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I'm back on a major Tolkien kick, and especially digging around the First Age.
And of course, that makes me think about wargaming the First Age.

SBG is a great game, and I don't feel it needs much adaptation for the First Age. The general "power level" seems like it was higher back then, but if everything is powered up I see no real reason to actually increase any stats. I use the Blue Book for my game, with the supplements released back then. I don't particularly like the extra stuff they put in for the Hobbit because I feel it unbalances things, and I'm not a fan of the ME SBG Legendary Legion stuff which seems to mostly be for competitive play. But most of what I'm doing you could do easily with those modern books if you wanted.
Rather, I'd do "counts as". For example, you could "Counts As" Turin as Aragorn, or perhaps Boromir would be even better, with Anduril representing the Black Sword.
Glaurung would work well as just a Dragon but with all the upgrades except Wings (I know, not technically allowed, but I think also not over powered given you're not giving him the mobility afforded by wings). Certainly you'd want him to be tougher than average and to have the mind controlling magic powers.
Balrogs are easy, but I think Gothmog should certainly get some Might (never understood why the Balrog has no Might). The Terror of Arnor could represent Vampires more generally, and I think a Cave Drake can stand in for Carcharoth the great wolf.

A big question for me is which group to use for the various Edain. I feel that Rohan are too cavalry heavy and that's not the feeling I get from the books, much more of a saxon shield wall on foot vibe, with woodsmen with bows as the other major force.

Any done something similar, or have ideas about this? Be interested in any POV.

Someone made a 1st & 2nd age expansion for war of the ring.

Obviously you would run into some hiccups, as it was designed for those mass battle rules, but it is very comprehensive for a fan made rule set and would at least give you a list to work off from.

Whilst I was working on painting up my own MESBG minis for use with oathmark, we have every intention of running war of the ring with the fan expansion for 2nd age games.

There is a new updated version of WotR being worked on right now by the same people, but I'm not sure how long we are looking at before a 'working' version of the game is put out into the wild.

I'll not post the fan rules here, even if they fall within fair use, but they are easy enough to find online. I think the onering forum still hosts the expansion there.

Thanks for the heads up on the fan rules.
Are you going to do the wars for Eregion, like Gil Galad and Elrond and Numenor Allies Vs. Sauron? Or some of the other second age conflicts?

For myself I think the First Age is cooler, but I definitely think there's fun to be had in the first war of the rings!

The power level would unquestionably be higher, particularly if you incorporate the most recent (and final) Tolkien lore. The Broken Anvil clan in Gondolin chewed through multiple balrogs. The Firstborn were absolutely an order of magnitude bigger than anything in the Third Age.

Fingolfin actually fought Morgoth. And wounded him. Big power.

The Balrogs are an interesting case - I think they are one of the things that fluctuated the most over Tolkien's various revisions. In earlier stuff they seem to be less powerful than they later become, when he decided there were only 7 of them.

I dunno though, if the power level of everything is higher, then I don't see too much of a need to change the stats. Maybe using Dwellers in the Dark to represent "lesser" balrogs would work well to give the feel you're talking about. Or if you want a legendary company like the Broken Anvil clan, maybe you just use the stats for the Grey Company and have them all have a little bit of Might, Will and Fate to represent a cadre of mini heroes.

Like I agree, as written, the power level of the First Age is unquestionably higher than the Third. But since I don't plan on letting First Age forces fight Third Age, I don't see an issue in keeping the stats roughly the same and doing a bit of "counts as" to maintain the flavour.