Rome vs. Mordor

[D.B. Cooper]

The city of Rome in 100AD, along with all the vitals of government and military, is transported via cosmic energy to Middle Earth, between Rohan and Gondor. But the forces of Mordor are on the move. Minas Tirith has fallen. Sauron attempts to form an alliance with this new power, but the Romans are horrified at these monsters and beheads the diplomats. Sauron declares war.

The Witch-King commands mumakil, trolls, orcs, Harad, Southrons, and his company of Nazgul. Rome has legions, discipline, ballistas, etc.

The hammer-stroke will far hardest on Rome! If it falls, then nothing stands between Mordor and the kingdom of Rohan. They face off on some plains. Who wins in this titanic battle?

[HalfAssHorse]

Mordor of course. They don't have to wait 17-18 years to produce a new soldier, plus, they have mumakils. Mumakils!

[Julius Barca the Great]

Is this even a question? Oliphaunts, Nazgul, trolls? Against men who are frightened by elephants? Not even a battle, honestly, as much as I'd like to see the Romans win.

[D.B. Cooper]

The Romans are no strangers to pachyderms.

A possible battle plan:

A barrage of onager and ballista fire to soften up the enemy lines. Orcs are numerically superior but very weak. If mumakil try to plow through then the Romans do what they did at Zama and open up the lines. Combine that with pila and ballista fire and the mumakil go down soon.

Roman infantry and orcs engage. Engage the Easterlings at the flanks. Any approaching Nazgul risk getting shot down. Their rending cry will be a problem though.

Trolls are trickier. They have thick armour and are very powerful.

[Sipahi of Rûm]

mordor

[Comrade_Callum]

The Romans would win easily.

In LOTR the men would have won easily if they had more numbers? Rome has numbers and superior equipment, training, tactics.

Think of the look on a Nazgul's face when a balista bolt knocked it out of the sky :L

[Drakedeath]

Rome. Mordor has limited Nazgul (what, 9?), and if a Rohan woman could kill the Witch-king, then a Roman woman could, too. The fell beasts they ride are vulnerable to missiles, so the main issue would be the fire-vulnerable Nazgul themselves.

Trolls...don't they have an aversion to fire? They're pretty much elephants on two feet. Mercenary hoplites and Archer Auxilia, anyone?

Mumakil are big elephants. If long-range archers and ballistae showered them with fire arrows, then they'd run amok behind Mordor's lines and kill a ton of Rhun and Haradrim warriors before being brought down by panicked Haradrim.

Mordor seems to have an all-around vulnerability to fire. Take out their beasts, all you have are orcs. Since the Romans always had more soldiers than Gondor or Rohan did, they'd be able to hold their own and crush the weaker orcs. They might have a bit more trouble against Uruks from Isengard, though. But at least they wouldn't have to deal with the Balrog.

[FreeRadical]

This is a pretty fun poll. I read,watched the Lotr series twice,but that was a while back and I may need to catch up with the lore.This is very tough,but I voted Rome on this one.Isengard isn't mentioned so their Uruk-hai,and their fearsome berserkers are out of the question.Wargriders too,which would make a pretty fearsome cavalry that bites back

Trolls are very strong and likely have tough armor,but are from my understanding severely lacking in intelligence,fairly few in number.They could possibly be taken out with pila which might puncture the Trolls armor. Oliophaunts,Mumakil,can be taken out with ballista,scorpions,or a well placed hail of pila. Orcs are very undisciplined,low morale,aversion to sunlight,among a host of other weaknesses. Black Uruks from Mordor are supposedly almost powerful, as the Uruk-Hai,and if these were added in number, may prove a real challenge to the Romans. Harad,Southron, troops have better weapons and probably better armor than the Romans,but they appear to be a well armed rabble.What seems to be the most significant threat are the Nazgul,and they would likely take a number of Romans down with them,but alas they are few in number.

Edit:Supposedly Saruman's Uruk-Hai are stronger than any Sauron Orc, due to being half men and half Orc of the strongest of Sauron's. Debatable though apparently from looking at the various Lotr forums.I also kept thinking this was a battle not a war.Need to pay attention to OP.Anyways it would be tough.If magic is considered then the Romans would most likely lose lose.The Romans did at times made use of archer auxilia recruited from their eastern provinces depending on the need,but I think pila would have a much greater effect on the Mumakil depending how strong their hide is.

[Frederich Barbarossa]

Rome dude. Rohan was numerically inferior to the orc army in minas tiris, but they pwned them with some cavalry. Romans could come up with something similar, as people said at zama.

[A Demented Goldfish]

The city of Rome in 100AD, along with all the vitals of government and military, is transported via cosmic energy to Middle Earth, between Rohan and Gondor. But the forces of Mordor are on the move. Minas Tirith has fallen. Sauron attempts to form an alliance with this new power, but the Romans are horrified at these monsters and beheads the diplomats. Sauron declares war.

The Witch-King commands mumakil, trolls, orcs, Harad, Southrons, and his company of Nazgul. Rome has legions, discipline, ballistas, etc.

The hammer-stroke will far hardest on Rome! If it falls, then nothing stands between Mordor and the kingdom of Rohan. They face off on some plains. Who wins in this titanic battle?

You stole my thread rome vs mongolia... anyone wanna back me up

[empr guy]

You stole my thread rome vs mongolia... anyone wanna back me up

nope


i voted rome for the lolz although i honestly dont know. I think it would be very even.

[C-Rob]

I can't seem to think that Rom would win. Quick RS TEAM AND LOTR TEAM QUICK MAKE A MOD TO MAKE THESE TITANS BATTLE! haha

[leseras]

The last I heard LOTR had magic and stuff right? And their troops are close to unlimited due to the way they produce them. If all their forces clashed in one battle yes Rome would win. But remember that this is a war and mordor can definitely outlast them. The romans would also find it hard to adjust to the new lands and there is no gurantee that Rohan would support them, maybe even attack them. Plus the nazguls dont really help either. But while we are on this topic, wouldn't it be interesting to have a LOTR total war?

[{GrailKnight}]

The last I heard LOTR had magic and stuff right? And their troops are close to unlimited due to the way they produce them. If all their forces clashed in one battle yes Rome would win. But remember that this is a war and mordor can definitely outlast them. The romans would also find it hard to adjust to the new lands and there is no gurantee that Rohan would support them, maybe even attack them. Plus the nazguls dont really help either. But while we are on this topic, wouldn't it be interesting to have a LOTR total war?

There is.... http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showthread.php?t=325325

[Delta21]

Alright...ROME wins hands down... in 100AD they probably had 3 times more population than the entire Middle-Earth...that's counting orcs and other cross-breds amongst "human population".
Humans are obviously superior to orcs in the movie, not to talk about the mightiest army that ever marched the surface of the earth, where each legionary's potential was boosted ten fold by discipline, equipment, and great leaders(other than valiant speeches I seriously haven't seen any good strategy from the leaders of men and elves...just heroic leading by personal example...a waste of breath if you ask me). The only way Mordor wins: Sauron gets his hands on the One Ring= game over for Rome, they can't fight a god no matter how many they are or how good soldiers they can be.
P.S.: Trolls and Nazguls and Mumaks don't really count...anything can be brought down no matter how big it is(especially with all their fears).
P.P.S: Even in a prolongued war and Mordor's unlimited resources of orcs(they come out very slowly out of the earth, except the Witch King of Angmar, which produces insta-orcs in Cirith-Ungol....but by draining Sauron's already weakened power), Mordor will still have a hard time to make a big enough army to crush ROME, and that only if we assumed that Rome would go all defensive by default...which it wouldn't.

[Argeus the Paladin]

I have the need to repeat what others have said: As much as I'd like to see Rome win, the odds are well stacked against them.

Mordor magic, that's the answer. Mordor magic in Sauron's fist!

That concludes all discussion.

[D.B. Cooper]

Let's not forget that Rome is fighting essentially monsters, has to have a poor effect on morale.

[Argeus the Paladin]

Actually the concepts of "Monsters" are more frightening to us modern day people than the Ancient Romans. You know, they used to think Celtic naked fanatics to be monsters. And the chariots too. Given time to get used to them, they crushed them all.

[Solid Snake]

I think that the Haradrim and the men of Rhun would give Rome a run for her money in battle, meh, the Nazgul, a woman can kill them, no biggie there, and Romans also usd to bred like rabbits, it will be a close battle, however if one side has cavalry then that becomes the decisive factor to determine the victor.

[gaius_caesar]

Rome! let's see how orcs can handle a little ROMAN BLOODLUST like what they did in the Romano-Jewish wars....