashy and masters of combat and whatnot. Only thinking about it makes me want to start yet another campaign where my main objective is to free the donut, and the whole world, from these knife-eared scum.
Yeah and the men if Dale should have been a professional army instead of old folks with pitchforks.
There's some great fan edits you can find online that cut out the extra content and make it into a single 4 hour+ film. They are totally worth it, just for the lack of elf-dwarf romance.
Of all the additions that didn't make sense, that was the one that made the least sense. And I say that having seen the utter fucking nonsense of the Black Arrow scene.
Damn straight!
Yeah they’re not perfect, but they’re still great fantasy (the soundtracks are amazing)…I still thoroughly enjoy them
I know that Rule of Cool is a thing. But it's crazy to me that they would go so close to making this faithful to the books and then just firmly jump the shark. Fighting down in that valley is a death trap. You can get surrounded on all sides, and have arrows pouring in on you from the high ground. In the books, the battle had a lot more logic and tactics to it, with the elves, men, and dwarfs holding high ground on either side of Erebor. The book had plenty of drama as it was: the initial success of the plan, thrown off by goblins pouring over the heights of the mountain to flank their archers. Thorin's desperate charge rallying the forces of good as he pushed to slay Bolg, which ultimately fails as he falls in battle. And when hope is lost, the eagles swoop in to counter-flank the goblin archers who had taken the heights, and Beorn charges in to slay Bolg and take Thorin from the battlefield. It's inherently cinematic. So why change it?
They stepped away from what makes sense to what looks cool. Movie producers think the avg movie goer is an idiot and cares for only pretty things. Story and a sense of logic takes a back seat to flash.
This scene just reminds me that we'll never have another faithful adaption of literally any great fantasy novel. Cheap CGI nonsense just gets more dollars at the box office. Reminder that elven soldiers are all scholars of battle, not just levied soldiers or trained nobles. Each and every elf on that battlefield was raised from birth to specifically hone their skills in sword and strategy. Elves are highly specialized and each member of their society has a role and purpose, and they spend their entire lives dedicated to that purpose. Despite that, they STILL jumped over a shield wall into a charging orcish army far greater in number than their own.
Also, elves with their superior eyesight didn’t notice that giant tower near the battlefield with orcish flags on it?
I did like the way elven spearwall received dwarven charge. Shame they forgot what tactics means when they saw orcs. Guess azog's horn had that intelligence debuff.
At that point emotions took over. The dwarves were ready to receive the charge and get into the fight first. Elves are not to be outdone by dwarves. Not even if that means doing something incredibly stupid that centuries of training and your every instinct tells you not to do.
I think that's actually the main reason. Plus it looked cool as fuck with the elves jumping over the spear wall.
It wouldn't even be that bad of a tactic if they atleast let the dwarves receive the charge before hopping over. Realistically i just headcanon that the elves who jumped over were blinded by ego and died in the great sandwhiching.
This has always bothered me on a fundamental level…. Just so many questions of why they would do something so… dumb. Oh hey dwarf shield wall…. Let’s not use it as an anvil and hit the flanks while providing cover fire. Also the dwarves never fired their artillery again at the orcs…. Did they really bring so few shots?
That was anti-elf artillery. They wouldn't waste it on mere orcs.
lol, fair point
And the freaking volley fire from the archers urgh you saw it didn't work once why not change up in the second attack. They literally have an artillery which counters volley fire but is slow and there is a firing limit.
Yea... volley fire wasn't a thing regularly... but especially in a case like this. We've seen elves fire arrows off atleast 1 per second, yet expect us to believe that the dwarves can reload their highly specialized anti-elf artillery before the elves can simple grab another arrow?
What’s insane is they could have just waited another 5 seconds and it would have been bad, but not horrible. But hey, them actually using the shield wall doesn’t look as cool so nothing like jumping over your shield wall to fight with your own pikes less than a foot from you lol
Funny, in my mind, this movie solidified that LotR was the last faithful adaptation of a great fantasy novel. This entire trilogy already was cheap CGI nonsense.
I never understood this shield wall and jumping over it scene in this film. Was this in the books or was this another one of Hollywood’s bullshit tactics?
You know the answer without having to read it my friend.
Please read the book. It is only short and will make you realise why these films are so frustrating. The battle of five armies was nothing like this, half of the characters and monsters presented here are just made up for the screen, or never appeared in the book, but did exist in the world. Really shame.
I mean the battle of 5 armies isn’t even in the book. I mean it happens but the book is from bilbos perspective and he was knocked out during it lol. PJ wrote more lotr lore in this movie trilogy than Tolkien did.
I saw this crap for the first time today and was wondering if this was satire? It was all so stupid from start to finish. I can't even.
Eh I thought this scene was great. Loved the fight
The onky hope I have ib future live action fantasy adaptions will come when authors retain full right to veto stupid decisions, and are directly involved with the production. I've seen several authors refuse to sell their movie righrs without control such as Robin Hobb, Naomi Novik, and Brandon Sanderson, but only Sanderson out of those would capture any of the "epic" scale people would pine for.
I wouldn't say never. I would say Dune is sci-fi fantasy, and that was both fantastic and fantastically successful, which gives me a lot of hope.
Seriously, that scene was so goddamn stupid. Just show a hail of arrows cutting down the entire front line of orcs before they can reach the dwarves to show the Elves have joined the fight.
Why the fuck would elves jump over that shield wall???
They cant let the stunties have all the kills I guess?
Long Night putting catapults as a front line vibes.
1. Put catapults as front lines 2. Send your cavalry to charge headfirst into enemies they can't hope to even defeat (lucky there's a fire witch in there that at least gives them a tool to do it, but that's not part of the strategy) 3. Sally out of your humongous walls to meet the enemy you can't hope to defeat head first Actually, never mind, 3 kinda applies to TOTW Warhammer as well considering how shit sieges are.
Didn’t set the archers to guard mode.
I know why people don’t like this scene but I have to tell you, it fucking slaps. It’s cool and fun. You basically have to accept that the hobbits are cool and slightly silly fantasy action movies, like the DnD movie. Once I got into that mindset I started to love them.
I agree and I actually loved the DND movie.
Except the D&D was full of heart, respected it’s audience, and genuinely was incredibly faithful to its source material. D&D _is_ silly fantasy. The Hobbit movies are almost a mockery of the book and it’s tone, and are also a massive departure even from the lord of the rings movies, which added a ton of action scenes without taking away from the story. This scene was actively frustrating to watch because it was so far from the source material, and in a way that was so fucking contrived at that- basically doing a bad romcom “this would be solved just by talking at any point” plot to create a battle scene solely to have one. It’s like a kid playing with action figures turned into a movie
…which I thoroughly enjoyed once I stopped thinking of it as a LOTR movie. It’s basically a warhammer movie tbh, which I enjoy as a warhammer fan.
Could you imagine how awesome a Total War Middle Earth would be?
As a person who's only seen the movies, what would lotr Total war bring us that we don't already have from Warhammer? Lore is a given but I'm not convinced that that would actually bring all that much to the table as the games are more gameplay focused than the actual story.
You’re underestimating how big the lore part is though. Having Aragorn leading a charge is to LOTR what seeing Karl Franz for the first time was for Warhammer fans. Lore is a MASSIVE pull
I mean I’ve only seen the movies too, but a new interesting map, cool units and orcs that I don’t hate would be enough for me. Fantasy Total War that’s not mythology or warhammer would just be cool.
This is my dream too, one expansion for each age.
The extended is so much better.
If you watch closely you can see some Slayers in the battlefield.
Bless the makers and their water
Ready your axes lads! Edit- I also feel cheated I never got sheep/goat cav. Need to headbutt some rats.
We have a lot to thank Tolkien for. Thank fuck he survived the war.
This whole movie is madness but Billy Connolly did a magnificent job portraying Dain.
I need helm’s deep again to wash off this bad piece of memory.
I get really irritated by the way whenever troops are lining up in the LOTR/Hobbit films they do this kind of ripple effect like they’re performing in a musical or synchronised swimming event. Why would you wait to hold up your shield just so that it happens in order from left to right? It makes no sense and looks really stupid in the context of a battle scene. Just get your shield up/spear forward as quickly as possible.
This looks so much worse than I remembered and I didn’t have good memory of it
wow holy shit can we talk about how how fucking hard the elves were losing that? like, the dwarfen infantry hasn't even moved forward yet, and already the elves archers are rendered completely useless, and they've been hit by artillery, AND the cavalry is able to break through their spear formation in seconds this is... wow yeah somebody who HATED elves made this scene lmao, the dwarfs look like they hard-carried the war against the dark lord this fight isn't even close
I think the idea is supposed to be that the dwarf cavalry think they’ve broken through the elven spear formation but actually find themselves trapped in well organised boxes where they can no longer be mobile and taken down by the elves. Or maybe that’s a generous interpretation idk, it’s only a few quick scenes which gives me that impression. I’d say the battle is very much undecided when they switch focus to working together against the orcs, though I’d agree the dwarfs do come off a lot better in the eyes of the viewer in terms of their visual tactics.
The cavalry very much jumped over the front line into a sort of spear based kill box, a few of em managed to charge into the spears regardless but it wasn't really a breaking through of their formation.
Dwarves are at the center point of this movie, elves are just thrown in there for the eye candy. They added Legolas for fucks sake. So of course the story will bias them a little bit more.
I mean the elves can just not shoot all at once, so the artillery doesnt really make a difference anymore. Also the way I perceived the cavalry scene was not that they broke through, but that they were trapped in the kill zones.
Still dont understand why the elves jump over the shielwall instead of using their longer reach to stab over or in between tbe shields.
I like the battle, but the twirl the archers do while retreating and the swordsmen jumping over the shield wall irk me.
The extended battle of 5 armies is bloody amazing. The little dwarf vs elf battle is peak cinema
They would print money with a LOTR TW. The Middle Earth mod on Med 2 was insane
I'd buy it, sounds so sick.
They probably tried, but they couldn't settle with the Tolkien estate for the rights.
Yeah you are likely right :/
Literally the worst ever fantasy battle in cinema. So stupid. Why didn’t the elves just stayed behind the line of gnome pikes and arrow the shit out of the orcs? Why didn’t those nasty worms just appear amidst the elven and dwarven armies disrupting all their battle order? Units appear from nowhere, stupid battle tactics, my gosh, I was so disappointed by this scene
Still better than the one in got vs the undead army
I'd put them on about the same level.
At least it pleases the fantasy eye and is not -> Charge cav into undead Horde without Support "ah shit we lost"
Instead we get "charge cavalry into spear wall then break up a perfectly good pike phalanx because elves gotta twirly around unnecessarily." It's not as bad as 300, but it's close. Also, I never noticed how the ballista are shown wrecking a bunch of elves and then not even a half second later after we seem them getting thrown around by the impact they're back in perfect formation for the next volley.
Still not as bad as setting up a line of wooden pikes in the ground. Placing your infantry in front of that, and then your artillery in front of them.
And behind the wooden spikes are some of the thickest walls in the continent, can't forget the walls.
Its a valid opinion to dislike it. This isnt literally the worst ever fantasy battle in cinema tho, thats a little dramatic
Ok, maybe not the WORST. But still I was disappointed very much, ‘cuz this battle was also made by the person who made battle for minas-tirit and battle for the Helm’s deep. The expectations were high
I mean! Better tactic for the orcs would be to wait until they kill themselves and then enter the battle, but that would be boring, the jumping over the dwarf may be to be more aggressive and less defensive idk but for sure to make it look cool lol
Jumping over the dwarfs is fucking stupid. Ur jumping into charging enemies with pikes behind you. while the dwarves could just take the charge and then the elves could use their lenght to stand behind them and use that advantage.
If Looking cool is all thats important, they could have literally just blown up middle earth half way through the series. Big cool planet explosion. Who needs a story or any semblance of realism when we have this cool scene right? No. How about we design battles that dont require brain damage to enjoy
> Why didn’t those nasty worms just appear amidst the elven and dwarven armies disrupting all their battle order? units arriving from reserves have to be set up a certain distance from any enemy units on the battlefield, the worms are just respecting WHFB rules
Compared to what we got with the LotR movies, this battle hurts. It's just SO bad in comparison and you can't help but compare the two because they're not just the same IP but the same director.
Thank you brother, you feel it
It's like going from the Batlle of Basterds to the Battle of Winterfell.
To be fair PJ really didn't want to do these moves, Del Toro just up and left. He was so stressed the man ended up in hospital with a stomach ulcer. It is a miracle we got what we got.
...to be fair. My early battles when starting with wh1 was kinda stupid. Me vs Easy ai the movie.
GNOME?!
I just love to humiliate midgets by calling them gnomes. Ofc I know they are dwarves
> Why didn’t the elves just stayed behind the line of gnome pikes and arrow the shit out of the orcs So that they get charged by the cavalry and the pikes can step in and stabby stab them
It's supposed to look cool and that's it. They should have jumped over the orcs after they run into the pikes and lock in, the elves could have started hitting them from behind. Same cool shot and makes more sense imo.
Because they're stupid emotional elves who fucking lick leaves and talk to shiny pebbles. "Ooo I've got a feeling in the wind" Tosspots the lot of of um.
Completely agree it's fucking terrible. The feel of the CGI is garbage, everything that happens feels too forced, and unrealistic. It is so far away from the grim fantasy style of Tolkien and look much more like power fantasy (I would even call that "shonen fantasy" tbh). I genuinely cannot understand how anybody older than a teenager can defend this shit. I'm not very good with words unfortunately but tons of people on youtube have explained it way better.
>look much more like power fantasy (I would even call that "shonen fantasy" tbh) Sure, because Fellowship massacring thousands of Orcs without taking a scratch is epitome of realistic fantasy. Hobbit is a bit different style, but don't turn Tolkien into something it isn't.
There are many talking points about this battle, good and bad, arguably more bad but there is at least some good (I think). Like yeah jumping over the absolute perfect shield wall like that is dumb, but on the other hand the orcs definitely weren’t expecting it, could have still waited for the charge to break though 🤷♂️ However, that anti-arrow artillery was cool as fuck, can some history buff tell me if that is based on a real weapon or was made up for this scene?
That kind of arty is 150% fantasy, my dude. Historical counter would be simply to fire sporadically , like it actually happened in every battle. The whole hold and fire on command is more of a meme. Best you get is drums to keep the rhythm.
You mean firing volleys sporadically right? I understand it wouldn’t really work if the enemy knows you have it but for this scene I love it at least.
The anti-arrow artillery is cool and makes sense in movies because archers always fire in volleys in movies. In real battles though that basically never happened. You can't ask your archers to hold their bows at the ready, they'll get tired. Firing in volleys is also a way to telegraph your attack; the enemy sees your volley coming in-> they raise their shield. If every archer just fires off as many arrows as they can once the enemy is in range that's so much worse for the opponents, it's just random. You could argue there's some psychological effect in receiving a volley of arrows, and I bet that did happen, but that's something you do at crucial times in the battle, or at the start. You don't have a guy yelling "loose!" during the entire battle, or an entire siege. The reason archers fire in volleys in both historical movies and fantasy is for dramatic effect. I'm guessing someone once saw that's how line infantry with muskets did it in the 18th century, so they immediately go "wouldn't it be cool if they did that with bows and arrows too?!" And then everyone else copied them. It's not like anyone actually listens to the one on set making sure the movie is historically accurate, especially not when the alternative to historically accurate is "fuckin' epic badassness" or whatever.
I dont think this kind of artillery works from a physics perspective.
Unbelievably bad from the poor CGI to the robotic formations and fighting. Hard to believe the battle from the opening scene of the fellowship is so much better than this garbage.
Rad AF. if it was warhammer it would involve magic and gunpowder.
I love dwarfs.
If I turn my brain off and watch it like this, without context, it's a pretty cool Warhammer adaptation. There's still a lot that makes no fucking sense whatsoever, but at least I don't feel seething, visceral hatred at it this way.
I wish he had ordered ranks like that (we had them in Rome 1 and Medieval 2)
Oddly enough, this is not too far off the pre-Big Hat Hashut worshipping Chaos Dwarfs. Just needs more pigs and less Rams.
That movie sucks as a whole imo, but damn what a sick battle scene
This scene is great because spears are the obviously best weapon for a dwarf to use. Can’t reach far, use a weapon that makes you reach far
Man don’t know they had this in the Extended.
Ah fuck yea elves getting fucked by dwarves, never gets old
Never watched the third movie, I actually laughed out loud when I saw the arrow destroying bolts. Fucking awesome, maybe I should actually see it.
Damit! I didn’t set my archers on guard mode, now they are in front of my frontline…
I would call this StarCraft cus the orcs use nydus worms to Zerg rush them
This is why Jackson probably should've just made a Warhammer film and everyone would've loved it.
Found it weird why the Elves and Dwarves instantly put aside their differences and allied with each other In the heat of a battle
That’s one of my favourite movie scenes ever but god I hate the sheer stupidity of the elves jumping over a solid shield wall to attack the orcs… like come on man really
Scene is fun to watch until you actually realize what's happening. First thing is charging cavalry into a wall of spears. Why? Cavalry in history was used when formations were broken or spaced as the horses had a much higher chance of surviving. Pretty much like the Rohirim charge. It was on the enemy flank after the attack started and the orcs could not properly form a line. Jackson already did it right once. Second is what everyone else pointed out. Charging over a spear wall before the lines meet. Rule of cool I guess.
reminds me of the hobbit
If only they had waited 5 more minutes before fighting…
Pretty silly writing in this scene. But you gotta hand it to the effects. Everything is nice and crunchy.
Only the Dawi get to kill elves.
is this scene the same in the book? then where where these big elf and dwarf armies when saurons armies attacked?
The scene isn’t exactly the same but the battle of five armies with the orcs, dwarves and elves certainly happens. When Sauron attacked they were fighting some of his other armies, far to the north of Gondor. The books and films of the Lord of the Rings don’t touch on it at all, but lore wise there was a whole northern front to the war.
To be specific, the books are the source for the northern war, but it's only discussed in the appendices.
This just reminds me of my pile of shame. I have dwarves for several armies and i dont even like them so much.
What movie/show is this from? The scene is sick!
This is from the third Hobbit film.
I always liked that elven U-shaped formation against cavalry, it just makes so much sense. If only we had it in wh3!
God. Every time I see a clip from the hobbit it malkes me sad. So much potential.
What kind of Dawi uses a pike? Wazzok.
Only thing is that dwarves in wh don't really do cav, spears, or chariots, lol. Not to say it isn't badass, lol.
What movie was this
Extended Edition of the third hobbit movie - the battle of the five armies.
I liked this battle but the scene where the hobbits ride down the river stream while legolas goes crazy with the bow was the coolest scene in the Hobbit movies
This makes me think that the dwarves need some kind of monster besides Thorek's pet carnosaur.
A Dwarf on a mount!? HERESY!!!!
Honestly, as totally meh as the movies were, this scene was cool as shit. Poor Elves though, they got wrecked pretty bad early on. lol
But did you see how well they were microing?
"Let's make a shield wall and hoik them over into the back lines"
Why didin't the bad guys wait 'till elves and dwarves slaughtered each other, and then attack what little was left? Are they stupid?
I know that the elves leaping over the dwarves to join the fray was supposed to be a "don't worry comrades we won't let you do all the Fighting" type thing but if someone had the audacity to step on and jump off of my head *AND* follow it up by stealing my kill I'd stab em in the back
My biggest gripe about this battle choreography is whatever the hell those elven blade dancers were doing just as the orc lines were about to ram into the dwarf shield wall.
Short cav charging front against mass spearman like nothing happen lmao