Weapon Types

The Lord of the Rings Mod adds many new types of weapon to the game. These are many and varied, ranging from daggers to crossbows. Since the mod adds a new combat system, all of the mod's weapons have varying attack speed, range, damage, and knockback. In addition, a weapon's stats may be further modified by various attributes, which can affect a weapon's properties, for good or worse.

Melee Weapons

This type of weapon is held in hand. You have to stand quite close to your foe to reach it. If your weapon has 100% reach and you and your foe both stand on the near end of the block, you can have two blocks in between, but not more. For a second type of melee weapons with increased reach, see the polearms section.

The melee attack cooldown timer.

Note that as of Public Beta 25, all melee weapons have a cooldown timer, activated whenever you hit an opponent. Until this cooldown timer runs out, you'll be incapable of dealing any damage to your enemy. If a weapon has a speed of 100%, its cooldown speed is 15 ticks, or 0.75 seconds.

Battleaxes	Battleaxes are craftable weapons used to defeat foes and cut wood blocks faster, similar to an ordinary axe.  Unlike daggers or spears, battleaxes are only used by a number of select factions (Elves and Gondorians have no use for them).  They are used mainly by Dwarves, Orcs, Uruks and the Rohirrim. They deal their equipment sets base damage +2 and have a slower swing speed then swords.
Clubs	A club is the equivalent to a hammer, as it has a greater knock-back effect than other weapons. It is used only by Dunlendings and does 4 damage.
Daggers	The dagger is a new type of weapon, similar to a sword but dealing less damage (-2 from the equipment set's base damage). A dagger can be crafted on the appropriate crafting table using one ingot and one stick. There are many types of dagger, from all sorts of different factions. Additionally, each dagger type has a poisoned variant, which deals a poison effect to the victim (duration varies, but tends to last longer on higher difficulties). These can be crafted using a normal dagger and a bottle of poison. Some NPCs (such as Orcs) can be found wielding these poisoned daggers but most NPC types do not use them.
Hammers	Hammers are a new type of weapon, crafted with three sticks and four ingots. Like battleaxes, hammers are only used by certain factions, Rohirrim don't use them (a heavy hammer is unwieldy when mounted!) and neither do elves or Dunlendings. Hammers are mainly used by Dwarves, Gondorians, Orcs and Uruks. NPCs can sometimes spawn holding a hammer, and a hammer in the hands of an NPC deals the same increased knockback, so watch out! They deal their equipment sets base damage +3 and have a significantly slower swing speed, but also do +1 knockback.
Maces	The mace is a type of weapon that is currently used only by Half-trolls and Near Harad. It's equivalent to a hammer statwise. There is also another mace known as the charred mallorn mace that is not specific to any faction. They deal their equipment sets base damage +3, have a significantly slower swing speed and do +1 knockback.
Orc Skull Staffs	The Orc Skull Staff is the weapon that all Orc chieftains wield. It deals 6.5 () damage, and has 100% swing speed and reach.
Swords and Scimitars	The sword and the scimitar are short range weapons. They can be crafted on the appropriate crafting table using two ingots and one stick. There are many types of swords, from all sorts of different factions. There are some special swords that one can craft, like the magical Morgul blade, the sword of command or the ancient sword (crafted from bits found in remains). They deal their equipment sets base damage, with default range and attack speed.

Polearms

This type of weapon is also held in hand, but it has an increased reach. You have to stand near to your foe to reach it, but not as close as the weapons of the previous section. If you and your foe both stand on the near end of the block, you can have four (150% reach) or five (200% reach) blocks in between, but not more. Since Public Beta 25, these weapons also have a cooldown timer.

Battlestaves	Used by all the Elven factions, the battlestaff is a weapon with a blade at each end. They deal their equipment sets base damage and have 68% swing speed, but have 150% reach.
Halberds	Halberds are similar to lances in stats. They deal their equipment sets base damage, but the mithril one has 50% swing speed and have 200% reach, others have 68% swing speed and 150% range. The Near Haradrim poleaxe is used by the Near Haradrim and the Angmar Poleaxe is used by Angmar Orcs.
Lances	Lances are another type of polearm, used by the Swan Knights of Dol Amroth, mounted Gondor soldiers, and the riders of Rohan. They deal increased knockback and afford a 200% reach, but are only half as fast as swords. They deal their equipment sets base damage.
Longspears	Longspears are polearms with a reach double as far as swords, but only with 50% speed. They are used by all three Elvish factions, each one has it's own variant. They deal their equipment sets base damage.
Pikes	Pikes are a type of polearm with a reach double as far as swords, but only with 50% speed. They are used by the Uruks, Half-trolls, both kinds of Dwarves, but there's also an iron pike that anybody can craft. They deal their equipment sets base damage.
Spears	Spears are melee weapons with 150% the reach, 1 damage less than a sword and swing speed of 83%. They can also be used as throwing weapons (see below). All factions have a spear variant, which are crafted on there respective crafting tables. Many NPCs can spawn with spears, such as Gondor soldiers, Orcs, or Galadhrim warriors.
Tridents	The trident is an average strength weapon used by the Marines of Pelargir and the Hill-Folk of Dunland . It has 150% the reach of a sword, but only 83% of its swing speed and does 6 damage. These are almost identical in stats to elven battlestaves minus their damage advantages.
Warscythes	Exclusive to the Mordor faction, this is the equivalent of a battlestaff. They deal their equipment sets base damage and have 68% swing speed, but have 150% reach.

Ranged Weapons

These weapons use some kind of ammunition, which has to be obtained and hold in your inventory. It can be shot from afar.

A comparison of the mod's various ranged weapons, done by Glflegolas.

Taurethrim Blowguns	The blowgun uses darts for ammunition, and is used only by the Taurethrim faction at present. It has an extremely fast draw speed (four times faster than normal), but the darts don't deal very much damage at all, doing 4 () to an unarmoured opponent.
Bows	Bows are used by a lot of different factions in Middle-earth. They all have their advantages and disadvantages, so try a few to find out which suits you best. Of course, you'll need to craft, find, or buy arrows or poisoned arrows to use a bow.
Crossbows	Crossbows deal more damage and have greater knockback. Instead of being fired like a bow, you draw back the bolt, And your "crossbow" item turns into a "loaded crossbow". Right-clicking with this "loaded crossbow" will fire a bolt. Crossbows use bolts instead of arrows to shoot. Uruks and Gundabad Orc Archers will often be seen wielding a crossbow.
Slings	This weapon is used as main weapon by the Hobbit Shirriffs. It does very little damage and uses pebbles as ammunition. You need around 18 hits to kill a normal Mordor Orc. The sling has no drawing time, so it shoots immediately. Then it takes a short time until it can shoot again. In total, the sling can shoot up to 4 times per second. The pebbles won't drop like arrows or crossbow bolts so you can't collect them again. Pebbles can be crafted with gravel.

Throwing Weapons

This type of weapon is thrown from at the enemy from a distance. Some of those are destroyed by using them, some can be recollected.

Conkers	The conker is the fruit of a chestnut tree. It can be cooked for food or thrown for 1 () damage.
Exploding Termites	Exploding termites can be collected from termite mounds in Far Harad. When thrown, they cause an explosion like TNT. The crater ripped off the ground is roughly the same size of that of an exploded creeper.
Plates	The plate is normally used on tables to place food on it. But it can also be thrown at a foe causing only minor damage. You need at least one and a half stacks of plates to kill an orc. The plates break when thrown, so you can't collect them back. They will also destroy windows.
Spears	Spears, as well as being melee weapons, can also be thrown to damage enemies from a distance. The damage dealt by a thrown spear depends on the pullback time of the spear.
Throwing Axes	Throwing axes are only used by the Dwarves, the Hillmen of Rhudaur, and the Dunlendings. They work similar to the spear but have no pullback time, so they are thrown immediately. Theoretically you could throw up to 4 throwing axes per second but in fact you will be slower as you have to switch between the inventory slots. The throwing axe can be recollected after thrown similar to the spear. You need around 6 hits by a throwing axe to kill a regular Orc.

Miscellaneous Weapons

These are special weapons than do not fit any of the groups above.

Balrog Whip	Balrog whips can not be crafted but are only dropped by a balrog in Utumno. They deal a decent amount of damage and set the ground on fire wherever they hit. They deal +7 damage, and have 100% reach and swing speed. The whip can also be charged like a bow to unleash a streak of fire along the ground.
Mace of Sauron	This mace is quite a powerful weapon, which hurts preferably "good" faction NPCs and animals. It currently cannot be obtained in survival mode, without the use of the /give command or selecting it in the Creative menu whilst in creative mode. It deals +8 damage and has 68% swing speed and 100% reach. The mace also deals knockback similar to a hammer. The Mace can also be charged like a bow to unleash a blast around the player damaging and knocking back enemies.
Orc Bombs	Orc bombs are explosive blocks like TNT. They come in different strengths and types. The crater left by even the lowest strength bomb is bigger than that of a creeper or termite explosion. Orc bombs are used by Orc bombardiers and can also be crafted by evil players on any Orcish crafting table except for Gundabad.
Staff of Gandalf the White	This staff is quite a powerful weapon, which hurts preferably "evil" faction NPCs. Like the Mace of Sauron, it currently cannot be obtained in survival mode. It deals +8 damage hitting normaly and has 100% swing speed and reach. The Staff can also be charged like a bow to unleash a glowing blue orb forward like an arrow except it doesn't fall to ground, after it hits the ground, enemy, player or a certain distance it will explode damaging enemies.

Trivia

Weapons are for heroes, heroes need weapons, some of the Norse heroes were called Ing. The anglo-saxon ing-rune ᛝ (= letters NG) sybolizes this hero (or god). Tolkien used those ᚱᚢᚾᛖᛋ for some texts in the initial drafts of "The Lord of the Rings", later on, he replaced them by cirth runes.

“	ᛝ Ing was first seen by men among the East-Danes, till, followed by his chariot, he departed eastwards over the waves. So the Heardingas named the hero.	”
–Old English rune poem