Can I just say this thread is giving me a nerdgasm! Especially because I’m re-reading The Silmarillion right now. Also my bet is totally on a Balrog over Smaug.
The whole thread has been a flight of fantasy.
How strong are Balrogs? Strong enough so Smaug can’t pick one up and tear them in half?
One does not simply pick up a Balrog.
Give me a long enough lever…
To kill a dragon, all you need is a well-timed thrust underneath. Even a dwarf’s dagger is enough to make it retreat. The trouble is its senses are very acute. It can detect you (when it’s not lazy or careless.) Second, its weapons have a wider kill zone. It’s very difficult to defend against it but it has been done (Earendil, Bard and Azaghal.) Better to attack it with stealth (Turin.)
To kill a balrog, you first need a lot of water. Second, it’s desirable to fight it from a high place as it obviously has issues with heights. The trouble is when you’re defending against it, which was the case with Gandalf, Echtelion, and Glorfindel, it has a power of fear over its foes that only Maiar or high elves can overcome that fear. But other than that, it’s just an over-sized human form.
Turn around
You’re welcome 
What if one of them has a catapult?
From your experience, do they all run away in the middle of a fight to torch the nearest settlement, before they’ve even killed their original attackers?
I read Von Clausewitz and The Art of War three times, hoping to find a proper explanation, but this strategy - let’s call it: the non sequitur stratagem - is one that they never mentioned.
Victory goes to whichever one has a 1920s Style Death Ray.
In the ancient tradition.
“I yield where my enemy is, to attack where my enemy is not”
Just found, in The Fellowship of the Ring, in the chapter “The Mirror of Galadriel,” this passage (p. 347 of my HoughtonMifflin 1994 edition), when Legolas is asked what killed Gandalf:
*“It was a Balrog of Morgoth,” said Legolas, “of all elf-banes the most deadly, save the One who sits in the Dark Tower.”
*
So Gimli’s pal, at least, seemed to rank balrogs as more dangerous than dragons.
Smaug eats him as a breath freshener.
Why is a sword called a hammer? That doesn’t even make sense. It calls into question the factual basis of this history.
:: indignantly points at Drunky Smurf ::
Heretic!