Let's Talk About Battles!

[DojoToad]

2 minutes ago, Daenelia said:

Inflation. It's real. It's dangerous.

 

Or maybe ... this production pays actual fair wages to all the crew. ?

I have no idea what they get paid, or what a fair rate is considered.  Do you?

[Daenelia]

Just now, DojoToad said:

I have no idea what they get paid, or what a fair rate is considered.  Do you?

Nope, but a good chunk of the budget should probably go to wages, is what I do think.

[DojoToad]

1 minute ago, Daenelia said:

Nope, but a good chunk of the budget should probably go to wages, is what I do think.

I've been trying for 4 months to hire two manufacturing positions.  $25 an hour to start with no experience required - in Cleveland, OH.  Crickets...

[DojoToad]

Did anyone mention the battle of Camelyn?  Major numbers and carnage but in tight confines.  Should be able pull this one off without a cast of thousands.

[Harad the White]

On 11/30/2021 at 8:07 AM, danweasel said:

• Tarwin's Gap
• Falme
• Dumai's Wells

The big battles suggested have been.

 

4 hours ago, DojoToad said:

Did anyone mention the battle of Camelyn

If we limit to one big battle per season, you can probably make a priority list. Of course by the last season of GoT there were four decent-sized battles: Loot Train, Bastards, Winterfell, King's Landing.

[Frenata]

If by "battle of Caemlyn" you mean the battle over the city that takes place as part of the last battle, then it seems reasonable for it to be included -- I suspect if they get there they'll want to emphasize how *broad* the war is.

 

If you mean the siege during the succession crisis... I imagine that's on the cutting floor already.

[Humbugged2]

And the Longbow men were given a bag with 20 arrows with heemp cord that the tied round themselves and put the arrows in that . Cornwell fan who lives in Keighley and bits of Sharpe were filmed here ,who has read the Grail Quest

[Jaysen Gore]

On 12/2/2021 at 9:37 AM, DojoToad said:

Did anyone mention the battle of Camelyn?  Major numbers and carnage but in tight confines.  Should be able pull this one off without a cast of thousands.

This would be one of the Battle of the Four Fronts I mentioned (Camelyn, the Gap, Saldaea, and Iforget)  that forces the consolidation at Merrilor.

[Spiritweaver1]

Hmm what about the battle for Cairhien when Rand, Egs and Avienda route the entire Shaido sept??  lots of folk there. Matt started using his tactical expertise and kills Couladin one on one.  I am not sure why we think the big charge is it.  There are plenty of battles where there are tactical considerations of interest.   The one on ones are just as interesting say Nyn and Rand against Rahvin in Caemlyn.  An added bonus is a whole bunch of folk get brought back to life after that one.  How can the show team not do that one.   

 

 

[Andra]

On 11/30/2021 at 10:00 AM, ArrylT said:

 

I am curious to see how / if they will depict armies moving through gateways or the ways.   I expect some "charges" through those down the road.  

Going by the books, the first example of that would be the series of skirmishes across the Southlands between Rand's forces and the Seanchan.  But they didn't do any "charging through the Gateway into the teeth of the enemy" in that, because they were still hiding what they were actually doing.  The use of Gateways to move troops in battle doesn't really happen until the last one.  The huge Gateway that Egwene's forces used to bypass Andor wasn't in an actual battle, so it wouldn't count toward that.

 

What I would love to see (though I'm not confident they could show it) would be the Deathgates outside Algarin's manor.

[ashi]

15 minutes ago, Andra said:

The use of Gateways to move troops in battle doesn't really happen until the last one.

It's also an essential part of the attack on Sam... Lord Brend and Illian in Crown of Swords, if you recall!

 

The High Lord Weiramon (on reddit) has a long (very nice) summary of the planning leading up to that attack, btw: https://www.reddit.com/r/WoT/comments/r53xzl/just_finished_crown_of_swords_and_had_some/hmmgcgf/

 

It might be quite epic.

 

Quote

Rand thrust his hands high and channeled. “I am the Dragon Reborn!” The words boomed across the square, amplified by Air and Fire, and flames shot up from his hands a hundred feet. Behind him, the Asha’man filled the sky with balls of fire streaking in every direction. All save Dashiva, who made blue lightnings crackle in a jagged web above the square.

A shrieking flood of humanity fled in all directions, away from the Square of Tammaz. They fled just in time. Rand and the Asha’man darted aside from the gateway, and Davram Bashere led his wildly screaming Saldaeans into Illian, a flood of horsemen waving their swords as they poured out. Straight ahead Bashere led the center line of the column, just as they had planned what seemed so long ago, while the other two lines peeled off to either side. They streamed away from the gateway, breaking apart into smaller groups, galloping into the streets leading out of the square.

 

Edited January 18, 2022 by ashi

[Andra]

13 minutes ago, ashi said:

It's also an essential part of the attack on Sam... Lord Brend and Illian in Crown of Swords, if you recall!

 

The High Lord Weiramon (on reddit) has a long (very nice) summary of the planning leading up to that attack, btw: https://www.reddit.com/r/WoT/comments/r53xzl/just_finished_crown_of_swords_and_had_some/hmmgcgf/

 

Yeah, I just thought of that after I posted.  Oops.

And that is an actual charge of troops through a gateway.

 

And of course the planning for it was used directly in the Seanchan battles.

 

It would be really cool to see both of those, and at least the charge into Illian would probably not too hard from an FX standpoint (as opposed to the Deathgates).

Edited January 18, 2022 by Andra

[Spiritweaver1]

I would like to back up a bit.   Here are my assessments of the skirmishes/battles so far.  I am ranking them on realistic tactics, realistic effects and a much more subjective feel.  I am not including the blood snow cold open because that is more single combat.  5 is excellent on a 1-5 scale

 

EF Raid - 4.  This was a good depiction of a raid where they got to the target completely undetected.  I downgraded it for showing the women as the only villagers who could rally any sort of offense.  The men did nothing and just got slaughtered.  Old Blood not so much.  

 

Logain's Freedom - 3.   I am feeling generous on this one.  It probably should be a two. The Aes Sedai and Warders don't have a decently large scouted perimeter to give adequate warning.  They don't use their horses for battle.  They don't have any sort of defensive positions picked out where they can be protected and sweep the approaches to where they are holding Logain.  Assuming in the beginning the oaths constrain them they don't use the one power to knock down the trees to make what we call a shin tangle to slow down and break up the attackers.  There never was much of an "army" shown.  They didn't have much of a plan either except charge into the teeth of the defense.  A night raid would have been much more effective.

 

Tarwins Gap - 0.  This was a Monte Python battle from start to finish.  First of all with the Rafeland configuration of the Gap nobody that understands anything about war is going to have a defensive wall with holes (arrow slits) all through it.  You want a wall that is as tall and smooth and thick as possible.  To see an example of the wall that would have been constructed in any reasonable universe check out the Deeping Wall in TLOTR.   A properly constructed and defended wall would have been impregnable unless breached by channelers.  Remember in war in Randland nobody uses gunpowder or explosives.  

 

That's bad enough but then they have a trolloc beating through an arrow slit with a hammer from a ladder.  Even assuming the stupidity of arrow slits  in your defensive wall nobody is going to beat through the wall with a hand hammer even a 20 pounder.  Of course nobody has wall sweeps to pull the ladders  over.  There are no large stones on the top of the wall to drop on the ladders.  There are no cisterns of oil to fill buckets, light them on fire and drop them on the ladders.

 

The whole scene with the channelers was also stupid.  In a realistic world they would have been on the wall at the Gap keeping the trollocs off the wall and rolling rock and earth off the sides of the gap like RJ had Rand do.    This is what happens when police procedural writers or wherever they came from write stories about medieval battles.  In Rafe land there was no gap.  Why not?  Because it should have been plugged with a hundred foot high wall with crenelations and an arrow shield protecting the defenders at the top of the wall.   Even with the wall they had, with the proper defenses, they should have been able to hold that wall until their food ran out. 

 

Last but not least there is no cavalry.  Yikes.   I appreciate this thread but I don't look forward to any battles if Tarwin's Gap is any indication of the care going into them in the future.  

 

[DojoToad]

Horses and CGI cost money.  Don't expect what you saw in LotR and you won't be disappointed.

[Andra]

1 hour ago, Spiritweaver1 said:

I would like to back up a bit.   Here are my assessments of the skirmishes/battles so far.  I am ranking them on realistic tactics, realistic effects and a much more subjective feel.  I am not including the blood snow cold open because that is more single combat.  5 is excellent on a 1-5 scale

 

EF Raid - 4.  This was a good depiction of a raid where they got to the target completely undetected.  I downgraded it for showing the women as the only villagers who could rally any sort of offense.  The men did nothing and just got slaughtered.  Old Blood not so much.  

 

Logain's Freedom - 3.   I am feeling generous on this one.  It probably should be a two. The Aes Sedai and Warders don't have a decently large scouted perimeter to give adequate warning.  They don't use their horses for battle.  They don't have any sort of defensive positions picked out where they can be protected and sweep the approaches to where they are holding Logain.  Assuming in the beginning the oaths constrain them they don't use the one power to knock down the trees to make what we call a shin tangle to slow down and break up the attackers.  There never was much of an "army" shown.  They didn't have much of a plan either except charge into the teeth of the defense.  A night raid would have been much more effective.

 

Tarwins Gap - 0.  This was a Monte Python battle from start to finish.  First of all with the Rafeland configuration of the Gap nobody that understands anything about war is going to have a defensive wall with holes (arrow slits) all through it.  You want a wall that is as tall and smooth and thick as possible.  To see an example of the wall that would have been constructed in any reasonable universe check out the Deeping Wall in TLOTR.   A properly constructed and defended wall would have been impregnable unless breached by channelers.  Remember in war in Randland nobody uses gunpowder or explosives.  

 

That's bad enough but then they have a trolloc beating through an arrow slit with a hammer from a ladder.  Even assuming the stupidity of arrow slits  in your defensive wall nobody is going to beat through the wall with a hand hammer even a 20 pounder.  Of course nobody has wall sweeps to pull the ladders  over.  There are no large stones on the top of the wall to drop on the ladders.  There are no cisterns of oil to fill buckets, light them on fire and drop them on the ladders.

 

The whole scene with the channelers was also stupid.  In a realistic world they would have been on the wall at the Gap keeping the trollocs off the wall and rolling rock and earth off the sides of the gap like RJ had Rand do.    This is what happens when police procedural writers or wherever they came from write stories about medieval battles.  In Rafe land there was no gap.  Why not?  Because it should have been plugged with a hundred foot high wall with crenelations and an arrow shield protecting the defenders at the top of the wall.   Even with the wall they had, with the proper defenses, they should have been able to hold that wall until their food ran out. 

 

Last but not least there is no cavalry.  Yikes.   I appreciate this thread but I don't look forward to any battles if Tarwin's Gap is any indication of the care going into them in the future.  

 

I would downgrade the Two Rivers (not "EF" - he changed the name) attack further for three reasons.  

1: The trollocs spent far too much of their time after starting the attack simply standing around looking.  In book land, a trolloc with its blood up would never do anything like that.

2: The Myrddraal stays out of the fighting entirely.  In the book, we hear that Lan and Moiraine tried multiple times to kill it, and failed.  "It had the Dark One's own luck."  You wouldn't keep your most devastating weapon out of the fighting - even if it was their "commander."

3: It wasn't completely undetected.  Lan and Moiraine see them coming down the mountainside far enough ahead of time that Lan tells her they have to leave.  And the slaughtered sheep he finds warns them something is coming even before that.  She decides they have to stick around to protect the "five-headed dragon", but they never warn anyone about what's coming.  How Rafe thought that was remotely reasonable is beyond me.

In the book it was completely undetected, and she blames herself for not noticing the signs beforehand.  In the show they literally saw it coming a mile away.

 

And regarding Tarwin's Gap - one additional thing.  They were firing crossbows, not longbows.  The arrowslits would have had a different design.  And even before getting bashed with a hammer, the openings were far too large.

[ArrylT]

6 hours ago, Andra said:

I would downgrade the Two Rivers (not "EF" - he changed the name) attack further for three reasons.  

1: The trollocs spent far too much of their time after starting the attack simply standing around looking.  In book land, a trolloc with its blood up would never do anything like that.

 

 

Absolutely no argument there.   This is a case of what looks good on tv (imo) vs. what works in a book.  

 

I am going to have to re-watch the battle scenes in LOTR/Hobbit but I have a hunch I'll find similar scenes where there is plenty of posturing by Orc/Uruk-hai/etc on screen to build up the tension.   Having just watched Ep1 of The Witcher recently, that battle of Nilfgaard vs. Cintra I found several moments where I was "I just don't buy this as being realistic" .  In the end, as with most movie/show battles I just put that aside and enjoy it for its own sake.   Either way I really appreciate your take & SpiritWeavers.   

[king of nowhere]

it's very rare to find a good battle in television. they prioritize what looks good over what makes sense.

I can only find good surprises there, because I expect very little.

Edited January 20, 2022 by king of nowhere

[nsmallw]

What about the battles in GOT ?

 

Those battles seem to be to be far more related to battles in WOT due to both being tv shows. 

All the battles mentioned here are from movies, totally different in funding, extras etc. 

 

I haven't watched GOT ( Bad, i know) so I think that's a more fair comparison. 

 

 

 

 

 

[grayavatar]

On 12/3/2021 at 1:22 AM, Daenelia said:

Inflation. It's real. It's dangerous.

 

Or maybe ... this production pays actual fair wages to all the crew. ?

Are you trying to make some correlation between Amazon and fair wages?

[bryce0110]

On 12/2/2021 at 8:25 AM, DojoToad said:

I have no idea what they get paid, or what a fair rate is considered.  Do you?

I am not sure of the specifics for the shows casting, and it is hard to find certain sources online, but I can say that many of of the lead actors and likely many of the supporting characters were casted under the SAG-AFTRA union, a US based actor/screenwriting guild.

 

For a season of 8 episodes 1 hour in length a lead role would have a pay rate of $4410-5735 per week of filming which includes health and pension. This pay rate assumed the actor appears in at least half of the episodes in the season based on a 13 episode season with the pay rate rising the less episodes you are in. I am not sure how this applies to an 8 episode season, but I assume the rates are similar.

 

If the performer was only in a single episode the pay rate would be $1,056 a day, $2,674 for three days, or $3,664 for a week.

 

Background actors are paid $182-192, likely a daily rate.

 

This is all slightly off topic of the thread, but in general the pay for your actors is quite high and a pretty massive portion of the seasons budget likely goes there.

 

Unfortunately, the later battles we got this season were all likely affected by Covid. They required all actors to isolate for 2-3 weeks prior to shooting, and at a rate of $182 that is not worth it. So the amount of extras was reduced to 0 for Tarwin's Gap, and the Logain battle likely had a similar issue.

[Humbugged2]

3 hours ago, bryce0110 said:

I am not sure of the specifics for the shows casting, and it is hard to find certain sources online, but I can say that many of of the lead actors and likely many of the supporting characters were casted under the SAG-AFTRA union, a US based actor/screenwriting guild.

 

For a season of 8 episodes 1 hour in length a lead role would have a pay rate of $4410-5735 per week of filming which includes health and pension. This pay rate assumed the actor appears in at least half of the episodes in the season based on a 13 episode season with the pay rate rising the less episodes you are in. I am not sure how this applies to an 8 episode season, but I assume the rates are similar.

 

If the performer was only in a single episode the pay rate would be $1,056 a day, $2,674 for three days, or $3,664 for a week.

 

Background actors are paid $182-192, likely a daily rate.

 

This is all slightly off topic of the thread, but in general the pay for your actors is quite high and a pretty massive portion of the seasons budget likely goes there.

 

Unfortunately, the later battles we got this season were all likely affected by Covid. They required all actors to isolate for 2-3 weeks prior to shooting, and at a rate of $182 that is not worth it. So the amount of extras was reduced to 0 for Tarwin's Gap, and the Logain battle likely had a similar issue.

They will be paid under European labor standard .

 

And the belief that there is no Euro unions and they woul be paid in $$$$ is sheer arrogance

 

All the cast of Brits/Euros / Down Under

[Humbugged2]

1 minute ago, Humbugged2 said:

They will be paid under European labor standard .

 

And the belief that there is no Euro unions and they woul be paid in $$$$ is sheer arrogance

 

All the cast of Brits/Euros / Down Under

So Equity,FIA,MEAA

[bryce0110]

14 minutes ago, Humbugged2 said:

They will be paid under European labor standard .

 

And the belief that there is no Euro unions and they woul be paid in $$$$ is sheer arrogance

 

All the cast of Brits/Euros / Down Under

I wasn't trying to present an argument lol. I was providing information about rates within the US Acting Union to get a reasonable assumption of what the cast is likely paid, not to prove a point.

 

Many of the cast are a part of SAG-AFTRA so I thought presenting the information of how much their rates can lead to an idea of how much actors in television typically make, I know European unions exist but I don't know enough about them or where to find the information on rates. I did try to find information there, but it mostly seems to be private and not located in a public document.

 

I don't think it's arrogance to assume that the rates are similar in other parts of the world, perhaps smaller but I think it's fair to judge it as a baseline.

[Humbugged2]

4 hours ago, bryce0110 said:

I wasn't trying to present an argument lol. I was providing information about rates within the US Acting Union to get a reasonable assumption of what the cast is likely paid, not to prove a point.

 

Many of the cast are a part of SAG-AFTRA so I thought presenting the information of how much their rates can lead to an idea of how much actors in television typically make, I know European unions exist but I don't know enough about them or where to find the information on rates. I did try to find information there, but it mostly seems to be private and not located in a public document.

 

I don't think it's arrogance to assume that the rates are similar in other parts of the world, perhaps smaller but I think it's fair to judge it as a baseline.

The cast are all Equity (all the Brits/Irish or Kiwis) or FIA (all Euros ) except Madalaine and Zoe who are MEAA .

 

the rate is £100 a day

[bryce0110]

7 minutes ago, Humbugged2 said:

The cast are all Equity (all the Brits/Irish or Kiwis) or FIA (all Euros ) except Madalaine and Zoe who are MEAA .

 

the rate is £100 a day

That is interesting if it's that low. I would expect at least 3 times that, but I guess European unions requiring a lower minimum makes sense. The only rates I could find was for MEAA which seemed to be around £100 minimum like you said.

 

But then Daniel Henney would be part of SAG-AFTRA, and so would have to be paid minimum nearly 5 times that. I can't help but wonder if everyone else, except Rosamund, is paid a fraction of what Daniel Henney would have to be paid lol.

 

It's fun to speculate about these things, I don't expect they'll ever release what they were actually paid.