"Middle Earth same color banners for all sides" Topic

Hello all,

I am contemplating painting some armies for the battle of Pelennor fields/siege of Minas Tirith. This weekdend something came into stark reality. All the shields and the banners are black!

Gondor has black banners with Silver tree and Mordor has black banners with the Red eye.

Gondor has black shields and I assume may of the orcs have black shields.

There will be a lot of black on this field of battle.

So I am curious was it ever mentioned that the Gondorian shields where black in the text.

Just wondering

Lots of black, yes, but you have Dol Amroth knights with blue shields w/silver swan-ships, and Haradrim with red shields with black serpents. And of course the green shields of Rohan to save the day (or die trying as the case may be in your re-fight).

Also, the livery of the various Gondorian contingents is not explicitly described, except that the 300 men of the Green Hills are clothed in green. So you may choose to exercise a little creativity in their depiction.

As I recall, Tolkien only mentions the white tree on a black field in relation to the Tower troops--effectively the Steward's household unit. I wouldn't hesitate to invent heraldry or regional banners for those more or less feudal contingents he's summoned from all over the realm. And of course the larger you make the Eye the less important the background color becomes. (Reverse this with the Haradrim: smaller snakes on the red field.)

Additionally, the Rohan troops probably have different colored shields as well. Merry's shield that used to belong to Theodan is green, but Erkinbrand's is described as red.

The orcs of Minas Morgul are described as being in black, but when Sam and Frodo escape they chose the other contingent's clothes so they aren't thought to be from Morgul. Thus other orcs probably don't wear black. I would infer their shields would be different as well, maybe in other colors than black.

Wasn't the Steward's banner white?

My non-guard Gondorian regulars have white shields with a star.

DB

My Minas Tirith Tower Guard shields bore the tree and stars. Although not based on any direct reference, my Minas Tirith city men at arms bore unadorned white shields.

A purist once corrected me that the Haradrim were scarlet and black, not red.

The orcs were of 2 "corps." Sauron's troops carried black banners with the red eye. The troop of Cirith Ungol bore shields with a "moon disfigured by a ghastly face of death." Make of that what you will.

Lots of good info.

It would be cool to make the Gondor "city troops" wear white surcoats or with white shields. That would truly make the citadel guard stand out.

hmmmm….food for thought.

According to Aragorn, Sauron didn't use white on shields etc. Presumably the skull oon of Minas Morgul must be yellowy or greenish?

I agree with Robert above and think inventing heraldry for the various fiefs in Gondor that provided troops to the army would be totally appropriate.

I have decided to not even bother with any kind of symbols on my orc shields since I'd like to be able to use them through the three ages.

Since Haradrim are a collection of nationalities I think some variety is appropriate.

One of the interesting elements of LoTR is that story is told from a very specific point of view. To a hobbit or to those on one side of the conflict the other side is often treated generically. In Normandy, every tank encountered by the Allies was a Tiger tank. If the story of Normandy was only told from one point of view we might have a very different account than we do today (ie. we know from a variety of sources that there were very few Tigers in Normandy as that time.)