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Always been a bit of the Rohan fan, which probably stems from the fact that they have the best scene in the trilogy. Picked up the Kingdoms of Men sourcebook at the weekend to develop a small Rohan army and was a bit annoyed to discover that because all Riders of Rohan are armed with bows, they are effectively restricted to no more than a third of the army. So if you want to recreate that glorious cavalry charge, you need at least twice as many foot troops (without bows) to support them.

Was this always the case or is it a typical GW cock up? There are a few ways around it like using Rohan Royal Guard and Sons of Eorl but they're expensive (£££) and elite troops shouldn't outnumber the core cavalry anyway.

On page 186 of the main rulebook about battle scenarios it says

only the Riders of Rohan and Haradrim Raiders models that are actually fired a bow count as armed with bows. All the Riders and Raiders that are carrying a bow on their back do not count as armed with a bow...

Looking at this it seems pointless to give them all bows in the first place but this is outdated with the new sourcebooks... I think.

Yes, unfortunately in the new sourcebook, they are automatically armed with bows as part of their wargear

Actually they have always been like that! In the Legions book they had an FAQ that said you could remove bows from units that come with them standard if you desire, with the example given referencing the almighty Rohan Riders! So basically, they are fine with you using all Riders, you just have to make note of who doesn't actually have bows.

The new FAQs didn't shed any light on the issue which sucks.

Using all riders of rohan is now illegal and not a valid list the legions of middle earth is out dated and the no longer valid. A guy brought all riders to a tournament this weekend and had no idea it was illegal because he was using the legions faq rules. He was forced to use some as royal guard to keep at the 33%. I know this because I started when the new books came out and bought a bunch of rohan to play because I love the rorihirrm. Already sold the army because it is not what I wanted. Had all the heroes but eorl. I am now played numenoreans.

That is a pity.

Since I only play with my friend in a relaxed setting we will just say the ones that have bows on the model have bows and the rest done just so we can play fully mounted lists but it is a shame that GW done this and I hope it is a mistake which they correct in the FAQ (Whenever that comes out).