How Big Will Dany's Host be when she reaches Westeros?

[rotting sea cow]

20 minutes ago, Loose Bolt said:

Could Dany feed that kind of horde? After all many parts of Westeros cannot now even feed their own people and winter is coming so there should be very little available food for so many new people.

 

14 minutes ago, Tucu said:

Most likely not, but this might be part of the tale: a large invasion army arriving in the middle of winter causing famine.

Pretty much my take.

Such very large army would cause a lot of problems. First and the obvious one is the problem of coordination. Who are going to be the military commanders? The second is that it will be seen as an invasion and not a liberation and that will have an big impact in Dany's mind, specially because she comes with godless outlanders and a bunch of weirdos as main advisors. Third is such army will consume lot of resources which are scarce in Westeros right now, creating additional resentment.

[Universal Sword Donor]

An army that large would resort to cannibalism and eating horses on the voyage to Westeros.

[BlackLightning]

2 hours ago, Loose Bolt said:

Could Dany feed that kind of horde? After all many parts of Westeros cannot now even feed their own people and winter is coming so there should be very little available food for so many new people.

Yes she can.

You wanna know how? She'll be taking a bunch of food with her. There's another army of farmers, bakers and artisans that will be loyal to her back in Essos.

It arguably makes Dany the most powerful person in the world in times of winter. Because not only will she be able to control/interrupt the supply lines that the Westerosi desperately rely on in wintertime but she'll be bringing a near limitless supply of food with her. Essos is not only larger than Westeros but that continent had not experienced nearly as much wanton devastation as Westeros. You can thank Tywin's scorched earth policies back in Game  and Clash for that

[Lord Lannister]

14 hours ago, Universal Sword Donor said:

She has 3 dragons. Her arrival is meant to ape that of Aegon the Conqueror. She won't be able to or need to bring all of her potential forces to effect a regime change. She'll pick up allies / subordinates after landing in Westeros (e.g. Dorne, Aegon). I do expect her to pick up additional ships and maybe forces elsewhere but there are real questions about how Westeros will react to armies of foreigners

 

I agree with this mostly. Though I think it'll be very interesting how Dany reacts to (f)Aegon. I have difficulty seeing her entertaining the possibility that he could be legitimate. In her head after all she's been through and worked towards, there's no way she could allow some other Targaryen to swoop in and take her thrown. So he'll have to be fake by that alone. This could foreshadow how she'll end up treating Jon as well.

I also have difficulty imagining Dorne allying with Daenerys after their prince died under her roof after she rejected the marriage pact. (f)Aegon seems a more logical choice for them. This is the very reason Arianne was kept single and he wouldn't be in a position to refuse that marriage alliance.

[chrisdaw]

The whole united Khalasar won't cross the sea. Only a very moderate percentage will come with her, something like 15k.

[Brynden"Bloodraven" Rivers]

6 minutes ago, chrisdaw said:

The whole united Khalasar won't cross the sea. Only a very moderate percentage will come with her, something like 15k.

Agreed she has no way of transporting a whole Khalsar across

[Brynden"Bloodraven" Rivers]

Just now, Brynden"Bloodraven" Rivers said:

Agreed she has no way of transporting a whole Khalsar across

But one thing I do think will happen is as soon as the Dothraki land on Westeros, a huge portion of the will be killed by wights and Others and be re animated creating a zombie khalasar led by an Other on horseback who will then battle Dany in Dorne.

[chrisdaw]

2 hours ago, Brynden"Bloodraven" Rivers said:

But one thing I do think will happen is as soon as the Dothraki land on Westeros, a huge portion of the will be killed by wights and Others and be re animated creating a zombie khalasar led by an Other on horseback who will then battle Dany in Dorne.

She's landing way before the Others come. She's fighting a whole Dance of Dragons with Aegon before anyone south is even contemplating the Others being a real thing (well maybe there might be one lone house in the background who believe and are screaming to stop the war).

The whole Khalasar won't cross the sea because they don't cross the sea. Despite allowing her to be their leader and pledging their allegiance to her, they still won't cross the poison waters for her. It's a set up for the end game when...

Quote

When the sun rises in the west and sets in the east," said Mirri Maz Duur. "When the seas go dry and mountains blow in the wind like leaves. When your womb quickens again, and you bear a living child. Then he will return, and not before."

And they ride across the dry narrow sea to help save Westeros from the Others.

[BlackLightning]

3 hours ago, Brynden"Bloodraven" Rivers said:

Agreed she has no way of transporting a whole Khalsar across

Yes she does.

Ships. She can ferry them across to and fro...

[SeanF]

It depends how much effort the author puts into logistics.

I’d have thought about 40,000 would be the absolute maximum.  On top of that, she’d be conveying horses for riding, draft animals, animals for food, grain, salt, ale, wine, weapons, and clothing.  Only the most well-organised empires in pre-industrial times, could mount that sort of military effort, overseas.

My guess is she’d need c.600 transport ships, and a couple of hundred warships to protect them.

[Tucu]

1 hour ago, SeanF said:

It depends how much effort the author puts into logistics.

I’d have thought about 40,000 would be the absolute maximum.  On top of that, she’d be conveying horses for riding, draft animals, animals for food, grain, salt, ale, wine, weapons, and clothing.  Only the most well-organised empires in pre-industrial times, could mount that sort of military effort, overseas.

My guess is she’d need c.600 transport ships, and a couple of hundred warships to protect them.

GRRM has placed 3 khalasars near the Rhoyne. One going down the Selhoru, one crossing the forest of Qohor and one near Dagger Lake. I would guess that in TWoW these will join Dany, cross the Rhoyne and sack Pentos and Myr, while Volantis will have a slave revolt. That will give her 3 main ports from where to launch for Lys, Tyrosh and then Westeros.

[rotting sea cow]

15 hours ago, BlackLightning said:

Yes she can.

You wanna know how? She'll be taking a bunch of food with her. There's another army of farmers, bakers and artisans that will be loyal to her back in Essos.

It arguably makes Dany the most powerful person in the world in times of winter. Because not only will she be able to control/interrupt the supply lines that the Westerosi desperately rely on in wintertime but she'll be bringing a near limitless supply of food with her. Essos is not only larger than Westeros but that continent had not experienced nearly as much wanton devastation as Westeros. You can thank Tywin's scorched earth policies back in Game  and Clash for that

I'm partially behind this. On one hand, you are right. After she is elevated at Vaes Dothrak as the Stallion who mounts the World and at Volantis as Azor Ahai by the Red Priests she will the most powerful person on Planetos. She is the mother for all slaves in Essos.

Volantis and nearby regions are very fertile, surpassing the Reach and much better managed. Their agricultural output must be enormous. Pentos flatlands should also be quite fertile and so other regions. She will have access to food.

I'm however more skeptical that she will have the foresight to think much about the incoming winter problems. Maybe Tyrion will but will he able to sway a "fire and blood" Dany? Will he intend to do that?

6 hours ago, chrisdaw said:

The whole Khalasar won't cross the sea because they don't cross the sea. Despite allowing her to be their leader and pledging their allegiance to her, they still won't cross the poison waters for her. It's a set up for the end game when...

They will, because she will be nearly a goddess for them. A prophesy comes true

 

8 hours ago, Brynden"Bloodraven" Rivers said:

But one thing I do think will happen is as soon as the Dothraki land on Westeros, a huge portion of the will be killed by wights and Others and be re animated creating a zombie khalasar led by an Other on horseback who will then battle Dany in Dorne.

The Wall will likely fall after she lands on Westeros.

Regarding ships. People need to remember that 300-500 ships are in the way to Meeren, mostly manned by slave sailors. There are about 50 ironborn ships and a similar number manned by the slavers. Depending the next steps, she may also have the Qartheen merchant fleet as well as from other cities.  It might be even possible that Aurane Waters and Sallador Saan will join her too, but I find it less likely.

People may think that I'm rooting for Dany. In some sense yes of course. But her huge success in Essos will be contrasted with an equally huge failure in Westeros. She may win the battles military but that will bring little love or appreciation from the people and in the end her campaign may end in a huge bust.

 

 

[WhatAnArtist!]

21 hours ago, Rondo said:

A large army will take the focus away from the individuals who make up the force.  It will be large enough to deal with the Baratheons, Lannisters and Starks.  May those families burn in hell.  The size of the liberation force will be large.  But nowhere near the size that some are proposing.  The peasants and the high born families with working minds will reach out to Daenerys and beg for help.  The people who have held the power for the last years have created a lot of misery in Westeros.  The people will beg their Queen to come home and put the Starks, Stannis, and the Lannisters in line.  Sending them to hell would be better.

 

Calm down with the blood lust. You sound like Joffrey or Aerys.

Daenerys will not bring liberation, she'll bring war. She's there to conquer. Whether you agree with her cause or not is irrelevant. She'll still bring war, just like the other Targaryen claimant - Aegon - has. All war is bad, whether it's caused by a Stark or a Baratheon or a Lannister or a Targaryen. Daenerys is still in the mindset of thinking that her rights are more important than the lives of innocent people (in this case the peasants of Westeros). If she truly cared about protecting innocent lives, she wouldn't be planning on invading with a massive army of raiders and sellswords. 

People arguing about which claimant has the better claim are absurd - it's like arguing over which knife is better to cut someone's throat with. The end result is the same - innocent people will die, caught up in a war they want nothing to do with. Jorah had it right at the start of the first book - the peasants don't care about who sits the throne, they just want to live in peace, and not starve or be forced to fight.

[SeanF]

2 hours ago, WhatAnArtist! said:

Calm down with the blood lust. You sound like Joffrey or Aerys.

Daenerys will not bring liberation, she'll bring war. She's there to conquer. Whether you agree with her cause or not is irrelevant. She'll still bring war, just like the other Targaryen claimant - Aegon - has. All war is bad, whether it's caused by a Stark or a Baratheon or a Lannister or a Targaryen. Daenerys is still in the mindset of thinking that her rights are more important than the lives of innocent people (in this case the peasants of Westeros). If she truly cared about protecting innocent lives, she wouldn't be planning on invading with a massive army of raiders and sellswords. 

People arguing about which claimant has the better claim are absurd - it's like arguing over which knife is better to cut someone's throat with. The end result is the same - innocent people will die, caught up in a war they want nothing to do with. Jorah had it right at the start of the first book - the peasants don't care about who sits the throne, they just want to live in peace, and not starve or be forced to fight.

Who sits on the Iron Throne matters little, in comparison to the threat that comes from beyond the Wall.

But, who sits the Iron Throne matters a lot, in terms of being able to confront that threat.  In those terms, I think either Stannis or Daenerys are the best bets, but Stannis will likely perish in the North.

[Daeron the Daring]

5 hours ago, WhatAnArtist! said:

Daenerys is still in the mindset of thinking that her rights are more important than the lives of innocent people (in this case the peasants of Westeros). If she truly cared about protecting innocent lives, she wouldn't be planning on invading with a massive army of raiders and sellswords

You kind of misunderstand her character. First of all, she's at Meereen, alrough she could be sitting in the ironchair by now. You ever wondered why is that? Because she cared about that place called Slaver's Bay. The innocent, I mean. 

Other than that, her primary goal had never been to retake what's rightfully her, but to find home. Which she thinks is Westeros, the same place his secondary goal aimes for, but still. 

10 hours ago, SeanF said:

It depends how much effort the author puts into logistics.

I’d have thought about 40,000 would be the absolute maximum.  On top of that, she’d be conveying horses for riding, draft animals, animals for food, grain, salt, ale, wine, weapons, and clothing.  Only the most well-organised empires in pre-industrial times, could mount that sort of military effort, overseas.

My guess is she’d need c.600 transport ships, and a couple of hundred warships to protect them.

It depends on how big of an advantage does George want to give  Daenerys. If she were to land on Westeros with an army of 40000, she could just sit in her uncomfy chair and wait till the deed is done. Given not only her own numbers, but the lords who'd be eager to join her. Now we could argue wether Westeros will have enough people to defend itself from the dead, but that depends on how wr imagine the second Long Night. A big ultimate showdown or some sort of guerilla warfare and the like. 

[WhatAnArtist!]

1 hour ago, Daeron the Daring said:

First of all, she's at Meereen, alrough she could be sitting in the ironchair by now

Doubtful. She wouldn't have been able to beat the Lannister-Tyrell alliance with only her 12,000 or so soldiers that she had right after conquering Meereen. Her dragons still weren't large enough to be a serious threat to armies.

 

1 hour ago, Daeron the Daring said:

You ever wondered why is that? Because she cared about that place called Slaver's Bay. The innocent, I mean. 

Completely different environments, though. Slaver's Bay was/is a dystopia of slavery and despotism, extreme even by the standards of the series as a whole. By comparison, most of Westeros isn't remotely as bad, even during wartime. Dany never said she had any problem with things like feudalism or aristocracy, etc. It was almost solely the issue of slavery that kept her there. Westeros does not have slavery (outside of a couple of questionable regions like the Iron Islands), so this issue won't occur there. 

Also, the majority of the population of Slavery's Bay explicitly wanted her to use her armies to free them because of their situation, i.e. being slaves. No such sentiment exists in Westeros, except in Dany's imagination fuelled by the delusions of Viserys and the lies of Illyrio. There are no cartoonishly evil slave masters to defeat there, only hundreds of regular feudal lords, and Dany obviously has no problem with feudalism or monarchy, since she ruled as an absolute monarch in Meereen. To think that Dany will receive the same welcome by Westerosi peasants as she did with the freed slaves is the height of delusion and wishful thinking. It's what she wants to be true, but part of her knows it won't be. She thought about this in one of the very first chapters in Thrones, after listening to what Jorah said on the topic.

1 hour ago, Daeron the Daring said:

Other than that, her primary goal had never been to retake what's rightfully her, but to find home

So why has she spent five books building a huge army, and waiting for her dragons to grow large enough to ride and rain down fire? If all she truly wanted was to find "home", she could disguise herself as some wealthy merchant's wife and get a small house out in the countryside somewhere in Westeros. She doesn't need to violently conquer the Seven Kingdoms. 

The hoops that Dany fans jump through to justify some of her actions continue to astound me. They simply can't admit even the most basic of truths. In that way they're actually quite similar to some of the Targaryen characters themselves....

[BlackLightning]

7 hours ago, rotting sea cow said:

I'm however more skeptical that she will have the foresight to think much about the incoming winter problems. Maybe Tyrion will but will he able to sway a "fire and blood" Dany? Will he intend to do that?

Dany is no Tywin but she's not stupid. And she's a lot smarter than people tend to give her credit for. I guess it's because of all the self-doubt and regret and  confusion that her chapters are swimming in makes it hard for people to see how she has a brilliant military mind.

The First Battle of Meereen was masterminded by her as was the masterful coup and sack that occurred in Astapor. She actually did a pretty decent job ruling and managing Meereen (a city much larger than King's Landing and Oldtown put together) before she started making all of those crazy compromises that ended up nearly getting herself killed.

7 hours ago, rotting sea cow said:

The Wall will likely fall after she lands on Westeros.

I am not sure that this will be the case.

I am thinking that the Wall falls either in the epilogue of The Winds of Winter or the prologue of A Dream of Spring

In either case, Dany is likely to either still be in Essos or on her way to Westeros.

[SeanF]

21 minutes ago, BlackLightning said:

Dany is no Tywin but she's not stupid. And she's a lot smarter than people tend to give her credit for. I guess it's because of all the self-doubt and regret and  confusion that her chapters are swimming in makes it hard for people to see how she has a brilliant military mind.

The First Battle of Meereen was masterminded by her as was the masterful coup and sack that occurred in Astapor. She actually did a pretty decent job ruling and managing Meereen (a city much larger than King's Landing and Oldtown put together) before she started making all of those crazy compromises that ended up nearly getting herself killed.

I am not sure that this will be the case.

I am thinking that the Wall falls either in the epilogue of The Winds of Winter or the prologue of A Dream of Spring

In either case, Dany is likely to either still be in Essos or on her way to Westeros.

I think Marwyn will have warned her of what is coming.  That would elevate her reasons for invading the Seven Kingdoms over and above mere self-interest.

 

[BlackLightning]

4 minutes ago, SeanF said:

I think Marwyn will have warned her of what is coming.  That would elevate her reasons for invading the Seven Kingdoms over and above mere self-interest.

I'm sure of it.

However, this doesn't change the fact of the near-miraculous logistical feat Team Dany is going to have to pull off in reach Westeros.

We're talking about the largest (human) army and supply chain that the world has ever seen. She's not going to pop up in Dorne and say surprise just as the Wall falls.

I suspect that it's going to take a minute for not only Dany to get there but all her armies and supplies as well.

[Jaenara Belarys]

27 minutes ago, WhatAnArtist! said:

The hoops that Dany fans jump through to justify some of her actions continue to astound me. They simply can't admit even the most basic of truths. In that way they're actually quite similar to some of the Targaryen characters themselves....

She has a combination of wanting to find a home and reclaiming her birthright as queen of the 7K. Or she thinks that if she takes the throne, she'll have found a home. Something like that, I'm not a damn poet. 

7 hours ago, WhatAnArtist! said:

Calm down with the blood lust. You sound like Joffrey or Aerys.

 

Burn them all! 

3 minutes ago, SeanF said:

I think Marwyn will have warned her of what is coming.  That would elevate her reasons for invading the Seven Kingdoms over and above mere self-interest.

 

If Marwyn makes it safely to her. Just a simple matter of passing through the Ironborn, then all the natural problems like storms, the blockade and siege of Meereen (though that's likely to be broken by then) and how is Dany supposed to believe Marwyn? Army of dead men? I'd laugh and then chuck him out on his butt.