Rhudaur Unit Armor Upgrades

[Ogmios]

I thought it would be cool for Angmar's Rhudaur units to make use of their variety of unit upgrade models, so I took a stab at doing it myself.

For the Pikemen, they start unarmored, then upgrade the mail, then the full plate from the Carn Dum guardians.
For the Axemen, I added an unarmored model to start, then added a full plate model.
Swords I added a mail model to start, then the full plate. I did the same with the riders.

I think they look pretty good!

I wanted to incorporate the partial plate model (the base for the riders and the swords), but for some reason that model in particular is giving me texture issues. I intended to add that as the final upgrade for the archers (unarmored -> mail -> partial plate), but the bows are screwed up on all the models. Oh well, another thing to try figuring out.

I'd like to change the weapon models on the final tier pikes, axemen, and swordsmen. The swords I want to give the guardian's black shield, but that seems to require editing the texture file which I haven't quite gotten a grasp for.

I also realized that other factions would be able to use these armor upgrades, so I want to try my hand at a retexture for ND and Umbar (and Bree?).

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

[Araval]

Good job!

[Turkafinwë]

These look great. Just one question. Are you planning to make a version for the Northern Dúnedain? For the last upgrade you could use the Arnor plate, the rest should be fine.

Well done.

[Melvasul]

Despite being good, some of these armour upgrades look "too much" to be honest and really little variegate.

I would gladly see the mail upgrade for the Rhudaur Pikes.
But the full mail upgrade looks really odd for most of the units :/

[Netheriel]

Your armor upgrade is really cool as Angmar. Their new look put them on the same theme of their elites.
I'll be waiting to see the work for ND and AA!

[Hyddan92]

I love the upgrades to mail, they look really good and definitely something I would like to see implemented in the game.

However the full mail is a bit over the top, even at the height of the power of Angmar I can't really see the hillmen of Rhudaur getting outfitted with full plate black armour, in fact it's already a bit to much lore wise to have anything but the bodyguards of Angmar outfitted with it. It also looks a bit weird, beacuse it's elite-tier armour on what is basically main-tier units.

I would rather see a specific dedicated Rhudaur elite unit for Angmar that can upgrade to this armour.


As for Umbar I think they look good enough already, they are supposed to be slave-troops alternatively local auxilia, they are not supposed to be used as elites.

Arnor however... There you might be on too something, I don't think they should look like Arnor-elites either but a more Arnorish look for them could be nice. It's probably the most logical reason for them to have a more amroured look as well.

[Ogmios]

Playing with the textures will definitely be the next experiment, although it seems to require more artistry than mashing models together so we will see how it turns out. I'm hoping that process will also help me figure out how to apply textures to the models better and iron out some of the problems I have with the partial plate model. I'm going to look at the sellsword textures to start for the generic version, and for Umbar I'm thinking of just removing the Angmar insignia.

I still want to get the archers working, but I think it's something with the bowstrings.

I also want to do something with the Hillmen and the Javelin troops, but still thinking about it. My inclination is to combine them into one javelin + spear unit like the Khand militia.

While definitely a lore-bender, I don't think the full plate is that far removed from the rest of the mod - it's the same as the witch realm units. Right now the full plate is the lvl 4 smithing, which Angmar doesn't have access to by default. Also I removed the helmet plume and fancy cloak when copying the Guardians model, so they're automatically less elite

I haven't fiddled with the unit stats, so even with the cool armor the units are not that much better than their base forms. They're not able to compete with the elites statswise.

This is at the bottom of my to do/to attempt list, but I want to copy over and modify Dorwinion's script to Angmar. I haven't tried scripting or building editing at all, so this is a stretch. Ultimately I'd like one option to get the lvl 4 smithing and a barracks upgrade (more experience for Rhudaur units to make them less crappy, and a replenishment bump), and another option to build the Black Numenorean barracks (the one Mordor gets in Durthang) in Carn Dum. So you can either get a boost to your larger armies (more, upgraded Rhudaur men), or you can get a small group of elites (black numenoreans and barrow wights).

In my mind the Rhudaur path is the Witch King path, and the BN/Wight path is the Agandaur path. How to make the Witch King come to Angmar I don't know where to start.

On an unrelated note, I also wanted to look at the Arnor militia. Right now they have regular cloth and upgrade to a shirt of mail, with no model change for gold. I think they could get the chest plate from the first level of Tharbad pikes. Arnor's militia tier units are weirdly uneven - I'd like to play around with them more later.

[Firnafin]

Very good work, however, as other have said, I find the full plate armor a bit out of place.

Compared to the other equipment (sword/ shield/ pike/ horse / axe) the armour stand out too much, it's like the Angmar finance minister have some stock in a armour producing factory and favorised only one piece of equipment for his soldiers

[Celtic Magister]

If you've got plans to do a full Angmar script, that would be incredibly interesting, yet there was talk of doing a Witch-King returns to Angmar script for DaC v3, so perhaps to do it would be moot. I'd still love to see it, since Angmar is one of the under-attended to factions in DaC next to Rohan and OoMM.

[paleologos]

Well done Ogmios!

[jedi7000nathan]

Ingenius most definitely looking forward to the Northern Dunadain version

[♔atthias♔]

well done sir

[Alekhine]

Hey Ogmios, nice work!

It's great to see new modders enter the scene. If you want to try to bring the Witch-king to Angmar, you can check out this mod (it's actuallly a mod compilation) by Spicemaster. It contains a scripted quest that does exacly that, so if you take a look at the campaign script you might learn how to do it or just adapt it to your needs since he gave permissions iirc.

Good luck and keep up the good work!

[Ogmios]

I have a long way to go with this texturing adventure.

I removed the targe for the plate swordsmen and added the shield texture with the insignia. I'll swap out their body texture for the one without the insignia as well and then make the same change for the riders.

For my first attempt at an Umbar version, I took the facemask texture and the cloth color from the two-handed swordsmen for Umbar. I removed the Angmar insignia from the armor (I'm going to add the Umbar insignia for the shieldless version), and copied the shield from the Umbar Seaward swordsman.



I think I figured out why my partial plate guys weren't working - the helmet and plate textures for that model are in the attachment file and not in the main armor file. I haven't had a lot of success playing with the texture assignments in Milkshape, but that seems solvable.

I'm still looking for a good base to work from for the Arnor version - so far I've been making a lot of use of the clone stamp, but it looks janky trying to use a different armor onto the existing Angmar plate.

[Silverswan]

Nice mod! It would be nice to see Arnorian plate on the Rhudaur units in the same way.

[Xplodingducks]

This stuff looks delicious! Where can we download

[Ogmios]

Heya -

I haven't had a chance to come back to these for a while, and I've been in a bit of a free-time crunch coming into the summer. I'm happy to share the (small) work I've done so far, although I'm not sure who I need to ask for permission to share the files.

Should I find time to come back to editing, I think I want to walk it back a little bit. I'm not sure if it was Galu or Hummingbird chatting about how they tier the armor system in the mod, but I don't think giving everyone the (admittedly very cool looking!) armor option is necessarily the best solution - maybe just for the foot swordsmen. I'm still strongly pro-unit upgrade for the Rhudaur units, but I'm less sure of what that should look like. It doesn't help that artistry is not my strong suit.

[Lord Auerode]

Great work, I like how you add so much more flavour with just the upgrades!

Though, I also think the elite plate armor looks over the top. Maybe try using the one from the scourge raiders or from the orc hellebardiers. Both have the angmarian look to them, bot not as elite. Also men in orc armor would stress that angmar is an hybrid nation of orcs and men.

However, keep up the good work and hopefully you can soon release the files

[MIKE GOLF]

Very Nice.