Incarnates (Warhammer Fantasy) in Lord of the Rings

1. Nagash, Incarnate of Death is dropped into the Dead Marshes.

2. Sigmar, Incarnate of Heavens is dropped into Minas Tirith

3. Grimgor, Incarnate of Beasts is dropped into Isengard

4. Tyrion, Incarnate of Light is dropped into Rivendell

5. Alarielle, Incarnate of Life is dropped into Lothlorien

6. Balthasar Gelt, Incarnate of Metal is dropped into Rohan

7. Malekith, Incarnate of Shadow is dropped into Minas Morgul. Or Mirkwood depending on if you want him to be heroic or villainous.

8. Caradryan, Incarnate of Fire is dropped into Rivendell

Scenarios: Assume those around them when they're dropped in become allies. They all appear right before Bilbo throws his party. They are inactive until the Fellowship gets into contact with their respective places but are assumed to already be a member of whatever society is close by.

1. How does each Incarnate fare, dropped in individually and what is the strongest creature they can beat assuming the story takes place as told until it gets to their area?

2. How do they fare all dropped into Middle-Earth at the same time?

Bonus round. Same rules apply.

Archaon replaces the Mouth of Sauron in Mordor and does whatever he wants with the armies there.

The Glottkin replaces Gothmog in the Siege of Minas Tirith.

Ka'Bandha replaces the Balrog in Moria and is tasked with killing Gandalf the Grey and the Fellowship. If he succeeds, he goes into a rampage outside Moria and goes wherever. Where does he stop?

Id like to see @wut's opinion on this one. Highly interesting scenario

My only point for now is

Ka'Bandha replaces the Balrog in Moria and is tasked with killing Gandalf the Grey and the Fellowship. If he succeeds, he goes into a rampage outside Moria and goes wherever.

This depends which version of Balrog lore you use, seeing as Tolkien seemes to have retconned Balrog's internally. Using the one that existed at the time of the writing of LotR, Gandalf MIGHT still win, or significantly harm Ka'Bandha

Nagash might not even notice Sam, Frodo and Gollum. He didn't notice Tyrion when he was the Incarnate of Light because he was just.. not worth his time, and Nagash was 'floating' right over him. If he senses the ring, he might take it just cause but I could also see him not taking it because it not being 'worthy' of him or something akin to that. Once he gets 'activated' I imagine he starts building up his power base very, very rapidly and Middle Earth is in far more trouble then they were before.

Sigmar as his incarnate is... potent. Gandalf finds his new BFF? Sigmar might leave to try and stop Nagash though once he feels Nagash has been activated.

Tyrion instantly starts heading over to Lothlorien to be with Alarielle. That is... kinda it. God I hate Tyrion.

Alarielle is super confused, likely suffers from some stuff due to no longer being tied to her land, but likely just sits in Lothlorien as an honored guest as she learns about the world and how to get home.

Gelt.. is weird. Is this necromancy corrupt Gelt? Or pure Gelt? Pure Gelt likely helps the Rohirrim against their foes and frees Theoden with Gandalf. Battle of Helm's Deep is short and very bloody. Necromancy Gelt... is.. rough.. chance he could be corrupted and turned, but probably the same as pure... roughly.

Caradryan just hangs out with Alarielle and Tyrion.

Nagash could beat anyone in the third age handily.

Sigmar could beat anyone in the third age handily.

Tyrion could... I dunno, I could see him losing to the Balrog or Smaug, but I'ma be straight with you, I really hate Tyrion, so could just be bias, so he trips and breaks his neck going to the woman he cockold the Phoenix King with and Teclis isn't here to hold his hand so he dies and finally stays dead.

Alarielle should be able to beat just about anyone.

Gelt should be able to beat just about anyone.

Caradryan.... Ehhhhhhh, Ehhhhhhhhhhhhhh. Could probably take Smaug and the Balrog just cause of his immunity to fire. But... God, I hate elves. There are four Asur worth respect and none of the four are here.

Glottkin dies to Sigmar.

If Archaon swaggers out to talk smack like the Mouth did, then he kills Aragorn instead of Aragon killing the mouth. I think the movie would stay the same, taking that isolated instance, as Sigmar and Archaon likely duel for far longer then it takes for Frodo and Sam to do what needs to be done.

Ka'Bandha kills Gandalf. If you replaced the Balrog with a bloodthirster or even Skarbrand, I'd say Gandalf has some odds of winning. But not against Ka'Bandha. Being verygenerous, Gandalf manages to hold off Ka'bandha long enough for the others to escape.

EDIT: Going to be straight, shoulda used Ungrim as the Incarnate of Fire. I know Phoenix Guard guy of irrelevance who wasn't really mentioned before 8e became it later, but Ungrim would add more flavor.

@wut: I dont know, I think that Gandalf could do a little better than you might suggest against Ka'Bandha, especially with the divine intervention he got. He isn't winning. At least, going off the actual impressive Balrog version, as its implied the mere APPEAREANCE of Durin's bane was enough to cause a large scale panic amongst the Elves, and its mere presence detered some of the largest dwarven armies of the age.

Its often unnoticed as well, but Durin's Bane was also a spellcaster

Aren't Bloodthirsters resistant to magic even in Fantasy? That could cause a lot of problems for Gandalf even against a regular one, much less Ka'Bandha.

@decaf_wizard: Ka'Bandha has the martial skill to toy with Incarnation of light Tyrion and was tanking spells from Nagash [Tyrion matter so little that when Nagash appeared, Ka'bandha forgot he even existed and went for the only person he thought was worthy to fight].

The only person that fought equal with him was Nagash. Everyone else got utterly stomped or won by sneak attacking him in the middle of his fight with Nagash [Sigmar].

Deter entire armies? So..... exactly like what happened with Smaug? Doesn't remotely imply something on the level of Ka'Bandha. If a random bloodthirster was in Moria or the Lonely Mountain [and didn't have the normal stability issues], the result would be the same. Much less someone of Ka'Bandha's caliber.

Unless you have stupidly good feats for Gandalf, Ka'Bandha eats him.

So End Times (When the Winds of Magic were at full peak and Chaos was united, its power at utter apex and sweeping through the entire world) Ka'Bandha toyed with the arguable crappiest of the Incarnates in his preferred field of combat. Its a good feat, but it has context

Tyrion is also a Feanor ripoff. So he loses points there

The Balrog of Moria was part of the updated Balrog lore when they stopped being basically elite soldiers, and started being demigods of Morgoth. Before that you have rando elven princelings bumping them off, after that they are portrayed much higher. Tolkien himself said there would have been only about eight or so at any given time. Seeing as this Balrog was one of the ones that survived the War of Wrath, it was likely among the more powerful of the ones already leading Morgoth's host in a 40 year war that was so ruinous that it utterly ravaged a continent, one that Morgoth didn't personally participate in, from circumstantial evidence.

It was also very very much the case that he was most likely one of the Balrogs that force Ungoliant herself to flee, who after devouring the Trees was above Morgoth at that point

What role did Balrog's play in Morgoth's hosts, then?

‘It was a Balrog of Morgoth,’ said Legolas; ‘of all elf-banes the most deadly, save the One who sits in the Dark Tower.’

-The Fellowship of the Ring, The Mirror of Galadriel

Balrog's are the most deadly of Morgoth's servants bar none, except Sauron, which would include the Fire Drakes like Smaug. To add on this comparison, they were far from the lowest order of Maia that serve Morgoth, with the only higher orders of Maia serving Melkor likely being Sauron whom himself was of an extremely high order of Maia

Melkor had corrupted many spirits — some great, as Sauron, or less so, as Balrogs. The least could have been primitive (and much more powerful and perilous) Orcs; […] unable to return to spirit-state (even demon-form), until released by death (killing), and they would dwindle in force.

-HoME X: Morgoth’s Ring, Myths Transformed, VIII

The Elves of Lorien and Rivendell were utterly petrified of Durin's Bane in fact, and he was a primary reason for them screwing off to the west, they saw him coming for them as something they couldn't deal with, and a sign of greater things to come.

Furthermore, Durin's Bane was explicitly something that outright routed the forces of the mightiest Dwarves kingdom and the scattered survivors fled, and the very presence of Durin's Bane stopped Dain Ironfoot's forces from re-taking Moria after the Battle of Azanulbizar, when they had thousands of surviving dwarves from the battle to retake the place

How impressive is this? Belegost, a much lesser dwarven city, had the forces to hold off Glaurung HIMSELF, yet Durin's Bane wasted Khazad-dûm, the mightiest Dwarven Kingdom, and brought it utterly to ruin

Killing the Balrog was somewhat circumstantial, but better than you are making it out to be

@decaf_wizard: No, it doesn't have context. The power of the warp just allows more of the Daemon to come over. Ka'Bandha has appeared a grand total of one time in Fantasy. And that was in End Times when there was enough energy to sustain him andit took the sacrifice of Fateweaver. Unless you believe Ka'Bandha is just going to pop up and instantly vanish into the warp, in which case, why are we even talking about this?

As I hate Tyrion, I don't really care, but are you suggesting Durin's Bane could beat Feanor? [Although, I feel Aenarion is more like Feanor then Tyrion, but whatever]

And? What does it matter that they were used as lieutenants in Morgoth's army? Do you have any feats of worth? Feats that would imply it is even close to Ka'bandha? Or just suppositions and hype?

The orcs and balrogs were pushed all the way back, it was the Dragons, and the Dragons alone, that pushed the elves back and routed them. What Legolas claims =/= what we actually see in the Silmarillion. Not to mention that ignores how Sauron was never much of a warrior and whenever he did fight, he lost. So.. yeah, Legolas is speaking from his limited knowledge because Legolas is not omnipotent, his view point and opinions are not fact.

So? The Elves were utterly terrified of N'Kari when he/she/it attacked Ulthaun. N'kari was strong enough to make Malekith question his own ability to bind it. N'Kari would get punted by Ka'Bandha.

Again, the dwarves were afraid to march against Smaug. Them being afraid to march against Durin's Bane is not surprising.

Oh? Where did I say Gandalf defeating Durin's Bane wasn't a good feat? What I am saying is Durin's Bane is not on the same level as Ka'bandha. Gandalf gets eaten by a being that can laugh off much greater magic [Gandalf has never demonstrated magic as powerful as Nagash, and no, I do not accept hype as feats] and has fought and beaten much better warriors. Its not because Gandalf is weak. Its because Ka'Bandha is that strong.

@wut:

No, it doesn't have context. The power of the warp just allows more of the Daemon to come over. Ka'Bandha has appeared a grand total of one time in Fantasy. And that was in End Times when there was enough energy to sustain him andit took the sacrifice of Fateweaver. Unless you believe Ka'Bandha is just going to pop up and instantly vanish into the warp, in which case, why are we even talking about this?

Well yes, with the massive amounts of Warp Energy romping around during the End Times, any Daemon should be able to stick around longer. He should at least have some sort of clock.

As I hate Tyrion, I don't really care, but are you suggesting Durin's Bane could beat Feanor? [Although, I feel Aenarion is more like Feanor then Tyrion, but whatever]

Eh, maybe? Balrog's post retcon were no joke. A Maia can certainly beat Feanor, especially such a combat focused one

Tyrion is more Feanor because he has Teclis to be his Fingolfin

The orcs and balrogs were pushed all the way back, it was the Dragons, and the Dragons alone, that pushed the elves back and routed them.

No? When Glaurung broke the victory and broke the siege of Angband, he specifically did so with multiple Balrog's at his side, so essentially half his feats he has likely between 2-8 Balrogs running around with him. The Battle of the Sudden Flame was more Morgoth than Glaurung. Many Dragons were ridden by Balrog's. Combined with the fact that Durin's Bane specifically outpreformed and utterly scattered and ruined a far stronger Dwarven Kingdom than the one who held back

Balrog's also dont have the insane raw stat/size advantage that Dragons do against such forces, yet they seem to preform just fine and take on entire armies themselves.

Again, the dwarves were afraid to march against Smaug. Them being afraid to march against Durin's Bane is not surprising.

Weakened, scattered, Dwarves that were a fraction of what they once were (something Durin's Bane contributed to). It was literally about the same difference as post vs pre-war of the beard dwarves in WHF. The Dwarves WOULD have marched against Smaug if they had the support of the other Kingdoms, but they had their own interests to defend against the Cold Drakes.

Its because Ka'Bandha is that strong.

I really dont actually know how strong Ka'Bandha is in Fantasy. I assume like Skarbrand level?

@decaf_wizard: Why would he have a clock here? It specifically notes that should he slay Gandalf, he can go wherever which to me implies he is, at least,, as stable as he was the one time we saw him in Fantasy. Any other level of stability calls in to question how would we even scale him and, at that point, he isn't fighting End times Ka'Bandha which is the Ka'Bandha the OP is using.

Eh, I don't see him beating Feanor. Elves and heroes of the first age were derpy as it has people like Hurin and Huan who treated Sauron like a chew toy. As long as Feanor was capable of harming the Balrog, he should win.

The Balrogs were around before the dragons. They, along with the Orcs, got pushed back. It was only with the introduction of the Dragons that the tide turned in their favor. I would assume the Balrogs, and the Orcs, helped. But that doesn't change the fact that the Dragons were the ones who turned the tide, without the Dragons, they would have lost then and there, and it was the defeat of the Black that smashed the last of his resistance, not the death of Gothmog. Which is fine the Balrogs are capable of nearly the same, but Legolas has no idea what he is talking about and is speaking from limited knowledge, his word is not fact.

If they had the support, but no one wanted to feed dwarves to Smaug, just as they didn't want to feed dwarves to Durin's Bane.

In Fantasy, Ka'Bandha is well above Skarbrand. Ka'Bandha and Be'lakor are the strongest daemons we ever get to see.

I think Gandalf could do okay against Skarbrand. I think he'd lose if he was the grey, think he could pull a win as the white. Ka'Bandha would punt Skarbrand.

@wut:

It specifically notes that should he slay Gandalf, he can go wherever which to me implies he is, at least,, as stable as he was the one time we saw him in Fantasy. Any other level of stability calls in to question how would we even scale him and, at that point, he isn't fighting End times Ka'Bandha which is the Ka'Bandha the OP is using.

Thats.....somewhat problematic then. I dont have to tell you how resilient daemons are when they have an actual consistant source of chaotic energy.

Elves and heroes of the first age were derpy as it has people like Hurin and Huan who treated Sauron like a chew toy

Well, Huan was at that time being written as a Maia in dog form (although Tolkien later just made him a higher animal) and was the personal hound of Orome. Hurin and Turin were just extreme outliers for literally every other man in the verse.....so.....meh.

The Balrogs were around before the dragons.

Well yea, they were a mid-high class of Maia, they would have been around from the beginning

But that doesn't change the fact that the Dragons were the ones who turned the tide, without the Dragons, they would have lost then and there, and it was the defeat of the Black that smashed the last of his resistance, not the death of Gothmog

Yes, and this is all fine and good. Im not debating that Ancalagon was by far the strongest of Morgoth's forces. The thing is though, there were like a couple balrogs tops. Tolkien retconned the Balrog's into being elite champions or something along the lines, saying later on: “There should not be supposed more than say 3 or at most 7 ever existed.” Before, Balrogs were this demonish sprit of flame/darkness thing he created when the world was new. They got retconned into Maia of flame/darkness and the spirits/demons under his command were made an entirely other thing.

Such a type of elites dont win a battle with other such elites running around, the likes of Turin and Fingolfin running around especially. And ESPECIALLY against the host of the Valar, who can match them Maia for Maia. But dragons? Mounts that come in vast number that spew fire enough to consume entire platoons of elves? Thats something that can tip the balance. Ancalagon himself was just insane as well, being about the size of a mountain range

Only Ancalagon the Black and Glaurung would have been above any Balrog, and in all likelihood Glaurung was weaker than Durin's bane due to their respective showings.

If they had the support, but no one wanted to feed dwarves to Smaug, just as they didn't want to feed dwarves to Durin's Bane.

Well its not like they didn't try. The largest dwarves kingdom in history tried, and got its ass served to it on a golden platter and its king killed as a result, in pretty short order (as we do have a timeline for its awakening). Durin's Bane awakened the same year the Nazgul were brought back by Sauron, and killed two separate kings of the greatest Dwarven Kingdom (both in battle, presumably by itself against the greatest Dwarven Army at the hight of its power) and completely scattered its people within a year.

@decaf_wizard: Indeed, Ka'Bandha is nasty because he is so strong they couldn't just pull him out unless there is a ton and it took Archaon sacrificing Fateweaver to call him. Ka'Bandha in Fantasy is a nasty guy.

Hurin bench presses awesome. Sauron has lost to other people too though, he was always the brains to Gothmog's Brawn.

But that brings it back to Legolas not knowing what he is talking about as the strongest the Elves ever faced was a dragon.. Granted, it was a stupidly massive dragon that was so large it crushed mountains when it died, but still a dragon. Therefor what he said is not a fact and cannot be used as such. It is merely his opinion based upon his limited knowledge, to use it as anything else is dubious.

And Smaug crushed the lonely mountain so hard they didn't even consider going back. They both crushed armies. They were both so scary the dwarves wanted no trouble with them. Cause LOTR dwarves lack the gromril balls of their warhammer kin.

The Balrog's are stated to be above dragons numerous times, specifically even the Drakes (referring to the flying fire breathing kind), the greatest of the Dragons, were inferior to Balrog's

Now those drakes and worms are the evillest creatures that Melko has made, and the most uncouth, yet of all are they the most powerful, save it be the Balrogs only.

-HoME II: Book of Lost Tales II, Turambar and the Foalókë

As of Lord of the Rings era, Tolkien very clearly considered Balrogs as the superiors of Dragons, although its likely Ancalagon would have been excluded from that metric based on how devastating he was

Smaug didn't crush the Lonely mountain in some open combat thing. His betters have preformed much poorer against similar forces. He basically ganked them from what I know, and the idea of just feeding dwarves to him to take the place back was something they could have done but was unappealing. Re-taking Moria by feeding Dwarves to Durin's Bane in open combat was what a Dwarven Kingdom much greater than Erebor TRIED and failed to do.

@decaf_wizard: So the strongest being he created was a dragon, which we already know and covered. Considering how easily Balrogs were killed in the first age, I doubt that. Maybe the Durin's Bane kind that he introduced in Third Age could be considered better, but not by anything I'd consider to be a margin that is all that relevant [referring to the great drakes like Smaug, not the little ones] nor do I think Durin's Bane vs Smaug is a feat either would have an easy time with. That said, still don't know what you are trying to accomplish since Greater Daemons > WHF Dragons. Only WHF dragon that can take on a Greater Daemon and win are Star Dragons which are another beast entirely. So.. by saying Durin's Bane > Dragon, you are exactly where I said he was, roughly on par with a decent Bloodthirster... well below Ka'Bandha.

If one is able to attempt it while the other is not even willing to attempt it, that should tell you something. Although, what battle are you even referring to? The Battle of Azanlbizar, where the Dwarfs reclaimed the misty mountains save for moria, didn't include the Balrog. They beat the orcs in a nasty fight and then went home as they didn't think they could take Moria from what was in it [I don't believe they even knew what was in there, just that they didn't think they could beat it]. So, outside of pulling a Smaug and killing the occupants, what army did it solo?

Like I said, it seems Tolkien had internally retconned Balrog's, as the Silmarillion/Children of Hurin era is kind of weird and was not all created in the same order. Some was post LOTR and some was Pre-LOTR in terms of when Tolkien wrote the stuff. They were originally fire/shadow demons created as elite soldiers and there were thousands of them. The idea of Balrog's predated the idea of Maia. Later, they were Maia and Tolkien said there would not be more than 3-7 at any given time, and seemed to separate them out from lesser demons of Morgoth, which are an entirely different thing. They were written a hell of a lot more powerfully after this internalized retcon.

Im not tying to say that WHF Dragons are above Greater Daemons. I just am against the implication that Balrog's are beneath Dragons when its been stated and implied otherwise many times, ignoring extreme outliers like Ancalagon.

The Balrog of Moria defeated the armies of Khazad-dûm in battle and killed their king, Durin VI, who was suceeded by Nàin I, who tried to marshall all his force and mount a defence against the Balrog but was also killed. Within a year, he scuttled the biggest Dwarven Kingdom in history and completely shattered it, forcing the survivors to flee. Nàin's heir, Thràin I, founded the Kingdom Under The Mountain, as basically a lesser version of Khazad-dûm.

Why is this important? Well Khazad-dûm was stated to be the greatest of the Dwarf Kingdoms by a lot, and it had actually grown in power from the second age onwards, as the ones that were involved in the war against morgoth re-enforced Khazad-dûm when their homes had been destroyed or captured and they came south to take up residence there. Why is this important, is that a lesser dwarven kingdom from the Blue Mountains joined the Union of Maedhros during the time that Glaurung in his prime was rampaging around, and was actually able to deploy some of their forces to cover the Sons of Feanor's retreat from the Dragon, defeating him although at the cost of the life of their King and many dwarves. So what is essentially an average Dwarven Kingdom was able to defeat one of the mightiest dragons to exist, yet the greatest of them utterly failed against Durin's Bane

@decaf_wizard: I know he changed them to be far stronger later on, but in the Sim, they are pretty weaksauce, so... I can't ignore what they were capable of back in the First Age and just pretend they didn't exist when you are purposely comparing Dragons to Balrogs as Morgoth made them because when you do that, Dragons are superior.

During the Sim, I'd certainly say Balrogs were beneath Dragons as far as damage potential went. You can separate it into pre and post retcon if ya want, but if we are comparing them during the Sim, the Dragons are superior from what we see of them. May not be the case in Third Age any longer [as the truly epic dragons, like Anny boy, are dead] after he decided he wanted the demons to be superior. Its only when you look at the Third Age [and even then, the Balrog in the movie was far bigger then any Balrog Tolkien ever wrote. They supped that guy up on some steroids to make him look more demonic and scary which was a neat change]. If you want to say Balrog > Smaug, that's fine, but you don't really move this talk anywhere that would support the idea of Gandalf doing anything but getting eaten by Ka'Bandha. Again, its not because Gandalf is weak. Its because Ka'Bandha is just scary strong. The only being that managed to fight on even terms was Nagash [And I say that... iffy, because Ka'Bandha was winning in hand to hand pretty handily, Nagash just kept regenerating as fast as Ka'Bandha could hurt him], the only Incarnate that didn't need support or aid during the great battle [they make sure to note that that out of all the Incarnates, Nagash stood alone and did not need support, he got beaten by buffed Archaon in AoS, but End Times? Nagash was the guy].

You need to cool your jets on that nonsense of Durin's Bane > Glaurung just because he beat Third Age Khazad-dum. Everything was stronger and more intense in the First Age, including, the Dwarves. First Age heroes are in a different league, so them being able to defeat Glaurung is not surprising. This is like me saying Gothmog got killed by a dude tackling him into a fountain and ending him rightly with his helmet, therefor, Durin's Bane goes down to a random due and a Fountain and ignoring First Age Hero Shenanigans. You don't get to ignore scaling when it doesn't suit you and then use it when it does.

Now, where does it actually show this fight? Because considering people didn't even know what caused it, and survivors were noted to be able to leave it [Thrain] without ever seeing it. So...... Yes, this is the same as what Smaug did. Showed up, killed the occupants, survivors fled, called it their crib. This isn't fighting a giant dwarf army amassed against them and showing them what for, to say what Durin's Bane did and what Smaug did weren't, in essence, the same is just bad faith.