{JAMMERS! -GOOD- ONLY!}
Once you're ready to get playing, these are the troops that you'll have to take control of, along with their battles. Of course, I'll help you get situated with them, or at least find someone who can.
Fortunately for me, 8L left a list of where his troops are just the other day.

Dale:
E. Rhovanion: 5000 engaged
Forodwaith: 4000 waiting for combat.
W. Rhovanion: 5000 waiting for Tuvoks reply/engaged
Lake-town: 1000 defending
Celeduin: 4000 defending
Dale HQ: 2000 Defending

Beornings:
5000 High Pass: Waiting for MM to finish debating with EE.
2000 VOA: Waiting for tuvok to move into range.
2500 Wilderland: casing MM
1000: Gladden Fields: Defending
500: HQ Defending

{JAMMERS! -GOOD- ONLY!}
Absolutely! Sadly, I don't have the time to monitor everything you do, so I'm going to have to let you handle the battles yourself (check all of the regions listed above and see what their troops are up to). If you need help with anything, let me know. You can either ask me here for more general stuff, or for specific battles you can tag me in a post there, and I'll help with whatever I can. I can give you general tips, advice on what you should do, help figuring something out, or anything else you want. You can drag me over to as many regions or battles as you need, I just don't have the time to hunt them down myself. Sound good?

Yep! For the specifics, Dale's troop list can be found here: legomessage.boards.net/post/55798/thread
But here's some more general conceptual stuff on basic units and their weapons:

• Archers: These are your basic ranged unit. They can attack troops from a distance, but are generally weak in melee/hand-to-hand. They fire relatively quickly, though aren't extremely powerful. Range is generally long, but varies by unit. Shields work well to defend against them, along with heavy armor.
  
• Crossbowmen: Your other main kind of ranged unit. Crossbowmen are similar to regular archers, except that they hit much harder but are also much slower to fire. Shields also work well against them, though not as well. Heavy armor is also not as effective against crossbows as it is regular bows.
  
• Pikemen: Pikemen (along with spearmen, halberdiers, and other polearm units) are generally used as defensive units. You'll normally find them in formations like phalanxes, testudos, and other such things (look them up if you need to). These units are very difficult to attack head-on when they're in formations like these, but they're quite weak once their formation is broken. Do not attack any polearm unit with melee cavalry unless you really know what you're doing. Pikes, spears, and the like are incredibly effective against cavalry, even if they're not fully in a solid formation (the only time you have a decent chance of pulling out on top is if your cavalry manages to flank a formation, or the enemy is in a complete rout). Pikemen typically have shields and heavy armor, making light ranged weapons also ineffective. Your best bet against a phalanx or some other formation of pikemen would some sort of shocktroopers, or else some artillery to break their formation before directly engaging.
  
• Axemen/other shocktroopers: Most shocktroopers you find will be axemen, but sometimes you'll run across ones with maces, or even swords or something else. Typically, these units will deal lots of damage and are very difficult to take down, and do perfectly well without a formation. They excel at tearing down formations or destroying troops with shields, but they're weak against cavalry and crossbowmen (and archers, to a lesser degree). They normally have heavy armor, which makes them survive better in close combat, but that also means that ranged units will likely be able to stay away from them while whittling down their numbers. Sometimes you'll find axemen or a similar unit with light armor: these are obviously faster than you typical shocktroopers, but they're also easier to destroy with other melee troops.
  
• Swordsmen: Swordsmen are generally a more all-around unit. Your typical one with a longsword and a shield is better at holding a formation that your shocktroopers, but also better out of formation than your pikemen. There are a lot of different varieties of swordsmen, however, so you really have to look at the unit's description to see what their focus is.
  
• Stealth troops: Pretty self-explanatory. Stealth units can hide from the enemy much more easily than others, and can often ambush your opponent. However, they're rather exposed out in the open and typically won't fare well against cavalry (how much, though, depends on what their weapons are, as does how they do against other units).
  
• Melee cavalry: Cavalry (or horse-mounted units, sometimes some other creature carrying the rider for certain HQs) are generally the fastest units. Given that they're riding horses, they can get around the battlefield quite quickly, and are normally able to outrun just about any other unit. Melee cavalry are best at catching isolated troops, or flanking the enemy army. As I said before, do not attack pikemen with them, because pikes are extremely well suited to fighting cavalry (because while a horseman may be fast, he don't have the same kind of agility that an infantryman can use to slip past a pike). They're great against archers, though, along with most other troops that they can catch away from any polearm units.
  
• Ranged cavalry: These are good against almost all but fast melee cavalry units. The idea of a ranged cavalry troop is that he can ride around out of reach of any and all enemy troops, and rain arrows down on them at the same time. They (and other cavalry) can be difficult to hit with ranged weapons because of their speed, and infantry can't generally catch up to them. However, when attacking some more heavily armored units, the ranged cavalry may be forced to expose themselves to do much damage, and from there ranged infantry might be able to take them out.
  
• Siege engines: There's a good variety of siege weapons, which is why I'm covering many of them individually below this (at least the ones that you'll often find on a battlefield). Typically, though, siege weapons are slow to move, slow to fire, and hit very hard. They're all very weak in melee combat, but pack quite the punch at a long range. Archers can take out their crews if you're not careful, though.
  
  • Trebuchet: By far the most overused siege weapon in this RP. Most people like trebuchets because of their unmatched hitting-power, long range, and good accuracy (and because they're the most expensive, so everyone thinks that that makes them automatically the best ). They're great for destroying castle walls, and even for destroying other siege weapons. However, their slow fire-rate and small area-of-effect (they generally fire a single rock that, although powerful, hits only a small area) makes them poor against a lot of infantry, and they're virtually immobile (extremely slow to move (if you're lucky), and any reasonable distance requires disassembly and reassembly).
  • Mangonel: This is your classic (if not techically correct ) Roman catapult. It's an arm on a spring-loaded pivot, with a bowl at the end. Mangonels have a shorter range than a trebuchet, have less hitting-power, but are much more mobile. Mangonels are generally mounted on wheeled chassis, so moving them isn't an issue. Also, the inaccuracy caused by the bowl, while making it worse against buildings and other siege weapons, makes it better for throwing multiple small projectiles effective against infantry.
    
  • Onager: Basically a mix between a trebuchet and a mangonel (and is the actual historical Roman catapult). It's a large mangonel with a sling like a trebuchet (not a trebuchet though, because a trebuchet uses a counterweight rather than a spring to power it). Likewise, it's more mobile that a trebuchet, but more powerful and more accurate (and has a longer range) than a mangonel. It's also not as good against infantry, though.
    
  • Ballista: Think of a ballista like a giant crossbow. They do operate a bit differently, but effectively, that's what it is. A lot of ballistae (particularly siege ballistae, which serve a purpose similar to trebuchets) throw stones, but they do so at a lower trajectory than most of your catapults. This has a lot of obscure implications which I can't really go into right now, but you'll learn the uses of a ballista as opposed to a catapult as time passes. Often, though, a ballista will be more precise than a catapult, though maybe less powerful. Some ballistae fire bolts (short, heavy arrows), but those are just like large scorpions (detailed below).
    
  • Scorpion: A scorpion is a small, bolt-firing ballista. It's cheap, mobile, and fires fairly quickly compared to other siege weapons. Unlike other siege weapons, however, the scorpion isn't so much of a building-destroyer as it is an anti-infantry weapon. They're best used like snipers, taking out high-level units, or maybe punching through a shield wall. You may also hear of arbalests, but those do the same thing as a scorpion, just with a slightly different propulsion method (it's literally an oversized crossbow, while ballistae work a bit differently)
    

When it comes to armor, its traits are pretty simple. Heavy armor will make a unit hard to take down, but will also make them slower (making them easier to catch or avoid). Light armor will let a unit move quickly, but won't protect him nearly as well. Medium armor, of course, is a mixture between heavy and light, and is stronger than light armor and faster than heavy armor, but is weaker than heavy armor and slower than light armor. There are also different kinds of armor (like plate, chainmail, etc.), but you don't need to worry about that too much.