Greatest commanders

[Pod The Rod]

I know this kind of goes against the spirit of the thread, but I think Robb is highly overrated. His Green Fork/Whispering Wood strategy was, one, Blackfish's idea, and two, only possible because Tywin got in way over his head. Everything after that was child's play to any but the most incompetent of commanders. If anything, the fact that he still managed to lose ~1,500 of his best soldiers despite his overwhelming advantages in the subsequent engagements speaks poorly of him. This isn't even getting into his strategic blunders.

Incorrect on all counts.

The Camps and Whispering Wood were his ideas. Blackfish guided, but the ideas were born with Robb. The decision to split the army was entirely his. Strategic blunders? There weren't any, apart from marrying Jeyne, and that's not really bad strategy so much as it is bad politics. Everything bad that happened to Robb was the result of outside influences and treachery.

And Tywin may be the most overrated general in Westeros, but he is still not a bad commander. Even if he were a total idiot, that would not diminish Robb's accomplishments in the least. Do we count Robert E Lee and Alexander the Great as bad commanders because they faced morons? No, we do not, and Robb's opponents were a sight more capable than Burnside and Darius.

[aryagonnakill#2]

I think the obvious candidate for greatest ever is Theon Stark.

[The Drunkard]

I agree that he doesn't know about the northernmost part of the North, but this is the Dreadfort we are talking about, one of the strongest castles and seat of the main house in the area. Skeletal garrison or not it's still a hard bet. A minimum of background info failed there as well . It was good that he finally listened to a northener than his cocky Knights.

Well, the garrison is described as being "fewer than fifty men... half of them servants"*. That's less of a defense than what Theon had at Winterfell, so the only real danger is that Ramsay would reach the Dreadfort before Stannis had taken it.

Something I think gets overlooked is that Stannis couldn't afford to wait at the Wall deliberating for very long. With only around 1300 men, 300 of which are the new wildling recruits, he would eventually be facing the 4000 loyal men Roose is bringing from the south, in addition to the Freys, Ramsay's men, and whatever other soldiers Roose could get from the northern lords after passing through Moat Cailin. Sacking the Dreadfort and plundering Roose's lands wasn't ideal, but it was something, without which he could see no other viable options.

*This information is wrong of course, but no one questions it for some reason, not even Jon.

2) Again, like Stannis, all we hear about Tarly is how great of a commander he is and how great of a soldier he is. Randyll Tarly is a deserving second. He has commanded virtually all of the Reach's major victories throughout the series since Roberts Rebellion all the way up until the end of the war of five kings.

He was responsible for breaking Roberts power in the south during the rebellion, a very important victory for the loyalists as it prevented the Stormlander rebels from marching south, possibly against the crownlands, or more realisticaly to join the Stark/Tully/Arrryn host in the Riverlands.

Later he is essential in pushing back the Northern foot in Duskendale and regaining control of the Southern Riverlands. It may not sound that impressive but considering the Riverlands were mainly loyal to Robb Stark, I think it qualifies for something.

The guy behind the feats is somewhat if a dick. An utter macho monster. But again thats part of the warrior metality.

Ehhhhhh I don't he deserves number 2. He's obviously good given the way other people refer to him (though Kevan says he's a great soldier, not a commander), but I don't think he's done anything that noteworthy. He had an inconclusive victory against Robert, helped Mace and Tywin and Tyrion beat Stannis at the Blackwater, beat Glover at Duskendale but suffered significant losses, and probably did some other unamed stuff in between to earn a reputation as being reliable, but second best commander in history? Ehhhhhh.

[Chaircat Meow]

Well, the garrison is described as being "fewer than fifty men... half of them servants"*. That's less of a defense than what Theon had at Winterfell, so the only real danger is that Ramsay would reach the Dreadfort before Stannis had taken it.

Something I think gets overlooked is that Stannis couldn't afford to wait at the Wall deliberating for very long. With only around 1300 men, 300 of which are the new wildling recruits, he would eventually be facing the 4000 loyal men Roose is bringing from the south, in addition to the Freys, Ramsay's men, and whatever other soldiers Roose could get from the northern lords after passing through Moat Cailin. Sacking the Dreadfort and plundering Roose's lands wasn't ideal, but it was something, without which he could see no other viable options.

*This information is wrong of course, but no one questions it for some reason, not even Jon.

Also, although Moat Cailin did fall very quickly Stannis was not unreasonable in thinking Roose would be delayed longer. No one, including Jon, knew the garrison there was as small as it was. Theon thought it would still have killed three times its numbers if the Moat was stormed from the weaker northern side. If it had been four times as large (200 men) it would have been a much longer siege.

[Laughing Storm Reborn]

Bobby B has MANY flaws, but war he could understand like no other (as stannis said, STANNIS), i´ll take his opinion over cat on war issues... If you ask grrm if robert had any input on tacticts and strategy he would probably laugh because there´s no way a guy with a military IQ as high as Robert would just be the "great warrior who doesn´t think"...

Sumerhall was commanded by him alone, in the greyjoy rebellion he was the overlord commander aswell, in the Trident he gave his council as much as ned or jon, sure there´s guys as good, but superior?? i don´t think so...

His resume as a warrior is peerless, as a commander almost the same really, he had to run in ashford but let´s not forget randyll tarly had the ENTIRE REACH ARMY behind him approaching the battle and when you have the army of the most numerous region on your way the best commanders would retreat everytime to fight another day... Robert Baratheon as a commander NEVER made a mistake, all of his choices were correct when the situation demanded it...

Again there are characters has good a commander as him in asoiaf, don´t get me wrong :)

[Nihlus]

Incorrect on all counts.

The Camps and Whispering Wood were his ideas. Blackfish guided, but the ideas were born with Robb. The decision to split the army was entirely his. Strategic blunders? There weren't any, apart from marrying Jeyne, and that's not really bad strategy so much as it is bad politics. Everything bad that happened to Robb was the result of outside influences and treachery.

And Tywin may be the most overrated general in Westeros, but he is still not a bad commander. Even if he were a total idiot, that would not diminish Robb's accomplishments in the least. Do we count Robert E Lee and Alexander the Great as bad commanders because they faced morons? No, we do not, and Robb's opponents were a sight more capable than Burnside and Darius.

It was Robb's idea to split his force, but Blackfish is the one that actually came up with the ambush plan. Everything after the Green Fork/Whispering Woods trick was so basic a child could have pulled it off. Heck, a child DID pull it off. Tywin spread his forces thin and fed Jaime poor intel, entirely based on the assumption that everyone would act exactly the way he wanted them to (Walder wouldn't let Robb cross, the Arryns wouldn't intervene, Robb would be incompetent despite having numerous veteran advisers, etc.). Not every single condition was met, so Tywin ended up getting wrecked by the North-Riverlands alliance. Let's review Robb's actions after Whispering Wood:

-Crushes Jaime's army encamped army at Riverrun. While it is divided into three forces of a few thousand men each (of varying quality) and has no leader or heavy horse, and he has 6,000 heavy horse. Not really difficult (especially when the garrison of Riverrun attacked the rear of the second camp, and the third camp fled).

-Starts ravaging the unprotected Westerlands. Again, nothing too impressive, and the only reason he was able to do this was because his magic wolf found a hidden path.

-Destroys Stafford's host. Stafford was a complete idiot, he was leading an army of third-stringers, he was caught off guard thanks to said magic wolf, and Robb still had ~6,000 heavy horse. You'd have to be trying to screw this up.

As for strategic blunders, marrying Jeyne is the obvious one, but it's hardly the only one. One of the most important skills of any general is the ability to actually keep his army together. Robb failed at this task. He lost the support of the Freys. He alienated the Karstarks. He failed to properly communicate with the third most important leader of his army, ostensibly leading to an enormous strategic failure. All of these speak poorly of his abilities.

[Barty]

Stannis wanted to assault the Dreadfort with 2,000+ men while it had a skeleton garrison. It wasn't actually a horrible plan, but it had numerous flaws (and would have failed even more catastrophically than those flaws would imply, due to treachery). Stannis realized this when it was pointed out to him and decided to change his course of action based on the advice of a competent commander from the area, an area he didn't know a whole lot about (because seriously, why would he need to have such in depth information about the northernmost parts of the North?). That's the mark of a good general, not a bad one. As for great "field" victories, he's probably about to get an amazing one against the Frey-Bolton-Karstark-Manderly force. His victory at the Wall is also very underrated, IMO.

Not to mention that medieval warfare was like 90% sieges anyway.

I know this kind of goes against the spirit of the thread, but I think Robb is highly overrated. His Green Fork/Whispering Wood strategy was, one, Blackfish's idea, and two, only possible because Tywin got in way over his head. Everything after that was child's play to any but the most incompetent of commanders. If anything, the fact that he still managed to lose ~1,500 of his best soldiers despite his overwhelming advantages in the subsequent engagements speaks poorly of him. This isn't even getting into his strategic blunders.

I really hope you recognize the contradiction in your post here. Stannis is a good/great commander because he took good advice when presented to him while Robb is a highly overrated commander for doing the same.

Losing 1,500 men in exchange for killing more than 20k Lannister men is a great bargain if you ask me. Odd that everything after the Battle of the Camps was child's play but Tywin still did not see it coming (You must have a really poor opinion of Tywin then).

[Nihlus]

When did I ever say that Robb was bad for taking advice? That's what a good commander should do. It doesn't, however, give him credit for the plan in the first place. Jon told Stannis to gather support from the clans, Glovers, and Mormonts. While Stannis was right in taking that advice, he doesn't get credit for that specific plan. Same thing here.

Unlike some others listed here, the Green Fork/Whispering Woods trick was really the only notable thing Robb ever accomplished as a commander. And it was mostly due to the Blackfish. Even if we forget his contribution, at the very best this would just give Robb credit for one or two really good moves. Everything after that was extremely basic and somewhat luck based. 'Cept his strategic failures. Those were just dumb.

Tywin didn't see it coming because he wasn't expecting Robb's direwolf to find a path into the Westerlands. Also because he's an arrogant sociopath and was expecting everyone to act a certain way (attacking the Riverlands when King Bob was still around, plotting to kill the king's men and kidnap his Hand, expecting the Vale to do nothing, expecting Robb to be incompetent even though he has Roose, Blackfish, and other experienced generals as advisors, expecting Frey to not help Robb or Edmure, etc.). Yes, I do think Tywin is very overrated.

[Pod The Rod]

It was Robb's idea to split his force, but Blackfish is the one that actually came up with the ambush plan. Everything after the Green Fork/Whispering Woods trick was so basic a child could have pulled it off. Heck, a child DID pull it off. Tywin spread his forces thin and fed Jaime poor intel, entirely based on the assumption that everyone would act exactly the way he wanted them to (Walder wouldn't let Robb cross, the Arryns wouldn't intervene, Robb would be incompetent despite having numerous veteran advisers, etc.). Not every single condition was met, so Tywin ended up getting wrecked by the North-Riverlands alliance. Let's review Robb's actions after Whispering Wood:

1Crushes Jaime's army encamped army at Riverrun. While it is divided into three forces of a few thousand men each (of varying quality) and has no leader or heavy horse, and he has 6,000 heavy horse. Not really difficult (especially when the garrison of Riverrun attacked the rear of the second camp, and the third camp fled).

2Starts ravaging the unprotected Westerlands. Again, nothing too impressive, and the only reason he was able to do this was because his magic wolf found a hidden path.

3Destroys Stafford's host. Stafford was a complete idiot, he was leading an army of third-stringers, he was caught off guard thanks to said magic wolf, and Robb still had ~6,000 heavy horse. You'd have to be trying to screw this up.

As for strategic blunders, marrying Jeyne is the obvious one, but it's hardly the only one. One of the most important skills of any general is the ability to actually keep his army together. Robb failed at this task. He lost the support of the Freys. He alienated the Karstarks. He failed to properly communicate with the third most important leader of his army, ostensibly leading to an enormous strategic failure. All of these speak poorly of his abilities.

As Barty said, you're giving Stannis great credit for taking advice and beating up on wildlings in skins, but not Robb for taking advice and attacking an army of raw recruits. And the Whispering Wood and Camps were not mostly Blackfish. Stop saying that. BF played the role of an experienced coach guiding a prodigy. He gave hints, but let Robb work it out on his own.

1. Still a victory. A crushing victory that cut off Tywin deep in enemy territory with enemies to his north and between him and home. More impressive than anything the Mannis has ever done in and of itself.

2.It's called recon. All armies do it. Some by human scouts, some by the local populace, some by enemy traitors. The only out of the ordinary thing there is that the Golden Tooth garrison had not already found the path.

3. Did you read the bottom of my first post? It does not matter how stupid your opponent is, it does not diminish the quality of a great victory in the slightest. And make no mistake, Oxcross is both 1. a great victory, and 2. quite possibly the battle with the most important strategic ramifications in the Wot5Ks, not Blackwater. That was the Westerland reserves that Robb slaughtered at Oxcross. In combination with the Camps, the Lannisters literally have no troops left save the battered remnants of Tywin's army. the entire Westerlands at this point can field maybe 10,000 if hard pressed. Whereas the North can still pull out anywhere from 20 to 30 thousand. All thanks to Robb.

Marrying Jeyne= alienated the Freys. You don't get to count it twice.

The Karstarks alienated themselves. Seriously what the fuck was Robb supposed to do to Rickard "My Kids Are The Only Ones That Matter" Douchebag Karstark? The man committed treason and was a total asshole from start to finish. And it wasn't even a great disaster in and of itself, it lost him three hundred troops at the most.

Robb only partially shares the blame for this. The other part goes to Edmure, who should have been able to read a bloody map.

[Chaircat Meow]

I don't know whose version of events is more bizarre, that of Nihlus or Pod The Rod.

[Pod The Rod]

I don't know whose version of events is more bizarre, that of Nihlus or Pod The Rod.

Care to elaborate?

Are we both wrong somehow?

[Chaircat Meow]

Care to elaborate?

Are we both wrong somehow?

Nihlus for the crap about Tywin being overrated and you for the stuff about Oxcross being a great victory because it means the North now has more men (which they don't). They have the capacity to raise maybe 7,000 more men tops (not counting those in the field as of DWD), and that includes Skagos.

[Pod The Rod]

Nihlus for the crap about Tywin being overrated and you for the stuff about Oxcross being a great victory because it means the North now has more men (which they don't). They have the capacity to raise maybe 7,000 more men tops (not counting those in the field as of DWD), and that includes Skagos.

That's the only thing Nihlus is correct about. Tywin has never accomplished any notable victories in his life.

LOLOLOLOLOLOL 7000? Manderly by himself can raise 15,000. There have been countless threads on this. And why on earth would those already in the field not count? This is nonsensical.

And you call my thinking bizarre? Put down the crack pipe good sir.

[thelittledragonthatcould]

That's the only thing Nihlus is correct about. Tywin has never accomplished any notable victories in his life.

LOLOLOLOLOLOL 7000? Manderly by himself can raise 15,000. There have been countless threads on this. And why on earth would those already in the field not count? This is nonsensical.

And you call my thinking bizarre? Put down the crack pipe good sir.

What does the amount of threads prove? We have had 5 books and not seen anywhere near 15,000 Manderly troops. Are they all on holiday?

[Ramsay Gimp]

That's the only thing Nihlus is correct about. Tywin has never accomplished any notable victories in his life.

LOLOLOLOLOLOL 7000? Manderly by himself can raise 15,000. There have been countless threads on this. And why on earth would those already in the field not count? This is nonsensical.

And you call my thinking bizarre? Put down the crack pipe good sir.

This is like a parody of all the bad analysis that goes on in this forum. Tywin is overrated or just lucky, The North has a billion men hidden away, etc. etc. :dunce:

[The Drunkard]

LOLOLOLOLOLOL 7000? Manderly by himself can raise 15,000. There have been countless threads on this. And why on earth would those already in the field not count? This is nonsensical.

If the North had that many men the story would have gone a very different way. Rodrik would be able to raise more than two thousand men to defend Winterfell, Robb wouldn't need to abandon the south to drive out the ironborn, and Manderly would be absolutely dominating northern politics rather than posing as an underling to people with less than/barely half of his supposed total forces. At the least, they would have discussed the possibility of using these gigantic armies they have tucked away, but they never do at any point.

[Ramsay Gimp]

If the North had that many men the story would have gone a very different way. Rodrik would be able to raise more than two thousand men to defend Winterfell, Robb wouldn't need to abandon the south to drive out the ironborn, and Manderly would be absolutely dominating northern politics rather than posing as an underling to people with less than/barely half of his supposed total forces. At the least, they would have discussed the possibility of using these gigantic armies they have tucked away, but they never do at any point.

And no way would Manderly have travelled to Winterfell with only a couple hundred men, putting himself in the Bolton's and Frey's grasp, if he had 10,000+ men he could call on.

[Nihlus]

If the North had that many men the story would have gone a very different way. Rodrik would be able to raise more than two thousand men to defend Winterfell, Robb wouldn't need to abandon the south to drive out the ironborn, and Manderly would be absolutely dominating northern politics rather than posing as an underling to people with less than/barely half of his supposed total forces. At the least, they would have discussed the possibility of using these gigantic armies they have tucked away, but they never do at any point.

Why does he need more than 2,000 men? Also, where is he supposed to raise all of these extra men? Manderly needs his to keep Victarion in check, many other houses (like the Mormonts) are at risk of Ironborn attack, the Dustins and Ryswells are borderline disloyal, the Boltons are starting a small scale civil war, the Reeds, Skagosi, and Mountain Clans are all effective non-factors, and various other houses are too far away.

Why would he need to be dominating Northern politics? We know he should have more men than Bolton alone (he says he has more heavy horse than anyone else in the North despite his losses), but he'd still be hard pressed to deal with the Bolton-Frey-Dustin-Ryswell-Karstark alliance.

The North has a billion men hidden away, etc. etc. :dunce:

Robb raised 20,000 initially. The Ironborn launched a full scale invasion of the North and probably inflicted a fair amount of casualties. Rodrik raised 2,000, Manderly needs 6,000-7,000 men just to run those 50 war galleys he's stated to have, and he should have more regular soldiers than Bolton by himself considering his lands are large and thickly populated, he's stated to have more heavy horse than anyone else, and he's been recruiting for a while (another 6,000-7,000?). He also has a major city with a city watch (1,000?). Due to Lady Dustin sending only the bare minimum to Robb, Ryswell and Dustin are mostly untapped (4,000-5,000), as are the Skagosi houses and Reeds (4,000-16,000). Roose Bolton left a large amount of men at home, and Stannis has managed to gather ~4,500 clansmen, Mormonts, Glovers, Karstarks, and Umbers in a relatively short amount of time. Roose has another ~1,500-2,000 extra Northmen of various houses with him at Winterfell. There are also a lot of other North houses that are still unaccounted for. It's safe to say they've got a significant amount of men left. The problem is the North is extremely large and fairly divided.

As Barty said, you're giving Stannis great credit for taking advice and beating up on wildlings in skins, but not Robb for taking advice and attacking an army of raw recruits. And the Whispering Wood and Camps were not mostly Blackfish. Stop saying that. BF played the role of an experienced coach guiding a prodigy. He gave hints, but let Robb work it out on his own.

1. Still a victory. A crushing victory that cut off Tywin deep in enemy territory with enemies to his north and between him and home. More impressive than anything the Mannis has ever done in and of itself.

2.It's called recon. All armies do it. Some by human scouts, some by the local populace, some by enemy traitors. The only out of the ordinary thing there is that the Golden Tooth garrison had not already found the path.

3. Did you read the bottom of my first post? It does not matter how stupid your opponent is, it does not diminish the quality of a great victory in the slightest. And make no mistake, Oxcross is both 1. a great victory, and 2. quite possibly the battle with the most important strategic ramifications in the Wot5Ks, not Blackwater. That was the Westerland reserves that Robb slaughtered at Oxcross. In combination with the Camps, the Lannisters literally have no troops left save the battered remnants of Tywin's army. the entire Westerlands at this point can field maybe 10,000 if hard pressed. Whereas the North can still pull out anywhere from 20 to 30 thousand. All thanks to Robb.

Marrying Jeyne= alienated the Freys. You don't get to count it twice.

The Karstarks alienated themselves. Seriously what the fuck was Robb supposed to do to Rickard "My Kids Are The Only Ones That Matter" Douchebag Karstark? The man committed treason and was a total asshole from start to finish. And it wasn't even a great disaster in and of itself, it lost him three hundred troops at the most.

Robb only partially shares the blame for this. The other part goes to Edmure, who should have been able to read a bloody map.

Robb attacked an army of 10,000 recruits led by a moron with 6,000 heavy cavalry. Stannis, with 1,500 men of mid-high quality, took out 30,000 Wildlings, led by someone not as stupid as Stafford. They're not really comparable. This victory is too often underrated because the Wildlings are a Stone Age/Bronze Age civilization- as if that negates their 20-to-1 number advantage, or the fact that similar forces have engaged and triumphed at worse odds than 20 to 1, or them managing to smash one of Stannis's columns, or the fact that they had mammoths and giants.

Blackfish planned the Whispering Woods ambush. It was his idea, and possible because of his deeds.

1. Nope. Routing two camps of a few thousand each when they have no leader and you have 6,000 heavy cavalry is not a mark of tactical brilliance.

2. A plot device is what it is. If you take his unique magical animal away from him, he never finds the path. It'd be like claiming that Stannis is the best general ever based on Renly getting shadow baby'd.

3. Actually, yes, it does detract from it when we plainly see that the plan only works because his opponent is the dumbest non-Essosi alive. Stafford was possibly the worst commander in the books. If he wasn't, that battle would have looked somewhat different. Not very much, mind you, since it was still just a bunch of third-stringers vs 6,000 heavy cavalry. I don't think you're properly grasping just how huge of an advantage Robb had in every battle he fought. 6,000 heavy cavalry vs 3,000-4,000 average spearmen and bowmen (when those guys are encamped and lacking a leader) is pure murder. Those same cavalry vs another force of the same size while a garrison is taking them from behind is even worse. So is 6,000 heavy cavalry vs 10,000 raw unprepared recruits led by a moron. Beyond the initial Whispering Woods/Green Fork trick, Robb would have to be actively trying to lose in order to fail in his subsequent battles (and he still lost a significant amount of men).

I wasn't counting it twice, I was including it in a summary. He could have imprisoned Karstark, or simply waited to punish him. He lost 300 cavalry plus the loyalty of the <2,000 foot, so it was quite significant. Almost as significant as losing ~3,000 Freys (accounting for Frey losses and the fact that they wouldn't send every single soldier). Poor Edmure gets too much crap for something that's really Robb's fault. It's a general's job to make their orders clear for their subordinates, and Robb was supposed to be the overall commander for the North-Riverlands alliance.

“Lord Stannis was about to fall upon King’s Landing,” Robb said. “He might have rid us of Joffrey, the queen and the Imp in one red stroke. Then we might have been able to make a peace."

Edmure looked from uncle to nephew. “You never told me.”

Why didn't Robb tell him? Combined with his Frey and Karstark blunders, this is pretty damning.

Basically, even assuming we give him credit for the Whispering Woods/Green Fork trick, that just means Robb had one good moment as a tactician, several other unremarkable ones, and many horrible decisions as a strategist.

[DMC]

While I've also always thought not informing Edmure, and then blaming him for it, didn't make any sense, can we stop conflating Robb's 'horrible' decisions of marrying Jeyne and beheading Karstark with strategic decision making? They're not.

[thelittledragonthatcould]

and he should have more regular soldiers than Bolton by himself considering his lands are large and thickly populated, he's stated to have more heavy horse than anyone else, and he's been recruiting for a while (another 6,000-7,000?). He also has a major city with a city watch (1,000?).

Where is it stated that his lands are thickly populated? Or that they have a larger population than the Bolton lands? This is never stated in the books yet is often parroted on this forum like it is fact.

He has a major city which is about a tenth the size of Kings Landing yet has half the Guards that the richer, larger City has? Come on now, this seems unlikely.

He has more heavy horse and is the richest Vassal of the Starks. That is certainly true.

But he was unable to comprehensibly defeat Ramsay off the Hornwood lands despite his superiority and most likely sending fewer men South with Robb. Ramsay was only defeated once Rodrik and his piddling force of fewer than 500 new recruits intervened.

You say that he needs 6,-7,000 to run these galleys yet they are not built at the time of the Ironborn invasion, what good is a navy when the capital and the west coast is taken?

If he had 15,000 he could have retaken Moat Cailin. He didn't.

Now as this thread is about commanders, Robb Stark would be one of the most incompetent commanders in the series if he simply forgot about a 15,000 army at White Harbor that could have either kicked the Iron born out or reinforced his army instead of begging Lysa and Balon to bail him out. Robb is not an idiot, he would have used a spare 15k army if he had one.