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I know that GW's LotR SBG doesn't seem to have Easterling Chariots (I know that GW don't make any),

But is that something people might be interested in?

I have a model I made in AutoCAD about 5 years ago, but never completely finished, and I was thinking about pulling it out, and finishing it up to produce on Shapeways (which seems to be pretty well suited for the piece, which is not terrifically packed with high-res details).

The Chariot was originally intended to be a Four-Horse Heavy Chariot, with a crew of four or five, and a driver.

But I could easily scale the body down in the XY-plane to make it into a Lighter 2-horse Chariot, with a driver and 2 crew (like an Ancient Indian Chariot).

The horses I designed it to go with are either the Easterling Cataphract horses, or some of the Horses from the Perry's Muslim range for the Crusades.

The Heavy Chariot is designed to go on one of the larger bases, like the Mumakil, or that Mordor Beast with the orcs in a Howdah for the SBG, or on a 60mm wide frontage for DBA/HotT (although I think I am going to offer one that fits on an 80mm wide base for the LotR armies I am basing for DBA/HotT, which use an 80mm element frontage so that people can use Warhammer bases - or at least more easily use individually mounted LotR figures). The Light Chariot would fit on a base the same size as the Khandirim Chariots.

MB

Sounds like a cool idea. I actually like the idea of a proper heavy chariot since the Khandish one definitely fills the skirmish role, and it would complement a Kataphrakt charge very nicely.

If you want some rules for it in SBG written up, let me know and I'll throw something together.

 Paradigm wrote:
Sounds like a cool idea. I actually like the idea of a proper heavy chariot since the Khandish one definitely fills the skirmish role, and it would complement a Kataphrakt charge very nicely.

If you want some rules for it in SBG written up, let me know and I'll throw something together.

That would be good to have stats for the SBG. I have only worked out their stats for massed battles using Field of Glory or Hoplon, but. I plan to have two or three for the SBG/WotR.

Something else to think about would be doing stats for the Khand chariots with two crew (driver and an archer, or regular warrior).

I am making new chariot bodies for Khand as well (they basically look exactly like the old ones, but widened and deepened by 5mm each to allow the addition of an archer or warrior).

MB

Cool, I'l get those written up at some point soon. I'll stick them in this thread if that's ok with you.

Sounds cool, would love to see some properly heavy chariots, especially for some properly heavy warriors! And being pulled by Kataphract horses and with a Kataphract charge! I need to start expanding my Easterlings!

Khand ideas sound cool as well, makes me think of roman era ones used by British and Dacians etc., a lot more logical to have someone driving with someone fighting, than someone driving WHILST fighting!

Can't wait to see how the sculpts turn out as well as the stats. I actually created an Easterling hero a while ago who rode a chariot, but i gave him the Khand one because i didn't want to make another and the stats were already established. This project looks awesome though and i my interest has been piqued...

 Captain Galenus wrote:
Sounds cool, would love to see some properly heavy chariots, especially for some properly heavy warriors! And being pulled by Kataphract horses and with a Kataphract charge! I need to start expanding my Easterlings!

Khand ideas sound cool as well, makes me think of roman era ones used by British and Dacians etc., a lot more logical to have someone driving with someone fighting, than someone driving WHILST fighting!

Can't wait to see how the sculpts turn out as well as the stats. I actually created an Easterling hero a while ago who rode a chariot, but i gave him the Khand one because i didn't want to make another and the stats were already established. This project looks awesome though and i my interest has been piqued...

Technically ALL chariots to ever be used in war had at least a driver and a warrior..

The only chariots to carry one person were racing chariots.

Also, chariots were used by a HUGE number of ancient civilizations, beginning with the Ancient Egyptians, Assyrians, on to the Mycenaean Greeks, to the Celts, Picts, and Ancient British (I think even the early Welsh may have had some... Or am I thinking something like early Scots-Irish???). And of course the Ancient Indians, and Chinese had chariots. The Dacians, however, didn't use Chariots.

But for Middle-Earth, the Easterling Chariots are modeled after the Chinese Chariots, or the Hsuing-Nu, who were the progenitors of the Huns and Mongols.

The Wainriders, who are the first to show up in Chariots (Nobles only - but that is the case for all Easterling Chariots), were based upon an amalgam of Asiatics by Tolkien (he only made some notes about the Easterling Language, but never followed through with it, which would have given us a much more informed idea of what he meant by "Easterlings," considering the Easterlings of the Third Age were not the Danes/Norwegian Easterlings of the First Age).

Oddly, Khand, in Tolkien's actual works, are not supposed to have Chariots, at least not the "Variags" of the Late Third Age, who were Rus (Russian Vikings); being the descendants of the Balchoth, which were relocated to Harad after their defeat at the Limlight by the Éotheod and Gondor in 2510TA.

They might have been related to the Wainriders, but had far fewer mounted troops, and most of their horses were used to pull the houses they kept on wagons (whereas the Wainriders were a largely mounted army).

Which is not unexpected, given that the Wainriders essentially conquered Rhovanion, pushing the Foradan (Northmen - the ancestors of the Éotheod) out of Rhovanion c. 1851 - 1860TA. The Northmen left few horses in Rhovanion, and the Wainriders were not as successful in their keeping of the Lands as has been the Foradan.... So, by the time 500 years had gone by, the Balchoth, as they now called themselves, could have changed significantly from the original arrival of the Easterlings in Rhovanion.

But only the Wainriders, and the Later Third Age Easterlings who fought in the War of the Ring were explicitly said to have Chariots, and then they were both said to have heavy chariots (although the Wainriders could have also had some lighter scouting Chariots).

Sorry... I run on a bit about Tolkien.... It is my favorite thing on earth.

MB

BeAfraid wrote:
The Dacians, however, didn't use Chariots.

Oh, , and that era is supposed to be my speciality! Very interesting just how fundamental chariots have been throughout history, you could say they were the kind of tanks, and they supported the infantry.

Don't worry about your zeal to express Tolkien, his works are masterful and I found that explanation about wainriders and Easterlings very interesting indeed. It makes me realise how behind i am on my reading of Tolkien!

 Captain Galenus wrote:

BeAfraid wrote:
The Dacians, however, didn't use Chariots.

Oh, , and that era is supposed to be my speciality! Very interesting just how fundamental chariots have been throughout history, you could say they were the kind of tanks, and they supported the infantry.

Don't worry about your zeal to express Tolkien, his works are masterful and I found that explanation about wainriders and Easterlings very interesting indeed. It makes me realise how behind i am on my reading of Tolkien!

After the publication of the first volume of The History of Middle-earth (vol 1: The Book of Lost Tales, Part One), which I picked up immediately upon its publication in Oct of '83 (I was fortunate enough to be in England for school at the time), I wound up going to the Bodliean Library at Oxford nearly every weekend for most of 1984 to read Tolkien's actual notes and materials on Middle-earth (including much that looks like it will not be published for quite a while). And I wound up at Oxford for a Lecture Series from Joseph Campbell and used that time to continue reading his notes.

Most of what I have read is now in print in The History of Middle-earth, or in other secondary sources, such as Shippey or Humphrey.

I am currently writing an Account of the Wars of Gondor and the Foradan with the Wainriders in the style of Anna Comnena's The Alexiad, or the early histographies of Plutarch or Polybios. They would represent what Tolkien would have called a Sub-Sub Creation (a work of history that exists inside a work of pseudo-history, which is what Tolkien's creation of Middle-earth is supposed to represent: A found account of the legends of Middle-earth that Tolkien then "translated" for us), and are intended to be a dry recounting of facts rather than an epic story.


.....




As for "Dacian Chariots," the ancestors of the Dacians, prior to migrating to Carpathia, seem to have used chariots.

And there are references to "Dacian Chariots" at the races in the Hippodrome from the Oxyrhynchus Papyrus, but there is no clue as to what these are, because the most extensive works on the Dacians (Cassius Dio's accounts of the Dacian Wars of Domitian and Trajan) make no mention at all of Chariots, and we have no archeological evidence of Chariots being used on that side of the Rhine and Danube in Europe) we find Chariots being used by the Transalpine Gauls in Western Europe and in Britain, but not to the east of the Rhine or north of the Danube.

MB

Quite a story, you were lucky to have access to all those amazing resources! That book sounds interesting; are you writing it with the aim of publishing and selling? If so then I would be interested as I found the notes that Tolkien made and didn't completely finish the most interesting part of Middle Earth.

Fair enough. My limit of knowledge with the Dacians is the wars they had with Rome (I mainly focus on expansionist and military Roman culture) and probably got mixed up with 'some of the others over there'.

The work on the Wainriders is simply for the fun of it, and it am not certain I would even be able to sell it.

I will probably give it away (digitally) and produce a few physical copies to give away (bound in wood and leather, since it will not be a huge work).

Eventually, I would like to do similar themed works for the Second Age as well, focusing upon the various Noldor Kingdoms after the fall of Beleriand, and the Númenóreans as they shifted to a darker role in the affairs of Middle-earth (with the split between the King's Men and the Faithful).

But given everything I have to do right now, it is slow going.

Trying to get the Goblins/Orcs sculpted is taking up most of my time.

MB