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Complete rundown of army sizes and losses throughout the books (long)


Ser Arthur Hightower

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Before I say anything else, let me first say I do not want this to become a discussion on the military strengths of the great houses, that discussion has been had 1,000s of times before, and inevitably comes down to a few people arguing about semantics regarding the density wealth and mobilisation efficiency of the north.



I am making this threat because there are still a lot of misconceptions regarding the sizes of armies fielded throughout the books and the number of casualties. I hope it will be somewhat useful as a resource and we can get a few things on the Wiki changed. If anyone can point out things I have missed/got wrong and cite passages from the books I will be glad to add it to my list. I have tried to keep all estimations as unbiased as possible, and have tried to make note of differing views on numbers when I feel the views are valid.



The post drags on a bit (who’d have though 4,000+ pages would give you a lot of numbers?) so I have bolded the important figures where I can.



Note 1: I haven’t bothered calculating numbers to do with conflicts beyond the wall, as this post is about the War of the Five Kings, though I am including numbers from Aegon’s Landing as well, which may or may not be counted as a separate conflict. I have also not included any numbers regarding Dany’s wars in Slaver’s Bay.



AGoT



Tywin Invades the Riverlands with ~35,000 soldiers, split into 2 armies. His army of 20,000 contains ~7,500 cavalry, ~500 of which are of poor quality, according to Tyrion. Jaime’s army has 15,000 men, containing 2-3,000 cavalry (I find the higher number more likely here, Jaime wouldn’t have a 6-1 infantry to cavalry ratio), this figure is given after Jaime has fought two mid sized battles, so he may have had up to 16,000 men originally.



Edmure raised a host in response to Tywin’s raiding, this host was of unknown size and composition. He sent a small army to the pass beneath the Golden Tooth, under the command of lords Vance and Piper, and scatted men across his borders to prevent raiding by Gregor and whoever else Tywin was sending. The Frey’s were not part of this host in any way, it is ambiguous if the Mallisters were.



Robb raises an army of 12,000 men at Winterfell, this includes Glovers, Mormonts, Karstarks, Umbers and Boltons, along with a few Mountain Clansmen. Lords Cerwyn, Tallhart and Hornwood were also present, but since their lands are south of Winterfell it is possible that they left the majority of their contribution back, so that they could join up with Robb as he marched south. This host is about ¼ cavalry


Another 6,000 men join Robb between Winterfell and Moat Caillin, from houses Ryswell, Flint (both branches presumably), Locke, a few Crannogmen and some Dustins. Finally Wyman Manderly’s sons arrive with 1,500 men.



It is somewhat ambiguous as to whether the 1,500 Manderlys are included in the 18,000, but the answer is most likely no. Many, including Theon who was there, estimate Robb’s initial host to be close to 20,000, which they would not have done if it was a full 2,000 less, furthermore Robb clearly isn’t alerted to Manderly’s arrival before Catelyn walks in with them, so could not possibly have included the Manderly men in his estimation of his strength. The number of Robb’s cavalry is a bit more ambiguous but statements later on in AGOT and in subsequent books give us a good estimation of around 4,500. Note that I favour Robb having 19,500 over 18,000 for several reasons, most notably because I feel that the north should have a lower cavalry to infantry ratio than Renly and house Frey.



We can therefore conclude that Robb marched from Moat Cailin with 19,500 men, 4,500 of which were cavalry, otherwise he had 18,000, with the same number of cavalry.



At the Twin’s Robb gets Frey men added to his, Lord Walder had 4,000 men at the Twins, ¼ of whom are knights, based on numbers supplied in later books. 3,600 of these join Robb, with the remaining 400, and 400 of Robb’s men staying at the Twins.



Robb now has ~22,700 men: 5,000 cavalry which crosses the Green Fork with him, 500 cavalry with Roose Bolton, and 17,200 or 15,700 infantry with Roose.



Between leaving the Twin’s and reaching the Whispering woods Robb gains ~1,000 men, mostly Mallisters and those who fled the Battle of Riverrun.



Losses



Rooses army suffered heavy casualties, particularly amongst its commanders, we don’t know the exact figure, but Edmure later tells us Bolton only has 10,000 men and if we factor in the losses from later battles we get the right number at the end, meaning 7-8,000 casualties if Roose had the higher number, or 6-7,000 casualties if he had the lower number.



Tywin’s men suffer moderate casualties (>1,000), most in the largely undisciplined left wing of the army. Of Tyrion’s 300 Clansmen 150+ are killed.



Jaime leads ~2,250 cavalry in the Battle of the Whispering Wood, none of these escape. Of his 12,750 men surrounding Riverrun, 4,000 escape in an ordered fashion, with the remaining 8,750 mostly killed, with some scattered. I doubt many of those that did escape would ever rejoin a western host, simply due to the distances between them and anywhere they could safely retreat.



Robb is stated by Theon to have suffered 1/10th of the losses of Jaime in the Whispering Wood, this may well be a boast, but it’s the only number we have to go on, so Robb took ~225 casualties in the Battle. He losses only a few men in the battle of the Camps, presumably mostly in the battle of the South Camp, which is where most of the resistance is.



Edmure’s losses are difficult to estimate, but he did lose 2 full scale battles and Tywin and Kevan destroyed many of his scattered defenders piecemeal. Considering this Edmure’s losses were probably as high as the low 10,000s.



At the end of book 1 there are ~5,700 Stark, Frey and Mallister men around Riverrun, with an unknown number of other Riverlanders, ~10,000 Freys and Northmen with Roose, 800 Freys and Northmen holding the Twins, ~19,500 Lannister men under Tywin preparing to take a position in Harrenhal and 4,000 Lannister men under Ser Forley Prester at the Golden Tooth, 1:1 spears (which may also refer to pikes) and archers.




ACoK



This is the book with the most misconceptions and mistruths floating around, both here and on the wiki.



This is a major point of confusion: at the beginning of the books Renly is raising up his army, which is roughly 90,000 men. He claims to Stannis that his foot alone is 100,000 strong, a claim many on this forum seem to take literally, however he gives Catelyn a much more credible number of 80,000 in his main host in the preceding chapter. Furthermore if he really did have 100,000 men then his cavalry:infantry ratio would be too low, 80,000 gives him a 1:3 ratio, which seems to be an average for westeros, 100,000 gives him a 1:4 ratio, which simply seems too low.


It is therefore safe to conclude Renly had 80,000 men at Bitterbridge. This is later confirmed by Stannis stating there is ~60,000 infantry still at Bitterbridge.



Of the 80,000 men camped at Bitterbridge 20,000 are mounted. The ratio of Stormlanders:Reachmen is unknown, but Reachmen should probably make up 60-75% of his host. For the sake of this post I am going with 75%, because it provides us with multiples of 10,000, always easy to deal with, I will also assume the cavalry:infantry is the same for both. Renly therefore had 60,000 Reachmen at Bitterbridge, 15,000 of which were mounted, and 20,000 Stormlanders there, 5,000 of which were mounted.



On top of this army Renly has another 10,000, presumably all Reachmen, under Mace Tyrell at Highgarden. We don’t exactly know much about these men, but we can probably assume they went to Bitterbridge with Mace and had about 2,500 cavalry.



Stafford Lannister’s host is another point of confusion, simply because we have some few numbers regarding its size. According to the Wiki it is 10,000, where does this number come from? [Citation needed].


So we don’t really know the size, if anyone finds anything relevant and can provide a quote, please show me. We know it is composed of some Crakehalls, some Jasts, Vikarys and a Brax, with the rest being smallfolk recruits from Lannisport and the surrounding area. There is also an SSM quote stating that Some of the 4,000 under Forley Prester were present in the army, some on this forum have disputed that but I don’t see any real reason why we should, unless Martin directly contradicts that SSM in another.


Overall I think we can probably guess it was between 5 and 10,000, any smaller than this and it would not have been any significant threat to Robb’s forces at Riverrun, it could probably not have been too much larger given the fact that almost all of those recruited were from Lannisport.



Stafford’s casualties are not mentioned, Tyrion describes his defeat as “crushing” though there is much misinformation spread about the battle in the immediate aftermath (EG many said to be dead actually turned up alive later on). We can assume Stafford probably lost a good 50% of his host to death and desertion, but this is a complete guess, regardless there are seemingly only a few thousand with Daven at Riverrun



400 northmen in the Twins join Roose Bolton on the orders of Edmure Tully, bringing his total force up to ~10,400, which according to Arya includes 1,500 Freys.



Robb leaves Riverrun with ≥4,800 cavalry, heading west, this number includes ~3,800 northmen and ~1,000 Freys, his army also includes a small number of Riverlands knights, according to the BwB in the Stoney Sept in ASOS.



The remaining Rivermen around Riverrun mostly leave to defend their own lands, with mixed, at best, results.



Onto the main point of contention. Stannis begins besieging Storm’s End, and Renly rushes with his cavalry; 20,000 men, to lift the siege. According to Renly Stannis has 5,000, though he claims that is a generous estimate, he then says Stannis has roughly 400 cavalry. An unknown number of Stannis’ foot is comprised of sellswords from Myr.



Renly dies.



After Loras Tyrell leaves with Mathis Rowan, Randyll Tarly and a few others, taking ⅕ (4,000) of the joint Tyrell-Baratheon cavalry, presumably all men sworn directly to Highgarden, Hornhill, Goldengrove and possibly Old Oak. Now 16,000 of Renly’s men remain at Storm’s End, and go over to Stannis. Using these numbers Stannis had ~21,000 men: ~5,000 Narrow Sea and sellswords, ~11,000 Reach cavalry, and ~5,000 Stormlands cavalry.



This estimate is contradicted by Stannis himself when he tells Courtnay Penrose that he has 20,000 men. Stannis may just be using a low precision estimate for his forces (nearest 5,000) or it might be that he had significantly less than 5,000, or maybe Loras left with closer to 1/4 than 1/5, we really don't know. But it does serve to remind us that we can never know any army numbers to any great precision.



We can conclude that Stannis has 20-21,000



Once Penrose is dead Stannis’ army begins marching for King’s Landing, we don’t know how many of his men marched and how many went via ship, it may well be that there were soldiers manning Stannis’ fleet the whole time, in which case Stannis would have had well over 5,000 men at the beginning, this certainly seems to be implied by the last Davos chapter where Stannis land army is said to be 20,000 strong despite the huge numbers of soldiers with his fleet.



On to the north. I am not estimating any numbers based on the number of ships, historical longships varied between mid twenties and high fifties in terms of number of crew. The fact that any estimates I make using this method could therefore be out by a factor of more than 2 means that I won’t bother with these estimates.



Asha takes Deepwood Motte with 1,000 men, according to Dagmer that is 4-5 times as many men as Theon has available to him. If this is correct then there were ~200 Ironmen at the battle of Torrhen’s Square, facing 900 Northmen; 600 from Winterfell and 300 from Cerwyn



Rodrik returns to Winterfell to besiege it, quickly gathering another 1,000 men, but these 2,000 are quickly defeated by ~600 Boltons. Seemingly a large proportion of the 600 Boltons were cavalry. According to Theon Ramsay was outnumbered 5:1, giving Ramsay 400 men or Rodrik 3,000, however we will assume this is bad maths on Theon’s part.



Tywin leads his 20,000 men, which by now are probably closer to 19,000, perhaps less than that, to try to cross the Red Fork. He is up against 11,000 Rivermen under Edmure, 3,000 mounted. The battle is far from decisive but very costly for the Lannisters, 3 days of unsuccessful minor assaults, followed by a dozen major assaults, we don’t know how many men are killed exactly, but the term “grievous” is used to describe the attacks against Karyl Vance. Considering this the total casualties from the fords, plus those from the forced march to the Blackwater and desertions probably leads to between 1 and 2 thousand casualties.



Finally we get to the battle of the Blackwater. To clarify from earlier, Stannis has ~20,000 men, ~5,000 Narrow Sea and Myrmen, ~5,000 Stormlands cavalry and ~11,000 Reach cavalry. On top of this there are quite a few soldiers in the fleet that seem to be counted separately from Stannis’ 20,000, after all Davos still thinks of Stannis having 20,000 men despite most of his ships “crawling” with archers and men-at-arms. He has 200 ships, including 30 Lysene, with the makeup of the rest somewhat ambiguous.



Tyrion’s numbers are hard to quantify. He had 6,000 Goldcloaks, ⅔rds of which aren’t really good for anything, he also has <150 Clansmen fighting Stannis’ scouts in the King’s Wood and ~800 sellswords along with 300 Crownlands knights and men-at-arms, but subtract 340 for the men that went with Littlefinger.


So that leaves us with 6,760 defenders, plus the men manning the ships of the royal fleet, who seem to be counted separately, (note this does not include oarsmen and other sailors, merely the soldiers stationed aboard warships). Tyrion has ~50 warships.



The relief force is an even more complex. Tywin has between 18,500 and 16,500 Westermen, with estimates lower than this being unlikely, but not impossible.


Mace’s 10,000 presumably end up at Bitterbridge when he travels there with Garlan. Leaving us with 74,000 Reachmen and Stormlanders at Bitterbridge: 60,000 of Renly’s foot, 4,000 horse with Loras, and Mace’s 10,000.



If all of these men took part then the relief force in the Battle of the Blackwater numbered as high as 92,500 men, which I feel then need to say is not even remotely plausible, given what we know about warfare in westeros.



We are told that Randyll Tarly puts many men, mostly Florents, to death when he arrives at Bitterbridge with Loras, in order to prevent men from joining Stannis. The ~15,000 Stormlanders present would likely be confined or killed as well, since there is a good chance of them joining Stannis (and the lords to whom they are sworn) if they are marched to fight against him. We can probably assume that almost none of the Stormlanders were fighting for Joffrey on the Blackwater, unless Mace and Tywin had some foolproof way of coercing them.




So the number is down to 77,500, still incredibly high. All of the ~6,500 Reach cavalry would have taken part, we can be fairly sure, along with the 6-7,000 western cavalry, but how much of the infantry? We don’t actually know beyond the fact that there are 10,000’s of Reachmen in the city after the battle, though since Tywin definitely had less than 20,000 by ASoS we must take Tyrion’s estimates with a shaker of salt.


Robb said that Mace Tyrell had a “huge” host when he met up with Tywin. How big is huge? Probably at least twice as big as the number of men Robb had originally, so ~40,000 men. From this (very rough) estimate we can guess that the minimum number of men under Tywin on the Blackwater was ~56,000, with ~13,000 mounted.


The largest figure would depend upon simply how many men Martin thinks Mace could have plausibly readied for battle, and how many of the infantry, who’s lords were mostly fighting for Stannis, could be coerced into fighting against him.



Stannis’ casualties are listed as 47 lords, 619 highborn knights, and several thousand men-at-arms. ~1,300 men escape with Stannis to Dragonstone, the remainder, >12,000 men either defect in the battle or bend the knee afterwards.


Tywin’s casualties appear to have minor, but the battle did last through most of the night, so we can assume ~1,000 men would have been killed.



At the end of book 2, Robb has ~3,700 northern cavalry in the west, with <1,000 Frey cavalry heading from the Westerlands to the Twins. Roose Bolton has ~10,000 men in and around Harrenhal. The numbers around King’s Landing should be 16,000-18,000 westermen, with >40,000 Reachmen. There are about ~5,000 remaining Gold Cloaks. In the North Asha has ~1,000 men at Deepwood, Dagmer takes Torrhen’s square with an unknown number, ~1,000 of Rodrik’s host is scattered throughout the Wolfswood and surrounding area, Victarion holds Moast Cailin with the Iron Fleet, Ramsay has ≥600 men at the Dreadfort.




ASoS



Roose Bolton sends Helman Tallhart, Robett Glover and Harrion Karstark to Duskendale with ~3,000 men. Robb later states this to be ⅓rd of his foot, confirming that Roose had ~10,000 at Harrenhal. Robett is soon engaged by Randyll Tarly.


We don’t know how many men Tarly had but I assume he wouldn’t be sent into battle without significant numerical advantage given the number of men Tywin has at his disposal at this point. Also remember that these men include those from a large number of Reach houses and will control a significant portion of the Riverlands from Maidenpool later on. Therefor I think Tarly’s force is about 10,000-15,000 strong. Both sides take “heavy casualties” which I assume to mean ~1,000 dead for both, with the northmen suffering quite a few more. Later on Gregor kills or captures most of the survivors, since we know he later went on to attack northmen at the Ruby ford, we can assume he had quite a few men, mostly cavalry, though his force may not have stayed completely separate from Randyll’s.



Now Roose has ~7,000 men, however there is an important discrepancy. In the Jaime chapter at Harrenhal, Roose states he sent all of his Karhold men to Duskendale, but he later tells Robb he has some Karstark men with him at the Red Wedding, we can therefor assume a few hundred Karstark men staggered back from Duskendale and rejoin Roose. This gives Bolton ~7,200-7,500 men, 1,500 of whom are Freys, with only ~500 mounted across his army. Note, the Freys under Ser Aenys split from Roose a few days before he leaves Harrenhal, leaving him only ~5,800-6,000 men.



Robb executes Rickard and <300 Karstark men leave his host, bringing his number of northmen at Riverrun down to ~3,400 cavalry.



Roose marches north from Harrenhal to the Ruby ford, with ~6,000 men, 500 mounted, where he is confronted by Gregor Clegane. ⅓rd of his force (2,000 men) was trapped south of the Trident when Gregor arrives. Many of these men are killed though it is noted by Bolton that more escape, but they have no way of joining up with Roose or Robb.


After the battle Roose has ~4,100 men, which is well within the margin of error I have been using, 600 guard the Ruby Ford, whilst Roose takes 3K infantry and 500 cavalry, mostly his own Dreadfort men, on to the Twins.



By this time Robb is ridding for the Twins as well. The text gives him 3,500 men, but this number seems to include the Riverlords and their entourages, which should add up to about 100, considering Piper sent 25. Therefore I estimate him as having 3,400 northmen at this time.



On to the Red Wedding. The total number of men at the Red Wedding includes 3,400 loyal northern cavalry, 100 loyal Rivermen, 3,500 treacherous northmen, <1,000 Frey cavalry that returned to the Twins under Ryman and Black Walder, 1,500 Frey infantry that returned under Aenys, 400 Freys that never left. On top of these confirmed numbers, there may also be Vypren troops and more Frey troops that weren’t part of the original 4,000, and yet are clearly present in later books.



Overall the Red Wedding is 3,500 loyalists vs ≥6,400 perpetrators, with all of the loyalists being killed or captured, and ~50 Frey men and presumably a similar number of Bolton men lost.



Stannis arrives at the Wall with ~1,200 men, whilst the remaining ~100 garrison Dragonstone under Rolland Storm, he has another 300 at Storm's End under Gilbert Farring. I give Rolland ~100 because I think the storm of Dragonstone did happen, and I can't see any defensive force killing more than ten times their number (with even ten times being a stretch), so ~100 should be the size of the garrison.



From here on out we don’t get many actual numbers, when stuff happens we usually don’t get any details until the next book, thus I am including everything from now in AFfC.



AFfC



Shortly after Tywin's death Cersei dismissed the majority of the Lannister army around the capital, leaving only a few thousand for the final sieges of the war, 13-15,000 westermen return to their homes. Of those that remain <800 go with Jaime to the Siege of Riverrun, along with another couple of hundred from the Reach and the Stormlands, giving him <1,000 men overall. 2,000 are taken by the Redwyne Fleet to besiege Dragonstone.



½ of the Reachmen in the city (~15-25,000 men) go with Mace to besiege Storm’s End, the other half goes back to the Reach with Garlan to seize Brightwater Keep from Ser Collin Florent.



We have no numbers regarding the ‘war’ between Blackwood and Bracken, so speculation is pointless.



On to the siege of Riverrun. In A Storm of Swords we are told that there are 2,000 Frey soldiers besieging Riverrun, these are joined by <2,000 men under Daven and Forley Prester, and an unknown number of other Rivermen with Ser Forley in the south camp. We don’t know the number of defenders, but they apparently number in the hundreds, although we are later told that 200 is too many.



Some details about the Vale first, the Lords Declarant (Royce, Redfort, Waynwood, Templeton, Hunter and Belmore) raise a host of 6,000 men, and according to Littlefinger can field 20,000 men altogether.



Towards the end of the book Euron and Victarion seize the Shield Islands from the houses that rule them. Margaery later claims that there were 1,000 ships, which I think we can all agree is way too many. How many did they have? No way to know, probably more than half of that number. As for losses we don’t know the fates of the 12 ships Euron sends up the Mander as a ruse, but the Iroborn lose six ships and capture 38, so a net gain of 32 ship for the Ironborn, with an unknown number of Shield Islander ships destroyed.



Finally we come to the siege of Dragonstone, Rolland Storm, commands a small garrison, probably ~100 men. Loras storms the castle (unless you believe he didn’t) and ~1,000 men die, most of them battle hardened western knights and men-at-arms. The defenders are likely mostly killed, Rolland's fate is unknown





ADwD



Not very much outside of the north here, as expected.



We start off with ~6,100 men: 4,100 Northmen and 2,000 Freys*, ~1,000 mounted, approaching Moat Cailin from the south. They are commanded by Roose Bolton and Aenys Frey. Ramsay Snow/Bolton is bringing down some more men from the north. We don’t know how many they had, but some guy in a tavern in White Harbour told us Whoresbane had 400, so we will go with that for the time being. Ramsay probably took his Winterfell 600 as a minimum, and they meet up with a few hundred Cerwyns and Hornwoods, and Ryswells and Dustins, who had previously destroyed the remaining Ironborn ships moored on the fever river. How many was required for such a task is hard to say, and speculating on the strength of Northern houses is really not something I want to do. Let us say Ramsay had between 3,000 and 6,000 men in total at Moat Cailin. They surround a force with a grand total of 63. It should be noted that Theon estimates the number of Freys as more than 1,400, so Roose’s initial strength may be ≤500 less than the 6,100.



That gives Roose 9-12,000 at Moat Cailin.



On top of this Roose gets 300 men from Manderly, 100 of them knights. There are also slates, Flints and Lockes. Unless Bolton dismissed quite a few of his men he would likely have well over 10,000 men inside Winterfell by the middle of the book. He certainly seems not to have that many, so he probably left some of his Ryswell and Dustin men at home.



According to Theon in TWoW sample chapter Roose has 5-6,000+ at winterfell, this is confusing because he should have brought more than that up the neck and had gained at least 700 on top of that from Manderly and Umber, not even including Ramsay’s men, and all of the other northmen with them.



Theon even states this is more than Stannis has, even though Stannis had more than 5,000, and since he lingered at Deepwood Motte for a while (seemingly) he may well be closer to 6,000. Therefore it is my view that the numbers and information given by Theon should for the nonce be viewed as non-canon, either because Theon is making lots of mistakes, or because that chapter isn’t as polished as it could have been.



Stannis leaves 82 men at the wall, 50 with Selyse, 12 with Mel and 20 split between Icemark and Greyguard.



He marches through the Mountains with ~1,100 men and is said to have recruited all of the Mountain Clans. Jon Snow says their strength is 2-3,000 men, but it is unknown is this includes the few hundred or so that they sent south with Robb. These men all join Stannis giving him 3,100-4,100. When Asha interrogates a Flint at Deepwood Motte he tells her 3-4,000, so it seems like a good estimate.



Asha has 4 longships at Deepwood Motte, take from that number what you will.



In the battle Asha’s entire ‘army’ is killed, save for 9 who are captured and kept alive. The description in the chapter makes it sound as if the Ironborn killed multiple times their number (Grimtongue counts nine clansmen slain), however if this happened Stannis would have lost a large proportion of his mountain clansmen, which simply doesn’t seem to be the case. Thus we can probably conclude that most of the Ironborn probably died quite quickly.



Shortly after the Battle of Deepwood Motte Stannis tells Jon in his letter he has over 5,000 men, and that amount is still increasing. So by the time he leaves Stannis should have about ~1,100 southrons, 1,800-2,800 Clansmen and 1,100-2,100+ other northmen (Mormonts, Glovers, and survivors from Rodrik’s host).



Stannis soon meets up with 450 Karstark men, bringing his total strength up to >5,450. However the cold count has reached 80, and men have died from other causes as well, so he is down about ~100 southrons by the end of the book, giving him >5,350, Mors Umber has some “men” at Winterfell, though how many is too speculative a question for right now.



That is how things stand right now. We don’t know what confrontation will take place between Mors and the Freys and Manderlys outside Winterfell, it may well be that they avoid battle altogether. Stannis will have >5,350 vs ~2,000 Freys, 300 Manderlys and an unknown number of other northmen under Ramsay, but we could speculate it will be the 600 he had when he attacked Rodrik’s army, maybe with some other northmen Roose wants to be rid of. This dispels a common misconception that Stannis is outnumbered in the upcoming battle, not only does he outnumber all of the people coming to fight him, they will come at him in three groups (assuming the Manderlys attack at all).



Finally we go back to the south. Randyll and Mace both have their armies at King’s Landing, which based on my earlier estimations of Tarly having 10-15,000 and Mace having 15-25,000 there should be about 25-40,000 Reachmen around the capital, however Mathis Rowan still has a token force besieging Storm’s End, “token force” suggests that he only has enough men for the siege, and won’t have the strength to deal with any other trouble in the Stormlands, such as the landing of the Golden Company. Therefore we can guess Rowan has no more than 5,000 men.



The Golden Company itself has 10,000 men, ½ of that arrived at the intended landing site, so 5,000 men in northern Cape Wrath. A further 500 take Estermont. Once they have landed Connington takes one quarter of his forces, 1,250 men to take Griffin’s Roost, another 2,500 go with Laswell Peake and Tristane Rivers to take Crow’s Nest and Rain House.



Between the taking of Griffin’s Roost and the arrival of Aegon more men land, as Aegon shows up with elephants and Jon previously states that none had landed, more men clearly arrived at Aegon’s camp since he left. This gives Aegon and Connington >5,500 men accounted for, with another <4,500 still yet to land.



Finally there are two Dornish hosts, one in the Prince’s Pass and one in the Boneway, we don’t know their sizes, but dialogue from the Arianne chapter indicates that they represent the majority of Dorne’s strength.




One final note about discrepancies regarding the strength of House Frey


In AGoT they gather 4,000 men, and send 3,600 of them off to fight for Robb: 1,000 mounted soldiers under Ser Stevron fighting beside Robb, 2,600 infantry fighting under Ser Aenys fighting with Roose Bolton. 1,100 of these infantry die before the Red Wedding, along with an unknown number (probably quite low) of Cavalry. This gives them <2,900 soldiers, by AFFC this doesn’t seem to be the case. We are told by Tyrion that there are ~2,000 Freys besieging Riverrun, there is also a force of unknown size, though presumably in the mid hundred range (any less and even with a hostage their control of the Mallisters would be too fragile), surrounding Seagard. Furthermore there are 2,000 Frey soldiers heading north with Ser Aenys and Ser Hosteen, along with the regular garrison (we’ll be generous and say that this is half the size of a wartime garrison) for the Twins, there is also a substantial amount of Frey activity throughout much of the Riverlands with columns of Frey knights moving around hunting outlaws and such.


Add all of these up, and we see that there must be a minimum of 4,500 Frey soldiers, assuming only 300 at Seagard and that the men patrolling the Riverlands count as part of the garrison. This is despite the fact that 4,500 is ≥1,600 greater than the 2,900 they had in ASOS.



This means that the Frey’s have either recruited ~1,600 men since the beginning of the books, some of the numbers given are drastically off, or some of the men listed as Frey are actually other Riverlanders, most probably Vypren who also participated in the Red Wedding and are very close to house Frey.


I believe the text provides us with the answer, compare these Freys (AGOT)



“Behind her came Ser Jared Frey, Ser Hosteen Frey, Ser Danwell Frey, and Lord Walder’s bastard son Ronald rivers, leading a long column of pikemen, rank on rank of shuffling men in blue steel ringmail and silver grey cloaks…”



With these Freys (ADWD):



“… more Freys. At least a thousand, maybe more: bowmen, spearmen, peasants armed with scythes and sharpened sticks, freeriders and mounted archers, and another hundred knights to stiffen them.”




There seems to have been a drop in quality, most likely much of the foot sent with Hosteen and Aenys are new recruits with limited training and poor equipment, leading me to suspect they might not be expected to go south again, though that is a topic for another post.




Another note on northern cavalry



I just noticed I never really elaborated on the 4,500 figure I gave originally. The figures given to us in the text are that Robb had 3,000 (1/4 of his forces) cavalry at Winterfell, increases this number by 7,500 according to the 19,500 figure, which is the only one I'm using right now for convenience. Using the 1/4 ratio he should have gained ~1,500 cavalry from the houses on the way to Moat Cailin, and 200 more from Manderly once he reaches Moat Cailin. This overshoots by 200, but could easily be explained by saying Barbrey avoided sending too many of her best men (I.E. cavalry)



This number is shown to work later on, when Roose takes ~1/10th of the northern cavalry. Which means Robb took 9/10ths, Roose had >500 cavalry when he marched south to face Tywin: the 500 he had at the Red Wedding, plus some hedge knights and Manderly cavalry that he mentions losing beforehand. Furthermore the lords that stayed with the foot: Cerwyn and Hornwood probably kept a few mounted men around them. Thus we can guess Roose had ~550 cavalry, which means Robb had ~5,500, subtract 1,000 Freys and you get 4,500 northern cavalry.



Finally the method of working backwards works here too. Robb had ~3,400 northmen at the Red Wedding, as stated in the ASoS section, he had previously lost <300 Karstarks giving him ~3,700, and furthermore lost ~200 at the Whispering Wood, with a fewer than 100 killed in the remaining battles, considering that some of those killed would have been Freys and Karstarks, and thus would not have been with Robb at the Red Wedding even if they were alive. So Robb gets just under 4,000 northmen when he crosses the Twins, Roose just over 500, adds up to 4,500.





Thanks to The Drunkard for pointing out Stannis had 1,300 at Dragonstone, and Nyrhex for reminding me how many Stannis left at the wall.


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Awesome work! I bookmarked this thread. But I've always wondered; if Westeros is as big as South America, then why are the armies so small? Balkan states during the Late Middle Ages could field armies bigger than the North's but smaller than the Westerlands' in the beginning of the Wo5K.


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AGOT



Roose' losses are not 7-8k. Even though Edmure claims he has ~10,000 men, it is likely not counting the Freys, who are Edmure's bannermen. Otherwise the later figures don't make sense. Likely 4-5k losses roughly.



Whispering Woods Jaime's host is mostly destroyed or scattered. At the Camps the ~8,000 men in the Northern and Western camps are not mostly killed, they are mostly scattered.



Edmure's losses from the first two battles of the war are in the area of ~4,000 tops. Renly guestimates the Riverlands as adding 20k men to Robb. At the fords where Edmure has only a few days to gather his men he has 11k, and the Freys about another 4k in Robb's two armies. So from the Riverlands' original host, considering that it was gathered with little notice and that Jaime raced to Riverrun and did not bother with persuit, 5k casualties seem like a solid figure, though with Mallister's location being problematic it might be closer to 4k.



After the battles of the Green Fork, WW and the Camps, the North and Riverlands have 5k+ with Robb, 11k with Edmure, and 12k+ with Roose and the Freys for around 28k instead of the 40k that Renly guestimates.



The Lannisters have Tywin with slightly under 20k, Prester with 4k and whatever rejoins fro the other two camps, and Stafford raising a host (which I do believe an entirely fan guestimation based on decending order from 20k to 15k to 10k places at 10k from Lannisport and the immediate vicinity).



ACOK



More than 20k are mounted in Renly's camp of 80,000 at Bitterbridge. GRRM had confirmed that Renly did not take all of his horse with him, but it was definatly enough to lable the camp his foot.



Stafford's host is nearly entirely scattered. The list of losses is shorter than that of the WW, where the Lannisters have a force an order of magnitude smaller. The description is mostly of the men mostly fleeing from either the horses or the Northmen, not putting up a fight. The "crushing" is not from the loss of those men, it's from the scattering the leaves the way open to Robb's host. Daven's own host is smaller because the Lannisters do not need a large host, not because it's gone. The combined Lannister camps are about the same size as the Frey camp, and they Freys in total have fewer men that what Prester had with him when he retreated from Riverrun. It's a castle with 200 men and they have other allies to bleed dry first, like they are doing at every point possible in order to keep thier allies weak.


400 Northmen in the Twins and a couple thousand Freys are with Roose' 10k Northmen, otherwise the numbers don't add up later. Roose needs to lose 3k at Duskendale, ~2,500 at the Ruby Ford, leave 600 men to gaurd it, send an escort with Jaime to KL, and still have 3,500 Bolton and Karstark men to rejoin with the Frey foot at the Twins. 3.5-4k Northmen need to return north with 1,400-1,500 Freys in Dance, the Freys need to have another 1k+ to lay siege to Riverrun and hold the Twins, and none of Robb's host survived to join Bolton's.


Davos is wrong in stating that Stannis has 20,000 troops in his army south of the Blackwater. Davos will be wrong again later. Stannis arrives swiftly to KL because he is all mounted, and the men of Dragonstone are forming the landing party as we see on the Blackwater.


Regarding Longships - Asha has 30 longships, assuming each has 50 men that is 1,500 men. Fits with her leaving a guard for her ships. Theon has 8 ships, with 400 men. He gives his uncle 6 with 300 men, takes 30 to Winterfell, and sets the remaining 70 to fake a siege at Torrhen's Square. For some odd reason some of those survive and do the same as Theon once the garrison leaves to reclaim Winterfell with Cassel. Asha has 4 ships and 200 men after the Kingsmoot.


On the Blackwater Stannis has 21,000 soldiers, and nearly the same again in non-combatants on his fleet. The Tyrells had closer to 50-60k. You forget that many had left, and that even with close to 10k having surrendered and bending the knee, the Tyrells in the capital are only counted as ~60k*, without having suffered greatly in the battle, 1-3k casualties at most.


*“Then take a good sniff, my lord. Fill up your nose. Half a million people stink more than three hundred, you’ll find. Do you smell the gold cloaks? There are near five thousand of them. My father’s own sworn swords must account for another twenty thousand. And then there are the roses. Roses smell so sweet, don’t they? Especially when there are so many of them. Fifty, sixty, seventy thousand roses, in the city or camped outside it, I can’t really say how many are left, but there’s more than I care to count, anyway.”


Granded, Tyrion is rounding up to make an impression, but it is still in that area at the time of the wedding. Less than half leave after the wedding with Garlan, and Tarly takes mostly Stormlandsers and sellswords, and some Lannisters to Duskendale, leaving Mace with a good 30k to lay siege to SE with.


Nearly 3/4 of Stannis' host had went over during the battle (half or 8k of his 16k south of the river) or bent the knee (several hundreds from the Dragonstone host, thousands from Stannis' host south of the River). Around ~5k soldiers, and ~10k non-combatant oarsmen and crewmen for a total of ~15k died.


KL lost a couple thousand men in the fighting, and another ~5,000 (mainly non-combatants) on the Blackwater from Stannis' fleet or the Wildfire. Tywin lost hundreds to 1k tops, the Tyrells around 2k tops for a total of ~10k that died.


ASOS+AFFC


On the Wall Stannis arrives with fewer than 1,300 men. He had 1,300 on Dragonstone, left a small garrison, and left north. He leaves 82 men (12 with Mel including the wounded from the battle, 10 at Icemark, 10 at Greyguard, 50 with Selyse and Shireen) at the Wall, and after a handfull of losses in the Battle of Castle Black, marches south with ~1,200 men The description of Stannis' host leaving Deepwood Motte gives every knight several other men, spearmen and axemen and bowmen, and a total of 800 horses (knigts have several, squires and men at arms 1 or none). Stannis has a couple hundred knights, a couple hundred men at arms and mounted bowmen, and the rest are footmen in his southern host. 3,000 Clansmen, and ~800-1,000 Northmen from the Western half of the North for a total of 5k+. "Cold Count" is daily, and with 80 dead on the last day, the Karstark ~450 are probably re-filling the gap to still be in the ~5,000 men mark. Nearly all the horses are gone.


Rolland has 20-50 men at most, he only had a token garrison, and Stannis needed everything he had to go north. Either the story of the assault on Dragonstone is BS, or Rolland Storm is/was scarily competent at what he does to have slain nearly a 1,000 men with that.


Roose has 3,500 Bolton and Karstarks, 1,500 Freys for a total of 5k. With 600 of Ramsay and 400 Umbers and Barrowton and 300 Manderly knights that is 6-7k. Theon's is eyeballing things.


Asha: Asha had four longships and not quite two hundred men...


Most of the Ironborn died quickly. Not even 200 present (some guarding the ships and were slain by Mormont), and only Asha and the few notable warriors made several kills. Even with the Clansmen having at most ~100 men with iron/steel armor or weapons and the rest using staffs or sling stones, they simply had the numbers and surprise. I'd be surprised if they lost 50 men total. They can take care of thier wounded. The Ironborn who fell alive were put to death with the exception of a handfull prisoners.


The Freys have 4,000 men at AGOT. 2,000 lay siege to Riverrun, ~1,400-1,500 with Roose, and a garrison at the Twins and Seagard. Likely a few hundred losses on the Green Fork were replenished with whatever they could recruit to get back to 4k.


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Small nitpick on Stannis army after Renlys dead: ~11,000 Reach cavalry isn't that a bit much? From the Reach only the Florents and the Fossoways supported Stannis if I recall correctly.

Very detailed, impressive work.

Vyrwells, Mullendores, Meadows, Cranes and Varners are confirmed to have men with him, then there are the houses that aren't mentioned either way: Cuy (who might be angry with Loras after he murdered Ser Emmon, and thus have been less inclined to follow him), Merryweather, Costayne, Caswell, Ashford et cetera.

It might be less than 11,000, after all it is a very bold presumption to say both the Stormlands and the Reach have exactly the same ratio mounted, or that the reach divided its cavalry and infantry by the same ratio over Mace's 10,000 and Renly's ~60,000. However I think it is a very reasonable statement to say that Reachmen made up the largest single group of Stannis' army, even if they weren't the majority.

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Roose' losses are not 7-8k. Even though Edmure claims he has ~10,000 men, it is likely not counting the Freys, who are Edmure's bannermen. Otherwise the later figures don't make sense. Likely 4-5k losses roughly.

After the battles of the Green Fork, WW and the Camps, the North and Riverlands have 5k+ with Robb, 11k with Edmure, and 12k+ with Roose and the Freys for around 28k instead of the 40k that Renly guestimates.

400 Northmen in the Twins and a couple thousand Freys are with Roose' 10k Northmen, otherwise the numbers don't add up later. Roose needs to lose 3k at Duskendale, ~2,500 at the Ruby Ford, leave 600 men to gaurd it, send an escort with Jaime to KL, and still have 3,500 Bolton and Karstark men to rejoin with the Frey foot at the Twins. 3.5-4k Northmen need to return north with 1,400-1,500 Freys in Dance, the Freys need to have another 1k+ to lay siege to Riverrun and hold the Twins, and none of Robb's host survived to join Bolton's.

Roose has 3,500 Bolton and Karstarks, 1,500 Freys for a total of 5k. With 600 of Ramsay and 400 Umbers and Barrowton and 300 Manderly knights that is 6-7k. Theon's is eyeballing things.

The Freys have 4,000 men at AGOT. 2,000 lay siege to Riverrun, ~1,400-1,500 with Roose, and a garrison at the Twins and Seagard. Likely a few hundred losses on the Green Fork were replenished with whatever they could recruit to get back to 4k.

Some good points, some not so good, unfortunately I don't have time to respond to all of it now, I just want to talk about the Stark foot for the moment.

Let's work backwards, Roose losses 1/3rd of his army at the "battle" of the Ruby Ford. He had 4,100 northmen after, 3,500 he takes to the Twins, and another 600 he leaves behind to "guard" the ford. That means he had ~6,000 men prior to the battle, give or take a few hundred. He losses another <3,000 at Duskendale (remember some of the Karstarks must have got back to him), giving him ~8,500 northmen before the battle of Duskendale, add 1,500 Freys and you end up with 10,000.

It's a few hundred less that Roose should have had probably, but the margins of error for every westeros related number would usually be 500+, so this figure is fine.

Whatever Roose had to loose on the Green Fork to get to 10,000 is what he lost. I know you believe Robb marched down the neck with 18,000, not 19,500, in which case you believe Roose had ~16,200 men on the Green Fork, not ~17,700, either way the most likely figure is ~10,000 northmen still alive and with Roose's army after the battle.

We are told in (IIRC) Cersei's PoV in AFFC that Hosteen and Aenys had 2,000, it might be out by a bit but I would definitely put it closer to 2,000 than 1,500.

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Awesome work! I bookmarked this thread. But I've always wondered; if Westeros is as big as South America, then why are the armies so small? Balkan states during the Late Middle Ages could field armies bigger than the North's but smaller than the Westerlands' in the beginning of the Wo5K.

Westeros isn't as big as south America, Martin said it was but his maths wasn't done as well as it could have been. The north makes up 800,000-1,000,000 square miles depending on the map you use, and is about 35% of the size of westeros. South America is like 6,000,000.

Army sizes are based off western European numbers I presume, we rarely see numbers larger than 30,000 prior to 1500. Also real world European armies in the late medieval period had about 1/6-1/5 cavalry as a rule, in westeros the preferred ratio is 1/4-1/3, if you have to equip more horse and knights/northern equivalent then you have less money to equip footsoldiers.

Admittedly there are many on this forum who could talk about history with much more certainty that I can.

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That is some sweet piece of hardwork right there, congratulations and thank you... People always pretend that the westerlands have no man left by the end of the war, like the 20.000+- man tywin had in Harrenhal just exploded or something. The westerland can probably still put some 15.000 men if they need to give aegon a fight or to protect the westerland, but with Cersei as Lady and the westerns probably really weary of fighting is gonna be interesting to see if she can get some man power or not to her side.


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AGOT

Roose' losses are not 7-8k. Even though Edmure claims he has ~10,000 men, it is likely not counting the Freys, who are Edmure's bannermen. Otherwise the later figures don't make sense. Likely 4-5k losses roughly.

Whispering Woods Jaime's host is mostly destroyed or scattered. At the Camps the ~8,000 men in the Northern and Western camps are not mostly killed, they are mostly scattered.

Edmure's losses from the first two battles of the war are in the area of ~4,000 tops. Renly guestimates the Riverlands as adding 20k men to Robb. At the fords where Edmure has only a few days to gather his men he has 11k, and the Freys about another 4k in Robb's two armies. So from the Riverlands' original host, considering that it was gathered with little notice and that Jaime raced to Riverrun and did not bother with persuit, 5k casualties seem like a solid figure, though with Mallister's location being problematic it might be closer to 4k.

After the battles of the Green Fork, WW and the Camps, the North and Riverlands have 5k+ with Robb, 11k with Edmure, and 12k+ with Roose and the Freys for around 28k instead of the 40k that Renly guestimates.

The Lannisters have Tywin with slightly under 20k, Prester with 4k and whatever rejoins fro the other two camps, and Stafford raising a host (which I do believe an entirely fan guestimation based on decending order from 20k to 15k to 10k places at 10k from Lannisport and the immediate vicinity).

How do you figure that? Caught between the walls of Rivverun in the back, the Northmen in the front and rivers on either flank would make scattering very difficult. I do believe most were killed.

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"Battle at the Green Fork"



Roose turned his side after sack of Winterfall and after Stannis lost at Blackwater.....Before these events happened Roose was loyal and he would never deliberately lose his battle whit Tywin on Green Fork because if he did and Robb was victor in this war he would look weak and not capable commander in the eyes of his fellow Northman lords.....


What i'm trying to say is that according to the books at the battle of the Green Fork between Roose Bolton who had 16k-17k and Tywin Lannister whit his 20k,Roose lost 6-7 thousand man while Tywin lost 500(half of this number are probably Tyrion's mountain clans)?Realy?....So the death ratio is 20 to 1.That is just to much,way to much.Even Jamie who was surprised(Roose Wasn't he was planing an assault) in Wispering wood managed to kill more people and leave better death ratio 10:1.



If these information's are correct then Roose is worst and most stupid war commander in Westeros.


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"Battle at the Green Fork"

Roose turned his side after sack of Winterfall and after Stannis lost at Blackwater.....Before these events happened Roose was loyal and he would never deliberately lose his battle whit Tywin on Green Fork because if he did and Robb was victor in this war he would look weak and not capable commander in the eyes of his fellow Northman lords.....

What i'm trying to say is that according to the books at the battle of the Green Fork between Roose Bolton who had 16k-17k and Tywin Lannister whit his 20k,Roose lost 6-7 thousand man while Tywin lost 500(half of this number are probably Tyrion's mountain clans)?Realy?....So the death ratio is 20 to 1.That is just to much,way to much.Even Jamie who was surprised(Roose Wasn't he was planing an assault) in Wispering wood managed to kill more people and leave better death ratio 10:1.

If these information's are correct then Roose is worst and most stupid war commander in Westeros.

Roose was clearly a traitor to Robb's cause early on, not working with the Lannisters at that stage, but working against the rest of the north for his own gain. The fact that he led a night march against the Lannisters proves this point, tiring your troops never makes sense. The only alternative to Roose's early trechery is that he really is a total idiot, I don't think he is as intelligent as some think he is, but I don't think he was by any means dumb enough to think he strategy on the Green Fork was a good one.

Read this: https://bryndenbfish.wordpress.com/2014/01/23/early-evidence-of-roose-boltons-treason/

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That is some sweet piece of hardwork right there, congratulations and thank you... People always pretend that the westerlands have no man left by the end of the war, like the 20.000+- man tywin had in Harrenhal just exploded or something. The westerland can probably still put some 15.000 men if they need to give aegon a fight or to protect the westerland, but with Cersei as Lady and the westerns probably really weary of fighting is gonna be interesting to see if she can get some man power or not to her side.

Certainly, 15-16,000 of Tywin's original host is still alive, with another few thousand of Jaime and from Jaime's and Stafford's hosts. Whether or not these men ever get put in an army again depends entirely on how the military situation in the next few books plays out.

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Small nitpick on Stannis army after Renlys dead: ~11,000 Reach cavalry isn't that a bit much? From the Reach only the Florents and the Fossoways supported Stannis if I recall correctly.

Very detailed, impressive work.

Stannis actually takes a lot of reach houses. House Florent, (red) Fossoway, Mullendore, Meadows, (Green) Fossoway, Varner, Willum and Crane are all named.

What I've speculated is he also leeched away some of those lesser bannermen of the bigger houses that still supported Mace, the Oakharts, Rowans and Tarleys.

Vyrwells, Mullendores, Meadows, Cranes and Varners are confirmed to have men with him, then there are the houses that aren't mentioned either way: Cuy (who might be angry with Loras after he murdered Ser Emmon, and thus have been less inclined to follow him), Merryweather, Costayne, Caswell, Ashford et cetera.

It might be less than 11,000, after all it is a very bold presumption to say both the Stormlands and the Reach have exactly the same ratio mounted, or that the reach divided its cavalry and infantry by the same ratio over Mace's 10,000 and Renly's ~60,000. However I think it is a very reasonable statement to say that Reachmen made up the largest single group of Stannis' army, even if they weren't the majority.

Where did Vrwell get mentioned? I hadn't heard they were on the Stannis list (and would like to add them if that's correct).

You didn't mention Fossoway (Red and Green) and Willum.

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