Cordinau Orca

[SaberHRE]

Or basically the Scordiscii

They are still monsters
Anyone who thought the Naked Bastards are tough, try fighting the Scordiscii. They are basically such a versatile and perfect unit. After getting armour upgrade they have 30 armour. I had them fight the Hetairoi and Galatikoi Tindonae, at the same time... , and they won, after a cavalry charge and intimidation from naked men.

I really recommend them to anyone interested in super infantry unit.

[Elmetiacos]

See the "Materia Celtica" thread... the Scordisci were indeed one of the toughest Celtic tribes, but I'm of the opinion that this unit, like some others, does get a bit too much armour, even for a tribe coming from a region famous for iron.

[Watchman]

The only thing different from the usual Celtic mailed inf in their panoply is the greaves, you know...

[Barry Soteiro]

is orca related to orcs ? but where are the olog hai ?

[Elmetiacos]

Again, see the Materia Celtica thread. In my (humble?) opinion, the phrase "Cordinau Orca" is completely made up with no basis any known Celtic language, current or extinct. Whether or not Tolkien's orcs were in the mind of whoever invented it is impossible to say.

[Uticensis]

That's funny, when I first saw them in EB, their name reminded me of shamu the killer whale.

They do make great infantry. I played a Makdonian campaign in 1.0 where I recruited them en mass in order to fight the Romans. My only complaint was that you can only recruit them in one territory, which means you can only recruit one per turn and sending them home for retraining is a nightmare. Also, they don't carry javelines, which gave the roman soldiers a bit of a leg up on them, before melee started at least.

[Uticensis]

As for the basis in a Celtic language, well, let me say first that I have no knowledge of any Celtic language. None whatsoever. That being said, the decription said their name means "battle boars." I wikipedia'ed "boar", then went to the gaelic version of the page: http://gd.wikipedia.org/wiki/Torc_fiadhach.
They are called "Torc fiadhach." Minus the t, and its orc, which is similar to "orca." Again, I have no knowledge of gaelic, so this could be incredibly wrong and was just an experiment.

[Slim_Ghost]

It took a damn long time to finish them off with my Getaic armies, even when I had all my units having double silver chevron experience and armor upgrades, making them on par with a Roman Legionnaire.

[cmacq]

Orc is taken from Latin, literally meaning 'the dead, death,' or the 'underworld.' Orcus can mean both 'the underworld' and 'the god of the underworld.' I believe Orcades/Orkades, refers to the island off the coast of scotland as being the abode of one Orcos, ie. a god of the dead; and to a door to the underworld, or as I like to call it, the gateway to the deepest, darkest, blackest of hells there ever was. And of course, the whales as Orks/Orcas are just death's little helpers. As far as Orc being Kelt, maybe some type of IE, but Kelt per se, only if hell freezes over? I hear it gets very cold there, but it never ices up.

[blitzkrieg80]

There actually is sort of a basis for the use of Orca, but its not Torc and its really not too Kelt either. However, I guess that all depends on what one wants to call Kelt? If its a non-Keltic basis for a Kelt use of Orca, then, ya theres a Kelt basis? Or is that, no??? Still, yes, Orca is related to Tolkien's orcs, the whales, the personage, and oh yes, the place (which may have been considered her abode and a doorway to the underworld).

To over-tax the tonge, I fear a fallacious etymology for Torc can indeed only be a wee bit mor Ungulated, taut, and twisted.

provide some evidence that Old English orcnēas which makes its way into Beowulf at line 112 is from Latin loanword traffic, please. This is the word from which all Tolkien and derivative fantasy orcs are based, as stated by Tolkien himself a professor of Old English aka Anglo-Saxon, so you cannot argue anything in that regard until this claim is substantiated with some sort of valid proof, academic or otherwise.

Or are we to claim next that Smaug's name does not mean 'to squeeze into a hole'?

[cmacq]

provide some evidence that Old English orcnēas which makes its way into Beowulf at line 112 is from Latin loanword traffic, please. This is the word from which all Tolkien and derivative fantasy orcs are based, as stated by Tolkien himself a professor of Old English aka Anglo-Saxon, so you cannot argue anything in that regard until this claim is substantiated with some sort of valid proof, academic or otherwise.

Or are we to claim next that Smaug's name does not mean 'to squeeze into a hole'?

No latin in OE?
On the one hand, I suppose that would depend on which side of the fence one sets. Then on the other hand, I for one don't judge, as I set on the fence. Was Orcus not known as Pluto's evil brother, yet its all very strange as I never saw the two together? It was either one or the other, but never both together at the same time, ach sehr seltsam?

[blitzkrieg80]

Your proof is the existence of Latin itself, or that Old English has other Latin loanwords when the very language as it is recorded is based on Roman Catholic scribes? Is English therefore based upon a bastardization of Latin (a bastardization of Greek) as was taught so long ago?