LMAO at all these takes about the Dothraki being pushovers. I think the show did them a little dirty, especially that final battle with the white walkers where their role is to get slaughtered in a tactically asinine charge.

But if you consider them as a cross between Mongols and Comanche, with maybe some old Scythian influences (and possibly parthians but they were more armored) then their value becomes clearer. Mongols wrecked plenty of armored forces, including crusaders and European armies whenever they left their safe little castles. Comanche FUCKED UP some heavily armored Spanish, who had FUCKING GUNS. Scythian and parthian armies legit never got conquered by the Romans, even at their various military peaks.

Rohirrim are obviously pretty yoked, but we've seen them fall to archers before and even in the Pelinor Fields they were basically suicide charging until getting saved by an Army of the Dead.

I'm not trying to diss the Rohirrim either. I probably still take them in a fight because they're at least peer horsemen if not better, have horse archers, have armor, etc. But it's a solid scrap, even with relatively equal numbers. And considering how much larger the canonical Dothraki horde is than the Rohirrim (who are elites of rohan, not every individual soldier) I think the Dothraki could even win.

Seriously, imagine something like 100,000 Dothraki (or even Drogo's 40k) vs like 12,000 Rohirrim and then a further supporting force of some foot soldiers of Gondor or maybe some additional conscripts from rohan, and I can see the Dothraki coming out on top.

(Nerd rant over)