Greetings all,

As I am slowly easing my girlfriend into the hobby (see viewtopic.php?f=33&t=23130), I am also working on optimising my own force. I haven't played in ages (again see linked topic), but here are some thoughts and a list, also inspired by relevant comments on these boards. Please not that this is intended for SBG, not WotR.

Warband 1 - 243 pts
Erkenbrand on horseback - 75 pts
4 Westfold Redshields w/ bow - 56 pts
8 Westfold Redshields - 112 pts

Warband 2 - 142 pts
Captain of Rohan w/ shield - 50 pts
12 Warriors of Rohan, 1 warhorn - 92 pts

Warband 3 - 114 pts
Eowynv - 30 pts
8 WoR w/ bow - 56 pts
4 WoR w/ shield - 28 pts

499 pts - 39 units - 33% bows

Some thoughts:
The riders lack throwing spears. My intended use for those would be right before a charge (cavalry bonus), giving me 3 hits in the opening fight. Even though my experience is limited, I've found that the above scenario relies on two things:
- Opponent needs priority. I need to be within 6" range to throw the spears, but cannot be closer for risk of losing my charge bonus.
- Hence, I am dependent of the opponent to move the perfect distance before I position the riders (on half movement) in throwing range.
Once the riders are in the thick of things, enemies engaged in combat and In The Way friends make it near impossible to get any use out of the point spent.

Numbers vs. stats: I've thought about a band of Helmingas led by Grimbold, instead of an ordinary captain or the cheaper-but-weaker Eowyn. Points will cost me units, however, and those in turn will cost me bows. Where does one find the sweet spot?

don't bother with WoR with bows, get outriders. in the new rules they have +1 courage, a courage special rule which allows them to use a heros standfast anywhere and they have a better shoot, for the same price . i tend not to include to many archers on foot, might aswell just get a rider for the price of two and he can fullfill more roles, unless you want to volley fire, but you do not have enough men for that anyway. eowyn is a little weak as you said without any armour or a horse, you might find people pick her off for easy points, a normal captain or grimbold is best ( although its really up to you, they have better stats, she allows for more troops). cavalry and throwing spears work well, in priority ride to 7" away from your opponent ( make sure to show them and agree, you don't want any funny business with measuring). if you can fire and move back in this turn. then they either move to within an inch and face either losing priority and being charged or having turn one repeated, if they win, don't hesitate in using heroic move, they are very usefull, despite what some people say, to rohan it is your best friend (after the horses themselves), or they stay where they are, in which case move an inch, fire move back an inch, or they retreat, follow them, you have more move and if they give groung then it gives you more time to organise a charge with other units or will trap them.

here is my 600 point army:
warband 1:
eomer with horse, shield and throwing spears
8 rohan royal guard with 8 horses and 7 throwing spears and a banner

warband 2:
erkanbrand with horse
8 westfold redshields

warband 3:
grimbold
12 helmingas with shields

600 points, 7 might (i think), 8 bows, 18 mounted models, 13 foot =31 altogether

the army should put grimbold in the middle, eomers unit should cover hug up a flank, harrass with the throwing spears and charge in with grimbold, erkanbrand should fire into vunerable units, go for archers (it may cost you a few riders) and then mop up any stragglers with another charge into the main fight.
this army has not had many battles and i tend to lose (mostly because the plan is there, but then i screw it up by changing it, which is stupid seeing as i spend so much time coming up with the tactics against opponunts, i then throw them out of the window and usually just mass charge ) someone else will probably ave better suggestions, but i would always take the named for rohan with the upgrades, they are just to valuable for a force which can just buckle against high fight or high armour.
hope this helped.

_________________
"fool of a took" gandalf

the war horn is kinda useless because erkenbrand already has one, you should drop it and with those points, turn the captain in to grimbold and the warriors of rohan into helmingas.

_________________
"make me lunch... worthy of Mordor"

I don't think you should take any WoR with bows, that way all your RoR can shoot. Instead take Grimbold and Helmingas and lots of throwing spears. If you take Eowyn, she really needs a horse, armor, and shield. The horse gives her the much needed extra attack.

Agreed about the war horn, Erkenbrand's is better.

I somehow missed Erkenbrand's Horn of the Hammerhand; I still need to get the new sourcebook. I get the point about Riders being equipped with bows; you're spending the point on it anyway, so why not use it instead of spending the point AGAIN on a warrior.


Warband 1 12/12
Éowyn, Shield Maiden of Rohan with Horse; Armour; Shield;
12 Westfold Redshield with Throwing spears;
----
Warband 2 12/12
Erkenbrand, Captain of Rohan
12 Warrior of Rohan with Shield;
----
Warband 3 12/12
Captain of Rohan with Shield;
12 Warrior of Rohan
----
509 points

I would really like to use Grimbold instead of Eowyn and Helmingas instead of regular warriors, but just can't seem to fit it into 500 points... at least not without dropping the number of units. As I am unsure of the current quality of the Outrider profile, and prefer not to spend too much on additional models, Outriders are out for the moment.

Just MHO but you'll be much better off if you give your naked WoR some equipment. I would drop a couple of RoR and give the naked guys shield and throwing spear. I'd also skim a few more WoR and upgrade to Helmingas, and the captain to Grimbold (but keep Eowyn). You can't really swarm like goblins, so it might be best to go for quality.

Definatley go for throwing spears, remember that you can have second rank troops throw their spears into the second rank of the enemy.

How do you mean? If P = pike, U = Uruk with shield, W = WoR, T = WoR w/ throwing spear:

PPPP
UUUU
WWWW
TTTT

The T's can't throw at the P's. They might hit the U's, and since they're in a fight with the W's there's a 50/50 chance of hitting their own guy. Only Evil can do this.

Swear i read something somewhere about how you can do this with throwing weapons, might have been for corsairs though :/ Way i saw it was you can fire over a friends shoulder with 0 risk of hitting them no matter what, but you can't fire into a fight with a friend so aiming for the second line is legal because even if you hit the enemy front line it won't hit your guy.

No need for anyoen to argue back though, i've never played like this and i see the logc in how this is illegal. I was just debating.

A Good unit CAN throw into the second rank of an enemy... as long as that enemy is not engaged in combat. Even then, there's a 50% chance of hitting the first rank. A supporting unit is considered to be engaged in combat if the supportee is engaged, wherever it concerns shooting, being shot etc.

In the meantime, I've cut the infantry numbers in half, and spent the freed up points on wargear, Grimbold and Helmingas. This list totals 493 points. I would spend the remaining 7 on additional wargear for Erkie or Grimbold, but they don't have any.


Warband 1 6/12
Éowyn, Shield Maiden of Rohan with Horse; Armour; Shield; Throwing spears;
6 Westfold Redshield with Throwing spears;
----
Warband 2 6/12
Erkenbrand, Captain of Rohan with Horse;
2 Westfold Redshield with Throwing spears;
4 Westfold Redshield (can't shoot) with Throwing spears;
----
Warband 3 12/12
Grimbold of Grimslade
12 Helmingas with Throwing spears; Shield;
---

Yep, no question.



No, the supporting unit is not considered to be in the fight. He can be shot freely, by Good or Evil, so long as there is no "in the way" roll required to avoid a fellow model in a fight, in which case only Evil can shoot.

If your Rohirrim were behind or to the side of the enemy, so they had a clear shot of the back rank without any of their own guys in the way, they could throw at the pikemen.

_________________
"Leave Sauron to me."
If you're in the Raleigh, NC area, let me know.

Hi all,

I have just started to put a Rohan 500 pt army together. I first thought that I could go very much along the lines of the aforementioned but I am not sure. I will primarily play against an Uruk-army with about 35 models.

Many thanks in advance!

Warband 1 7/12 - 173
Erkenbrand; horse
7 Westfold Redshield
----
Warband 2 7/12 - 188
Eomer (Riddermark); horse
7 Westfold Redshield
----
Warband 3 3/12 - 88
Eowyn; horse, shield, armour
3 Westfold Redshield
---
Warband 4 - 50
Huntsman

Questions:
1) Huntsman looks very good on paper (taking out Lutz, etc. by using hero points) - is he or should I replace him with 3 more RoR Redsh.?
2) This army looks very much like I willl be brutally outnumbered. So, replace one of the warbands (maybe 2) with Grimbold + Helmingas + shield (but I would rather prefer to have riders only)?
3) Any other suggestions? I what love to have throwing spears but are they worth it?

Thanks!

I never leave Edoras without a handful of Helmingas. Especially against well-armoured opponents like Uruk-Hai - Rohan's traditional enemies.

This should probably be in its own thread if you are asking for C&C on it.


Edit: Removed most of the quote. Funny 5 minutes

_________________
12th GBHL 2013.
13th GBHL 2014
9th GBHL 2015


Mid Sussex Wargamers

@SouthernDunedain, please do not quote the entire previous post when responding, we're trying to discourage walls of scrolly text on this site.

@Eadric, this thread is old and predates the new rules (such as RoR and bow limit), but glad to see someone doing research before posting

Well, if my own thread is being kicked back up for me...

I just got home from a 250 point Tournament. The low points limit was intentional; my local GW was aiming to draw in some new players after the release of the Hobbit. Ironically, I think all six players were playing before the Hobbit, but that's besides the point.

Anyway, I took the following warband:

Erkenbrand on horse
11 Westfold Redshields (10 Throwing Spears)
Total 249 points.

I faced Army of the Dead, Wood Elves and Dwarves.

AotD: easy peasy. King has no might, the only trouble I may have had was Terror. Ironically, almost all Courage tests passed (yay for Horn of the Hammerhand), except for Big Bad Erkie. Priority rolls were often on my side.

Wood Elves: the Domination scenario gave my Riders a clear advantage to claim objectives. My opponent also played very static, only moving his troops to clear LoS. Elven archers took out two horses, but combat rolls were often on his side. Riders turn out to have sucky defence. Throwing spears and claimed objectives brought home the win.

Dwarves: Screw it. My - clearly experienced - opponent made the most out of his Special Rules, combining Balin, Khazad Guard and a Shieldbearer to seize charges and rob my Riders of their bonuses. High Defense called for nothing but sixes - let's just say it was a massacre.

Conclusions:
- Erkenbrand didn't earn his points in combat - may have just been bad luck.
- Riders can wreak havoc when charging in priority - 2 extra hits and potentially 4 Strikes tear through average Defence.
- The +1 Fight value closed the gap from a lost fight to a 50/50.
- Throwing spears pay out, archery is only useful for 1 or 2 turns.

I'm looking to build this into a 500 pt force. Plenty of options, but only Sons of Eorl seem to really take care of the issues I was having.
How about a Dol Amroth allied contingent?

See the other 500pts all Cav Rohan thread for my two cents

_________________
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*5th in 2014 GBHL

Sounds good. Dwarves are probably one of the worse possible forces to face with Rohan cav. If they had access to lances (like about every other cavalry force that came after them...freakin' GW mentality) it would be a different story.

Yeah, RoR have very low Defense. I have no objection to this. They were not armored knights and shouldn't be represented or played as such. But I wish their attack potential was a bit better to compensate and help them keep the reputation as depicted in the books.

Overall it sounds like you did very well for yourself with a challenging force. I think you should stick to using Erkenbrand. He does typically pay for himself. The basic version of Eomer can be good as well. I don't have any personal experience with any of the 'upgraded' Eomer profiles.

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

http://TacticsInMiniature.com

To be honest, my opponent could have fielded pretty much anything and give me a hard time - he was clearly very experienced, I am not. He stole Priority by calling Heroic Moves, and bottlenecked my troops to minimize my number of charged fights.



The defense was not the biggest issue; Strength 3 means rolling all sixes, all the time. Erkenbrand's Strength 4 didn't prove much better, but that's a common problem with all Men. Higher Strength on a charge instead of extra attacks would be nice.



I barely made use of Erkie's Might. Losing Priority means calling a Heroic Movement next time; getting the charge is pretty much essential to winning the fight. Extra attack, and Knock Down means Double Strikes - that's quadruple the chances of rolling those sixes.
I could consider using more of a Hit & Run tactic, to give me some air to shoot and call charges more often.

Eomer's Devastating Charge sounds awesome, but he sure does eat up points. I would consider trading Erkenbrand for him; the above tactics would ensure double dice, making the F4 boost less essential.