Board Thread:Suggestions forum/@comment-31156671-20170126221210

I think being able to have your hired troops in formations is super cool, but many people have said it is non-canon. The mod made my "Mevans, Lord of the One Ring, Greatest Modder of them All" is a canon mod. However, what if you could hire Troop Commanders? (I'll use Wood-elves for my examples because I'm a Wood-elf kinda guy).

They should be hireable NPC's you can hire from Captains. They should be expensive, at least 50 more coins than the Banner-Bearer, and around 75+ more alignment with your faction. Beyond his/her normal stats (like Replace Equipment, Directives, and so on) they would have a Troop Command button. It would show a graph with three modes on it, Assault, Defensive, and March. While dragging troops to your desired positionon the graph, you would also be able to SHIFT Right-click to access their stats, saving you the trouble of going through your troops one at a time. There would also be an icon for you, allowing you to spearhead an Assault Formation, or surrounded by Warriors in Defensive Formation. But how to change quickly from one mode to the next? The "z" key is easy to acces, so we'll use that. Hit the "z" on your keyboard. It will change your Alignment Meter into a Squadron Format bar. you would hit the right/left arrow keys to change between Assault, Defensive, and March, and the up/down arrow keys would let you change from one squadron to another. Hit "z" again, and your Alignment meter pops right back up.

On a different note, their Armour should be different. Place a peice of armour in the center of a Wood-elven Crafting Table, then to either side, above it, and below it, there would be one cactus dye. For High-elves, you would use blue dye, for Galadhrim, yellow. Really only the look will change. It will look like Elrond's armour from the Second Age, in the beginning of the Fellowship of the Ring, at least for the elves. I know the movies aren't canon, but the armour looks really cool, and I can't think of anything better. Also, I think the Harad Warlord Helmet is a step in the right direction. We'll just use it for the Troop Commanders instead.

They also need good titles. "Heralds" "Commanders" and "Troop Commanders" are a few of my ideas.

"I was the herald of Gil-galad and marched with his host" -Elrond, Council of Elrond, Fellowship of the Ring

I have four other canon LotR books incoming from my contacts (including the Unfinished Tales), so I will add to this shortly, maybe adding some helpful quotes. Please do not shoot this down before you read it. Troop Formations will most likely please a lot of players, and will keep your vulnerable archer protected by the Warriors and Elk Riders

-Edhelgwath, Shade-elf 