Forth rode Théoden. Five nights and days
east and onward rode the Eorlingas
through Folde and Fenmarch and the Firienwood,
six thousand spears to Sunlending,
Mundburg the mighty under Mindolluin,
Sea-kings’ city in the South-kingdom
foe-beleaguered, fire-encircled.
Doom drove them on. Darkness took them,
Horse and horseman; hoofbeats afar
sank into silence: so the songs tell us.
Greetings, all.
I'm looking for any real-world advise some of you might have playing or playing against a large, mostly mounted force in WotR. I'm down to my last 40 Wood Elves and when they're done in a couple weeks I plan to dive into Rohan. I've been collecting the models for a few years but haven't done anything with them yet so I've dusted the boxes off, did some basic math and, without Heroes, I have enough for about 22 Companies of Riders of Rohan. I also have Theoden (armored), Eomer, a couple Captains and Gandalf as well.
I am not looking for an elite-heavy force or anything too fancy. I want numbers. Lots and lots of horses. Picture the charge of the Riders in RotK and you get the idea.
My plans are to have a core of Kings Guard (4-6 Companies) with Theoden, Gamling (with Banner) and Hamma. I will have both Eomer and Erkenbrand leading a force which will probably be built around their respective Battlehosts (both reasonably costed and with interesting special rules). I would love to have Theoden's BH (Earth Shaking Charge on 4+ ) but to be effective it would more than double my Royal Guard plans and that's costly.
Now, I've played with a Formation of 6 Warg Riders and found them pretty darn effective. I've also seen 4+ Company Formations of Khandish Raiders, Easterling K's or Galadrhim Knights that can really hurt Infantry on the charge. But I've never seen or played a WotR game where the majority of a force was almost all Cavalry. I know it has a lot of vulnerabilities and will be tricky to play…but my other Good army is all D3 Wood Elves so I'm used to a challenge.
I'm wondering if anyone in the community has any real life experience with this type of force, on either side of the table and can speak to some things I may expect.
On a side note, I do also have about 6 Companies worth of Rohan Infantry which can be used to help secure areas or provide additional ranged fire power. But I mostly want to stick to Riders.