I'm pretty excited about this mod. I'm a big fan of Tolkien and thought I'd put my 2c in about the Heroes vs Summons debate.
Please feel free to ignore them
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Originally Posted by LumenPlacidum
A little research into Tolkien mythos indicates that the Witch King was essentially on his own as a Nazgul until Angmar was destroyed and he fled to the Morgul Vale, when he met up with the other 8 ringwraiths. As such, perhaps he should be alone as a unique summon for Angmar.
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I was thinking about this, and it would (to me, anyway) be really neat if each of the 9 ringwraiths was a unique summon. That's something Tolkien never got around to. Only 2 of the ringwraiths even have names. This is an interesting Nation by itself, but adding a bunch of unique summons I think would make it stand out, not only as a Tolkien-based Nation, but even compared to all the Vanilla and Mod Nations already out there.
Also, actual magic users are very rare in Middle Earth, so having the Ring Wraiths and Pretender as your main/more or less only casters, with heroes providing additional spellpower, would make the Nation very interesting to play, I think.
As heroes, you'd only get 6 of them, at best, and I think there's plenty of other options here for heroes/multiheroes.
Suggestion for possible Heroes: Saruman (E3/F2/A1/W1/N1/B1/H1, elderly but self-healing, 25% forging bonus), Mouth of Sauron (high leadership, some magical ability: S2/D2/B2? possibly H4?), Gothmog (high leadership, high morale, possible Boldog--see below), Shagrat (very large, extremely tough orc with very high Prot and possibly even Awe--he won the battle of Cirith Ungol and he's got the mithril coat), Grond (construct with high Seige bonus, produces Mountain Trolls), Corsair Lord of Ships (excellent Sailing, could have a secondform that rides a Mumakil, strong Banner in either form, could occasionally produce Mumakil-riding Black Corsairs.).
Suggestion for Multiheroes: Mordor Troll--huge, relatively intelligent, very nasty troll with spiked armour, Boldog--largest, meanest, smartest orcs around, might even have some magical ability (from Wikipedia: Boldog (…) is a name that occurs many times in the tales of the War. But it is possible that Boldog was not a personal name, and either a title, or else the name of a kind of creature: the Orc-formed Maiar, only less formidable than the Balrogs. Melkor had corrupted many spirits — some great as Sauron, or less as Balrogs. The least could have been primitive Orcs.)
It seems to me that, considering that Sauron is just a disembodied spirit at this point in time, instead of giving Angmar the Witch-King as a starting commander (The Witch-King in the books doesn't really show up until late in the game), you might possibly give them a "Sauron's Shadow" unit, which would have immortality, etheriality, and a patrol bonus, but no physical stats (1 hp, 0 Str, etc.), only 1 mapmove, and no actual magic, but the ability to lead your mindless trolls, and the sun-fearing varieties of orcs (since "the Uruk-hai and Olog-hai could fight in the sunlight, as long as they were under Sauron's Shadow.").
Speaking of uruk-hai and olog-hai, have you considered that they might be a Summons? possibly Blood/Nature, along the lines of Crossbreeding?
By the way, do you have any intention to include Shelob? Maybe as a Unique, in place of a starting scout? Could be (appropriately, I think) a good early Rush deterrant. You could make her a stealthy cannibal (so that she eats orcs) with no Leadership.