Gandalf looked to the horizon. He and the armies of Gondor, Rohan, and the Army of the Dimuald had just successfully defended Minas Tirith against goblins, Orcs, Trolls, and Mumakil.

Still the horns blew from the black land...

Gandalf strained his eyes to see what new torment the lord of the Black Land could send his way, and far on the horizon he saw the new threat, appearing as just tiny specks. At first it seemed to him that Sauron must have emptied the shire in its entirety and brought all the Hobbits to bear for the final battle; but then after a few moments Gandalf began to laugh joyfully as he realized it was no threat at all, but instead a passel of toddlers slowly making their way down the hill.

Gandalf thanked the Valar and made his way out to the field with the remaining armies of the west to recover the helpless children. Shouts, whoops, and celebration began as the toddlers were recovered. But the men wondered aloud why the children were clad in mail, and just as Gandalf himself bent to lift up a small boy who had tripped, he looked at his back and saw the handles of two daggers. It was at this moment he realized his final, fatal error.

The toddler pulled two Morgul blades out of his little sheaths and 'accidentally' stabbed both of them into Gandalf's chest, killing the Wizard instantly! As Gandalf's spirit made its way quickly to the west, the last thing he saw was this army of toddlers tripping, rolling, and stabbing their way through the remaining armies of the west. They tripped the soldiers into one another, assuring stubbed toes as well as the occasional fatality by falling on one's own sword. After being picked up, the babies seemed to know for sure that their targets were easy prey. As the few men who realized what was happening began to fight back, they were slain from behind by their own women, who were crying "They're just babies, they don't understand!"

Can you imagine the absurdity? The sheer twisted humor of it all? You probably can't unless you're a parent.

There are many secrets that parents know about children that those without experience will never understand, for instance:


  • Everybody gives babies the benefit of the doubt at the first sign of trouble. The worst they get is a "That's not for you", or "We don't hit." Try saying that with a Morgul dagger in your chest!

  • Babies en masse bring ladies en masse, and nobody ever argues with women en masse.

  • There is no Numenorian masonry constructed in Middle, or any other for that matter, Earth that can stand up to the rage of toddlers (see a child's toy box for evidence).

  • The destructive power of one squad of fully armed toddlers equals three legions of goblins armed with five catapults!

  • Sauron's physical form was actually destroyed the first time by Isildur as a baby. It's true! Isildur was crying and Sauron stuck his finger in the baby's mouth to soothe his teething pains, and pop! Isildur bit the ring right off his finger. Of course then he had to go and play with it....

The Tactical Advantages

The advantages are many, but perhaps the biggest advantage offered by using an army made up of babies is this: surprise!

That's right! Nobody suspects a baby, even one dressed as a warrior. It's true, I've been to ren fests all over the country and seen babies dressed as pirates, wizards, and warriors and nobody treats them as if they are any kind of threat. Believe you me it's a simple swap from that cheap plastic scimitar to a nice shiny dagger!

It's also a known fact that women love cute toddlers. This gives the added bonus of a surprise attack from your own rear flanks once the women realize that the men are hip to those wicked babies. Lemme tell you, there is nothing more demoralizing than being killed by your own wife stabbing you in back as you try to defend yourself.

It's a well documented fact that babies have a softening effect on their fathers. Even the hardest man is putty in his two-year-old daughter’s hands. This means that even the most veteran soldier will have to fight his own instinctual hardwiring to even begin fighting back against an invading army of toddlers!

It's known by all that babies eat less than adults and are also very small, even smaller than Goblins. This means your army is easier to feed and easier to transport as you can fit many more troops in a covered wagon using this method. This gives you a huge advantage over your enemy in numbers and in maneuverability! Any general will tell that this advantage alone will win wars.

It's also well documented by husbands the world over that babies are capable of much more than their mothers think. Go anywhere and you'll see. Go the park and you'll see fathers trying to get their children to walk, talk, and even try swimming at the pool; right next to them you'll see mothers cautioning them to be more careful with the children! How this equates to a tactical advantage is that there will be much infighting on the adults’ side about how to properly anticipate and deal with the babies' attacks!

The Disadvantages

Yes, there are a few disadvantages to having mass amounts of babies in a single area, and I'll get to the largest one right off the bat. Self-cancelization. Babies lack the learned amounts of coordination that you and I enjoy on a daily basis. This creates the problems of babies accidentally falling on their own swords and such. The simple answer to this is to make sure to equip each baby with a full set of lightweight chainmail. Mithril being cost prohibitive and plastics not being invented yet, I would recommend light steel rings.

The second largest problem that you are going to run into with babies as your primary infantry (pun intended), is that they are largely un-trainable. There will be no intelligible communication between units so you will not be allowed to use any of your fancy schmancy strategies with these little devils. As a matter of fact, due to the destructive nature of all children you're going to have a hell of a time teaching them to wait to be picked up before stabbing their victims to death. They're probably going to spend half the battle slipping around in their drool which is fine because it will aid the general sense of chaos and havoc you are trying to create but still. The easiest way to combat this second problem is to say to heck with any kind of strategy at all and simply send in the babies by the hundreds of thousands! BABIES EN MASSE ARE UNSTOPPABLE!

The third largest problem is simple. Drool. That's right, you guessed it, simple human saliva in mass quantities can prove quite slippery as well as very destructive to regular steel armor and weapons. Luckily the unit leaders will be equipped with Morgul blades so they won't rust out but their chainmail.... whew. Within two weeks of equipping any baby, their chainmail will have to be rotated in order to keep from being permanently damaged due to drool-induced rust. This presents an enormous financial burden as you must have enough armor pool for double your troop number. On the other hands the babies are rather smaller than your average Orc so it tends to take up about the same amount of resources.

Lastly there is the fact that eventually they grow up into regular children. They start disobeying orders, getting all kinds of sassy and sticking sliced ham into your new BLU RAY player to see if they can learn anything about lunch meat. The most difficult thing about this stage from a military perspective is that even though they are intelligent enough to engage in psychological warfare with you, chances are they won't understand any return fighting. You can scream, yell, shout and stomp your feel all you want, but they still just look at you, smile, and scream NO NO NO NO NO!

Dang babies!

Conclusions

We must get down on our knees and thank the Valar that Sauron didn't learn more respect for Isildur when he bit the ring off his finger and understand the destructive power the average baby can wield. Otherwise, we would all be in chains being forced to learn Orcish or some bastardized form of Elvish unspoken after the third age of this middle earth.

Also we've learned that babies should not be used in combat except for parody purposes only!

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