Yogi wrote:Those are standard regular Hobgoblin soldiers. Has Aragorn ever been able to kill that many soldiers?
And what good are these "standard regular Hobgoblin soldiers"? They are clearly vastly below Belkar, so why should we consider him killing them that much of an impressive feat, style over substance arguments aside?
And chances are he has. He's been around a while.
Roy is a Fighter, Belkar is mostly a Ranger with some levels of Barbarian thrown in. That means Belkar gets fewer feats and fewer hit points. Then there's the +5 Undead-bane Greatsword vs. two small daggers.
Who cares? How exactly does this demonstrate that Roy is vastly beyond Belkar so that he's guaranteed to win any encounter, or that Belkar or Roy could do the same to Aragorn.
Hey, just wondering. What WAS the most number of enemies that Aragorn killed at once, or any other quantifiable feat you'd like to mention. "Decades of experience" tells us jack shit.
Let me guess, you haven't actually read the Lord of the Rings, have you?
What makes you think they were wearing soft armor? Don't say it's because Belkar can stab them in the chest. Belkar can cut people in half with his daggers and people can be wounded through armor.
Now, exactly how tough are the armor that these "heavily armored Uruk-hai and orcs" wear?
Actually, yes. The fact that he can stab those guys through the chest is entirely adequate evidence that they aren't wearing much more than cloth armor. Cartoon violence aside a second, the second link you provided demonstrates the prevalence of cloth armor.
Chainmail and ringmail, to say nothing of plated armor, that sort of stuff is specifically designed
against slashing and stabbing weapons. In fact, a half way decent chainmail shirt will probably prevent you from being slashed or seriously stabbed. That's not to say you would feel the blunt force trauma of it and sustain injury, which is why alot of the injuries that medieval doctors treating soldiers was broken bones and stab injuries in exposed areas. Actual plate and mail armor was obscenely good at dealing with the conventional weapons of the day and would certainly turn some pissant daggers.
Hence, it's reasonable to conclude if Belkar was stabbing people through the chest repeatedly with no flukes involved, reasoning falls squarely on them not being armored.
Stormbringer did an adequate job of describing Uruk armor, though I disagree about his conclusion about the craftsmanship (orcish smiths were never depicted as that bad really and Sauron MUST have had some skilled craftsman). Chances are they were on the same general level of craftsmanship as anyone except the dwarves and the elves, since mannish craftsmanship had slid a long way by the time of the War of the Ring. Certainly they were around the same level of the Rohirrim, for instance, and I'd suspect that some legions were better equipped than others (such as the White Hand Uruk-Hai that Aragorn and the Rohirrim fought at Helm's Deep).
However, ringmail armor, shields, iron helmets (that's a known), and some armor kits puts them heads and shoulders about those hobgoblins you linked.