Schools of magic.

The wizard walks a dangerous line with his acolytes giving them just enough information to keep them from attempting to find another master but not enough that they grow more powerful than he wants. The ranks and classes of mage are thus:

Tier 1: Young, inexperienced and weak but are necessary to fill up the numbers the wizard wants.

Acolytes - These are the wizards newly trained apprentices. They have little in the way of real power and are restricted to 1-3 spells such as the ability to create small fireballs or bring down a weak lightning bolt.

Shamans - Uruk-hai magic users. They are tolerated though barely by the human adepts of the wizard and while their magic is a little better than that of acolytes they have a nasty habit of having their spells go wrong and exploding on them during battle.

Tier 2 :Moderately competent and but less common than the tier one counterparts - the wizard uses them in a tactical manner to carry out various missions.

Wizard Adepts - These are human wizards who have graduated from acolyte status they are more competent and know a wider variety of spells normally in the 4-5 area. They can shoot multiple fireballs or cause their enemies to freeze thought they are unable to affect the battlefield on a large scale.

Shaman Chieftain - Shamans who have become leaders of Urik-hai communities their magic is more brutal and violent than human magic often requiring the user to eat organs such as hearts and mainly revolves around making other Uruk-Hai fight more efficiently. Their battle spells still retain the nasty habit of backfiring on occasion.

Tier 3 : Very rare and valued these magic users are often made generals by the wizard of Isengard for their expertise in magic. Each one killed by the enemy is a crippling blow to Isengard and its forces as they are extremely difficult to replace.

Pyromancers - Masters of the element of flame.They attack directly and with great ferocity burning thier enemies to a crisp.

Necromancers - Wizards who control the dead. Unable to bring the dead back to full life they instead control hordes of living corpses and clouds of ghosts and spectres. Killing them of course breaks their hold on their legions causing them to go back to the grave.

Umbramancers : Controll the power of darkness. They act more as support troops healing the legions of evil and shrouding the battlefield so the enemy may not see.

Tier 4: Only the wizard himself resides on this level of power no human can expect to match the power of a Maia and the wizard lets his followers know it.