Guns in Fantasy Triumph

[Brian Caskey]

David Kuit

But in my 28mm Orc Fantasy army - can't I have Orcs with Arquebuses and Bows?????

[RogerCooper]

I think Saruman had gunpowder.

[David Kuijt]

But in my 28mm Orc Fantasy army - can't I have Orcs with Arquebuses and Bows?????

In your 28mm Orc Fantasy army you can have lasers and plasma destroyers, I don't care. You can even paint your Orcs green, if you swing that way.

[David Kuijt]

I think Saruman had gunpowder.

Blasting can be done by magical means as well. Don't believe everything you see from Peter Jackson -- perhaps his vision of the breach in the Deeping Wall was his first step into the madness he showed in the final movie of the Hobbit.

[RogerCooper]

Check this article https://middle-earth.xenite.org/is-ther ... dle-earth/ describing the use of gunpowder in Middle Earth. The societies of Middle Earth are generally conservative and backwards-looking, and they have not created guns but they seem to have some explosives.

[David Kuijt]

Check this article https://middle-earth.xenite.org/is-ther ... dle-earth/ describing the use of gunpowder in Middle Earth. The societies of Middle Earth are generally conservative and backwards-looking, and they have not created guns but they seem to have some explosives.

Nice article!

But as the article says, implied, not explicit. There are certainly fireworks (from Gandalf and of Dwarven manufacture) in the Hobbit -- but fireworks existed in China for a very very long time before any effective gunpowder explosions were created. Many centuries -- more than a thousand years, apparently. The first fireworks go back to maybe the 2nd century BC in China -- and the first effective gunpowder weapons and explosive charges start around 1400 AD in Europe. In the 1200s and 1300s the most common "gunpowder" weapons in China were fire lances -- basically a cross between a roman candle and a sparkler, attached to a lance with a spearhead, to distract and disorient someone you were trying to stab with the spearhead.

Magic, and steam, are as reasonable an explanation for much of the explosions mentioned in LOTR and the Hobbit as gunpowder. In particular, everything in Isengard needs no gunpowder to explain -- inundating an underground foundry containing molten metal with a river would certainly cause all sorts of steam explosions.