As I started riding, I longingly thought about the Dawnguard DLC which would soon be within my grasp and which among other things, held the promise of mounted combat. For fun I decided to press the draw weapon button, and lo and behold, I did draw it! It turns out that Bethesda decided to include mounted combat in the Vanilla game as well, instead of restricting it to the DLC. As with all TES combat, it's simple and yet fun; there are two attack directions (to the left and right side of your horse) which you activate with the two mouse buttons (I play on PC). There is no blocking, and I'm not sure how magic and shouts work as I haven't tried them yet. I was particularly looking forward to horse archery, but it has thus far proven to be difficult to master, most likely as I'm used to the mounted combat of the Mount and Blade series. You "steer" the horse in combat with either WSAD keys, or pressing W and using the mouse to steer (again, for PC). Now I'm sure many of you will say I'm late to the party and ask how the weather is on the dark side of the moon, but while the mounted combat isn't nearly as refined as the M&B series, it was still a nice surprise from Beth, and it's proven to be very fun.