I know that this mod will most likely never be updated to a later version of minecraft which I am fine with. However I think there should be some features from the newer versions of minecraft that should be added to this mod. Some examples of this are sheilds and R.aids.
Sheilds could have a different style for each faction but now they would actually be usefull because like in vanilla minecraft they would be able to block damage and arrows. This might mean that being able to use two hands (like in vanilla minecraft would also have to be added).
Raids:
In the new 1.14 of minecraft I really enjoyed the new raid mechanic of villages. I can understand if this could not be added because it would be to complex, but I think it should be incorparated into the Lotr mod.
How it would work:
Raids would target the npc's located in towns, villages, encampments, or towers. They raids could spawn either randomly when you enter the are of a village, or say if you killed a mordor orc captain it would give to a bad omen effect, like in the new minecraft update, so when you entered a gondorain village, a wave of orcs would spawn an target the npcs of the village.
This would encorage people playing the game to protect villages and make them more cautious about killing an enemy faction captain. This would make it more realistic of how people in middle-earth would think.
When you win a raid it could also give you a large amount of alignment to that faction (perhaps 20-60). This would give a reason to spawn raids because you could get a large amount of alignment without having to wait for invasions to spwan or without having to go into the enemie factions territory.