Witch-King is a new unit by xXtq1Xx that is designed to represent the Witch-King of Angmar from J.R.R. Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings and inspired by the version seen in Peter Jackson’s third film adaptation The Return of the King.
The unit itself is well designed and the author shows promising skill in recolouring and drawing new units in Microsoft Paint. The unit takes the Two-Handed Swordsman and recolours it black whilst also adding some of the Witch Kings memorable features such as his fearsome helmet and long black robes. There have been many recoloured units over the years but I honestly believe that in terms of quality if the particularl drawing and recolouring, this is one of the best. The shading and lighting is on point and there is slot of good detail in the unit.
However this unit doesn’t come without its downfalls. Firstly, a little nitpick for me is that a different angles this unit attacks with a different weapon. Sometimes it uses a sword whilst at other times it uses a mace. I get that this is trying to represent the movie version of the character which utilises a mace in one hand and a sword in the other, but this unit uses both weapons with two hands. It’s as if his weapon is magically changing when he turns. It’s a little nick picking but continuity would be nice in this aspect. The second flaw to this unit is its lack of usefulness. The only uses I can really see for it are as part of a wider mod pack based on Lord of the Rings or if you just do happen to need a character that is a complete rip off of the Witch King. Finally the biggest flaw to this unit is the lack of death and decay SLPs. Whilst you could probably get creative by using a explosion or something, it’s a little annoying that this unit doesn’t have these important graphics to complete it. One final point is that the unit doesn’t have any player colour but does come with a custom icon, although it is a little blurry.
On a final note I’d like to point out that this unit was created back in 2006 and was therefore submitted as an AKX file, which means it needs Mod Pack Studio to open. Back in 2006 MPS was a popular modding tool but it doesn't function with newer 64 bit operating systems. Most people now use Turtle Pack which edit SLP and DRS files, not AKX files. However, if you're desperate to use this file there is a way to extract the SLP files from the AKX, and I will post a link to the guide at the end of this review.
Overall this unit is a good attempt at unit and a very good recolouring. A recommended download if you're willing to extract the SLPs from the AKX yourself, even if to just see how good a unit can be recoloured with the most basic tools.
Link to guide: http://aok.heavengames.com/cgi-bin/forums/display.cgi?action=ct&f=26,41382,,30