I, on 05 May 2012 - 09:53 AM, said:
I think Catelyn Stark hit the nail on the head when she acussed Renlys bannermen of "playing at war" whilst her son fought a real war.
Renly was all talk and not much action
Except that "not much action" was better tactics than we've seen from Stannis so far.
By not doing anything Renly gets to lose no-one while Tywin, his biggest threat, loses mean. Robb also loses men, putting Renly in a better position if they have to come to negotiations later. Every day Renly sits down south is another day KL goes without supplies from the Reach, which it desperately needs. This is shown to turn the populace against the Lannisters and in favour of Renly. Even Tyrion comments that its a solid tactic.
Compared to this Stannis, who has five thousand men, decides to attack Storm's End, a supposedly impregnable fortress, when there are close to 100,000 men camped just a few days march away.
And if we take Stannis at his word that he didn't know about the Shadowbaby being sent after Renly then that means that he genuinely thought he could take on Renly's 20,000 in the morning.