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I was wondering if there has been a historical type WW1&2 ruleset which uses fantasy races (orcs, dwarves, elves etc). I know that this certainly doesn't count as historical, but I thought this sub would know.

Great War rules with orcs and howitzers?

There is Flintloque, which is primarily geared towards the Napoleonic Wars. I don't know of a WWI or WWII equivalent off the top of my head though.

I am essentially doing this, but I need to finish the proper Middle-earth stuff first (I am doing a line of Miniatures that are what Middle-earth is supposed to look like, according toTolkien's descriptions, and not Peter Jackson's "eviaceration" - Christopher Tolkien's description of what Peter Jackson did to his father's works - of Tolkien).

But I plan to use my 3D meshes (which are rigged to be pose able, since they will be used for the Tolkien Documentary we are hoping to start shooting for next year) to make a WWI/II set of figures as well.

England would be Hobbits.
France would be Elves.
Germany would be Orcs.
Russia would be Dwarves.
Not sure what Italy or Japan would be... I would need to think.

If I were sticking to traditional Tolkien inspired fantasy races, then Italy and Japan would be tough to do.

But broadening to other Fantasy genres, and I could make Japan traditional Japanese Youkai, Oni, and Ayakashi.

Italy could be undead, I suppose... Or maybe Lesser-Goblins.

I also sculpt in a more realistically proportioned style, which mimics Tom Meier (Working in 3D digital sculpting makes this easier to do).

I idolize his nearly classical proportions and style, which is a departure from the cartoonish styles that have become so common in the miniature business... I am sick of seeing miniatures that are only five heads high, with little to no neck, and with arms that are as big around as their torso, or legs.

I am also sick of seeing miniatures that have no anatomy other than two arms, two legs, a torso and a head.

I would like to see the surface anatomy of the subcutaneous structures in a body....

But....

Since 1984, I have been fixated on Nazi Space Orcs that are not the brutish louts portrayed in 40k or Warhammer.

MB


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Now that I think about it... Italy would definitely be Lesse-Orcs/Goblins.

North Africa (Egypt/Tunisia) would be undead.

Oh... And the USA would be regular humans.

MB

Japan could be easterlings keeping with the exotic eastern men

 mitch_rifle wrote:
Japan could be easterlings keeping with the exotic eastern men

I would prefer to avoid overtly Orientalist themes for a more modern game genre.

Not to mention that in a Tolkienian setting, Easterlings refer to peoples of Eastern Europe and Western Asian steppes.

Japan would not even enter into a Tolkienian setting.

Not to mention that the Japanese Mythology itself provides for a far better, and more colorful panoply of choices. Youkai, for instance, already have a hierarchy that is militaristic (reminiscent of Samurai), and have a plethora of bizarre and powerful capabilities that would present a more entertaining game than simply "different humans."

MB

That sounds awesome! I know there's a lot of alternative WW1 stuff, but I didn't see anything like Shadowrun meets Bolt Action.

Germany as Orcs? I dunno. Sauron united many races under one banner; the Elves were all about racial purity. I'd say WW2 Germany = Elves.

 judgedoug wrote:
Germany as Orcs? I dunno. Sauron united many races under one banner; the Elves were all about racial purity. I'd say WW2 Germany = Elves.

Revisionist heresy.

The Elves were not at all about Racil Purity, and I do not know where that keeps coming from (save for that sorry piece of fan-fiction that depicts Sauron as the "good guy," as he is about as familiar with Tolkien's work as is the average house cat).

And given that the Orcs and Sauron were very much a tyrannical, fascist sort....

MB

Yeah, at what point were Tolkiens Elves all about racial purity? That sounds like a pretty gross mis-characterization to me.

 melkorthetonedeaf wrote:
That sounds awesome! I know there's a lot of alternative WW1 stuff, but I didn't see anything like Shadowrun meets Bolt Action.

Deadlands?

 Hordini wrote:
Yeah, at what point were Tolkiens Elves all about racial purity? That sounds like a pretty gross mis-characterization to me.

uu

It basically originates from a single source. This piece of ***:

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Last_Ringbearer

Then, someone at Cracked read that horrific book, and wrote an article about Sauron the Good-Guy and the memes in the book began to leak out.

I admire the creativity of the work, and that the author was clever, but I already have a big enough problem with despising an ignorant population (made all the more difficult and complicated by a fierce egalitarian streak). And our lazy and ignorant global population is already unable to tell the difference between Peter Jackson's rape of Middle-earth and Tolkien's actual words, which just makes things even more complicated when memes from revisionist stuff leaks into the world's.

Plus, the really extremist Left already hates Tolkien (thinking him a racist, colonialist, and misogynist), and you get radical feminists promoting this kind of crap about Middle-earth.

Admittedly, it is biased toward an authoritarian, unegalitarian romanticism, where gender roles are fairly rigid. But that is no reason to make up things to paint it as something it isn't.

MB


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 AnomanderRake wrote:

 melkorthetonedeaf wrote:
That sounds awesome! I know there's a lot of alternative WW1 stuff, but I didn't see anything like Shadowrun meets Bolt Action.

Deadlands?

Deadlands is set in the 1840s - 1900s, well before even the Spanish-American War, to say nothing of WWI and WWII.

MB.

I think the lady doth protest too much.

Which is beyond the scope of this thread guys.

Mate. Seriously. Chill pill. The fact that millions of people saw and enjoyed some movies rather than reading some old books that are completely irrelevant to their lives and that they may have never even heard of doesn't make them either "ignorant" or "lazy". It means that they watched a film/series of films and possibly enjoyed them. You should know and be better than that.

 Azazelx wrote:
Mate. Seriously. Chill pill. The fact that millions of people saw and enjoyed some movies rather than reading some old books that are completely irrelevant to their lives and that they may have never even heard of doesn't make them either "ignorant" or "lazy". It means that they watched a film/series of films and possibly enjoyed them. You should know and be better than that.

You are correct that the films/books I mention have little to do with making the masses ignorant and lazy.

I am using a different metric for that assessment, based more upon a knowledge and understanding of basic principles, or facts about the world, of which roughly 60% of the U.S. population willfully rejects, and which roughly 75% of the non-European rest of the world is simply ignorant of (but not really lazy — they have other issues that prevent them from rising).

But in the USA there is no excuse for the levels of ignorance we see in our society in the Middle/Upper-classes (I am not referring to the lower classes, whose ignorance is a matter of socio-economics and not of an intentional attitude or ideology).

And it is these attitudes that lead to an inability to discriminate between sources.

It may not seem like an important issue, but it affects far more things than most are aware of....

MB

Hahaha, wow. Perhaps I didn't realize the sarcasm wasn't self-evident.

I prefer the films anyway. Much less singing and the Uruk-Hai are the best visual representation of any orc I've ever seen.

Where to begin? This thread isn't appropriate to the historical gaming section, considering it is about fantasy races. That said, I don't think this topic fits in anywhere on Dakka. Comparing real peoples with fictional races is inherently problematic.