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Armies of Westeros - how different are the Major Houses militaries?


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Our team is currently working on a modification (mod) for Mount & Blade: Warband, aimed at creating unique troop trees for all the major houses of Westeros. The chief goal is to give each house a roster that is unique to them, has its own distinctive advantages and disadvantages and is as close to the book lore as possible. That said, these rosters are also somewhat speculative in nature, since GRRM doesn't usually provided detailed information about armies, so some units are more of a hypothetical nature (To fill the blanks, as it were). And lastly, of course some gameplay concessions have to be made here and there.

Having said all that, we'd like to ask you for your help and advice. We have seen the TV show (which we don't plan to follow as far the armour & weapon designs and troop choices are concerned) and read some of  the books, but we can't say we're lore experts.

To start off, here's our preliminary list of the Westerosi House identities:

 

Dragonstone – Heavy assault, medium armour, no bows.

Reach – Cheap peasant infantry (pikemen, billmen,  crossbowmen). Access to most Bannermen units

North – Axes, low armour (chainmail + furs) + Crannongmen, Skagosi?

Ironborn – Shields, throwing weapons

Lannisters – Good equipment for all the soldiers, least Bannermen troop choices (standarized equipment), Vale Tribesmen Auxiliaries?

Vale – Heavy armour, best knights, most cavalry choices

Riverlands  Focused on polearms and javelins, Good bowmen, but worse than the ones from Stormlands

Stormlands – Blunt weapons and longbows (best archers, but unarmoured). Worst armour among all the housess

Dorne – Horse archers, lots of units with bows, lightly armoured, spearmen specialization

 

Targaryen – Good at everything, not amazing in any aspect. Have access to blunt weapons, spears, pikes, horse archers etc. etc.

 

The basic design principle is that each House has access to their household troops and to their bannermen units, which will provide unique units, sometimes wildly different. The Houses armies are meant to be asymmetrical - not everyone gets access to cavalry, they have different weapons they favour (due to environment or just tradition) and some Houses get more Bannermen choices than others.

Here's an early example of a troop tree:

Dragonstone Troop Tree

What are your thoughts on the topic? What are the strengths of each House, do they have special troops that can be used, or perhaps equipment? Which Bannermen units would you see in their rosters?

We're also looking for someone to join our team as a lore expert on a permanent basis - if anyone's interested please send me a PM.

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I am far from lore expert, but I have written on Westerosi militiaries by drawing on historical models. Here are the links if you are interested:

https://militaryfantasy.home.blog/2020/08/21/proof-that-westerosi-armies-are-professionals/

https://militaryfantasy.home.blog/2020/02/11/military-of-westeros-1-organization-and-manpower/

https://militaryfantasy.home.blog/2020/02/16/military-of-westeros-2-tactics/

https://militaryfantasy.home.blog/2020/02/21/military-of-westeros-3-weapons-and-equipment/

https://militaryfantasy.home.blog/2020/02/26/military-of-westeros-4-conclusions-and-implications/

https://militaryfantasy.home.blog/2020/08/11/tactical-overview-golden-company/

Unfortunately, I will mostly be able to help if you need to "fill in the blanks" with historical models; I cannot really say I am extremely well-read in terms of ASoIaF (I have only read the ASoIaF itself and The Knigh of the Seven Kingdoms, and even latter not fully).

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  • 3 weeks later...

The work continues - we'd like to present to you a Troop Tree designed with Aldarion's help, The Reach:

https://i.imgur.com/2jLjuKw.png

Their main strength lies in the cavalry. However, while it's very well equipped, it lacks training. Tyrell forces are also bolstered by a large selection of Bannermen auxiliaries, from Shield Islands to Dornish Marches.

We're also still looking for a World of Ice and Fire lore expert (someone with a good knowledge of the book universe) to help us with unit names and to provide us with insight regarding various Houses' strengths and weaknesses, possible troop choices etc.

If anyone's interested, please send me a personal message.

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On 10/5/2020 at 9:04 AM, Dragonstone Knight said:

Our team is currently working on a modification (mod) for Mount & Blade: Warband, aimed at creating unique troop trees for all the major houses of Westeros. The chief goal is to give each house a roster that is unique to them, has its own distinctive advantages and disadvantages and is as close to the book lore as possible. That said, these rosters are also somewhat speculative in nature, since GRRM doesn't usually provided detailed information about armies, so some units are more of a hypothetical nature (To fill the blanks, as it were). And lastly, of course some gameplay concessions have to be made here and there.

Having said all that, we'd like to ask you for your help and advice. We have seen the TV show (which we don't plan to follow as far the armour & weapon designs and troop choices are concerned) and read some of  the books, but we can't say we're lore experts.

To start off, here's our preliminary list of the Westerosi House identities:

 

Dragonstone – Heavy assault, medium armour, no bows.

Reach – Cheap peasant infantry (pikemen, billmen,  crossbowmen). Access to most Bannermen units

North – Axes, low armour (chainmail + furs) + Crannongmen, Skagosi?

Ironborn – Shields, throwing weapons

Lannisters – Good equipment for all the soldiers, least Bannermen troop choices (standarized equipment), Vale Tribesmen Auxiliaries?

Vale – Heavy armour, best knights, most cavalry choices

Riverlands  Focused on polearms and javelins, Good bowmen, but worse than the ones from Stormlands

Stormlands – Blunt weapons and longbows (best archers, but unarmoured). Worst armour among all the housess

Dorne – Horse archers, lots of units with bows, lightly armoured, spearmen specialization

 

Targaryen – Good at everything, not amazing in any aspect. Have access to blunt weapons, spears, pikes, horse archers etc. etc.

 

The basic design principle is that each House has access to their household troops and to their bannermen units, which will provide unique units, sometimes wildly different. The Houses armies are meant to be asymmetrical - not everyone gets access to cavalry, they have different weapons they favour (due to environment or just tradition) and some Houses get more Bannermen choices than others.

Here's an early example of a troop tree:

Dragonstone Troop Tree

What are your thoughts on the topic? What are the strengths of each House, do they have special troops that can be used, or perhaps equipment? Which Bannermen units would you see in their rosters?

We're also looking for someone to join our team as a lore expert on a permanent basis - if anyone's interested please send me a PM.

Interesting work, I like the tree design - reminds me of old Disciples turn based strategy.

I wonder what people think about military  units added in Card Games by FFG or Asoiaf Tabletop game by CMON?

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20 hours ago, Eltharion21 said:

Interesting work, I like the tree design - reminds me of old Disciples turn based strategy.

I wonder what people think about military  units added in Card Games by FFG or Asoiaf Tabletop game by CMON?

We're sometimes inspired by these, for example, here's our sneak-peek Stormlands:

https://i.imgur.com/1E9Y89r.png

Stag Knights are in the tabletop and Knights of the Storm in the card game.

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