ranged units for the Free People are the Dwarf Axethrower and the Elven Archer. The game allows (or requires, in campaigns) the player to use armies which may include allies who aren't supposed to be fighting the same battles. For example, the player may create Riders of Rohan during the defense of Osgiliath; it was fought without their participation. During the scenario "Helm's Deep" in the Good campaign, one uses Gondor Swordsmen alongside Riders of Rohan and Rohan Archers (an uncreatable, campaign-only unit). There is some mirroring between either faction's troop tree. For example, Elven Archers (ranged) and Haradrim Slayers (infantry) both have "cloaking" abilities which make them invisible. Rangers and Wraiths (not Ringwraiths) are both "detector" units which enable the player to see the former. The game takes some liberties with units, though for the most part, these do not explicitly conflict with Tolkien's writings. For instance, the Dwarves have the Axethrower and the Dwarf Shieldbreaker, who is armed with a hammer and a shield and is covered in plate armor. Nowhere does Tolkien write that his Dwarves used hammers and throwing axes in combat, and plate armor is unmentioned in his writings except for greaves or vambraces. Also, the game presents Tolkien's goblins as distinct from his orcs (as with The Battle for Middle-earth II); however, the author established that those terms referred to the same creatures. Another group of Orcs, the Uruk-hai (in the books the result of cross-breeding Men and Orcs) are in the game the result of Saruman breeding Orcs with undead Barrow-wights - creatures Saruman had no relation to in the books either. Finally, new characters have been invented, including the playable hero Saleme, a female Harad assassin. Reception War of the Ring was met with mixed reception upon release, as GameRankings gave it a score of 67.46%, while Metacritic gave it 67 out of 100. In an official GameSpot review, Jason Ocampo called it "a competent, if lackluster, effort" which would probably appeal best to "casual gamers" instead of veteran real-time strategy players, as well as "Middle-earth fans", an opinion shared by Dan Adams of IGN. Speaking as a Tolkien "geek", Adams noted that fans of the book may find it "weird" (as he did) to see several RTS conventions applied to Tolkien's world, such as "elves and humans and dwarves... popping out of buildings" and "harvesting ore in the middle of a