Dany is army-less, isn't she?

[Amaretto]

I wonder how many people in the North are even still alive at this point? 

[Wik]

47 minutes ago, Amaretto said:

I wonder how many people in the North are even still alive at this point? 

LOL ya...I remember when there was a debate on if there would be enough room in the north for the wildlings to come south and settle in, before The Wall came down. Looks like anyone can settle in there now! 

[Forlong the Fat]

2 hours ago, King Perkis said:

I don't believe the Riverlands are a factor.  If Edmure was to make another appearance it would have been after Arya murdered the Freys.  So, at this point I don't view the Riverlands as actually coming into play 

In terms of the Vale, I am not sure what the end game would be.  Just because they were aligned doesn't mean they are against staying under the rule of KL.  I get they are allies and Royce generally follows Sansa around by her coattails but everything has centered on a King in the North or "what about the North."  Sansa hasn't mentioned taking in either kingdom with her.  Nor was that subject broached during the Wof5K *at least I don't remember that convo if it did occur).  

Also, to be fair, the North has suffered more in the past couple seasons then say the Vale.  They've also sacrificed more for their freedom than the Vale appears to have.  So, I wouldn't necessarily put them on the same footing just because Vale appeared at BoB and was in the Long Night fight.

The Vale has anted up pretty well in the Battles of the Bastards and Winterfell.

I don't know if the Riverlands will come back, but I was thinking it would be really fitting for Jamie to walk back in that castle and take it back for the North.  No idea what the status is now, of course, other than that last we saw it Jamie took it over for the Lannisters.

[Forlong the Fat]

2 hours ago, Amaretto said:

I wonder how many people in the North are even still alive at this point? 

I don't see any reason to think the army of the dead got south of Winterfell. That leaves a lot of area un-affected, including White Harbor.

[King Perkis]

5 minutes ago, Forlong the Fat said:

The Vale has anted up pretty well in the Battles of the Bastards and Winterfell.

How so?  Again, I get they were at the BoB but largely at the end, on horseback, and with Ramsey's forces backs turned.  How much did they actually lose?  

Not arguing they didn't suffer at Long Night battle but so did everyone else.  In terms of the North, they've put more forward in order to be separate from Westeros.  You could make the argument that Riverlands have more of a right to be annexed with the North (Wot5K contributions, killing at Red Wedding, and Blackfish held out to the end) than the Vale.  

[Forlong the Fat]

1 minute ago, King Perkis said:

How so?  Again, I get they were at the BoB but largely at the end, on horseback, and with Ramsey's forces backs turned.  How much did they actually lose?  

Not arguing they didn't suffer at Long Night battle but so did everyone else.  In terms of the North, they've put more forward in order to be separate from Westeros.  You could make the argument that Riverlands have more of a right to be annexed with the North (Wot5K contributions, killing at Red Wedding, and Blackfish held out to the end) than the Vale.  

They completely saved the north in BoB. They came down when they didn't have to and won the battle.

[gibberish]

The crannogmen and the hill tribes to the rescue! 

 

And Daario with the second sons and Varys' spider army. 

[Hodor's Dragon]

Of course they can't do this with only 3 episodes remaining, one of which must serve as a wrap-up, but the logical thing to do would be for D&J to go defensive.

First, they jointly send ravens to just about every lord seeking alliance. The Lannisters have few if any friends now that the Freys & Boltons have been root-and-stemmed. Friends will be arising all over the realm, as the Lannisters will be completely unable to exert pressure beyond defending Highgarden. (If the Lannisters lose Highgarden, they can't feed King's Landing.)

Ravens sent--a priority--D&J gather up what forces and supplies they can and preserve them, and it will come to several thousand at least; without going into detail, basically you almost always have lots of survivors of a large battle, no matter how devastating it may appear, and there are plenty of places troops could come from. I wouldn't be surprised if it were 20K, but it's at least 10. Initially they should take defensive positions and repair Winterfell. It can be made into a decent defensive position fairly quickly, at least quickly enough to be able to force attackers to stop before the walls, where they would be subject to dragon runs. It will only get stronger with time.

The naval battle will tell the tale. Face Euron's fleet with 2 dragons and Yara's fleet (which is there primarily to draw Euron's fleet out, which I think it could do), probably putting it to rout with devastating losses. If you lose, you get penned up in Winterfell to withstand a siege for which you are poorly prepared, the Golden Company can get resupplied while it carries out the siege. and those dragons had better be handy. If you lost the dragons in the naval battle you've got a big problem.

But I think dragons, well handled, are more than a match for a wooden fleet. If you win, suddenly you have forced the Golden Company to operate at the end of a long supply line which is imminently susceptible to dragon raid, as is a besieging army. Eventually you will mess the GC up and can beat your way out of there.

Once in the field, there's not a lot of Lannisters left. Maneuver with an eye to grabbing Highgarden, and that should be easy once you put it out that your objective would be to restore the senior surviving Tyrell. Put Sam on Horn Hill and task him to seek support from the Citadel. Put somebody on Riverrun and Moat Cailin, wait for Dorne. Support Gendry in the Stormlands: Arya can probably help and Davos would be influential as well. Cut King's Landing off and it will die from rebellion and disease. 

[Nerevanin]

19 hours ago, palemarerider said:

A couple of Wild Card Armies:

Skagos/Reed Army from the North

Blackfish Rallying the Riverlands (remember he escaped in a Dingy) 

Dorne sending in an Army

Second Sons sailing to help Danny

Blackfish is dead, iirc a soldier reported his death to Jaime.

19 hours ago, MinscS2 said:

This episode gave them more of a reason to rally behind Daenerys (who fought for them) and less of a reason to rally behind Sansa (who hid in a crypt.)

Not saying that they necessarily will rally behind Daenerys, but there's certainly not more of an incentive for them to rally behind Sansa after this episode.

 

So they should abandon Sansa because she didn't stay at the walls as an easy target for the wights, as she isn't a warrior and she doesn't have a dragon to relatively safely fly on? That doesn't make sense to me.

 

18 hours ago, Forlong the Fat said:

Based on the episode, I think all we can safely say is she lost "a lot" of her army. Was it 3/4 or 1/2? I don't know how you could possibly say based on what we saw.

based on who remained standing after Arya killed NK, more like 99/100 

 

16 hours ago, Amaretto said:

I wonder how many people in the North are even still alive at this point? 

As for men of fighting age (let's say 15-60), probably only a few. But I think that women and children are mostly intact.

[Wik]

Someone in another thread, I believe also mentioned that Yohn has the Knights of the Vale.....a bulk of the actual army/men-at-arms are still in the Vale, so they could look to them. The biggest issue being the perceived friction between Dany and Sansa....

[Erkan12]

There should be houses in the Riverlands who want to join the Starks, especially after death of the Freys.

They already said House Mallister and Blackwood rises against the Freys after the Red Wedding.

It's really ironic that Jaime is very important right now, yes Cersei is commanding the current Lannister forces, but if Jaime declares openly for Dany then some houses from the Westerlands should join Dany as well, after all Jaime is the only male heir of the House Lannister after the death of Kevan and Lancel. And he was the one that persuaded Randyll Tarly to their couse, not Cersei.

He also know what to do with the Riverlands, since he took the Riverrun and now the Freys are dead, it's even easier to rally the remaining forces against Cersei.

Samwell Tarly can claim his own house as well, but obviously he would only do it for Jon, not for Dany.

Not sure what Davos can do, entire Baratheon forces are destroyed in Stannis's battles, but maybe he can reach other Baratheon houses who joined the Lannister after the battle of Blackwater.

 

[King Jon Snow Stark]

2 minutes ago, Erkan12 said:

There should be houses in the Riverlands who want to join the Starks, especially after death of the Freys.

They already said House Mallister and Blackwood rises against the Freys after the Red Wedding.

It's really ironic that Jaime is very important right now, yes Cersei is commanding the current Lannister forces, but if Jaime declares openly for Dany then some houses from the Westerlands should join Dany as well, after all Jaime is the only male heir of the House Lannister after the death of Kevan and Lancel. And he was the one that persuaded Randyll Tarly to their couse, not Cersei.

He also know what to do with the Riverlands, since he took the Riverrun and now the Freys are dead, it's even easier to rally the remaining forces against Cersei.

Samwell Tarly can claim his own house as well, but obviously he would only do it for Jon, not for Dany.

Not sure what Davos can do, entire Baratheon forces are destroyed in Stannis's battles, but maybe he can reach other Baratheon houses who joined the Lannister after the battle of Blackwater.

 

Davos could make the case for Gendry being Robert's son. He was Stannis's hand. Maybe they will follow Robert's bastard. 

[Erkan12]

26 minutes ago, King Jon Snow Stark said:

Davos could make the case for Gendry being Robert's son. He was Stannis's hand. Maybe they will follow Robert's bastard. 

 Yeah, but first they need a royal decree for that, no one needs to follow a bastard after all, even Ramsay needed a noble name, and there is no way Dany would create another royal rival like Robert's true heir, it will only make things complicated.

I think the most important thing is the situation of the Riverlands, how they will react to Jon and Dany, and how the Vale will react to Dany. And what Jaime will do, is he going to declare for Dany? Or is he going to stand there with Brienne and not interfere with the politics?

[Maester Vargo]

It really is for the best that her army of foreigners (and Jon's wildlings) was decimated.  She's proven that she will fight for the 7 kingdoms.  The people will rally to her after she sacrificed her invading, foreign army.  Sansa will suck it up and kneel. Dany fought her ass off to save Winterfell.  She has been baptized in blood. Sansa and Arya will get Edmure Tully will rally the riverlands to her cause.  Any remaining northern lords will rally to her. Once Sam makes his peace with it, she'll rally the Reach.  

The Vale will rally to her side.  I would expect the Reach will rally to her as well. 

And they've got Gendry.  Sir Gendry, perhaps?  Maybe even Lord Gendry of Storm's End?

 

Dany will now have the army of the 7 Kingdoms, not the foreign army.  Cersei is using the foreign army.  This is also important.  

[Nerevanin]

1 hour ago, Wik said:

Someone in another thread, I believe also mentioned that Yohn has the Knights of the Vale.....a bulk of the actual army/men-at-arms are still in the Vale, so they could look to them. The biggest issue being the perceived friction between Dany and Sansa....

Yeah, it's quite plausible that there is a nice-sized army of the Vale still in the Vale. But as you said, the Vale supports mainly Sansa. It's always Sansa who talks with Yohn Royce. I think that if Sansa wants him to gather the rest of the Vale knights, he would do it. The problem is that it is pretty uncertain if Sansa would want to do it because she doesn't want Dany to rule over the North.

[Wik]

5 minutes ago, Nerevanin said:

Yeah, it's quite plausible that there is a nice-sized army of the Vale still in the Vale. But as you said, the Vale supports mainly Sansa. It's always Sansa who talks with Yohn Royce. I think that if Sansa wants him to gather the rest of the Vale knights, he would do it. The problem is that it is pretty uncertain if Sansa would want to do it because she doesn't want Dany to rule over the North.

I think it's come to sort of an issue of, does she want Dany to possibly rule the North or does she want Cersei to possibly rule Westeros. 

In all actuality, I don't think either happen, but I understand what you mean here and I think these have to be two things she has to or SHOULD be considering. 

[AryaNymeriaVisenya]

12 minutes ago, Erkan12 said:

 Yeah, but first they need a royal decree for that, no one needs to follow a bastard after all, even Ramsay needed a noble name, and there is no way Dany would create another royal rival like Robert's true heir, it will only make things complicated.

I think the most important thing is the situation of the Riverlands, how they will react to Jon and Dany, and how the Vale will react to Dany. And what Jaime will do, is he going to declare for Dany? Or is he going to stand there with Brienne and not interfere with the politics?

Desparate times, desparate measures. Also Stannis' army were crownlands soldiers not a lot of Stormlanders. The Stormlanders seemed to go away after Renly died.

[King Jon Snow Stark]

9 minutes ago, Erkan12 said:

 Yeah, but first they need a royal decree for that, no one needs to follow a bastard after all, even Ramsay needed a noble name, and there is no way Dany would create another royal rival like Robert's true heir, it will only make things complicated.

I think the most important thing is the situation of the Riverlands, how they will react to Jon and Dany, and how the Vale will react to Dany. And what Jaime will do, is he going to declare for Dany? Or is he going to stand there with Brienne and not interfere with the politics?

I am not saying to legitimatized him. He would be asking for help the way Jon did before Battle of the Bastards. Help the bastard of your former king to get rid of this Mad Queen. Blah Blah. 

[Nerevanin]

5 minutes ago, Wik said:

I think it's come to sort of an issue of, does she want Dany to possibly rule the North or does she want Cersei to possibly rule Westeros. 

In all actuality, I don't think either happen, but I understand what you mean here and I think these have to be two things she has to or SHOULD be considering. 

Yeah definitely. Sansa has to decide what bothers her less - Cersei being the queen while the North is kinda independent (at least as of now), or Dany being the queen while the North is (very likely forever) a part of the kingdom.

[AryaNymeriaVisenya]

Sansa will get the North's freedom. She has to. What else has she been learning this game for?