I'm dissatisfied with this, so I have the following rules after a cursory glance through the book:

Infantry regiments have the following sub groups which can be used together:

Defensive infantry: A company armed with spears are defensive infantry, and get an extra strike on the enemy, unless the enemy have spears, in which case fight as normal, an enemy has no bonus for charging defensive infantry when being charged, but no bonus when charging, they are -1 to fight after their extra strike on the first turn of combat, this only counts from the front, but are always -1 fight regardless of side on the first turn, +1 fight vs cavalry.

A second coy with spears can fight through one other company.
-1 to charge roll.
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Assault infantry: As normal but have +1 to wound and to hit, on all units and +1 fight compared to defensive infantry. +1 to charge, they recived only half modifiers (Rounded up) when charged at rear or flank.

Halberds: The easterling halberd is both a spear and a massive pole axe: It has both modifiers for assault and non assault, this also counts for glaves.

Pikes: Pikes are the same, but with the spear bounus, and -1 fight when charing, and -2 to charge, they strike twice against assault infantry, and once against spears. -2 to hit after their free strikes for the reminder of that turn.

They can fight through 2 coys.

Mixed infantry: Infantry of both types have no modifiers.

Shields: Grant +1 fight on flanks, +2 on front and the side the shield is held, this stacks with swords, but not two handed weapons.

Shield-wall: +3 to front for shield armed infantry if they have not charged.

Cavalry: Come in units of 8 not 2, gain +1 to wound per 2" charge over 8" Modify profiles accordingly, / attack and cost by 2 then x it by 8

Lancers: A mounted company armed with spears (lancers) have the opposite bonus, they get an extra strike when charging, a second coy may not attack though the first,

Lances: Lances allow a unit to brace, the hit with full force of momentum, they gain +1 to wound per 1" over 8"

Characters: Charactes are ADDED rather than replacing other models.

Formations:
Companies can be in line or collum.

Collum, only has A/Models x2 attacks.
Line, full attack.

You can change from line to collum or vise versa for cost of half your move.

Formations need only be rank to rank contact, not company.

Depth: if you charge with 2 ranks vs 1, your 1st rank takes the place of their 1st rank.

Momentum:
The winner of a combat also advances his rank by 1 per wound he won by.

The number of dice he wounds by he gets to use that number of extra die, next turn.

Cursory glance? Well you need to play it some, and the actual rules make for a fast fairly free flowing combat system that isnt bogged down by ranks, and similar complications.

For a purist some of the conventions and simplifications may seem troubling, but then there are many other systems that simulate combat far more realistically. WotR is about recreating fantasy battles in Middle Earth with magic and mighty heroes. And I think the system does this very well, and I played the game almost weekly for 4 years.

The actual rules play very well, with just a few tweaks maybe if they ever decided to make a 2nd edition, for example glaives giving +1 fight is a virtualy negligible bonus, and the courage rules don't seem to be as effective as implied by the various spells and rules about them. (for example we make courage rolls on 11 not 10, and that certainly makes courage and the value of heroes and courage buffs/debuffs more potent)

But while you have an extensive list of ideas I think the vast majority of them would change the flavour of the game negatively and bog it down in counting ranks and slow moving, and complications in combat. The point of the system is to have two armies clash, grab dozens of dice and just roll once to determine what you kill, and vice versa.

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