Could the Vale really have tipped the scales of the wotfk?

[the trees have eyes]

3 hours ago, Whitering said:

Stannis may not have lost on Blackwater had Cat joined Robb to Stannis, which she could have, and maybe would have done had Robb not been named King. She might well have left before the whole Renly snafu and not been privy to that. As others have said Robb may have been able to pin Twyin in Harrenhall as Robb had already destroyed the backup army being put together in the Westerlands.

Stannis had less than a tenth of the men Renly had.  Sending Catelyn to Renly - who had both the Stormalnds and the Reach behind him - is a vastly better option.  No one actually expects Stannis to oppose rather than join with Renly or when he does to have a serious chance of winning the throne or so even when Catelyn is infront of both Stannis and Renly it's hard to see why she would have or how she could have joined Stannis.  As Robb's ambassador to Renly she has no brief to negotiate with Stannis and no authority to pledge Robb to join him either.  All she can do is say that she will think it likely Robb would put off his crown on learning of the twincest.  And after Renly's murder she is a suspect or at least a person of interest in that.

The Blackwater is significant not only because the Lannister army and Crown forces reunite and defeat the remaining Barratheon claimant but because it formalises the alliance of the Reach and Stormlands, the very two factions Robb had been hoping to ally with under Renly, with the Lanisters and Crown.  They are now sided with his mortal enemy, Joffrey, making his position a lost cause.

[Whitering]

Robb wouldn't care about winning as much as honour, like his father, he wouldn't stand supporting Renly when Stannis was the rightful heir. Now, presumably Stannis would be dead I guess, but one more thing to be mad at his mother about.