I mean, this is totally OT and if anyone wants to continue talking about this matter, I'll address in a moment, I'm fine, but please via PM. However...
The strength argument is completely irrelevant, this is Dwarven craftsmanship we are talking about here. The machines wheels would be extremely well balanced and oiled, it could probably be pulled by a child. The only reason to add additional animals is to increase the speed that the chariot can move, take the incredible speed it moves in the film as an example.
What?
You seem to life in a universe where both friction and Newton's third axiom don't apply. Apart from the fact that I simply doubt the fact that any craftsman (and I don't care if they are dwarves or not, they are still material beings -also dwarves are, as skilled as they are, still in pre-industrial age and even nowadays we can't built a frictionless vehicle. That's just beyond anyone in Medieval to craft such a thing.
Second of all: There is this little axiom, that a force evokes a force of equal strength in opposite direction. Even if a child could pull this chariot (which is absolutely impossible by any logical means) it would still be impossible to crush inside an entire enemy army and just overrun numerous enemies without loosing most of your momentum. (And this point has actually nothing to do with dwarven craftsmanship, so this doesn't even hold up, you simple need a lot of momentum and therefore strong pulling animals to crush enemies with this and mountains goats are actually not that heavy if I am not mistaken.)
OK, it is possible, but that would require the chariots to be essentially rolling boulders which once set into motion just continue untill they are stopped. And obviously they aren't, so your idea would only work, if the chariot itself weighs a lot, so once set into motion it could continue running enemies without the need of continously speeding it up again. Which is definitely not the case for the movie chariots.
I'm really sorry for this complete OT, but you can't seriously expect me to just listen when my doubts are addressed like this, can you?
Which shouldn't sound offending, to be perfectly clear!
and something to be useful in a siege situation for Erebor, like some kind of a bomb or "flash flame" ability
How about the Oil cask? Apart from that, Erebor has actually lost its building destroyer focus (which is probably the best idea ever included for the dwarves, because now the sub-factions are at least sort of balanced out). If it should be strong against buildings, then against ressource buildings, so Erebor would get a unique harass unit. As a static siege weapon the chariot does serve no purpose, eventhough I expect you didn't mean this.
Thats why I think it will be the best solution to have Boar Pulling the War Chariot summoned by King Dain in Erebor
I guess a wild boar is a great animal for the chariot, but there is actually another relation between Erebor and IH via the boar, namely Dain's mount.
BTW, I like the idea of beer barrels as a new healing upgrade. This was everytimes really unique for dwarves that their healing fortress upgrade was no fountain of some sort but this number of supplies including food and drinks.
Well I think that Ered Luin can indeed get those Big Shield Soldiers which will give the Chariot some strong Buff against Pikes for short time they wil lbe really hard to kill from Spearmans which are the biggest Weakness of the Chariots and the ability will present wel lthe Armor NAture of Ered Luin!
I guess inside the game this might work, but would this really support the chariot? I just saying: If it runs head on into enemy pikes, the goat / boar would just get impaled, therefore shields at the side wouldn't really matter. Perhaps it might be a bit more logic if this ability would cause the rams to lower their heads and directly headbutt the enemy. This would be a) extremly funny to watch (
) and b) a bit more logic, because the goats are wearing a helmet, aren't they? (If they don't: Just add them!
)
Greetings
Melkor Bauglir