@ Leo Pamplona How significantly? If they lose detail quickly compared to humans, but could still see moving targets (which would make since given their diet and hunting background) then it likely wouldn't be a significant detriment until the range became great. And if they see worse in daylight, but better at night, you'd better believe that they'd turn that to their advantage and raid/war primarily at night, when humans are at a disadvantage anyway.
@@vinzcastro9304 Its called standard or English units. And yes, it can seem kinda random and unusual to someone who isn't used to it. But, please don't be offended if I tell you that since I do not use the metric system very much, I find the metric system to be confusing and even, yes, stupid. It's all just a matter of culture, I guess
@@vinzcastro9304 Americans use imperial, or rather their own version of imperial because some measurements are different between UK/Canada/Commonwealth imperial and US Imperial, the gallon being the most common example. It is always a game of third party comparison as to how large a gallon actually is. 10cm is about 4" and a foot is about 30cm. Canadians have to know both because even if we set out own policies, practically all products are made by companies owned by US interests. All the measurements are actually in US imperial and translated to some seemingly random number in metric which everyone calls the imperial measurement anyway because the numbers are rounder.
"They're sending us out into a massacre. We're doing to die." Gideon was almost smiling ruefully as he ground the edge of his halberd fine in preparation for the upcoming battle. "What are you talking about?" asked Byron, as his squire slipped his cuirass over his head, "This should be an easy battle. We outnumber the Orcs 2 to 1, not to mention the brutes aren't exactly known for strategy." Gideon shook his head but continued to smile, "Yes, and we're also going out onto an open battlefield with no cover and no way to stop the orcish arrows from raining down on us. The commander knows it as well. You could see it in his eyes when he rallied the troops." The other knight still looked skeptical, "Bows are not the end of all things Gideon. I've gone into battle against Elvish archers before, who have better aim. We have shields, not to mention our armor." Gideon raised an eyebrow at the younger knight, "Have you ever seen an Orcish warbow, Byron? They're nothing like Elvish bows, or even the famed bows of the northmen. Have you ever tried drawing an arrow with one? For mere men like you and I, it's impossible. There isn't one amongst them that will have a draw-weight below 180 pounds. I've seen some above 250. The arrow shafts are metal, as any wooden shaft would snap under such force. No shield will stop them. No armor will save us. That cuirass you have. A family heirloom, isn't it? Strong, Dwarven steel? Might as well be rice paper." Byron was silent as his squire finished tightening the straps on his armor. Straps which now felt heavy and constrictive, and didn't give him the feeling of security that he was used to. "We're a sacrifice. Buying time for the King to escape and return with a stronger army. For better conditions and more protective terrain. In truth, the Orcs will likely have us all dead before our army is even in range to strike back."
@@uniatispd6232 you cannot invent something if you're dead lmao... To be fair orcs warrior nature and violent tendencies would make them probably be very adept with explosives. They have bodies that can handle explosions better than other races and are physically able to carry bigger things allowing them to for example carry a barrel with explosives effectively. I think if they saw an explosion out of sheer curiosity they would end up studying it. So I don't think they would per say be as adept in most studies but in certain flashy and things they probably would be some of the best fantasy races
@@lordofchromium1534 They do indeed know how to use the bow, they use them a lot in Warhammer Fantasy. However, shootas just produce a lot more dakka than bows.
6:15 I think that's one of the problems with Lord of the Rings. The Orcs might be scary for normal people, but we're not following normal people. We're following essentially the best fighters in the world. In the novel it reads something like "but their skill was so great, they slayed many orcs without ever being wounded." It's not the exact quote, but the jist of it (I think it was during the Battle of Gondor).
The orcs of Lord of the Rings are weak, spineless creatures. A normal human would greatly outclass an orc in strength and even uruks of Mordor can't compare to the regular Gondorian or Rohhirim soldier. I'd expect an even moderately skilled Gondorian soldier to kill multiple of Saruman's Uruk-hai in the same situation as Aragorn in that scene. The reason those creatures are dangerous is due to absurd numbers and a leader who is scarier on his own than all the might of the good races together. Those orcs and uruks would willingly throw themselves on to Dwarven axes with the great shadow of Sauron, or his even greater predecessor Morgoth, behind them.
Long delayed, but as Alex said, Orcs in LotR are far weaker than Men. Faramir discusses a 10:1 kill ratio as realistic, if not automatically likely (the fact the Gondorian army is mostly professional and Mordor's isn't also plays into that, of course). The best way to think of Orcs are emaciated women with scoliosis and other physical malformations who all have an ultra-sensitivity to bright light and are mostly equipped with something a random farmer could afford. Uruks (including Uruk-Hai) are barely on par with Men physically, being just the larger, healthier examples of the Orc race. Uruk-Hai are immune to the light problem due to having Mannish blood bred into them (which is also why they are all classed as Uruks, not regular Orcs. That said, Orcs are immortal, so very old Uruks like Shagrat (who is implied to be a veteran of the Last Alliance) would be very dangerous indeed, almost on par with veteran Elves. These examples are very rare, however.
Fun fact for you: just prior to that scene you referenced with the gut stab and the bad breath, there was very nearly a potentially fatal accident on set. The bit where the knife gets thrown, it is supposed to have slipped and was actually flying right at the actors head. So when you see Aragorn deflect, that was a genuine reaction thanks to his training he'd received for the movie. Not sure how widely known that is, but yeah, it's still a fun little nugget to know :D
@@Estalarki well I mean I would hope so it's kind of common sense not to throw a real knife at people on a movie set it wouldn't have killed them if it hit him it could cause a concussion and lose an eye at most but still that would suck
So in my DnD games and fantasy stuff, I tend to model Orcish culture after Mongolian culture a bit, and when you mentioned the whole raining death from afar, fleeing, and doing so again, I realised that orcish horse archers would be a hell of a lot more deadly than they were historically. They could be upon you, gone, and back again before you even noticed they were there in the first place
Most Orcs in fantasy, their 'intelligence' deficiency is like 'mathematical' intelligence. They generally have a wisdom score like humans and as survivalists they can be quite 'clever' and possess a great about of ingenuity. So I'd take that into account. I do like the use of bows, the big thing though is their eyesight in some fantasy settings tends to be cruddy at long range, hence often represented by their poor 'ballistic' skills. HOWEVER, some fantasy settings have them having excellent night vision, which means unlike humans they could advance under cover of darkness and unload short range volleys.
I've always seen it less actual intelligence, and more that they were less technologically advanced early on, and more importantly, have been constantly chat upon and raided so they can't catch up in tech. That has then pushed their culture to revere simplistic tech and to insult research and designs or anything but getting stronger
Kingman Highborn you can see at night too. Just cover one of your eyes at night while watching somethomg on your phone for 5-10 minutes, the uncovet the other eye. One that seen brightness of the phone is pretty much blind in the dark,whil other one sees almost everything in same circumstances.
One great limitation Orcs mights have is that they might be too large to ride horses, depending on which interpretation you're using. And if that is the case and they also don't have creatures large enough to carry their extra weight in full armor, then that would mean that they would be predominately infantry. That would mean that they would have a mobility disadvantage on a strategic level, and an effective commander could use their cavalry to counter the advantage in the orcish bows
They'd ride chargers, warhorses the size of modern Clydesdales. Medieval warhorses carried a man in full plate, while wearing plate armor. That's a lot of weight. You might have to give up some armor, but mounted archers don't need it, especially since they are firing from beyond enemy range.
I definitely agree with that, if the orcs aren't much larger than a human then they wouldn't have and problems that I could see. But if they're the size of the orcs in warcraft I'm not completely certain that even a charger could hold them in full armor, at least not be able to carry them as fast as a human. Although I will say that the orcs don't really strike me as the mounted archer type, especially if they're using war bows similar to the English longbow. But if they used a powerful recurve bow I think they would be the most devastating mounted archers in fantasy, which would be awesome
well they are bigger and stronger, why not sit them on bisons or other bigger animals (rino also sound great?) Humans cant ride bisons because humans are too weak but orcs have the strenght and size needed. Armor bison orc warriors would give one hell of a punch on impact. i Doubt any human army would not run away by the sight of orc heavy cavalery.
I love the way you describe weapons in terms of their situationality. I never considered it before but basically a standard sword at your side is like carrying a pistol, vs lugging a rifle (and several bandoliers of ammo belts) around everywhere, something you'd only do if you expected to go to war that day.
@Padraig c I wonder if, with their higher muscle mass, orcs are more vulnerable to overheating in heavy armor. Don't know how realistic that would be, but seems like a halfway decent justification. (They are also usually not connected to the industry needed to produce such armor.)
Great video, Shad, and I'm loving the series. Keep up the great work! A few ideas for you: Weapons for faeries (the nasty folklore sort, not the Tinkerbell kind) especially considering their size and aversion to iron. Weapons for centaurs (cavalry weapons, maybe?) Weapons for goblins, kobolds and similar Weapons for halflings or hobbit types Weapons for FIGHTING dragons and other large creatures (also, defences against such creatures) And some ideas for related videos: The tactics you'd expect the fantasy races to use if they were using your suggested weapons Which race(s) would each race, if they're all using your suggested weapons, have the greatest advantage against in a fight The kind of fortifications fantasy races might use, given their typical locale and them using your suggested weapons The sort of armour or protection (i.e. shields, bucklers) you'd expect each fantasy race to favour (assuming similar tech levels)
Hey buddy, I'll give you my 2 cents on each of the creatures to tide you over until you get Shad's ideas. Faeries: Archery, naturally, since bows and arrows can be made without any metal at all. Centaurs: Archery, naturally, since horseback archers in the real world (Mongolians, Japanese) are incredibly threatening. Goblins & Kobolds: Archery, but only using crossbows like the dwarves for reasons discussed in that video. Hobbits & Gnomes: Same as above: Archery! With Crossbows! Small, weak critters don't wanna be anywhere near something that can smash them! Fighting Dragons, Kaiju, and other Large Beasties: Dude, have you caught the pattern yet? You're either trying to hit something with a torso 10-30 feet off the ground while it's walking around, or just outright flying. Good luck slashing a dragon to pieces with a sword while it's breathing fire on you from 200 feet up. That said, a ballista is probably a more aggressive weapon for piercing scale and hide, but it's a siege weapon. Then again, dragons are living siege weapons. So there you go. Archery. For everyone.
Thanks! Hadn't considered the archery for centaurs, but that would absolutely be an advantage. I guess bowyers (bow-makers) are going to be making a tidy profit in this universe.
For faeries you should consider the fact that most faeries tend to live in places where archery is not exactly practical. If a group of faeries ever took to the field to fight, then yes archery would be very effective. But remember that faeries tend to live in forests (though some kinds also live in mountains, fields, water, etc.). So in that case I think smaller weapons (they probably couldn't effectively use larger blades anyway) like knives would be very useful - especially if they use the forest to disappear and ambush the enemy. Another important factor is what *kind* of faeries these are. If they just live in the forest, knives and bows would be best. If they live in some other world, they may have access to fantastical materials that could substitute for traditional metals. Then of course many faeries aren't humanoid at all: they might have claws, powerful tails, or super strength among other factors. Relatedly, the inherent magical abilities of faeries have to be taken into account. If you can spam fireballs or lightning, why would you ever need archery?
Since it's relevant, I'll copypasta from my other comment: [copy]When I was world-building around an RPG I considered writing, I decided that most orcs are primitive barbarians who rarely if ever get access to any kind of metal. And since most of them live as small, self-reliant tribes, they really couldn't make anything as complicated as armor or crossbows, so they would end up fighting with weapons out of the stone age - spears, clubs, stone axes, boomerangs, bolas, and very rarely some might have the resources and craftsmanship to make a flint sword or a longbow. In that setting however there would have been one particular super-tribe of "Iron Orcs," so called because they were powerful enough to enslave other races of orcs and goblins and such to mine and craft steel for them. The ruling class of that tribe wore armor-like costumes assembled piecemeal from leather and steel bits made en mass by the slaves, which looked utilitarian, but were usually more aesthetic in purpose. *EDIT:* I misspoke(/typed) originally. The *warriors* would be wearing actual armor, and surely much of the ruling class would as well. It's just that the women and craftsmen (there are no active children, they grow until mid-to-late adolescence in spawning pits) would be wearing the cosplay outfits. The warriors actually want to stop stabby things from entering their squishy parts. Obviously. But the true armor would still be modified mostly for aesthetics. So imagine if someone tried to make a Mad Max costume using only tools available in the Iron Age, and that's what these specific orcs looked like. Anyway, they had the resources to make swords, so they did, and many warriors would try to get his sword to be as big and intimidating as possible (within reason) designing it sot so much because he expects to get into a lethal fight with an equal opponent, but more because he wants to impress his peers and scare his victims and rivals. Some of the smarter Iron Orcs might prefer flails and crossbows, and even use armor mods that are practical as opposed to scary.[/pasta] For context, they come from a place in that in the setting, was basically equivalent to the less hospitable parts of Africa. I never put terribly much thought into why the more advanced cultures even went to that land in the first place, but I suppose they could have had a surplus of iron or gems or something. Well, I thought that was interesting at least. But then again, I wrote it, so maybe others find it really boring. I don't know. I hate my life.
> Flint swords > Cosplay armor > Oversized weapons for cool factor Your orcs sound at their very worst actively trying to be stupid and at best total weebs. If you want my advice, give the orcs a culture that endorses success in their environment. Intimidation is only so effective for creatures that raid for what they need - other creatures will fight back, scared or no, and being unprepared for battle then does the orcs a disservice. Aside from the flint swords, your "primitive" orcs are leaps and bounds ahead of the iron orcs for brutal, simple pragmatism. And yes, I understand that the orcs are physically stronger, but tactics are much more important. If the weapons don't work, the wielder dies. If the armor don't work, the wearer dies. People can't take slaves if they're dead. Iron Orcs don't happen without slaves, no matter how powerful they are. I'd also like to state that while I'm critical of your ideas, I'm not uninterested or trying to rag on you like you're a bad writer. Consider it as a way to improve your ideas to make them more realistic and effective for the setting they're in.
in the game "War of the ring" (one of the older LOTR games) the Uruk Hai standard soldier actually used bows, and they were able to knock enemies away on hit which always felt really good if you had a big army of them, just seeing enemy units fly en mass.
Arlindo Jacuniak actually, a lance might not be so good for centaurs, as the impact of hitting a target is taken by their spine, potentially snapping it. They have almost no way of bracing
Medieval weapons were made for humans to fight other humans... so what would a culture create if they had to fight ogres and wyverns, much less giants and dragons? Would they just create medieval halberds, poleaxes, and pikes... or something more exotic? I'm thinking, especially something with more emphasis on defense because having something that big actually take a swing at you would be pretty intimidating, while also being able to penetrate deeply to attack organs within a much larger body, and able to penetrate armored hide would be pretty vital. Watching the tests of medieval weapons against ordinary gambeson is pretty sobering.
Indeed. If you take a look at medieval hunting weapons you'll see a lot of things that are quite different from what one would use to fight a man. Three-bladed spears, gun-swords and even gun spears, all of these were used to hunt boars. Humans would most likely use very specific weapons to fight things like ogres and dragons that would depend on the tactics employed to take them down.
the problem is you cannot give every man in your army the best weapon against a race, if dwarves, humans, elves and orcs are in almost constant war you cannot go about making 3 weapons for every human the cost would just be too great. You could make some devisions in every specification but then you just get a massive problem with numbers. Lets say your weapon makes it so 2 humans can kill 3 orcs (what is a very good ratio) you would equip 1/3th of your army with this weapon and the weapons against elves and dwarves would set the orcs in an advantage setting the entirety of your army in a disadvantage. You have to keep in mind these races are not like bears who only have claws and their bite, these actualy have weapons what changes the game
Ogres like what? >3m tall and >350kg of mass? Is he armored? Then you'd need scorpions and the like. A disciplined pike/halberd formation might stand a chance at the defense, use moats and stakes to fortify your position even further. Why would you fight wyverns? If anything you'd hunt them. If they're as smart as animals try poisoning through bait meal. Giants and Dragons - you're screwed. But then again they shouldn't be existing without some serious magic in place, so use magic to fight them.
shad talkes about 10 to 30cm taller, so they should just be able to ride horses (probably need to breed a slightly lager seize) Again there are reasons humans choice horses over other animals, we are only so strong so we were limited to a certain range, orc's would be a higher range and would have bred other animals for centuries and probably bred to larger animals then they had at first (bear riding?) Since orcs are actualy stronger and bigger then humans they could just carry arround some big pikes and put them in the ground when the enemy cav shows up. goodluck running up to a bunch of pikes in the ground, thats how you get your knights killed. Also the great orc archers would just fire on the knights, the knights trempling eachother and blocking eachother when dropping death. I don't actualy see a way of horses getting into the ranks of an orc army
Check bear spears, such as "rogatina" and boar spears, they have kind of a cross-guard right after the blade to prevent the target from getting too close when impaled with a spear, these would 100% be used against big, heavy and slow creatures like ogres.
That scene in lotr where Aragorn kills those uruks so easily is because those uruks have had months of training and Aragorn has had up to 80 years of training
He should be stronger and larger then them as well and his weapon might have mystical properties. .. however I would guess that Uruks has more then months of training, they are elite soldiers and show considerable higher disciplin then other orcs.
they are BRED to be elite, the Uruk-hai of Isengard are different to standard orcs. in film cannon, we SEE Lurtz (the one who kills Boromir) get "made" in the Fellowship of the ring. he is only a year old at MOST by the ambush at Amon Hen. In the book, Ugluk (who was the captain) had a similar if not shorter lifespan.
YeOldFart, probably a huge bias towards the human species as superior to all which is frankly in some cases a load of bull, and not just a load but a huge load of bull. The idea that humans are superior to any fantasy race, more racism and bias, is like saying a tiny dinosaur can beat a horde of M1 Abrams tanks, not gonna happen at all.
No Orcs breed faster then humans at least in D&D only 10 years for an orc to be mature compared to a 18 year old human. The reason why humans survive more often in the world is because of tactics, and they usually are friends with people like Elves, and Dwarves, who can help them become stronger and survive against beasts that they cannot take normally. Like for example Elves in most fantasy settings have been civilized for thousands of years and some help humans teach them magic, etc. Dwarves teach them how to forge superior weapons to what Orcs can and grants them better defenses against Orcs. Next thing look at what creatures are insanely stronger then humans are usually very fractious like Orcs, there are hundreds of tribes fighting each other all the time. Giants same thing. Trolls they are out in the wilds and too busy hunting. Etc.
Humans can be anything easily. Mighty warriors,Gifted mages, talented thieves. Humans learn from other races. Magic from elves, Technology from dwarves, and combat from orcs. Humans evolve.
depends on how how tactically minded the orc of that particular lore are. For most of the big dumb brute types, I think they could really fuck shit up with a couple huge ass iron clubs. also if you have the type of orcs that prone to loosing their shit, and mindlessly tearing into the enemy, then having some kind of bladed gauntlet affixed to their armor would be ideal so they would have something they couldn't drop when they go into a blood frenzy.
Bows seem relatively unpopular for orcs for cultural reasons. Orcs like to spill blood with their own hands, and in LOTR they are happy to eat sentient creatures such as hobbits. But, that said, I think that bows are seriously underused by orcs. There is one other factor at play, and that is that orcs are not really defensive people. They don't tend to create fortresses or great castles. In Elder Scrolls they have wooden strongholds, in LOTR they often have cave systems or stolen fortresses, and in Forgotten Realms they are similar to LOTR, but none of these are much like the creations of humans or elves. Sometimes, orcs don't even settle in one place. And this is a problem, because archers need supplies--arrows. Orcs often live in small, nomadic groups, and often in the mountains. It is relatively harder to supply arrows when you're not part of a large nation. LOTR depicts this well. Roaming bands of orcs or raiding parties rarely carry bows, but the war machines of Sauron and Saruman are both able to produce great amounts of arrows through industry, even in the wastelands of Mordor. This is also why Obould Many-Arrows is such a devastating figure in Forgotten Realms. He is an intelligent orc who manages to organize an orcish nation with proper supply lines for war. And he RAVAGES his corner of the world. And he manages to defend what he takes, partially with bows. I strongly encourage that you read up on Obould if you like the Forgotten Realms setting. R. A. Salvatore wrote him into the Legend of Drizzt series, in which the titular character is a dual-wielding elf! It sounds like Salvatore's literature reflects your ideas fairly well.
^ @Chaotic, point here is, they are offensive creatures who likes hand to hand combat. you cannot see everything as a human's perspective or world would need resetting if they do what shad say. in other perspective like what we could have done if shad was evolved alien.
The Orcs from Elder Scrolls are not the same as in LotR. The Orcs in TES are educated and "free" people. In TES they don't only have wooden fortresses, the also have some castles, that they either build or conquered, they also have one big city called "Orsinium", it was under siege many times but always rebuild
Some* of Salvatore's literature. While I respect him as an author, one who has written many solid books/series (I'm speaking to Drizzt and the Companions, haven't read his other works outside of those characters tbh), his literature often does not have the kind of grounding or realism, nor really the continuity in some aspects such as magic, fighting, etc. I think this is mainly due to him writing for WotC and the Forgotten Realms world; he is forced to adapt to them, and THEN having his characters, world rules, etc change, rather than having his own world where he can make things a bit more grounded. That being said, I absolutely love the Thousand Orcs, the Orc King, the Pirate King, and the two books where Entreri and Jarlaxle are in Vaasa together! Those ones seem the most grounded in reality (as much as high fantasy and WotC can be!) and he really fleshes out the the characters in these. I particularly like the books with Entreri and Jarlaxle, as those ones show characters who are both highly skilled and resourceful, but have distinct weak spots as well.
6:21 This is how I look at it. We see the creation of the Uruk-hai, being created and equipped with swords shields and helmets/armor BUT what we do not see is them being trained how to use the bows and swords "properly" Now granted the Main Uruk-Hai that got his head chopped off by Aragorn was pretty decent with a bow, BUT lets be real, he was only about 20 feet away when he was sticking arrows into Boromir, So I look at it as they are big and strong and thus they can swing a sword decently enough to do some real damage, BUT Aragorn was a highly trained Ranger, who was an EXCELLENT Swordsman, so it would make sense that someone with years of training in swordsmanship would be able to cut through a large number of Uruk-Hai with relative ease due to having "Skill" with a sword. You have at least some practice with a sword, but how long do you think you would last against someone who has trained with swords and other weapons for most of their life?
two longswords would not be good, because the weapons can easily become tangled and if you block with both (star wars style) the opponent now controls both. However, if said fourhanded creature is stronger than the average human, said creature could use a bow/crossbow and longsword, a longsword and two daggers, a bow/crossbow and two daggers, or a bow/crossbow aming sword and dagger. Yeah four arms (I'm assuming each hand has its's own arm) leaves you with a LOT of possibilities.
waaaaaaaaaaait, there are 2 types of orcs.... greenskins and tolkien orcs.... which one are we talking about now.. edit, seems like he is talking about greenskins
There are also Orsimer from TES or Orcs from Warcraft which are both pretty different from Warhammer or Middle-earth orcs. In fact each fantasy setting has their own more or less different orcs.
Remember guys, Numenoreans are vastly stronger and bigger than normal humans and the Uruk-Hai are still smaller and weaker than a normal man (Peter Jackson didn't show that very well did he?). 80 year old 6'6" Aragorn fighting all his life against the forces of darkness vs. 5 ft tall men who have lived a few short years at most even if they have been training for most of it. This isn't a fair fight without huge numbers.
@@Alex_Fahey Peter Jackson did show the Orcs being made just a few weeks before they attacked the Fellowship, and with no training whatsoever. So there's that :D
Youz wanna know why we Orkz is always usin' "axes" for choppas? Cuz Orkz ain't just made for fightin', ORKZ IS MADE FOR ROCKIN'!!! WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGH!!!!!
The real answer is based on my orc character 'Ungol Slam' who used a high calibur heavy machine gun while making america puns as an orc would ( kills a tank and yells 'dont tred on me')
Your discussion of the advantages of orc bows reminds me of how the Mongols were so devastating. The ability to get into and out of the enemy's range quickly with powerful bows cannot be oversold.
I think orcs generally have a lower lifespan then other races, partly because of their brutish lifestyle. This would give them less time to master a weapon like a bow, which requires a lot of practice, and more likely to pick something up that's easy to use. As opposed to elves who have many years to master archery. Also for cultural reasons bows would be less popular as they prefer close 'in your face' combat.
Especially in the Elder Scrolls since in most Orc culture, it dictates that when an Orc is close to becoming old (close to being old mind you, not already old) they would seek out a “Good Death” (A good fight in which they lose despite their best efforts) before they grow old and can’t feasibly fight anymore.
they wouldn't be able to use bows because even if they get a bow and arrows, the arrows will not be available and they can't make them with their intellect. if the bow breaks, they cant fix anything. even with a bow, they had no time to learn, because orc life is short.
RVINDVNCE Mmmm that’s more Goblin, not Orc. Orc’s aren’t just big dumb idiots (Sometimes, but not all the time) and they definitely know how to make arrows and bows. Even the dumbest Orcs in Pop culture (Lord of The rings orcs to be specific) can use a bow and make arrows.
"Ten centimeters to a foot."I LOVE you! That's so beautifully English, combining the metric and imperial systems in one sentence. Beautiful. I might have to use this in a class on dialects in English. Just wonderful!
About the hordes. To quote TVTropes: Conservation of Ninjutsu. In any martial arts fight, there is only a finite amount of ninjutsu available to each side in a given encounter. As a result, one Ninja is a deadly threat, but an army of them are cannon fodder.
As somone currently in the process of writing a book where the main character is an Orc, I thank you for having made this video. And wow... I REALLY underestimated how powerful bows can be in the right hands.
By the time of Aragorn the Numenorian blood was so thin that they really only had an extra 50 years. Aragorn was different because he married and elf and weird things happen when you marry an elf so he ended up living to like 300 if I remember right. Aragorn is also stupidly skilled at basically everything. He traveled the entire world of Middle Earth being called the greatest huntsman if the age, led both Rohan and Gondor to victory against the forces of evil as Thorongil with his crowning achievement or at least my favorite was defeating the Captain of the Umbar Corsairs in single combat at the helm of his own ship. Aragorn probably was about as strong as Boromir who himself was a bit of a beast of a man however Aragorn had so much longer to train and gain experience that he can do basically whatever he wants.
@Rill That is true and I'm not sure why I said marrying Arwen was a reason, I meant that it might have had something to do with the Evenstar Pendant she gave him. He really only had double the average lifespan of normal humans since he died at 210 instead of 300 like I said, that's still about half the span of the previous Numenorian kings. Which is still awesome but my point was he wasn't post-human because he was of numenorian blood, that simply increased his life by about 100 years.
A range weapon is generally more powerful than hand weapons, but is the later manages to get to the former, something that was very common before the destructive power of the gun was introduced, then the range weapons will lose hands down.
In Warhammer orks lack fine manual dexterity almost entirely. Their strength is similar to the strength of a chimpanzee whose nervous system is good for activating a lot of muscle at once but can't activate a few little muscles for finer work.
Orkz however would still use choppas and every kind of dakka out there. With an accuracy and intelligence of a potato. Standard levels of British intelligence. The accuracy being if it misses it was friendly, if it hits it was an enemy.
Of course they also possess reality warping magix. They are able to build spaceships out of scrap metals. Also being able to reproduce asexually by spores.
From the guy who invented orcs: "In the dimmed light their number could only be guessed, but the Dúnedain were plainly many times, even to ten times, outnumbered. Isildur commanded a thangail to be drawn up, a shield-wall of two serried ranks that could be bent back at either end if outflanked, until at need it became a closed ring. If the land had been flat or the slope in his favour he would have formed his company into a dírnaith and charged the Orcs, hoping by the great strength of the Dúnedain and their weapon to cleave a way through them and scatter them in dismay; but that could not be done. A shadow of foreboding fell upon his heart. `The vengeance of Sauron lives on, though he may be dead,' he said to Elendur, who stood beside him. `There is cunning and design here! We have no hope of help: Moria and Lórien are now far behind, and Thranduil four days' march ahead.' `And we bear burdens of worth beyond all reckoning,' said Elendur; for he was in his father's confidence. The Orcs were now drawing near. Isildur turned to his esquire: `Ohtar,' he said, `I give this now into your keeping'; and he delivered to him the great sheath and the shards of Narsil, Elendil's sword. `Save it from capture by all the means that you can find, and at all costs; even at the cost of being held a coward who deserted me. Take your companion with you and flee! Go ! I command you!' Then Ohtar knelt and kissed his hand, and the two young men fled down in the dark valley. If the keen-eyed Orcs marked their flight they took no heed. They halted briefly, preparing their assault. First they let fly a hail of arrows, and then suddenly with a great shout they did as Isildur would have done, and hurled a great mass of their chief warriors down the last slop against the Dúnedain, expecting to break up their shield-wall. *But it stood firm. The arrows had been unavailing against the Númenórean armour. The great Men towered above the tallest Orcs, and their swords and spears far outreached the weapons of their enemies. The onslaught faltered, broke and retreated, leaving the defenders little harmed, unshaken, behind piles of fallen Orcs*." As for the Uruk Hai, they are taller, grimmer and more soldiery than orcs, nearly as tall as men, not taller and not stronger. The idea that Orcs are physically superior comes from derivative works by other authors, not Tokien.
I think culture would dictate whether bows would be commonplace for Orcs moreso than physique. When I think of Orcs in combat, I always think of them in your face, beating the snot out of you or hacking you to pieces with wicked, brutal weapons. Engaging with a bow, especially at long range I imagine would be too easy for them, or not embracing 'real' battle: face to face, strength to strength. Bows would be superior tactically, and perhaps would be used in some settings, but would go against their culture, and therefore be less common. Just my thoughts on it.
+I dont know how to name things. i imagine throwing axes and slings would also be common ranged weapons among orcs, since they are more brutal than bows and are easier to make.
Here is the other thing to consider, Orcish culture in most fantasy settings has an element of taking slaves. They are lazy. They raid weak villages to have slaves to cook for them to watch their herds, or they take the women for reasons. So the bow is not a good fit for them because of that. They would much rather go close in to slaughter their foes or knock them out then to kill them from a distance with bows.
i think the development of bows is the biggest thing that hamstrings orks, why because the first bows would not impress orcs and by the time a bow strong enough to impress them was developed (other than balistari, which are too complex) they would be too assiotated with the weaker races of men elves and dawfs. historically javilins are more common than bows and would likely be used by humans and orcs from very early on. slings require skill and patience i find hard to believe in orks ( i also daught orcs would spend the time on bows, esspically early bows) throwing axes would probably be invented by orcs when one throws one in anger and likes how it works and so develops a better one. for ranged weapons i imagine humans(and tolkien uruks) would have javilins, bows and crossbows mainly, elves bows and knives/darts, half-lings/goblins/moria orcs composite bows,crossbows and slings, dawfs steel bows and cross bows, orcs javlins and throwing axes, with steel bows by a few latter.
@@nickkohlmann Did you know, that despite all out-of-Africa human populations share some 2-6% of Neanderthal genes, so that on average your grand-grand-grand-granny was a Neanderthal, and that law melanin levels in the skin of northern Europeans are likely to be an adaptation inherited from Neanderthals, those still had quite a different physique, adapted for living in the cold climate, and these adaptations persisted even in genuinely neanderthal populations who then migrated to more temperate - up to tropical - altitudes. And although different populations of homo sapiens living in similar arid conditions acquired many similar adaptations, they at very least may be used as examples of what Neanderthals were likely to use, should their unmixed population survive and retain most of their original features for another 40000 years.
Nor the Kaledori. Nor Theramore. Nor the Kul Tirans whom the Horde nailed to their own homestead walls. Nor... anyone in the Alliance, really. Because whenever the Alliance dares to attack the Horde in retaliation for the shit they pull, it must either be a victory with a massive downside or somehow them being the bad guys even as Sylvanas is trying to enslave a deity to her will so she can make more slaves...
Never really thought about what weapons an orc would use in battle but it was really interesting to hear your thoughts on the matter. The idea of orc bows being much stronger than human bows honestly makes a lot of sense considering how much stronger orcs are typically depicted as being compared to humans.
The thing with Aragorn is that he's trained his whole life, he's a total badass, that's why it is easy for him to fight Uruk-hai. Look at the Battle of Helms Deep, there you can see what happens to people who are not Aragorn. They just destroyed everyone including elves. Nice video btw.
I now kind of want to make a Half-Orc Archer as my next D&D character and dedicate all my early resources into the bow (with some added backstory to warrant having such a strong bow) so as to get a 1d8+4/5 bow.
Try DDO {Dungeons & Dragons ONLINE!} - Half Orc Ranger/Fighter Multiclass Arcane Archer/Kensai Enhancement Trees. Though I'm afraid H-Orc is a P2P race {You can either pay a monthly subscription or you can buy the race separate - probably cheaper to pay the monthly subscription for one month {and get almost everything rather than just buying one thing} see how you like the game.
The Impish Dullahan in my current DnD session that I am playing, I am playing a half-Giant Battlemaster archer, the Dm is making me buy javelins for my arrows
Must be a hefty sum, that. Sounds a little bit like the Aruni in the tabletop RPG I once tried to write: they could be nine feet tall and had special weapons and rules regarding combat like that.
yeah it gets expensive if i lose any arrows in combat, but fortunately i have like a plus 5 to hit in total, so he lets me scavenge most of them from the bodies
I play DDO online! I need to try out a build like that, it could be really fun, now I'm playing around with a human war/art/pal using a bastard sword combined with a rune arm. It's really effective (not as effective as a pure, but fun nevertheless, being able to picklock,disarm traps, buff myself etc) Just for shits & giggles.
This video made me feel safe with the next semi-boss my party is getting into, shes an Orc with a strong big bow (you need 18 STR just to shoot it, 20 to shoot it regularly) with arrows dipped into poison. Love the series so much!
Actually, what's interesting is that I read a fantasy novel called Monster Hunter International by Larry Correia and he makes a very interesting adaptation of orcs. In terms of appearance, the orcs vary in color between being a bluish-grey (like Tolkien orcs) to being a greenish-brown (like Warcraft orcs), they also vary in physical size, the largest males (the warriors) being around the size of the average human but much stronger and faster. But as you said, the orc's weapons are related to their culture, the orcs in the novel have a culture that is more into hunting rather than warfare. So their weapons are usually swords, polearms, and weapons that would be used for hunting. But one of the best warriors in the orc tribe uses dual swords that he straps on his back due to a preference of tactics, which is a preference to use guerrilla-like tactics to fight. But unlike your conclusion, they don't really use bow and arrows since they are a tribe that prefer mounted attacks on wargs with swords and polearms, which is probably they reason why they're smaller, but they will use guns since the setting is modern.
Hello Shad ! As a player of AD&D 1st since 1980 , DMing since 1982 , my idea of orcs is a bit old school . I understand that orcs supply and equip themselves but raiding and Warfare. They are good miners , almost as good as dwarves , but their industry is far inferior . The hard work of mining explains their greater strength , not genetics . The individual orc of normal strength would bulk up or die , probably killed by his taskmasters . His flesh eaten by his coworkers to conserve protein. . The tools of mining would be the only weapons made by orcish industry , sophisticated weapons would be taken from defeated victims , as orcish smith's haven't the knowledge of steel , only iron . ( low intelligence ) The Monster Manual states that their weapons are usually badly kept . So any arms and armor would be used up then discarded , used for scrap , or kit bashed into some kind of weird weapon. Their eyesight is poor in full daylight , which they avoid , but they have night vision , Their night vision is much shorter than the range of even a short bow, so archery isn't their thing . Besides , tuning arrows to their bow would be beyond their intellect. And yes , arrows must be properly spined, cut , and tapered to fly properly . So any bows and arrows would be used up and tossed away . Yes , a few gifted orc craftsmen may exist , but orcs lack the discipline to deploy archery effectively . They would probably use archers piecemeal , loose arrows indiscriminately, and be left with empty quivers when needed . They might even waste arrows while on the March shooting at the local fawna like a child with a new toy . ( chaotic evil ) Archers that fled , even in a feigned retreat , would be held in contempt as cowards by their peers . The problem with your logic is just that , it's logic . Something few orcs possess. Good thought like yours wouldn't last long in an orcish army unless a strong , domineering general ( Evil Wizard ) were in command . Just my thoughts . Thanks for posting .
***** Yes you're right . But the brain is an organ , and no brain can be trained beyond its capabilities . And my points about eyesight still stand . I also stated that my opinions are based on my experience of AD&D 1st edition , of which all newer games owe descendence from . Without Tolkien orcs would not exist in our minds , and he never described them as seven feet tall and built like an NFL lineman . Gygax modeled his orcs after LOTR . Most of the orcs depicted in newer games aren't orcs at all , they're OGRES . I hope I'm not offending anyone , but I stand by my comments . An orcs mentality is based on the brain , which is a physical organ , it can't be changed . Just as the brain of a chimpanzee cannot be trained to the mentality of a human . Best Wishes .
Felony And while I'm on a rant here , and I'm sorry but you're not really the target here . Don't look to the LOTR and The Hobbit films as the gospel on the books . Many of the films scenes were created out of whole cloth by the studio and script writers for cinematic effect . There was no epic fight between Strider and Lurtz in the books . At one point even Samwise Gamgee bested a couple of orcs in a fight in the books . And don't forget , if the orcs were so bada☆☆ , then why did Saruman bring in hoards of Easterlings humans ? Both in book and film . Another point about orcs , there are no female orcs . Orcs are depicted as born fully grown out of some sort of emniotic sack in the mud in the film , which is correct to the books . A mammal is born under formed and has to be nurtured and taught from infancy . Any creature born from an egg has little capacity for mental growth . Again the brain is a physical organ . In the LOTR books orcs were created by Sauron as imitation Elves . Homonculi . Soulless minions . Even in Warhammer 40K orcs are humanoid fungi . I hope this is some food for thought . Best Wishes !
in an orcish horde, I'd say 4 out of 5 of them would have a warbow. So if they're loosing 3-4 Volleys of arrows down on the town over the hill, then go and pick up the loot and arrows and enslave the survivors from the oblitterated town, that's destroying their enemies, feeding their horde, and not losing a single orc.
I'm going to suggest that the orcs seen in most fantasy settings would not have the discipline necessary to learn how to use a bow. Yes, an orc with a bow that is made for an orc could be a deadly thing, if he had put in the practice necessary to be accurate with it. I question whether or not orcs in most fantasy settings would do that. I think their bloodlust would have them on the front lines as often as possible, and their idea of training is picking fights with other orcs, not standing in a field shooting arrows at a target.
I half agree on the bow part, you don't need discipline of accuracy to fire a formation arrow swarm. just tell the unite of orcs were to shoot and off the arrows go.
Kind of like the orcs from Warhammer fantasy. Their bows are shoddy and inaccurate, but they make up for that by just having hundreds of orcs unload a massive volley of arrows on the enemy.
Fun fact, Orcs actually first appeared in Lord of the Rings by J.R.R Tolkien because he wanted to make a little more diversity. At least, everything I’ve found about orcs say he made them
@@Avrelivs_Gold no they didn't, he actually invented them, both the name, appearance and traits were invented by Tolkien. Inspired by goblins and trolls
The version I've heard is that he wanted an entirely UNIVERSALLY EVIL race for story reasons. He found an obscure mention in an old saga of a word which inspired "orc", a compound of the language's words for "eat" and "dead" ambiguously meaning either "hungry dead" or "carrion eater" without enough context to explain which. He used the "carrion eater" idea as inspiration, but we could equally have had Sauron commanding legions of flesh eating zombies. Come to think of it, maybe in an early draft he DID. He gets called the Necromancer afterall, that might imply doing it often rather than just to Nazgûl and some poorly defined wraiths.
@@kyuujinyetto6228 you could argue orcs go back to certain depictions of the story of Beowulf with Grendel, who was not only described as pure evil but also as orcneas, an old word meaning monstrous or beastial if memory serves
@@thatonebritishidiot3037 true but it changed so much to the orc of Tolkien, and it's the one we know. Although misticism and stories already existed, the idea of the modern orc was invented by Tolkien
You are right about orcs=goblins In LOTR. But Goblins and Uruk-Hai are the same as well. 'Goblin' in Tolkiens work is just an English translation of 'Orc'. Uruks are called Goblins sometimes in the books.
An English translation of the hobbit dialect of Westron in which the Red Book of Westmarch was written. "Orc" is meant to be ultimately an Elvish loanword in Westron, in-universe.
And also that LotR orcs are all smaller and weaker than Men, including the Uruk-Hai which are merely _less small_ and _less weak_ in comparison and serve as a nasty surprise for people used to mowing down much weaker enemies.
In my own personal fantasy, orcs would not use bows because in their culture and society, they highly value strength and bravery in battle, and consider the use of long-range weapons cowardly.
Yooo this is from ages ago and you probably know by now but there are records in wales of arrows piercing armour-plated legs and going through into the horse itself, indicating that welsh longbows were occasionally used at close range to ambush heavily armoured troops.
@@franklinvonfrankenstein1137 Warhammer 40k my friend. Dakka basicly is the Ork term for firepower. Orks slap as many rockets and guns on their gear as orkily possible, for them "there can never be enough dakka".
I tried to apply this logic to a DND one-shot with my freinds. They said it's not allowed and joked if I'm so obsessed with physics I should play a wizard instead
Good vid Shad but I think you almost "overanalyzed " this.... simply put I don't think they would carry a lot of pole arms { at least not like proper Halberds and such } but they would carry ALOT of Axes... probably Danish style axes , and heres why..... Versatility... and not "Combat Versatility" just general Versatility, an Axe is a tool , the same tool you use to cleave an enemy can also be used on trees and scrub, or to kill or skin game , simple axes would likely be to orcs what daggers are to medieval humans , an Omni tool , able to be used to cut rope / string, shape wood , cut foliage, ect ect
@Ayden Cole In lord of the rings, Saruman actually MADE half-orcs, while these were very effective, these were by no means Uruk hai. Uruk-Hai in the black speech, according to Christopher Tolkien means "Orc folk" and the term was reserved for the "warrior orcs" the term snaga was used for the smaller, weaker, slave orcs that you see elsewhere. All Saruman did was "perfect" the orc and made them his fighters. As for their incredible endurance, the uruk hai literally do have an uncontrollable bloodlust. Saruman's uruk hai berserkers literally had flesh inside their helmets so that they would be in a constant state of blood lust, and some were mentioned to have their heads cut off and still keep fighting for a while.
Saruman actually explains to the "captain" Uruk Hai how orcs are made in the 2nd movie, before asking who he serves. something about elves being out of the sunlight for a long time, yadda yadda yadda.
@@christopherfleetwood5252 Actually, Orcs and goblins are synonymous terms in LotR. Goblin and hob-goblin were used in _The Hobbit_ as Hobbit words for orc and big orc (for instance, Azog was called a goblin in _The Hobbit_ , yet was referred to as a great orc in _The Lord of the Rings_ ). "Orc is not an English word. It occurs in one or two places [in The Hobbit] but is usually translated goblin (or hobgoblin for the larger kinds)." -J.R.R. Tolkien, Preface to The Hobbit
Funnily enough Tolkien was a bit of a racist and orcs and goblins in lord of the rings was controversial for being based off of African Americans and mongols with their descriptions lol
Every fantasy race is better with bows than humans. XD Also Uruk has used longbow made of yew in the books of Lord of the Rings, in Narnia the best archers were the dwarves.
Yet, the biggest fantasy story of them all, Lord of the Rings, describes orcs as smaller and weaker than humans. Even the Fighting Uruk Hai is described as standing no taller than a stooped human and no stronger. Dont use Peter Jackson's interpretation. Use Tolkien's. The inventor of the orc. The Warhammer and Warcraft Orc just seems to make people forget the original orcs.
@@beersmurff Orc is an ancient English term that meant monster, demon, evil spirit, or ogre, among other things. It has its roots dating back to the Romans and Ancient Greece. Orcs are notably mentioned in the classic English story, Beowulf. Orcs, like most of the things people often credit Tolkien as creating, were stolen from European mythology by Tolkien.
@@CryosisOfficial I get what you say, but I dont completely agree. Yes, the word wasnt invented by him, but the creature was. It might be based on other mythological beings, but that doesnt take away that Tolkien invented the Orc as we know it. But different opinions :-)
The fact that they're stronger than humans means that if they use lightweight weapons, they can move them so much faster than humans or other races. So a human sword is basically a really fast dagger for them.
Although strength and speed are correlated, that point isn’t completely true. A heavier weapon has greater ability to move through air, with more strength, a standard human heavy weight weapon is devastating, as it has the weight to move faster, but a light weight sword wouldn’t receive the benefit in equal proportion.
Or if nothing else, greatswords would work fantastically. Useable with a single hand while holding a shield and dominating in range against other sword-wielders, or countering and destroying enemy spears if used in battles between groups.
Bows would be effective for orcs, but I think that the lack of patience that they have would make them hate aiming with the bow. They also might think that the bow and other ranged weapons would be cowardly, and in D&D, they HATE cowards.
Hmyeah. I guess it would depend on the personality of the specific orc leader if his army would be more about orkish mentality of effectivity. In some LOTR games, the different personalities of Ork leaders result in differently armed warriors and different tactics.
Orcs could be good javelin throwers, that would be terrifying if you've watched Vinland saga when a guy throws a spear from God knows where and impales three men, now multiply that force by 2 to 3 times
A lot of the stuff in here could even apply to creatures who at least have similar physical capabilities as an orc. You could apply it to the ogrun and trollkin in Iron Kingdoms, or even Starfinder's Vesk if you wanted to set a campaign way back in their medieval era. So this actually helped with some of a species of humanoid felines (haven't finalised on a name for them yet) in a science-fantasy story I'm working on. Or at least the males; I gave the species a rather considerable difference in size as an extreme case of sexual dimorphism (the females are about the size of tall-ish halflings, but that just makes people not realise that they're still humanoid cats with the speed and the claws and whatnot). So I made the males of this species use a very large, very powerful warbow - either for warfare or just for hunting large and/or tough monsters. Or, for the ones living a semi-tribal life in the wilds, raw intimidation factor in keeping poachers off their lands. A seven-and-a-half foot tall lion-man appearing out of nowhere and carrying a bow that could impale you and the guy behind you to the nearest tree is gonna be pretty damn terrifying. Plus the larger arrows give them room to cram all sorts of technomagical goodies into them for various kinds of fancy ammunition. Not sure what other weapons would work for their size, though I do like the image of a non-tribal guy in heavy armour wielding a scaled-up longsword (as in the proportions of a longsword, but scaled up for the wielder's physical size, so it'd be a broader greatsword to most humans). Or maybe lighter weapons like a gladius or just really big knives to take advantage of their greater speed, reflexes, and agility. And if they go that way, then maybe they skimp on armour a bit to maintain that manoeuvrability and range of motion?
For armour, as in shads giant video, padded armour upscaled is strong. For a seven to eight foot humanoid with fur, though, I think you'd want something like "joint armour", focusing on the knees, elbows, shoulders, etc. The important joints, and maybe the neck, or if not the neck, high-ridged shoulder armour to protect the neck a bit just by being there and sort of half in the way.
For weapons, if their going mainly offensive, you'd probably want an axe. Especially for a setting where they'd be using it as a tool as well. If you go for mobility, I'd say just scale it down to a handaxe. And maybe, if you want mobility and defence, take a tiny sheild, like dinner plate size. Assuming hyper reflexes, they could block or parry and wack projectiles from the air, that sort of thing. Doesn't matter if your sheilds small if you always make sure it's in the way of what's hitting you.
Maybe, depending on their speed, they might also use Lance's. In shads minotaur video he mentioned if you're strong Enough and fast enough you can use a Lance in foot, so there's that, too.
![Baby Kia - GLOVES & DRACS (BLACK AF1s) [Official Music Video]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/ajm8LeB0qQk/mqdefault.jpg)
Boy I love this series, keep going,very entertaining.
It's the Mighty Metatron! Thanks mate, I'm honoured you think so and I can't wait to watch your next video ^_^
would the orc war bow be still viable in a fantasy setting where orcs have significantly worse eyesight than humans?
noble one is that you?
Metatron does this mean we're getting a response video oh mighty noble one
@ Leo Pamplona
How significantly? If they lose detail quickly compared to humans, but could still see moving targets (which would make since given their diet and hunting background) then it likely wouldn't be a significant detriment until the range became great.
And if they see worse in daylight, but better at night, you'd better believe that they'd turn that to their advantage and raid/war primarily at night, when humans are at a disadvantage anyway.
"From 10 centimeters to almost a foot"
*both Europeans and Americans confused screaming*
Are you talking about the male genital comparison of human and orc?
@@justinisaacrada8540 Europeans use the metric system and the Americans use an i don't know the name but it's stupid system
Vinz Castro some people call it customary, but most call it imperial. can confirm it sucks though
@@vinzcastro9304 Its called standard or English units. And yes, it can seem kinda random and unusual to someone who isn't used to it. But, please don't be offended if I tell you that since I do not use the metric system very much, I find the metric system to be confusing and even, yes, stupid. It's all just a matter of culture, I guess
@@vinzcastro9304 Americans use imperial, or rather their own version of imperial because some measurements are different between UK/Canada/Commonwealth imperial and US Imperial, the gallon being the most common example. It is always a game of third party comparison as to how large a gallon actually is. 10cm is about 4" and a foot is about 30cm. Canadians have to know both because even if we set out own policies, practically all products are made by companies owned by US interests. All the measurements are actually in US imperial and translated to some seemingly random number in metric which everyone calls the imperial measurement anyway because the numbers are rounder.
"They're sending us out into a massacre. We're doing to die." Gideon was almost smiling ruefully as he ground the edge of his halberd fine in preparation for the upcoming battle.
"What are you talking about?" asked Byron, as his squire slipped his cuirass over his head, "This should be an easy battle. We outnumber the Orcs 2 to 1, not to mention the brutes aren't exactly known for strategy."
Gideon shook his head but continued to smile, "Yes, and we're also going out onto an open battlefield with no cover and no way to stop the orcish arrows from raining down on us. The commander knows it as well. You could see it in his eyes when he rallied the troops."
The other knight still looked skeptical, "Bows are not the end of all things Gideon. I've gone into battle against Elvish archers before, who have better aim. We have shields, not to mention our armor."
Gideon raised an eyebrow at the younger knight, "Have you ever seen an Orcish warbow, Byron? They're nothing like Elvish bows, or even the famed bows of the northmen. Have you ever tried drawing an arrow with one? For mere men like you and I, it's impossible. There isn't one amongst them that will have a draw-weight below 180 pounds. I've seen some above 250. The arrow shafts are metal, as any wooden shaft would snap under such force. No shield will stop them. No armor will save us. That cuirass you have. A family heirloom, isn't it? Strong, Dwarven steel? Might as well be rice paper."
Byron was silent as his squire finished tightening the straps on his armor. Straps which now felt heavy and constrictive, and didn't give him the feeling of security that he was used to.
"We're a sacrifice. Buying time for the King to escape and return with a stronger army. For better conditions and more protective terrain. In truth, the Orcs will likely have us all dead before our army is even in range to strike back."
Absolutely brilliant!
something being too ''modern'' is virtually irrelevant in a fictional fantasy story with orcs
Kyle Flanagan Did you quote that from somewhere?
Port Kapul Imperial measurements sounds pretty medieval
Gabriel Rodriguez Its fantasy not medieval :^)
"If there's anything I know, it's how to kill things smaller than me. Because most things are."
Borky the Orcy, _The Unexpectables_
I wasn't expecting to find an Unexpectables quote here, but I'm very glad I did.
"What's your plan of attack?"
"I have a plan. Attack."
You see orc not book smart, but orc spend more time training, not reading. Now who dumb?
The ones who's being left out while the other ones already invents a standard issue gunpowder firearms.
😂
@@uniatispd6232 Like the Empire and Dwarfs in Warhammer Fantasy lol
@@uniatispd6232 you cannot invent something if you're dead lmao...
To be fair orcs warrior nature and violent tendencies would make them probably be very adept with explosives. They have bodies that can handle explosions better than other races and are physically able to carry bigger things allowing them to for example carry a barrel with explosives effectively.
I think if they saw an explosion out of sheer curiosity they would end up studying it. So I don't think they would per say be as adept in most studies but in certain flashy and things they probably would be some of the best fantasy races
they cant read. Maybe Uruk-Hai since they are halfhuman.
Orcs in LOTR do have an important physical detriment: they can’t stand sunlight.
Orcs could in most senses but trolls (except olog hai) would turn to stone because of sunlight
He adressed he refers to the newer orcs in fantasy as orcs, and calling the original ones goblins.
They are also weaker than Men. Some breeds are about the size of a Hobbit.
Ordinary orcs yes not Uruk-Hai.
No wonder they cant see me as i stab 7 of them in the throat in shadows of mordor
**An Orc with a Greatbow is like fighting someone with a Bolt Action Rifle!**
Orks would obviously use a shoota, since it has more dakka than a bow.
He's usually referring to Warhammer Fantasy. Otherwise, you'd bet they'd be picking more dakka.
@@ErikaWeiss633 a wood dakka is still a dakka.
Dakka for life.
Would an ork be skilled enough to use a bow I mean they hit on fives and I’m a oomie yet I can’t use a bow either
@@lordofchromium1534 They do indeed know how to use the bow, they use them a lot in Warhammer Fantasy. However, shootas just produce a lot more dakka than bows.
@@CyberWanderer101 let me introduce you to my brothers in the Death Korps
6:15 I think that's one of the problems with Lord of the Rings. The Orcs might be scary for normal people, but we're not following normal people. We're following essentially the best fighters in the world. In the novel it reads something like "but their skill was so great, they slayed many orcs without ever being wounded." It's not the exact quote, but the jist of it (I think it was during the Battle of Gondor).
The orcs of Lord of the Rings are weak, spineless creatures. A normal human would greatly outclass an orc in strength and even uruks of Mordor can't compare to the regular Gondorian or Rohhirim soldier. I'd expect an even moderately skilled Gondorian soldier to kill multiple of Saruman's Uruk-hai in the same situation as Aragorn in that scene. The reason those creatures are dangerous is due to absurd numbers and a leader who is scarier on his own than all the might of the good races together. Those orcs and uruks would willingly throw themselves on to Dwarven axes with the great shadow of Sauron, or his even greater predecessor Morgoth, behind them.
Long delayed, but as Alex said, Orcs in LotR are far weaker than Men. Faramir discusses a 10:1 kill ratio as realistic, if not automatically likely (the fact the Gondorian army is mostly professional and Mordor's isn't also plays into that, of course). The best way to think of Orcs are emaciated women with scoliosis and other physical malformations who all have an ultra-sensitivity to bright light and are mostly equipped with something a random farmer could afford. Uruks (including Uruk-Hai) are barely on par with Men physically, being just the larger, healthier examples of the Orc race. Uruk-Hai are immune to the light problem due to having Mannish blood bred into them (which is also why they are all classed as Uruks, not regular Orcs.
That said, Orcs are immortal, so very old Uruks like Shagrat (who is implied to be a veteran of the Last Alliance) would be very dangerous indeed, almost on par with veteran Elves. These examples are very rare, however.
Hell even here our characters still have troubles fighting them
@@Alex_Faheyorcs may be weaker than humans, but that doesn’t make them any less scary when it comes to a first encounter
Fun fact for you: just prior to that scene you referenced with the gut stab and the bad breath, there was very nearly a potentially fatal accident on set. The bit where the knife gets thrown, it is supposed to have slipped and was actually flying right at the actors head. So when you see Aragorn deflect, that was a genuine reaction thanks to his training he'd received for the movie. Not sure how widely known that is, but yeah, it's still a fun little nugget to know :D
That's even more impressive now.
Imagine being the guy that accidentally murdered Aragorn on set.
@@getthegoons and he had a kid lol
The knife was not real, I watched the commentary as well
@@getthegoons it was a prop knife.
@@Estalarki well I mean I would hope so it's kind of common sense not to throw a real knife at people on a movie set it wouldn't have killed them if it hit him it could cause a concussion and lose an eye at most but still that would suck
So in my DnD games and fantasy stuff, I tend to model Orcish culture after Mongolian culture a bit, and when you mentioned the whole raining death from afar, fleeing, and doing so again, I realised that orcish horse archers would be a hell of a lot more deadly than they were historically. They could be upon you, gone, and back again before you even noticed they were there in the first place
Warhammer fantasy had a faction of Mongolian influenced Hobgoblins
or orc boar rider archers. the orcs in warhammer fantasy had war boars
Warg archers? Huh that sounded menacing
@@dragonseer6667
Or giant wolves, ether way you have a mount that fights well in melee
Imagine them riding Elephants
"You can not wear full plate armor 24/7"
Well I mean, ya can. Might lose its charm after a bit but if you are that paranoid you are that paranoid
I'm pretty sure you literaly can't, since you would be tired all the time and would easily overheat.
Most Orcs in fantasy, their 'intelligence' deficiency is like 'mathematical' intelligence. They generally have a wisdom score like humans and as survivalists they can be quite 'clever' and possess a great about of ingenuity. So I'd take that into account. I do like the use of bows, the big thing though is their eyesight in some fantasy settings tends to be cruddy at long range, hence often represented by their poor 'ballistic' skills. HOWEVER, some fantasy settings have them having excellent night vision, which means unlike humans they could advance under cover of darkness and unload short range volleys.
so lets call it less strategical
so lets call it less strategical
I've always seen it less actual intelligence, and more that they were less technologically advanced early on, and more importantly, have been constantly chat upon and raided so they can't catch up in tech. That has then pushed their culture to revere simplistic tech and to insult research and designs or anything but getting stronger
but many of them are blindin one eye and have no sense of perspective
Kingman Highborn you can see at night too.
Just cover one of your eyes at night while watching somethomg on your phone for 5-10 minutes, the uncovet the other eye. One that seen brightness of the phone is pretty much blind in the dark,whil other one sees almost everything in same circumstances.
One great limitation Orcs mights have is that they might be too large to ride horses, depending on which interpretation you're using. And if that is the case and they also don't have creatures large enough to carry their extra weight in full armor, then that would mean that they would be predominately infantry. That would mean that they would have a mobility disadvantage on a strategic level, and an effective commander could use their cavalry to counter the advantage in the orcish bows
They'd ride chargers, warhorses the size of modern Clydesdales. Medieval warhorses carried a man in full plate, while wearing plate armor. That's a lot of weight. You might have to give up some armor, but mounted archers don't need it, especially since they are firing from beyond enemy range.
I definitely agree with that, if the orcs aren't much larger than a human then they wouldn't have and problems that I could see. But if they're the size of the orcs in warcraft I'm not completely certain that even a charger could hold them in full armor, at least not be able to carry them as fast as a human. Although I will say that the orcs don't really strike me as the mounted archer type, especially if they're using war bows similar to the English longbow. But if they used a powerful recurve bow I think they would be the most devastating mounted archers in fantasy, which would be awesome
Which horses are you talking about? because I can imagine most orcs being able to ride a Clydesdale at least.
well they are bigger and stronger, why not sit them on bisons or other bigger animals (rino also sound great?)
Humans cant ride bisons because humans are too weak but orcs have the strenght and size needed. Armor bison orc warriors would give one hell of a punch on impact. i Doubt any human army would not run away by the sight of orc heavy cavalery.
I think they would be mainly to stupid to breed horses.
orc: sees a onr handed sword
also orc: butterknife.
They arent that big tbh. Uruk-Hai are half orcs wich make sthem bigger orcs are actually small.
In most works orcs are like, 1.5 times bigger than humans. They're not huge like giants.
In most works orcs are like, 1.5 times bigger than humans. They're not huge like giants.
one not onr
I love the way you describe weapons in terms of their situationality. I never considered it before but basically a standard sword at your side is like carrying a pistol, vs lugging a rifle (and several bandoliers of ammo belts) around everywhere, something you'd only do if you expected to go to war that day.
They're big and strong.. put them in plate armor and give em a big heavy axe or sword and say "charge!!"... watch that shield wall flinch.
and then give an orc with full Tier 2 set and a Shield with the blade of The Prince and woosh there goes your army
with a single blow
You say flinch, but I don't know a single human who would try to block a wall of orcs. Dodge, maybe, but damn well not block
I'll deploy dwarvens with musket then.
@Padraig c I wonder if, with their higher muscle mass, orcs are more vulnerable to overheating in heavy armor. Don't know how realistic that would be, but seems like a halfway decent justification. (They are also usually not connected to the industry needed to produce such armor.)
@@michaelramon2411 i don't think that is how muscles work tbh
Great video, Shad, and I'm loving the series. Keep up the great work!
A few ideas for you:
Weapons for faeries (the nasty folklore sort, not the Tinkerbell kind) especially considering their size and aversion to iron.
Weapons for centaurs (cavalry weapons, maybe?)
Weapons for goblins, kobolds and similar
Weapons for halflings or hobbit types
Weapons for FIGHTING dragons and other large creatures (also, defences against such creatures)
And some ideas for related videos:
The tactics you'd expect the fantasy races to use if they were using your suggested weapons
Which race(s) would each race, if they're all using your suggested weapons, have the greatest advantage against in a fight
The kind of fortifications fantasy races might use, given their typical locale and them using your suggested weapons
The sort of armour or protection (i.e. shields, bucklers) you'd expect each fantasy race to favour (assuming similar tech levels)
Hey buddy, I'll give you my 2 cents on each of the creatures to tide you over until you get Shad's ideas.
Faeries: Archery, naturally, since bows and arrows can be made without any metal at all.
Centaurs: Archery, naturally, since horseback archers in the real world (Mongolians, Japanese) are incredibly threatening.
Goblins & Kobolds: Archery, but only using crossbows like the dwarves for reasons discussed in that video.
Hobbits & Gnomes: Same as above: Archery! With Crossbows! Small, weak critters don't wanna be anywhere near something that can smash them!
Fighting Dragons, Kaiju, and other Large Beasties: Dude, have you caught the pattern yet? You're either trying to hit something with a torso 10-30 feet off the ground while it's walking around, or just outright flying. Good luck slashing a dragon to pieces with a sword while it's breathing fire on you from 200 feet up. That said, a ballista is probably a more aggressive weapon for piercing scale and hide, but it's a siege weapon. Then again, dragons are living siege weapons.
So there you go.
Archery.
For everyone.
Thanks! Hadn't considered the archery for centaurs, but that would absolutely be an advantage. I guess bowyers (bow-makers) are going to be making a tidy profit in this universe.
For faeries you should consider the fact that most faeries tend to live in places where archery is not exactly practical. If a group of faeries ever took to the field to fight, then yes archery would be very effective. But remember that faeries tend to live in forests (though some kinds also live in mountains, fields, water, etc.). So in that case I think smaller weapons (they probably couldn't effectively use larger blades anyway) like knives would be very useful - especially if they use the forest to disappear and ambush the enemy.
Another important factor is what *kind* of faeries these are. If they just live in the forest, knives and bows would be best. If they live in some other world, they may have access to fantastical materials that could substitute for traditional metals.
Then of course many faeries aren't humanoid at all: they might have claws, powerful tails, or super strength among other factors. Relatedly, the inherent magical abilities of faeries have to be taken into account. If you can spam fireballs or lightning, why would you ever need archery?
Since it's relevant, I'll copypasta from my other comment:
[copy]When I was world-building around an RPG I considered writing, I decided that most orcs are primitive barbarians who rarely if ever get access to any kind of metal. And since most of them live as small, self-reliant tribes, they really couldn't make anything as complicated as armor or crossbows, so they would end up fighting with weapons out of the stone age - spears, clubs, stone axes, boomerangs, bolas, and very rarely some might have the resources and craftsmanship to make a flint sword or a longbow.
In that setting however there would have been one particular super-tribe of "Iron Orcs," so called because they were powerful enough to enslave other races of orcs and goblins and such to mine and craft steel for them.
The ruling class of that tribe wore armor-like costumes assembled piecemeal from leather and steel bits made en mass by the slaves, which looked utilitarian, but were usually more aesthetic in purpose.
*EDIT:* I misspoke(/typed) originally. The *warriors* would be wearing actual armor, and surely much of the ruling class would as well. It's just that the women and craftsmen (there are no active children, they grow until mid-to-late adolescence in spawning pits) would be wearing the cosplay outfits. The warriors actually want to stop stabby things from entering their squishy parts. Obviously. But the true armor would still be modified mostly for aesthetics.
So imagine if someone tried to make a Mad Max costume using only tools available in the Iron Age, and that's what these specific orcs looked like.
Anyway, they had the resources to make swords, so they did, and many warriors would try to get his sword to be as big and intimidating as possible (within reason) designing it sot so much because he expects to get into a lethal fight with an equal opponent, but more because he wants to impress his peers and scare his victims and rivals.
Some of the smarter Iron Orcs might prefer flails and crossbows, and even use armor mods that are practical as opposed to scary.[/pasta]
For context, they come from a place in that in the setting, was basically equivalent to the less hospitable parts of Africa. I never put terribly much thought into why the more advanced cultures even went to that land in the first place, but I suppose they could have had a surplus of iron or gems or something.
Well, I thought that was interesting at least. But then again, I wrote it, so maybe others find it really boring. I don't know. I hate my life.
> Flint swords
> Cosplay armor
> Oversized weapons for cool factor
Your orcs sound at their very worst actively trying to be stupid and at best total weebs.
If you want my advice, give the orcs a culture that endorses success in their environment. Intimidation is only so effective for creatures that raid for what they need - other creatures will fight back, scared or no, and being unprepared for battle then does the orcs a disservice. Aside from the flint swords, your "primitive" orcs are leaps and bounds ahead of the iron orcs for brutal, simple pragmatism. And yes, I understand that the orcs are physically stronger, but tactics are much more important. If the weapons don't work, the wielder dies. If the armor don't work, the wearer dies. People can't take slaves if they're dead. Iron Orcs don't happen without slaves, no matter how powerful they are.
I'd also like to state that while I'm critical of your ideas, I'm not uninterested or trying to rag on you like you're a bad writer. Consider it as a way to improve your ideas to make them more realistic and effective for the setting they're in.
in the game "War of the ring" (one of the older LOTR games) the Uruk Hai standard soldier actually used bows, and they were able to knock enemies away on hit which always felt really good if you had a big army of them, just seeing enemy units fly en mass.
Can you do centaurs next?
Lances and bows.
k
Arlindo Jacuniak actually, a lance might not be so good for centaurs, as the impact of hitting a target is taken by their spine, potentially snapping it. They have almost no way of bracing
how about armor?
TheBeetle human armor for the torso, horse armor for the horse part. No real difference there
Medieval weapons were made for humans to fight other humans... so what would a culture create if they had to fight ogres and wyverns, much less giants and dragons? Would they just create medieval halberds, poleaxes, and pikes... or something more exotic? I'm thinking, especially something with more emphasis on defense because having something that big actually take a swing at you would be pretty intimidating, while also being able to penetrate deeply to attack organs within a much larger body, and able to penetrate armored hide would be pretty vital. Watching the tests of medieval weapons against ordinary gambeson is pretty sobering.
Indeed. If you take a look at medieval hunting weapons you'll see a lot of things that are quite different from what one would use to fight a man. Three-bladed spears, gun-swords and even gun spears, all of these were used to hunt boars. Humans would most likely use very specific weapons to fight things like ogres and dragons that would depend on the tactics employed to take them down.
the problem is you cannot give every man in your army the best weapon against a race, if dwarves, humans, elves and orcs are in almost constant war you cannot go about making 3 weapons for every human the cost would just be too great. You could make some devisions in every specification but then you just get a massive problem with numbers. Lets say your weapon makes it so 2 humans can kill 3 orcs (what is a very good ratio) you would equip 1/3th of your army with this weapon and the weapons against elves and dwarves would set the orcs in an advantage setting the entirety of your army in a disadvantage.
You have to keep in mind these races are not like bears who only have claws and their bite, these actualy have weapons what changes the game
Ogres like what? >3m tall and >350kg of mass? Is he armored? Then you'd need scorpions and the like. A disciplined pike/halberd formation might stand a chance at the defense, use moats and stakes to fortify your position even further.
Why would you fight wyverns? If anything you'd hunt them. If they're as smart as animals try poisoning through bait meal.
Giants and Dragons - you're screwed. But then again they shouldn't be existing without some serious magic in place, so use magic to fight them.
shad talkes about 10 to 30cm taller, so they should just be able to ride horses (probably need to breed a slightly lager seize)
Again there are reasons humans choice horses over other animals, we are only so strong so we were limited to a certain range, orc's would be a higher range and would have bred other animals for centuries and probably bred to larger animals then they had at first (bear riding?)
Since orcs are actualy stronger and bigger then humans they could just carry arround some big pikes and put them in the ground when the enemy cav shows up. goodluck running up to a bunch of pikes in the ground, thats how you get your knights killed. Also the great orc archers would just fire on the knights, the knights trempling eachother and blocking eachother when dropping death. I don't actualy see a way of horses getting into the ranks of an orc army
Check bear spears, such as "rogatina" and boar spears, they have kind of a cross-guard right after the blade to prevent the target from getting too close when impaled with a spear, these would 100% be used against big, heavy and slow creatures like ogres.
That scene in lotr where Aragorn kills those uruks so easily is because those uruks have had months of training and Aragorn has had up to 80 years of training
He should be stronger and larger then them as well and his weapon might have mystical properties. .. however I would guess that Uruks has more then months of training, they are elite soldiers and show considerable higher disciplin then other orcs.
they are BRED to be elite, the Uruk-hai of Isengard are different to standard orcs. in film cannon, we SEE Lurtz (the one who kills Boromir) get "made" in the Fellowship of the ring. he is only a year old at MOST by the ambush at Amon Hen. In the book, Ugluk (who was the captain) had a similar if not shorter lifespan.
Uglúk is less then a year old? What do you base that on? I find that very hard to believe.
Toxic_Burger that's actually a very good point
Not to mention he is a Numenorean(lesser but still) he would be stronger than the normal human
"They only have a reach advantage because they're high"
Give me orc drugs please
How do humans survive in Fantasy worlds when every other race is stronger and just as smart
YeOldFart, probably a huge bias towards the human species as superior to all which is frankly in some cases a load of bull, and not just a load but a huge load of bull. The idea that humans are superior to any fantasy race, more racism and bias, is like saying a tiny dinosaur can beat a horde of M1 Abrams tanks, not gonna happen at all.
Humans are adaptable
they often reproduce far faster than othr races, and beat then through sheer weight of numbers
No Orcs breed faster then humans at least in D&D only 10 years for an orc to be mature compared to a 18 year old human. The reason why humans survive more often in the world is because of tactics, and they usually are friends with people like Elves, and Dwarves, who can help them become stronger and survive against beasts that they cannot take normally. Like for example Elves in most fantasy settings have been civilized for thousands of years and some help humans teach them magic, etc. Dwarves teach them how to forge superior weapons to what Orcs can and grants them better defenses against Orcs.
Next thing look at what creatures are insanely stronger then humans are usually very fractious like Orcs, there are hundreds of tribes fighting each other all the time. Giants same thing. Trolls they are out in the wilds and too busy hunting. Etc.
Humans can be anything easily. Mighty warriors,Gifted mages, talented thieves. Humans learn from other races. Magic from elves, Technology from dwarves, and combat from orcs. Humans evolve.
Orcs would benefit from huge bows and even larger polearms than what we can use.
High Master Johannes Lichtenauer How come no one's said this yet?Also imagine the shields...
you mean shields twice the size of a man? Go look at the chaos units of warhammer. They should give you a pretty good idea...
cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/204395775726190592/300011205148278805/image.jpg something like this for shields roflcopter
Which is what the video was about
depends on how how tactically minded the orc of that particular lore are.
For most of the big dumb brute types, I think they could really fuck shit up with a couple huge ass iron clubs. also if you have the type of orcs that prone to loosing their shit, and mindlessly tearing into the enemy, then having some kind of bladed gauntlet affixed to their armor would be ideal so they would have something they couldn't drop when they go into a blood frenzy.
Bows seem relatively unpopular for orcs for cultural reasons. Orcs like to spill blood with their own hands, and in LOTR they are happy to eat sentient creatures such as hobbits.
But, that said, I think that bows are seriously underused by orcs.
There is one other factor at play, and that is that orcs are not really defensive people. They don't tend to create fortresses or great castles. In Elder Scrolls they have wooden strongholds, in LOTR they often have cave systems or stolen fortresses, and in Forgotten Realms they are similar to LOTR, but none of these are much like the creations of humans or elves.
Sometimes, orcs don't even settle in one place. And this is a problem, because archers need supplies--arrows. Orcs often live in small, nomadic groups, and often in the mountains. It is relatively harder to supply arrows when you're not part of a large nation. LOTR depicts this well. Roaming bands of orcs or raiding parties rarely carry bows, but the war machines of Sauron and Saruman are both able to produce great amounts of arrows through industry, even in the wastelands of Mordor.
This is also why Obould Many-Arrows is such a devastating figure in Forgotten Realms. He is an intelligent orc who manages to organize an orcish nation with proper supply lines for war. And he RAVAGES his corner of the world. And he manages to defend what he takes, partially with bows.
I strongly encourage that you read up on Obould if you like the Forgotten Realms setting. R. A. Salvatore wrote him into the Legend of Drizzt series, in which the titular character is a dual-wielding elf!
It sounds like Salvatore's literature reflects your ideas fairly well.
Prometheus720 Plenty of nomadic peoples were archers, so moving around does not prevent the production of arrows.
^ @Chaotic, point here is, they are offensive creatures who likes hand to hand combat. you cannot see everything as a human's perspective or world would need resetting if they do what shad say. in other perspective like what we could have done if shad was evolved alien.
The Orcs from Elder Scrolls are not the same as in LotR. The Orcs in TES are educated and "free" people. In TES they don't only have wooden fortresses, the also have some castles, that they either build or conquered, they also have one big city called "Orsinium", it was under siege many times but always rebuild
Drizzt is a bad ass, I read The Thousand Orcs trilogy in middle school, really good books.
Some* of Salvatore's literature. While I respect him as an author, one who has written many solid books/series (I'm speaking to Drizzt and the Companions, haven't read his other works outside of those characters tbh), his literature often does not have the kind of grounding or realism, nor really the continuity in some aspects such as magic, fighting, etc. I think this is mainly due to him writing for WotC and the Forgotten Realms world; he is forced to adapt to them, and THEN having his characters, world rules, etc change, rather than having his own world where he can make things a bit more grounded. That being said, I absolutely love the Thousand Orcs, the Orc King, the Pirate King, and the two books where Entreri and Jarlaxle are in Vaasa together! Those ones seem the most grounded in reality (as much as high fantasy and WotC can be!) and he really fleshes out the the characters in these. I particularly like the books with Entreri and Jarlaxle, as those ones show characters who are both highly skilled and resourceful, but have distinct weak spots as well.
6:21 This is how I look at it. We see the creation of the Uruk-hai, being created and equipped with swords shields and helmets/armor BUT what we do not see is them being trained how to use the bows and swords "properly" Now granted the Main Uruk-Hai that got his head chopped off by Aragorn was pretty decent with a bow, BUT lets be real, he was only about 20 feet away when he was sticking arrows into Boromir, So I look at it as they are big and strong and thus they can swing a sword decently enough to do some real damage, BUT Aragorn was a highly trained Ranger, who was an EXCELLENT Swordsman, so it would make sense that someone with years of training in swordsmanship would be able to cut through a large number of Uruk-Hai with relative ease due to having "Skill" with a sword. You have at least some practice with a sword, but how long do you think you would last against someone who has trained with swords and other weapons for most of their life?
Can you make "Best weapons for 4-handed creatures"?
Two twohanders, or a threehander and a dagger - obviously. X-D
Dual bows.
A really really big zweihander, pikes and polearms equal in length to sarissas, if they extremely dextrous they could even wield 4 blades.
two longswords would not be good, because the weapons can easily become tangled and if you block with both (star wars style) the opponent now controls both. However, if said fourhanded creature is stronger than the average human, said creature could use a bow/crossbow and longsword, a longsword and two daggers, a bow/crossbow and two daggers, or a bow/crossbow aming sword and dagger. Yeah four arms (I'm assuming each hand has its's own arm) leaves you with a LOT of possibilities.
crossbow for 2 hands, sword and shield for other two.
waaaaaaaaaaait, there are 2 types of orcs.... greenskins and tolkien orcs....
which one are we talking about now..
edit, seems like he is talking about greenskins
Maethen Dias obviously not enuf dakka to be talkin bout greenskins. Filthy humie talkin bout fantasy orkz is unacceptable. Ill grab im by his teef.
LETS GO BOSS
Dat'z Orcz... Orkz is dat Space stuff and includes dem Gobbo thing "Gretchins"
There are actually a lot more than 2 types of orcs.
There are also Orsimer from TES or Orcs from Warcraft which are both pretty different from Warhammer or Middle-earth orcs. In fact each fantasy setting has their own more or less different orcs.
Orks: we have a numerical advantage and are stronger than you
Aragon: Plot armour!
Orcs: we have a numerical advantage and are stronger than you
Aragorn: But what about DRAGONS?
The most important question in life.
Orcs: We have numerical advantages and are stronger than you
Aragorn: I have a Legolas
Remember guys, Numenoreans are vastly stronger and bigger than normal humans and the Uruk-Hai are still smaller and weaker than a normal man (Peter Jackson didn't show that very well did he?). 80 year old 6'6" Aragorn fighting all his life against the forces of darkness vs. 5 ft tall men who have lived a few short years at most even if they have been training for most of it. This isn't a fair fight without huge numbers.
Orcs in Lotr are weaker than men, especially a Numenorean
@@Alex_Fahey Peter Jackson did show the Orcs being made just a few weeks before they attacked the Fellowship, and with no training whatsoever. So there's that :D
9:37 "Full plate mail"
*Confused screaming*
Full plate, mail
ERE WE GO, ERE WE GO, ERE WE GO!!! GET UR CHOPPAZ LADZ, WE'Z HEADDED TO A FIGHT! WWWWWWWWAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!
Dakka dakka.
It's orks not orcs so let's crump dis git boyz
WHERE'S DA ARRER BOYS!!!!!
Dem Humies an' Stunties don' stand a chance! Time for a good an' propa WAAAAAAGH!
Youz wanna know why we Orkz is always usin' "axes" for choppas? Cuz Orkz ain't just made for fightin', ORKZ IS MADE FOR ROCKIN'!!! WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGH!!!!!
The real answer is based on my orc character 'Ungol Slam' who used a high calibur heavy machine gun while making america puns as an orc would ( kills a tank and yells 'dont tred on me')
Da ork likes dakka? Does he use choppa too?
Your discussion of the advantages of orc bows reminds me of how the Mongols were so devastating. The ability to get into and out of the enemy's range quickly with powerful bows cannot be oversold.
I think orcs generally have a lower lifespan then other races, partly because of their brutish lifestyle.
This would give them less time to master a weapon like a bow, which requires a lot of practice, and more likely to pick something up that's easy to use. As opposed to elves who have many years to master archery.
Also for cultural reasons bows would be less popular as they prefer close 'in your face' combat.
Most of the time they live longer than human
Were Orcs ever known for archery? I always thought Orcs peeferred to get up close and personal for battle glory
Especially in the Elder Scrolls since in most Orc culture, it dictates that when an Orc is close to becoming old (close to being old mind you, not already old) they would seek out a “Good Death” (A good fight in which they lose despite their best efforts) before they grow old and can’t feasibly fight anymore.
they wouldn't be able to use bows
because even if they get a bow and arrows, the arrows will not be available and they can't make them with their intellect. if the bow breaks, they cant fix anything.
even with a bow, they had no time to learn, because orc life is short.
RVINDVNCE Mmmm that’s more Goblin, not Orc. Orc’s aren’t just big dumb idiots (Sometimes, but not all the time) and they definitely know how to make arrows and bows. Even the dumbest Orcs in Pop culture (Lord of The rings orcs to be specific) can use a bow and make arrows.
"Ten centimeters to a foot."I LOVE you! That's so beautifully English, combining the metric and imperial systems in one sentence. Beautiful. I might have to use this in a class on dialects in English. Just wonderful!
About the hordes. To quote TVTropes: Conservation of Ninjutsu. In any martial arts fight, there is only a finite amount of ninjutsu available to each side in a given encounter. As a result, one Ninja is a deadly threat, but an army of them are cannon fodder.
The uruk-hai that Aragorn met in that scene were basically just born ...
80+ year old Dunedain vs a bunch of literal Big Baby Orcs.
As somone currently in the process of writing a book where the main character is an Orc, I thank you for having made this video. And wow... I REALLY underestimated how powerful bows can be in the right hands.
also Aragorn is a Numenorean. Think a stronger, much longer living, hardier human
Zack McKague just longer living. Not stronger.
More than a man, less than a god
He was basically Captain America.
By the time of Aragorn the Numenorian blood was so thin that they really only had an extra 50 years. Aragorn was different because he married and elf and weird things happen when you marry an elf so he ended up living to like 300 if I remember right. Aragorn is also stupidly skilled at basically everything. He traveled the entire world of Middle Earth being called the greatest huntsman if the age, led both Rohan and Gondor to victory against the forces of evil as Thorongil with his crowning achievement or at least my favorite was defeating the Captain of the Umbar Corsairs in single combat at the helm of his own ship. Aragorn probably was about as strong as Boromir who himself was a bit of a beast of a man however Aragorn had so much longer to train and gain experience that he can do basically whatever he wants.
@Rill That is true and I'm not sure why I said marrying Arwen was a reason, I meant that it might have had something to do with the Evenstar Pendant she gave him. He really only had double the average lifespan of normal humans since he died at 210 instead of 300 like I said, that's still about half the span of the previous Numenorian kings. Which is still awesome but my point was he wasn't post-human because he was of numenorian blood, that simply increased his life by about 100 years.
So the big take away from this series so far: Bows are super useful weapons
Fakjbf Well, properly made ones ARE. The early "dark ages" bows were not as powerful, just as early horses were not destrier/drafthorse size.
A range weapon is generally more powerful than hand weapons, but is the later manages to get to the former, something that was very common before the destructive power of the gun was introduced, then the range weapons will lose hands down.
Fakjbf
Don't forget the spears
In Warhammer orks lack fine manual dexterity almost entirely. Their strength is similar to the strength of a chimpanzee whose nervous system is good for activating a lot of muscle at once but can't activate a few little muscles for finer work.
DEM GRRENSKIN BOYZ GOT DAT WAUGH ENERGY!
Da fraze iz "BIG GREEN ENERGY" ya git! WAAAAAAAAGH! iz jus' wot youz do when youz energy iz big an' green
WAAAAAAAAAAAGHHH!!!!
DA BESTEZ WEAPON IS A SHOOTA CUZ IT GO DAKKA
@@deathkorpswatchmaster2414 yeah right, the best weapon you're getting is a shovel. Return to the line
@@deathkorpswatchmaster2414 DA BEST WEAPON IS DA CHOPPA, MAYBE EVEN A CHOPPA WITH DAKKA
Poleaxe, noun; plural: poleaxes.
Def.: A Dane axe on steroids.
Dane axe, noun; plural, Dane axes.
Def.: something that will fuck you and your buddies up big time
Orkz however would still use choppas and every kind of dakka out there. With an accuracy and intelligence of a potato. Standard levels of British intelligence. The accuracy being if it misses it was friendly, if it hits it was an enemy.
Of course they also possess reality warping magix. They are able to build spaceships out of scrap metals. Also being able to reproduce asexually by spores.
Dakka dakka dakka dakka dakka dakka.
Da Boss, Grimgor Ironhide, is da biggest and da baddest!
WAAAGH!!!
undertakernumberone1 No I is da biggest and da strongest 'ere! Me boyz will take all yer teef.
From the guy who invented orcs:
"In the dimmed light their number could only be guessed, but the Dúnedain were plainly many times, even to ten times, outnumbered. Isildur commanded a thangail to be drawn up, a shield-wall of two serried ranks that could be bent back at either end if outflanked, until at need it became a closed ring. If the land had been flat or the slope in his favour he would have formed his company into a dírnaith and charged the Orcs, hoping by the great strength of the Dúnedain and their weapon to cleave a way through them and scatter them in dismay; but that could not be done. A shadow of foreboding fell upon his heart.
`The vengeance of Sauron lives on, though he may be dead,' he said to Elendur, who stood beside him. `There is cunning and design here! We have no hope of help: Moria and Lórien are now far behind, and Thranduil four days' march ahead.' `And we bear burdens of worth beyond all reckoning,' said Elendur; for he was in his father's confidence.
The Orcs were now drawing near. Isildur turned to his esquire: `Ohtar,' he said, `I give this now into your keeping'; and he delivered to him the great sheath and the shards of Narsil, Elendil's sword. `Save it from capture by all the means that you can find, and at all costs; even at the cost of being held a coward who deserted me. Take your companion with you and flee! Go ! I command you!' Then Ohtar knelt and kissed his hand, and the two young men fled down in the dark valley.
If the keen-eyed Orcs marked their flight they took no heed. They halted briefly, preparing their assault. First they let fly a hail of arrows, and then suddenly with a great shout they did as Isildur would have done, and hurled a great mass of their chief warriors down the last slop against the Dúnedain, expecting to break up their shield-wall. *But it stood firm. The arrows had been unavailing against the Númenórean armour. The great Men towered above the tallest Orcs, and their swords and spears far outreached the weapons of their enemies. The onslaught faltered, broke and retreated, leaving the defenders little harmed, unshaken, behind piles of fallen Orcs*."
As for the Uruk Hai, they are taller, grimmer and more soldiery than orcs, nearly as tall as men, not taller and not stronger. The idea that Orcs are physically superior comes from derivative works by other authors, not Tokien.
Pasan Well said . And well read .
Pasan It's not portrayed that way in the movies, unfortunately, so the common misconception is that Tolkien orcs were stronger than humans.
What book was this quoted from? Definitely not the Silmarillion so my guess is The Children of Hurin?
That passage comes from "The Disaster of Gladden Fields" published by Christopher Tolkien in the volume "The Unfinished Tales".
Sorry for saying this you minspelled Tolkien
I wish you could get together with the D&d guys and either remake a version or a completely new tabletop game with these ideas
renobLE vg yes
Was hoping you’d mention axes. Axes can break an enemy block because of the force, the strength of the orc would make this tactic much more reliable
i would use a big bag of pommels to end my enemies rightly
Or Spandaus
Agamemnon or Spandaus that shoot pommels
no spantana??! u mad?
lame
Now I have to include a +1 Bag of Pommels in my next monster's treasure pile.
0:30 That gnome is 'presenting' that half-orc's junk like some kind of magic trick, and the half-orc looks terribly un-amused.
Pretty much what I thought when I saw that picture in a D&D character statistical manual.
"HELL. Or heaven so... is it a loss?" best line ever
I think culture would dictate whether bows would be commonplace for Orcs moreso than physique. When I think of Orcs in combat, I always think of them in your face, beating the snot out of you or hacking you to pieces with wicked, brutal weapons.
Engaging with a bow, especially at long range I imagine would be too easy for them, or not embracing 'real' battle: face to face, strength to strength. Bows would be superior tactically, and perhaps would be used in some settings, but would go against their culture, and therefore be less common. Just my thoughts on it.
Maybe they would use javelins?
+I dont know how to name things. i imagine throwing axes and slings would also be common ranged weapons among orcs, since they are more brutal than bows and are easier to make.
Here is the other thing to consider, Orcish culture in most fantasy settings has an element of taking slaves. They are lazy. They raid weak villages to have slaves to cook for them to watch their herds, or they take the women for reasons. So the bow is not a good fit for them because of that. They would much rather go close in to slaughter their foes or knock them out then to kill them from a distance with bows.
As the Klingons say there is no greater honor than victory
i think the development of bows is the biggest thing that hamstrings orks, why because the first bows would not impress orcs and by the time a bow strong enough to impress them was developed (other than balistari, which are too complex) they would be too assiotated with the weaker races of men elves and dawfs. historically javilins are more common than bows and would likely be used by humans and orcs from very early on. slings require skill and patience i find hard to believe in orks ( i also daught orcs would spend the time on bows, esspically early bows) throwing axes would probably be invented by orcs when one throws one in anger and likes how it works and so develops a better one. for ranged weapons i imagine humans(and tolkien uruks) would have javilins, bows and crossbows mainly, elves bows and knives/darts, half-lings/goblins/moria orcs composite bows,crossbows and slings, dawfs steel bows and cross bows, orcs javlins and throwing axes, with steel bows by a few latter.
Orc warbows. That's some brutal cunning right there.
The question of what halflings would use will be the most interesting one, the reach of a dwarf but without the added strength.
Nimroc ya but it's obvious. They will use sandwiches.
in lord of the rings they are not that war like but are capable hunters. bow, spear and traps would work well when it comes to a hunt.
Maybe due to their size and agility guerilla tactics with something like slings. At least hobbits from lotr were always very good at hiding.
nondorian The Halflongs in WHFantasy use bows and slings
Short swords and bucklers/small shields for melee range so they can get in close where they have the advantage, then probably slings and crossbows.
Shad, could you do an episode on what Neanderthals would've used should they live up to Middle Ages.
What would neanderthals use vs dinosaurs...
You do know Neanderthals were humans
@@stefvanroey8191 You got something mixed up by a few hundred million years there
Of course i know, i went to school like the rest of us. Just seemed fun to analyse an incorrect movie thrope.
@@nickkohlmann Did you know, that despite all out-of-Africa human populations share some 2-6% of Neanderthal genes, so that on average your grand-grand-grand-granny was a Neanderthal, and that law melanin levels in the skin of northern Europeans are likely to be an adaptation inherited from Neanderthals, those still had quite a different physique, adapted for living in the cold climate, and these adaptations persisted even in genuinely neanderthal populations who then migrated to more temperate - up to tropical - altitudes. And although different populations of homo sapiens living in similar arid conditions acquired many similar adaptations, they at very least may be used as examples of what Neanderthals were likely to use, should their unmixed population survive and retain most of their original features for another 40000 years.
2:03
**flashbacks to World Warcraft**
**cries because Gilneas never got the justice they deserved**
Nor the Kaledori.
Nor Theramore.
Nor the Kul Tirans whom the Horde nailed to their own homestead walls.
Nor... anyone in the Alliance, really. Because whenever the Alliance dares to attack the Horde in retaliation for the shit they pull, it must either be a victory with a massive downside or somehow them being the bad guys even as Sylvanas is trying to enslave a deity to her will so she can make more slaves...
2:01 ha! I remember that trailer.
Human: "Whelp. My mind is blown. You try stabbing the panda."
Orc: "Yeah.....yeah, I'll do that."
"So, it was a bear?"
Leo Ryff "In a hat!"
Never really thought about what weapons an orc would use in battle but it was really interesting to hear your thoughts on the matter. The idea of orc bows being much stronger than human bows honestly makes a lot of sense considering how much stronger orcs are typically depicted as being compared to humans.
The thing with Aragorn is that he's trained his whole life, he's a total badass, that's why it is easy for him to fight Uruk-hai. Look at the Battle of Helms Deep, there you can see what happens to people who are not Aragorn. They just destroyed everyone including elves. Nice video btw.
I now kind of want to make a Half-Orc Archer as my next D&D character and dedicate all my early resources into the bow (with some added backstory to warrant having such a strong bow) so as to get a 1d8+4/5 bow.
Try DDO {Dungeons & Dragons ONLINE!} - Half Orc Ranger/Fighter Multiclass Arcane Archer/Kensai Enhancement Trees.
Though I'm afraid H-Orc is a P2P race {You can either pay a monthly subscription or you can buy the race separate - probably cheaper to pay the monthly subscription for one month {and get almost everything rather than just buying one thing} see how you like the game.
The Impish Dullahan in my current DnD session that I am playing, I am playing a half-Giant Battlemaster archer, the Dm is making me buy javelins for my arrows
Must be a hefty sum, that. Sounds a little bit like the Aruni in the tabletop RPG I once tried to write: they could be nine feet tall and had special weapons and rules regarding combat like that.
yeah it gets expensive if i lose any arrows in combat, but fortunately i have like a plus 5 to hit in total, so he lets me scavenge most of them from the bodies
I play DDO online!
I need to try out a build like that, it could be really fun, now I'm playing around with a human war/art/pal using a bastard sword combined with a rune arm. It's really effective (not as effective as a pure, but fun nevertheless, being able to picklock,disarm traps, buff myself etc)
Just for shits & giggles.
Orkz alweyz picks da' rite wepon, kuz orks iz made ta' fite an' win!
we guard tha golden bridge
WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
*I CEE 'UMIES!!!!*
LOOKZ LOYK A WAAAAHG TA ME BOYYZ!
Red onez go fasta!
This video made me feel safe with the next semi-boss my party is getting into, shes an Orc with a strong big bow (you need 18 STR just to shoot it, 20 to shoot it regularly) with arrows dipped into poison. Love the series so much!
Actually, what's interesting is that I read a fantasy novel called Monster Hunter International by Larry Correia and he makes a very interesting adaptation of orcs. In terms of appearance, the orcs vary in color between being a bluish-grey (like Tolkien orcs) to being a greenish-brown (like Warcraft orcs), they also vary in physical size, the largest males (the warriors) being around the size of the average human but much stronger and faster. But as you said, the orc's weapons are related to their culture, the orcs in the novel have a culture that is more into hunting rather than warfare. So their weapons are usually swords, polearms, and weapons that would be used for hunting. But one of the best warriors in the orc tribe uses dual swords that he straps on his back due to a preference of tactics, which is a preference to use guerrilla-like tactics to fight. But unlike your conclusion, they don't really use bow and arrows since they are a tribe that prefer mounted attacks on wargs with swords and polearms, which is probably they reason why they're smaller, but they will use guns since the setting is modern.
"A pole axe is basic a dane axe on steroids"
when i subscribed
Elves aren't all that hot now. I'm into something *breathes deeply though the nose* fresh...
Hello Shad ! As a player of AD&D 1st since 1980 , DMing since 1982 , my idea of orcs is a bit old school . I understand that orcs supply and equip themselves but raiding and Warfare. They are good miners , almost as good as dwarves , but their industry is far inferior . The hard work of mining explains their greater strength , not genetics . The individual orc of normal strength would bulk up or die , probably killed by his taskmasters . His flesh eaten by his coworkers to conserve protein. . The tools of mining would be the only weapons made by orcish industry , sophisticated weapons would be taken from defeated victims , as orcish smith's haven't the knowledge of steel , only iron . ( low intelligence ) The Monster Manual states that their weapons are usually badly kept . So any arms and armor would be used up then discarded , used for scrap , or kit bashed into some kind of weird weapon. Their eyesight is poor in full daylight , which they avoid , but they have night vision , Their night vision is much shorter than the range of even a short bow, so archery isn't their thing . Besides , tuning arrows to their bow would be beyond their intellect. And yes , arrows must be properly spined, cut , and tapered to fly properly . So any bows and arrows would be used up and tossed away . Yes , a few gifted orc craftsmen may exist , but orcs lack the discipline to deploy archery effectively . They would probably use archers piecemeal , loose arrows indiscriminately, and be left with empty quivers when needed . They might even waste arrows while on the March shooting at the local fawna like a child with a new toy . ( chaotic evil ) Archers that fled , even in a feigned retreat , would be held in contempt as cowards by their peers . The problem with your logic is just that , it's logic . Something few orcs possess. Good thought like yours wouldn't last long in an orcish army unless a strong , domineering general ( Evil Wizard ) were in command . Just my thoughts . Thanks for posting .
He mentioned he was only looking at the physical charecteristics.
***** Yes you're right . But the brain is an organ , and no brain can be trained beyond its capabilities . And my points about eyesight still stand . I also stated that my opinions are based on my experience of AD&D 1st edition , of which all newer games owe descendence from . Without Tolkien orcs would not exist in our minds , and he never described them as seven feet tall and built like an NFL lineman . Gygax modeled his orcs after LOTR . Most of the orcs depicted in newer games aren't orcs at all , they're OGRES . I hope I'm not offending anyone , but I stand by my comments . An orcs mentality is based on the brain , which is a physical organ , it can't be changed . Just as the brain of a chimpanzee cannot be trained to the mentality of a human . Best Wishes .
Felony And while I'm on a rant here , and I'm sorry but you're not really the target here . Don't look to the LOTR and The Hobbit films as the gospel on the books . Many of the films scenes were created out of whole cloth by the studio and script writers for cinematic effect . There was no epic fight between Strider and Lurtz in the books . At one point even Samwise Gamgee bested a couple of orcs in a fight in the books . And don't forget , if the orcs were so bada☆☆ , then why did Saruman bring in hoards of Easterlings humans ? Both in book and film . Another point about orcs , there are no female orcs . Orcs are depicted as born fully grown out of some sort of emniotic sack in the mud in the film , which is correct to the books . A mammal is born under formed and has to be nurtured and taught from infancy . Any creature born from an egg has little capacity for mental growth . Again the brain is a physical organ . In the LOTR books orcs were created by Sauron as imitation Elves . Homonculi . Soulless minions . Even in Warhammer 40K orcs are humanoid fungi . I hope this is some food for thought . Best Wishes !
The expressions and enthusiasm when he was talking about the Orcs and war bows, got me to subscribe, alone. haha
in an orcish horde, I'd say 4 out of 5 of them would have a warbow. So if they're loosing 3-4 Volleys of arrows down on the town over the hill, then go and pick up the loot and arrows and enslave the survivors from the oblitterated town, that's destroying their enemies, feeding their horde, and not losing a single orc.
I never thought about the war bows. That sounds insane! I love it!
I'm going to suggest that the orcs seen in most fantasy settings would not have the discipline necessary to learn how to use a bow. Yes, an orc with a bow that is made for an orc could be a deadly thing, if he had put in the practice necessary to be accurate with it. I question whether or not orcs in most fantasy settings would do that. I think their bloodlust would have them on the front lines as often as possible, and their idea of training is picking fights with other orcs, not standing in a field shooting arrows at a target.
i think the discipline would come from the hunt rather than from battle.
I half agree on the bow part, you don't need discipline of accuracy to fire a formation arrow swarm. just tell the unite of orcs were to shoot and off the arrows go.
Kind of like the orcs from Warhammer fantasy. Their bows are shoddy and inaccurate, but they make up for that by just having hundreds of orcs unload a massive volley of arrows on the enemy.
in warhammer, its mostly gobbos that have bows anyway
the level of thought and care that goes into these episodes shows a lot, great job as always. Keep up the good work.
Fun fact, Orcs actually first appeared in Lord of the Rings by J.R.R Tolkien because he wanted to make a little more diversity. At least, everything I’ve found about orcs say he made them
they existed long before, it's all medieval fantasy
he was an expert in that
@@Avrelivs_Gold no they didn't, he actually invented them, both the name, appearance and traits were invented by Tolkien. Inspired by goblins and trolls
The version I've heard is that he wanted an entirely UNIVERSALLY EVIL race for story reasons. He found an obscure mention in an old saga of a word which inspired "orc", a compound of the language's words for "eat" and "dead" ambiguously meaning either "hungry dead" or "carrion eater" without enough context to explain which. He used the "carrion eater" idea as inspiration, but we could equally have had Sauron commanding legions of flesh eating zombies.
Come to think of it, maybe in an early draft he DID. He gets called the Necromancer afterall, that might imply doing it often rather than just to Nazgûl and some poorly defined wraiths.
@@kyuujinyetto6228 you could argue orcs go back to certain depictions of the story of Beowulf with Grendel, who was not only described as pure evil but also as orcneas, an old word meaning monstrous or beastial if memory serves
@@thatonebritishidiot3037 true but it changed so much to the orc of Tolkien, and it's the one we know. Although misticism and stories already existed, the idea of the modern orc was invented by Tolkien
You are right about orcs=goblins In LOTR. But Goblins and Uruk-Hai are the same as well. 'Goblin' in Tolkiens work is just an English translation of 'Orc'. Uruks are called Goblins sometimes in the books.
In LOTR there are, essentially, just two types of orcs/goblins: Uruk-Hai and Snaga.
I think that "goblin" is/represents specifically the dialectal hobbit word for "orc", while "orc" is/represents the general Westron word.
Nope. Tolkien has specifically written that goblin is an English translation of orc.
An English translation of the hobbit dialect of Westron in which the Red Book of Westmarch was written. "Orc" is meant to be ultimately an Elvish loanword in Westron, in-universe.
And also that LotR orcs are all smaller and weaker than Men, including the Uruk-Hai which are merely _less small_ and _less weak_ in comparison and serve as a nasty surprise for people used to mowing down much weaker enemies.
In my own personal fantasy, orcs would not use bows because in their culture and society, they highly value strength and bravery in battle, and consider the use of long-range weapons cowardly.
And For That, they lose all wars
It's really accurate with some cultures in real human history
Same, In my setting Orcs value a good punch more than any currency.
@@treehugger1039 you do realise that orcs almost lost the first war because they did not had long range units (I'm talking about Warcraft)
@@rommdan2716 lose
Yooo this is from ages ago and you probably know by now but there are records in wales of arrows piercing armour-plated legs and going through into the horse itself, indicating that welsh longbows were occasionally used at close range to ambush heavily armoured troops.
I actually really loved the bow the Uruk Hai used in LotR, so heavy and so satisfying
Wot iz dis krap, weapons without dakka aren't gud weapons
WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGH!!!!!!!
*wit'out
*ain't
Does you even Ork, ya git?
OI! 'AT 'UMIEZ TURNT 'IZ SKIN GREEN!
Wtf is dakka
@@franklinvonfrankenstein1137 Warhammer 40k my friend. Dakka basicly is the Ork term for firepower. Orks slap as many rockets and guns on their gear as orkily possible, for them "there can never be enough dakka".
"there is a weapon that would benefit the orcs Massively[...], and that is : the bow" [uses a bow without even heads on the arrow]
It would be like a musket volley, low accuracy but deadly en masse
ork: picks up ballista and javelins, uses them as a war bow.
Orcs in TES are a bit different anyway, since they are a kind of elves more or less, so yeah, they're not dumb there.
“The monsters should be much stronger than the hero’s.”..... this is why The Gray was so damn good.
I tried to apply this logic to a DND one-shot with my freinds. They said it's not allowed and joked if I'm so obsessed with physics I should play a wizard instead
i'm really enjoying this fantasy videos! keep up with the good work!
Good vid Shad but I think you almost "overanalyzed " this.... simply put I don't think they would carry a lot of pole arms { at least not like proper Halberds and such } but they would carry ALOT of Axes... probably Danish style axes , and heres why..... Versatility... and not "Combat Versatility" just general Versatility, an Axe is a tool , the same tool you use to cleave an enemy can also be used on trees and scrub, or to kill or skin game , simple axes would likely be to orcs what daggers are to medieval humans , an Omni tool , able to be used to cut rope / string, shape wood , cut foliage, ect ect
I believe the Uruk'hai were a blending of orcs and men. These are true half orcs.
@Ayden Cole In lord of the rings, Saruman actually MADE half-orcs, while these were very effective, these were by no means Uruk hai. Uruk-Hai in the black speech, according to Christopher Tolkien means "Orc folk" and the term was reserved for the "warrior orcs" the term snaga was used for the smaller, weaker, slave orcs that you see elsewhere. All Saruman did was "perfect" the orc and made them his fighters.
As for their incredible endurance, the uruk hai literally do have an uncontrollable bloodlust. Saruman's uruk hai berserkers literally had flesh inside their helmets so that they would be in a constant state of blood lust, and some were mentioned to have their heads cut off and still keep fighting for a while.
Saruman actually explains to the "captain" Uruk Hai how orcs are made in the 2nd movie, before asking who he serves. something about elves being out of the sunlight for a long time, yadda yadda yadda.
"My sword's bigger than your sword"
-Trog the orc
So far, it seems like a running theme is: Bows are great. Errybody loves bows.
"In LOTR Orcs and Goblins are basically the same thing"
that's racist
*ding*
:D
Sin the hell out of his ass!
Also untrue... in LOTR Goblins are basically Golum/Cochroaches
@@christopherfleetwood5252 Actually, Orcs and goblins are synonymous terms in LotR. Goblin and hob-goblin were used in _The Hobbit_ as Hobbit words for orc and big orc (for instance, Azog was called a goblin in _The Hobbit_ , yet was referred to as a great orc in _The Lord of the Rings_ ).
"Orc is not an English word. It occurs in one or two places [in The Hobbit] but is usually translated goblin (or hobgoblin for the larger kinds)."
-J.R.R. Tolkien, Preface to The Hobbit
It's basically the exact opposite of racist
He doesn't care about race he is saying everyone is the same
Shad is as progressive as it gets
Funnily enough Tolkien was a bit of a racist and orcs and goblins in lord of the rings was controversial for being based off of African Americans and mongols with their descriptions lol
Every fantasy race is better with bows than humans. XD
Also Uruk has used longbow made of yew in the books of Lord of the Rings, in Narnia the best archers were the dwarves.
What makes a race worse with bows than a human?
Lack of opposable thumbs.
Orcs running around with 250 to 300 pound warbows is a terrifying thought.
Yet, the biggest fantasy story of them all, Lord of the Rings, describes orcs as smaller and weaker than humans. Even the Fighting Uruk Hai is described as standing no taller than a stooped human and no stronger. Dont use Peter Jackson's interpretation. Use Tolkien's. The inventor of the orc. The Warhammer and Warcraft Orc just seems to make people forget the original orcs.
Tolkien did not invent the Orc.
@@CryosisOfficial So who did, please enlighten me
@@beersmurff Orc is an ancient English term that meant monster, demon, evil spirit, or ogre, among other things. It has its roots dating back to the Romans and Ancient Greece. Orcs are notably mentioned in the classic English story, Beowulf. Orcs, like most of the things people often credit Tolkien as creating, were stolen from European mythology by Tolkien.
@@CryosisOfficial I get what you say, but I dont completely agree. Yes, the word wasnt invented by him, but the creature was. It might be based on other mythological beings, but that doesnt take away that Tolkien invented the Orc as we know it. But different opinions :-)
@@beersmurff Except Tolkien's Orc is nothing like the modern Orc.
The fact that they're stronger than humans means that if they use lightweight weapons, they can move them so much faster than humans or other races. So a human sword is basically a really fast dagger for them.
But if they are such brute warriors they would be better with weapons that use strength
orcs are not seens as fast agiles characters, unlike elves.
Natasel Exactly
Although strength and speed are correlated, that point isn’t completely true. A heavier weapon has greater ability to move through air, with more strength, a standard human heavy weight weapon is devastating, as it has the weight to move faster, but a light weight sword wouldn’t receive the benefit in equal proportion.
Or if nothing else, greatswords would work fantastically. Useable with a single hand while holding a shield and dominating in range against other sword-wielders, or countering and destroying enemy spears if used in battles between groups.
Bows would be effective for orcs, but I think that the lack of patience that they have would make them hate aiming with the bow. They also might think that the bow and other ranged weapons would be cowardly, and in D&D, they HATE cowards.
Hmyeah. I guess it would depend on the personality of the specific orc leader if his army would be more about orkish mentality of effectivity. In some LOTR games, the different personalities of Ork leaders result in differently armed warriors and different tactics.
Orcs could be good javelin throwers, that would be terrifying if you've watched Vinland saga when a guy throws a spear from God knows where and impales three men, now multiply that force by 2 to 3 times
4:19 looks like Hulk from Planet Hulk
@@sireregor6633
Others?
According to my memory, Uruk-hai are a breed of goblins and orc, which let's them not fear daylight.
Great video
"10 centimeters to a foot"
A lot of the stuff in here could even apply to creatures who at least have similar physical capabilities as an orc. You could apply it to the ogrun and trollkin in Iron Kingdoms, or even Starfinder's Vesk if you wanted to set a campaign way back in their medieval era. So this actually helped with some of a species of humanoid felines (haven't finalised on a name for them yet) in a science-fantasy story I'm working on. Or at least the males; I gave the species a rather considerable difference in size as an extreme case of sexual dimorphism (the females are about the size of tall-ish halflings, but that just makes people not realise that they're still humanoid cats with the speed and the claws and whatnot).
So I made the males of this species use a very large, very powerful warbow - either for warfare or just for hunting large and/or tough monsters. Or, for the ones living a semi-tribal life in the wilds, raw intimidation factor in keeping poachers off their lands. A seven-and-a-half foot tall lion-man appearing out of nowhere and carrying a bow that could impale you and the guy behind you to the nearest tree is gonna be pretty damn terrifying. Plus the larger arrows give them room to cram all sorts of technomagical goodies into them for various kinds of fancy ammunition.
Not sure what other weapons would work for their size, though I do like the image of a non-tribal guy in heavy armour wielding a scaled-up longsword (as in the proportions of a longsword, but scaled up for the wielder's physical size, so it'd be a broader greatsword to most humans). Or maybe lighter weapons like a gladius or just really big knives to take advantage of their greater speed, reflexes, and agility. And if they go that way, then maybe they skimp on armour a bit to maintain that manoeuvrability and range of motion?
For armour, as in shads giant video, padded armour upscaled is strong. For a seven to eight foot humanoid with fur, though, I think you'd want something like "joint armour", focusing on the knees, elbows, shoulders, etc. The important joints, and maybe the neck, or if not the neck, high-ridged shoulder armour to protect the neck a bit just by being there and sort of half in the way.
For weapons, if their going mainly offensive, you'd probably want an axe. Especially for a setting where they'd be using it as a tool as well. If you go for mobility, I'd say just scale it down to a handaxe. And maybe, if you want mobility and defence, take a tiny sheild, like dinner plate size. Assuming hyper reflexes, they could block or parry and wack projectiles from the air, that sort of thing. Doesn't matter if your sheilds small if you always make sure it's in the way of what's hitting you.
Maybe, depending on their speed, they might also use Lance's. In shads minotaur video he mentioned if you're strong Enough and fast enough you can use a Lance in foot, so there's that, too.
On foot, not in foot.
Also from the minotaur video, if their strong enough to use it, a bearing sword literally is the scaled up longsword you described.