Point taken -- but things might get out of control if we have too many groups being played. I would recommend that we keep it to three:
1. Lorien envoy
2. Mirkwood scouts
3. Orcs and Easterlings (a smaller band of these -- the played orcs and Easterlings -- captures the envoy, goes back toward Mirkwood, is attacked by Mirkwood scouts who free the envoy; all the "player" orcs and Easterlings then get away and link up with a larger force of NPC orcs, Easterlings and trolls to assault Lorien).
One more point
(any urge to throttle me yet?) -- the elite force is launching a surprise attack, so the envoy/scouts have to get back to defeat them as nobody will know they're coming! When we get back to Lorien we could send for re-enforcements to the 'personal guard' at Caras Galadhon (you are utterly correct Aman, there would have to be some there!) and they could come to our rescue -- but again, these would probably be NPC, as for most of the game, these characters would be waiting around to get called to the front.
Is it time yet to work out characters, etc???