Basic information | Sauron's Army (Nemesis System) Middle-earth: SoM Guide

The Sauron's Army is one of the unique elements of the game, which is also called the Nemesis System. It is a group of several tens of unique orcs subject to Sauron, who influence the game to a lesser, or greater extent. You can, for example, run into Sauron's minions during free exploration of Mordor, or hunt them of your own accord. At first, the game does not require you to take interest in Sauron's army, but this gains in significance, as the game progresses. Personally, I recommend that you take interest in the Nemesis System as soon as possible because, thanks to interacting with the members of the army, you can obtain Power points or, in a long run, magic runes (upgrades for Talion's weapons), among others.

A very important piece of information is that the initial make-up of Sauron's Army is randomly generated at the beginning of the game. Each orc is generated with different looks and a different set of strong and weak points. Actually, this is not the only random element connected with the Nemesis System, because further enhancements in the Sauron's Army (with minor exceptions connected with progress into the game) also are non-linear in their character. For example, a given orc may, of his own accord, want to attack his superordinate and progress in the ranks of the army, as a result, or die as a result of the successful offensive by Talion. You will learn more, about this type of relationships, from this chapter. At this point, I only want to make it perfectly clear that what has been presented here, is not the only possible course of events. Therefore, the aim of this chapter is to provide you with hints and information on possible behaviors, rather than a standard pattern.

An example Sauron's Army

You can look up your current knowledge about the Sauron's Army at any point of the game - you simply need to pause it and select the appropriate item in the menu screen. At the very beginning of the game, virtually all orcs that make up the Army, are hidden and this is so, because you first need to obtain information about them (this has been described on the next page of this guide). As for the revealed orcs, you can freely examine them and scrutinize their statistics. Also, the game allows you to mark them as your targets (as long as you know their whereabouts), so as to make it easier to reach them, basing on the map.

The window of an example member of Sauron's Army- you can learn his rank and power level

The members of Sauron's army have been divided into three categories:

• Lower rank orcs - these monsters is the least of a threat. This means that it is easiest to kill them. If, however, any of the orcs of this group manages to kill you, ha can be promoted to the rank of a Captain.
• Captains - these are orcs of the middle rank. This means that they are discernibly stronger than the lower rank orcs and standard monsters that you encounter in the game world, which makes them more difficult to kill. As a result of their own initiative, or by killing Talion, Captains can be promoted to guards of Warchiefs.
• Warchiefs - this is the highest rank of orcs in the Sauron's army. Warchiefs are very strong and mat, additionally, be surrounded by guards mentioned above, i.e. captains. All this makes them highly challenging opponents. What is even more, Talion cannot attack a Warchief straight away and perform certain actions to attract his attention (the requirements are different for each one and they may mean, e.g. defeating a group of orcs without taking damage).
• Apart from being one of the above classes, what is also significant for the power of an orc are Power points. The higher the factor the stronger the orc is. At the same time, it is worth noting that the upper threshold of Power points is 20.