Military Strengths-2 and More!

[Free Northman Reborn]

11 minutes ago, Lord Varys said:

But that's how it is and we have to deal with that.

And Wex's story might not be his whole story. I'm pretty sure Wex must have been with Osha and Rickon or a while, or else he would have never known that they were going to Skagos.

The smart thing to do would have to take the boy in and have him go to Stark loyalists to inform them where Rickon went so that somebody knew.

I mean, the idea that Wex was recognized as Ironborn by Manderly's men is ridiculous. He is mute, and one assume that he wasn't running around in Greyjoy colors after he left Winterfell. He is smart. And why on earth should anyone ask a mute commoner for information on Winterfell?

Why? Because it is a shoehorned plotthread. Nothing about it makes sense. Including your proposal. Why would Osha trust the biggest secret in the North to a mute Ironborn raider? 

My point is simply that nothing that was used to make the Davos-Skagos plot work is internally consistent. If Martin suddenly had a void of deep sea sailors in White Harbor to make Davos go to Skagos, that need not be consistent with White Harbor’s broader design, number of men or anything else. Just like Wex following Osha and a magic direwolf for a thousand miles is not consistent with Osha’s woodcraft skills or Shaggydog’s sensory capability.

[Corvo the Crow]

While I agree on the Wex side of the plot, Manderly having no sailors makes some sense.

We are told both in the novels and World book that North has had no power at sea for a very long time. Manderly does own the city but apparently doesn't own any Merchant fleet unlike Redwynes, the only lord we know of to own  a fleet of merchants. Also a reminder is the ships Manderly has were built mainly to defend the Seal Shore from wildling raiders, they were supposed to be delivered to Umbers and the rest were supposed to be the North's baby steps to having a navy. Manderly himself says the crews he has are either fishers of the bite or rivermen, so they are people living in his lands and not sailors taken from foreign Merchant ships. Another reminder is that Davos is no warship captain either, Manderly mainly wants him for his smuggling knowledge and mentions that as well. I doubt that Davos will set sail with the entire fleet, as then what would be the point of using a smuggler? At most he would be given a few ships packed with soldiers so he could have an escort, both in the sea and on land in Skagos.

[Lord Varys]

I'm inclined to believe that George has thought on the matter more in-depth than @Free Northman Reborn has done.

The very fact that Manderly feels the need to use a smuggler implies that there might be some caveats attached to the 'Skagos thing', caveats Wyman could only know about if he knew more about where exactly Rickon went, who on Skagos Osha intended to approach, etc. A rather interesting twist on that thing would be if it turned out that the Manderlys/Starks are actually not all that popular with the Skagosi Osha went to - perhaps because of things going back to the Skagos Rebellion. That could imply why they would need a smuggler. I mean, the Skagosi are sworn to Winterfell. Why cannot Lord Wyman just sent some envoy to Skagos? He and the Skagosi are not enemies, no?

Any sane person would have first tried to find out whether Osha actually reached some port/place from where she did go to Skagos by ship. If somebody caught her and the boy on the way to the shore Davos' entire mission would be nonsensical.

The idea with the Wex thing is that Osha would have taken the boy under her wing, of course, before they separated. Whether she sent him to White Harbor, whether they were separated, how Wex ended up with the Manderlys, etc. remains to be seen. But it is quite clear that the boy only 'told' Wyman's people what he wanted to tell them. Wex was smart enough to evade both Ramsay's men and the Reeds and possibly Osha. Chances that some Manderlys recognized him as an Ironborn of significance is ridiculous. Especially since he is mute. Mute people usually are seen as half or complete lackwits in a medieval setting. Nobody would ask such a person anything of importance unless they had good reason that he witnessed something.

And since Manderly's men (aside from those Ramsay killed) never came to Winterfell, there is no inherent reason to assume whoever found Wex actually connected the dots without the boy helping them to connect them. If Wex hadn't made attempts to convince Lord Wyman and Robett Glover (and whoever he interacted with before he was brought to them) that he actually came from Winterfell and knew that Bran and Rickon were still alive and where the latter went, they would have never suspected that he knew such things.

That is telling in and of itself.

We don't have the full story there, only the things Robett and Wyman wanted to tell Davos. We cannot fill the blankets at this point.

I'm pretty sure they will only take on ship to Skagos. Anything else would indeed beat the point of them needing Davos.

But in the end at this point we have no reason to assume Wyman has manned ships hidden up the White Knife. Could be empty ships with just a few men guarding them.

[rotting sea cow]

21 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

I don't think there is any indication that Manderlys men are on a suicide mission, too. I mean, Manderly is the fat man who cannot run, cannot fight, cannot ride. His men hopefully are in better shape. And they go out into battle, they are not stuck in Winterfell with Roose, Ramsay, and their men.

 

But they know that now, they couldn't know it before hand. As I said before, my wild speculation of the issue was that WH troops would be the ones taking Winterfell if Davos is able to retrieve Rickon in a timely manner (in principle there has been enough time). This would give WH also a better political standing vs the other lords.  But again, speculation.

 

21 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

At this point, though, there is no indication that Lord Wyman is or has been hiring any sailors, no? And Davos entered White Harbor by ship and hung out in sailors' dens before he presented himself to the Manderlys.

Finding sailors shouldn't be the problem, it is a port city in the end, half of the men should know how to row or tend sails. Training them for deep water operations should be easy in comparison to train them for naval battle manoeuvres. And you still need captains who are able to understand a thing or two about naval battles. So, we agree, the fleet is not very useful against any other proper fleet.

This doesn't mean he doesn't have the men to crew the ship and the men who the ship would take to war.

 

 

21 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

One can see something growing out of that whole thing with Stannis being the former Master of Ships and the Braavosi loans

Or from the ironborn at Tohrren's Square

[rotting sea cow]

20 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

But that's how it is and we have to deal with that.

Indeed

20 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

 And why on earth should anyone ask a mute commoner for information on Winterfell?

and how on the earth a random Dothraki managed to enter the greatest city that ever was or ever will be and was able to speak to and convince very important people so they let Dany, her Dothraki and dragons in. Every time I think about it I get furious

We all know that the Qarth's plot is a contrived absurdity that makes no sense.

But that's how it is and we have to deal with that.

[rotting sea cow]

18 hours ago, Corvo the Crow said:

Another reminder is that Davos is no warship captain either, Manderly mainly wants him for his smuggling knowledge and mentions that as well. I doubt that Davos will set sail with the entire fleet, as then what would be the point of using a smuggler? At most he would be given a few ships packed with soldiers so he could have an escort, both in the sea and on land in Skagos.

It is true that Manderly wanted Davos because of his smuggling experience and it is very unlikely he is to take more than one ship to look for Rickon. However, Davos has been hanging around Stannis for already a long while and certainly has learned a thing or two about naval wars. It is not unlikely that he was with Stannis when the later smashed Victarion's Iron Fleet.  Furthermore, he has been living on the decks all his life and has certainly heard stories of battles. I wouldn't dismiss Davos as a competent battle commander.

[Corvo the Crow]

1 hour ago, rotting sea cow said:

It is true that Manderly wanted Davos because of his smuggling experience and it is very unlikely he is to take more than one ship to look for Rickon. However, Davos has been hanging around Stannis for already a long while and certainly has learned a thing or two about naval wars. It is not unlikely that he was with Stannis when the later smashed Victarion's Iron Fleet.  Furthermore, he has been living on the decks all his life and has certainly heard stories of battles. I wouldn't dismiss Davos as a competent battle commander.

 

Text does imply he's seen some battles. Whether it's naval or not, we aren't told. Also a "battle commander" and captain of a battle shi are two different things. Imry Florent is assigned the admiral of Stannis' fleet during the attack on KL and since he's given a battleship, perhaps he is a competent captain but we see how he failed as an admiral.

 

The decks he's been living on are the ones of smuggler ships. They don't do battles and neither would the pirates like his friend Salla, unless they have to that is. Likes of Salladhor Saan pick on easy prey, and sell them to likes of Davos so they are legitimate goods.

[rotting sea cow]

44 minutes ago, Corvo the Crow said:

 

Text does imply he's seen some battles. Whether it's naval or not, we aren't told. Also a "battle commander" and captain of a battle shi are two different things. Imry Florent is assigned the admiral of Stannis' fleet during the attack on KL and since he's given a battleship, perhaps he is a competent captain but we see how he failed as an admiral.

 

The decks he's been living on are the ones of smuggler ships. They don't do battles and neither would the pirates like his friend Salla, unless they have to that is. Likes of Salladhor Saan pick on easy prey, and sell them to likes of Davos so they are legitimate goods.

Davos stopped smuggling 16 years ago.  During that time he became the most trusted of Stannis advisors and Stannis is not a man to get talent wasted. Stannis himself was not a seaman, like Victarion or Aurane Waters or Davos, but chances are he read every damn book about naval strategy in the 7K and consulted with anyone who showed deep knowledge of sea affairs, like Davos. Stannis most certainly drilled battle manoeuvres many times to understand the said strategies, chances are that Davos participated in them and was consulted of his opinion. Otherwise Stannis wouldn't have smashed the Iron Fleet as he did.  Chances are that Davos was also there.

Yes, nothing is explicitly stated in the text, but we know a lot about Stannis character and his relation with Davos. It would be a surprise if Davos only activities after getting his lands were hunting and making babies with Marya. The fact that Davos owned a ship (Black Betha) indicates he was often at the sea and that ship was battle battle capable as she participated in the Blackwater.

And, since you mention Imry Florent, the text is quite clear that Davos got better battle instincts than Imry Florent. If he was the admiral maybe things would have gone differently for Stannis.

 

[Lord Varys]

2 hours ago, rotting sea cow said:

But they know that now, they couldn't know it before hand. As I said before, my wild speculation of the issue was that WH troops would be the ones taking Winterfell if Davos is able to retrieve Rickon in a timely manner (in principle there has been enough time). This would give WH also a better political standing vs the other lords.  But again, speculation.

Those 300 men are not taking anything. Not with Roose having 3,000 Red Wedding veterans with him, 2,000 Freys, and additional Dustin and Ryswell troops. Those would-be traitors all didn't exactly bring that many troops to Winterfell. Not Wyman, not Hother, nor the other guys.

300 men could perhaps try to open a gate to let Stannis' men in, but they could not hope to take such a castle.

2 hours ago, rotting sea cow said:

Finding sailors shouldn't be the problem, it is a port city in the end, half of the men should know how to row or tend sails. Training them for deep water operations should be easy in comparison to train them for naval battle manoeuvres. And you still need captains who are able to understand a thing or two about naval battles. So, we agree, the fleet is not very useful against any other proper fleet.

This doesn't mean he doesn't have the men to crew the ship and the men who the ship would take to war.

My point was that Davos learns that Wyman is recruiting refugee men, not sailors. He would have heard if Lord Wyman was looking for sailors, too, no?

2 hours ago, rotting sea cow said:

Or from the ironborn at Tohrren's Square

They will be treated the same way as Asha's men. Stannis is not the forgiving type, and they have to pay for their attack on the North. The highborn might live, the rest is going to be killed.

2 hours ago, rotting sea cow said:

and how on the earth a random Dothraki managed to enter the greatest city that ever was or ever will be and was able to speak to and convince very important people so they let Dany, her Dothraki and dragons in. Every time I think about it I get furious

LOL, I think you confuse some things here. A single Dothraki got to Qarth and told the people there about the Mother of Dragons - and then the people interested in this story accompanied him to check the story out for themselves.

They only let Dany in after they saw the dragons, right? And Pyat Pree and Xaro Xhaon Daxos were pretty important people, no?

2 hours ago, rotting sea cow said:

We all know that the Qarth's plot is a contrived absurdity that makes no sense.

But that's how it is and we have to deal with that.

I don't think this plot is all that absurd. It is a city of different factions and most powerful people there treat Daenerys and her dragons as an interesting curiosity, something that amuses them for a time. Only very few people grasp what they could do with her and her dragons, and those who actually rule the city - the Pureborn - simply don't care all that much.

Dany is to Qarth what Jalabhar Xho is to KL.

2 hours ago, rotting sea cow said:

It is true that Manderly wanted Davos because of his smuggling experience and it is very unlikely he is to take more than one ship to look for Rickon. However, Davos has been hanging around Stannis for already a long while and certainly has learned a thing or two about naval wars. It is not unlikely that he was with Stannis when the later smashed Victarion's Iron Fleet.  Furthermore, he has been living on the decks all his life and has certainly heard stories of battles. I wouldn't dismiss Davos as a competent battle commander.

Davos makes it clear in ACoK that he no warship captain and isn't comfortable leading a warship in Stannis' fleet. He has a ship, but he doesn't seem to have seen any naval battles since he entered Stannis' service.

[Corvo the Crow]

So since in fire and blood section the ~55000 army was talked about again;

 

- it was five thousand knights and ten times as many men-at-arms and freeriders according to Tyrion and it was fiftyfive thousand strong with more than five thousand knights according to worldbook.

- Hightowers have withheld their power.

- It had some six hundred lords, great and small, according to world book and six hundred banners, according to Tyrion.

 

Now, I'm sure these six hundred banners include the landed knights as well because;

- Not all the lords have a maester for ravening, smaller ones aspire to have one and most landed knights likely don't have one.

- There were only three hundred white ravens heralding the winter of 130ac. So this is the number of castles with maesters, westeros wide.

- Stannis sent just two score ravens, calling the lords of the North to his cause. These would only be sent to the lords not on Bolton's side at the time so there would be some more lords with maesters, but not as many.

So, every ruler has his banner, landed knights are also "lords" in the sense of a land holder only. not all rulers have maesters but all of them have banners.

We don't know what portion of their strength these rulers brought, some would bring it all while some would only bring as many to escape his liege's wroth but (almost) all of them would send some soldiers and be present himself or send a son, brother, uncle or some other relative, so his banner will be flying above his troops.

 

This post is intended as a template for further discussion on many things like;

- how many men does Reach or Westerlands or Stormlands(since it also has combined strength with Reach at sometime)

- how many men does a "lord,  great or small" have on average or minimum known strengths of them.

- how many "lords, great or small" are there in each region.

- how many of these "lords" in each region are great enough to have their own maesters.

- at what point a lord is considered "great" or at least what is the minimum strength of a "great lord", with the criteria just being having a maester.

 

I may add quotes for each of the information provided above but don't feel it's necessary with years of back and forth on them.

 

[Free Northman Reborn]

So roughly 90 men for each of the 600 “banners” in the army. 

Not sure it tells us much more than that, given that we don’t know what portion of the regions’ total strength the 55k represented.

[Corvo the Crow]

So starting with average number of men per ruler, there would be some estimatiıns of course and sone speculation on some numbers.

also bear in mind, a richer lord will have more men simply because he can afford more and one with a bigger castle would have more men simply because he can house more men and would need more to defend a bigger castle even without the men provided by his vassals. But as said, this is an average of the entire realm  

- We see 55000 men with 600 rulers, that is 91,67 or 92 men per ruler(knights and lords) on average.

- There are two score clans of the North(west)ern mountains that are, according to Jon, on a power comparable to what would be considered "lesser lords" by southern standards, though some of these are "powerful" enough to have their own maesters. These lords, again according to Jon, can provide two or maybe even three thousand men even after sending many(enough to survive until RW) with Robb.  Speculation here, if there were 1000 with Robb and 3000 with Stannis, these would make an average of 100 per ruler, similar to that of Reach-Westerman force which had rulers ranging from lord paramount to landed knights. Bear in mind though, clansmen, unlike other rulers, would not have vassals.

 

Maegor, when facing Aegon, raised near 4000 men, of which 400 were knights, from a score of lords, lords from the Crownland and of Harrenhal. This would make 200 men per "lord" and not ruler since this 20 is only the lords and perhaps also landed knights sworn to Maegor but not lords/landed knights sworn to these lords. 

Speculation here, Duskendale, together with Maidenpool(which is not a small town but is a smaller town), raised 3000 men during the conquest. Harrenhal is a powerful seat with rich and extensive lands though it's lands were distributed among several lords at the time. Being conservative here and giving Duskendale 1500 men despite being a bigger town than Maidenpool and giving Harrenhal just 500 men(for comparison Tallharts raise near 300 men for Rodrik's host alone) it leaves around a hundred men on average for the rest of these lords and this is not counting any knights they have as rulers.

 

Low on battery atm, will continue in a few hours.

 

[Corvo the Crow]

1 hour ago, Free Northman Reborn said:

So roughly 90 men for each of the 600 “banners” in the army. 

Not sure it tells us much more than that, given that we don’t know what portion of the regions’ total strength the 55k represented.

Tells more than that, actually. Almost certainly there were some who brought all their strength but most rulers left some men back home, with some leaving as many behind as they can. This means  that average of men per ruler is more than the 90 men found here and Lannisters and Gardeners(even when Hightowers are excluded) both had more men back home. So for these two regions, when all rulers are taken into account, the average is higher than 90 men per ruler with all the rulers taken into account. Some rulers will be like Eustace Osgrey with just 3 "men" garrison or perhaps a bit better like Roger Hogg with 10 men and having some more men they can raise from their lands, obviously lowering the average where as some will have 200 men alone just garrisoning their castles like Starks and Tullys with even a select few having thousands of guards, knights and such because they have a city, obviously increasing the average.

 

As in the above post, crownlands average is around 100 per ruler if we don't count landed knights, and would be much lower than that when they are included… but, I think taking these two regions and not crown lands would be healthier and give us a better idea since these two are "proper" regions with hundreds of rulers ranging from the lowly landed knight Eustace Osgrey to the powerful Reynes or even Hightowers and not just some scattering of lesser lords(except Darklyns) with at best a few landed knights beneath them as it is in Crownlands. 

 

Of course these two regions are the richest two in the realm so all else being equal(which by the way is not with Reach's lands) they would be able to afford more men for garrisoning their keeps. but this is just to give an idea.

Vassal structure wouldn't change much either; More powerful lords like Manderly or Osgreys of old would have more landed knights to have a more direct control of their land but also have lords as having only landed knights would be cumbersome and a proper lord's castle would be a proper power base in the region where as a tower house owned by a land wouldn't be.

 

So when we see, say, Karstarks raising near 3000 men (can't recall exactly how much) to date, looking at the roughly 100 men of equal-of-lesser lord clansmen and the lesser lords of Crownlands, we can think " yes, this is roughly the equal of 30 lesser lord level houses, but there would be landed knights as well as smaller lords and Karstarks" and looking also at the average for the 600 banners, we can say " yes the average for them is obviously more than 90 so Karstarks with 3000 men have, obviously, fewer than 30 banners in their realm." or perhaps  "Darklyns' 1500-2000 men would mean they have at most 20 banners but they own a rather big town with many guards just for that, they would have fewer vassals than that".

 

This is just some guess/estimation on a lord we know nothing about exactly how many and what kind of bannermen he has though so saying Osgreys of old had twelve thousand men because they had a hundred landed knights and a score of lesser lords would be wrong, for them we can say at best "average lesser lord, from our knowledge to date, could have around 100 men, so Osgrey strength being around 2000 from just lesser lords is almost a certainty."

 

We could go into some more detail with some more info like how many rulers with maesters in each region are there and how many rulers are there on average for a single maester?

[Free Northman Reborn]

2 minutes ago, Corvo the Crow said:

Tells more than that, actually. Almost certainly there were some who brought all their strength but most rulers left some men back home, with some leaving as many behind as they can. This means  that average of men per ruler is more than the 90 men found here and Lannisters and Gardeners(even when Hightowers are excluded) both had more men back home. So for these two regions, when all rulers are taken into account, the average is higher than 90 men per ruler with all the rulers taken into account. Some rulers will be like Eustace Osgrey with just 3 "men" garrison or perhaps a bit better like Roger Hogg with 10 men and having some more men they can raise from their lands, obviously lowering the average where as some will have 200 men alone just garrisoning their castles like Starks and Tullys with even a select few having thousands of guards, knights and such because they have a city, obviously increasing the average.

 

As in the above post, crownlands average is around 100 per ruler if we don't count landed knights, and would be much lower than that when they are included… but, I think taking these two regions and not crown lands would be healthier and give us a better idea since these two are "proper" regions with hundreds of rulers ranging from the lowly landed knight Eustace Osgrey to the powerful Reynes or even Hightowers and not just some scattering of lesser lords(except Darklyns) with at best a few landed knights beneath them as it is in Crownlands. 

 

Of course these two regions are the richest two in the realm so all else being equal(which by the way is not with Reach's lands) they would be able to afford more men for garrisoning their keeps. but this is just to give an idea.

Vassal structure wouldn't change much either; More powerful lords like Manderly or Osgreys of old would have more landed knights to have a more direct control of their land but also have lords as having only landed knights would be cumbersome and a proper lord's castle would be a proper power base in the region where as a tower house owned by a land wouldn't be.

 

So when we see, say, Karstarks raising near 3000 men (can't recall exactly how much) to date, looking at the roughly 100 men of equal-of-lesser lord clansmen and the lesser lords of Crownlands, we can think " yes, this is roughly the equal of 30 lesser lord level houses, but there would be landed knights as well as smaller lords and Karstarks" and looking also at the average for the 600 banners, we can say " yes the average for them is obviously more than 90 so Karstarks with 3000 men have, obviously, fewer than 30 banners in their realm."

 

This is just some guess/estimation on a lord we know nothing about exactly how many and what kind of bannermen he has though so saying Osgreys of old had twelve thousand men because they had a hundred landed knights and a score of lesser lords would be wrong, for them we can say at best "average lesser lord, from our knowledge to date, could have around 100 men, so Osgrey strength being around 2000 from just lesser lords is almost a certainty."

Consider that Lord Manderly alone controls 113 “banners”, including his own.

So 600 banners for the West and Reach combined ain’t all that much.

[Corvo the Crow]

1 minute ago, Free Northman Reborn said:

Consider that Lord Manderly alone controls 113 “banners”, including his own.

So 600 banners for the West and Reach combined ain’t all that much.

And what does this mean I am not sure. Do you mean there are more than 600 banners, excluding Hightowers, in these two regions? 

If so, do you mean landed knights have no banner? This would then mean 600 lords, as in rulers with the proper lord title whether lesser or not, which I believe isn't true.

 

Remember, Manderlys are situated in perhaps the best portion of the North climate wise, some of their lands are on the coast with fishing oppurtunities, with White Knife also being an advantage. Their lands would be more populated than most other northern lords' lands and perhaps even more populated than some lands South of the neck as well (Dorne and Stormlands excluded as they are no brainers)

 

 

[Free Northman Reborn]

6 minutes ago, Corvo the Crow said:

And what does this mean I am not sure. Do you mean there are more than 600 banners, excluding Hightowers, in these two regions? 

If so, do you mean landed knights have no banner? This would then mean 600 lords, as in rulers with the proper lord title whether lesser or not, which I believe isn't true.

 

Remember, Manderlys are situated in perhaps the best portion of the North climate wise, some of their lands are on the coast with fishing oppurtunities, with White Knife also being an advantage. Their lands would be more populated than most other northern lords' lands and perhaps even more populated than some lands South of the neck as well (Dorne and Stormlands excluded as they are no brainers)

 

 

I’m just saying that the North alone likely has more than a thousand “banners”, if Manderly alone has 113.

So I’m not sure what the 600 banners on the Field of Fire actually tells us. Maybe I need to think about it a bit more.

[Corvo the Crow]

35 minutes ago, Free Northman Reborn said:

I’m just saying that the North alone likely has more than a thousand “banners”, if Manderly alone has 113.

So I’m not sure what the 600 banners on the Field of Fire actually tells us. Maybe I need to think about it a bit more.

Remember though, Manderly is the most powerful bannermen in the North. No other lord would have anything close to his number with perhaps Dustins being a close second. 600 (50 x12) lords and 5000 (50 x100) also fits with GRRM's dozen to hundred theme of which some examples would be Robb capturing dozen lords and near a hundred knights in Whispering woods, Manderly's dozen lords and a hundred landed knights, Cersei's dozen knights and a hundred men-at-arms honor guard. a dozen scruffy hedge knights praying to Warrior while a hundred sparrows are led in prayer by a septon...

 

Back on Manderly/North banners though, how many "principal bannermen" did Robb have in Winterfell when he raised his host? From memory, Umbers, Karstarks, Boltons, Hornwood, Cerwyn, Tallhart, Glover, Mormont. just 8 and of his 20000 army, these made up 12000 and obviously none of these lords come anywhere near Manderly and the second most powerful Dustins are also not among them. I doubt North would have a thousand banners.

 

[Corvo the Crow]

A small thing, Westeros apparently has Yeomans.

 

Quote

Rise up, I say, and remember our true king across the water. Seven gods there are, and seven kingdoms, and the Black Dragon sired seven sons! Rise up, my lords and ladies. Rise up, you brave knights and sturdy yeomen, and cast down Bloodraven, that foul sorcerer, lest your children and your children's children be cursed forever-more." Every word was treason. Even so, it was a shock to see him here, with holes where his eyes had been. "

 

[wendelsnatch]

On banners, I doubt that landed knights comprise of a banner.  Maybe some of the more famous landed nights that rival Lords in strength may be afforded the honer of their own banner, by by and large I do not believe landed Knights would have banners.  The banner would be the rallying point behind which Lord you owe allegiance to.  As such a banner would not have a set strength.  Strong Lords would have more men under their banner, and even banner men of their own with knights under them.  As such a banner may mean relatively little when gauging troop strength.  A more important figure would be "knights" or heavy cavalry.  Think of this as the "Lance fournies" of the SoIaF world which if going by medieval European model was the actual Knight as well as an attendant cavalryman (combatant squire, or mounted man-at-arms, or serjeant) as well as several attendant infantry troops (spearmen, archers, etc.) and noncombatants in varying numbers dependent on time period and region.

[Lord Varys]

11 hours ago, Corvo the Crow said:

A small thing, Westeros apparently has Yeomans.

I threw that out there some time ago.

For people that are interested, this certainly changes the way property is organized at least in the Riverlands. I assume most such yeomen would be at/near the market towns.

13 hours ago, Corvo the Crow said:

Remember though, Manderly is the most powerful bannermen in the North (...).

This is a good part of the discussion to reinforce my point that using this incomplete information we have on the whole population and military stuff to actually extrapolate feudal relations and the power of various houses on a more general level simply doesn't work.

This is a medieval setting. It is not some modern bureaucracy where everything is properly organized to function. Such relations grew overtime, just as the various kingdoms rose and fell, and there is literally no way to know how many nobility of this or that region is sworn to this or that lord. Not until we actually get information on all that.

In some regions a house may have 30 lordly vassals houses which are all directly sworn to that house. His neighbor may have the same amount of vassals yet of those 30 houses only five a directly sworn to him whereas the other 25 are the vassals of his vassals (of his vassals).

And this, of course, would influence how powerful a given house would be, and how easy/difficult it would be to raise your full potential in war. After all, house A above would command all his vassals directly to raise men, whereas house B would only command five houses to do so, and would have no direct authority over the vassals or his vassals of his vassals...

It is not just the Manderlys that are not representatives of anything - that's the case for any noble house unless we actually get proper information that this is the case.

The impression one gets in the North is that there are not (m)any houses (of note) beneath many of the direct vassals of the Starks. There is no indication that there any other noblemen on Bear Island besides the Mormonts, say. No indications there are any other noblemen in Umber land besides Umbers. With the Dustins and Manderlys it is different, but even the Boltons don't present us with lordly vassals, unless I'm mistaken.

In the places where more people live the situation seems to be much more complex.