DaC - Official Angmar Discussion

[Arachir Galudirithon]

Mae Govannen!

The addition of Rhudaur units to Gundabad’s roster has been met with some backlash on both TWC and YouTube. I appreciate these are only a small number of people who are bothered but it does highlight something that I find myself in agreement with:


Angmar don’t have ‘a thing’.


The Witch-king is planned but at the moment we do not know when or if this can be accomplished and as such, I think we should look to change Angmar to have a more defining feature.


In thinking about this topic, I also think that Dol Guldur suffer the same sort of identity crisis and I think it worth looking at them at the same time. There will however be an alternative thread specifically for Dol Guldur.


If we look at the other orc factions they all have a core idea:
Mordor has variety. Early, middle and late game orcs with middle and late game humans and late game monster units. They also get Sauron if you find the ring. When the ‘Covering Shadow’ system is implemented, then their level of variety will skyrocket with troops from every evil nation lining up to fight at Mordor’s side. (More on that soon)


Moria have ‘the horde’. The quintessential ‘goblin’ faction: swamping everyone they face with overwhelming numbers of trash. They also get a few machine units (crossbows and wrangler) which is fairly unique for Orcs.


Isengard have armoured quality. They are the most militaristic orc faction with heavy plate and clear tiers for their units. This quality aspect will be played up even more when their trash tier is cut. They also get Saruman and the ring mechanic and a large single nation roster.


Gundabad are elite. Each unit is superior to every other orc at that tier offensively but they pay for this with small numbers making their campaign quite tactical in where you deploy your small but strong armies. They also get the Orc Subjugation system that gives them the feeling of being all powerful as they conquer the world.


Isengard and Gundabad cross over a little bit but I think of them as being like the RPG classes of ‘Soldier’ and ‘Barbarian’ (both being excellent warriors but one being armoured and defensive and the other being massively offensive at the loss of defence, also Soldier’s tend to fight together and Barbarian’s fight alone). I am not concerned about either of them and feel as though they are essentially ‘finished’ (minor tweaks are to be expected but nothing further is really needed).



Angmar, to me, feel as though they take a little bit of everything from above but don’t take it to the degree the others do. They have a bit of Mordor’s variety with some Rhudaur units; they have Moria’s hordes but only for their trash and; they combine Isengard & Gundabad’s elites late game in their Witch-realm units. So they feel like Moria in the early game and Gundagard in the late game but never to the full extent of any of those factions.


Dol Guldur feel almost like a carbon copy of Mordor without the wider variety of the Mordor roster: they both have trash early tier, average middle tier orcs and average elite orcs; they both then get elite humans and trolls.


I would therefore like to discuss people’s ideas for changing up these two nations and making them very much their own factions.

My suggestion for Angmar follows and Dol Guldur will be discussed in this thread: DaC - Official Dol Guldur Discussion.




--------------------------------------


I would suggest making Angmar’s ‘thing’ Raiders & Rhudaur.


In Lore, Angmar was utterly crushed after the battle of Fornost, its armies were wiped out and the north was left devoid of life. The hill-men of Rhudaur however were not completely destroyed some returned home but then Tolkien never mentions them again. They were descendants of the same stock of humans that Dunlendings and Bree-men were. This loose thread is what I think we should build Angmar from.


My backstory being that the Hillmen multiplied and expanded into the void left by the fall of Angmar. Spreading into the north and claiming it as their own. Meanwhile, a band of WK orcs survived the fall of Carn-dum and have lived there ever since. They have become expert raiders and use these raids to get what they need to survive. Only raiding because they cannot risk open war. The two peoples share a common enemy and form an uneasy alliance becoming the ‘Remnants of Angmar’.


So, the army becomes one of almost two parts:
1) Rhudaur provide your mainline troops: infantry and archers
2) Orcs provide your niche units: focusing on raiding and therefore having high speed with a BIG focus on Wargs. (Angmar would become the closest thing to a ‘cavalry orc faction’ and we could look into giving them a ‘horse warg’ so they don’t get the horrific debuffs that camels seem to have)


In order to focus the attention a little more to Rhudaur, I would also suggest:
1) Angmar’s culture change to Middle-men so they would have Wildmen towns and castles and wildmen portraits and UI. Chiefly, they would also have Rhudaur generals as default now. (Religion to remain Melkor’s shadow)
2) Agandaur would remain as their faction leader representing Sauron sending someone to rally the nation to all-out war rather than border skirmishes


They would therefore become the only true Orc/Human hybrid faction. They would also be the only real Orc Cavalry faction AND they would be the ‘fastest orcs’ which is a nice change to the usual playstyle of Orcs. They would have recruitment similar to the other wildmen so they wouldn’t feel as close to Moria’s hordes but also not as slow and small as Isen or Gundy.


--------------------------------------------
Now, in terms of separating them from the other wildmen who have the following summaries:
Dunland – heavy armoured wild men
Enedwaith – javelin throwing ambushing wildmen
Anduin – Jack of all trades wildmen


I think the men of Rhudaur would be ‘armour piercing strike infantry wildmen’. Their chief enemies throughout history have been heavily armoured Númenóreans/Dúnedain and heavily armoured High Elves. I also see the Hill-men as the most barbarian like wildmen in middle-earth. In addition, the Angmar campaign is quite challenging and having AP units would offset the smaller armies that the above might create.


An outline of a roster would be as follows (my personal opinion again) (R is Rhudaur, O is Orc):
Trash:
R Peasants (2h wooden something)


T1:
R Archer
R AP strike (2H clubs)
R pikes
R sword & board
Warg Archers
Warg spear & sword
--------------------BE-----------------------
T2:
R jav w/ axe & shield
R AP strike (2H axes)
R Pike
Warg spear & AP mace
Warg jav w/ spear
O duel wield axes
O shortbow archers (high damage short range)


T3:
R AP strike (2H hammer)
R Archers
Warg Heavy Lance/Sword
O duel wield swords
O 2H sword


Uber:
O spear & shield (not raiders but ‘the last line of defence of Carn-dum’ kinda thing)


This discussion has been posed to the Beta team but I thought I would also throw it open to TWC where, arguably, DaC's longest running fans reside. All thoughts are welcome and suggestions are yours to make but PLEASE remember that we won't really consider large or complicated scripts: this is a faction overhaul first and foremost not a scripting overhaul. As I have said to others, the faction needs to be unique at its core BEFORE you start adding scripts to it.


Cair a Alph!

Arachîr Galudirithon

[Deathshade]

I think it's quite interesting what you propose .
But, correct me if I'm mistaken, I think there is no more a Rhudaur cavalry in your roster. They were quite nice.

But overall, I'm thrill with your ideas !

[iceman1946]

Really happy that you opened this topic.
So this is my suggestion as i suggested before some time ago.

Here it goes: so i think that Angmar should be a faction based on fear,dread and terror and a little more on magical side(Wights), because they are the only faction that fits that description perfectly and it makes more logic to me since the biggest weapon of Witch king was fear itself. They already have scary looking WR units (which are great) and could play more on that card. Like Angmar unit speciality would be spreding fear among enemies and having a little more unnatural roster like wights or something else. Their units would have some special abilities ( even maybe something as witchers from reforged) and strong stats, not that numerous numbers as they are now because they were almost wiped out in lore ( i do realize that this is similiar to Gundabad, but i see Angmar and Guundabad as brothers who stand back to back in north and are struggling to hold off the onslaught of the many good factions surrounding them).

Their theme should be some kind of sickening and scary realm. Lets say after downfall of Angmar all that left is almost forgotten and evil men,orcs and other unnatural and scary stuff have hidden themselfs in the north and nobody goes in their land, so as time passed they grew stronger and stronger and now are back to spread terror in Eriador.
And i would like that they stay as the hardest campaign and if you give them uber wargs... well we know how cav is in med2 maybe give them to DG since they fight on open plains of Rhovanion.


And 2 units suggestion, that you put Castellans of Dol Guldur in Angmar roster: First their new design literally screams Witch-king and second their are wights and Angmar are known for wights and they have an undead factions heir already. plus i dont see really why would they be in Dol Guldur roster exept to be stand there and look cool.

And second unit suggestion is to bring back the old Castellan model as some new units because thes still look very cool but not as cavalry as in this picture ( i really dont like using cavalry that much)

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

And a final thing you could ask reforged for their Wights model since they look more as Wights as people imagine them i think, no offens to anyone but current wights are little lacking in quality compared to other units.

[Hirundo]

Hello, everyone!

I really like the idea of supplementing Angmar with large numbers of Wargs. They have those large Northern plains from which they can gather them. However, I would liket to note some issues.

1) Special units:
I really like Angmar's vibe of being the "gather-all-evil-creatures-of-the-North-under-one-banner" faction. Man, they have a huge variety. I would have them have Barrow-wights and Cave and Snow Trolls, just for the feeling of having them in your ranks. They give a nice flavour to the roster.

2) Unit models:
I really like Angmar's unit models, so I hope most of them can remain, like Scourge Raiders or the Angmar Bodyguard. And they should have some elite Rhudaur units based on the Arnorian unit theme: they could be the twisted and corrupted Dúnedain of Rhudaur, a bit like the Ar-Adúnaim in the South.

3) Campaign endurance:
In my games, Angmar is usually among the first 2-3 factions to get eliminated when played by the AI. Could they be made somewhat stronger via fast recruitment or stronger units?

Thank you, Galu, for asking us, too, about the matter!

Best regards,

Hirundo

[jedi7000nathan]

Personally I think that there should be alot of fell sorcery at work with Angmar; the Witch-King himself was a master of dark sorcery and Agandaur in the War in North is as well, perhaps units could radiate terror and scare a lot of units, also perhaps fell sourcery would allow them to bless armor and weapons with dark enchantments perhaps giving them posion attacks on their melee weapons. The Witch-King when his script is triggered should allow Angmar to recruit the Temple units from Mordor having brought them with him from the south, also he should bring with him some elite generals, perhaps Boldogs.

[nosXw]

Hi! I love this things, add units by taking settlements, there is another mod (DCI) making the same. If Gundabad take Carn Dûm and are rewarded with Rhudaur units, Angmar may by rewarded with snow orc by taking Gundabad, I think.

[Kjertesvein]

The Angmar theme should fear and terror, with a drop of magic. Give « fear nearby enemy units» trait to all their units, wights and a really powerful General Special Ability, forcing the player to depend on his general ability in battle (think warhammer).

I wonder if Angmar should be the warg faction or if that elemnt is best for some one else.

​~Wille

[Sentient Tree]

I've never played an Angmar campaign, but mostly like the suggestions.

One aspect I would play up would be that your roster includes more and more Orcs in the late game. The Rhudaur should form your low and mid tier, but once you establish power, Sauron sends more and more higher tiers orcs to your banner.

The Rhudaur should not be the leaders, but rather weak-willed men who follow strength and whoever conquers them.

I would avoid adding an O lance unit though. Maybe instead add a rabid or berserker anti-cav Warg unit designed to kill numenorian heavy cav.

[Goat rider]

I personally love Galu's idea of turning Angmar into a unique cavalry orc nation. I'm also quite happy that everyone else seem to be on par that they should also be a faction based on "fearing" their enemies. As Kjert suggested add in « fear nearby enemy units» trait to some of their key units and also give Angmar the ability to train Barrow Wights and undead creatures that cause fear it makes sense lorewise since Angmar is known for it's sorcery.
A really cool idea i think is to lock the barrow wights to only Carn Dum and Mengalen(the village south of Bree that has the barrow wights spawning), that way you have an incentive to expand and defeat Bree.
Maybe also add poison arrows to their archers and and turning the Castellans of Dol Guldur into their uber.

Angmar has the lore to back up the use of undead and sorcery. Please

[Hummingbird]

Miltia
Rhud. Hillmen (spear and shield)
Orc. Orc Fellers (AP 2h axe)

T1
Rhud. Archer (Rhudaur Archers)
Rhud. AP strike (2H clubs) (Rhudaur Savages; current Rhudaur Axemen given Dunhird Champions weapon)
Rhud. Pikes (Rhudaur Pikemen)
Orc. Throwing axe & shield
Orc. Warg Archers
Orc. Warg AP Jav & sword
--------------------BE-----------------------
T2:
Rhud. AP strike (2H axes)
Rhud. Sword and board (Rhudaur Swordsmen)
Orc. Archers (above-average damage short range)
Orc. Armoured warg AP jav w/ spear
Orc. Armoured warg archer

T3:
Rhud. (AOR) AP mace and shield cav (Guardians of Carn Dum)
Rhud. (AOR) AP mace and shield foot (dismounted version of Guardians of Carn Dum)
Orc. Dual swords and axes (Scourge Raiders)
Orc. Throwing axe + spear and shield


This is the tentative roster we've agreed on. Still talk of maybe giving the Barrow-Wights a more significant role. A quirk in the roster you may notice is that all of the mounted units use ranged weapons (sans the Guardians of Carn Dum), emphasizing the hit-and-run raider-ish nature to Angmar's orcs. Their cavalry's role would be to skirmish and harass the enemy, softening them up for the Hillmen's foot, and snipe armoured units with the jav cav but they would not be suited to break enemy formations themselves like a true cavalry faction might be. But they'd certainly boast the most mobile orcish army regardless.

The Rhudaur and orcish units will likely be split into different building lines. The current Hillmen Encampment/Barracks for Rhudaur and a barracks line for the orcs that will recruit both foot and warg units.

[Sir Matthias]

Maybe switch out the jav warg and make it a dedicated charge cav? Because guardians aren't exactly charge friendly. Also, maybe make all the T3s (maybe some T2s) fear inducing, especially the wargs.

[LuckyPistol]

I agree with others that Angmar should be "Witch King" themed. Heavy on magic and early Third Age material like the Wights and Rhudaur. I think a balancing the Orcs and Hill men is important, and I think bringing back the Rhudaur Cavalry would be a good idea to better separate Angmar from other Orc factions. I like the idea of separating the men and orcs in specializing their roles.

Try to reflect "the old days" of Angmar during the war against Arnor, almost like a dark reflection of the reunited kingdom script.

[Goat rider]

In regards to the Barrow Wights i'd rather the team keep the current "ghost soldier" model DaC has than the Reforged ones which look like dementors and not actual soldiers.
Also another thing i'd like to see is since Angmar will have such a strong emphasis on Rhudaur units is changing the CSM models from orc encampment to wildmen ones but keeping the ability to go to a large city as orcs do.
Elite Dwarf could make an amazing wildmen CSM with a Rhudaur theme for Angmar.

[Link12]

To me, the number one issue that surrounds Angmar at the moment is not mechanical or technical. It is thematic. At the moment, Angmar from my experience, has no glaring issues in their roster or gameplay- they play fine, the problem is that thematically they are a bland faction that would have little value if not for their difficulty. Hence, it feels a little bit premature to be talking about a roster when the core issue of what the new Angmar is to be, what their lore is and what the heart of the faction is has not even been fully decided on yet, considering there is nothing wrong with the current roster. I don't think changing their roster alone will really fix this issue, and to fully make them feel unique would require more substantial changes. This may include changes to their culture and religion if needs be.

What do we want Angmar to be?
Multicolored on TWC reports History of Middle Earth has this to say on the mysterious Morgul Kingdom:
"'I'm currently reading History of Middle-Earth vol. 12 and on page 193 it specifically says "The chief of the Ulairi comes north and establishes himself as a king of evil men in Angmar in the far north regions..."
The next page it goes on to say he sent "secret aid" to Rhudaur to help them in their war against the other two Arnor sub states. I have a hard time believing this secret aid was in the form of orcs.
All the evidence is that Angmar was a evil human kingdom that made use of evil creatures, like orcs, to supplement themselves once the jig was up and secrecy was no longer needed."
http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showt...-Thread/page91

My view is that one of Angmar's biggest challenges at the moment is that they have to compete with 5 other orc nations (Mordor, DG, Isengard, Moria, Gundabad) for flavour, gameplay and uniqueness. No other culture group in the game has this many factions, there are only three dwarf factions (Erebor, Ered Luin and Khazad-Dum), three Numenorean Kingdoms (ND, DA, Gondor), three wildmen factions (Anduin, Dunland, Endewaith), four evil men nations (Rhun, the AA, Khand, Harad), four/five elven nations (Lindon, Imladris, Lothlorien, the Woodland Realm and arguably Dorwinion if you go the elven route) and four men factions (Rohan, Dorwinion, Dale, Bree). No other culture group has as much competition for diversity as the orcs do expect bar the elves if Dorwinion is counted.

I don't believe jiggling around with the roster will solve this problem. There will still be harsh competition for diversity, and arguably giving Angmar a focus on something like warg cav, removes it from factions that may need it more such as Moria and DG that don't have the potential for unit diversity that Angmar does. Think... Angmar stands in a central postion to draw from many sources, such as Rhuadaur, Mount Gram, the Ettenmoors, the Barrows of Eriador and even the Lossoth if we wanted to be creative. Why restrict ourselves to orcs and Rhuadur? Furthermore, I don't think making radical changes to Angmar would be a bad thing because if someone wants to play as an armoured snowy orc faction, then Gundabad is right next door literately.

I instead propose that we make Angmar into a faction that currently does not exist in DaC- an evil 'medieval' men faction. Something akin to an evil version of Dale or Rohan in terms of their theme not their gameplay. There is no other faction like this, as even the evil men are very exotic and don't offer this potential evil european feel. To do this, there are two paths we could take:
1. We change their culture to middlemen, like Bree or Dale. If people want to play as evil wildmen, they can go to Dunland for that experience.
2. We change their religion to middlemen (Bree's religion) or men of the north (Is that it? I mean the religion Dale and Rohan have). This would be more controversial than option 1, but in some ways would be better. Angmar would get to keep the orc UI, and the different religion would model the tension between Angmar who is dominated by men, and other orc factions. This would not be hard to justify either- it would be simple to expand on the idea that Rhudaur serves the Witch-King. We could have it that they only serve him, and do not care for Sauron. Instead, they have cultivated a ruler cult around the being that led them to riches. Sure, they may know of Sauron, but they worship the Witch-King. This would even nicely lead into the WK script, and this connection could be how Agundaur motivates them to fight by claiming he is an emissary of the Morgul Lord.
Either option would allow us to give Angmar a custom portrait set made up of both men and orcs which would make everyone happy without the need for scripts.

As for their roster, I most agree with the current suggestion of a core group of Rhuadur units supported by auxiliary orcs. My only specific suggestions would be to make the orc archer into the current Rhudaur archer unit, and perhaps change the orc uber spear and shield unit into a human unit that is a homage to Angmar's past. Some general suggestions would be to expand the role of wights (Perhaps the dual sword unit could become an elite wight unit) and incorporate the Lossoth as an unit (Perhaps a wolly mammoth if such an unit exists in another mod and we could use it or javelin throwers?)- this would expand on the idea of Rhudaur drawing from other sources to fill gaps in their army. I do love orcs being support units, but I feel none should be elites. This ties in better with the idea of the orcs being weak raiders, and provides a nice contrast to Isengard who transitions to en elite orc army, whereas Angmar transitions away from orcs.

Finally, I agree with the idea of Angmar starting with orc battlemaps to wildmen maps. My only suggestion would be here is that if they could get for cities and large cities, could get a special 'evil' arnorian battlemaps that would have black walls like carn dum but otherwise, use the current ND battlemaps bar the retexture to make them look more evil, to show their restoration of Angmar, and corruption of the mantle of Arnor. Perhaps, this could be the theme of their custom castle battlemap? I also think using the current town and large town wildmen battlemaps for their campaign models and battlemaps for their cities and large cities may get a bit confusing.

In conclusion, it is my belief that Angmar requires more than a simple roster change-up to remedy the problems and competition it faces for diversity, and radical changes may allow it an unique theme as an evil medieval kingdom, an experience no other faction in DaC offers. If worst comes to worse and such changes are displeasing to Angmar fans, I would also argue that Gundabad provides much of the same feel (Especially if they will be allowed to recruit Rhudaur units) as snowy armoured northern orcs, and are literally right next door.

[Dsonsion]

I find the proposed changes fantastic, I really can not stress how excited I am after learning of the new spin the dev team wants to introduce to Angmar.
I think it will make for a very enjoyable faction, especially given that they'll very likely have humans as their characters instead of orcs.
I also find Lord of Links' suggestion of making them a more civilised human faction alluring, mostly because of my experience with LOTRO, whose artistic depiction of Angmar and its denizens I loved.
All in all, I can't wait to try out these changes. Thanks DaC team for the effort into making this game so good and rich in detail.

[iceman1946]

Like the idea with Rhudaur units, but i hope that WR- units stay in roster because they are too good loking. I dont really agree on making them cav faction because then their camapign wont be the hardest anymore for player and when they are controlled by AI they will be even sooner wiped out as Rohan. Hope you go more for Witch-king and fear vibe plus evil men because that is uniquely fitting Angmar and that raider orcs theme you can apply on any other orc faction to be honest ,which doesnt have history like Angmar from which you can pull their theme, but that is just my opninion.

[Burlini]

I think the remnants of Agnmar should loose all ties to the kingdom of agnmar of the Second age, at least until the WK script is triggered. The WK script could become active around the same time that the ND get Gandalf.
This would make Agnmar a mostly wildmen like factions, with most of their orcisch units coming after the WK appears. This would play into the theme that Agnmar was officially destroyed and only small amounts of hill men survived.


Their roster would consist of:


Early wildmen militia units
Mainline Rhudaur units along with 1 unit of orc raiders
WK script units, consisting of hard hitting fear inducing orcs, proper dedicated wargs that can actually charge, the barrow wights and one or two elite human units (like the Castellans of Dol Guldur)


At the very least they should NOT have trolls or any form of great beasts.


Make the General human with a Rhudaurish look that can be upgraded into a more Castellans of Dol Guldur look.


Humans should be dominant in their roster, with orcs being a strong auxiliary force.

[Vifarc]

Yeah, I rather see half-orcs (as hybrids, there were some in Bree) and evil-men;
true orcs should be not numerous.

[Selerz]

I agree fully with making Angmar Middlemen and focusing on Rhudaur units!

[Drevlianin]

I think that Angmar must have two or three classes of men units - not only Rhudaur ones.
True Angmarese, Lossoth.
plus undeads of Barrows and so one

About orcs - because they lived at Mount Gram (central Angmar) - it's normal to have them in quantity
About trolls - they lived in Ettenmoors (southern Angmar) in numbers - therefore it's normal that Angmar has them