[UPD 20 AUG 16] Preview: Dwarves of Erebor

[Nuellafürst]

this helm looks superb. cant wait to see that stuff in game.

@MrJ: do you guys still have use for help? im currently learning blender, and as soon as I'm ready , I'd be happy to contribute to this mod.

[MaximilianHH]

I think the dwarves should have ballistas instead of catapults.

[Mr.Jox]

this helm looks superb. cant wait to see that stuff in game.

@MrJ: do you guys still have use for help? im currently learning blender, and as soon as I'm ready , I'd be happy to contribute to this mod.

Yup help needed all the time

[CivilwarMan]

I think the dwarves should have ballistas instead of catapults.

Dwarves rarely used ballistas or catapults and if they ever used anything rather than infantry they would use Dale Mercenary Cavalry! Which would only be an option for the Dwarves Of Erebor ...
( They would likely use them in sieges )

[LiberalsSuckit]

Please don't have them riding anything childish like rams or ponies as cavalry. The hobbit movies are pretty ridiculous. Tolkien always kept it in the realm of plausibility, and the three LOTR movies did as well. Not so much the Hobbit.

[Mr.Jox]

We are not gonna add any cavalry dwrven units but at max Dalian Cavalry for Dwarves of Erebor.

[Rocky Bigby]

i see you are helping both teams...so which mod do you think will be better,I personally like this pictures up there better than ones from other team

[Vikus van de Merwe]

@Rocky Bigby

thank you for your support of our mod.

Nevertheless, please don't assess any of both mods as the better or worse project! Both have very different targets so it's hard to even compare the projects.
In addition both teams are giving their very best for a success and take MUCH of their free-time to get the projects to life. It is conducive to share critics with regard to previews or designs for example but it's not reasonable to condemn a project without any cause.

[Rocky Bigby]

yeah i realise that they are going for a book and i love the books but at the moment i like your models better,cuz yours are from movie but i think both mods will be good

[Rocky Bigby]

just one more question,will dwarves have any cavalry(perhaps dale mercenary calvary,ponnies,war pigs with heavy armor but slow,rams??I know some of them are silly but they would be indeed interesting)

[Mr.Jox]

maximum dale mercenary cavalry

[cshewey]

I agree with this, at max dale merc cav. Dwarves barely even suffered themselves to use pack ponies, but less would they burden a pig with plate armour. Also i would guess although i am no red neck farmer, it is impossible to ride a bore....or a goat...especially in battle.

[cshewey]

I suppose since this is the dwarves thread, i will post in much less detail what i would like to see with the dwarves.

I understand that this mod will be using the movies to base off of. I am fully supportive of this however with the release of the battle of the 5 armies there are a few things in the movie i would hesitate from including. There are also lots of good things from the movies.

First the bad stuff:
1 Please no goats,sheep or chariots or any other mounted unit for the dwarves besides at best dale mercenary cavalry. Anything beyond that goes against the dwarves character as a people and is after all just kinda stupid.
2 While i would guess the dwarves had the ability to create plate armor i think it would be best to use it sparingly and only on the most elite of dwarvish units. The vast majority of armor in Tolkiens work as well as in history in general was chain mail or partial plate, leather or a mix of those. I think Gimli in the LOTR is a perfect example of a professional dwarvish soldier. I think King Dain as he is portreyed in the movie is an abomination to everything dwarvish. Tolkien never said that all dwarves are Scottish for starters. But anyway 80% if units with heavy chain/partial plate and the rest with full beautiful plate armor like the other dwarf soldiers in the movie would be epic IMO.
3 The noddles you guys have on the dwarves look absolutely amazing.

Ok so what should the feel of the dwarves be like in campaign:

I think TATW does a very good job of representing the dwarves, my only problem is/was that there was no culture to it. It just felt like playing as scotland in med 2 with shorter more bearded men. Now that the hobbit is out we can add sooooo much more to dwarvish culture and i hope that you guys do as well.

Obviously the dwarves specialize in heavy infantry and especially in shock infantry. All dwarf units should be heavily armored and have a high health level as well (since tolkien eluded that dwarves are harder and stronger then men they should be slightly harder to kill as well but not like the elves).

Dwarvish stubbornness and desire for wealth will make great faction traits for the game.

I guess what i want in the dwarves is reliable heavy infantry that can outgun almost any other infantry, but balanced by an reversely balancing lack of cavalry and lack of archers.

The question for the dwarves in multi-player will be "How do i defeat a dwarvish rush army"? My guess would be with shock cavalry and archers but i will have to see when it comes out.

I think the movie also offered a few building designs to help with making cities look "dwarvish"

Hope this helps. What are other thoughts on the Dwarves?

[Mythotheboss]

Maybe some things in the game battle for middle earth could help...

[Grimnir]

@cshewey Thanks for your input. We're not planning on including any kind of cavalry for the dwarves, apart from dale mercenaries. To the armour thing. We're working on a plate armour atm, we're mostly using concept art from the movies, but you're right most dwarves should not be full plate armour.

[Dontfearme22]

Are you making entirely new skin models for Dwarves or will they just be resized and retextured vanilla models?

[Mr.Jox]

At the moment we don't plan to create entirely new skins but just rescale vanilla, add beard and armour. We have some troubles with rescaling and implementing dwarven skeleton but I'm sure soon we will get success.

P.S. Can anybody provide us any idea how to rescale men better to fit dwarf size?
My idea at the moment: scale everything except head by height-axis by 74,9%
Here is what we get:

But without scaling head we have some additional problems with head bones position, the process is we scale whole skeleton by 0.749 and then we scale only head by 1.251 and in result head bones rotates/moves a bit ahead.

[Wintercross]

Dwarves should have archers, they are quite capable of using bows. However I do think their archers should be limited, maybe Dwarven archers that are average at best with low ammo, but can also fight in melee ok?

[Mr.Jox]

I think dwarves should have crossbows

[Rocky Bigby]

Maybe they could have both,but crossbowmen better overall,like in tatw,there was some unit of dwarven archers called something travellers,if i am not mistaking