I left this one for last as it is probably one of the harder armies to write a guide for as there are so many options for pathways and build orders and since pros don’t really agree on what the best strategies are. Despite the complexity, this is the army with the best early game (peasants), fastest horses, and a very strong late game with GC, RA, and powerful heroes.
Peasants: Your most important unit, these will decide the entire game for you and allow you to snowball into an easy victory. Some general tips would be to always make them in waves (this means to always make 2 of them at the same time, don’t buy 1 at a time from random farms at random times since it will mess up your Draft timing), and make a LOT of them. You can push both opponents and defend yourself and your ally while still getting your horse out in time. I would say you should make at least 4 EXTRA peasants although some players only make 2 extra peasants, some players make like 6 (felix).
Eomer: Getting him to 4 will be a priority in most of your games. Make him early and spear as many enemy horses as you can. Once they have heavy armor and have high rank, aim for the banner carrier since heavy armor does not apply to them.
Grand harvest: I like to buy these on my inner farms while I am rich and already making something like upgrades or units. Sometimes with Rohan your economy gets to a weird spot where it feels like you have enough money to go for upgrades and fire at the same time, but then when you try this you are suddenly poor and cannot afford both lol. Just spam grand harvest when this happens instead of making both armory+archery range.
Eowyn + Eomer : This combo can be strong for killing heros like lurtz, fara, lego, trolls/troll lairs, and horses.
Middle: Rohan has the best middle in the game for anorien. It is awkward to attack with the weird choke points and does not restrict you to one entrance like the Gondor one. You will be buying it in rohan+isen vs almost anything. This is how middle should look if you are on the left side, this way the statues are hard to shoot at:
Early game pathways (pro paint skillz) example:(picture at bottom of guide)
Blue: Starting peasants
Red : 1st wave
Yellow: 2nd wave
Green: Merry
This is an example of a safe pathway that always gets results (1-2 farms/mills down). Your starting peasants are not going to kill anything since the enemy will most likely chase them, they are used to distract and lure the enemy towards one side of the map (I like to go for the far farm always) so that the next wave can attack the close mill easily. Things will change game to game if you have an isen or Mordor ally, sometimes your first peasants will need to group with isen to chant and you just kill the close mill with the first peasants. The reason we skip buying any farms with the starting peasants is so we have money to buy the first wave, like I mentioned before we want to make our peasants in groups of 2 instead of 1 at a time so draft affects them all. Your hobbit will go to your allies mill to defend it if he is FOD, if they have chant just cloak when you get there to be safe since chanted units do not take much damage from rocks. The yellow wave can also be used to defend/reclaim your side, or kill more farms. An extra wave after yellow can be used for defense if needed. Even though peasant spam will delay your horse if you do enough damage, it will be fine.
Rohan Mordor
This is the best mu on average when you consider all maps, but on Anorien it can a bit harder. You have a good early game, but the mid game can be tricky since you only have 1 farm outside. Late game you have a powerful elf army that catas can barely stop.
Early Game
Send your 2 starting peasants forward and hobbit to allies side, you will only have 1 farm outside in this mu so your build order will need to be very efficient. DO NOT LOSE THIS FARM EVER. Make sure you make 3 farms inside your castle before stable and spam peasants to attack and also defend your Mordor ally. If you are vs 2 FOL, use all your peasants to defend you and your ally’s side. Your first horse will likely be used to defend your ally and chase any horses going to Mordor’s mills. He will have eye and land ready if he creeped the warg lair so defense should not be difficult. 2nd horse will continue to defend and push if able, the priority is to keep Mordor mills up until he has trolls out or middle purchased.
Mid/Late Game
Your build order is very simple: 2 horses, delete stable, fill up base with farms and make theoden and Legolas. You will then go for elves and camp until you have lots of elves (at least 4) with drummer and WK. I like to make sure I have fire and several elves before I switch to upgrades. Sometimes I go for Ara before armor, that’s up to you. If you are confident in your movement and kiting, go Aragorn since elf range is so high. If you fear land tramples and do not trust your Mordor, go armor. If you are very poor (which is always the case) just build armor and delete and ask for some farms back. You will want to take land as fast as possible so you can spam it with Mordor since rain will be your biggest weakness. Once lego is out just guard the middle and play careful, you do NOT have the money to replace him if he dies since you are playing with 1 farm outside. There are some games where your early game will be crazy good and you have bought all of the farms on the enemy side. In this case (or on wold), you can go for upgrades and a big RA/horse army. Make sure Mordor is giving you industry after his first one is used on himself. The only thing that can stop your elves is rain, CB, or GC. Just try to switch to blades and not get trampled too hard, hopefully the trolls can defend you and you cover land quickly.
Sometimes skipping lego and going straight for elves+fire is good as well, vs mordor/isen for example.
Rohan Isen
I have always thought this is the best mu in all patches due to its strength in all stages of the game with its high leadership and powerful heroes. Your early game wc lets you kill everything on their side and also can defend. Pre rain their leadership can rival Mordor Isen and post rain their heroes and GC dominate everything on the field. You will primarily be in a support role in most mus but warchant does allow the normally weak rohirims to rush bases if you want to play aggressive.
Early Game
Your starting peasants will stay grouped and chant with your ally on the enemy mills while the next wave goes in the opposite direction. Make sure you cloak your hobbit at your allies mill and make extra peasants to defend/reclaim your side as necessary. Your first horse will kill your close warg lair with warchant unless you are vs Mordor, in which case you will go kill mills.
Mid Game
This is a tryhard build order that can win vs anything but it is quite lame/boring - 2 farm>stable>2 horse>del stable>full farms>theo>middle>ara>upgrades This will usually be good enough to beat any team with Mordor or isen on it but most pros like to rush bases. If you want to rush: 2 farm>stable>2-3 horses>upgrades>theo and then you decide what you need (ara or mid or fire).
Buying middle or theo first depends on your economy and if your Isen ally is prepared to defend it before all your towers are up. Sometimes if you make it obvious the enemy trolls/pikes/horses will attack as soon as middle is purchased with chant/eye and destroy it. Against 2 fol it’s better for you to go for upgrades OR heroes instead of middle to defend/support Isen. The upgraded horses are there to chant+land+trample combos and kill catas, and the heroes are to support the combos and kill combos with your powers.
I normally don’t go for RA as Isen has all the firepower we need so I focus on supporting him and making regular horses to deal with catas or trample combos. You CAN make RA vs 2 fol to help defend, this is the mu where you can experiment with different things as most of them work. Camping with lego gimli works, upgrades work, RA work, just try them out.
I also don’t usually go for Eomer as warchant and theo are enough LD but some pros do it.
A nice little mid game cheese you can try is the Myth rush which is 2 horses theo with chant and if the enemy does not have that many towers it can do lots of damage.
As with most isen mus, you should give him 3 mills in mid/late game if you want him to push quickly since you do not need much money to be useful in most mus.
Late game
You may have middle at this point, in which case keep attacking with your Isen combos with chant and go back to middle when chant goes away or when all the trolls come for you. You just need to run so that the trolls are away from the drummer and then turn on them since they cannot go to middle. Eventually you have rain and your heroes will destroy everything. Not much else to say about this mu as its kinda easy. If you ever need GC just make lego and hawkstrike combos with your Theo close to him and save your heal for your Isen’s Saruman/combos. Your only job is to micro your heroes and not lose them while Isen does the heavy lifting.
Rohan Gondor
This matchup is a classic; it has a strong late game but requires a lot of teamwork and strategy since you need to abuse your mobility to outplay the other team.
There are two ways to play this mu on Anorien. The most used strategy is to make 4 farms inside your castle and then make Eomer. If you buy farms on the enemy side you can change the build order and do it with 3 farms. (This applies to all armies, you can skip eco inside if you have extra eco outside)
Early game
Spam your peasants like crazy, sometimes I like to go hobbit forward to buy my close mill and push and let a peasant from the castle buy my far farm to put big pressure on laborers but this is a personal preference. If your Gondor lands send some extra peasants to it to get all the value from it. Hopefully you killed multiple mills and both of you have cloaked at different farms. If you do not kill mills, it is ok. Sometimes it is hard to do kill mills without eye/chant but as long as Roh/Gon has their own farms alive, you are strong. Your Eomer will be out around the same time as the enemy horse comes out, your job is to chase his horses and spear them on cooldown that way your Gondor has no issues attacking their side even if they have chant/eye/land etc. After Eomer there are a lot of options, don’t be stressed as they are all good.
Mid game
Option 1) Get stable and make 1-3 RA as needed, then Theo.
Huge pressure on enemy FoL since they do not have armor yet, puts them in jail and tilts them.
Option 2) Theo after Eomer, then 2-3 RA.
Faster GC, this is necessary in certain mu (vs mor isen for example)
Option 3) Fast fire + RA
Good for killing trolls and eco efficient.
Option 4 ) SPEARS! Eomer into Eowyn into Theo.
This allows you to have kill pressure on heroes like lurtz, lego, and fara as you can almost 1 shot trolls. However, Eowyn slows down your build order and delays having a big RA army.
Armory or fire? Once you have eomer, theo, and a few RA the next decision is upgrades or fire. There is no right answer it’s usually what your eco can support but my thinking is that I like fire vs Mordor and upgrades vs Isen so Lurtz doesn’t 1 shot my RA and fire kills trolls fast. You do not need forged blades in this mu, delete after armor and banner. Focus on ranking up your horse heroes and chasing enemy horses that are attacking your farms while you ally kills the farms on enemy side. If there are no horses on your side you can help your ally kill mills by shooting pikes and trolls, but lurtz will be annoying to deal with so you must avoid him. Keep getting strong and protect your economy (your farms are more important than your Gondor because you need lot of $).
Late game
This is the fun part! You have a big RA army possibly with GC, eomer 4, and mid or Aragorn. Your ally has gandy and making trebs. Make sure he sends the first catas to your base as you will usually be the target and he can always make trebs in his base if they switch to him. Once you buy middle and Gondor sends trebs there, you are pretty much unstoppable. While you have insane damage, your RA are squishy so unless you have GC, try to never have a direct fight with chanted Isen combos. The trick to playing Gon Roh is constantly being annoying and doing hit and run attacks. Go around their army and attack the base, then move back when they come for you and go to the other side. If you keep up this pressure, they will never be able to leave their base and siege you. When they do try, double land trample them with GC, GG!
We can go over the other strategy briefly as it is quite simple. Gondor will go for Boromir and combos and you will support him. You will do the regular build order and make 2 horses, delete stable, fill up base with farms and then make Theoden. You will then either make middle or Aragorn to give LD to the combos.
Rohan Rohan
This mu can be fun on certain maps but on Anorien it can be pretty meh. The only way to stand a chance is to have a great start with Rohan’s greatest tool: peasants. Both of you must spam enough to kill every farm and cloak to have enough momentum to win. Decide your strat fast at start and communicate.
One guy will go vanilla strat (horses, upgrades, theo etc.) and the other guy has a couple options. He can do the classic Eomer > RA strategy or just heroes or middle. Middle can be quite good vs some mus but the issue is the lack of pressure on the enemy side. The horse guy will have to attack by himself and also make sure your side does not lose their farms, and the guy who goes mid really needs his farms to stay alive. The build order is just full farms in base, the middle, some wells and statues and farms. You then decide (based on mu) whether to go lego or to go elves. Elves can be quite nice and once you have a lot + heroes the middle can be defended well. Not much else to say about this mu, it can be very hard.
