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LOTR Chess Set – Black Army

Bu yazı tarafından 12 Tem 2012 tarihinde English, Life bölümünde yayınlandı. 2 yorum aldı ve 2.897 defa okundu.

While working on the Black Army set up, I tried to gather together the “Worst” characters ever. Of course there were some restrictions, but the end result was a really bad team:

[nrelate-related]

King: Eaglemoss naturally used Sauron in Set 1 for the King, so do I. In fact, considering the logic of chess, he is better suited than Gandalf, because he rather sits at home unlike the Gandalf who has sword in hand and hurry to next Battle.

Queen: I think if this chess set is prepared depending on the book rather than the movie, it would be Saruman not Witch King of Angmar, who should be preferred as Queen. In this case, two Nazgul could be used as Bishop. Because in the book the Witch King of Angmar doesn’ t portrayed so different from other Nazgul. In the movie however, he is emphasized too much so, he is choosen as Queen. But due to this figures’ physical size, it is not possible to change his position. Nevertheless for the Eastern culture, Eaglemoss evaluated the Queen of Black Army more accurately than the White Army. Witch King of Angmar does everything in the movie which a Queen should do on the chessboard.

 

After deciding on the Witch King, there is still one more decision to make. Eaglemoss used him in both Set 1 and Set 3 as Queen. Both are nice and detailed so I bought them both, but I’m using the figure of the Set 1.

Bishops: Our partnership with Eaglemoss ends at this point. In the Set 1, Orc Lieutenant and Gothmog are used as Bishop. If I preferred them, I would leave some other “bad” characters out of game. In Chess, Knights are least powerful of the chess pieces. So I considered Gothmog and Orc Lieutenant as Knights and looked for options for Bishops. Because I have others on mind for the Rooks, I transfered Saruman, King of Set 2 and Khamul, Bishop of Set 3 to my “bad” team.  (By the way, I’m the one who labelled the Ringwraith figure as Khamul. Tolkien names only two Ringwraiths in the book: Witch King of Angmar and Khamul. One more criticism to Eaglemoss to overlook that, but in the chessboard I’m calling him as Khamul.) The physical dimensions of the figures supports this usage, though, Saruman is a little tall.

 

So it comes to their specific positions. I make decision considering the pawns to be used and the relation of this pawns with the facing Army. In the end, I placed Saruman to Queen’s side and Khamul to King’s side. A further advantage I get from this selection is this: Unlike all the other chess pieces, Bishops can use either only white squares or blacks. If they start the game on whites, they are forever white. Therefore Saruman is in white squares, referring he was serving to goodness once. Khamul always served to darkness, therefore he is on the black squares.

 

 

 

 

Knights: As I stated above, my choice for Knights are Gothmog and Orc Lieutenant. As I said before, they are prepared as a team and they give a different color to board. Like the Knights of White Army, Theoden and Eomer, they carry distinctive elements. Gothmog highly emphasized in the movie unlike the book. Look, he is next in the order only to the Witch King of Angmar. However, I follow the book so the role I gave him is enough (the weakest of the chess pieces). I placed them so that the lower edges of the flags are closer to board end.

Rooks: In the original Eaglemoss Set, Orthanc and Barad-Dur is preferred, which is a nice choice in the chess logic. But as in the White Army, using important characters seemed a better idea to me. So, the Rook and Queen of the Set 3, Balrog and Shelob respectively, are transferred in my Set. They have very distinctive shapes and I think they fit nicely to each other. Their placement is a little more difficult to decide, because both ways are possible. I preferred Balrog across Elrond; and Shelob across Galadriel. In LOTR, genders of characters are seldomly emphasized, so I only used it in this selection.

 

Pawns: Like the White Army, I also used mostly the pawns of Set 1. In white army every pawn is selected from a real character, but in Black Army, partially from necessity there are some generic evil characters. Again the pawns of Set 2 are unproportional, so I avoided them except Grima. He is a must have, since he take serious part in the Two Towers. Placing Black Pawns to their exact positions are easier than the ones in White Army. These are my choices:

 

King’s Pawn: I choose the most important pawn for the position in front of the most important chess piece, King. As you may guess it is Gollum. Obviously he is not that secure in front of Sauron, as Frodo who stand front of Gandalf. There is not good relations between them but he must be happy as Frodo can not take    the Ring to Sauron without passing him. The pawns in the same lines can not kill each other but always block eachother’s ranges. In that sense Frodo and Gollum will see their faces frequently in my chessboard. And Gollum must fear most from Sam, dueto the rules of chess!

Queen’s Pawn: For this position Gorbag seemed excellent to me. This pawn faces with Sam, and due to chess’ rules he treathens Frodo most. When Shelop paralyses Frodo, Gorbag is one who finds him. He took Frodo to a tower in Minas Morgul. Sam pursued them and saved Frodo. Moreover, Gorbag serves to Witch King of Angmar, and stand in front of him.

Bishops’ Pawns: If Saruman is in the game and you are searching a pawn for him look no more than Grima. He is a natural “pawn” to him. With Saruman he is on the Queen’s side, so he threatens most –ready?- to Eowyn. This placement was so good that it affected the placement of Saruman and Khamul. And in front of Khamul I preferred Orc Axeman. He holds an axe like Gimli across the chessboard.

Knights’ Pawns: This position is completed, after I placed other pawns. So here I used remaining pawns. I put Orc Swordsman across Eowyn; and Orc Bowman across Hama.

Rooks’ Pawns: Like the other Black Pawns, I decided considering the White Pawns across the chessboard. Remember the part in the book that, Merry and Pippin kidnapped by the Orcs and Uruk-Hai’s. Eaglemoss succesfully made the figures of the Orcs’ team leader and the one who thinks he could eat the unwanted parts of the hobbits. So I transferred them from Set 3, and placed Grishnakh across to Merry; Snaga across to Pippin.

2 Comments

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  1. mehmet

    set gerçekten bir harika. internette gördüklerimin içierisinde en güzeli diyebilirim. Böyle bir seti nasıl edinebiliriz acaba ?

    • firo

      Merhaba, yazıda da dediğim gibi benim seçtiğim taşları topluca alabileceğiniz bir set yok. Ben tek tek ebay’ den temin ettim. Taşlarına kimi oldukça ucuzken (Aragorn, Gandalf gibi popüler olanlar), kimileri de epeyce pahalıydı. Hepsini bir defada bulamayacağınız da kesin. Tüm seti bitirmem 7 – 8 ayı aldı. Ama işin eğlenceli tarafı da o taşları toparlamaktı zaten 🙂

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