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True potential of a wilding army


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I recently began to wonder, being that mance started to instill some semblance of discipline into the wildings and with them also being used to supplement the forts on the wall, if they were also being drilled currently into a more cohesive force? And if that was the case could the rest be molded as well? Now I know that the quality of weapons is poor, but I'm sure that stannis brought more than a few smiths with him to help with his army which in turn can be used to sure up the wilding arsenal, if stannis can somehow pacify and unite the north and say offer the wildings land south of the neck, like say the westerlands, would that be enough to mollify hostilities bet the north and wildings and would that give stannis enough clout to claim the IT? (Keep in mind that I'm aware of a pending others invasion and with faegon and Dany also being players not to mention the tyrannister regime in place)

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well they've got potential , no one is saying they're not dangerous .

but they're too unruly and undisciplined , it can change of course but with time and that needs A LOT of time , we're changing a culture here not just training them .

they're culture is the biggest obstacle , and i don't see that changing in the time limit .

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"they're culture is the biggest obstacle , and i don't see that changing in the time limit . "



True the problem is their "Culture of War" makes them Warriors not soldiers. It's not so much about their weapons but how they see battle. Warriors see it as a series of individual contests soldiers see themselves as a part of a larger body whose actions are coordinated. Makes them excellent raiders against weak positions but lousy against desciplined trained armies. And you do not convert a Warrior easily into a Soldier. Neither Stannis nor Jon would have the time or I dear say the training cadre to do the conversion.


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Look at bridge of skulls and Long Lake. Of course they got potential.

Them being a harmless bunch with bone and sticks is one of this forums miths, used to disminish Stannis huge flawess victory.

You realize they lost both of those battles? Bowen Marsh had command at the Bridge of Skulls and the wildlings still lost.

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At the Bridge of Skulls he had met the Weeper and three hundred wildlings and won a bloody battle. But the victory had been a costly one. More than a hundred brothers slain, among them Ser Endrew Tarth and Ser Aladale Wynch.

This is open to interpretation since the weeper survived and none of the books battles ends with everybody dead..... Anyway to pay more than a 100 brothers slained, and god know how many injured (usually unlist double) for 200 wildings shows that they are a real threat.

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At the Bridge of Skulls he had met the Weeper and three hundred wildlings and won a bloody battle. But the victory had been a costly one. More than a hundred brothers slain, among them Ser Endrew Tarth and Ser Aladale Wynch.

This is open to interpretation since the weeper survived and none of the books battles ends with everybody dead..... Anyway to pay more than a 100 brothers slained, and god know how many injured (usually unlist double) for 200 wildings shows that they are a real threat.Individually ARE dangerous. Mance could kill many knights of the realm. But overall, they are very weak. Their lack of organization, armament, and sense of togetherness makes them very weak. So 1500 men led by Stannis were able to disband 20000 Wild, mammoths and giant

Individually, they ARE dangerous. Mance could kill many knights of the realm. But overall, they are very weak. Their lack of organization, armament, and sense of togetherness makes them very weak. That's why 1500 men led by Stannis were able to disband 20000 wildlings, mammoths and giants.

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Individually, they ARE dangerous. Mance could kill many knights of the realm. But overall, they are very weak. Their lack of organization, armament, and sense of togetherness makes them very weak. That's why 1500 men led by Stannis were able to disband 20000 wildlings, mammoths and giants.

Well he also had complete surprise and superior armament, not to mention the fact that his forces are very disciplined.

As many people already noted, the Wildlings make for good warriors, but poor soldiers. However, that also gives them a lot of potential. I think that given some time, they can easily contribute 10 000 more troops to the Northern army - especially given how even their women train to use weapons. Of course, that will take a lot of time and some adaptation on both sides.

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Individually, they ARE dangerous. Mance could kill many knights of the realm. But overall, they are very weak. Their lack of organization, armament, and sense of togetherness makes them very weak. That's why 1500 men led by Stannis were able to disband 20000 wildlings, mammoths and giants.

I respectfully disagree. Stannis won without loses because he is an excellent general.

A smaller army, that sneaked trough the wall without Mamouths and gigants faced both Starks and Umbers (which means unlist 5-7k men) and were strong enough to kill the Lord of Winterfell (remember how heavy guarded Robb is?).

It was seen as a huge victory, and Lord Stark brother was remembered as the "implacable" after it. Nobody gets named "implacable" for a shitty victory.

And loses were so many in both sides that NW brothers spent a lot of shame time buring people.... I highly doubt they were buring wildings

that can be burnt all together.

But if Stannis does it against a biggest army with mamouths and giants, with far lesser men than the Starks he only gets a "bah..."

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I respectfully disagree. Stannis won without loses because he is an excellent general.

A smaller army without Mamouths and gigants faced both Starks and Umbers (which means unlist 5-7k men) and were strong enough to kill the Lord of Winterfell (remember how heavy guarded Robb is?).

It was seen as a huge victory, and Starks brother remembered as the "implacable". Nobody gets named "implacable" for a shitty victory.

And loses were so many in both sides that NW brothers spent a lot of shame time buring people.... I highly doubt they were buring wildings.

But if Stannis does it against a biggest army with mamouths and giants, with far lesser men than the Starks he only gets a "bah..."

Then I respectfully disagree here. For these reasons:

-How do we know it was a smaller army? Also, they could have had better armament and organization than the Mance's one.

-Artos the Implacable could have gotten his name for another achievements.

-Lot of shame time? I don't recall that. I'd like you to show me the textual evidence for that.

-Killing William Stark doesn't mean the killed the entire Stark army.

-Stannis's victory was huge. But he got 1,000 wildlings killed and another 1,000 captured during the battle. Not the 20,000. His army was around 1,500 Knights, mounted soldiers, heavy horses, and and mounted bowman.

Raymun united the clans north of the Wall as King-Beyond-the-Wall. He has seen the Night's Watch decline and growing laxness and in 184AL took advantage of the situation.[2] sending his reavers over it, after establishing a toehold for themselves on the Wall, they used thrown ramparts of their own and dropped ropes and ladders for his people to cross over. The Night's Watch, was caught off guard as Redbeard horde came down upon the north, its lord commander Jack Musgood was called Sleepy Jack, forever after.[3]

Eventually Raymun's host had met a bloody end on the shores of Long Lake, caught between Lord Willam Stark of Winterfell and the Drunken Giant, Lord Harmond Umber. During the fight, Lord Willam was slain and his younger brother, Artos Stark, known as the Implacable, slew Raymun Redbeard. Raymun's brother fled from battle and was forever after known as the Red Raven. The Watch arrived too late to fight the wildlings, but in time to bury them, the task that Artos Stark assigned them in his wroth as he grieved above the headless corpse of his fallen brother.[3]

This is from the Wiki, for anyone to read.

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" respectfully disagree. Stannis won without loses because he is an excellent general."



A good tactical general. A lousy strategist. He lost he battle of the Blackwater against comparable quality troops.


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All the Wildling's need a well trained battle commander to delineate troop movements. They have their own battalion commanders in the form of Tormund and others like him, archers, horses to form a cavalry and so on. We've never really seen their true potential, Mance was ambushed and their army at the time was full of tired starving men running to protect their families when they should of held the line because the non-fighting women and children should not have been there. Better weapons can be taken off the dead and found from multiple means. Most Medieval army's are made up peasants with a cavalry of Knights.

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Well if wildlings started to plot it sooner then they started attacking then they could have easily destroyed all of the big commenders.When someone goes to hunting one of the wargs would send a giant wolf or a mountain lion or a big boar and that would be a great sabotage to their commenders.Also if wildlings got better armor, weapons then they would be unstopable.First of all think of it make armor for those giant elephants of theirs and give steel armor and steel weapons to the giants send wargs for sabotage attacks.If wildlings are trained in army discipline and fighting then they would be unstopable.


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With enough time and resources and the right training, yeah, why not. In an alternate universe I could see them helping the northeners against the Ironborn, for example.



I don't know how they would fare below the Neck, to be honest, since they would be exposed to completely different geography. I think I'd use them mainly for sieges which they did well enough at the Wall (like Mance said, they had all the time in the world and enough numbers to besiege the Wall) and they don't need a lot of strategy or discipline for a siege, it's basically standing there around your enemies until they surrender. Unleashing the wildlings against, say, Casterly Rock would be sweet


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Medeival peasants played a structured role in battles, they spent many days over years training. Wildling leaders were leaders by being wiiners of Top of the Mountain contests. They were acomplished Warriors who could carry out raids and kill several men, but they were undisciplined and would suffer the fait of such men when faced with trained organized armies led by competent commanders. They would die glorious deaths but they and their forces would be dead at the end.


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