Battle for Middle Earth - Faction - Rohan

Battle for Middle Earth - Faction - Rohan / The Rohirrim
This is a hint/walkthrough post for Battle for Middle Earth. You can find an index of all our Battle for Middle Earth posts here.

Overview
Rohan has no siege engines, so their defense against long-range bombardment is to rush the enemy. They are primarily cavalry, and have no pikemen to defend infantry against cavalry.

Heroes
Eomer
In the Good Campaign, you start with Eomer and his very useful +100% horseman damage bonus at level 1. He has many missions and is probably best put together with Rohirrim Archers so that the maximum number of horsemen can benefit from his passive abilities.
Eomer rides slightly faster than the Rohirrim, so it is possible that on long runs, he will arrive too early and get himself killed.

Units
Peasants
These can be combined with Yeoman Archers and Rohirrim Riders (but not Rohirrim Archers). In order to properly armor them, however, you will need the ElvenStar power of "Draft" (which gives them more health and more damage output). You can still upgrade them with Forged Blades even without the Draft power to arm and armor them.

Yeoman Archer

Elven Archer
The strongest bowmen in the game, especially with their superior sight range. If you fought them in the Evil Campaign, you will also know that they can hide in trees. They can be combined with themselves to put one rank in front permanently using blades, and the back rank permanently using the bow. This of course halves the arrow firepower from your units, and the melee elves in front do not provide protection from tramples the way pikemen units do.

Rohirrim Warriors
These can be combined with Peasants, who will always stand in front -- if the unit turns, the Peasants move first to get in front. Speed is reduced to that of Peasants, so this combination is possibly useful only against Pikemen, with the Peasants in front as cannon fodder.

Rohirrim Archers
These do the same damage as Rohirrim Riders, but they have more initial Health and do not have the Shield upgrade. I recommend these over Riders because you can engage at range if you can't trample, and fire arrows are very strong in the game throughout -- although units with Heavy Armor are immune to fire, when the AI makes new units, it doesn't always have the time or resource to upgrade them. Also you will need to be careful how you trample Pikemen, and horses can be trampled by Mordor's Mûmakil.

These are the only fast moving archer unit (although Elves run quite quickly), making them excellent blitzkreig troops. The best way to protect them against arrow fire is to pour it on with even more, and to lead an attack with Rohirrim Warriors to flatten enemy archers. Even if they are not killed, they are not firing while they get up.
When fighting an enemy base with a lot of towers, move in with Rohirrim Archers with an attack move so that only a few towers can be active while the Rohirrim Archers concentrate fire on buildings and take them down one at a time. Rohirrim Warriors would be slaughtered by a high-level base with perimeter towers and upgraded resource buildings with arrow towers.

The irritating thing about Rohirrim Archers is that their fire arrow upgrade comes from a level 2 Archery Range -- this means you need to throw away four units of archers (15 Command Points) just to get to the upgrade. A safe way of doing this is to send them to a Warg lair and let them get killed.

Ents
In order to get Ents, Rohan's only artillery unit, you need to build an Entmoot at a cost of 5000 resource, and then wait for the Ent council to finish. You can do so where you can normally put down a farm. It takes a lot of resource and time, but you will get multiple Ents at the end of it if the Entmoot hasn't been interrupted.
Except for a vulnerability to fire and practically certain death from being set on fire, Ents are a powerful unit that can trample units and damage walls. They are basically harmed only by Siege Engines and fire. Even high-level veteran units without fire attacks will be useless against an Ent.
You do not get to use the EntMoot as part of playing Rohan in the Good Campaign since the evil factions have no walls for their bases, and you do not fight against Gondor or another Rohan.

Playing Rohan
The only unit Rohan has that withstands tramples is the Rohirrim -- horses are too big to be trampled except by Mûmakil; also, they are always knocked down by trolls.
Rohirrim are remarkably fragile against pikes but the AI has a habit of tracking the first enemy they see. Therefore, try to keep your Rohirrim Warriors in front. If they can trample safely, you might as well do so. If not, swerve them away and the Pikemen should turn to track them. Follow behind with Rohirrim Archers to shoot down the Pikemen.
Even without trampling, Pikemen do severe damage to the Rohirrim, so do not let them get tangled up in hand-to-hand with Pikemen.
For the Good Campaign and the 300 Command Point limit, I recommend 5 units of Rohirrim Warriors and 10 units of Rohirrim Archers. Put all your heroes, especially King Theoden, with the Rohirrim Warriors because they need all the help they can get to trample. If you are forced to rely on your Archers, have at least one hero with Leadership near them to increase their damage.

Fighting Rohan AI
Rohan will charge even your Pikemen as the AI is not concerned with retaining the veterancy of its units; and enough Rohirrim will eventually flatten any unit of any veterancy (although killing a high-level unit is harder). If you do not have any Pikemen to blunt their charge, try putting a hero in front or hiding behind a building. Usually the Rohirrim will stop to attack the first thing they see, and they can't trample a hero or building. You can then try to rush them with archers.