I have a Rohandalf / Southron deck that works relatively nice (except when most copies of my Symbelmine and
awinl cames after site 5 or 6).
The idea of the freeps is to set up as fast as possible with Symbelmine X4 and
Awinl X4 and then do a kind of "choke". Southrons can be very evil BUT you need a good hand in the shadow phase, so this freeps is there to filter a little and raise the odds of having more shadow cards at hand.
Gandalf is there for
Sleep Caradhras and
Roll of Thunder them all (otherwise Dunland, Shelob, Corsairs, Grond, etc. will make your day tough). I also use one copy of Arrow-Slitz that i play from deck using site 3. then you have Barlin (gets the event you need more in the apropriated time) and the start of the night, Jarnsmin (don´t know if it spelled right)!!! This gandalf ally is the key to keep your "choke" going on. I never realized how his text goes so well in a Rohan deck!
So basically the freeps are there to help filtering and to survive (depending on matchup they can got a freep win also). I found that everytime i play a rohan deck that doesnt have possession discard and that gives too much pool i got slaughtered at final sites (assuming when i was playing against well designed shadows). So keeping the twilight low at final sites was a pretty nice adition. Other than
Firefoot and
Brego i dont play more horses, i prefer cards like
rohirrim helm to save the day.
I tried the initiative engine with southron once but i found
Desert Lord + Seasoned +
Mumak +
Mumak Chiefitain much more effective in killing. I try to keep a high number of minions in the deck to ensure i will have some to play at each shadow phase.