Battle of the Horse Lords.

Crazedwraith · Post by **Crazedwraith** » 2003-12-24 09:52am

Theoden's force of six thousand Rohirrim meet on an open field an equal number of Dothraki from A song of fire and ice. Thye start a kilometre away from each other. Which force comes out top? (the drothraki are armed with bows, whips and Arahks whcich are a cross between sword and sythe. High ranking Dothraki are armed with supeiro dragonbow bows.)

Which set of horselords come out on top?

Vendetta · Post by **Vendetta** » 2003-12-24 11:53am

If the rohirrim can close on the Dothraki, they win.

They have spears and lances, and are well trained in fighting with them.

The Dothraki's only real advantage will be in keeping their distance and firing.

Stormbringer · Post by **Stormbringer** » 2003-12-24 01:00pm

The Dothraki's only real advantage will be in keeping their distance and firing.

Which is going to be serious minimized by the fact that most, if not all the Rohirrim are armored.

The Cleric · Post by **The Cleric** » 2003-12-24 02:51pm

My money's on the Riders of Rohan. You saw what they did to the oliphants.

SirNitram · Post by **SirNitram** » 2003-12-24 02:52pm

Rohan takes it. Not only are they armoured, but they can hit a densely packed defensive line and simply trample them.

Vendetta · Post by **Vendetta** » 2003-12-24 04:59pm

Well it's cavalry against cavalry here.

But the Dothraki are light cavalry, like the Southrons in the book, and the Rohirrim are armoured heavy cavalry, with a huge melee range advantage and devastating charge due to fighting with lances.

Crazedwraith · Post by **Crazedwraith** » 2003-12-24 05:09pm

Stormbringer wrote:
The Dothraki's only real advantage will be in keeping their distance and firing.
Which is going to be serious minimized by the fact that most, if not all the Rohirrim are armored.

Rohirrim are were taken down by bow fire. The problem is the dothraki are just going to charge the rohirrim. so its a question if they can take enough down with their bows as to have enough numbers to counter act the rohirrims armour when they get to melle range. Not likely. really.

New sceanrio. Theoden's force from the battle of pelenor fields vs Drogo's Khalasar from just before the battle where drogo takes his fatal wound.

Theoden's Rohirrim are better man for man than dothraki but there are a hell of a lot more savages.

Stormbringer · Post by **Stormbringer** » 2003-12-24 05:19pm

Rohirrim are were taken down by bow fire.

Yes, they did. But no armor is perfect and what they have will make an arrow barrage a lot less effective.

The problem is the dothraki are just going to charge the rohirrim. so its a question if they can take enough down with their bows as to have enough numbers to counter act the rohirrims armour when they get to melle range. Not likely. really.

No, it's not terribly likely at all.

And what kind of bows do these dothraki use?

New sceanrio. Theoden's force from the battle of pelenor fields vs Drogo's Khalasar from just before the battle where drogo takes his fatal wound.

Theoden's Rohirrim are better man for man than dothraki but there are a hell of a lot more savages.

And the Rohirrim damn near broke Sauron's hordes which had the numbers enough to blacken the land with orcs. Even if Orcs aren't the best soldier that's one hell of an impressive manuever.

The Cleric · Post by **The Cleric** » 2003-12-24 05:38pm

Let's face it: The Rohirrim are the Spartans of LOtR. That's got to count for something.

Crazedwraith · Post by **Crazedwraith** » 2003-12-24 05:57pm

Stormbringer wrote:

And what kind of bows do these dothraki use?

mainly wooden bows can't really talk about the distinctions of bow-type. Higher ups use dragonbone bows. Theese are impervios to fire, are as stronger as stell and much more flexible giving them a longer range that anywooden bow

Stormbringer wrote:
New sceanrio. Theoden's force from the battle of pelenor fields vs Drogo's Khalasar from just before the battle where drogo takes his fatal wound.

Theoden's Rohirrim are better man for man than dothraki but there are a hell of a lot more savages.
And the Rohirrim damn near broke Sauron's hordes which had the numbers enough to blacken the land with orcs. Even if Orcs aren't the best soldier that's one hell of an impressive manuever.

Yeah but orcs were on foot and scared shitless. Dothraki are mounted and scared of nothing except the open sea.

Stormbringer · Post by **Stormbringer** » 2003-12-24 06:06pm

mainly wooden bows can't really talk about the distinctions of bow-type. Higher ups use dragonbone bows. Theese are impervios to fire, are as stronger as stell and much more flexible giving them a longer range that anywooden bow

Not necessarily, a lot of a bows range depends on how it was made. Not necessarily what of.

So essentially though, they're ordinary bows with a few extra special ones?

Yeah but orcs were on foot and scared shitless. Dothraki are mounted and scared of nothing except the open sea.

Actually, that's the movie and isn't really accurate. In the book those were mostly fighting Orcs (Uruk Hai and specialists orcs) and they were sure as hell not scared. Not to mention they had a significant amount of wolf riders as well as Southron oliphants and trolls. These are not some wusses.

And these Dothraki sound like they're not at all adapted for fighting mounted, armored troops; scythes and horsebows aren't going to be much use against armored cavalry. And a whip isn't going to be too lance, especially since it's likely to mean getting spitted on a lance.

Kitsune · Post by **Kitsune** » 2003-12-24 09:43pm

It remind me of the historic battle between the European Knights against the Mongols. The European Knights were heavily armored and the Mongols were not. The Mongols slaughtered the knights.

phongn · Post by **phongn** » 2003-12-24 10:13pm

Kitsune wrote:It remind me of the historic battle between the European Knights against the Mongols. The European Knights were heavily armored and the Mongols were not. The Mongols slaughtered the knights.

That's grossly oversimplying things.

Tasoth · Post by **Tasoth** » 2003-12-24 10:52pm

The range and force that a bow imparts to an arrow deals alot with its elasticity(Can't think of the word). The more force it takes to draw a bow, the more force for hte arrow, which makes sense. Here gives an example of a english warbow. At a pull of 140 pounds at 28 inches, thats impressive, but its also rather large (English longbows were something like 5 to 6 feet long). Mounted bows are slightly different. The mongols used a composite recurve bow which was quite smaller. Mentioned here is what is said to be the typical pull for a recurve as 60-80 pounds.

Kitsune · Post by **Kitsune** » 2003-12-24 10:56pm

I don't really have multiple pages to explain the discussion and it is a similar situation. I cannot remeber the exact battle but there is a historic battle where a large army of European knights were sent against the Mongol Hordes and were slaughted. I will see if I can find an exact source on the battle.

Peregrin Toker · Post by **Peregrin Toker** » 2003-12-25 12:56pm

phongn wrote:
Kitsune wrote:It remind me of the historic battle between the European Knights against the Mongols. The European Knights were heavily armored and the Mongols were not. The Mongols slaughtered the knights.
That's grossly oversimplying things.

Thing is - the Mongols did also have heavy cavalry, which wore some sort of non-metallic armour (can't remember exactly how it was made).

And no, I'm not getting them confused with japanese samurai.

Symmetry · Post by **Symmetry** » 2003-12-26 06:24pm

Simon H.Johansen wrote:Thing is - the Mongols did also have heavy cavalry, which wore some sort of non-metallic armour (can't remember exactly how it was made).

And no, I'm not getting them confused with japanese samurai.

Mongols generally wore armor made of layers of silk, if memory serves. Japanese armor was different, at least generally.

SirNitram · Post by **SirNitram** » 2003-12-26 06:33pm

Kitsune wrote:I don't really have multiple pages to explain the discussion and it is a similar situation. I cannot remeber the exact battle but there is a historic battle where a large army of European knights were sent against the Mongol Hordes and were slaughted. I will see if I can find an exact source on the battle.

As was said, you are grossly oversimplifying things. Perhaps if you stopped and gave some reasons why this should be considered an exact situation you would have some credibility.

Kitsune · Post by **Kitsune** » 2003-12-26 08:42pm

This is from Wikipedia:

* Mongols based their forces almost wholly on light cavalry. Light cavalry consists of primarily archers and light swordsman mounted on horseback. Mobile and numerous, light cavalry can choose its battles, retreating from forces it cannot handle, such as heavy cavalry. Heavy cavalry lacks archers (who can kill at range) and is designed mainly to provide shock - using weight, speed, and fear of their massed movement (no one wants to be trampled to death) to break enemy heavy infantry lines.

Thus, when light cavalry meets heavy cavalry, the lighter, more numerous, faster moving, bow using, well-articulated light cavalry will usually defeat mounted knights - the cream of European military power.

* Their conception of armor was markedly different. European knights used heavy plate armour (sheets of loops of chain and pieces of metal plate to protect the wearer, restricting his vision and movement). Mongols used silken clothes. The silk cloth allowed Mongol warriors greater ranges of movement, better vision and endurance. It still provided resistance to projectile weapons. It thus gave them a qualitative advantage over their opponents.

SirNitram · Post by **SirNitram** » 2003-12-26 08:45pm

And this is a perfect match with Rohan vs. Dothraki why?

Kitsune · Post by **Kitsune** » 2003-12-26 09:09pm

SirNitram wrote:And this is a perfect match with Rohan vs. Dothraki why?

I said "Reminds" me of Mongols vs English Knights, not an exact match. We are talking about highly mobile horse archers (Dothraki) against heavy Cavalry (Rohan), that has basically been already covered in history and based on the basics as I understand the light archers should win.

Thirdfain · Post by **Thirdfain** » 2003-12-26 09:21pm

Except that the Rohirrim do not match the description of the European heavy cavalry. They weild bows, and use the Byzantine style of lance, rather than the English one.

They seem to me to bee closer to Byzantine cataphracts- elite heavy cavalry, trained to combine horseback archery and devastating charges.

Kitsune · Post by **Kitsune** » 2003-12-26 10:12pm

I did not memeber seing the Rohan with bows, that might change my opinion, of course if they did.

Peregrin Toker · Post by **Peregrin Toker** » 2003-12-27 05:52am

Kitsune wrote:This is from Wikipedia:

* Mongols based their forces almost wholly on light cavalry. Light cavalry consists of primarily archers and light swordsman mounted on horseback. Mobile and numerous, light cavalry can choose its battles, retreating from forces it cannot handle, such as heavy cavalry.

Odd. I recall having read a book describing Mongol heavy cavalry. (I'll try to get it at the library and find the exact place)

Post by **The Yosemite Bear** » 2003-12-27 07:56am

I say Milo & Billi's Horselords from the Horseclans series, Not only do they have equipment comparable to the Rohirrimi, they also have "Long Rifles" and are lead by Highlander-esq Immortals. (Tough Luck the horseclans immortals are only vulnerable to drowning/suffication)