Balrogs!!!

[JediSuPhu]

Ok has anyone ever encountered these before? I just did today and it was devastating. A single group of 10 Balrogs completely annihilated half my army which was around 2000 men strong and not a single Balrog died... Granted half my army was Woodland Sentinels but after waves of arrows that darken the sky, I would think one of them would fall, at the very least after 1 or 2 companies of soldiers sacrificed themselves to try to kill those things. Needless to say my entire army was annihilated in the end and I'm only playing on Medium

[Slater456]

Yesterday I took moria, same story as you but i had a bigger more elite army.

Arrows do against balrogs, trust me i had like 1200+ archers shooting them for like 2 minutes not one dropped.

I had 1x ent unit in my stack, ballrogs destroyed it completely, they did manage to kill 3/7

so 4 were left, i sent my eldar heavy swordsmen (3x stacks) that did the job (you need heave ap units to kill balrogs), though i had like 30 heave swordsmen of the 330 left

ye they are realy strong, but it makes it more challenging, i was lucky otmm didnt have alot trolls in moria or my elite army would be whiped

[ZeXorG]

This sounds kind of... wrong? I have not met Balrog yet, and I was asking at some post about where he can be found. I did not expect it to be a group of Balrogs... Is he sitting only in Moria?

[Point Blank]

If a unit is armored sufficiently, it wouldn't matter if you sent 1 billion arrows against it, it wouldn't help. Arrows only penetrate a certain amount. Do you think 10000 elf archers could destroy an M1 tank? No, because not one arrow would penetrate, no matter what.

[DeliCiousTZM]

If a unit is armored sufficiently, it wouldn't matter if you sent 1 billion arrows against it, it wouldn't help. Arrows only penetrate a certain amount. Do you think 10000 elf archers could destroy an M1 tank? No, because not one arrow would penetrate, no matter what.

Avatar ftw

[Muffer Nl]

If a unit is armored sufficiently, it wouldn't matter if you sent 1 billion arrows against it, it wouldn't help. Arrows only penetrate a certain amount. Do you think 10000 elf archers could destroy an M1 tank? No, because not one arrow would penetrate, no matter what.

Well if everyone would know this there would be no fun in making fun of people who complain about trolls now would there?

[karsten]

the balrog shouldn't come in packs! They are "one of a kind" and a sort of fallen god...

[Black_ice_Spain]

the balrog shouldn't come in packs! They are "one of a kind" and a sort of fallen god...

well, in old times they came in packs

[Araporn]

well, in old times they came in packs

yeah here's a simple explanation for karsten
In the War of Wrath that ended the First Age, most of the Balrogs were destroyed, although at least one, the Balrog known as Durin's Bane, managed to escape and hide in "caverns at the roots of the earth".In the year 1980 of the Third Age, the Dwarves of Khazad-dûm delved so deeply that they disturbed or released this hidden Balrog. The Balrog killed Durin VI and his son Náin I, and became known as Durin's Bane (below). The Balrog forced the Dwarves to abandon Moria. In T.A. 3019, the Fellowship of the Ring ventured through Moria and were attacked in the Chamber of Mazarbul by Orcs and the Balrog.[10] Gandalf faced the Balrog at the Bridge of Khazad-dûm. He slew the Balrog but perished himself at the same time — to be sent back as the more powerful Gandalf the White.

[karsten]

yeah here's a simple explanation for karsten
In the War of Wrath that ended the First Age, most of the Balrogs were destroyed, although at least one, the Balrog known as Durin's Bane, managed to escape and hide in "caverns at the roots of the earth".In the year 1980 of the Third Age, the Dwarves of Khazad-dûm delved so deeply that they disturbed or released this hidden Balrog. The Balrog killed Durin VI and his son Náin I, and became known as Durin's Bane (below). The Balrog forced the Dwarves to abandon Moria. In T.A. 3019, the Fellowship of the Ring ventured through Moria and were attacked in the Chamber of Mazarbul by Orcs and the Balrog.[10] Gandalf faced the Balrog at the Bridge of Khazad-dûm. He slew the Balrog but perished himself at the same time — to be sent back as the more powerful Gandalf the White.

i knew, i'm quite learned on the lore of LOTR

I'm just pointing out that we have no evidences that there's 3 other balrogs around

Since monster must come in packs, can't they make one balrog sprite with 3 "clouds" or 3 100% transparent sprites around? that would save coherency?

[Jean=A=Luc]

Ok has anyone ever encountered these before? I just did today and it was devastating. A single group of 10 Balrogs completely annihilated half my army which was around 2000 men strong and not a single Balrog died

That's kinda what demi-gods do. 2000 isn't even a single full stack if you're playing with huge sizes. Ya need more meat for the grinder fella. More meat. Oh, and haaaaaail Satan.

What PB doesn't want you to know is that, unlike with arrows, if you hit that tank with armour piercing weapons like axes, maces or halberds it's gonna go down eventually and a lore more easily.

Don't believe the myths about bows being effective against French tanks at Agincourt. Those tanks got bogged down in mud and got their tracks snapped by wooden stakes so English infantry could approach and throw Lancastrian cocktails into the tanks' exhaust vents. Then they smashed them with the famous Welsh "long maces":

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Why don't we have a single cavalry unit using this? AP charge anyone? Anyone? Just because there's no animation, eh? Ya bastards!

the balrog shouldn't come in packs! They are "one of a kind" and a sort of fallen god...

Game engine limitations ya scurvy dog.

[Simon_SnowLock]

im totally disappointed that the original MTW:2 didn't incorporate french tanks or the famous welsh long mace-men and their swamp beasts!
As we all know Agincourt was such a hard battle for the french even when the Norman Necromancers brought back Charlemagne from the grave even he couldn't turn the tide....

but thats getting completely off topic - We all know shooting arrows at tanks is silly (what kinda crazy would do that? ) you always need a troop of mace wielding welsh-men riding swamp beasts to counter tanks... everybody knows that!

[jinjo]

ya killing balrogs with arrows is very hard(factions like HE, SE have problems to kill them, but with SE use ents wisely)
i think heavy infantry works quite well, factions like dwarves, gondor, (who has heavy armored units) can destroy them easily
also u can use cavalry with charge bonus but dont leave them 1x1 against balrogs, just charge, then retreat and charge again and again
just try to be wiser than AI

[Hermes Trismegistos]

I agree with jinjo, dwarves are really the perfect monster killers, trolls don't stand a chance and the Balrog as well. To try out the Balrog I made a custom battle with me being the OotMM with Balrog and as enemy an elite dwarven army and I was quite dissapointed at how quick he was down. I lost that battle though I had three units of cave trolls as well and the rest of that stack full with normal OotMM units...

[Point Blank]

Haha yes Avatar, arrows penetrating gunship armored winshield glass lol. It dumb because by the time we can run around between star systems, we'll have AI powerful enough to send out fully autonomous combat robots or nanotech nasties that have the instructions 'kill all tall blue dudes' and that's the end of it. Hell we'll have that in 20 years. The notion that we will still have foot soldiers running around, without at least fully powered exoskeletons and pretty much impenetrable armor + automatic adaptive camo is just silly.

And Balrogs must be extremely badass if just one caused the Dwarves to abandon Moria - which seems a bit silly frankly also, given that some Eldar such as Glorfindel were able to duel Balrogs 1v1, but an entire army of dwarves was driven out...

[athanaric]

Haha yes Avatar, arrows penetrating gunship armored winshield glass lol. It dumb because by the time we can run around between star systems, we'll have AI powerful enough to send out fully autonomous combat robots or nanotech nasties that have the instructions 'kill all tall blue dudes' and that's the end of it. Hell we'll have that in 20 years. The notion that we will still have foot soldiers running around, without at least fully powered exoskeletons and pretty much impenetrable armor + automatic adaptive camo is just silly.

I couldn't agree more. Still, that kind of gobshite is what you see in most movies, especially those with that awful "noble savage" cliché in them (a stereotype cherished by everyone from Rousseau to the Nazis to modern Multiculturalists). Remember "Starship Troopers? (OK I'll stop here).

And Balrogs must be extremely badass if just one caused the Dwarves to abandon Moria - which seems a bit silly frankly also, given that some Eldar such as Glorfindel were able to duel Balrogs 1v1, but an entire army of dwarves was driven out...

Part of the Balrog's power is the immense fear it causes, which is enough for most sentient beings to run away like mad. Now Glorfindel and Ecthelion and their buddies were used to the sight of Valar and Maiar and acquainted with their powers, having been to the Undying Lands themselves. This kind of Elves even had power over the "unseen" i.e. the world of wraiths and other things that humans dread (because humans and Dwarves don't have power over these things). Glorfindel's alter ego from Rivendell even made some Ringwraiths run away because of that.

The Dwarves of Moria, OTOH, were apparently not used to the sight of a genuine devil appearing in their midst, and thus more easily routed than their martial prowess in the face of threats more common (read: Orcs) would indicate.
Consider: if you were up against such a being all of a sudden, which is clearly not a monster, but a demon, what would you do when you don't even know how to harm this demon?

[HolyDevil]

Consider: if you were up against such a being all of a sudden, which is clearly not a monster, but a demon, what would you do when you don't even know how to harm this demon?

I would dodge any income attack and smash everything i could at it, try to cut his fiery throat perhaps:sparta:

OOOOORRR.....

Get a bucket of water and throw at him?

[JediSuPhu]

Yea.... I start wishing for an ICBM...

[Cyclops]

... that awful "noble savage" cliché ...

I never met a blue-skinned alien that wasn't a noble savage...

...Consider: if you were up against such a being all of a sudden, which is clearly not a monster, but a demon, what would you do when you don't even know how to harm this demon?

Interesting analysis, and the point you make about certain elves relative strength vs Ringwraiths. I recall in the Sil. the dwarves handled Glaurung 2.0 better than the elves (although it sa different story with Smaug 2 ages later), so perhaps there was a circumstantial weakness that made the balrog's conquest possible. The dwarves were famous for "war underground" or so says Thranduil in H. so the Balrog was doing something right-I wonder what?

I would love to see a treatment of the rise of the Balrog.

Did the Balrog act alone? Did he stalk like an Alien, or summon servitors to swarm like Aliens, or just stride in like the Terminator? When did the dwarves realise what they were up against? Clearly they broke after a couple of years of terror, but was it a guerilla campaign ("its on the seventh deep! how did it get behind us?", or did the Balrog just plod around mincing dwarves as he found them like an extended session of Diablo?

I used to imagine it blew dwarves away like Smaug, blasting fire down tunnels, and certainly dragons caused a lot of trouble for dwarves after that time. Maybe its a simple as that: dwarf burrow plus dragon/Udun flame=giant dwarf shotgun.

[karsten]

guess there was a surprise factor playing in it too