Great battle plan! Dubious tactics discussion.

[ferrelhadley]

10 minutes ago, #teamNightking said:

Apparently after waiting 8000 years, he suddenly became impatient. 

You could make a case that once he revealed his hand and invaded Westeros his primary goal would have been to isolate eliminate the main centres of resistance: Winterfell and King's Landing. The longer there was an awareness of him the more likely that the other kingdoms would come against him, its also quite plausable for significant forces from Essos to move. 

He may not have had the luxury of time if resistance below the Neck got seriously mobilised and called for help. 

Though I doubt that much thinking went into his characters motivations on Sunday night. 

[Wik]

5 minutes ago, #teamNightking said:

Maybe the Night King was smarter than we realize and he only committed part of his forces to Winterfell. Meanwhile the main body bypassed Winterfell led by his second in command and are killing everyone and everything on their way to King's Landing. 

Cut scene to the second in command growing a crown on his head and becoming the next Night King. 

Battle battle battle 

Cersei is defeated and becomes a wight. 

The new NK sits down on the IT. 

Bran, seeing all this using his magic sight turns to Arya:

"Help us Jedi Stark, you're our only hope" 

Yeah, I could see it going down like that 

: )

 

With D&D in charge....all things are possible 

[ferrelhadley]

17 minutes ago, Wik said:

You literally used the example of Waterloo, fought in 1815 with, ya know, MUSKETS.

 so there was not a lot of space? Or perhaps you mean that classical battles were fought like the undead did, should I have used Chalons or Gaugamella (we do not know the dimensions for those as well as we do for Waterloo)

 

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This was, or was supposed to be, a castle siege/battle. 

No. Again you are getting it wrong, in a siege the living will die of starvation. It is explicitly to draw a battle without a siege. 

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The fact you think that putting cavalry on a flank or having specific orders to harass an enemy from side or rear is "video game-like"

Attacking the flanks of an undead army at night? They have no flanks, you cannot see where they are deployed, its buffoonary on the part of those bloviating about it. Given what we found out after the cavalry charge failed, the only remaining hope was to somehow kill the Night King. All the video gamers trying to deploy cavalry at night in some kind of "flanking attack" are entitled to their opinions. There is no way to maneuver cavalry at night. There is no real way to do much given the speed of the advance other than either charge or dismount and fight on foot. 

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No matter how you cut it though, the tactics, or rather lack there of, was astounding this episode. 

There was no winning strategy other than killing the Night King. Its amusing people think that sticking the cavalry somewhere else and waiting till it was overwhelmed or that it could be deployed in any other fashion at night. Just silly that they are getting so whipped into a frenzy with such nonsense. 

 

Stick to the video games. 

[The Coconut God]

A few notes on the tactics they should have used:

• First and foremost, I've heard Jon say a dozen times in the previews and trailers that "our enemy does not tire". Well, living people tire easily. If the Night King kept them awake for a few nights, they would have been falling on their feet. They should have had a shift system in place to make sure they always had some rested soldiers.
• Wasting the Dothraki in a blind charge was idiotic. They should have been kept in reserve to secure a potential retreat or used to flank the dead after they engaged with the unsullied. That being said, the impact of the charge was severely weakened by the fact that there was no order for it and no explanation from Jorah as to what they had faced. My best head-canon explanation is that the Dothraki fought and killed most of the undead giants; that's why they died so fast and why we only saw one giant later during the battle. Mentioning something this in the episode would have made me buy the scene more easily.
• Placing the unsullied or any soldiers out in the field was a waste. If there was no room for the entire army inside Winterfell, some of it should have been sent to White Harbor with the women and children, with Bran using his ravens to scout the movements of the Night King and deliver warnings if the AotD headed that way. It was silly that they kept all the women and children in the crypts and they had no contingency plan in case they lost that battle.
• I actually agree on not using arrows against the wights. Arrows can't be recovered, but an obsidian melee weapon can be used any number of times. The unsullied would have been the best units to have on the walls, using their long spears to destroy the wights as they tried to climb them. Arrows should have been saved for the white walkers, and for emergency situations such as an imminent breach. Theon should have also saved an arrow or three for the Night King.
• The living should have known that the Night King would eventually raise their fallen. They should have had a few units in place, comprised of useless soldiers like Sam, Davos and that soup dude, tasked with carrying corpses to a fire pit for burning, or simply with throwing them out into the flaming moat below the wall. Preventively punching an obsidian splinter in their heads would have been another, more costly option, only to be used if they had enough of it.
• The dragons should have used their flame breath from atop the walls or towers if they didn't have enough visibility to fly.

[#teamNightking]

22 minutes ago, ferrelhadley said:

There was no winning strategy other than killing the Night King. Its amusing people think that sticking the cavalry somewhere else and waiting till it was overwhelmed or that it could be deployed in any other fashion at night. Just silly that they are getting so whipped into a frenzy with such nonsense

I agree. 

The real tactics which would have been employed against a force that size in a normal battle would have been surrender or retreat. Neither were an option in this situation. 

There were things I did not like about the episode but the tactics weren't really something that bothered me. 

[#teamNightking]

Just now, The Coconut God said:

Wasting the Dothraki in a blind charge was idiotic.

It appears the Dothroki charged on their own. Arrogant Dothroki doing what they do. What the original plan was who knows. 

 

1 minute ago, The Coconut God said:

Placing the unsullied or any soldiers out in the field was a waste. If there was no room for the entire army inside Winterfell, some of it should have been sent to White Harbor with the women and children,

The unsullied need lots of room to fight. Packing them like sardines inside the walls might have been unwise especially given the undead easily scaled the walls in mass numbers.  The inside wasn't much safer than the outside. Except for plot protected named Characters. 

Additionally when outnumbered dividing forces might be unwise and also piss off the remaining forces that have to stay and fight with even less help. 

[Corvinus85]

3 minutes ago, #teamNightking said:

It appears the Dothroki charged on their own. Arrogant Dothroki doing what they do. What the original plan was who knows. 

How do you know this? If true, none of the characters reacted with a WTF. They all just stood there and watched in silence.

[Wik]

9 minutes ago, ferrelhadley said:

 so there was not a lot of space? Or perhaps you mean that classical battles were fought like the undead did, should I have used Chalons or Gaugamella (we do not know the dimensions for those as well as we do for Waterloo)

 

No. Again you are getting it wrong, in a siege the living will die of starvation. It is explicitly to draw a battle without a siege. 

Attacking the flanks of an undead army at night? They have no flanks, you cannot see where they are deployed, its buffoonary on the part of those bloviating about it. Given what we found out after the cavalry charge failed, the only remaining hope was to somehow kill the Night King. All the video gamers trying to deploy cavalry at night in some kind of "flanking attack" are entitled to their opinions. There is no way to maneuver cavalry at night. There is no real way to do much given the speed of the advance other than either charge or dismount and fight on foot. 

There was no winning strategy other than killing the Night King. Its amusing people think that sticking the cavalry somewhere else and waiting till it was overwhelmed or that it could be deployed in any other fashion at night. Just silly that they are getting so whipped into a frenzy with such nonsense. 

 

Stick to the video games. 

You are literally exhausting.

I never once said that by having the cavalry attack a flank they would win. Not ONCE. 

I said the tactic of forming up all of your forces outside of your castle, with the cavalry in the FRONT, who then CHARGE with NO idea on the actual position of the NK's army, is absolute bullshit, it's lazy writing and worse than awful as far as historic (regardless of if you would like to mock that or not) tactics.

I said repeatedly that having them in the rear or flank would have been more ideal and realistic, NEVER suggesting that by simply doing that, somehow they would have won or defeated the NK's army. 

It is very probable, that the Dothraki wouldn't have sustained the perceived 99% casualties if they just would have been deployed in a traditional way. 

You started off this whole conversation stating that the cavalry charge was a perfectly normal and acceptable tactic for them to have used in the face of their enemy and that it was actually the ONLY plausible use Jon or Dany could have had for them. 

So, keep bloviating on all of your tactical acumen but your theories and comments about tactical comparisons are horrendous. 

[#teamNightking]

4 minutes ago, Corvinus said:

How do you know this? If true, none of the characters reacted with a WTF. They all just stood there and watched in silence.

Appears, not absolutely certain. 

It's been discussed on a different thread. Jorah was commanding. He never ordered a charge. They just go and he ends up with them flowing around him as he appears nonplussed and trying to catch up. It would also make sense as to why Dany changed the plan. She was supposed to wait longer with Jon. 

If this was the case they should have had Jorah at least yell hey! Wait! Or something. 

Typical D&D they waste time on unneeded exposition and where it could really help and add to the story or scene, they skip it. 

[Ser Loras The Gay]

Considering the wights were like, 20 to 30 times larger than the winterfell army's number how do you proceed in a battle like that? Well, if we all remember at season 4 we have a situation just like that on the battle against the free folk. They had like 300 men against possibly 10000 free folk people. And what they did to win? They all waited at the wall and showered them with arrows. I don't understand why in the name of all the gods they had ANYONE outside the walls besides the cavalry waiting to hit when the wights would be trying to climb the walls, I don't understand why they didn't have more archers and more arrows, I don't understand why they used the trebuchets so poorly, I don't understand why they had just ONE trench. They knew the army of the dead were coming for like... MONTHS and the best preparation they had was that? Wtf my dude, it was like they were trying to LOSE. 

[Corvinus85]

3 minutes ago, #teamNightking said:

Appears, not absolutely certain. 

It's been discussed on a different thread. Jorah was commanding. He never ordered a charge. They just go and he ends up with them flowing around him as he appears nonplussed and trying to catch up. It would also make sense as to why Dany changed the plan. She was supposed to wait longer with Jon. 

If this was the case they should have had Jorah at least yell hey! Wait! Or something. 

Typical D&D they waste time on unneeded exposition and where it could really help and add to the story or scene, they skip it. 

Pretty much D&D. And Dany reacted to how badly the charge went, I'd say. The charge was certainly haphazard looking, but I really think that was the plan. It's D&D taking a page from the books, if you will, by recalling all those times when GRRM mentioned vanguards. Except, like you said, no real thought put behind it.

[#teamNightking]

10 minutes ago, Wik said:

It is very probable, that the Dothraki wouldn't have sustained the perceived 99% casualties if they just would have been deployed in a traditional way. 

Yeah uh, no. 

They swarmed a dragon and nearly took it down. 

And yes they were light cavalry. But having 10,000 of them they positioned them in a heavy cav roll. 

Who knows, who cares. Vastly outnumbered and against a tireless, emotionless hoard "tactics" were not going to save the day. 

[Ser Loras The Gay]

6 minutes ago, #teamNightking said:

Appears, not absolutely certain. 

It's been discussed on a different thread. Jorah was commanding. He never ordered a charge. They just go and he ends up with them flowing around him as he appears nonplussed and trying to catch up. It would also make sense as to why Dany changed the plan. She was supposed to wait longer with Jon. 

If this was the case they should have had Jorah at least yell hey! Wait! Or something. 

Typical D&D they waste time on unneeded exposition and where it could really help and add to the story or scene, they skip it. 

No. You're trying to come up with excuses to why the tatic was so dumb. The cavalry was positionied at the front like they knew they were charge FIRST. If what you're saying was true the cavalry would have been further back and charge carelessly. That wasn't the case they were already positionied in a way they could be the very first to strike.

[Wik]

2 minutes ago, #teamNightking said:

Yeah uh, no. 

They swarmed a dragon and nearly took it down. 

And yes they were light cavalry. But having 10,000 of them they positioned them in a heavy cav roll. 

Who knows, who cares. Vastly outnumbered and against a tireless, emotionless hoard "tactics" were not going to save the day. 

The Dothraki nearly took down a dragon?? I'm confused.

They are strictly light cav....having a large amount of them doesn't turn them to heavy cav. They still have the same strengths and weakness (speed, lightly armored etc). Especially against the NK's army, which is purported to have been several HUNDRED thousand. 

And again the whole subject is about how ignorant the writers appear and how dissatisfying the "tactics" they displayed were. Not if traditional tactics would have saved the day (they wouldn't have, we seem to all agree on that). 

It's really a matter of D&D taking some pride in the work and doing something that appears to have been reasonably accurate or practical vs. having this horde of cavalry sally forth and get completely swallowed.

[Ser Loras The Gay]

3 minutes ago, Wik said:

And again the whole subject is about how ignorant the writers appear and how dissatisfying the "tactics" they displayed were. Not if traditional tactics would have saved the day (they wouldn't have, we seem to all agree on that). 

I am one who thinks it would. Using the dragons correctly and using the walls of winterfell as a safeguard and using all soldiers to force a long battle would work for long enough for the NK to appear.

[#teamNightking]

13 minutes ago, Ser Loras The Gay said:

No. You're trying to come up with excuses to why the tatic was so dumb.

Nope. I didn't come up with that. Someone else did. So I rewatched and determined "plausible". 

However, again, at least they weren't saved "just in time". In this sense the death of the Dothroki might have been the most realistic part of the episode. 

(Insert laugh track here)

[#teamNightking]

1 minute ago, Ser Loras The Gay said:

I am one who thinks it would. Using the dragons correctly and using the walls of winterfell as a safeguard and using all soldiers to force a long battle would work for long enough for the NK to appear.

Here's the problem. It's dark. It's stormy. The dragonriders can't see anything. The expose their position and the night king closes from above with a magic lance that turns dragons to undead dragons.

Agree with the plan or disagree with the plan they went with the Bran plan which was supposed to be keep the dragons hidden until the last minute so they could arrive just in time and kill the Night King and save Bran.  

Given how often the "just in time" plan succeeds can you blame them for planning around it's effectiveness? 

 It was also a stupid plan which means it was more likely to work in this universe. 

[Wik]

5 minutes ago, #teamNightking said:

Here's the problem. It's dark. It's stormy. The dragonriders can't see anything. The expose their position and the night king closes from above with a magic lance that turns dragons to undead dragons.

Agree with the plan or disagree with the plan they went with the Bran plan which was supposed to be keep the dragons hidden until the last minute so they could arrive just in time and kill the Night King and save Bran.  

Given how often the "just in time" plan succeeds can you blame them for planning around it's effectiveness? 

 It was also a stupid plan which means it was more likely to work in this universe. 

That, exactly, sadly. 

[Wik]

12 minutes ago, Ser Loras The Gay said:

I am one who thinks it would. Using the dragons correctly and using the walls of winterfell as a safeguard and using all soldiers to force a long battle would work for long enough for the NK to appear.

Ya, I just have to respectfully disagree on that. I think proper tactics could have mitigated the initial disaster at the start. But I think it's reasonable, based on the hype and the show track that the only way they would have won that fight was killing the NK. 

I will argue about how poor the tactics were and how painful they were to watch when you are expecting "traditional" middle age-esk tactics, till I am blue in the face though!  

[Ser Loras The Gay]

28 minutes ago, #teamNightking said:

 It was also a stupid plan which means it was more likely to work in this universe. 

That's not a argument. Just because the show is stupid we aren't supposed to say it's more plausible when people choose to be stupid.