State of the Stormlands

[sigsaucy]

When looking at the troop numbers listed in the wiki you can learn alot about the size of the Stormlords military

-Renly raises a combined Stormlands and Tyrell forces of almost 60,000, of these near 20,000 are cavalry and the rest foot.

-After Renly's death Stannis gains 16,000 of Renlys former Stormlnds cavalry (including Florents)

-At the Blackwater the Tyrell's arrive with 50,000 men which include the near 6,000 cavalry that fled from Stannis and 50,000 - 6,000 = 44,000 foot

Doing the math this leads us to believe that of the Bitterbridge host of 60,000, 60,000 - 44,000 = 16,000 foot were of Stormlands loyalty.

So at the point we can say with certainty that the Stormlands military at the start of the war looked like

14,000 cavalry (16,000 minus the 2,000 that the Florents brought, the 2,000 is just a guess)

16,00 foot camped at Bitterbridge

???? Marcher lords holed up in their castles due to Dornish host being mobilized

14,000 + 16,000 + ??? = 30,000 + ???

The casualties for Stannis forces of

• 16,000 cavalry from Renly's host at Storm's End
• 5,000 men of Stannis' original host

at Blackwater are listed as

• 619 Knights
• Several thousand men-at-arms
• Half the the army south of the Blackwater (~7,500-8,000) switched sides during the battle^[1]
• Several thousand men-at-arms were left behind for lack of space on Saan's fleet, and surrendered.

Assuming the worst case scenario that everyone that surrendered was killed, ignoring that some casualties were from the Florents and Stannis' original 5,000 we can approximate 8,000 + 600 + 3,000 = 11,600 casualties for Stannis' Stormlands force

This means of the Stormlands military we have approximately

30,000 + ??? - 12,000 = 18,000 + ???

troops left.

Ah, but wait there is one more variable we must account for, after Renly's death the Tyrell's at Bitterbridge put many to the sword.

There were 16,000 foot at Bitterbridge, how many do we think were put to the sword? My guess is it can't have been too many, a massacre of 16,000 men would make the 3,500 dead at the Red Wedding look like nothing and most certainly have been heard about.

So if we look at the numbers there are

18,000 + Marcher Lords - Bitterbridge Casualties ( >18,000 probably)

soldiers left in the Stormlands,

We strangely never hear anything about these forces after the Blackwater, none of them are used to besiege Storm's End a la Riverrun or reinforce the Lannister's anywhere.


I guess the question is,

-Was Bitterbridge a total massacre which nobody talks about because nobody cares about (mostly commoner) foot dieing?

-If Bitterbridge wasn't a total massacre what role will the Stormland's soldiers play? Are they a force that will be able to seriously impede or aid Aegon?

[Free Northman Reborn]

Sorry, your post is a bit difficult to analyze, but if you are suggesting that the Stormlands have 14,000 cavalry then you are waaay off the mark.

Cavalry ratios are generally no higher than 1 cavalry for every 4 foot, and with 14,000 cavalry, that would give the Stormlands a total force of around 70,000 men, at a quick guess, and that is more than twice what the entire Stormlands strength is generally estimated to be.

For various reasons, the Stormlands are estimated to have a full strength of around 30,000 men. So that would give them around 6,000 cavalry, in total.

So somewhere you have miscalculated.

[The Holy Goat]

Overall the op is very difficult to follow, and incorrect at some points.:

Renly's combined force of Stormland and Reach soldiers was 80,000 strong, not 60,000 (though Renly later claims they were 100,000). You are right about the 20,000 Cavalry though.

The 16,000 cavalry Stannis gained after Renly's death did not consist mostly of Stormlanders. If we were to use the ratio of one stormlander to three reachmen which seem likely, and one horsed to three foot which is standard amongst the southrons, and assume that the 4,000 who left with Loras were Reachmen which also seem likely, then 5,000 of the ones who remain would be Stormlanders and 11,000 Reachmen.
The Stormlanders: Baratheon, Swann, Caron, Morrigen, Estermont, Penrose, Wylde, Errol, Steadmon, Grandison, Buckler, Fell, Wensington, Peasebury, Horpe, Hasty, Gower, Connington, etc

The Reachmen: Fossoway, Florent, Meadows, Cuy, Mullendore, Willum, Varner, likely some Crane, Ambrose, Beesbury, etc.

At the Blackwater the Tyrells arrive with between 50,000 and 70,000+ men, including the 4,000 cavalry who left with Loras Tyrell.. The exact number is unknown: 60,000 foot were left at BItterbridge when Renly marched but 15,000 or so were probably Stormlanders and it's unknown if they marched with the Tyrells against Stannis; Tyrion says to Oberyn that there are "50,000, 60,000, 70,000" roses against Oberyn's 300 dornishmen; but Tyrions says this after Randyll Tarly has marched North with an army of mixed Westerlands, Stormlands and Reach men; The Numbers Tyrion refers to also includes the Reachmen who turned on Stannis during the Battle of the Blackwater, the number which is unknown.

So it's very difficult to know how many Reachmen and Stormlanders there were, though we can assume.

I would personally imagine that maybe 20,000 of Renly's original 80,000 were stormlanders, and only a fourth were cavalry. All in all I imagine that at the start of the series the Stormlands could gather a host of 35,000 maximum, and that when really scrapping the bottom of the barrel. Several thousand of those men are dead now though.

- Bitterbridge was not a total massacre. 15,000 foot isn't just slaughtered without nobady talking about it. Randyll Tarly did kill some soldiers tor estore order, sure, but they probably didn't number in the tens of thousands.

- Some Stormlanders will likely side with Aegon and Connington, some will probably remain loyal to Tommen, and some might even remain staunch Stannatics. Either way, I imagine that the Stormlands at most can contribute 27,500 to the war (though they likely won't call upon that many), and several thousand of those are likely with Randyll Tarly at King's Landing, another few hundred with Stannis outside Winterfell or with Gilbert Farring inside Storm's End.