mounts?

[Eluadin]

Tolkien himself has something to add to the conversation from The Unfinished Tales, The Disaster at the Gladden Fields, Note 7:

"The Numenoreans in their own land possesed horses which they esteemed. But they did not use them in war; for all their wars were overseas. Also [the Dunedain] were of great strength and stature, and their fully-eqpped soldiers were accustomed to bear heavy armor and weapons. In their settlements on the shores of Middle-earth they acquired and bred horses, but used them little for riding except in sport and pleasure. In war they were only used by couriers, and by bodies of light-armed archers (often not of Numenorean race)."

It sounds as if the Dunedain of the Second Age might have been too great of "strength and stature" to fight from horseback even had they used horses in war.

If later in the Third Age the Dunedain use horses in war, and are able to ride into battle and fight from horseback, has their stature lessened from that of their forebears? Making mounted warfare a technological advancement possible only because of a lessening of the blood of Numenor...

That might be interesting to play with, weren't technological advancements always accompanied by moral pitfalls...?

Scott

[Mim]

There are some great posts on here! Since we've already stepped outside of the company's licence a bit , let's recall that in The Silmarillion, Fingon deployed some mounted archers against Glaurung upon Ard-galen/Anfauglith.

As we've already discussed, the LOTR only mentions individual instances of Elves on horseback (Glorfindel, etc.), but even accounting for their diminished numbers at the time of the game, you can conceivably add a small mounted company to some of the Elves at Rivendell for example - just who comprised Glorfindel's 'force' at Fornost is open to some interpretation & some of them might still be around as the War of the Ring approaches.

[Rich H]

Okay time to defend myself

Have at you, Sir!!!