Mordor Marches - 32 Orcs

32 Orcs. Medium Infantry Spearmen. Morale Class D.

Having taken a look at the Mordor Uruks we now turn our attention to their lesser brethren the common Orc. Weaker than the Uruk and with a great fear of sunlight the primary attribute of these craven creatures is their vast numbers. As Stalin is once reputed to have said "Quantity has a quality all of its own".

I have also included my Bakshi reference picture which you can see shows Orcs in a brownish (almost orange) hue with yellow eyes and fangs. This will be my cipher colour scheme for the common Orc so that we can tell them apart from the Uruks. Note however that Bakshi did not differentiate his Orcs based on colour, I think he coloured them according to the mood of the scene. This is just something I am doing for ease of reference.

Speaking of Uruks you will notice that the front rank of this unit has six Uruks (three either side the command group) in it. Hopefully you will remember the Uruk ability to stiffen Orc units if they are sufficient in number (I.E. at least one eighth of the units total number) and on the front rank, which they are. This Orc unit therefore gains the advantage of not having to take a morale test when being charged by cavalry.

Sauron Wills It - Mordor Command

Although JRRT gives us the name of every hero of the West that fights against the forces of the Dark Lord he leaves the enemy commanders almost without mention. This is non too problematic as they can just be invented because they must surely have existed as Orcs in particularly are known to require strong leadership to be effective.

On the left we have the Witch King of Angmar on Winged Beast, referred to interchangeably in the Pelennor chapter of RotK as the 'Lord of the Nazgul' and the 'Black Captain'. In games terms he is a semi-autonomous character as he can be controlled by a player, but at the same time he has a part to play in the story of the battle and as such will at times find his actions dictated to him by circumstance (in this context player wishes will be over-ridden).

Next to him is the same character on horseback. In this guise he leads the siege of Minas Tirth and oversees the breaking of the main gate by the mighty battering ram Grond, shortly after to flee from Gandalf as the horns of the Rohirrim are heard in the distance. We may not need this model but I have made it available just in case. Whether on beast or horse the Black Captain has +1CRT and LDR+2 among a couple of other abilities I'm not going to give away here.

Both figures are from Copplestone (as are the other two) from the 'Evil Heroes' pack. I have gone for the pure black paint scheme which, I realise, gives them an undercoated look but I just couldn't bring myself to put colour on a Nazgul!

The only other named Mordor commander we are told about is Gothmog, who leads the reserves held in Osgiliath. Was he man or Orc or some other kind of foul servant? We are not told. What was his fate? We are not told. I used the Warg mounted figure as a nod to the Peter Jackson version of this character.

Finally we have "random Uruk Hai Captain number 1" or Uruk Captain for short. Here I am following JRRTs lead, if he thought such individuals unworthy of a name then I shall not give them one either. His stats will be randomly determined on the day in the same manner as the lesser heroes of the West.

If this seems like very few commanders remember that we haven't got to the great press of Southrons and their leaders yet. So there should be enough here to provide one leader for each Mordor contingent (I'll provide more if this turns out to be not the case).