Military strengths of the Houses of Westeros

[Free Northman Reborn]

48 minutes ago, Corvo the Crow said:

I currently do not have time to read all of the 10 pages, so I'm sorry if some of these information has been given before.

I will give information and numbers, all of them taken from ASOIAF boks,  to correct the wrong ones listed at first post and add some new ones to it. I will give as much detail as possible. I will also make some assumptions after that, based on these. I won't be able to give the exact chapter and page from where i got these for most of them but i am able to give enough information( where, when and who of its mention) so you can find it for confirmation. I may add chapters for all of them if i have enough time.

House Bolton:

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1- Roose Bolton and Robett Glover ask for battle command. ( AGOT Bran VI)

2- Houses Stark, Karstark and Umber each occupy a tower when Robb is at Moat Cailin.

3- House Bolton and House Manderly have skirmishes over Hornwood lands. (I believe it was from a Bran chapter, the one in which Reed siblings came to swear fealty)

4- Ramsay asks for gold to bring Theon 100-200 men. He  defeats Ser Rodrik's army of near 2000. Theon says Rodrik had five times his numbers and Ramsay says he brought three times as many men as promised. (From two consecutive Theon chapters if i'm not mistaken. Second one is the one where siege is lifted).

5- Roose tells Jaime a thousand Karstark men are on the search for him. (Jaime V)

6- Roose sends Steelshanks Walton with 200 men to deliver Jaime to KL. On the same day he leaves Harrenhal for Edmure's wedding. (ASOS, Jaine VI). Two thirds of his army cross the trident, remaining third is lost when mountain attacks. He leaves 600 men to guard the crossing and marches on to twins with 3000 infantry and some 500 cavalry, Dreadfort men in chief and some from Karhold. (ASOS, Catelyn VI). As a side note, Robb Also has 3500 men with him, men who were with him since the whispering wood, on his march to twins.

7- Karlon Hold was built on land taken from a rebel lord. Boltons were powerful enough to remain kings for quite a long time, bending the knee only a thousand years or so ago and have rebelled against Starks hundreds of years ago and lost. (ADWD Jon IV, TWOIAF North, ACOK Theon IV, ASOS Catelyn III)

Assumptions

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1- Someone asking for a military command should be indicative of one of these two: either he has previously proven himself as a capable commander or has brought a significant number of men and expects to be honored for his contribution.

2- Houses Umber and Karstark are both given a tower in Moat Cailin and not other houses, Greatjon is Robb's right hand so is a reason to honor him by giving a tower to him but there's no apparent reason for giving the Karstarks a tower. Yes they are "kin" but it's very distant and  most if not all the houses are related someway or the other because of marrying among themselves so they are mostly a bannermen like any. So, probably they are given the tower either because they brought most men or when they arrived at moat cailin they were the house with most men ( i.e.- other houses with more men showed up at MC but after Karstarks - which is unlikely.

3- Roose kept his men away from battle as much as possible, always sending others to die so his army is mostly is mostly intact.

4- In the series, when numbers are given they are almost always rounded up (or rounded down though this is less often) and not exact, even for as few as 20-30 men as can be seen in Catelyn chapter where Manderlys are marching to Join Robb. So Ramsay having brought three times the number promised or having a fifth of Ser Rodrik's men, is also rounded which places his numbers somewhere between ~2000/5 = 400 and 200 x 3 = 600. A thousand Karstarks searching for Jaime is also rounded, there can be "less" (I dare you, Stannis) or more. And  Roose's 3000 infantry is most likely rounded up.

4- Land Karlon Stark got was most likely belonged to the Boltons as it was taken from a rebelling lord, there are no other great houses known past the Dreadfort and Karlon built a castle of his own so most likely there weren't any before the lands were taken either, so, Karlon, a Stark was given land and as a consequence men, strengthening house Stark and Boltons lost power by this loss of men and land. Karlon must at least have a number of men close to the former owner of his newly gotten land so as to be able to useful against another rebellion from the same lord or defend his lands against him if the need arises, so the lands are probably divided more or less equally, poulation wise.

Conclusion

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Boltons have a number of men close to the Karstarks, which have more than ~2750  but most likely fewer than 3000; ~2300 that went south, 450 under Cregan and some men during the siege of winterfell, noticably fewer in numbers compared to Cerwyns(300) and probably  most didn't survive the battle with Ramsay or at least haven't returned to Karhold, Karstarks probably have 2800-2900 men Roose went south with 2000 men or maybe a hundred or so more, a bit smaller than Karstarks numbers but almost as many and Ramsay had 500 men attacking Rodrik, father and son's armies totalling 2500-2600 let's be generous and add in another hundred for men lost to skirmishes in Hornwood and a very small garrison when Ramsay goes to "aid" Theon. So final total is 2600-2700 for Boltons and 2800-2900 for Karstarks.

That's it for Boltons and though it was not my intention, Karstarks are also cleared up.

Freys:

This will be very much shorter than Boltons:

Some errors:

Ramsay's force is stated to consist of 600 men, being the personal garrison of Roose Bolton. Most of them appear to be cavalry. If you add them to the 600-700 heavy cavalry Bolton had to have at Winterfell in order to have any plausible way of arriving at the total of 3000 heavy cavalry there, then his heavy cavalry has to be 1000 or more.

Even the Freys don't have a greater than 1-3 cavalry ratio. Hence, House Bolton must have at least 4000 men. We know he had most of the 3500 men he brought to the Twins. What's more, the 500 cavalry in that force would have included cavalry from other Houses that were involved in the Green Fork battle, and since only 10% of the North's total cavalry went with Roose's host it seems logical that much of Roose's own cavalry was still with Robb's host returning from the West. So Roose already had the bulk of the 3500 men, without a substantial portion of his cavalry.

Later we hear that most of the 4000 men returning past Moat Cailin are Dreadfort men, pushing his surviving host well past the 2000 mark. That means his original host must have been at least somewhat bigger than this, as even Roose would have suffered some losses over the course of the long campaign.

In any case, it is his cavalry numbers that really seal the deal. With cavalry in the 1000 range, or possibly even more, he must have at least 4000 men.

EDIT

I forgot to add. The Red Kings never ruled the current Karstark lands. The Worldbook states that at its greatest extent, their kingdom ended at the Last River. The Karstark lands lie beyond that river.

[Corvo the Crow]

2 hours ago, Free Northman Reborn said:

Some errors:

Ramsay's force is stated to consist of 600 men, being the personal garrison of Roose Bolton. Most of them appear to be cavalry. If you add them to the 600-700 heavy cavalry Bolton had to have at Winterfell in order to have any plausible way of arriving at the total of 3000 heavy cavalry there, then his heavy cavalry has to be 1000 or more.

Even the Freys don't have a greater than 1-3 cavalry ratio. Hence, House Bolton must have at least 4000 men. We know he had most of the 3500 men he brought to the Twins. What's more, the 500 cavalry in that force would have included cavalry from other Houses that were involved in the Green Fork battle, and since only 10% of the North's total cavalry went with Roose's host it seems logical that much of Roose's own cavalry was still with Robb's host returning from the West. So Roose already had the bulk of the 3500 men, without a substantial portion of his cavalry.

Later we hear that most of the 4000 men returning past Moat Cailin are Dreadfort men, pushing his surviving host well past the 2000 mark. That means his original host must have been at least somewhat bigger than this, as even Roose would have suffered some losses over the course of the long campaign.

In any case, it is his cavalry numbers that really seal the deal. With cavalry in the 1000 range, or possibly even more, he must have at least 4000 men.

EDIT

I forgot to add. The Red Kings never ruled the current Karstark lands. The Worldbook states that at its greatest extent, their kingdom ended at the Last River. The Karstark lands lie beyond that river.

I can't remember reading Ramsay had 600 men anywhere but the AWOIAF, can you specify where it was mentioned so I can check&correct? As for him having 1000 horses because there are 3000 heavy horse (and an additional 300-400 knights) so he must have 4000 or so men, here's a calculation; ~12000 men gather at Winterfell, 2300 of them are Karstarks so setting them aside we have 10700 left, which you say at least 3400 of them must be Boltons because they have 4000+ men so again, deducting the numbers we are left with 7300 men. Let's say Starks, the ruling family of the North have as many men as Boltons, one of their more powerful vassals, and not more, so this gives us 4000 men, again remove them we are left with 3300 men. 3300 men for Umbers, Glovers, Hornwoods, Mormonts, Tallharts, Cerwyns and what little mountain clansmen their chieftains sent. Does these numbers make any sense?

Hornwoods and Mormonts aren't known for their power and Tallharts, too are not so powerful, not being able to lift the siege Degmar Cleftjaw has laid with 200 men with the garrison that is left. But what about Umbers and Glovers, two great houses? What of Cerwyns who are said to be amongst the most powerful vassals of Winterfell? Cerwyns alone leave at least 300 men as garrison let's say proportion of men left by Cerwyns, who are less than a days ride away from Winterfell, the seat of the ruling house in the North are the same with Boltons, whose Lord is a very patient and calculating men, this would give them 2000 men, 1700 of which would  be in the 12000 so only 1600 for the 4 other houses and mountain clans? To support it further, let's say Roose's Garrison proportion is same with Karstarks, which would be ~15.5% with the highest number i proposed for Karstarks and ~%16.4 with only the known numbers, these give roughly 3870 and 3660 men respectively, again, numbers so high which would cause problems. Even the numbers I proposed in my post are a stretch, saying he alone brought a quarter of the men gathered at Winterfell is would make the numbers near impossible. Sorry this calculations became longer than I first intended to be but I think they'll serve good other calculations and guesses related to North.

 

For 4000 men passing Moat Cailin, I'll try to find it, so far all I've found about is only a fifth or so Northmen came back in a Theon chapter in ADWD so again, if you can specify I'll check&correct.

I must've forgotten reading this. I read the things I wrote about Karhold more recently than the Wolrd Book and honestly, in the books' context with those information it makes more sense to me Karstarks getting their land fromBoltons but World book says otherwise so, yes I'm definitely wrong on that one.

[Free Northman Reborn]

4 minutes ago, Corvo the Crow said:

I can't remember reading Ramsay had 600 men anywhere but the AWOIAF, can you specify where it was mentioned so I can check&correct? As for him having 1000 horses because there are 3000 heavy horse (and an additional 300-400 knights) so he must have 4000 or so men, here's a calculation; ~12000 men gather at Winterfell, 2300 of them are Karstarks so setting them aside we have 10700 left, which you say at least 3400 of them must be Boltons because they have 4000+ men so again, deducting the numbers we are left with 7300 men. Let's say Starks, the ruling family of the North have as many men as Boltons, one of their more powerful vassals, and not more, so this gives us 4000 men, again remove them we are left with 3300 men. 3300 men for Umbers, Glovers, Hornwoods, Mormonts, Tallharts, Cerwyns and what little mountain clansmen their chieftains sent. Does these numbers make any sense?

Hornwoods and Mormonts aren't known for their power and Tallharts, too are not so powerful, not being able to lift the siege Degmar Cleftjaw has laid with 200 men with the garrison that is left. But what about Umbers and Glovers, two great houses? What of Cerwyns who are said to be amongst the most powerful vassals of Winterfell? Cerwyns alone leave at least 300 men as garrison let's say proportion of men left by Cerwyns, who are less than a days ride away from Winterfell, the seat of the ruling house in the North are the same with Boltons, whose Lord is a very patient and calculating men, this would give them 2000 men, 1700 of which would  be in the 12000 so only 1600 for the 4 other houses and mountain clans? To support it further, let's say Roose's Garrison proportion is same with Karstarks, which would be ~15.5% with the highest number i proposed for Karstarks and ~%16.4 with only the known numbers, these give roughly 3870 and 3660 men respectively, again, numbers so high which would cause problems. Even the numbers I proposed in my post are a stretch, saying he alone brought a quarter of the men gathered at Winterfell is would make the numbers near impossible. Sorry this calculations became longer than I first intended to be but I think they'll serve good other calculations and guesses related to North.

 

For 4000 men passing Moat Cailin, I'll try to find it, so far all I've found about is only a fifth or so Northmen came back in a Theon chapter in ADWD so again, if you can specify I'll check&correct.

I must've forgotten reading this. I read the things I wrote about Karhold more recently than the Wolrd Book and honestly, in the books' context with those information it makes more sense to me Karstarks getting their land fromBoltons but World book says otherwise so, yes I'm definitely wrong on that one.

No, no. I'm not saying 3400 of Robb's men were Boltons. I'm saying the Boltons can raise 4000 men in total. That doesn't mean that 3400 of those went with Robb. I'm saying at least 2500 went with Robb, of which about 600-700 were heavy horse.

So I'm saying there is more untapped infantry back in the Bolton lands beyond the 600 Dreadfort garrison that came with Ramsay. Consider that even after Roose has taken his main force South, the Boltons are still able to bring a veteran force of 600, mostly mounted, men to Winterfell. That doesn't look like they are even close to raising their dregs, green boys and old men for war. Heck, it doesn't even look like they've started delving into their lesser quality troops. Not if their reserves are 600 elite soldiers.

 

[Corvo the Crow]

Lannisters

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Spoiler

1- During the conquest Lannisters and Gardeners gather an army of 55000, with Gardeners having half as many more men. (TWOIAF, Conquest)

2- In the war of the Ninepenny kings, Jason Lannister leads 1000 knights and 10000 men-at-arms, after his death Roger Reyne takes command of the remaining men. (TWOIAF, Westerlands)

3- 500 knights from this campaign are later formed into a campaign under Kevan's command. Tywin later summons his vassals and takes this 500 knights and another 3000 men, men-at-arms and crossbowmen to war. Walderan Tarbeck rides out with his 500 household knights only, not able to gather his liege levies and supporters. Roger Reyne rides with 2000 cavalry, he is outnumbered three or five to one. As more vassals join, Tywin has twice the numbers of his original host once he has reached to Castamere. (TWOIAF, Westerlands)

4- During WoTFK, Tywin raises his army, takes 20000 men to Harrenhal and gives Jaime another 14-15000 men. Tywin has 7500 horsemen and Jaime has 2000-3000, both armies include freeriders and mercenaries. Tywin later raises another 10000 from Lannisport in desperation,.not having a force to defend his land against Robb.

 

Assumptions and conclusion:

 

Spoiler

At the end of Reyne-Tarbeck rebellion Tywin commanded less than 20000(between 12 and 20 thousands) it is safe to assume most, if not all Casterly Rock's vassals joined him by this time, bringing as many troops as possible to show how loyal they are, fearing they may be next. Even giving a 1:3 horse to foot ratio, which seems to be the lowest ratio preferred by lords, to Reynes and Tarbecks and giving Tywin five times the number of Reynes, the total we get is 30000.

War of the Ninepenny Kings takes just a year before rebellion and there's certain to be casualties suffered which would add to the number but not by much as at least half of the knights survived and because not all of the men went to war would be from Casterly Rock so it is probable that more than half that army survived. Even if half the army survived it'd only add ~5000 to the 30000 max which would make it 35000.

As said earlier 1:3 is the lowest to settle and lords try to do better than that if possible, as can be seen with Tywin in WoT5K; Tywin, has 37.5%horse rating in his host and 30% in Jaime and his armies combined. Tarbecks and Reynes had the means to get a better ratio with the money they "borrowed" from Tytos so they had the means to have more than 1:3 making them having less men than 10000 they'd have with 1:3.

Small folk will always be there as long as there is land, it doesn't matter  whether there's a castle and a lord or not, it is the knights that depend on lords because unlike small folk, they do not sustain themselves and are paid money by their lords for their services. So foot soldier numbers wouldn't change much throughout the years but cavalrys' will. With these considerations in mind, I believe Tywin to be able to raise 30000 men in normal circumstances maybe a thousand or two more or less but not much different than that.

 

Edit: To above:

Alright now I get what you are meaning, it seems I haven't understood it clearly before. So you and I aren't exactly talking about the same thing; You say he can raise 4000 with the old and very young, well I agree it is possible. Tywin's army was 35000 with some mercenaries and he raised 10000 from Lannisport alone, almost a third of his force and he could've gathered some more if he asked for his vassals to raise the boys and old men but it doesn't make much sense adding them to the numbers.

Yes they can fight but even regular levies drawn from the common folk aren't an ideal fighting force not having the training and and physical prowess of household knights and mercenaries and other "standing armies", and these are even less suitable for fighting because of being an old man in a medieval society (much worse healthcare than today) or being a boy not grown to your full capacity. Not to mention when men in fighting age goes to war only these people remain for the harvests and other stuff. So only in desperation should they should be drafted at the risk of losing both your harvest and most of what remains of your population. So I believe they shouldn't be listed as part of a lands strength. Same goes for Cities and towns; they are centers of commerce and if you start taking those people to army you are losing money, which would not be preferable.

Next will be the Vale and Dorne but for now i must call it a night as it takes more than i thought to find sources to confirm, and that if i can find it. Thankfully Dorne and Vale have very little revealed about them it will be easier.

[Free Northman Reborn]

34 minutes ago, Corvo the Crow said:

Lannisters

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1- During the conquest Lannisters and Gardeners gather an army of 55000, with Gardeners having half as many more men. (TWOIAF, Conquest)

2- In the war of the Ninepenny kings, Jason Lannister leads 1000 knights and 10000 men-at-arms, after his death Roger Reyne takes command of the remaining men. (TWOIAF, Westerlands)

3- 500 knights from this campaign are later formed into a campaign under Kevan's command. Tywin later summons his vassals and takes this 500 knights and another 3000 men, men-at-arms and crossbowmen to war. Walderan Tarbeck rides out with his 500 household knights only, not able to gather his liege levies and supporters. Roger Reyne rides with 2000 cavalry, he is outnumbered three or five to one. As more vassals join, Tywin has twice the numbers of his original host once he has reached to Castamere. (TWOIAF, Westerlands)

4- During WoTFK, Tywin raises his army, takes 20000 men to Harrenhal and gives Jaime another 14-15000 men. Tywin has 7500 horsemen and Jaime has 2000-3000, both armies include freeriders and mercenaries. Tywin later raises another 10000 from Lannisport in desperation,.not having a force to defend his land against Robb.

 

Assumptions and conclusion:

 

  Reveal hidden contents

At the end of Reyne-Tarbeck rebellion Tywin commanded less than 20000(between 12 and 20 thousands) it is safe to assume most, if not all Casterly Rock's vassals joined him by this time, bringing as many troops as possible to show how loyal they are, fearing they may be next. Even giving a 1:3 horse to foot ratio, which seems to be the lowest ratio preferred by lords, to Reynes and Tarbecks and giving Tywin five times the number of Reynes, the total we get is 30000.

War of the Ninepenny Kings takes just a year before rebellion and there's certain to be casualties suffered which would add to the number but not by much as at least half of the knights survived and because not all of the men went to war would be from Casterly Rock so it is probable that more than half that army survived. Even if half the army survived it'd only add ~5000 to the 30000 max which would make it 35000.

As said earlier 1:3 is the lowest to settle and lords try to do better than that if possible, as can be seen with Tywin in WoT5K; Tywin, has 37.5%horse rating in his host and 30% in Jaime and his armies combined. Tarbecks and Reynes had the means to get a better ratio with the money they "borrowed" from Tytos so they had the means to have more than 1:3 making them having less men than 10000 they'd have with 1:3.

Small folk will always be there as long as there is land, it doesn't matter  whether there's a castle and a lord or not, it is the knights that depend on lords because unlike small folk, they do not sustain themselves and are paid money by their lords for their services. So foot soldier numbers wouldn't change much throughout the years but cavalrys' will. With these considerations in mind, I believe Tywin to be able to raise 30000 men in normal circumstances maybe a thousand or two more or less but not much different than that.

 

Edit: To above:

Alright now I get what you are meaning, it seems I haven't understood it clearly before. So you and I aren't exactly talking about the same thing; You say he can raise 4000 with the old and very young, well I agree it is possible. Tywin's army was 35000 with some mercenaries and he raised 10000 from Lannisport alone, almost a third of his force and he could've gathered some more if he asked for his vassals to raise the boys and old men but it doesn't make much sense adding them to the numbers.

Yes they can fight but even regular levies drawn from the common folk aren't an ideal fighting force not having the training and and physical prowess of household knights and mercenaries and other "standing armies", and these are even less suitable for fighting because of being an old man in a medieval society (much worse healthcare than today) or being a boy not grown to your full capacity. Not to mention when men in fighting age goes to war only these people remain for the harvests and other stuff. So only in desperation should they should be drafted at the risk of losing both your harvest and most of what remains of your population. So I believe they shouldn't be listed as part of a lands strength. Same goes for Cities and towns; they are centers of commerce and if you start taking those people to army you are losing money, which would not be preferable.

 

Not quite what I'm saying.

I'm saying that before tapping into your old men and boys, a cavalry to infantry ratio of 1-3 seems about the best even wealthy southron lords like the Freys can achieve. Meaning that if House Bolton can raise 1000 cavalry, their standard strength is likely around 4000.

AFTER that point they can probably still raise their green boys and old timers, for an unknown additional number of men. But their primary force, before raising old men and boys, is around 4000, of which they sent at least 2500 with Robb.

[thelittledragonthatcould]

7 minutes ago, Corvo the Crow said:

 

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4- During WoTFK, Tywin raises his army, takes 20000 men to Harrenhal and gives Jaime another 14-15000 men. Tywin has 7500 horsemen and Jaime has 2000-3000, both armies include freeriders and mercenaries. Tywin later raises another 10000 from Lannisport in desperation,.not having a force to defend his land against Robb.

 

Four points

Tywin would have had a little over 35k in the Riverlands, the 15k with Jaime, the 20k with Tywin when Tyrion finds his father and an unknown amount holding some of the Riverland castles, raiding their regions.

All armies include freeriders and mercenaries.

The 10,000 number at Oxcross seems to have been plucked out of thin air with no quotes in the books suggesting such a number. And even if that number were 10k it has to be noted that they were not all from Lannisport (certainly not including the best trained City watch in Westeros) as some would have been supplied from the 4k survivors with Forley Prester at the Golden Tooth.

 

The Westerlands was not quite so vulnerable as you are suggesting. Robb notes that he did not have the strength to threaten Lannisport or Casterly Rock, rather he picked on less prestigious targets (Ashemark aside) than the more high profile settlements like the Golden Tooth. Robb's forces being all cavalry and constantly on the move would make it pretty hard for the Westerland forces to organize (and risk another humiliating Oxcross like defeat).

20 minutes ago, Corvo the Crow said:

Lannisters

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At the end of Reyne-Tarbeck rebellion Tywin commanded less than 20000(between 12 and 20 thousands) it is safe to assume most, if not all Casterly Rock's vassals joined him by this time, bringing as many troops as possible to show how loyal they are, fearing they may be next. Even giving a 1:3 horse to foot ratio, which seems to be the lowest ratio preferred by lords, to Reynes and Tarbecks and giving Tywin five times the number of Reynes, the total we get is 30000.

 

No, not really. There is a longer version of the Histroy of the Westerlands section on GRRM's website and we know exactly who joined Tywin, and it was not all or even the majority of his fathers vassals.

The first battle against the Reynes (after the defeats of the Tarbecks) was only the  Lannister forces Tywin was able to raise behind his fathers back as well as the Presters and Marbrands. For the end of the war:

The Lannister host, swollen to twice its original size by the arrival of the Lords Westerling, Banefort, Plumm, and Stackspear with their levies, arrived at Castamere three days later.  Lord Reyne had sent forth ravens to his own friends, allies, and vassals, but few had turned up; the lesson of Tarbeck Hall had not been lost on them.

Now we know that Houses Westerling and Banefort are close to Castamere, stands to reason that so to are Plumm and Stackspear.

This is not nearly a majority of the Westerland Houses as notable absentee's are the Crakehalls, Leffords, Serrets, Farmans, Brax, Parrens, Jasts and Sarsfields.

20 minutes ago, Corvo the Crow said:

War of the Ninepenny Kings takes just a year before rebellion and there's certain to be casualties suffered which would add to the number but not by much as at least half of the knights survived and because not all of the men went to war would be from Casterly Rock so it is probable that more than half that army survived. Even if half the army survived it'd only add ~5000 to the 30000 max which would make it 35000.

The NinePenny wars (like the Greyjoy Rebellion) would not feature every region using the full amount of their forces, especially with it being on foreign soil. The majority of the realms would have contributed and few would have gone full throttle in the support they offered

20 minutes ago, Corvo the Crow said:

I believe Tywin to be able to raise 30000 men in normal circumstances maybe a thousand or two more or less but not much different than that.

Considering he raises a minimum of 35k in the current war I'm not sure how that estimation is correct.

[Free Northman Reborn]

41 minutes ago, thelittledragonthatcould said:

Four points

Tywin would have had a little over 35k in the Riverlands, the 15k with Jaime, the 20k with Tywin when Tyrion finds his father and an unknown amount holding some of the Riverland castles, raiding their regions.

All armies include freeriders and mercenaries.

The 10,000 number at Oxcross seems to have been plucked out of thin air with no quotes in the books suggesting such a number. And even if that number were 10k it has to be noted that they were not all from Lannisport (certainly not including the best trained City watch in Westeros) as some would have been supplied from the 4k survivors with Forley Prester at the Golden Tooth.

 

The Westerlands was not quite so vulnerable as you are suggesting. Robb notes that he did not have the strength to threaten Lannisport or Casterly Rock, rather he picked on less prestigious targets (Ashemark aside) than the more high profile settlements like the Golden Tooth. Robb's forces being all cavalry and constantly on the move would make it pretty hard for the Westerland forces to organize (and risk another humiliating Oxcross like defeat).

No, not really. There is a longer version of the Histroy of the Westerlands section on GRRM's website and we know exactly who joined Tywin, and it was not all or even the majority of his fathers vassals.

The first battle against the Reynes (after the defeats of the Tarbecks) was only the  Lannister forces Tywin was able to raise behind his fathers back as well as the Presters and Marbrands. For the end of the war:

The Lannister host, swollen to twice its original size by the arrival of the Lords Westerling, Banefort, Plumm, and Stackspear with their levies, arrived at Castamere three days later.  Lord Reyne had sent forth ravens to his own friends, allies, and vassals, but few had turned up; the lesson of Tarbeck Hall had not been lost on them.

Now we know that Houses Westerling and Banefort are close to Castamere, stands to reason that so to are Plumm and Stackspear.

This is not nearly a majority of the Westerland Houses as notable absentee's are the Crakehalls, Leffords, Serrets, Farmans, Brax, Parrens, Jasts and Sarsfields.

The NinePenny wars (like the Greyjoy Rebellion) would not feature every region using the full amount of their forces, especially with it being on foreign soil. The majority of the realms would have contributed and few would have gone full throttle in the support they offered

Considering he raises a minimum of 35k in the current war I'm not sure how that estimation is correct.

The only difference I have with this post, is an aspect I noted you referred to before on another of our debate threads, which I did not take the time to respond to then. It relates to your casual reference to the fact that all regions make use of mercenaries. Now, that is certainly true in principle, but I hope you would agree that Tywin, by the very nature of his unmatched wealth, will make use of a far greater ratio of mercenaries than would poorer regions such as the North, for example.

Back in Game of Thrones it is reported all the way in Kings Landing that Tywin is gathering sellswords and freeriders to Casterly Rock. This was in preparation for his big invasion of the Riverlands. By contrast, the wealthiest Northern House - the Manderlys - includes a reference to freeriders as only a part of the 240 cavalry that they send to Moat Cailin. The part that remains after the knights and their squires, mounted lances and other mounted swordsmen are subtracted. So it seems that if there were 100 sellswords in the entire Northern host, that is a lot.

Compared to likely a few thousand in Tywins host.

 

[thelittledragonthatcould]

18 minutes ago, Free Northman Reborn said:

The only difference I have with this post, is an aspect I noted you referred to before on another of our debate threads, which I did not take the time to respond to then. It relates to your casual reference to the fact that all regions make use of mercenaries. Now, that is certainly true in principle, but I hope you would agree that Tywin, by the very nature of his unmatched wealth, will make use of a far greater ratio of mercenaries than would poorer regions such as the North, for example.

Possibly, though Robb marched down with mercenaries and sellswords in his army and 'Reek' told Theon that he would raise two hundred sellswords to help him keep Winterfell.

Probably a more accurate response is that the richer realms have a better equipped and better trained sellsword than the poorer realms.

Though I'm not really sure why this is a big deal, the majority of sellswords are going to be natives of the lands they reside in, rather than foreign mercenaries, willing to work when work is available.

18 minutes ago, Free Northman Reborn said:

Back in Game of Thrones it is reported all the way in Kings Landing that Tywin is gathering sellswords and freeriders to Casterly Rock. This was in preparation for his big invasion of the Riverlands. By contrast, the wealthiest Northern House - the Manderlys - includes a reference to freeriders as only a part of the 200 cavalry that they send to Moat Cailin. The part that remains after the knights and their squires, mounted lances and other mounted swordsmen are subtracted. So it seems that if there were 100 sellswords in the entire Northern host, that is a lot.

Wait? Where exactly did you pull a hundred from? Or that the only sellswords were with Manderly?

18 minutes ago, Free Northman Reborn said:

Compared to likely a few thousand in Tywins host.

 

Or a few thousand? Tywin has not really had the time to hire a real sellsword company from Essos or anywhere else. Off the sellswords he would hire they would be local based, the majority from the Westerlands.

 

 

[Free Northman Reborn]

1 minute ago, thelittledragonthatcould said:

Possibly, though Robb marched down with mercenaries and sellswords in his army and 'Reek' told Theon that he would raise two hundred sellswords to help him keep Winterfell.

Probably a more accurate response is that the richer realms have a better equipped and better trained sellsword than the poorer realms.

Though I'm not really sure why this is a big deal, the majority of sellswords are going to be natives of the lands they reside in, rather than foreign mercenaries, willing to work when work is available.

Wait? Where exactly did you pull a hundred from? Or that the only sellswords were with Manderly?

Or a few thousand? Tywin has not really had the time to hire a real sellsword company from Essos or anywhere else. Off the sellswords he would hire they would be local based, the majority from the Westerlands.

 

 

I have pondered on the issue of whether freeriders would be locals or not. And I am undecided. I would say that in the North they are more likely to be local, simply due to the vast distance foreigners would have to travel to get there. Although we are led to believe that Dunk did just that when the North was fighting Dagon Greyjoy 100 years ago. I would suspect that men from all over the South would stream to Casterly Rock more eagerly, drawn by its fabulous wealth and closer proximity.

We see the Brave Companions, for one, who join Tywin from outside of the Westerlands.

Regarding the 100. Why must you make a pedantic issue out of every logical extrapolation, no matter how insignificant? Manderly has 240 cavalry at Moat Cailin. Of those, 20 are knights and 20 squires. The remaining 200 are split between mounted lancers who are not knights (Old God worshippers in other words), mounted swordsmen who are not lancers, and freeriders.

If we split them equally, you get 67 freeriders. Most likely, the freeriders are even fewer, but I happily allotted them a number of 100.

And yes. My more contentious assumption was that feeriders were almost exclusively limited to the Manderly host, in the North. Simply because they have the largest access to both foreigners and to an excess local population. I somehow doubt there are all that many sellswords on Bear Island, or up in the Karstark forests. But since you pointed out that Robb had sellswords in his Winterfell host, I will take your word for it without trawling through the text to try and find the quote.

Still, I am sure that mercenaries would make up a far larger portion of the Westerland host than of poorer regions like the North. And be far more likely to be of foreign origin than in the North.

[Corvo the Crow]

18 hours ago, thelittledragonthatcould said:

Tywin would have had a little over 35k in the Riverlands, the 15k with Jaime, the 20k with Tywin when Tyrion finds his father and an unknown amount holding some of the Riverland castles, raiding their regions.

All armies include freeriders and mercenaries.

The 10,000 number at Oxcross seems to have been plucked out of thin air with no quotes in the books suggesting such a number. And even if that number were 10k it has to be noted that they were not all from Lannisport (certainly not including the best trained City watch in Westeros) as some would have been supplied from the 4k survivors with Forley Prester at the Golden Tooth.

The Westerlands was not quite so vulnerable as you are suggesting. Robb notes that he did not have the strength to threaten Lannisport or Casterly Rock, rather he picked on less prestigious targets (Ashemark aside) than the more high profile settlements like the Golden Tooth. Robb's forces being all cavalry and constantly on the move would make it pretty hard for the Westerland forces to organize (and risk another humiliating Oxcross like defeat).

 

 As the numbers are always rounded, it is possible that Tywin had a little over 20k and it is rounded down to 20 or it is possible that he had a little less than 20 after garrisoning captured castles and it is rounded up to 20. Remember that most castles wouldn't need hundreds of men to defend them, for an example Arnolf Karstark writes to Stannis that the Dreadfort, the castle of one of the North's most powerful vassaals, has a garrison of 50 only, with half being servants and Jon tells to him even with that number it'd be hard to take it. So how many men would a few small riverlander castles need?

On freeriders my opinion is more or less the same with Free Northman.

Well I checked again and yes, there's no mention of 10000 so I must have heard it from the show or somewhere else. I found these, however; In ACOK Sansa III, Thousands died, according to Lancel and Tyrion mentions two dead lords and three sers, half a hundred more captured, knights getting crushed in their pavilons by their own horses and the army being scattered. In Bran V Maester Luwin tells of Robb achieving a great victory. It would certainly not include the City Watch, yes because I can't see Tywin leaving a trained in disciplined force to stay back, he'd take most of them leaving only a small number.

As for Robb not attacking more prestigious targets; He can't attack on the castles of Golden Tooth with cavalry alone, against Forley Presters 2k spearmen and 2k archers and whatever garrison they left, which I suspect would be bigger from most castles in Westerlands becausethey are on the border. And you just gave the other part of the answer yourself, they can't organize to attack him because with the marching speed of his cavalry he will chose when he will fight and when he'll not. Also in the ones he's chosen he he took several castles and three gold mines so yes, he poses quite a threat to Westerlands, which is vulnerable.

 

18 hours ago, thelittledragonthatcould said:

 

No, not really. There is a longer version of the Histroy of the Westerlands section on GRRM's website and we know exactly who joined Tywin, and it was not all or even the majority of his fathers vassals.

The first battle against the Reynes (after the defeats of the Tarbecks) was only the  Lannister forces Tywin was able to raise behind his fathers back as well as the Presters and Marbrands. For the end of the war:

The Lannister host, swollen to twice its original size by the arrival of the Lords Westerling, Banefort, Plumm, and Stackspear with their levies, arrived at Castamere three days later.  Lord Reyne had sent forth ravens to his own friends, allies, and vassals, but few had turned up; the lesson of Tarbeck Hall had not been lost on them.

Now we know that Houses Westerling and Banefort are close to Castamere, stands to reason that so to are Plumm and Stackspear.

This is not nearly a majority of the Westerland Houses as notable absentee's are the Crakehalls, Leffords, Serrets, Farmans, Brax, Parrens, Jasts and Sarsfields.

The NinePenny wars (like the Greyjoy Rebellion) would not feature every region using the full amount of their forces, especially with it being on foreign soil. The majority of the realms would have contributed and few would have gone full throttle in the support they offered

Considering he raises a minimum of 35k in the current war I'm not sure how that estimation is correct.

I never suggested they went with their full strength, the bit I gave just above this mentions the westerlands having 22k in fields of fire, I gave this number because that war happens just a year before Reyne-Tarbeck rebellion and war means losses for sure, which would mean even if all the lords raise all the men they can raise usually, the number will be lower than it normally would be.

As for the bannermen listed, I'll check the website but i can give another example; When parleying with Stannis, Renly talks about the houses that swore him fealty, but does he mention every single Reach house? According to Cersei every single house declared for him except for Redwynes but I doubt he listed all. He also mentions several Stormlands houses but again, I'm pretty sure he didn't list all so houses not being mentioned doesn't mean they didn't come.

Tarbeck rode with 500 household knights, with all the money borrowed from Lannisters he's sure to have more than 1/4 horse so his own levies are less than 1500, let's be generous and say he has 2000 men including his knights and his vassals also have as much, 4000.Without his vassals or levies, Tywin's original host was 3-5 times the 2000 of Reynes, most accounts agree on 3 so it is most likely closer to 3 than 4, which would make it 7 or so thousands, Reyne's full strength was less than a quarter of he could gather, but not a fifth so it is most likely he could gather 9000 men, his vassals, levies and allies. Tywins number swell to double so 14000 or so. Even being  very generous with Tarbecks numbers, and also rounding the others up, the total is 4000 + 9000 + 14000 =27000 As I said earlier, not every single house is listed every time but even if it was the case here I'd still say 27000 would represent most of the Westerlands numbers as some of the absent houses are certain to be Reyne's friends and allies. So, considering what little garrisons lords leave and a war happened a year ago, again, I'd say without straining themselves Lannisters field a number around 30000 at best.

[Corvo the Crow]

20 hours ago, Free Northman Reborn said:

Not quite what I'm saying.

I'm saying that before tapping into your old men and boys, a cavalry to infantry ratio of 1-3 seems about the best even wealthy southron lords like the Freys can achieve. Meaning that if House Bolton can raise 1000 cavalry, their standard strength is likely around 4000.

AFTER that point they can probably still raise their green boys and old timers, for an unknown additional number of men. But their primary force, before raising old men and boys, is around 4000, of which they sent at least 2500 with Robb.

Sorry for double post but I can not seem to copy a quote.

That's twice I've misunderstood you and I still insist he can't raise that many men, Honestly, I think even the Starks can barely manage to get that much men on their own, as can be seen with Robb's 12k at Winterfell, but I'll set the calculations aside, as I already did them earlier. I'll simply ask this, where are these men? You say likely 2500 went with Robb, and Ramsay took 600 (which I believe is less than that as I calculated above) where are the other 900? Countryside? Stannis is at the wall with close to 1500 men if I'm not mistaken, intending to march on the Dreadfort and Boltons are in Barrowton at that time and only 25 men or so defend the Dreadfort. Don't you think if they had more men available they'd either be in garrisoning the Dreadfort or be with Ramsay? Again, I'll say, with everything we know(or at least with the stuff I've found out and pointed) I do not think Boltons can even get 3000 men. They'll raise a number close to it, more than 2500 for sure but not 3000. Also remember Ramsay says he'll get 100-200 men. For sure he is not to be trusted but i think this really is the number he is sure to find in the Dreadfort, which is it's garrison and he raises the others from what little his father has left.

The Vale:

Information:

- Lords Declarant, 5 lordly house and  a knightly one, each raise a thousand men, easily. Petry Baelish says they can raise 20k in all, and he has no strength against them. (can't find chapter but it's in some Sansa chapter after Lysa dies.)

Assumption and conclusion:

- Remaining strength of the Vale is no where near 20k so vale has 30-35k.

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.

 

[Free Northman Reborn]

1 hour ago, Corvo the Crow said:

Sorry for double post but I can not seem to copy a quote.

That's twice I've misunderstood you and I still insist he can't raise that many men, Honestly, I think even the Starks can barely manage to get that much men on their own, as can be seen with Robb's 12k at Winterfell, but I'll set the calculations aside, as I already did them earlier. I'll simply ask this, where are these men? You say likely 2500 went with Robb, and Ramsay took 600 (which I believe is less than that as I calculated above) where are the other 900? Countryside? Stannis is at the wall with close to 1500 men if I'm not mistaken, intending to march on the Dreadfort and Boltons are in Barrowton at that time and only 25 men or so defend the Dreadfort. Don't you think if they had more men available they'd either be in garrisoning the Dreadfort or be with Ramsay? Again, I'll say, with everything we know(or at least with the stuff I've found out and pointed) I do not think Boltons can even get 3000 men. They'll raise a number close to it, more than 2500 for sure but not 3000. Also remember Ramsay says he'll get 100-200 men. For sure he is not to be trusted but i think this really is the number he is sure to find in the Dreadfort, which is it's garrison and he raises the others from what little his father has left.

The Vale:

Information:

- Lords Declarant, 5 lordly house and  a knightly one, each raise a thousand men, easily. Petry Baelish says they can raise 20k in all, and he has no strength against them. (can't find chapter but it's in some Sansa chapter after Lysa dies.)

Assumption and conclusion:

- Remaining strength of the Vale is no where near 20k so vale has 30-35k.

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.

 

The assertion that the Dreadfort is virtually unguarded now comes from Arnolf Karstark, who is part of the plot to mislead Stannis into attacking the Dreadfort, where he will be caught between Roose and the castle walls. A supposedly weakened Dreadfort, ripe for the plucking, is the basis for Roose's entire plan. Arnolf is the last guy to believe about the Dreadfort's current strength.

Furthermore, Roose's remaining strength would not all be at the Dreadfort in any case. 600 men is pretty much the largest castle garrison we have heard of in the North. Even if he has a thousand more to call on, he would not use them to garrison the Dreadfort. They could be reserves spread through the rest of his lands. Right up to guarding the Hornwood and Umber borders, for all we know.

Or they could be as yet unmobilized. Back at the keeps of his maybe dozen petty lords and perhaps one hundred masterly houses that owe him fealty. 

[Corvo the Crow]

51 minutes ago, Free Northman Reborn said:

The assertion that the Dreadfort is virtually unguarded now comes from Arnolf Karstark, who is part of the plot to mislead Stannis into attacking the Dreadfort, where he will be caught between Roose and the castle walls. A supposedly weakened Dreadfort, ripe for the plucking is the basis for Roose's entire plan. Arnolf is the last guy to believe about the Dreadfort's current strength.

Furthermore, Roose's remaining strength would not all be at the Dreadfort in any case. 600 men is pretty much the largest castle garrison we have heard of in the North. Even if he has a thousand more to call on, he would not use them to garrison the Dreadfort. They could be reserves spread through the rest of his lands. Right up to guarding the Hornwood and Umber borders, for all we know.

 

Well, you got me on Arnolf, they may have more men than that, but still it doesn't make much of a difference; Ramsay attacks Winterfell with his men, Rodrik has near 2000 men and he is known to be coming to Winterfell and having 600 men on his own and another 300 from Cerwyns (possibly a bit more because they stop on Castle Cerwyn) and obviously it is to be expected that more will join to him, despite all this Ramsay's numbers are less than a third of Rodrik's, a fifth according to Theon. If he had more men, he'd certainly bring them along; you don't say "Hey I'll just bring two thirds of their known force and hope no one else will come to take back the capital of the realm, yeah this will be enough." You will take every single man you can with you to the fight to ensure you have a better chance. So again, The men with Ramsay is all Roose has left.

Edit: Those dozen petty lords and a hundred landed knights you speak of are not Roose's, they are Manderly bannermen.

As for border guarding, If he was guarding Umber borders Crowfood and Whoresbane, one of whom join the Stannis and the other is In Winterfell, would be aware. And If he was guarding Hornwood borders then Wyman Manderly, who seizes Hornwood to prevent Ramsay getting it would be aware. So no border guard.

[Free Northman Reborn]

27 minutes ago, Corvo the Crow said:

Well, you got me on Arnolf, they may have more men than that, but still it doesn't make much of a difference; Ramsay attacks Winterfell with his men, Rodrik has near 2000 men and he is known to be coming to Winterfell and having 600 men on his own and another 300 from Cerwyns (possibly a bit more because they stop on Castle Cerwyn) and obviously it is to be expected that more will join to him, despite all this Ramsay's numbers are less than a third of Rodrik's, a fifth according to Theon. If he had more men, he'd certainly bring them along; you don't say "Hey I'll just bring two thirds of their known force and hope no one else will come to take back the capital of the realm, yeah this will be enough." You will take every single man you can with you to the fight to ensure you have a better chance. So again, The men with Ramsay is all Roose has left.

Edit: Those dozen petty lords and a hundred landed knights you speak of are not Roose's, they are Manderly bannermen.

As for border guarding, If he was guarding Umber borders Crowfood and Whoresbane, one of whom join the Stannis and the other is In Winterfell, would be aware. And If he was guarding Hornwood borders then Wyman Manderly, who seizes Hornwood to prevent Ramsay getting it would be aware. So no border guard.

The entire Ramsay plan hinged on him getting there before Rodrik took the castle back from Theon. Once Rodrik was inside Winterfell with his host, Ramsay would have no hope of taking it back, even if he had 10,000 men. So haste was of the essence. Hence, he raced back to the Dreadfort and grabbed the men that were gathered there at that very moment. Roose's personal garrison.

So he has no time to gather more men from surrounding areas. He merely grabs what was at the Dreadfort and still barely makes it back in time to engage Ser Rodrik outside the walls of Winterfell. Clearly, he did not have a single day to spare. In fact, I wonder if he did not hear of Rodrik's arrival while his forces were still some days out from Winterfell, and proceeded to race ahead with his cavalry to prevent Rodrik from getting into the walls. Meaning the rest of his forces might still have been a few days march behind. We don't know.

Regarding the 100 landed knights and dozen petty lords. Of course I know that is from Manderly's example. It is used as a point of reference. The Boltons are the strongest House in the North after the Manderlys. (With the Dustins a dark horse who might match their strength, but we don't have confirmation of that yet).

The point is that even if the Boltons only have half of the Manderly's petty lords and masterly houses, that would still give them more than 50 vassal houses spread across their territory. There is no indication that Roose stripped his lands bare in exuberant loyalty to Robb's call. He may well have raised only 50% of the forces of his lands. Especially if he had an eye on the Hornwood lands and wanted to maintain a strong presence back in the North while the rest of the lords were away in the South.

There is no indication that he could not call up another thousand men from his vassals, should he wish to. I repeat that if his reserves are 600 crack troops, mostly cavalry, then he has not begun dipping into his lesser quality troops yet.

And lastly, it all comes back to the cavalry. If Roose has 1000 cavalry, he must have at least 4000 men. Not even the Freys have a better cavalry ratio than that.

 

[Corvo the Crow]

 

1 hour ago, Free Northman Reborn said:

The entire Ramsay plan hinged on him getting there before Rodrik took the castle back from Theon. Once Rodrik was inside Winterfell with his host, Ramsay would have no hope of taking it back, even if he had 10,000 men. So haste was of the essence. Hence, he raced back to the Dreadfort and grabbed the men that were gathered there at that very moment. Roose's personal garrison.

So he has no time to gather more men from surrounding areas. He merely grabs what was at the Dreadfort and still barely makes it back in time to engage Ser Rodrik outside the walls of Winterfell. Clearly, he did not have a single day to spare. In fact, I wonder if he did not hear of Rodrik's arrival while his forces were still some days out from Winterfell, and proceeded to race ahead with his cavalry to prevent Rodrik from getting into the walls. Meaning the rest of his forces might still have been a few days march behind. We don't know.

Regarding the 100 landed knights and dozen petty lords. Of course I know that is from Manderly's example. It is used as a point of reference. The Boltons are the strongest House in the North after the Manderlys. (With the Dustins a dark horse who might match their strength, but we don't have confirmation of that yet).

The point is that even if the Boltons only have half of the Manderly's petty lords and masterly houses, that would still give them more than 50 vassal houses spread across their territory. There is no indication that Roose stripped his lands bare in exuberant loyalty to Robb's call. He may well have raised only 50% of the forces of his lands. Especially if he had an eye on the Hornwood lands and wanted to maintain a strong presence back in the North while the rest of the lords were away in the South.

There is no indication that he could not call up another thousand men from his vassals, should he wish to. I repeat that if his reserves are 600 crack troops, mostly cavalry, then he has not begun dipping into his lesser quality troops yet.

And lastly, it all comes back to the cavalry. If Roose has 1000 cavalry, he must have at least 4000 men. Not even the Freys have a better cavalry ratio than that.

 

For starters, please let's agree on this, Ramsay doesn't have 600 men; Numbers are always rounded, up or down. Ramsay says he brought 3 times the number but Theon says he is outnumbered 5 to 1 against Rodrik's 2000 (rounded up as he says himself he almost have this many) So while one claims 400, the other claims 600 hundred so 500 would be a good enough compromise.

Secondly, Ramsays men weren't all cavalry; most of it were cavalry but not all so most likely he doesn't have any other men left behind while racing to get to Winterfell.

As for Roose leaving 500 as garrison; if he wasn't planning something from the start this is too much for a castle which can be held against 1-1,5k men with 25 men quite some time (Jon tells this to Stannis)

I hear/read this quite often but the fact is, we do not know whether the boltons are the second most powerful vassal or the third or the fourth and so on. I do not remember ever reading it so it was probably told in the show. If it was indeed in the books please give me a source. I'm also not sure if it is mentioned that Manderly is the most powerful vassal. They are the obvious candidate to be sure, with all the more fertile land and money from the port but it was never once mentioned. In fact, Manderly may be able to raise more man through his vassals than Starks can do it without any vassals.

I'd say Boltons have even less than half of Manderlys strength, North is vast to be sure and empty and not every part of it is fertile, the further you go North land will be less suitable for parting and probably also lesser land will be suitable for farming. Manderly both has a more fertile region than the Boltons and possibly more land in these more fertile section than Bolton's not as much fertile land.

We do not know whether his troops are crack or not they defeated the other army yes but it was through surprise and killing their leaders and even then they couldn't hunt them all down, which they should because instead of scattering around and spreading varying tales they may have gathered near a close castle and informed other lords, it is pure lock (or plot) that this didn't happen.

You mentioned he has 1000 cavalry earlier but again I find this impossible. Though there's no direct info on it it is guess worked and calculated Robb has 5000 horse, after the Freys join him so up until that point he has 4000 horse in his army. Do you suggests he can provide a quarter of the horse Robb took South on his own should he so choose? Manderly didn't contribute much but it was intentional, Robb wanted him to prepare White Harbor's defenses  In Winterfell there were 3300-3400 cavalry in total. Robb left a garrison of 600 mostly mounted but even were all of it mounted it'd mean at most 1200-1300 more cavalry joined in Moat Cailin, 250 or so were Manderly so we are left with a thousand. Barbrey Dustin has a good amount of horse she feels confident in their numbers. She didn't send that many Barrowton knights but she sent enough to not displease Robb. Her father is the lord of Rills and he has horse herds so he'd have a good amount of mounted men to be sure. Lockes and Flint's of Flint's Finger and possibly Widow's Watch also joined in Moat Cailin. Do you suggest, that these 4 or 5 houses, which send more than 6 thousand men in total, one of them known to own herds of horses and the other has knights associated with it's seat (Luwin in Bran chapter that takes place in Winterfell, for one example) can barely scrape together as much cavalry as Roose's own men? I certainly doubt it.

Sorry for this but I'll make this calculation again:

12000 men gather at winterfell, vassals bring as many men as they choose  but Robb would gather his all because this is his seat and this will where he start his march. Let's say Starks can raise as many men as Boltons but no more, even though their land is better than Bolton's. With your 4k Boltons,of which 2,5 k joined, this would make 4k Starks. We also know Karstarks brought 2,3 k. So we have 8,8 k. Just these three alone make up more than two thirds of this army. Umbers and Hornwoods and Cerwyns and Glovers and Tallharts and Mormonts have 3,2 k in total? As I said earlier Cerwyns are known to be one of the most powerful vassals. Greatjon demands not to be placed behind Hornwoods or Cerwyns so it is quite possible that he can raise more men than Cerwyns or at least brought more. With all these considered, how can Roose has 4000 men a quarter of which is cavalry and 2500 of it in Robb's army? As in my earlier post I gave him 2000 with Robb and even that was a real stretch all things considered.

 

Riverlands and Reach, together with Stormlands will be next.

[Free Northman Reborn]

21 minutes ago, Corvo the Crow said:

 

For starters, please let's agree on this, Ramsay doesn't have 600 men; Numbers are always rounded, up or down. Ramsay says he brought 3 times the number but Theon says he is outnumbered 5 to 1 against Rodrik's 2000 (rounded up as he says himself he almost have this many) So while one claims 400, the other claims 600 hundred so 500 would be a good enough compromise.

Secondly, Ramsays men weren't all cavalry; most of it were cavalry but not all so most likely he doesn't have any other men left behind while racing to get to Winterfell.

As for Roose leaving 500 as garrison; if he wasn't planning something from the start this is too much for a castle which can be held against 1-1,5k men with 25 men quite some time (Jon tells this to Stannis)

I hear/read this quite often but the fact is, we do not know whether the boltons are the second most powerful vassal or the third or the fourth and so on. I do not remember ever reading it so it was probably told in the show. If it was indeed in the books please give me a source. I'm also not sure if it is mentioned that Manderly is the most powerful vassal. They are the obvious candidate to be sure, with all the more fertile land and money from the port but it was never once mentioned. In fact, Manderly may be able to raise more man through his vassals than Starks can do it without any vassals.

I'd say Boltons have even less than half of Manderlys strength, North is vast to be sure and empty and not every part of it is fertile, the further you go North land will be less suitable for parting and probably also lesser land will be suitable for farming. Manderly both has a more fertile region than the Boltons and possibly more land in these more fertile section than Bolton's not as much fertile land.

We do not know whether his troops are crack or not they defeated the other army yes but it was through surprise and killing their leaders and even then they couldn't hunt them all down, which they should because instead of scattering around and spreading varying tales they may have gathered near a close castle and informed other lords, it is pure lock (or plot) that this didn't happen.

You mentioned he has 1000 cavalry earlier but again I find this impossible. Though there's no direct info on it it is guess worked and calculated Robb has 5000 horse, after the Freys join him so up until that point he has 4000 horse in his army. Do you suggests he can provide a quarter of the horse Robb took South on his own should he so choose? Manderly didn't contribute much but it was intentional, Robb wanted him to prepare White Harbor's defenses  In Winterfell there were 3300-3400 cavalry in total. Robb left a garrison of 600 mostly mounted but even were all of it mounted it'd mean at most 1200-1300 more cavalry joined in Moat Cailin, 250 or so were Manderly so we are left with a thousand. Barbrey Dustin has a good amount of horse she feels confident in their numbers. She didn't send that many Barrowton knights but she sent enough to not displease Robb. Her father is the lord of Rills and he has horse herds so he'd have a good amount of mounted men to be sure. Lockes and Flint's of Flint's Finger and possibly Widow's Watch also joined in Moat Cailin. Do you suggest, that these 4 or 5 houses, which send more than 6 thousand men in total, one of them known to own herds of horses and the other has knights associated with it's seat (Luwin in Bran chapter that takes place in Winterfell, for one example) can barely scrape together as much cavalry as Roose's own men? I certainly doubt it.

Sorry for this but I'll make this calculation again:

12000 men gather at winterfell, vassals bring as many men as they choose  but Robb would gather his all because this is his seat and this will where he start his march. Let's say Starks can raise as many men as Boltons but no more, even though their land is better than Bolton's. With your 4k Boltons,of which 2,5 k joined, this would make 4k Starks. We also know Karstarks brought 2,3 k. So we have 8,8 k. Just these three alone make up more than two thirds of this army. Umbers and Hornwoods and Cerwyns and Glovers and Tallharts and Mormonts have 3,2 k in total? As I said earlier Cerwyns are known to be one of the most powerful vassals. Greatjon demands not to be placed behind Hornwoods or Cerwyns so it is quite possible that he can raise more men than Cerwyns or at least brought more. With all these considered, how can Roose has 4000 men a quarter of which is cavalry and 2500 of it in Robb's army? As in my earlier post I gave him 2000 with Robb and even that was a real stretch all things considered.

 

Riverlands and Reach, together with Stormlands will be next.

I've covered this already.

Firstly, Ramsay gives us an exact number he brought:  Three times the promised number of 200 men. Theon didn't count them. He just estimated the comparative forces. Clearly Ramsay, by contrast, knows how many men he brought, to the man. Theon does not. 600 is the number we are given. And it seems a large portion of them were mounted. We are specifically told that they wheeled and charged again and again, preventing the 2000 men facing them from forming into defensive lines. We are talking hundreds of mounted lances here.

As for the force at Winterfell, I've covered that in detail.

There are at least 3000 heavy cavalry at Winterfell.. That's a 25% ratio. The Mormonts and Mountain Clans are likely to have brought virtually no heavy cavalry. The Karstarks brought only about 12% cavalry. So already, for the average heavy cavalry percentage at Winterfell to be 25%, it means some other Houses would have had to bring MORE than 25%, to compensate for the lower percentage contributed by the Mormonts, Clans and Karstarks.

At the end of the war, the majority of the 4000 men that march back through Moat Cailin are Dreadfort men. That could be as much as 3000, for all we know, or as little as say 2100. In any case, it is impossible for Roose to have lost no men in the entire war, so at the start he probaly had at least 10%-15%  more than he brought back. It seems very likely that he started out with at least 2500 men.

25% of that would be about 600-700 heavy cavalry. Add the cavalry with Ramsay, and he easily gets to 1000 mounted lances. And that means that at the least he must have 4000 men.

As for Bolton not being the strongest Northern lord after Manderly, well, I think it is pretty obvious by now that he must be. Although the Dustins might run him close.

[Corvo the Crow]

6 hours ago, Free Northman Reborn said:

I've covered this already.

Firstly, Ramsay gives us an exact number he brought:  Three times the promised number of 200 men. Theon didn't count them. He just estimated the comparative forces. Clearly Ramsay, by contrast, knows how many men he brought, to the man. Theon does not. 600 is the number we are given. And it seems a large portion of them were mounted. We are specifically told that they wheeled and charged again and again, preventing the 2000 men facing them from forming into defensive lines. We are talking hundreds of mounted lances here.

As for the force at Winterfell, I've covered that in detail.

There are at least 3000 heavy cavalry at Winterfell.. That's a 25% ratio. The Mormonts and Mountain Clans are likely to have brought virtually no heavy cavalry. The Karstarks brought only about 12% cavalry. So already, for the average heavy cavalry percentage at Winterfell to be 25%, it means some other Houses would have had to bring MORE than 25%, to compensate for the lower percentage contributed by the Mormonts, Clans and Karstarks.

At the end of the war, the majority of the 4000 men that march back through Moat Cailin are Dreadfort men. That could be as much as 3000, for all we know, or as little as say 2100. In any case, it is impossible for Roose to have lost no men in the entire war, so at the start he probaly had at least 10%-15%  more than he brought back. It seems very likely that he started out with at least 2500 men.

25% of that would be about 600-700 heavy cavalry. Add the cavalry with Ramsay, and he easily gets to 1000 mounted lances. And that means that at the least he must have 4000 men.

As for Bolton not being the strongest Northern lord after Manderly, well, I think it is pretty obvious by now that he must be. Although the Dustins might run him close.

Actually no. He says he has brought 3 times the promised 200 but I ask you this; He'd say I've brought two times if he had 400, right? But what would he say if he brought 450 or 500 or 700? Would he say 9/4, 2.5 and 3.5? I remind you again that the numbers we get are almost always rounded, mostly up and sometimes down, if the lower is closer. He'd say 2 times, 3 times and 4 times for these numbers, so Ramsay could just as well have 650 men with him instead of 600 or he coould have as low as 500. I take 500 because Theon thinks his numbers to be as low as 400 if he determined their numbers by their size alone and even lower than 400 if he compared the apparent sizes of the armies because Rodrik himself doesn't have 2000 so a fifth of that would be lover than 400.

If you are determined to make the Winterfell calculation based alone on horses rather than considering the strength of all the houses that gathered, then  here are some more, based on your numbers:

Earlier you proposed the 600 to be cavalry alone so Roose would have 400 horse with his army going South, which is 2500 or so by your gusses. You also say some lords had to have brought more than the %25 percent because some houses bring a lower percent so some should bring higher and propose that Rose is one of these. With the 400 he has left among 2500, his percentage of horse is %16 only.

Let's make this calculation again, this time let's say not 600 of them are horse but they are mostly horse, only by a small margin. 350. So he has 650 horse going among 2500 which means %26 horse. only 1 percent higher than the %25 he must have exceeded, which doesn't make sense.

Further more you say some lords exceed %25 and some do not, on this I agree but If Roose is supposed to exceed %25 and as calculated above even with 650 horse in 2500 he only does it by one percent, which doesn't represent he is one of the lords that brought more than %25 horse to lack up for the others, there's still one problem; If hehas more than %25, why must he have 4000 men because 1000 is %25 of it? You can say he fields the %25+ in Robb's army alone and not in total but as seen above even that doesn't work out with the numbers you proposed and the information we have. So again, he can not have 4000 men and can not have 1000 horse.

With the information we have Karstarks field a little over 300 horse among 2750 or so men confirmed and possibly a little more. This is %10-11. Most likely  further you go North lower your cavalry percentage would be because of harsher conditions. So Umbers have probably very little living almost near the realms northernmost borders. We have no information on Umber cavalry but the clansmen have none. They have horses for sure and perhaps can mount more percentage of men from most houses but these aren't cavalry, these horses are suited for travelling fst in the hills and mountains of the North and not for fighting. So if Karstarks have %11 Boltons would have some number closer to it. A little higher perhaps, located a little bit south or a litte lower because of economical reasons but not so much either way. In the south wealthier you are, more able to get horses you will be. This also applies to North but not exactly the same way. North is mostly poorer compared to lands below neck, thier main income would be from pelts of wild animals, logging, perhaps a small amount of mining and what little farming they can do. So wealth is more closely associated with the amount of land and amount of farmable land you have. Roose has no forest he can log  so not much hunting either and almost certainly no mines. He also doesn't have any tax income from a tradesport. He has his lands located between weeping water and last river, on a smaller area compared to most lords. So a small amount of land to farm in not so fertile land, I doubt his horse percentage would be bigger than Karstark's, in fact I very much suspect it'd be lower because Karstarks have a forest near them they can log and if it is indeed theirs and not Umbers, most likely Roose has at best the same percentage of cavalry with them, %11.

So no 1000 cavalry and no 1:3 horse to foot. from Roose. As to the question of who brought more than %25, I'd say Winterfell would have more than %25, and Cerwyns, and Tallharts, who obviously have enough horses compared to the amount of their men they are able to afford giving horses to boys oldest of whom is 19. Umbers are most certainly to have lower than that being furthest North and Glovers can be on both sides, can be lower because of living in a terrain that owning horses wouldn't do much good in battle or can be higher because they are more likely to afford it with income from the forest, logging and perhaps a it of hunting for fur. Hornwoods can also be on both sides of this as we do not have much information on them but they are close to more fertile southern part of the North and located close to broken branch.

As for it being pretty obvious, no it isn't. It is obvious that he is the second power now, after a four fifths of the army that went south got killed or scattered and the fifth that did came back is more than half his men. But no, not before the war, we have nothing to show us he was the second most powerful vassal before the war, which he probably wasn't.

[Free Northman Reborn]

1 hour ago, Corvo the Crow said:

Actually no. He says he has brought 3 times the promised 200 but I ask you this; He'd say I've brought two times if he had 400, right? But what would he say if he brought 450 or 500 or 700? Would he say 9/4, 2.5 and 3.5? I remind you again that the numbers we get are almost always rounded, mostly up and sometimes down, if the lower is closer. He'd say 2 times, 3 times and 4 times for these numbers, so Ramsay could just as well have 650 men with him instead of 600 or he coould have as low as 500. I take 500 because Theon thinks his numbers to be as low as 400 if he determined their numbers by their size alone and even lower than 400 if he compared the apparent sizes of the armies because Rodrik himself doesn't have 2000 so a fifth of that would be lover than 400.

If you are determined to make the Winterfell calculation based alone on horses rather than considering the strength of all the houses that gathered, then  here are some more, based on your numbers:

Earlier you proposed the 600 to be cavalry alone so Roose would have 400 horse with his army going South, which is 2500 or so by your gusses. You also say some lords had to have brought more than the %25 percent because some houses bring a lower percent so some should bring higher and propose that Rose is one of these. With the 400 he has left among 2500, his percentage of horse is %16 only.

Let's make this calculation again, this time let's say not 600 of them are horse but they are mostly horse, only by a small margin. 350. So he has 650 horse going among 2500 which means %26 horse. only 1 percent higher than the %25 he must have exceeded, which doesn't make sense.

Further more you say some lords exceed %25 and some do not, on this I agree but If Roose is supposed to exceed %25 and as calculated above even with 650 horse in 2500 he only does it by one percent, which doesn't represent he is one of the lords that brought more than %25 horse to lack up for the others, there's still one problem; If hehas more than %25, why must he have 4000 men because 1000 is %25 of it? You can say he fields the %25+ in Robb's army alone and not in total but as seen above even that doesn't work out with the numbers you proposed and the information we have. So again, he can not have 4000 men and can not have 1000 horse.

With the information we have Karstarks field a little over 300 horse among 2750 or so men confirmed and possibly a little more. This is %10-11. Most likely  further you go North lower your cavalry percentage would be because of harsher conditions. So Umbers have probably very little living almost near the realms northernmost borders. We have no information on Umber cavalry but the clansmen have none. They have horses for sure and perhaps can mount more percentage of men from most houses but these aren't cavalry, these horses are suited for travelling fst in the hills and mountains of the North and not for fighting. So if Karstarks have %11 Boltons would have some number closer to it. A little higher perhaps, located a little bit south or a litte lower because of economical reasons but not so much either way. In the south wealthier you are, more able to get horses you will be. This also applies to North but not exactly the same way. North is mostly poorer compared to lands below neck, thier main income would be from pelts of wild animals, logging, perhaps a small amount of mining and what little farming they can do. So wealth is more closely associated with the amount of land and amount of farmable land you have. Roose has no forest he can log  so not much hunting either and almost certainly no mines. He also doesn't have any tax income from a tradesport. He has his lands located between weeping water and last river, on a smaller area compared to most lords. So a small amount of land to farm in not so fertile land, I doubt his horse percentage would be bigger than Karstark's, in fact I very much suspect it'd be lower because Karstarks have a forest near them they can log and if it is indeed theirs and not Umbers, most likely Roose has at best the same percentage of cavalry with them, %11.

So no 1000 cavalry and no 1:3 horse to foot. from Roose. As to the question of who brought more than %25, I'd say Winterfell would have more than %25, and Cerwyns, and Tallharts, who obviously have enough horses compared to the amount of their men they are able to afford giving horses to boys oldest of whom is 19. Umbers are most certainly to have lower than that being furthest North and Glovers can be on both sides, can be lower because of living in a terrain that owning horses wouldn't do much good in battle or can be higher because they are more likely to afford it with income from the forest, logging and perhaps a it of hunting for fur. Hornwoods can also be on both sides of this as we do not have much information on them but they are close to more fertile southern part of the North and located close to broken branch.

As for it being pretty obvious, no it isn't. It is obvious that he is the second power now, after a four fifths of the army that went south got killed or scattered and the fifth that did came back is more than half his men. But no, not before the war, we have nothing to show us he was the second most powerful vassal before the war, which he probably wasn't.

This post has me scratching my head trying to understand exactly what you are saying, I must admit.

To clarify, I use 25% as the minimum cavalry ratio Roose had to bring to Winterfell. More likely it approached 30%, to help compensate for the lower contributions of some of the other Houses.

Note that this does not mean that Roose has a 30% overall cavalry ratio. It means the force he brought to Winterfell had perhaps a 30% ratio. 

In any case, despite his high contribution of troops to the original host - as evidenced by his high proportion of the remaining 4000 men, Ramsay is still able to mass men at the Dreadfort in preparation for the Hornwood war, and Roose still has twice as many quality troops garrisoning his keep than the Cerwyns who provide only 300 men to Rodricks host.

It is very obvious that the Boltons are a very powerful House. This quite aside from the fact that historically they were the Starks most powerful rivals, and played the role of powerful understudy to the ruling Starks, which Martin has said was the case in every kingdom, similarto the Yronwoods in Dorne, the Reynes and Tarbecks in the West, the Royces in the Vale and the Freys in the Riverlands. 

Thematically, logically and based on the evidence, the Boltons were the"2nd" House of the North. Until the Manderlys arrived from the Reach 1000 years ago.

 

[Corvo the Crow]

Here's a try at calculating Glover's strength; In Stannis' letter to Jon after Deepwood Motte is taken he says he has 5000 men and growing, he has ~1300 men of his own with mountain clans who would at most be 3000 by Jon's count. Most, perhaps all join Stannis but some were with Robb so the estimation in the wiki, 2500 would be a good number i guess, perhaps a little bit high but not so much. This leaves 1200 for Mormonts and Glovers and their forest clans and survivors from Rodrik's army and some small folk that gather under Stannis' banner on their own.

For a calculation of Rodrik's army: Rodrik leaves with 600 or so men and is later joined with 300 Cerwyns on his way to Torrhen's square. On his return he stops at Cerwyn's castle so it is possible some more join him. Apart from the Starks, Cerwyns had the most men with a lower number of Manderlys, who came in with a dozen barges supplied with siege engines and mounted knights and Tallharts, close to each other in number, an even lower number of Flints and Karstarks again close in number to each other and Hornwoods, which were the least numerous.

I'll make two guesses and calculations, one assuming Cerwyns didn't get any more men from the castle and the other assuming they did.

Rodrik has close to 2000, possibly in the 1800-1900 range, let's take the higher one. Rodrik has 600 and Cley 300 so the others in total have 1000. Leobald can't break the siege laid on him by Cleftjaw with 200 men so his numbers can't be much higher than 200. Let's give him and the Manderlys about this many men, 250 each. Flints and Karstarks have a lower number so let's give them 200 each. 100 remains so we have the 1000 men that remains. But I'm not very comfortable with these numbers because first, we do not know if Rodrik has 1900 men for certain and second Tallhart and Manderly numbers are so close to Cerwyns, Flint and Karstarkare so close to Manderlys and Tallharts.

Let's assume after stopping at Cerwyns' castle, more men joined. my estimations would be:

a- for 400 Cerwyns

1- 500 Manderlys and Tallharts  350 Karstarks and Flints and 50 Hornwoods. Possible and looks good enough.

2- 450 Manderlys and Tallharts  350 Karstarks and Flints 100 Hornwoods. Which would again bring the numbers of the first group and second too close to each other so no.

3- 600 Manderly and Tallharts, 250 Karstarks and Flints, 50 Hornwoods. Possible but not ideal in that first group has more than double the second and Tallharts have 300.

b- 450 Cerwyns

1- 500 Manderly and Tallhart  300 Karstark and Flint, 50 Hornwood. Possible, but again first group has double the numbers also if Cerwyns could bring this many men They'd have joined Rodrik with more of them.

c- 350 Cerwyns

1- 500 Tallhart and Manderly 400 Karstark and Flint 50 Hornwood. Again first group and the second are too close together.

2-  500 Tallhart and Manderly, 350 Karstark and Flint and 100 Hornwood. Possible and looks good enough.

Of all the guesses above, it looks to me that a1 and c2 make the most sense. So this means at most 700 of the surviving men could join Stannis but obviously less than that survived. Let's keep it high and say 500, so it means 700 Mormonts and Glovers with their Wolfswood clans and the small folk flocking to Stannis' banner. Asha Greyjoy had 8 ships and 200 men or so, 4 of his ships were on the coast and another 4 at the sea and he had most of her men with her. Alysane Mormont sneaks up on her ships and burns or captures them. I'd say she doesn't have much men, less than 100 as if she had 100 or so she could've taken the boats, which didn't have much men in them, earlier. But let's give them 100 anyway, 600 remains for the others.As I have nothing to work on here, let's split them equally so, Sybelle Glover contributes 300, could very well be more amd possbly is more. Asha needs a month and a thousand men to take Deepwood Motte. From what Jon tells it is not so defensible so i must have had a decent garrison, let's say 100-200 men. Even with taking the lower number we have 400 men for Glovers, close to Ramsays not 600. Quite possibly they have half as many that as I've kept inflating a lot of numbers till i got to them.

So If Galbert Glover left the same percentage as Roose, which is %37,5 by your count, he has near 700 men in Robb's army for 400 and If Cerwyns did the same they have 500 and these are assuming they'd leave as big a portion as Roose the cold calculating man. Add these to the 12k calculation, 2k men Remains for Hornwood and Mormont and Umber and Tallhart and Mountain Clans, which are thought to be 500, so 1500 for all others. Greatjon took all his men and yet all these houses have 1500 in total, just so Roose can have 2500 in the army and 4000 in total. If these numbers make any sense to you then please help me making sense of them as I can't.

And about it I'll also say this, you say Ramsay knows how many men he brings better than Theon so it is 600, well, he says three times but also when Theon said earlier he was outnembered five to one he also agrees he were. So again not fifth of 2000 and not three times of 200 to be exact, these are round ups as all the numbers are.

 

Edit: To above:

That post was, as all the others were, about making guesses and calculations that would make sense for the numbers we don't have (and for some we have) through the numbers we have. For post after post I'm trying to fit every number, given or guessed into what we have (numbers, and other information). So please, make some of your own trying to fit Roose's men reasonably into all this apart from just saying he must have a thousand horse so he must have 4000 in total. As for his percentage of 30, it makes 750 horse with Robb so he'd have 250 in his garrison which can not be the majority of the 600 you say, let alone the 500 I say. For his 600 to have horse mostly he must at most bring %26 to Robb if he has 2500 men. 650 horse with Robb so he can have 350 in the 600 Garrison to make a majority of it horse.

[Free Northman Reborn]

4 hours ago, Corvo the Crow said:

Here's a try at calculating Glover's strength; In Stannis' letter to Jon after Deepwood Motte is taken he says he has 5000 men and growing, he has ~1300 men of his own with mountain clans who would at most be 3000 by Jon's count. Most, perhaps all join Stannis but some were with Robb so the estimation in the wiki, 2500 would be a good number i guess, perhaps a little bit high but not so much. This leaves 1200 for Mormonts and Glovers and their forest clans and survivors from Rodrik's army and some small folk that gather under Stannis' banner on their own.

For a calculation of Rodrik's army: Rodrik leaves with 600 or so men and is later joined with 300 Cerwyns on his way to Torrhen's square. On his return he stops at Cerwyn's castle so it is possible some more join him. Apart from the Starks, Cerwyns had the most men with a lower number of Manderlys, who came in with a dozen barges supplied with siege engines and mounted knights and Tallharts, close to each other in number, an even lower number of Flints and Karstarks again close in number to each other and Hornwoods, which were the least numerous.

I'll make two guesses and calculations, one assuming Cerwyns didn't get any more men from the castle and the other assuming they did.

Rodrik has close to 2000, possibly in the 1800-1900 range, let's take the higher one. Rodrik has 600 and Cley 300 so the others in total have 1000. Leobald can't break the siege laid on him by Cleftjaw with 200 men so his numbers can't be much higher than 200. Let's give him and the Manderlys about this many men, 250 each. Flints and Karstarks have a lower number so let's give them 200 each. 100 remains so we have the 1000 men that remains. But I'm not very comfortable with these numbers because first, we do not know if Rodrik has 1900 men for certain and second Tallhart and Manderly numbers are so close to Cerwyns, Flint and Karstarkare so close to Manderlys and Tallharts.

Let's assume after stopping at Cerwyns' castle, more men joined. my estimations would be:

a- for 400 Cerwyns

1- 500 Manderlys and Tallharts  350 Karstarks and Flints and 50 Hornwoods. Possible and looks good enough.

2- 450 Manderlys and Tallharts  350 Karstarks and Flints 100 Hornwoods. Which would again bring the numbers of the first group and second too close to each other so no.

3- 600 Manderly and Tallharts, 250 Karstarks and Flints, 50 Hornwoods. Possible but not ideal in that first group has more than double the second and Tallharts have 300.

b- 450 Cerwyns

1- 500 Manderly and Tallhart  300 Karstark and Flint, 50 Hornwood. Possible, but again first group has double the numbers also if Cerwyns could bring this many men They'd have joined Rodrik with more of them.

c- 350 Cerwyns

1- 500 Tallhart and Manderly 400 Karstark and Flint 50 Hornwood. Again first group and the second are too close together.

2-  500 Tallhart and Manderly, 350 Karstark and Flint and 100 Hornwood. Possible and looks good enough.

Of all the guesses above, it looks to me that a1 and c2 make the most sense. So this means at most 700 of the surviving men could join Stannis but obviously less than that survived. Let's keep it high and say 500, so it means 700 Mormonts and Glovers with their Wolfswood clans and the small folk flocking to Stannis' banner. Asha Greyjoy had 8 ships and 200 men or so, 4 of his ships were on the coast and another 4 at the sea and he had most of her men with her. Alysane Mormont sneaks up on her ships and burns or captures them. I'd say she doesn't have much men, less than 100 as if she had 100 or so she could've taken the boats, which didn't have much men in them, earlier. But let's give them 100 anyway, 600 remains for the others.As I have nothing to work on here, let's split them equally so, Sybelle Glover contributes 300, could very well be more amd possbly is more. Asha needs a month and a thousand men to take Deepwood Motte. From what Jon tells it is not so defensible so i must have had a decent garrison, let's say 100-200 men. Even with taking the lower number we have 400 men for Glovers, close to Ramsays not 600. Quite possibly they have half as many that as I've kept inflating a lot of numbers till i got to them.

So If Galbert Glover left the same percentage as Roose, which is %37,5 by your count, he has near 700 men in Robb's army for 400 and If Cerwyns did the same they have 500 and these are assuming they'd leave as big a portion as Roose the cold calculating man. Add these to the 12k calculation, 2k men Remains for Hornwood and Mormont and Umber and Tallhart and Mountain Clans, which are thought to be 500, so 1500 for all others. Greatjon took all his men and yet all these houses have 1500 in total, just so Roose can have 2500 in the army and 4000 in total. If these numbers make any sense to you then please help me making sense of them as I can't.

And about it I'll also say this, you say Ramsay knows how many men he brings better than Theon so it is 600, well, he says three times but also when Theon said earlier he was outnembered five to one he also agrees he were. So again not fifth of 2000 and not three times of 200 to be exact, these are round ups as all the numbers are.

 

Edit: To above:

That post was, as all the others were, about making guesses and calculations that would make sense for the numbers we don't have (and for some we have) through the numbers we have. For post after post I'm trying to fit every number, given or guessed into what we have (numbers, and other information). So please, make some of your own trying to fit Roose's men reasonably into all this apart from just saying he must have a thousand horse so he must have 4000 in total. As for his percentage of 30, it makes 750 horse with Robb so he'd have 250 in his garrison which can not be the majority of the 600 you say, let alone the 500 I say. For his 600 to have horse mostly he must at most bring %26 to Robb if he has 2500 men. 650 horse with Robb so he can have 350 in the 600 Garrison to make a majority of it horse.

Let me just say that I am not invested in the 4000 figure for the Boltons as an absolute number that must be adhered to. My position is fundamentally different from that. What I am saying, is that 4000 is the minimum number for the Bolton strength. Because 1000 is the minimum reasonable number we get for their cavalry strength.

So the arguments you make about my cavalry estimates being inaccurate because it should come to 1100 or 1200 may well be correct. But that only increases the total Bolton strength further above 4000. You must understand that I use 1000 cavalry as a conservative number, as the lowest reasonable cavalry estimate for House Bolton, given the evidence. But you are entirely correct that it might well be higher, based on much of the evidence in the books.

I come back to the simplest way to portray my argument.

At a minimum, we know the Boltons have a majority of the 4000 men coming back past Moat Cailin. So I would say 2100 is the lowest number we could reasonably assign for their returning forces. Therefore, I would argue that their original forces must have been at least 10%-15% higher than that, taking them to around 2300-2400 in Robb's original host. At a minimum cavalry ratio of 25%, that would have given them 600 heavy cavalry in Robb's host.

We further see that a significant number - perhaps all, but the text is not clear on this - of the 600 Dreadfort men with Ramsay are mounted lancers. To me, this suggests a total cavalry strength of around 1000 for House Bolton. But importantly, it is only 1000 if we assume Bolton to have had only a 25% cavalry ratio at Winterfell, and if we assign him the minimum number of remaining men necessary to give truth to the statement that he has the majority of the 4000 returning Northmen, and if only 400 of Ramsay's men were mounted. If any of these three assumptions hold false, then his total cavalry likely exceeds 1000. Which means his total strength would exceed 4000 by a similar percentage.

And lastly, all of the above makes sense if we simply accept that even more so than Lady Dustin, Roose Bolton held no strong feelings of loyalty to Robb Stark. (I would think that recent events would kind of support that idea...). Hence, if Lady Dustin sent as few men as she dared, why would Roose Bolton not have done the same? Especially if he held designs on the Hornwood lands, and wanted to be sure that his homeland was kept secure in his absence.

Here's a simple truth when we compare the Boltons to the likes of the Glovers, Tallharts and other lords:

If Torhenn Square had a personal garrison of 600 veteran troops guarding it, then no force of Ironborn, even if it numbered 6,000 men, would have been able to take it, given that a strong fortress usually provides defenders with a 10-1 numbers advantage. So clearly, Bolton, despite committing more men than any other Northern Lord to Robb's host, still had the strongest garrison remaining of any lord in the North (House Manderly and possibly House Dustin excluded), and this without delving into his lesser quality troops. I think that paints a rather clear picture on the comparative strength of House Bolton.