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Military strengths of the Houses of Westeros


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I do not mean any offense but I'm not sure whether you truly don't understand me or you are doing this on purpose. Maybe I just am not able to give these facts in a comprehensible way. I'm not suggesting he has more men possibly, I am suggesting him having 4000 men is impossible with your proposed numbers and the numbers and information we are given. All my calculations show that it is near impossible with the knowledge from the books and certainly impossible with the numbers you've proposed.

So again, I'll ask you to make your own calculations with all the numbers and information we are given. Not just for Boltons, but for every house that gathered in Winterfell. Here are some knowledge off the top of my head about these:

- Majority of the 2000 or so men that dies/runs/gets captured crossing the Trident is Locke, Burley and Norrey so 1000 from these three houses. There are also some mountain clansmen in the 600 army Roose left to "defend his rear". 100 of these men are Hornwood archers, and a small, unspecified number of freeriders. so 500- men remains for men from several places. You can use these to get an estimate of how much mountain clansmen were still alive at that time.

- Karstarks get near 2000 foot and 300 cavalry.

- Cerwyns are amongst the most powerful bannermen.

- Greatjon asks for proper marching order, refusing to march behind Cerwyns and Hornwoods.

-Roose has the majority of the 3000 foot and some 500 cavalry marching to Twins. If a tenth was 500 cavalry at start then he certainly has 450-500 at this time because Manderly knights died/got captured and he left some freeriders in the 600 army. Also you keep saying he had the majority of the 4100, I can not find where it is mentioned, only that he has the majority of the marching near 3500 men, so please source it so i can correct myself.

-Robb gathers near 12000 men at Winterfell, his seat, including his own. 3000 of these are cavalry, another 300-400 are knights. So around 27-28 % of his men are mounted.

- Glover and Bolton both ask for battle command.

- Glover and Karstark are given towers in MC.

- Known houses that gathered at the Winterfell, apart from Starks, are; Karstarks, Bolton, Umbers, Cerwyn, Tallhart, Hornwood, Mormont, Glover and Mountain clansmen.

- Jon tells Stannis he can get 2000 moutain clansmen to his cause maybe as much as 3000. As a bonus, not so relevant information, it's safe to guess that he doesn't know how many Robb took but probably knows Robb took some of them for certain so 40 clans, big and small, may be able to raise more than 3000.

These are all I can remember right now, numbers and information that may or may not be releavant to them. I am curious as to what numbers you will deem appropriate for these houses' numbers in Robb's 12k, using the known numbers and information to ensure they are plausible.

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41 minutes ago, Corvo the Crow said:

I do not mean any offense but I'm not sure whether you truly don't understand me or you are doing this on purpose. Maybe I just am not able to give these facts in a comprehensible way. I'm not suggesting he has more men possibly, I am suggesting him having 4000 men is impossible with your proposed numbers and the numbers and information we are given. All my calculations show that it is near impossible with the knowledge from the books and certainly impossible with the numbers you've proposed.

 

I'm not sure exactly what it is that you aren't getting. FNR is stating that he believes it is infeasible than more than 25% of the Bolton's total strength is mounted, based on numbers we see throughout the books. He therefore extrapolates that since we have seen in the region of 1,000 Bolton cavalry (up to 500 with Roose and up to 600 with Ramsay) that the total number of soldiers under Bolton and his bannermen must exceed 4,000.

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1 hour ago, Corvo the Crow said:

I do not mean any offense but I'm not sure whether you truly don't understand me or you are doing this on purpose. Maybe I just am not able to give these facts in a comprehensible way. I'm not suggesting he has more men possibly, I am suggesting him having 4000 men is impossible with your proposed numbers and the numbers and information we are given. All my calculations show that it is near impossible with the knowledge from the books and certainly impossible with the numbers you've proposed.

So again, I'll ask you to make your own calculations with all the numbers and information we are given. Not just for Boltons, but for every house that gathered in Winterfell. Here are some knowledge off the top of my head about these:

- Majority of the 2000 or so men that dies/runs/gets captured crossing the Trident is Locke, Burley and Norrey so 1000 from these three houses. There are also some mountain clansmen in the 600 army Roose left to "defend his rear". 100 of these men are Hornwood archers, and a small, unspecified number of freeriders. so 500- men remains for men from several places. You can use these to get an estimate of how much mountain clansmen were still alive at that time.

- Karstarks get near 2000 foot and 300 cavalry.

- Cerwyns are amongst the most powerful bannermen.

- Greatjon asks for proper marching order, refusing to march behind Cerwyns and Hornwoods.

-Roose has the majority of the 3000 foot and some 500 cavalry marching to Twins. If a tenth was 500 cavalry at start then he certainly has 450-500 at this time because Manderly knights died/got captured and he left some freeriders in the 600 army. Also you keep saying he had the majority of the 4100, I can not find where it is mentioned, only that he has the majority of the marching near 3500 men, so please source it so i can correct myself.

-Robb gathers near 12000 men at Winterfell, his seat, including his own. 3000 of these are cavalry, another 300-400 are knights. So around 27-28 % of his men are mounted.

- Glover and Bolton both ask for battle command.

- Glover and Karstark are given towers in MC.

- Known houses that gathered at the Winterfell, apart from Starks, are; Karstarks, Bolton, Umbers, Cerwyn, Tallhart, Hornwood, Mormont, Glover and Mountain clansmen.

- Jon tells Stannis he can get 2000 moutain clansmen to his cause maybe as much as 3000. As a bonus, not so relevant information, it's safe to guess that he doesn't know how many Robb took but probably knows Robb took some of them for certain so 40 clans, big and small, may be able to raise more than 3000.

These are all I can remember right now, numbers and information that may or may not be releavant to them. I am curious as to what numbers you will deem appropriate for these houses' numbers in Robb's 12k, using the known numbers and information to ensure they are plausible.

Firstly, I am not deliberately misunderstanding you. I think we are just talking past each other. So I'll go back to basics.

I understand what you are getting at with regard to the total 12000 figure. I have done a breakdown on that myself on some earlier thread.

Basically, the most solid number we have for any single lord's contribution, is the Karstark one. It is 2300. The second solid figure is the total number of heavy cavalry. Which  is 3000 at least.

Then we have later confirmation that the Bolton numbers at the END of the war, was the majority of the 4000 men returning through Moat Cailin. This is from Theon's chapter at Moat Cailin in Dance, when he convinces the Ironborn to surrender to Ramsay. So we know the miminum number for the Boltons to have left at the end, is probably around 2100. We also know that the Boltons have far better quality troops - and more cavalry - than the Karstarks left back in the North . This while they sent at least as many men as the Karstarks with Robb.

From these figures we can say that all the remaining forces in the original 12000 had to come from whatever was left after the Karstarks contributed 2300 and the Boltons contributed around 2500 or thereabouts. If that implies that some of the other Houses contributed very little, then so be it. That is what the evidence suggests.

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5 minutes ago, Ser Arthur Hightower said:

I'm not sure exactly what it is that you aren't getting. FNR is stating that he believes it is infeasible than more than 25% of the Bolton's total strength is mounted, based on numbers we see throughout the books. He therefore extrapolates that since we have seen in the region of 1,000 Bolton cavalry (up to 500 with Roose and up to 600 with Ramsay) that the total number of soldiers under Bolton and his bannermen must exceed 4,000.

In a nutshell, yes. Although I would say that Roose almost certainly had more than 500 - and more likely in the 700 range - with him in Robb's host. Because we know he has at least the majority of 4000 men left when his forces return from the South, implying that he would have had more than that when he headed South originally. And in order to get to the 25% heavy cavalry average out of the 12000, it seems highly likely that a powerful military House like the Boltons would have been one of the Houses that contributed more than 25% to the Winterfell total, in order to compensate for the lower ratios supplied by some other Houses.

Still, his overall ratio would not exceed 25%, but his Winterfell cavalry ratio most likely did. So that means that even if only half of Ramsay's force was mounted, that 300 probably still takes Roose to around 1000 total cavalry.

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On 26-5-2016 at 1:29 AM, norwaywolf123 said:

Dorne only has 15K men

Have you not seen Arianne and Areos chapters?!

No army numbers for Dorne are mentioned in those chapters.

 

On 6-6-2016 at 0:37 AM, Lord Varys said:

Not really, Torrhen didn't have 30,000 men at the Wall. He might have marched a small host to Moat Cailin and then commanded that everybody meet him there. Or it might even be they marched down in different smaller armies only to unite at a certain point in the Riverlands. All Torrhen needed to do was to get his people out of the North. Down there they obviously lived off the Riverlands.

Keep in mind that Torrhen had (and took) 1,5 years to marshal this army. And it was summer during the Conquest, so food might not have been such a major issue in the North.

But one really has to wonder about his sanity with this whole thing. Did he intend to claim the Riverlands now that the Ironborn were dealt with? Or rather did he intend to do that after he had dealt with Harren and Aegon when he decided to assemble his army? He clearly didn't come down to defend his home land. It hadn't been attacked yet.

Reply to a somewhat older post, but could you please point me to where this is stated? :)

 

20 hours ago, Corvo the Crow said:

Dorne:

Information:

- Two times Dorne joined the civil wars, first is ADWD and second is Robert's rebellion and in both of these they have sent 10k.

- Dorne is the least populated of all the 7 kingdoms.

Assumption and conclusion:

In Robert's rebellion, Martells were allied to Targaryen's through marriage. Dorne can defend itself with very small numbers, guarding the mountain passes or retreating into the deserts and skirmishing the enemy if they can no longer guard the passes, as they did during the conquest. Doran would send whatever other men he could to help his ally win the war and ensure his sister's safety, so the 10k men he sent is the most he can spare. I believe he has little over 10k, less than 15k.12 or maybe 13 at most.

 

Ten thousand Dornishmen fought in Robert's Rebellion, but Doran had sent the Dornish aid only late, at first refusing to help the Targaryens due to his anger over the treatment Elia had received.

Dorne did not fight in the Dance (which I assume is what you mean with ADWD?); Both Aegon II's side and Rhaenyra's side asked for Prince Qoren's support, and he refused both of them.

Dorne did fight in the First Blackfyre Rebellion, though 1) not all of Dorne was for Daeron II (e.g., House Yronwood fought on behalf of Daemon Blackfyre), and 2) the size of Prince Baelor's host, which was comprised out of both Dornishmen and stormlanders, is not mentioned, per my recollection.

 

According to Tyrion, Dorne can raise 50.000 soldiers. As per AFFC, we know that this number is too high, but there is nothing in AFFC or in ADWD that tells us Dorne's actual number, or a minimal number. All we have 1) is GRRM stating that Dorne can raise roughly the same amount of men as the North and the Vale, 2) and some numbers from Dornish history, comprised out of a ) House Fowler, one of the three strongest Kingdoms that comprised Dorne at that moment, was able to raise 10.000 men, and b ) the first Vulture King was able to raise 30.000 men, which most likely mostly consisted out of Dornishmen. The largest Northern army we've seen was 30.000 strong (Conquest), and the numbers mentioned thusfar in the series are slowly leading up to that number as well. The six Lords Declarent in the Vale can already raise 20.000 men, though how the other lords of the Vale compare to this, we can only guess.

 

I would be carefull with estimating the Dornish numbers to be too low. If House Fowler was one of the three strongest Kingdoms in Dorne when Dorne still consisted out of multiple kingdoms, the other two of those three strongest (Yronwood and Dayne of Starfall), should at minimum be roughly equal in size, giving Dorne roughly 30.000 men, at least. (It should be mentioned that we have no idea how much of Dorne these three kingdoms together comprised, back then).

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11 minutes ago, Rhaenys_Targaryen said:

No army numbers for Dorne are mentioned in those chapters.

 

Reply to a somewhat older post, but could you please point me to where this is stated? :)

 

Ten thousand Dornishmen fought in Robert's Rebellion, but Doran had sent the Dornish aid only late, at first refusing to help the Targaryens due to his anger over the treatment Elia had received.

Dorne did not fight in the Dance (which I assume is what you mean with ADWD?); Both Aegon II's side and Rhaenyra's side asked for Prince Qoren's support, and he refused both of them.

Dorne did fight in the First Blackfyre Rebellion, though 1) not all of Dorne was for Daeron II (e.g., House Yronwood fought on behalf of Daemon Blackfyre), and 2) the size of Prince Baelor's host, which was comprised out of both Dornishmen and stormlanders, is not mentioned, per my recollection.

 

According to Tyrion, Dorne can raise 50.000 soldiers. As per AFFC, we know that this number is too high, but there is nothing in AFFC or in ADWD that tells us Dorne's actual number, or a minimal number. All we have 1) is GRRM stating that Dorne can raise roughly the same amount of men as the North and the Vale, 2) and some numbers from Dornish history, comprised out of a ) House Fowler, one of the three strongest Kingdoms that comprised Dorne at that moment, was able to raise 10.000 men, and b ) the first Vulture King was able to raise 30.000 men, which most likely mostly consisted out of Dornishmen. The largest Northern army we've seen was 30.000 strong (Conquest), and the numbers mentioned thusfar in the series are slowly leading up to that number as well. The six Lords Declarent in the Vale can already raise 20.000 men, though how the other lords of the Vale compare to this, we can only guess.

 

I would be carefull with estimating the Dornish numbers to be too low. If House Fowler was one of the three strongest Kingdoms in Dorne when Dorne still consisted out of multiple kingdoms, the other two of those three strongest (Yronwood and Dayne of Starfall), should at minimum be roughly equal in size, giving Dorne roughly 30.000 men, at least. (It should be mentioned that we have no idea how much of Dorne these three kingdoms together comprised, back then).

Interesting what you say about House Fowler raising 10000 men. I was not aware of this.

Even if they are one of the three strongest kingdoms back in the day, it should be noted that they were not THE strongest. We know that House Yronwood was the strongest traditional Dornish kingdom, controlling by far the largest region (they ruled half of the entire Dorne, in fact) before Nymeria came. So if the Fowlers could raise 10000 as you state (note I don't know the context of this bit of history, only what you told us above) then the Yronwood kingdom would theoreticaly be able to raise significantly more. Probably 15000 then, at least.

And if you then add all of the rest of Dorne, then a case for a total Dornish strength of 35k or thereabouts could easily be made.

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9 minutes ago, Free Northman Reborn said:

Interesting what you say about House Fowler raising 10000 men. I was not aware of this.

Even if they are one of the three strongest kingdoms back in the day, it should be noted that they were not THE strongest. We know that House Yronwood was the strongest traditional Dornish kingdom, controlling by far the largest region (they ruled half of the entire Dorne, in fact) before Nymeria came. So if the Fowlers could raise 10000 as you state (note I don't know the context of this bit of history, only what you told us above) then the Yronwood kingdom would theoreticaly be able to raise significantly more. Probably 15000 then, at least.

And if you then add all of the rest of Dorne, then a case for a total Dornish strength of 35k or thereabouts could easily be made.

The relevant passages:

Greatest of all the Gardeners was King Garth VII, the Goldenhand, a giant in borth war and peace. As a boy, he turned back the Dornish when King Ferris Fowler led ten thousand men through the Wide Way (as the Prince's Pass was then called), intent on conquest.

(The World of Ice and Fire, The Reach: The Gardener Kings)

 

Other small kingdoms existed elsewhere in Dorne, in the deep sands, amongst the high peaks, along the salt shore, and on the isles and the Broken Arm, but few of these ever approached the power and prestige of the Daynes of Starfall, the Fowlers of Skyreach and the Wide Way, and the Yronwoods of Yronwood.

(The World of Ice and Fire, Dorne: The Kingdoms of the First Men)

 

Both passages reflect the time shortly before the Andals arrived, so in that sense, I think, we are allowed to take them together.

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1 hour ago, Ser Arthur Hightower said:

I'm not sure exactly what it is that you aren't getting. FNR is stating that he believes it is infeasible than more than 25% of the Bolton's total strength is mounted, based on numbers we see throughout the books. He therefore extrapolates that since we have seen in the region of 1,000 Bolton cavalry (up to 500 with Roose and up to 600 with Ramsay) that the total number of soldiers under Bolton and his bannermen must exceed 4,000.

I am getting it, what I am trying to say is:

1- Not everyone has to have that %25 strength, foremost example of this in the North would be karstarks, they have some 2750 men currently known and only 300 of it is cavalry, which makes %11 barely.  If someone is to have more than %25 they are Starks who are in a more suitable region of the North and Cerwyns who are very close to them. Tallharts may also have a good ratio of horse as castellan of Thorren's Square doesn't feel that uncomfortable sending unruly boys with some horses.

2- A strength of 4000 Boltons, of which 2500 are with Robb makes the other great lords not so great. For another reason for why it can't be, remember that Freys have 3000 foot and 1000 cavalry but they are in the fertile riverlands and they are probably the richest vassal of Tullys and among the richer direct vassals of any lord paramount in Westeros, where as Roose is in the frozen, not that fertile and somewhat poorer North.

3- As for up to 500 with Roose, I doubt Roose has any other men in his 3000 foot and near 500 cavalry than Karstarks and Boltons but this doesn't mean all this near 500( around 450 I believe, as  the 20 or so Manderly knights have died/got captured and Roose left some freeriders behind) are Roose's men there can also be and probably are Karstark men among them. Rickard took two of his sons and went with Robb so he took some of his cavalry, yes but he may have left some with Harrion. As a nobleman Harrion would definitely be mounted so it is very reasonable that at the very least his father left with him some mounted man to protect him that can keep up with him.

 For Ramsay's up to 600, I've said these time and again, numbers are rounded and he has mostly cavalry, not all cavalry.

4-  We do not know for sure whether Robb has some of Roose's cavalry or not, we are given no figure. With what we have so far, Roose can have as many as 1100 if Ramsay were to have all cavalry and they were 600 and the some 500 horse were 500 and all of them were Roose's and he can have cavalry as low as 450, were Ramsay's number was my estimate, 500, and their horse exceeded foot only by a little, being 275-300 and Rickard left all his horse with Roose and some 500 is 450. So 1100 horse for Roose is making him lord of all the cavalry he has with him and turning Ramsay's not mounted men into centaurs.

1 hour ago, Free Northman Reborn said:

Firstly, I am not deliberately misunderstanding you. I think we are just talking past each other. So I'll go back to basics.

I understand what you are getting at with regard to the total 12000 figure. I have done a breakdown on that myself on some earlier thread.

Basically, the most solid number we have for any single lord's contribution, is the Karstark one. It is 2300. The second solid figure is the total number of heavy cavalry. Which  is 3000 at least.

Then we have later confirmation that the Bolton numbers at the END of the war, was the majority of the 4000 men returning through Moat Cailin. This is from Theon's chapter at Moat Cailin in Dance, when he convinces the Ironborn to surrender to Ramsay. So we know the miminum number for the Boltons to have left at the end, is probably around 2100. We also know that the Boltons have far better quality troops - and more cavalry - than the Karstarks left back in the North . This while they sent at least as many men as the Karstarks with Robb.

From these figures we can say that all the remaining forces in the original 12000 had to come from whatever was left after the Karstarks contributed 2300 and the Boltons contributed around 2500 or thereabouts. If that implies that some of the other Houses contributed very little, then so be it. That is what the evidence suggests.

 Exactly, only solid number we have is Karstarks' other numbers are educated gusses and estimates. and the numbers we know of Karstark's show us they had %13 cavalry in Robb's army and %11 in total known numbers. for the rest of your post my answer will be more or less  the same as it was for Ser Arthur.

1 hour ago, Rhaenys_Targaryen said:

No army numbers for Dorne are mentioned in those chapters.

 

Reply to a somewhat older post, but could you please point me to where this is stated? :)

 

Ten thousand Dornishmen fought in Robert's Rebellion, but Doran had sent the Dornish aid only late, at first refusing to help the Targaryens due to his anger over the treatment Elia had received.

Dorne did not fight in the Dance (which I assume is what you mean with ADWD?); Both Aegon II's side and Rhaenyra's side asked for Prince Qoren's support, and he refused both of them.

Dorne did fight in the First Blackfyre Rebellion, though 1) not all of Dorne was for Daeron II (e.g., House Yronwood fought on behalf of Daemon Blackfyre), and 2) the size of Prince Baelor's host, which was comprised out of both Dornishmen and stormlanders, is not mentioned, per my recollection.

 

According to Tyrion, Dorne can raise 50.000 soldiers. As per AFFC, we know that this number is too high, but there is nothing in AFFC or in ADWD that tells us Dorne's actual number, or a minimal number. All we have 1) is GRRM stating that Dorne can raise roughly the same amount of men as the North and the Vale, 2) and some numbers from Dornish history, comprised out of a ) House Fowler, one of the three strongest Kingdoms that comprised Dorne at that moment, was able to raise 10.000 men, and b ) the first Vulture King was able to raise 30.000 men, which most likely mostly consisted out of Dornishmen. The largest Northern army we've seen was 30.000 strong (Conquest), and the numbers mentioned thusfar in the series are slowly leading up to that number as well. The six Lords Declarent in the Vale can already raise 20.000 men, though how the other lords of the Vale compare to this, we can only guess.

 

I would be carefull with estimating the Dornish numbers to be too low. If House Fowler was one of the three strongest Kingdoms in Dorne when Dorne still consisted out of multiple kingdoms, the other two of those three strongest (Yronwood and Dayne of Starfall), should at minimum be roughly equal in size, giving Dorne roughly 30.000 men, at least. (It should be mentioned that we have no idea how much of Dorne these three kingdoms together comprised, back then).

Well I was mistaken, it was one of the civil wars and ADWD was the first that came to mind. I checked it again and it was one of the Blackfyre rebellions.

For the 50000, well he thinks they have 50000 spears because he is a bookish guy and that is what you will find in the books because some Targaryen king, can't remember which, exaggerated their strength to look more glorious on some victory or something and Martell's didn't bother to correct that so they won't need to defend themselves every so often with their small numbers. This is what Doran tells Arianne or maybe to a sand snake, can't remember that part.

As for Fowler having 10000 men, wasn't it in World book? World book is through the quill of a maester so not all that is written there are solid facts but what the masters read from somebody else's quill or writing it themselves and happenings of ages of heroes are written mostly by septons, thousands of years later. I must also add age of heroes has quite many interesting characters, Garth Greenhand supposedly lived hundreds or thousands of years for example and wherever he touched land bloomed. So a lot of the stuff from that time are exaggerations. Maybe he lived for a hundred year or maybe he lived 80 years when life expectancy was, for example, 45 for even the nobility and even lower for the smallfolk and maybe he was good with the ways of the land but no magics that can make the Dorne bloom with plant life.

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17 minutes ago, Corvo the Crow said:

Well I was mistaken, it was one of the civil wars and ADWD was the first that came to mind. I checked it again and it was one of the Blackfyre rebellions.

Sure, but there are still, as far as I can recall at least, no numbers given for the amount of Dornishmen who fought in the First Blackfyre Rebellion.

If you can find a quote that does, please post it.

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Corvo

The Tallharts and Glovers are mere Masterly Houses, both with much smaller, weaker keeps than the infamous Dreadfort.

Where do you get your information that the Cerwyns are one of the most powerful Houses in the North?

I know where I get my information about the historical power of the Boltons. It comes straight from the Worldbook.

The point is, clearly some of the Lords at Winterfell DID exceed a 25% cavalry ratio. So which Houses would that be likely to be? If even the wealthy Freys only achieve a 25% heavy cavalry ratio, then how could the Masterly Tallharts or Glovers achieve that? Or the Hornwoods who are clearly less powerful than the Boltons, else Lady Hornwood would not need Ser Rodrik and Lord Manderly's protection against Ramsay.

Neither are the poor Mormonts likely to have a lot of heavy cavalry, especially since they transported their forces by longship. And we know the Mountain Clans don't have heavy cavalry. They only have light cavalry.

That leaves only the Starks, Boltons, Umbers and Cerwyns as major contributors of the 3000 heavy cavalry at Winterfell. 

Clearly the Bolton lands are fertile to the extent that the Red Kings were the 2nd most powerful House in the North for thousands of years. 

That fits perfectly with them having a high troop number and high cavalry ratio. Just like the evidence clearly shows.

Around 2500 men with Robb, 25% of which are mounted lancers. 600 from the Dreadfort's garrison, mostly mounted. 

And another 1000 or so infantry back in the Bolton lands, to retain a 25% overall cavalry ratio.

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11 hours ago, Rhaenys_Targaryen said:

Reply to a somewhat older post, but could you please point me to where this is stated? :)

It is not stated anywhere directly but Gyldayn's description of the Field of Fire makes it pretty clear that it was in the middle of summer due to the fact that he wheat was ripe and everything was very dry to the hot weather.

Technically it could have been autumn but one should assume that Aegon wouldn't have begun a potentially long war shortly before winter. And we also know that the Arryns still lived at the Eyrie and Queen Sharra actually had prepared the castle for a siege. She wouldn't have done that in autumn shortly before she would have been forced to move the Arryn court to the Vale anyway.

As to Dorne:

I've argued that Daeron I's account might not have been so wrong, after all, if we keep in mind that the Dornish smallfolk resistance during the Conquest of Dorne was also conducted and led by Dornishwomen as well as Dornishmen. Even if Dorne could only field 30,000 or so spearmen then Daeron I could still have fought against 50,000 people during his war because a lot women fought and killed his troops during the occupation of Dorne.

But Doran Martell is not likely to be able to count those female resistance fighters (or the old and the young who might contribute in such a battle) among his regular soldiers. The men he would use to actually wage a war outside of Dorne.

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1 hour ago, Lord Varys said:

It is not stated anywhere directly but Gyldayn's description of the Field of Fire makes it pretty clear that it was in the middle of summer due to the fact that he wheat was ripe and everything was very dry to the hot weather.

Technically it could have been autumn but one should assume that Aegon wouldn't have begun a potentially long war shorty before winter. And we also know that the Arryns still lived at the Eyrie and Queen Sharra actually had prepared the castle for a siege. She wouldn't have done that in autumn when shortly before she would have been forced to move the Arryn court to the Vale anyway.

Thanks! :)

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13 hours ago, Free Northman Reborn said:

Corvo

The Tallharts and Glovers are mere Masterly Houses, both with much smaller, weaker keeps than the infamous Dreadfort.

Where do you get your information that the Cerwyns are one of the most powerful Houses in the North?

I know where I get my information about the historical power of the Boltons. It comes straight from the Worldbook.

The point is, clearly some of the Lords at Winterfell DID exceed a 25% cavalry ratio. So which Houses would that be likely to be? If even the wealthy Freys only achieve a 25% heavy cavalry ratio, then how could the Masterly Tallharts or Glovers achieve that? Or the Hornwoods who are clearly less powerful than the Boltons, else Lady Hornwood would not need Ser Rodrik and Lord Manderly's protection against Ramsay.

Neither are the poor Mormonts likely to have a lot of heavy cavalry, especially since they transported their forces by longship. And we know the Mountain Clans don't have heavy cavalry. They only have light cavalry.

That leaves only the Starks, Boltons, Umbers and Cerwyns as major contributors of the 3000 heavy cavalry at Winterfell. 

Clearly the Bolton lands are fertile to the extent that the Red Kings were the 2nd most powerful House in the North for thousands of years. 

That fits perfectly with them having a high troop number and high cavalry ratio. Just like the evidence clearly shows.

Around 2500 men with Robb, 25% of which are mounted lancers. 600 from the Dreadfort's garrison, mostly mounted. 

And another 1000 or so infantry back in the Bolton lands, to retain a 25% overall cavalry ratio.

Cerwyns being among the most powerful I thought I read it in the books but searching the wiki for stuff I came upon this so maybe there's no book quote on it, will certainly look to see if there's any when I can but for now, scrap that bit.

Masterly houses are more or less on the same level  with landed knights in the feudal hierarchy(correct me if I'm wrong on this). There are quite a few powerful landed knights and I can name some here just off the top off my head but I will only name the Templetons. Symond Templeton is among the Lords declarant, they each raise a thousand men easily and have 20000 men in total so Symond has more than a thousand. On average they can each raise ~3300 men so even if his numbers were on the lower end he more than likely has around 1500-2000 and there's nothing preventing a landed knight from having more power than a lord of the same region so it is also possible Templetons have more men than some of the other lords declarant.  Also the sole major difference between a landed knight and a lord is that a lord can pass judgement in his lands, a landed knight can't. Nothing tells us they can't be richer or more powerful as seen above Templetons are a very powerful house. For a richer one see Conningtons, their land once extended as far as the rainwood and also extended to the north and west. After robert's rebellion most of their lands were taken and they own a tenth of their former land. Do not take these last two as facts if you don't want, I can't confirm them with chapters at the moment but this is what's written in the wiki.

They, as you said, were the 2nd most powerful house when they were kings. As for their lands being fertile, you said it yourself their lands extended to the last river at most as can be seen in the world book when I assumed they were the rebel lords that owned Karstark lands. The same World book says their lands extended to the White Knife and went as far south as Sheepshead hills. large stretches of land that are certainly more fertile than what Boltons hold now as they are on the southern, warmer part of the North. Also as an indicative of the lands being fertile, Manderlys own some of this land and Wyman says it himself he has a hundred landed knights and a dozen petty lords. Even at the height of their power their lands ended at last river on one end and now on the other end it ends where Hornwood lands are, and their land is located north of the sheepshead hills, at the start of the Broken Branch.

Was powerful doesn't equal to is powerful see the above Connington example. Another example of a lord being stripped of it's lands after a war that comes to mind is Tytos Blackwood. After the war some of his lands were given to Jonos Bracken.

So again Freys, who are quite rich and sit on lands more fertile and possibly vast have 3000 infantry and 1000 cavalry, where do Boltons get their 3000 infantry and 1000 cavalry?

 

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1 hour ago, Corvo the Crow said:

Cerwyns being among the most powerful I thought I read it in the books but searching the wiki for stuff I came upon this so maybe there's no book quote on it, will certainly look to see if there's any when I can but for now, scrap that bit.

Masterly houses are more or less on the same level  with landed knights in the feudal hierarchy(correct me if I'm wrong on this). There are quite a few powerful landed knights and I can name some here just off the top off my head but I will only name the Templetons. Symond Templeton is among the Lords declarant, they each raise a thousand men easily and have 20000 men in total so Symond has more than a thousand. On average they can each raise ~3300 men so even if his numbers were on the lower end he more than likely has around 1500-2000 and there's nothing preventing a landed knight from having more power than a lord of the same region so it is also possible Templetons have more men than some of the other lords declarant.  Also the sole major difference between a landed knight and a lord is that a lord can pass judgement in his lands, a landed knight can't. Nothing tells us they can't be richer or more powerful as seen above Templetons are a very powerful house. For a richer one see Conningtons, their land once extended as far as the rainwood and also extended to the north and west. After robert's rebellion most of their lands were taken and they own a tenth of their former land. Do not take these last two as facts if you don't want, I can't confirm them with chapters at the moment but this is what's written in the wiki.

They, as you said, were the 2nd most powerful house when they were kings. As for their lands being fertile, you said it yourself their lands extended to the last river at most as can be seen in the world book when I assumed they were the rebel lords that owned Karstark lands. The same World book says their lands extended to the White Knife and went as far south as Sheepshead hills. large stretches of land that are certainly more fertile than what Boltons hold now as they are on the southern, warmer part of the North. Also as an indicative of the lands being fertile, Manderlys own some of this land and Wyman says it himself he has a hundred landed knights and a dozen petty lords. Even at the height of their power their lands ended at last river on one end and now on the other end it ends where Hornwood lands are, and their land is located north of the sheepshead hills, at the start of the Broken Branch.

Was powerful doesn't equal to is powerful see the above Connington example. Another example of a lord being stripped of it's lands after a war that comes to mind is Tytos Blackwood. After the war some of his lands were given to Jonos Bracken.

So again Freys, who are quite rich and sit on lands more fertile and possibly vast have 3000 infantry and 1000 cavalry, where do Boltons get their 3000 infantry and 1000 cavalry?

 

A typical lord in the North appears to rule a much larger area of land than an equivalent level lord in the South. See the reference to the Umbers lands stretching for "300 miles" along the Kingsroad. There is not a single southron vassal lord that rules anything remotely approaching that size of territory.

Similarly, the Dustins rule the Barrowlands, which are even larger, the Ryswells rule the Rills, and so on and so forth. The Bolton lands may be 5 times the size of the Frey lands, for all we know, allowing them to raise a similar sized force to the Freys.

In any case, I will go a step further and list my rough estimates of the heavy cavalry contributions of the various lords at Winterfell.

Stark: 800

Bolton 700

Umber: 400

Karstark: 300

Cerwyn: 200

Hornwood: 200

Tallhart: 200

Glover: 150

Mormont: 50

Mountain Clans: zero heavy cavalry (but quite a decent amount of light cavalry)

The above is obviously a very rough guestimate, with lots of room for error. But it brings us more or less to the 3000 heavy cavalry, while also broadly keeping the cavalry ratios of the individual lords more or less realistic while still getting to more or less 12000 men overall.

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1 hour ago, Universal Sword Donor said:

Just to expound: " Aegon had noted the absence of rain as well; the grass and wheat that surrounded the armies was tall and ripe for harvest … and very dry. "

So at the very least it was fall in time for the last harvest or so, and there hadn't been rain for a few weeks.

Thanks! 

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@Free Northman Reborn

There is no reason to believe that the Glovers and Tallharts are militarily weaker than any other northern houses. There are landed knights in the South who can raise as many men as the more powerful lordly houses.

The Boltons being powerful kings in the past doesn't mean they are still as powerful now. The Starks may have taken some lands from them, after all. Not to mention that being a powerful king may just mean that you have a good hold over your subjects, not necessarily that you are keen to attack your neighbors all the time. The Red Kings may have just liked their independence, fighting back again and again when those cutthroats at Winterfell dared to invade their lands again and again.

As to the cavalry size:

We don't know how many mounted men the Starks actually had. It is not unlikely that the bulk of Robb's cavalry were actually Winterfell men in one sense or another (i.e. mens owning horses living at Winterfell or people leaving on Winterfell lands in the surrounding areas).

We don't have any idea how large the lands are the lords in the North control directly. We don't know what exactly are Stark lands, Bolton lands, and so forth. We have shady impression what might be Umber lands and Glover lands and Karstark lands, but we have no clue how big they are in reality.

When Lord Wyman tells us how far his influence goes he doesn't talk about the amount of people that a sworn to White Harbor, he is talking about the people who look to him for leadership on an informal level. That is much different from the lands/houses he actually controls, especially in a time in which the Starks are actually gone.

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34 minutes ago, Lord Varys said:

@Free Northman Reborn

There is no reason to believe that the Glovers and Tallharts are militarily weaker than any other northern houses. There are landed knights in the South who can raise as many men as the more powerful lordly houses.

The Boltons being powerful kings in the past doesn't mean they are still as powerful now. The Starks may have taken some lands from them, after all. Not to mention that being a powerful king may just mean that you have a good hold over your subjects, not necessarily that you are keen to attack your neighbors all the time. The Red Kings may have just liked their independence, fighting back again and again when those cutthroats at Winterfell dared to invade their lands again and again.

As to the cavalry size:

We don't know how many mounted men the Starks actually had. It is not unlikely that the bulk of Robb's cavalry were actually Winterfell men in one sense or another (i.e. mens owning horses living at Winterfell or people leaving on Winterfell lands in the surrounding areas).

We don't have any idea how large the lands are the lords in the North control directly. We don't know what exactly are Stark lands, Bolton lands, and so forth. We have shady impression what might be Umber lands and Glover lands and Karstark lands, but we have no clue how big they are in reality.

A lot of the above is based on broad hand waving and not on a realistic interpretation of the evidence, I'm afraid.

Let me just say that you are right that there are powerful Landed Knights in Westeros. I am very well aware of that, as you will know from previous discussion on this issue. You might be surprised that I do rank the Tallharts and Glovers as very powerful Landed Knights. But the context we are given is that House Templeton, who are used as an example of a Landed Knight on the extreme end of the power scale, is described as such because he can raise a 1000 men, compared to some weak Lords who can raise barely 50 men.

Well, I fully give the Tallharts and Glovers at least 1000 men each. In fact, I reckon they can each likely raise 1500 men or more. That makes them perhaps the most powerful Landed Knights in all of Westeros. However, if you look at the description of Deepwood Motte, then my general assessment of the Glover wealth is not particularly high. Hence, I would say their heavy cavalry percentage is likely in the order of 300 men out of that 1500, or thereabouts. 20%. Which is still a very respectable ratio.

As for the Boltons, it is undeniable that they have the majority of 4000 men returning to the North. Logic dictates that they would have had even more when they originally headed South. So whichever way you look at it, they had at a minimum as many men as the Karstarks when they first gathered at Winterfell. So just from what we have seen onscreen, they have had around 3000 quality troops in action in the books thus far. And even the reserve troops consisted of a high quality garrison, compared to the Karstarks who according to Alys were very stretched to raise what they have thus far.

Regarding the sizes of Northern territories. Your assertion is just not true. We know that the Umber lands border on the Bay of Seals, where they are exposed to wildling raids along the coast. At the same time Jon tells us that it borders on the Kingsroad. So that is about a 200 mile diameter from East to West. Then Jon also tells us that the Kingsroad runs next to their lands for about 300 miles from North to South. So right there we have a very clear indication of the extent of the Umber lands.

A typical Northern lordship. Simlarly, the Mormonts rule all of Bear Island. The Mountain Clans rule all of the Northern Mountains.

The Ryswells rule all of the Rills. The Reeds rule all of the Neck. The Dustins rule the Barrowlands. We know where the Hornwood lands are, and where the Umber lands end. And that between them are nestled the Bolton lands. So it is pretty obvious how large the Bolton lands are more or less.

The Boltons on a meta level fit the position of the Royces in the Vale, the Yronwoods in Dorne, the Freys in the Riverlands and the Reynes and Tarbecks in the West. Powerful secondary lords who breathe in the necks of their Lords Paramount. And have done so for centuries or even millennia.

As for Wyman Manderly: Why cloud the issue with this irrelevant bit of information? I certainly never claimed that the Flints, Locke's or Slates owe him fealty. So their lands by default would not be part of his territory. They are merely allied to him, and influenced by him. But that has nothing to do with the lands of the Boltons, Umbers etc. That merely relates to a specific statement made by Lord Manderly.

 

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14 hours ago, Free Northman Reborn said:

A typical lord in the North appears to rule a much larger area of land than an equivalent level lord in the South. See the reference to the Umbers lands stretching for "300 miles" along the Kingsroad. There is not a single southron vassal lord that rules anything remotely approaching that size of territory.

Similarly, the Dustins rule the Barrowlands, which are even larger, the Ryswells rule the Rills, and so on and so forth. The Bolton lands may be 5 times the size of the Frey lands, for all we know, allowing them to raise a similar sized force to the Freys.

In any case, I will go a step further and list my rough estimates of the heavy cavalry contributions of the various lords at Winterfell.

Stark: 800

Bolton 700

Umber: 400

Karstark: 300

Cerwyn: 200

Hornwood: 200

Tallhart: 200

Glover: 150

Mormont: 50

Mountain Clans: zero heavy cavalry (but quite a decent amount of light cavalry)

The above is obviously a very rough guestimate, with lots of room for error. But it brings us more or less to the 3000 heavy cavalry, while also broadly keeping the cavalry ratios of the individual lords more or less realistic while still getting to more or less 12000 men overall.

They may have 10 times as many land as the freys and still it wouldn't matter much. North is a third of the entire seven kingdoms  and is the least populated excepting Dorne. Here are some numbers from books for the other kingdoms:

Dorne 10k; Robert's rebellion (still can't find the sourse for a source on Blackfyre)

Stormlands and Reach combined: 90-100k; 80-90k from Renly's host and another 10k with Mace

Vale: 20k; lords declarant

Riverlands: 20k; Renly guesses Edmure has around this, Catelyn thinks less than that. There were 11000 when Edmure engaged Tywin, 4k with Freys and another 4k in Vance and Piper's border army. I keep seeing that last one but can't find it's source so maybe don't count it.

Westerlands: 30k; Tywin had 35k men but he also had mercenaries, i'll just be lazy and say mercs were 5k for now.

Dragonstone and vassals: 3k ; Renly says calling Stannis' host 5k would be generous and he has 400 mercenary (light) cavalry.

So in total these number 173k in the lower side, with just the information we have. Some of the houses above have unmentioned men quite possibly numbering a few thousands altogether.

The most we have seen of North is 30k and if memory serves that took a lot of time to gather that army. Let's be over generous and say Torrhen left as many men at home as he took with him, so 60k. Even with the exaggareted number for the North and the missing numbers of other regions, power of the North is still only a third of all the other regions combined. The other regions are, on average, 1,5 times more populated than North with 60k and all those missing numbers and 3 times with 30k and missing numbers. My guess would be the other regions combined are on average 6 times more populated than North.

Returning to the size of Frey lands, I'd hazard a guess at that. As far as I know we have so far haven't heard of any other riverlord seated between the Darry's and Frey's lands. If the 4k for Vance(Wayfarer's Rest) and Piper above are true and Riverlands can field 20k men or so as Renly guessed, a bit over it probably (let's say 25 at total)  then with Tullys and Mallisters and Brackens and Vances(of Atranta) located on the western side of the Trident(and West of Darry and Twins) and Mootons and Saltpans and Coxs and Rootes and Whents located south of Darry, there's no other great house known to place between the crossing and Darry and there's no need to. Even with 25k in total, these houses (along with Darrys) total in 17k. With these numbers. So with these numbers each house have 1.7k men on average which seems fair seeing how Vance and Piper have 2k average (still need to confirm this.)

So with all things considered there's no apparent need to put another great house between Darry and Twins, meaning the Freys possibly have most of that land with maybe a few lordlings around sworn directly to the Tullys. Also with Mallisters very close to the west Freys do not have any other place to have most of their lands. With Freys having that part of the riverlands they already have near as much land as Boltons even if all the land around them with no owner mentioned belonged to them.

As my post is closing to its finish, I too have some estimations on the numbers of Robbs 12k. I will post them later on since they are not on hand currently.

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1 minute ago, Corvo the Crow said:

They may have 10 times as many land as the freys and still it wouldn't matter much. North is a third of the entire seven kingdoms  and is the least populated excepting Dorne. Here are some numbers from books for the other kingdoms:

Dorne 10k; Robert's rebellion (still can't find the sourse for a source on Blackfyre)

Stormlands and Reach combined: 90-100k; 80-90k from Renly's host and another 10k with Mace

Vale: 20k; lords declarant

Riverlands: 20k; Renly guesses Edmure has around this, Catelyn thinks less than that. There were 11000 when Edmure engaged Tywin, 4k with Freys and another 4k in Vance and Piper's border army. I keep seeing that last one but can't find it's source so maybe don't count it.

Westerlands: 30k; Tywin had 35k men but he also had mercenaries, i'll just be lazy and say mercs were 5k for now.

Dragonstone and vassals: 3k ; Renly says calling Stannis' host 5k would be generous and he has 400 mercenary (light) cavalry.

So in total these number 173k in the lower side, with just the information we have. Some of the houses above have unmentioned men quite possibly numbering a few thousands altogether.

The most we have seen of North is 30k and if memory serves that took a lot of time to gather that army. Let's be over generous and say Torrhen left as many men at home as he took with him, so 60k. Even with the exaggareted number for the North and the missing numbers of other regions, power of the North is still only a third of all the other regions combined. The other regions are, on average, 1,5 times more populated than North with 60k and all those missing numbers and 3 times with 30k and missing numbers. My guess would be the other regions combined are on average 6 times more populated than North.

Returning to the size of Frey lands, I'd hazard a guess at that. As far as I know we have so far haven't heard of any other riverlord seated between the Darry's and Frey's lands. If the 4k for Vance(Wayfarer's Rest) and Piper above are true and Riverlands can field 20k men or so as Renly guessed, a bit over it probably (let's say 25 at total)  then with Tullys and Mallisters and Brackens and Vances(of Atranta) located on the western side of the Trident(and West of Darry and Twins) and Mootons and Saltpans and Coxs and Rootes and Whents located south of Darry, there's no other great house known to place between the crossing and Darry and there's no need to. Even with 25k in total, these houses (along with Darrys) total in 17k. With these numbers. So with these numbers each house have 1.7k men on average which seems fair seeing how Vance and Piper have 2k average (still need to confirm this.)

So with all things considered there's no apparent need to put another great house between Darry and Twins, meaning the Freys possibly have most of that land with maybe a few lordlings around sworn directly to the Tullys. Also with Mallisters very close to the west Freys do not have any other place to have most of their lands. With Freys having that part of the riverlands they already have near as much land as Boltons even if all the land around them with no owner mentioned belonged to them.

As my post is closing to its finish, I too have some estimations on the numbers of Robbs 12k. I will post them later on since they are not on hand currently.

The North is not the 2nd least populated region. They are the least densely populated region. That is a very different statement.

 

 

 

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