Silver Free Peoples Leaders

[Gormonghast]

Looking at photos of the Expansion on the BGG page, I can identify all the pieces shown except some new shadow infantry pieces - Orc crossbowmen?

Anyway I was wondering how the new silver FP leaders work. I'm assuming they're to represent specific new characters (presumably introduced by event cards), but then it's possible to identify most of the existing leaders with a specific LOTR character anyway.
Will these new leaders be in addition to those already featured, and will this mean an increase in the total number of leaders allowed to each FP nation?

Or are the new pieces only for use in the battle games?

[odin]

What! Orcs crossbowmen?! I hope thats not true! There is no crossbows in the lord of the rings, I hate crossbows. By the way, is battle of the third age delayed?

[Veldrin]

The silver miniatures are used in the Rohan and Gondor games and represent the Free Peoples' heroes.

[glow=green,2,300]Veldrin[/glow]

[Gormonghast]

They certainly look like crossbows, and the FF site mentions "Orc Archers".

www.boardgamegeek.com/fullimage/98274

At this stage I would guess that they only take part in the battle games.

Any word yet on the siege engines: do they have any rules in the main game?

My idea for combining engines and Ents is this:

The Ents are neutral.
A nation may build a siege engine (using a muster die) in any region containing a forest or bordering a completely forested region such as Fangorn.
The player must then however make an "Ent Rage" roll which, on a roll of 1, will place an ent in the effected forest to be controlled by the opposing player.
Every time a SIDE (Free or Shadow) builds another engine he adds a -1 modifier to the roll to represent the increasing anger of the Treeheards.
Thus it is possible for BOTH sides to control Ent units at the same time, although in a typical game it will be the Shadow player who is most likely to trigger an Entrage.
Ents cannot leave their forests, but can attack any bordering region.
Special rule: Ents cannot attack other Ents!
Ent event cards are removed using this variant.

[Veldrin]

Yes, the siege engines are used both in the main expansion and the Gondor expansion game.

[glow=green,2,300]Veldrin[/glow]

[odin]

Seems you are right Gormonghast. too bad. everything was looking good w/the haradrim cavalry(armed w/scimitar just like in the book) and now things begin too look bad w/Orcs CROSSBOWS.

[redsimon]

Right, the crossbows are Nazgûl ****

[Gormonghast]

Looks like the crossbowmen are "Half-Orcs". Wonder what the other half of them is?
There are also Gondor archers mentioned - are these northern bowmen or new figs?

A few rules questions:
I'm rather confused by the rules regarding Commanders, Captains and Champions.
Which are the coloured bases used for, and could you tell us how many bases there are and in which colours?

A few suggested tweaks:
Perhaps an army should be able to "evacuate" unflipped recruitment tokens in the manner of Rohan's population being evacuated to Helm's Deep.

I don't see why, when a combined attack has been succesful, that units from each attacking army cannot occupy the captured area. Why not allow this, since if the first army is wiped out the second can move in anyway?

Finally, why can an attacking army never route? I understand that an attacker doesn't physically occupy the target region, but presumably the combat is meant to take place on the borders of the two regions so it seems to me that a defeated attacker is just as likely to route a sthe defender.

By the way is anyone else having problems with the official FF message board, my attempts to post keep crashing the site.