Originally Posted by
cshewey
Engage,
If you are talking about my ideas, on the elves i am most certainly not mixed up about what they do. Elves are powerful and immortal creatures who by the TA are leaving in mass to Valinor and have a dwindling population especially on the west side of the MM. That said they still have enough elves (especialy powerful elven lords) to mount a defense of their lands. Arwen at least in the books does not leave and come back to anywhere except for Minas Tirith to marry Aragorn you are thinking of Glorfindel who rescues Frodo, if thats the even you are thinking of. If not that whatever.
On another note Elves draw strenghth from their power rather then their numbers. I would put forth a guess that a Noldorian elf would expect to be worth about 30 or so orcs in battle as a conservative estimate this is based of when Haldir (a sindarin elf less powerful then the noldor) told the fellowship "the three of us would not venture to take on 100". So we know tolkien saw a Sindarian elf as less then 33 orcs. However we can also see that in Helms Deep Legolas (also a Sindar) kills 53 orcs at the battle, but he is of royal blood and perhaps more powerful then Haldir because of that. However the Nazgul see Glorfindel (a noldorian lord) as a threat even when outnumbered 9-1 by Nazgul. So i am not sure we can get an accurate judgement of the noldorian strength but it is extreamly powerful. I think that Elves tend to be downplayed very much in the media (especialy like PJ's Helm Deep) if there were honestly 200 Sindar elves at helms deep arreyed in full battle armour they could have easily held off the thousands of Uruks especially when supported by Rohan, they most certainly would not have been slaughtered as the movie portrayed. At worst they would have been surounded and slowly killed off 1 by 1 but not without inflicting MASSIVE casualties on the Uruks. But realisticly especialy under the leadership of Aragorn and the sword of Anduril so much terror would have been inflicted on the orcs they would have been slaughtered and routed. I doubt the Uruks would have even attacked the walls with elves manning it they would see them as they are in the wraith world (terrible and powerful) and would most likely have fled in those late days.
So my numberical estimate would go something along these lines:
1, Noldorian lord (Ie Elledan or Elrohir) = 70+ orcs depending upon the person
2, Average Noldorian Elf (IE Gildor) = 30 orcs in battle
3, Sindarian lord (Ie Legolas) = 40-60 orcs in battle
4, Sindarian Elf (Ie Haldir) = 20-30 orcs
5, Silivan Elf (Ie Tauriel (while not actualy in the books but for alck of an example)) =10-15 orcs
6, So you average unit of noldorian elves should be worth i would say around 4 units of orcs. If you have 50 Eldar swordsmen and a 300 unit of orcs thats 6-1 so 4 units would give you 24-1 right around my estimate of 30 ( would say 5 units if we are talking about the plate armoured eldar swordmen vs something like "orc raiders" and they are fighting at the front and not being surrounded). The cost of those units would of course equilize this as well as the fact the elves are so outmumbered literaly each casualty you take is a sore less to you defenceability. As the orcs all i need to do is wittle down the elven defence literaly elf by elf until i can just raise a massive army and sweep over the few elves that remain.
Note these are your average orc not Uruks or Uruk-High, but still stronger then goblins.
Does anyone have any info to back numbers besides these? I think this is the best speculation i can make based on my knowledge i would be eager to see what other think.