Board Thread:Fun and Games/@comment-26295802-20160321234711/@comment-25101690-20160607171928

Gen. Grievous1138 wrote:

High King Ithilion wrote:

Gen. Grievous1138 wrote:

High King Ithilion wrote: There probably were a bunch of orcs in Mordor, hiding out in various strongholds. With the Nazgul leading the orcs, the Gondorians would have been nervous about attacking them, but they would have tried to lift the siege to save their historic city if it was just a small force. Therefore, it was likely pretty strong. There were about equal odds at Azanulbizar during the War of the Dwarves and Orcs. The orcs were winning until the dwarves got reinforcements.

Gen. Grievous1138 (admin) comlink 23:46, June 6, 2016 (UTC) Yes, they were winning. The Orcs outnumbered the Dwarves near four to one. Where are your sources?

Gen. Grievous1138 (admin) comlink 10:57, June 7, 2016 (UTC) I quote Tolkien Gateway: The exact number for the Dwarves was not specified, but it can be estimated at being somewhere between six to ten thousand Longbeards, Firebeards, Broadbeams, Ironfists, Stonefoots, Blacklocks, and Stiffbeards. This is based off the assumption that the other Dwarf houses sent no more then a few thousand each to take part in the war, because they could not have sent too many for economic, financial and defense reasons. The Longbeards (Durin's Folk) could not have mustered a proper fighting force of no more than 1-3,000, because of a severely depleted populace and financial/economic problems (especially Thraín's following).

The Orcs, as stated above, came from Moria, and from as far north as Mount Gundabad. Their numbers can be estimated at fifteen to twenty thousand Orcs. In average that is 8K dwarves vs 17.5K orcs, roughly 2:1 odds against the dwarves.

In the Azanulbizar scenario of Third Age Total War, the forces are roughly 2.1K dwarves (including reinforcements of ~210 elites) vs 4K orcs (plus 24 trolls). This is roughly the same as the guess on Tolkien Gateway.