The latest of the diaries fills out the story behind the soldiers and how they fit into the larger context of the War.  Like I’ve said before, I really like the story they’re building here – the War is coming to Middle-Earth and we’re on the front lines leading the free people into battle.  As such, our soldier is one of our troops we train.  Some amount of detail on the customization capabilities as it is mentioned we can change the race, gender, clothing, hair-style, and hair color.  Also it is important to mention that they’re specifically not as talented as heralds or lore-master pets – although some of us captains/LMs might argue that our pets aren’t talented either.   Soldiers are only available in Skirmishes and have minimal command ability on long cool-downs.  There’s some mention on the roles these soldiers can fill:

  • Protector – tank type with heavy armor and a shield
  • DPS
  • Healer
  • Buffer

And each role has other traits available:

  • Appearance – race, gender, etc.
  • Skills – Increased threat, AOE Attack, self-heal (protector examples)
  • Training – generic bonuses like crit rating or morale

So for the most part, I see the soldier as my duo-partner and as such will probably just build it up using a specific role for each of my toons.  My warden will most likely use either a DPS or healer role – leaning towards DPS and we can self heal pretty well.  My captain will probably go DPS with my mini either DPS or Protector.  Although depending on difficulty I could see the healer being a more important role.

I’m getting pretty excited for these skirmishes as the technology sounds really cool and will add a nice splash of different content into the game.  I don’t think it will replace anything in the game, just provide additional things to do.

The original article can be found over on the LOTRO boards, here.