Misty Mountains concept images

[Azog The Defiler]

IMAGES AND VIDEOS:

Gundabad orcs: http://media.indiedb.com/images/members/2/1960/1959851/gundabad_orcs.png

Dol Guldur trolls:
http://r58.imgup.net/Trolls9240.png
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bHHrPA80j7E

Dol Guldur orcs:
http://media.moddb.com/images/members/1/874/873509/ORC13.jpg The one in the front could be a nice design for the banner carrier
https://www.herr-der-ringe-film.de/v3/media/galerie/hobbit001/dos_trailer2/dos39-cb210126.jpg
I like the design on the armor on their backs in this one
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=THu4gwA2GQA at 0:25 Also that is a great war chant for the orcs!


Come forth my armies:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GW-IgJHM3cY  Also in this clip we can see the orcs have two different kinds of shields, i think the swordsman troop should have both shields at random.

Also check out the design at weta workshop to see what i mean for the orcs. As you can see they have fur under their armor, and they are more pale than the orcs of the south, and more fierce looking.

[Adrigabbro]

Haven't read the whole thing, but the news that the team gave us two years ago about MM looked so promising that I'd rather wait for the release before even suggesting anything.

[The_Necromancer0]

That's a lot to crunch through but I've managed to read it all. Now I'd like to start with a couple negative thoughts of mine:
-I don't think they'll remove Dol Guldur
-Azog will never be named, he will remain the Defiler for lore-accuracy
-I don't think they'll add more easterlings

Now with the positive stuff:
I really like the Idea of the Dol Guldur armor upgrade with a couple tweaks. I also really liked the BOFTA armor for the orcs it looked even more martial than the Isengard Uruk-Hai.  I don't have much thoughts on the Gundabad fortress but your idea is interesting, I'd like to see what the Team thinks of it. I love Bolg and Azog "The Defiler" the abilities you designed really suits them, got a basic idea of all the abilities and it sounded very lore-accurate, I don't know about balance though. The wereworms is probably the idea that is the most accurate, it really ties in with the rest of MM, both showing the Wereworms helping the faction but at the same time staying untamed. Overall solid ideas apart from what I mentioned at the beginning, I'd love to see what the Team says on the whole thing.

[Azog The Defiler]

Adriaggabro, yes it looked very promising indeed 

Necromancer, yes they probably wont remove Dol Guldur and give evil men a bigger part, but it would certainly make many people happy with more of evil men. But It could also just remain the same with the Dol Guldur orcs getting another design so the Gundabad orcs can get the Botfa armor.
And the idea was to have the faction at the time of the war between dwarves and orcs, which makes having both Azog and Bolg named, very lore accurate.

[WarOfTheRingVeteran]

1. Err... I'd prefer not to touch Defiler/Bolg thing, it is fine as it is... Including the timeline...

2. I like your idea for the armour, cause I personally like it and I don't think Edain has anything against it

3. I already proposed the movie fortress (I wasn't the first one, duh) And about Gundabad trolls, I personally think it'd be better if Moria trolls would be able to research the additional armour, mainly for the sake (not the drink) of balance.

4. I don't think Mordor requires any changes for now.

5. Yeah

6. Wereworms, well, I'm indifferent. They, are... lore-wiiiise... Well, Gandalf himself (in the book) said the dark and unknown creatures of the deeps would have served the Dark Lord if needed, so... However, I'm a bit annoyed that PJ gave himself a little bit too much freedom (again), so again; depends on Edain Team.

In conclusion, let's see what ET's got to say

[Fredius]

I'm firmly against removing Dol Guldur from Mordor. I myself love the diversity in Mordor; when I play against Lothlorien or Dwarves I use Dol Guldur, when I play against Gondor or Rohan I use Minas Morgul. Also the armor shown in the movies is forged in Dol Guldur, not in Gundabad, therefore the armor belongs to the Dol Guldur orcs. I do agree that it needs to be updated though.

However this armor is made in Gundabad, and should be used as a heavy armor upgrade for their Orcs imo:

The problem with this concept is that the faction relies on Gundabad as the major power in the MM faction. Edain's concept, however, makes the MM supposed to be three different factions all with their own unique traits. Noone is stronger than the other.  But in any case let's just wait untill we see what Edain is planning to do with this faction, which is also one of my favorites .

[Walküre]

First of all, thank you Azog for having expressed your proposals 

As others have rightly and already written here, the Misty Mountains faction is still in the development phase, needing definitely more attention than Rivendell, because it's arguably the most particular faction compared to the other ones; we should thus really wait for more detailed and specific news, I guess, because I feel that there will be important changes for the Goblins as well, as also the other factions were concretely modified from the initial plan.

Nevertheless, it's also legitimate discussing about it if there are suggestions that one might think that they would fit well in the Edain Mod.
So, I want to make some considerations about what you have suggested, accordingly to the official information we have had so far.

1. Technically, Azog doesn't exist in the Edain Mod 

It's true that the Defiler's design is entirely fashioned from the Azog of AUJ, but Azog, as a character, died in the battle of Azanulbizar and he's thus excluded from the timeline of the faction, set during the events of the Hobbit.

This precisely means that, currently, there is 'only' the Defiler, who will also be characterised by a hunter-like nature, which obviously defines both his status in his faction and his abilities, and not the one of a general.

2. I don't totally agree with removing Dol Guldur as well.
The fortress entirely belongs to Sauron (and consequently Mordor), and it's always been deeply connected to the powers of its Master so that its very integrity and magical (negative) nature depend solely on Sauron (and we understand clearly, then, why it was necessary the Magic of Galadriel to tear down the fortress, and not 'just' the action of a regular army).

Sauron hid himself for centuries in Dol Guldur, and this caused the progressive corruption of a large portion of the already enormous Mirkwood.
When the Fellowship is escorted to Lothlórien by Haldir, Tolkien clearly describes how everything around Dol Guldur had become tainted and dead, withering due to the evil emanation from that fortress.

Therefore, yes, Minas Morgul is iconically known for its link to magical poison, but Dol Guldur too is characterised by a strong 'poisonous nature', which directly derives from Sauron himself and not by the Witch-king.

3. This matter has been debated a lot both here and on ModDB within the Edain Community.
What people's desires are related to, according to the discussion and polls, is the will of having the Evil Men available as a faction themselves, as it should legitimately be.

The implementation of the Evil Men via the spellbook is currently meant to symbolise how the Evil Men came in aid for Mordor as allies from far regions, and that they never entirely belonged to the Dark Lord, primarily because their malice and evilness are profoundly different from the Orcs' or the other foul creatures'.
Therefore, if the Evil Men will really have much more space, it had better be within a faction of their own, in my opinion.

Anyway, this is the thread I was talking about regarding them; you are more than welcome if you want to join it 

http://forum.modding-union.com/index.php/topic,32416.msg424817.html#msg424817

4. It's not that Mordor has a lot of units in a very confused ensemble.
It must be that way for gameplay and conceptual reasons.

Mordor can't upgrade in most of the cases its units with armours or forged blades.
That's why it needs a wide range of different units/heroes with different features and abilities (mainly with negative effects).
Also because having huge armies on its control is exactly one of Mordor's dreadful aspects in the lore.

Eventually, apart from these themes, I don't think that everything must necessarily remain this way.
I too expressed my desire of having more concepts from the Hobbit trilogy implemented in the faction, especially a more similar model of Smaug than the current one (which still resembles him in his general traits).

Just, as Fredius wrote, the Misty Mountains are still a bit of a mystery, and we don't know yet what kind of new plans and changes the Edain Team could opt for in the future 

[Azog The Defiler]

I really like that design on the Gundabad orcs, but i think it was stated somewhere that there wasnt enough material for them. But if The Gundabad orcs got this armor and the Dol Guldur orcs could have the BOTFA armor (which would recieve further work), and i would be more than happy. It would actually be the best solution. This way not that much would actually change for both factions.

And yes i see your point on using Morgul and Dol Guldur orcs against different factions.

And also on the Azog matter. Since he probably wont be Azog in the mod, i dont see the point where he has to belong to MM faction. i Think it would be a nice addition to add him to Mordor to be a commander of the Dol Guldur orcs, recruited from Dol Guldur. And then Gothmog would be moved from the main fortress to be recruited from Minas Morgul as he commands the Morgul orcs. MM could just have another hunter orc in his place.


But my main goals with this post:

1. Botfa armor implemented,
- either to Gundabad orcs as upgrade, or they could recive the armor fredius posted
- or the current Dol Guldur orcs would get a rework

2. Botfa armor for the trolls implemented
- either for MM faction
- or somehow for mordor faction
- but the point is that the botfa armored orcs have botfa armored trolls, whichever faction they go to

3. Azog would get a better role as a leader
- either for MM faction so the timeline is changed a little and hes the leader of the whole faction with Bolg at his side
- or anonymous for Dol Guldur as a commander so you could have a botfa army led by a proper leader.

4. Gundabad fortress would certainly be a nice addition for MM, working as a defensive base and armory.

5. And last the wereworm would be incredible ro have.

[Melkor Bauglir]

I pretty much completely agree with DieWalküre and Fredius, not much to add.
Also there has been a pretty nice discussion about armored trolls for the Misty Mountains, I don't seem to find right now. Basically there is a very fundamental thing speaking against armored trolls here: Mordor's trolls are designed to be more organized (can't throw rocks or use trees), but do possess upgrades giving them a more advanced look. In comparison, the cave trolls are wild beasts who more or less happen to fight along the goblins. A nice compromise we ended up was to replace the "Untamed Alliance" spell as it is basically useless now (or better: it just isn't replaced, yet ). The new spell would then summon a number of armored trolls (probably not too many, because it's only a second tier spell, but of course we could do something like the number of trolls increases with the amount of tunnels for example). Everyone would be happy: The DG-armor would find its way into the game as it looks rather nice, Misty Mountains would not change into a war machinery and a relic from older versions (Untamed Alliance) would find final peace.

Greetings
Melkor Bauglir

[Azog The Defiler]

Yes i saw the discussion:)
But i think it would be nice to have DG trolls implemented in the mordor faction to fit your DG army.
They could serve you as tank trolls since the DG orcs arent that durable, and the regular trolls go better with minas morgul as the morgul orcs are very durable.

[Spacetyrant93]

All very interesting ideas in this thread let us see...

About Azog and Bolg, if the team wants to simply keep Azog as The Defiler's pretty much fine with me, that way all can be content. Though, I approve of the armor. Also, technically he does have a commanding role, for at this point he is the leader of Gundabad, as the Great Goblin's for Goblintown and the new Gorkill (Goblin/Orc Chieftain was it?) for Moria, and Bolg leads them all. So it makes sense that a leader of the armoured/strong faction and his troops are given a fit armor.

I like how Dol Guldur orcs are right now, to me it seemed like they looked like the movie's army. Yet, for Gundabad, I too vote for the armor Fredius posted, looks nicely different from the others.

Dol Guldur, I'd say, should remain in Mordor, with the Evil Men implemented on their own as said. Yet, I would not exclude an ability that calls forth troops from Dol Guldur to aid, since technically in the movie both Gundabad and Dol Guldur's forces engaged in the battle. While not technically very lore-ish, it could help differentiate it all. Troops of Orcs would come, together with a couple Armored Trolls from the movie. This would include them without heavily disrupting the play, I think.

Or another idea yet would be for every Goblin sub-faction to have their own Trolls:
-Moria gives cheaper, very movable and versatile, but a little more frail, Cave Trolls (both melee and siege)
-Gundabad gives expensive and trong, but slow armored Trolls (melee, heavy attacks, maybe a maximum of 3)
-Goblintown gives the average costing Troll Catapult from the movie (siege) NOTE:it looked like Goblintown orcs were the ones operating it

I do like the Wereworm spell.

I wouldn't complain if the Gundabad fortress was implemented, it had a nice and distinctive look.

One suggestion I would make, if I may, would be not to use the Giants. technically, while Dragons did fight in some of the wars, Giants were never seen around (or at least it wasn't told of them) so, while cool and a useful siege unit, they kinda seem off. I could dare to say the main siege unit could be the Troll-Catapults from the movie. I know they weren't liked, but for Goblins to build their machines atop beasts actually makes sense, for they travel unstable and rocky places, where a wheel-driven siege machine would pretty much be useless.
If the original Giants from the game are used, I'd propose to consider them a 'higher' breed of Trolls, and to put another ultimate spell alongside the Balrog that has the Rock Giants (movie, but they remain unseen) throw a humongous boulder on a selected area, kinda like Angmar's avalanche, but just one big hit, that makes a huge damage.

[Walküre]

I would also like to add further information about the BOTFA Gundabad fortress.

I remember that there has already been a similar debate about a possible addition of the films' model, the one we saw in BOTFA; and I also remember that the Edain Team had consequently answered that suggestion.
There are two pretty clear posts from both Ealendril and Gnomi about this matter.

http://en.modding-union.com/index.php/topic,31616.msg406752.html#msg406752

http://en.modding-union.com/index.php/topic,31616.msg407659.html#msg407659

This means that, as far as these official statements tell, there is currently no will of implementing this design in the game.

But, apart from formalities, I don't think that things will necessarily stick to these intentions; as it happened regarding the Dwarves, when plans have been modified to find and make other great unexpected innovations that I'm sure not many people were expecting.
So, as I exactly wrote above, the only thing I would suggest doing is waiting for future news, as we don't really know how everything will evolve by now 

If you want my personal opinion along with these official news, I would say that I feel kind of strangely about that design.
I theoretically don't like it so much, as I believe that the outcome could have been better, but I also don't appreciate very much the vanilla design of the previous Goblins faction.
So, I hope that some changes will indeed find their way for the Misty Mountains faction, and that, who knows, the Edain Team will be able to find a compromise between their vision and the one of the films, just like the recent BOTFA Iron Hills design (which is not entirely based on the Hobbit, but it also presents some very Edain-ish modifications).

[Azog The Defiler]

Mkey so established in this thread:

BOTFA armor should remain with the Dol Guldur orcs and get a rework.
The Gundabad orcs would recieve the armor fredius posted.

BOTFA trolls, i think they could go for mordor trolls as an armor upgrade. The trolls get heavy armor but only a wooden club so they serve you as tank trolls while the other troll upgrade is for more damage output for your trolls.
Or they could be for Gundabad or some summon as someone mentioned.

Were worms would be a good idea.

I too like the idea of Goblintown having troll catapults, seems like something they could build there.

Gundabad fortress, its unfortunate if they dont want to implement it, but its their mod:D
But i think it would make sense to have a Gundabad fortress which is also an armory. Since the orcs had Gundabad as a great fortress and then built holds going from Gundabad to Gladden, this would be symbolized by the gundabad camp and then having a fortress.
It wouldnt have to look like in the movie but it does have a pretty cool look.
Also i would think the orcs would use the forges of gundabad for armor instead of building their own in the camps

[Garlodur]

In my opinion we don't have to look very far for how a Gundabad fortress would look. I would suggest the Vanilla Goblin fortress as I always digged its style; it really showed the wild side of building out in the open.
In the same line I also liked the Goblin Cave because they actually looked like caves. Something similar could be considered for the Gundabad fortress on the outpost (it should be connected to the tunnel network for starters). Yet, on the other side, it is a fortress that mainly serves to equip the orcs and goblins from the north.

Regarding the appearance of those Gundabad orcs, I would like to see the white/pale coloured orcs like the ones that Bolg led to Ravenhill in BOTFA. It enhance diversity within the race of orcs, plus they are more distinguishable. Their initial armour should show signs of fur/hair and only cover the essentials but with an upgraded armour that covers their whole body they most likely lose their pale appearance. I don't know how to fix this. I do like the idea of having the fortress also function as a forge.

[Melkor Bauglir]

I think the most important question still is, if of all the factions the Misty Mountains (possibly the most aggressive and most focused on expansion, yet with really weak fortresses) should get such a stronghold on their outposts? I think such a building is a totally inappropriate building for the Misty Mountains in general.
Also, I still don't see a reason for such a variaty in trolls: Misty Mountains already has a huge variety of monsters (the biggest of all factions to be clear) and armored trolls were always a Mordor unit -in Edain 4.0 more than ever, because of the new differences of the both units. I'm totally fine with armored trolls as a summon, because some of the armor looked indeed fairly nice, but they are just completely unnecessary as a regular unit. (Apart from that in Edain Moria recruits the trolls and those are influenced by the cave trolls of "The Fellowship of the Ring". And there is no way of adding other troll barracks for the other factions without destroyed the building symmetry of the tree orc-realms.)
Now a more personal point: Please spare me these stupid troll-giants! I mean, originally trolls were only really, really huge men (just read the chapter of the Black Gate battle -there is no way those trolls were this ludicrously large, otherwise they would not die from a single hobbit's stab or not crush Beregond directly, when he got hit). In the LotR films they were a lot larger, but still in a realistic way. In the Hobbit however those trolls often are about 10m high, giving zero continuity between LotR and Hobbit (why would none of the evil leaders use these giants or create the Uruk-Hai if there are just 3m high orcs waiting in the Misty Mountains, directly at Isengard's threshold?). There are a lot more things, I might add right now, but I'm just filled with utter hatred for these abominations and possibly the guys who though they were a good idea.


Greetings
Melkor Bauglir