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Randyll Tarly is an terrible commander


The Frost Wolf

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Disagree with OP. Point #1, you're speculating about troop strength of both Robert's forces and Mace's vanguard (under Tarly). I don't believe either is stated in the books. It's possible that Tarly was vastly outnumbered and/or Robert held superior ground, and he pulled off some brilliant maneuvers to win the day. I don't think enough details of the battle are given for the reader to draw an independent conclusion.

Point #2, Tarly is giving strategic, not tactical advice. Aside from the fact that he's right (Stannis is dangerous), someone can be a great battle (tactical) commander, but not necessarily be a master strategic or political thinker. It's a different skill set.

Point #3, like #1, the reader doesn't know all the details of the battle. We know Glover's approximate strength, but do we know Tarly's? (Been awhile since I read the books). Even if Tarly has numerical superiority, well positioned archers and pikemen can inflict heavy casualties on armored horse (see Agincourt, Battle of). Perhaps Tarly had no choice but to charge an entrenched position. Again not enough tactical details available.

Therefore, I think the reader must rely on the multiple direct and indirect references to Tarly being a skilled battle commander as being valid.

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An armies Vanguard is typically up to a third of its heavy cavalry, anything over this number turns it into the central fighting body, It is followed typically by Pike shock troops. A van of 15,000 would mean the Tyrells are fielding over 45,000 cavalry based on the maximum size of a van. With Cavalry costing much more than Infantry and archers your looking at either an entire army composed only of Cavalry or an army of about 150,000 - which the Tyrells CANNOT muster.

I would put Tarlys vanguard at maybe 300 or 400 heavy cavalry, based on Gregor Cleganes Lannister Vanguard featuring 300 cavalry, with some of Tyrions mountain clans.

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An armies Vanguard is typically up to a third of its heavy cavalry, anything over this number turns it into the central fighting body, It is followed typically by Pike shock troops. A van of 15,000 would mean the Tyrells are fielding over 45,000 cavalry based on the maximum size of a van. With Cavalry costing much more than Infantry and archers your looking at either an entire army composed only of Cavalry or an army of about 150,000 - which the Tyrells CANNOT muster.

I would put Tarlys vanguard at maybe 300 or 400 heavy cavalry, based on Gregor Cleganes Lannister Vanguard featuring 300 cavalry, with some of Tyrions mountain clans.

Wouldn't their vanguard be more made up of their light and medium cavalry than their heavy?

Edit: Nevermind, I read your post wrong.

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There are a good number of reasons Tarly's attack at Ashford could have been in accord with Mace's objectives. One scenario could be that Tarly saw a chance to defeat the Stormlander army when they were unprepared and not drawn up in their ranks properly; a disadvantage the reachlanders would not enjoy if they waited for Mace.

The attack remains unexplained, as the battle is reported to be a skirmish with few casualties. The battle is in fact reported to fall on Robert while his army is in marching order, but in times of war that is done in five "battles", exacly for just such cases that you are attacked from either side while on the move. Had Tarly saw a chance to gain a victory over the enemy, he completely failed to use it. Twice, if we count his failure to persue. In a scenario that one attacks a largely disorgenised army by surprise, it should end up like Stannis at the Wall, or Robb at the Battle of the Camps. The Night's Watch even considers just such tactic when they find out that thier 300 are all that stands in the way of 30,000 Wildlings from reaching the Wall. If this is the case and Robert manages to orgenise his forces against Tarly, that's a point against Tarly, not for him IMHO.

Alternatively, the Tyrells might have come on Robert unexpectedly, thinking he would withdraw in the face of their larger army, meaning that waiting for a really decisive battle with the rest of the army was never going to have been an option: Robert would just retreat.

If Mace does not wish to engage Robert, why engage? Just so he can kill that Reachman and a few others? Seems a bit risky in case it would have developed into a fullsized battle with only his Van. That could have the potential to get many Reachmen killed, despite Mace's plan of gaining victory in a bloodless siege, out of sheer recklesness.

Finally, we could suppose Robert was planning to intercept the Tyrells at some sort of bottleneck/strongly defensible position we don't know about, (which Mace wouldn't want to attack) and that Tarly therefore felt it necessary to exploit the fact he had caught Robert before he could achieve this. The odds of getting a really decisive encounter in medieval warfare (where most armies tended to avoid each other in most campaigns), is always relatively low, so Tarly would be more than justified to exploit his opportunity in any of these scenarios. All of this assumes it was even Tarly who came upon Robert and decided to engage ...

This one is better, even if it's the least likely. It's kind of hard to find a bottleneck for a ~50-70k strong army to stand the same chance as one half it's size.

To get to the idea Tarly had a bad understanding of the campaign's overall strategy you have to have a pretty specific picture of the contours of that campaign, which, imho, we just aren't given. Ultimately, to say he denied Mace the opportunity to destroy Robert at Ashford is overlooking the fact that, unless GrrM reveals more information, the consequences of Robert's repulse at Ashford are the likely cause of the disappearance of the stormlander armies; either because the royal army ran down the fleeing stormlanders, or because with his plan to stop the Tyrell host gone, and his host demoralized, Robert could no longer march his men north.

I think we get a pretty basic strategy from the books. I also think that there is a gap in the telling of the war, as Robert is mentioned as injured, and his host diminishes only after Ashford, but before the Battle of the Bells. Either Martin didn't give it much thought and wanted the battle to be run like that for Jon Con/Ned's/Robert's story or charachter arc, or there was something there that we are not told. If it's another defeat, we would probably hear of it. If it's a Phyrric victory that cost Robert most of his men, but he destroyed the other force, there is logic in no one talking about it, because who like to talk of such things, and there isn't anyone left from the other side. We know Robert was not injured at Ashford, and we know that Tarly did not persue.

I think most of the Vale loyalists would have turned their cloaks by now, like the Corbrays and Graftons. They fought Jon at Gulltown and lost and had to swear allegiance to Robert. I doubt there were more than 3,000 men from the Vale at the trident. There were loyalist Riverlords, but I think the only "main" ones were the Mootons and Darrys. So only a few thousand Riverlords as well. No matter how you slice it, there has to be a significant forces from the Reach.

I think you got my comment confused with the argument over how many Reach lords were at the Trident. The wiki lists several hyundred Reachmen at the Trident alongside mostly Crownlander militia and some other houses, and that fits with Mace's portrail as sitting on his hands near SE.

My post, which you qouted, was about the rebels' army, where I explained that it is too vague to state that Robert's forces could not be in the army because it's so small, as the army is too small to have more then one full army in any case. It's possible that out of 35,000 rebels, 10k were from the North, Vale, Riverlands each, and 5k Stormlands. It can also mean 34,995 North/Vale/Riverlands, and Robert and four of his best pals who made it after Ashford and the Battle of the Bells. We just don't know.

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An armies Vanguard is typically up to a third of its heavy cavalry, anything over this number turns it into the central fighting body, It is followed typically by Pike shock troops. A van of 15,000 would mean the Tyrells are fielding over 45,000 cavalry based on the maximum size of a van. With Cavalry costing much more than Infantry and archers your looking at either an entire army composed only of Cavalry or an army of about 150,000 - which the Tyrells CANNOT muster.

I would put Tarlys vanguard at maybe 300 or 400 heavy cavalry, based on Gregor Cleganes Lannister Vanguard featuring 300 cavalry, with some of Tyrions mountain clans.

That math doesn't work. The Terells have ~15,00 horse, and can place 5,000 in the van with another 10,000 infantry, and still have 10,000 horse and 45,000 infantry in the rest of the army. Considering the size of thier army, and that Robert had far less then the full power of the Stormlands, it's a pretty far reach to say Tarly had considerably less then Robert. If not the same, a little less.

Gregor has ~2,000 men, half cavalry, including 300 of Tyrion's mountain clans, who were all mounted. The rest of the horse was under Marbrand (4,000) and Tywin (2,500) mostly. Together with Kevan's it's about 1/8th of the Lannister horse. If you want to go by that figure, Tarly should have 1,875 horse under him. But using this figure is wrong, because Tywin's plan was to use most of the horse in the flank and rear, intentionally leaving the Van weak enough for a mostly foot-made enemy army to think it has a shot at breaking it.

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liking or disliking him doesn't have to have anything to do with whether or not he's a good commander.

It's just if I say I don't like him people will start bombarding me if I don't have sufficient points that make him seem not as good as he looks

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Sure, but when you have the sources saying he's a good soldier and you see the effects of his being a good soldier in the field, then its easy to deduce.

You don't see the affects of him being a good commander though.

How asinine is this thread to become?

People seem to think that everyone is a great judge of character & ability, needed to give them a simple analogy to show why they aren't.

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You don't see the affects of him being a good commander though.

People seem to think that everyone is a great judge of character & ability, needed to give them a simple analogy to show why they aren't.

Maidenpool's revitalization project isn't a function of his good leadership?

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Hes a good leader as has been said before. But hes not a great one. Seems like the type who wouldnt lose a war, but wouldnt win one for you either. Hes extremely martial in all his ways, which is a good thing. Its led him to success and rep. But he is not the best commander, or near the best commander in the books, as we havent been given any info to back this up. That hes good, yes. That he shows some of the characteristics necessary, yes. But not brilliance, or great tactical skill as of yet

And the word soldier is not interchangeable with commander

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Maidenpool's revitalization project isn't a function of his good leadership?

He's a fine leader, but not great. Also, leading men outside of battle isn't the same as commanding them in battle or running a campaign.

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  • 1 month later...

Those are the only two battles where Tarly takes an active part (I'm not counting the Blackwater, as most of the fighting was done by Garlan's Van), and it does not realy show a good commander in terms of getting results on the battlefield. The best that can be said of him is that he did not lose battles he couldn't lose.

Agreed, why send your own troops ahead when you have fodder troops (ie. tyrells, greenfields, lannister, hightowers, rowans) to weaken them Bolton Style. Weaken your competence, then control the region won by your "glorious strategy"

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I have another idea, how about actually read through the post I spent a lot of time on instead of making smart little comments that make you feel like you're being funny. Is that so hard?

Its the internet. Its nearly impossible for people to do this.

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Too much weight is put into his victory over Robert. Tyrion shrugged it off as if it meant nothing. This is part of the reason I want to know more about the rebellion. We dont know whether Tarly outmanuevered Robert, we dont know if he won his victory through attrition, we dont know the circumstances.

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Did not read through the 13 pages, but Robert's victory in the battle(s) of summerhall resulted in the losing troops joining him, so his numbers may have swelled. They would still have been tired though. And as pointed above, a van certainly does not have 15,000 troops.

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So I'm not going to lie, I didn't read all 13 pages. That being said, I do not agree with you in the least bit.

For point #1 we do not have enough information to make an accurate assestment. What were the numbers? What was the terrian? What were the conditions? All of this plays a key role in a battle, and since we lack this information we cannot make an accurate assestment. You also say that Roberts forces were tired and that Tarly's were fresh. I view it as Robert's being experienced and battle hardened while Tarly's were green. You also blame Tarly for not following up and capturing Robert. That was not his call, as he is sworn to his liege lord. Where Mace tells him to go, Tarly has to go and we all know Mace decided to go to Storms End instead, so thats not Tarly's fault.

#2 All we have is Tarly telling Renly that Stannis is a threat and that if they leave him he could become stronger than Renly which is true. If you leave him, Renly is going to lose men in battle while Stannis stands the chance of either a) aligning himself with other contenders such as Robb or by gaining the support of lords whos were currently neutral or who decided to switch sides. There is also a difference between saying we have to deal with Stannis and talking all of you calvary to deal with him. Tarly could very well have been suggesting a portion of the army goes to deal with Stannis while the rest contuines. Again, you can't blame Tarly for the decisions his superior make.

#3) A victory'sa victory. Just as in #1 we do not have the facts to make a clear assestment. Heavy Losses is not a clear term and it all depends on the number of men he has with him. Not only that, but we don't know how the Northerns defended themselves. They could easily have found a spot quite similar to Agincourt where the supperior forces of Tarly (Thats assuming he has superior forces) could not have been used to his advantage. Nor do we know what type of troops he hs becasue we simply do not know enough information.

Given the fact that we do not have enough information about ANY of the battles he has been in we cannot accurtly make judgements ourselves. We haveto trust the fact that many lords in Westeros respect him as a commander. The fact that Kevan Lannister believes he is a good general must mean something, from a man who has been the right hand man of Tywin the majority of his life.

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