As per Xelee's request, I'm going to give some pointers on stuff I think is essential for a Rohan army at around 1,000 points. Keep in mind a few caveats that I'm going to state off the bat:

a) This is all based on my experience, and my gaming environment - henceforth referred to as my "metagame". I have NOT won a whole lot of games, but the ones I have won were using this playstyle.

b) The big heavies rarely make an appearance 'round these parts - I can count on one hand how many Mumaks, Balrogs and Dragons I've ever seen fielded. Similarly, the big spellcasters, Saruman and Gandalf, are almost never fielded. The likes of Gimli, Aragorn and Boromir are fairly common. Trolls and Ents are in abundance - I've NEVER seen a Great Eagle fielded. Ringwraith-spam isn't an issue - I've never had to deal with more than two at once (nearly always the same two, though).

c) We don't house-rule anything - everything is strictly RAW and FAQ. Proxying is kept to a minimum.

d) We play on a 5 1/2 by 8 foot board, with lots of terrain.

OK! With that outta the way... At 1K points, I like to fit in Eomer, Erkenbrand and Deorwine as Epics. That's 215 points on Epics - some might bristle at such a high amount, but it's one of the strengths of the army, and needs to be utilised. Going above 1K, I like to squeeze in Eowyn - her special rules mean that she can either do a surprising elimination on an enemy hero, or get her teeth knocked down her throat and send her brother rampaging through the enemy army. The latter is, of course, more likely, though once I got lucky against Lurtz when he was out of Might and took him down.

I'm not so high on using Theoden or Theodred in anything shy of REALLY big games (say 1750 and up). They're great, don't get me wrong - but they're a LOT of points spent on one dude in a very fragile army. Though, "Touched By Destiny" is nice (and sounds like the name of a "film" I have somewhere, hmmm...).

I always use one formation of Outriders... but mostly because I paid for them. Like, in terms of cash. They're fast, and can really shoot well into flanks with that 2+ shoot value. Most people don't have/don't like them though, and Riders Of Rohan can do basically the same thing, although they aren't as fast and don't shoot as well. In fact, harassing other units is what your Riders Of Rohan Eoreds do best, in my opinion. They are NOT heavy, shock cavalry. AT ALL. I'm serious. The fact that they're in plastic, and the films show them ripping off these glorious charges, makes it tempting to use them as such. Don't. Trust me on this. I've gotten rolled up like a 9-paper joint trying. Repeatedly. 2-4 formations, 3-4 companies max. No banners, and usually no captains. I like to give them a hornblower - mobility is your strength, and anything that tweaks your strengths is a good thing. Keep them cheap, and you can have multiple units of them. Three 3-company-strong units is only 270 points. They won't be survivable, but you don't need them to be. They won't be doing your heavy lifting. Their job is to distract/annoy/thin out the enemy ranks a touch. If you REALLY want to charge 'em in, go 7 companies, captain and banner. Drop the hornblower.

Royal Knights and/or Sons Or Eorl are the hitty guys.I say and/or, because whether or not you include both depends on how much infantry you want. I personally could care less about infantry, and try to include both. If you can only get one, get Royal Knights; they're cheaper. And see, since you have so many cheap Epics bouncing around, you don't really NEED to buy captains for them. Saves you points. I personally love my Sons Of Eorl, though. Fast, strong, good Defence, Stalwart and their "Horns Of The Eorlingas" rule? Yes please. They're damn near Elven-level expensive though, and a large, fully kitted out unit will be a huge chunk of your army, especially at 1K. They will definitely attract a lot of crossbow fire, and a lot of Nazgul magic.

Infantry... Well, I try not to use too much of it. Theme reasons, you understand. Oathsworn Militia and Bowmen ARE pretty decent for the price, though, and are good at screening, though, which is VERY handy. You have to try and protect your hitty units till the late stages to have a chance in combat. I've never used Royal Guard on foot, but they seem quite good. I keep meaning to bite the bullet and buy 3-4 companies of them to try them out. Ouch. MasterCard time.

Well... I hope some of this is helpful. I have to go pay attention to my wife now! Ciao...

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"What's so civil about war, anyway?"

Hi HRM,

It's my army that Xelee is preparing to crush so I guess he requested this so I might put up a bit of a fight...

Thank you very much for posting your thoughts, they are really quite enlightening.

I must admit to going Theoden automaticly as he seems very, very good for his points but I can see how the 35pt difference between him and Erkenbrand is another Coy of Cav. Likewise I have been reconsdiring the employment of the Erod's as otherwise, why wouldnt you take Knights?

I am planning to run a screen of Royal Guard/ Oathworn Militia to protect my Cav on the way in, btu this does slow the force down. I see you dont take these tough so how do you avoid the inevitible storm of crossbow/ war engine/ magical fire? I have found that Cav can wilt very fast, and indeed tend to wipe out Xelee's MT lancers pretty fast when I am playing my Isengard.

Rohan is my Second Army but I really want to make them *work*. If Ic an manage this I will be taking them to our National's this year instead of my dirty, dirty Isengard.

Cheers
Jason

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Rohan are very tricky to make "work". Remember one of my caveats - I don't win too often. What I do is basically dance around my opponent with my small Eoreds of Riders of Rohan/Outriders, shooting arrows into them and getting in their way to slow them down. My Royal Knights and Sons Of Eorl never charge up along with the them until the end, unless I screen them with infantry in bigger games. I go almost all cav, as I think this is how a Rohan army should work. It isn't necessarily the best way to go, though. I would probably field more Bowmen if I didn't have to buy the "Warriors of Rohan" boxed set that came with all the Militia I don't really want. I oughta search the 'Net.

As far as crossbow fire goes... See, in my group we don't really proxy or "counts-as" anything. So, if you want all those Uruks with crossbows, you have to purchase them. Which gets pricey. As a result, there aren't a whole lot of them running around. Same goes for Royal Guard on foot - if I want 'em, I gotta buy 'em. Now, if proxying is a go in your environment (and please understand, I'm not condemning the practice; it's just not how WE choose to roll)? Then I would ditch the Outriders, use Riders of Rohan in that role exclusively, and yes, load up on the knights (I still don't get why they're Common options).

Magic? We just don't see a lot of it, outside of the Nazgul. Evil players don't need to bother with Shamans (they have the aforementioned RWs), Elven armies generally aren't big enough to make use of it effectively (I say generally, mind you), and Gondor? Well by the time you've included Aragorn, Boromir and some Osgiliath Vets, there isn't a whole lotta room for Gandalf. Artillery, now - all you can do is try and get around a flank and take it out; nearly impossible I find against anyoine with half a brain. We have no ambushers. I find Outriders are best at this, being very fast, and able to move "At The Double!" if you stick somone like Deorwine in them.

Sorry I couldn't be of more help... It's just that I don't game in a very "competitive" circle, I guess. Our local mentality is almost tailor-made to make things as easy on me as possible... And I STILL don't win too much!

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"What's so civil about war, anyway?"

Jason, can post on how he found your suggestions. Thanks for posting them up. I think they worked well for him tonight, and there'll be a batrep presently. At one stage I was literally banking on getting very lucky to pull through at all, and did. So he must have been doing something very right.

I'll just note that it is not exactly difficult (I know, since even I can manage it) to convert up Uruks with Crossbow en masse! I'll just count myself lucky that Jason got tired of running with two formations of them, and I ended up with half of that. Funnily enough, one local has actually bought a couple of formation's worth of the actual Corsair arbalester metals as well.

Spellcasters... Spellcasters are very popular. I am not such a fan of them for my Reunited Kingdom (though Saruman as Morinehtar is growing on me) army but they would always be in my Angmar army. In fact, I would seldom have a game around here where my opponents lacked at least one.

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http://www.roughwotr.blogspot.com

Conversions defintely count 'round here, don't get me wrong. What we try to avoid is... "OK, I bought eight boxes of Minas Tirith Warriors - these ones are Clansmen of Lamedon, these ones are Axemen, these ones are Citadel Guard..." and so on.

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"What's so civil about war, anyway?"

It is a shame that it's so hard to get an all mounted Rohan force working in SBG/WotR considering how effective Tolkien made them in his world. They are my favorite Good force from the books and I have over 50 RoR models sitting around untouched that I'm dying to start, but I just haven't seen enough on the game board or online about making them consistently usable in the game.

WotR did go a long way to giving them back some punch, but also added few other things which I feel is unbalanced just nerfed them again (our Evil players almost always use Wings of Terror giving tough infantry near-cavalry mobility, and spell casting is pretty heavily used). So it's encouraging to see a thread where someone is having some success with all-mounted Rohan and is trying to get them working better.

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Wait ye the finish! The fight is not yours.
Beowulf

http://TacticsInMiniature.com

Beowulf03809, if my experience with the Angmar list has taught me anything, it is that you can get some surprisingly good lists out of a Faction that no one rates. On an army poll here, Angmar got rated last. After Elves. However, it turns out that if you think about what you are going to do and are selective about what you take, lists can be made to work. Too often, I think, people insist that lists have to be based around certain units when that is not always the way to go with them.

So I suspect that when people say Rohan struggles, they mean: Rohan struggles when it doesn't have a good amount of Royal Knights and plenty of their foot, with the right allies, and the ES heroes. Because that isn't the right way to run Rohan.

I think HRM has some good advise about what to do with the less favoured Riders. I can attest that this struck the right balance. I was looking at those little Rider units, knowing I could kill them, and generally deciding that they weren't my top priority right now. I think that is getting to the point of being worth the loss of double-moves.

I think that being able to pin units in place, so as to allow ganging up on them, is worth a lot in this game. I'm almost tempted to try the same with MT Knights. Sure there is not shooting, but Rohan cav shooting is often worthless anyway. Throwing weapons can be a different story.

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http://www.roughwotr.blogspot.com

I'm always perplexed when people say that. Expert Riders is great. It allows to basically turn your brain off during the shooting phase. Sure, I don't kill off whole companies with shooting, but every casualty caused during the Shoot phase is one less enemy to hit back during the Fight phase.

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"What's so civil about war, anyway?"

I don't know about the other people, but I say that because your often lucky to kill more than an infantryman or two, with three coy of it. As with charging, to big problem cav can face is that they cause casualties, but the infantry formations they cause them on have the depth to absorb them without really losing attacks in subsequent melees.

At least it was a qualified: "often worthless" I was really just thinking that the principle could be applied to pure lancers without me missing the shooting too much.

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http://www.roughwotr.blogspot.com

I will admit that cavalry shooting is a bit of a throwaway in this game - indeed, I don't know why any troops without the Expert Riders rule would even WANT to be armed with bows. All I can suggest is, you have to shoot into the side or flanks. As I said - I prefer my Outriders in this role. The extra dice their 2+ Shoot value provides is handy, and combined with the shots from your Riders, sometimes results in up to half a company gone. The problem arises when I can't shoot at the same formation with multiple units - then, as you correctly pointed out, I'll acomplish almost nothing.

I'm glad to hear that it sounds like it was a close game, though! Those little "detachment" style units can get annoying, huh?

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"What's so civil about war, anyway?"

Can they ever. It was our typical swirling 'mess' and Rhoan lost not because it couldn't hold up its end, but because it got unlucky first. I quite like the 'Corsair Raid' Scenario too.

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http://www.roughwotr.blogspot.com

I have been trying out eomers battlehost a bit and find that it can be quite effective when used right. The trouble cav have is their formations arent big enough to absorb damage in the same way infantry do. But if you can get them into the flanks they cause allsorts of mayhem! By using the small pepper units mentioned i find the enemy ignores them as casualties from their shooting can just be ignored. But if you wait until the go for your main milita those small units all charging together make quite a mess!!

Anyway thats just what ive found!

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everyone is unique, but some are more unique than others!

Thanks for all the info so far. Your insight and experience is welcome, and BR info is also greatly appreciated (and we love pics!!!).

My primary Good (as in "not Evil") WotR army is a huge force of Wood Elves. THAT's a soft target if GW ever made one, so I understand the issues a Cav force can face in its losses. Playing WEs you can almost guarantee that when you get into a fight, every die your enemy throws will remove a model from your formation, while you still need to get past armor with Str 3, so you must minimize that impact. I've been learning to maximize bow fire, use some smaller formations for harassment and disrupting enemy movement and larger formations for the punch...while leveraging almost every "trixy elf!" option available. Doing so I can hold my own with a decent win/loss ratio against Isengard, Mordor and Fallen Realms so far. But it's NOT an easy force to play. I imagine Rohan would be the much the same...for most of its core units the best way to win a fight, is not to fight.

I really like your idea of several small formations of RoR zipping around as a distraction and harassing force. Tactically interesting, reasonable chance of success, and well themed. I've always been of the opinion that ANY losses you can deal with bow fire are valuable because you then don't have to worry about those when you melee. Likewise, the multiple smaller units will help reduce the impact of enemy bow fire and spell use. And a large force of Royal Knights to punch where it's needed, leveraging Epic Heroes and special rules, could be very devastating (especially if you can get some flank or rear charges in too).

I do need to look at conversion options though. There's no way I'll afford a large enough force of RRG / Knights to count for much in a 1000 - 2000 point game, and I too prefer to avoid "use as" when possible. But there's nothing wrong with figuring out a way to turn plastics into reasonable stand ins for expensive metals (I'm doing this now to make my formation of Wood Elf Sentinels larger).

What is your main reason for preferring the Sons of Eorl over the Royal Rohan as your heavy hitters?

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Wait ye the finish! The fight is not yours.
Beowulf

http://TacticsInMiniature.com

Primarily? Love the models, and their Move value of 12. Stalwart and Horns of the Eorlingas are not too shabby either, but mostly I like that they're faster. They've got the same armor and trade in lances for an extra point of strength plus the extra special rules. I actually think from a purely competitive standpoint the lances are better than going from Strength 3 to 4, but the extra mobility seals it for me. Speed kills in WOTR, and especially for Rohan, picking your fights is of extreme importance.

As a curious aside, they have a psychological impact - so few Rohirric players use them (due to their price in terms of points AND money) that when I plunk them down, my opponents are almost always unfamiliar with them. This causes them to sometimes pause briefly before launching headlong into them.

*shrug* I just like 'em, I guess!

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"What's so civil about war, anyway?"

Good enough! Movement advantages and uncertainty for your opponent are always good points to keep in mind.

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Wait ye the finish! The fight is not yours.
Beowulf

http://TacticsInMiniature.com