What's the current military strength of all the factions at end of ADWD?

[Ser Arthur Hightower]

Honestly Theon's numbers just aren't reliable, some of them didn't add up in ACOK, and it only seems to have got worse in ADWD. We can taken his estimates at Moat Cailin, because they are consistent with other figures we have gotten; 4,000 Northern is 3,500 at the Twins+men left at Ruby Ford, 2k Freys are mentioned by (IIRC) Cersei.

Indeed the fact that he states 5,000 as a minimum for Roose's host, and then says confidently he has more than Stannis illustrates this point.

As mentioned by a couple of people, there are certainly things that could have happened that reduced the number of men at Winterfell from what we saw at Moat Cailin, but it's equally easy to assume Theon was wrong as it is to assume thousands of men were sent home without it being mentioned.

[Nyrhex]

1 hour ago, Free Northman Reborn said:

3. Again. Sure. I agree. That said, there are many scenarios where the Crannogmen can be a valuable part of the North's overall war effort. Whether it be defending the Neck, or launching stealth assaults on armies encamped just South of the Neck. Particularly around the Twins. So it's not like we can ignore counting their numbers, whatever they are.

4. Indeed we have very little info on the state of most of the Houses from the southern part of the North. It is noteworthy that none of the Slates, Lockes, Dustins, or Ryswells get much attention in the early books. It seems Martin only fleshed them out later in the story. Yet they are located in the warmest parts of the North, and the likes of the Dustins are clearly powerful Houses in their own right.

Anyway I dispute that no other Houses have 1000 men left. I think  the Dustins could have 2000 men left, and the likes of the Flints of Widows Watch (the most powerful Flint branch, apparently), 1500, the Ryswells 1500 and the Lockes around 1000 quite easily. The Skagosi 3000, the Reeds 2000, and so on. Of course we don't know any of these numbers. But they are certainly not disproven yet.

My point in my original post to you in this thread was simply to get to a minimum number of the North, without going into any of these extrapolations. And to point out that this minimum number is already 15000.

3. Valuable for insurgency in the Neck, sure. Not army numbers for anything outside of the Neck though. We have never seen them do anything like that. Moat Cailin was built to defend against them, but that may just be myth to try and explain why there is a castle there. It seems that any force to guard it would be slowly taken down. The Twins have sent men to take the Neck, but never suffered from raids into thier own lands as far as we know.

4. Not saying much. If the houses have as much reserves as the other houses we have seen, we are only talking about a few hundreds here and there, and we have little saying if they are a minor or major house. 

The numbers are neither disporven, nor proven. All we can go on is if it sounds right or not. To me it does not sound right that houses in the northern half of the North would have a few hundreds but then southern ones would have a thousand plus. The only ones required to defend the North were the Crannogmen and Manderly. Dustin is a single house that sent the least it could afford without insulting, which tells us little. If she has 1,000 men left and took 500 to Bolton, after she sent 1,000 men instead of ~1,500 trops to Robb, this would fit just as well. At ~2,000 she would be a strong enough house. This is still just talk in the air though.

But yes, ~15,000 seems a good starting number before the next book gives us more details, not including casualties in the starting battles of the Ice and of Winterfell, not including Manderly, house in the south-east portion of the North, the Skagosi and the Crannogmen.

 

[Free Northman Reborn]

52 minutes ago, Nyrhex said:

3. Valuable for insurgency in the Neck, sure. Not army numbers for anything outside of the Neck though. We have never seen them do anything like that. Moat Cailin was built to defend against them, but that may just be myth to try and explain why there is a castle there. It seems that any force to guard it would be slowly taken down. The Twins have sent men to take the Neck, but never suffered from raids into thier own lands as far as we know.

4. Not saying much. If the houses have as much reserves as the other houses we have seen, we are only talking about a few hundreds here and there, and we have little saying if they are a minor or major house. 

The numbers are neither disporven, nor proven. All we can go on is if it sounds right or not. To me it does not sound right that houses in the northern half of the North would have a few hundreds but then southern ones would have a thousand plus. The only ones required to defend the North were the Crannogmen and Manderly. Dustin is a single house that sent the least it could afford without insulting, which tells us little. If she has 1,000 men left and took 500 to Bolton, after she sent 1,000 men instead of ~1,500 trops to Robb, this would fit just as well. At ~2,000 she would be a strong enough house. This is still just talk in the air though.

But yes, ~15,000 seems a good starting number before the next book gives us more details, not including casualties in the starting battles of the Ice and of Winterfell, not including Manderly, house in the south-east portion of the North, the Skagosi and the Crannogmen.

 

Sure. All of the above has merit.

As you say, in the absence of concrete information we can only go with what sounds right. To me what sounds right is that the further South you go, in general, the more men a House should be able to raise for a given size of territory. Because the population density is likely to increase accordingly. Also, it appears that the further East you go, the population density of the North also increases compared to similar sized territories on the Western side of the continent.

So, to me, if the Karstarks can raise 2800 men, then the Ryswells with a similar sized territory 600 miles to the South should be able to raise at least that many men. And the Lockes and Slates, despite having smaller territories than the Karstarks, are in what appears to be the most fertile part of the North - the Southeast - and therefore should have higher population densities than the Karstarks, thus bringing their numbers close to what Karhold can raise. The Flints of Widow's Watch even more so.

And so on and so forth.

These estimates are not fixed in stone, but make logical sense to me, in the absence of further information.

[thelittledragonthatcould]

44 minutes ago, Free Northman Reborn said:

 

As you say, in the absence of concrete information we can only go with what sounds right. To me what sounds right is that the further South you go, in general, the more men a House should be able to raise for a given size of territory.

Which does not really fit in with what we know. The Reeds are further south than any Northern House ruling  a territory, seemingly*, as large as the lands ruled by the Karstarks yet there is no indication of them being able to raise a similar fighting force or being regarded anywhere near the same as the Karstarks.

And all this talk of north and south seems a little disingenuous as if you were to split the North in two by landmass the likes of the Cerwyns, Tallharts and Hornwoods could just as easily be regarded as Southern Houses yet their forces met up at Winterfell and were part of the 12k rather than the 6-8k raised by the other Houses.

 

* I say seemingly as we have little idea about Lords territories.

[Lord Varys]

I've just reread the Theon chapter where Roose returns to Moat Cailin. He says only two in ten of Robb's ~20,000 men returned. That doesn't suggest he counted the men. It suggests he made sort of offhand calculation-like comment in his head on the basis of his impression of the size of the army. The idea that he actually counted the men makes no sense.

And is it mathematically exactly two in ten or 2,4 or 1,6 in ten? I mean, Robb didn't have exactly 20,000 men so two in ten wouldn't be exactly 4,000 men even if Theon was correct.

Manderly definitely didn't take his full strength with him to Winterfell. Neither his son and heir Wylis nor his cousin are with him, it seems. But Hother Umber took half of the Umber strength to Winterfell, Lady Dustin had no reason not to take the bulk of her strength to Winterfell considering that Roose and his allies first assembled at Barrowton.

Whether those lords and ladies who came to Winterfell as wedding guests stayed there until Jeyne's abduction is completely unclear. Those who truly only came with an honor guard may have returned. We don't even know whether Lady Cerwyn was there, do we? How many Hornwood men are in Winterfell? And so on.

[thelittledragonthatcould]

14 hours ago, Free Northman Reborn said:

 

Regarding the rest of your post. You're the one who disputed that you were ignoring the "more" part of Theon's statement,

How am I ignoring it? I included it the quote I used.

14 hours ago, Free Northman Reborn said:

 

and yet now you are doubling down on the 5k-6k part, clearly reinforcing the fact that you do discount that there could be more.

I'm not doubling down nor have I discounted there could be more. There may well be a 100 thousand Northern warriors camped out at Winterfell but Theon's quote sounds like there is around 5-6k. Certainly not the 8k suggested by some at Winterfell.

"Five thousand. Six. More." He gave the king a ghastly grin, all shattered teeth and splinters. "More than you."

 

14 hours ago, Free Northman Reborn said:

The facts from the numbers presented are that Roose brought 5500 men up the Neck, and Ramsay already had 600 Dreadfort men with him.

Can I ask when we are told that Ramsay had 600 men with him? I know that is the amount he had when he beat Rodrik, when are we told that i) he brought that many with him to Moat Cailin and  ii) they were present at Winterfell?

14 hours ago, Free Northman Reborn said:

 

That already took Roose's force up to 6100 men, without any of the Ryswells, Dustins, Manderlys or Umbers added to it.

Why does it not add any Ryswells or Dustins to this number? They fought in the South with Robb, they too could have been part of the numbers returning home with Roose.

14 hours ago, Free Northman Reborn said:

Furthermore, since we know the Lords Locke, Slate, Ryswell (all five of them), Lady Dustin and others are gathered there, we also know they would have brought men with them from their home keeps, since to my knowledge none of the above Lords were personally part of Roose's returning army from the South.

They had men in the South, there is no reason to believe that they too had no infantry survivors with Roose.

14 hours ago, Free Northman Reborn said:

 

So these additional men at the very least would push the total above 7000.

No, not necessarily.

14 hours ago, Free Northman Reborn said:

 

It should just be noted that while Theon was able to observe and count the marching column pass through Moat Cailin in organized fashion, it would be much more difficult to count exactly how many men are gathered in the cramped and chaotic interior of Winterfell. Hence the rather wide range he gives Stannis, from as low as 5000 to 6000, or "MORE".

Sure. If he shouted MORE then you may have a point. He does not.