Versus Match Drogo invades Middle Earth

Aldarion

Neoreactionary Monarchist
By act of ROB, Khal Drogo and his khalassar are dropped into Third Age Middle Earth, just on the northern border of Rohan. Drogo's goal is conquest, starting with Rohan. How will the events play out?

Scenario 1: just Rohan vs Dothraki 1v1.
Scenario 2: everything else remains as in canon. What will be the consequences?

EDIT: BOOKS, you illiterate goblins! I literally wrote above "remains as in canon", so don't bring in bloody heresy into discussion here!
 
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By act of ROB, Khal Drogo and his khalassar are dropped into Third Age Middle Earth, just on the northern border of Rohan. Drogo's goal is conquest, starting with Rohan. How will the events play out?

Scenario 1: just Rohan vs Dothraki 1v1.
Scenario 2: everything else remains as in canon. What will be the consequences?
Third age,but when exactly? if Rohan and Gondor are attacked by somebody,then he could take part of Rohan - and become beaten later by whoever conqered Gondor.

But if not,Rohan alone would beat him.Remember,dothraki are not mongols,but their parody - they are light calvary which charge at enemy instead of schooting from safe distance.
Rohan calvary would eat them for breakfast.
 
A hundred thousand Dothraki with equivalent plot armor would be pretty formidable for the Middle Earth powers to deal with, even with that lack of armor and whatnot. Rohan could muster maybe... ten thousand warriors I'm assuming if they get the chance of a full muster? But the Dothraki would be moving a lot faster across Rohan and even if a Dothraki warrior is easier to kill then a FIGHTING Uruk-Ha a lot of the menacing of Rohan was being done by Hillsfolks and Half-Orc types and standard mook Orcs/Goblins.
To be fair, I believe "only" 40 000 of these would be warriors. And book Rohan can field at least 12 000 cavalrymen and an unknown but much smaller number of infantry (my own belief is that 18 000 cavalry and 6 000 militia infantry would be a decent guess).

According to Christopher Tolkien's notes in the Unfinished Tales, specifically Of Cirion and Eorl:
36 According to a note on the ordering of the Rohirrim, the éored "had no precisely fixed number, but in Rohan it was only applied to Riders, fully trained for war: men serving for a term, or in some cases permanently, in the King's Host. Any considerable body of such men, riding as a unit in exercise or on service, was called an éored. But after the recovery of the Rohirrim and the reorganization of their forces in the days of King Folcwine, a hundred years before the War of the Ring, a 'full éored' in battle order was reck-oned to contain not less than 120 men (including the Captain), and to be one hundredth part of the Full Muster of the Riders of the Mark, not including those of the King's Household. [The éored with which Éomer pursued the Orcs, The Two Towers III 2, had 120 Riders: Legolas counted 105 when they were far away, and Éomer said that fifteen men had been lost in battle with the Orcs.] No such host, of course, had ever ridden all together to war beyond the Mark; but Théoden's claim that he might, in this great peril, have led out an expedition of ten thousand Riders (The Return of the King V 3) was no doubt justified. The Rohirrim had increased since the days of Folcwine, and before the attacks of Saruman a Full Muster would probably have produced many more than twelve thousand Riders, so that Rohan would not have been denuded en¬tirely of trained defenders. In the event, owing to losses in the western war, the hastiness of the Muster, and the threat from North and East, Théoden only led out a host of some six thousand spears, though this was still the greatest riding of the Rohirrim that was recorded since the coming of Eorl."
And yes, in the books I certainly got the impression that majority of Saruman's army was comprised of the wild men and more "normal" orcs as well as various cross-breeds.
So in Scenario One Dothraki wins I feel. And probably more quickly then Isengard could've done it due to the Dothraki number and speed advantage.
On the flip side however, Rohirrim apparently live primarily in the mountains, while plains hold their herds of horses. That might well present an issue for them.
As for Scenario Two. Beyond Rohan I'm not sure though. Minas Tirith has... fortifications including those going farther out a few dozen miles ensuring security for their main city. I'm assuming the other cities and fiefs of Gondor that were also under threat were similarly fortified. The farmlands and ranches and villages/hamlets might be ravaged, but Gondor would stand tall.

Mordor seems even more fantastically well fortified. Lothlorien is full of Wood Elf BS. If Mordor can't take them in multiple assaults without the presence of Sauron himself, Lothlorien isn't falling to the Dothraki I assume.

I suppose Bree and the Shire and the depopulated Arnor region are ripe for conquest lol. If the Dothraki set up there I suppose they could be a very annoying problem. Have to guard and fortify the Gap of Rohan in that case since I doubt Gondor or Gondor plus Rohan would have the numbers to confront the Dothraki in open battle or a prolonged campaign to chase them all down even without the mortal distractions of Mordor/Isengard/Harad etc.
Agreed.
 
To be fair, I believe "only" 40 000 of these would be warriors. And book Rohan can field at least 12 000 cavalrymen and an unknown but much smaller number of infantry (my own belief is that 18 000 cavalry and 6 000 militia infantry would be a decent guess).
Agree.And considered that Dothraki was light calvary which charged with swords instead use bows,i bet my money on Rohan here.
According to Christopher Tolkien's notes in the Unfinished Tales, specifically Of Cirion and Eorl:

And yes, in the books I certainly got the impression that majority of Saruman's army was comprised of the wild men and more "normal" orcs as well as various cross-breeds.
Well,half-orcs with Axes killed Theoden.
On the flip side however, Rohirrim apparently live primarily in the mountains, while plains hold their herds of horses. That might well present an issue for them.
True,if they lost horse it would be problem how to fight.But - Dothraki stupidity could save them.
All in all - if you send real people,like mongols or even Hun,i would agree that Rohan is doomed.
Horse people parody,like Dothraki? Rohan would eat them for breakfast.
 
A hundred thousand Dothraki with equivalent plot armor would be pretty formidable for the Middle Earth powers to deal with, even with that lack of armor and whatnot. Rohan could muster maybe... ten thousand warriors I'm assuming if they get the chance of a full muster? But the Dothraki would be moving a lot faster across Rohan and even if a Dothraki warrior is easier to kill then a FIGHTING Uruk-Ha a lot of the menacing of Rohan was being done by Hillsfolks and Half-Orc types and standard mook Orcs/Goblins.

Only because of the plot armor. The Dothraki are *worse than standard mook orcs* in terms of having all the physical inferiority of humans without any of the intelligence, training, and discipline.

Mook orcs at least have enough discipline to stand in a formation. The Dothraki imbeciles can't even manage that.
 
40 thousand idiots who don't wear armor and don't have Lancers and no concept of tactics beyond charge head on lose.

Exactly. Realistically speaking, even untrained peasants with spears can inflict disproportionate casualties on the Dothraki unless they panic, actual trained soldiers of any type will *massacre* the morons at comical odds, and even minimal fortifications almost completely no-sell them.

The Dothraki are literally so stupid and inept that the only useful contribution they could make to the forces of evil in Middle-Earth would be as meat rations for orcs (gruesome as that is).
 
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40 thousand idiots who don't wear armor and don't have Lancers and no concept of tactics beyond charge head on lose.
Yup.They could win...against Aborigens or bushmens.Becouse Zulu or Aztecs would eat them for breakfast,too.

Exactly. Realistically speaking, even untrained peasants with spears can inflict disproportionate casualties on the Dothraki unless they panic, actual trained soldiers of any type will *massacre* the morons at comical odds, and even minimal fortifications almost completely no-sell them.

The Dothraki are literally so stupid and inept that the only useful contribution they could make to the forces of evil in Middle-Earth would be as meat rations for orcs (gruesome as that is).
Untrained peasants with spears who hold their ground would massacre them,too.
 
The Dothraki penetrated the spearwalls of the Westerosi Armies that were holding.
When? Dothraki are yet to face Westerosi armies in the field.

And if you are talking show, 1) I don't give a crap about it, and 2) that "spearwall" was literally one person deep. A herd of wild horses will have penetrated that.
And even if we're disallowing direct evidence of Dothraki charging through spear armed shieldwalls because of the arbitrary and selective use of plot armor, we saw the Dothraki imbecilic meat rations actually wedge their charge through gaps burned through the shieldwall by the dragon. We saw then hold formation just as well as the Rohirrim did in literally every scene in the films with the exception of the CGI charge at Pelennor Fields. And like the Rohirrim trampled the thousand Orc deep spearwall on Pelennor Fields through the use of Plot Armor and poorly dated CGI, the looser formation of Dothraki was able to do the same with the thinner but more practical spear and shield wall of the Westerosi forces.
See above. That shield wall will not have held a herd of wild horses. And again, Rohirrim never penetrated "thousand Orc deep spearwall on Pelennor Fields", because there was no such a shield wall. In the books, Rohirrim eliminated the disorganized orcs piecemeal. In the movies, orcs panicked.
Also the Dothraki do use lances. Or long spears... whatever. It impaled people well enough. And they used bows as well. And were really good with them. Like... c'mon now. I haven't seen the show in years and never read the books but... I remember that... pretty sure.
I do not recall any mention of Dothraki using lancies, in the show or the books.

I managed to find some photos of what appear to be Dothraki with spears, but only very few of them appear to have it.

Anyway, in the books, Dothraki do use the bows, but they definitely prefer the close-in engagements. Rohirrim also use the bows but prefer the close-in engagements. In that regard, they are basically identical. Difference is, Rohirrim know what they are doing... which is why I posited the entirety of Drogo's khalassar invading, as a significant numerical advantage (40 000 horse archers vs some 18 000 professional medium/heavy cavalry and 6 000 militia infantry, as I said) is the only way for the Dothraki to stand a chance, I think.
We have several instances of random Dothraki warriors going up against Jaime Lannister, Bronn, Jorah Mormont et cetera. And not even like special ones. Just randomly encountered ones putting up decent fights against the top tier of Westeros Knights and Fighters. Dothraki despite their stupid fantasy conventions are far more capable then the Orcs in the films and probably most versions that show up in the books as well in hand to hand combat.
This I do agree with. Dothraki are likely superior to the orcs, be it movie or book versions. But when exactly did "randomly encountered Dothraki put up decent fights against the top tier Westerosi knights"? I do not remember that.
 
I've only seen the show. My bad. I'm out.
I wrote about the book versions here, if you are interested:

I would advise you to read the books. They are far better than the ecranizations, in both cases.
 
I read, and loved, the Lord of the Rings. They were great.



However, I couldn't get through the GOT books. Heck, I couldn't finish the first book. It really shows the author's beliefs, in that he thinks Good always looses.

Well written, but I didn't like it.
 
I read, and loved, the Lord of the Rings. They were great.
Agree.
However, I couldn't get through the GOT books. Heck, I couldn't finish the first book. It really shows the author's beliefs, in that he thinks Good always looses.
Yes,and he turned people there into parody of medieval Europe.
Not only that,Dothraki are sad parody of mongols.
And if he wrote something about Leng,i bet that they would be pitiful parodies of samurais,too.
Well written, but I didn't like it.
Not well.
Tolkien created his own world,,and it was great.GRRM simply made parody of medieval Europe.
 
So, this is now getting into my head.

It's in the middle of the Two Towers, and Pippin and Merry are being dragged off by orcs through Rohan, followed by Strider, Legolas and Gimli.

The King of the Rohirrim, Théoden, is disabled by magic, and Wormtongue almost rules in his stead, but Wormtongue is weak, and the rest of Théoden's family is not, and Wormtongue Master cares not for him. Not that'll last too long, but it'll slow responses.

And, so, as a horde of Dothraki, men women and children, appear in the lands of Rohan, none are ready.



Khal Drogo is a thug, as much as anything else, but he's not an idiot. Where is he? What's out there? He doesn't know. So, smaller groups to scout out whats there. But, they're going to be Dothraki scouts, and they're effectively almost at war with everybody. Slavers, raiders, and unwilling to respect any outside their own. They're not going to treat any Rohirrim they meet well, unless they are forced to. But, any Rohirrim who's ready to fight, properly equipped, is going to outfight them. And match them on horseback, which is something they're going to blink at.


After that, it gets more complex. Rohirrim taken as slaves are not going to be easy to play with. Wormtongue's games with Théoden are going to run into problems, because who'd respect either of them being weak in the middle of an invasion? Added to this, Khal Drogo's going to find a hard riding, hard fighting people, whom even the women tend to fight back. Do they even have enough food to steal? Does his Dothraki have enough for long? Just basic supplies is going to make things interesting.


Meanwhile, there are others who will react. Saruman has a army, well equipped, trained monsters. And these invaders are screwing with his plans! His monsters will march, but to where? And against whom?

How about the Dunlendings? They're near, and much weaker than the Rohirrim. Will Khal Drogo conquer them first? They're ripe for it, compared to the Rohirrim. And this is yet another chance for Saruman to support his "allies", but does he care?


Then, there's the remains of the Company. Small in number, but no patrol of Dothraki is going to be able to deal with them. They're another wildcard, heading out on their own busness, and smashing much that tries to stop them.


Note, in canon, Khal Drogo was entirely willing to talk, and go with plans he liked. You could negociate with him, and it was possible to have him stick to it. If the Dothraki run into orcs, that's almost certainly going to be a fight. Monsters? Where they roam? Yeah, that'll be a mess. I could honestly see Khal Drogo running into orcs, then Gandalf and Legolas are going to be real proof that there's more going on. Monsters, fallen demi-gods, elves, dwarfs and more. Dark Lords moving, heroic times, and a call to all free people! Will this sway any Dothraki? Likely not many, but the way the Rohirrim got their current lands was a treaty with Gondor. Would Khal Drogo like that idea? And, if they ride into battle next to the Rohirrim, how many Dothraki are going to see the Rohirrim as them, but better?




Yup, heck of a mess. Could make a great story, though.
 
The Dothraki literally lost to unarmored hoplites so yeah their track record isn't that good when they don't have PIS backing them.
 
So how do we think the Dothraki could deal with the battleshock inflicted by a Rohirrim counter-charge?
 
The book Dothraki are armed with the signature arakh swords, and bows and whips are also mentioned, although their design is never described nor are their names in Dothraki ever given. In the TV show a handful of small spears are also seen among the bloodriders, but not in any coherent role.

In contrast, real-life Mongols did not even consistently have swords -- a typical Mongol warrior would carry three or four horse-bows, a long and short spear, and an axe as a close-in backup, with a further sword being primarily a status symbol.

 
The book Dothraki are armed with the signature arakh swords, and bows and whips are also mentioned, although their design is never described nor are their names in Dothraki ever given. In the TV show a handful of small spears are also seen among the bloodriders, but not in any coherent role.

In contrast, real-life Mongols did not even consistently have swords -- a typical Mongol warrior would carry three or four horse-bows, a long and short spear, and an axe as a close-in backup, with a further sword being primarily a status symbol.

Depends on the time period tbh, During the height of Temujins empire they would have been well armed and armored.
 

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