how do the huns have so many horses compared to other factions?

[Goblin Slayer]

just curious. the hunnic army seems to be pretty cavalry based, so im just curious how they were able to maintain such a large cavalry force, unlike the other factions (eg. rome). not bashing the game or anything, im just curious to know.

[♔ Affable 7th Wave Teaboo ♔]

Hun army technically was cavalry based. They seemed to have been horse nomads, so they lived with, on, and around horses. They were lilkely ancestors of Mongols, and thus, many of the same things applied to them. Like, for example, each Mongolian Warrior had at least 5 horses with him, and was expected to sustain himself from the land.
Beyond that, Hunnic Armies in their prime were actually not strictly Hunnic and were composed of the tribes that Huns had subjugated and pressed into service. Thus, mid-late Hun army was likely an infantry army, with support of a core of elite Cavalry (Hunnic or otherwise).

[Goblin Slayer]

Originally posted by DraZZaH:

Hun army technically was cavalry based. They seemed to have been horse nomads, so they lived with, on, and around horses. They were lilkely ancestors of Mongols, and thus, many of the same things applied to them. Like, for example, each Mongolian Warrior had at least 5 horses with him, and was expected to sustain himself from the land.
Beyond that, Hunnic Armies in their prime were actually not strictly Hunnic and were composed of the tribes that Huns had subjugated and pressed into service. Thus, mid-late Hun army was likely an infantry army, with support of a core of elite Cavalry (Hunnic or otherwise).

cool thanks, from what i gathered from that, it seems like they were able to sustain their horses by constantly relocating to new patches of land/grass. and they also had a long tradition of breeding/riding/etc. horses

[Cullen's Hound]

The steppe is a giant grass land. Herd animals like horses thrive in that environment. It is the same as why there were large heeds of buffalo only on the North American plains.

[Wak_Cackle]

Getting Buffalo to line up in squads wasn't very practical. ;) Still isn't.

[Chonobataar]

Steppe nomadic types like the Huns, Tartars, Scythians, Sarmations, Mongols are all descend from the Turkic tribes, whose nomadic systems allowed them to travel the world mounted, with large tents that functioned as mobile homes. They migrated throughout the steppes, moving to fresh lands, whenever they felt the current land required replenishment.

They were able to sustain their numbers in horses, simply because they were able to move around alot, to new areas. They were able to sustain their large armies by sacking various villages and towns, thereby taking all the food. However even they had problems with starvation. It was common for starving nomads to drink the blood of their mount (while not killing it or injuring it seriously).

The steppes were an unforgiving place to some, but a blessing to others, some plains offered animals to hunt and possibly small lakes and rivers to fish and drink from.

If we used the example of the Huns, coming from Asia into Europe through what is now the Russian Federation, we can see that they would have had to raid and absorb weaker and smaller tribes and villages to survive, and then eventually when they got to europe, they were able to thoroughly plunder the bloated towns and villages in the Balkans and the rest of Europe, and then able to sustain their hordes with the spoils of war.

[Ammianus Marcellinus]

Note that Hunnic armies were in reality quite small and that their actual numbers were hugely inflated by Later Roman writers. The figure of 'million' is a rhetorical one as far as ancient sources are concerned. It was probably the effect of mobility that made the Hunnic armies look so large for contemporaries.

Also take into consideration that by far the greatest part of the Hunnic army conisted of confederate allies and subordinate tribes. Not all the 'Huns' of our sources were horseborne.

About the actual number of horses the huns had, nothing can be said. Our ancient authors fail to mention it. He we will have to do with educated guesswork or by reffering to anology.

Last I concur with the 'sea of grass' sustains 'a large herd of horses'. As was often the case with nomad powers in the ancient, medieval and early modern worlds, their power could only be effectively projected to places which sustained a nomadic form of life. Where the grassy plains ended, so did nomad power.