The Alliance of Light

The Alliance of Light (abbreviated as the AoL) was an online forum for The Lord of the Rings Strategy Battle Game players, founded in the Summer of 2005 with the aim of leading the Forces of Good during the The War of the Ring Online Campaign, hosted by Games Workshop. The Forces of Light won the Summer Campaign, and the Alliance of Light went on to lead the Forces of Good in the War of the Ring Canada Campaign which was fought shortly after the UK version, again emerging victorious. The Alliance of Light is currently dormant until the next Games Workshop Lord of the Rings Campaign.

War of the Ring Campaign

 * Main article: The War of the Ring Online Campaign

The first forum founded for the purpose of leading the Free Peoples was Cheeseweb (which still exists as a large community forum), but disagreements made some players form their own. The Alliance of Light was in fact a combination of many smaller "councils" formed for the War of the Ring, united under one banner. This was necessary because, according to one member of The Dark Council, "the individual groups were unable to cooperate, and their strategies had little to no effect." The Dark Council, as the main Evil forum, was much more organised and proved a fearsome adversary during the campaign, necessitating a greater co-operation between the Good side. The Alliance adopted the Dark Council's development of "strike forces", using them to great effect, climaxing in the formation of "The Grand Host of Light" (a strike force purely for roleplay, and thus attracting a wide variety of Good supporters). The effect of the strike forces and the massive support for the Good side in general allowed Good to maintain their lead for many weeks, ultimately leading to a Good victory.