Westerosi owned Sellsword/sail companies?

[astarkchoice]

Yeah overall the sellsword market in westeros isnt huge vs essos. Tywin sends out for banners and sellswords but he has a week or so at most. We know later on stannis begins gathering sellswords and sellsails too.

Now time is a constraint but also we know yi-ti is at civil war, the dothraki are imtimidatingly coallesing into one giant khalassar and the 3 sisters war is heating hence most of the sellswords.will be posdibly signed up already.

For numbers we know Tywin assembles  one wing of 1000(300 are valeclansmen so 700ish left  ) of  the rest some are concripts the rest are mercs described as horse archers,hedgeknights and freeriders etc on top of the brave companions. Later bronn manages to.recruit like 800 or so more for blackwater.

[Universal Sword Donor]

20 hours ago, Alden Rothack said:

I am aware of the Free companies

small sellsword companies who are affordable by most mid-ranked lords are going to have work most of the time, either due to feuds or trade protection, gold and food alone are going to provide a lot of work

The only small scale feuds we see have individual freeriders not small companies. And those smal companies for hire are going to protect merchants against what? Other small bands of armed soldiers who don’t have jobs or income?

there’s a reason we hear and read of hedge knights and similar but not sell sword companies in Westeros. 

[sifth]

I'm honestly wondering how the Sellsword companies survive in Essos. Is that area just always in war and the Free Cities would rather pay outsides of uncertain loyalty to fight for them, in place of using their own armies?

Edited April 11 by sifth

[Alden Rothack]

3 minutes ago, Universal Sword Donor said:

The only small scale feuds we see have individual freeriders not small companies. And those smal companies for hire are going to protect merchants against what? Other small bands of armed soldiers who don’t have jobs or income?

there’s a reason we hear and read of hedge knights and similar but not sell sword companies in Westeros. 

yes and the reason is because notable activity occurs there more often

there is a rather large gap between what might normally be needed and say The Company of the Cat

merchant caravans will employ sellswords, as many as they can because otherwise someone will steal their cargo.

we know that many sellswords are employed in westeros during the war, the Freys and Stannis among others are noted as gathering in large numbers but even there no company names are given, they appear to be gathered the same as other fighters are by sending out the call.

[Alden Rothack]

1 minute ago, sifth said:

I'm honestly wondering how the Sellsword companies survive in Essos. Is that area just always in war and the Free Cities would rather pay outsides or uncertain loyalty to fight for them, in place of using their own armies?

I'm wondering that too, one of the reasons free companies because popular that very wealthy countries without the people to spare for their own armies that isn't the case in essos

[astarkchoice]

37 minutes ago, sifth said:

I'm honestly wondering how the Sellsword companies survive in Essos. Is that area just always in war and the Free Cities would rather pay outsides of uncertain loyalty to fight for them, in place of using their own armies?

Well theres the constant flaring up of the 3 cities disputed lands , norvos  apparently bloodily contests the axe region with the ibbenese , unknown length of time for massive  yi-ti civil wars and their wars with jogos nhai . 

 The free cities , quarth and slavers  may want a minimum amount of merc muscle  in/near  their cities to help supress any slave uprising (in case the slave troops in the city join in)   not to mention some cities probably get nervous and  hire some just when khalassars get close.  In  peacetime many will probably be broken up to protect merchant convoys on land and sea. A brave talented few may even get into mereens fighting pits!!!

On top.of that theres the self inicted wound of patrolling ravenous slavers (dothraki and costal pirates) picking off people so anyone wealthy will want some hired muscle with their merchant convoys  as they travel ! Not to mention agressive internal political power  fueds [like in quarth] and rival merchants as powerful as minor westerosi lords wanting to wipe each other out!

The offical wiki also says theres constant fighting in the disputed lands (we can assume these flare up from small scall skirmishing to full blown w0t5k scale wars!). It says 2 score companies are active in the region !!!!   and  worse sometimes captains can ignite  wars themselves outside of free city orders (as we see there are bitter personal rivalries between captains!) 

 

So seems theres plenty of work for tens of thousands of mercs.on top of slave troops for hire and assasins.

 

Add in various companies will have various levels of quality! We can assume the golden companys officers may pay out of their own pocket to keep the company largely together for large scale drills and  high levels of training  if theres 0 work or not enough for the whole force  whereas lesser companies will release large numbers of infantry  men in peacetime and expand again in wartime! 

Edited April 11 by astarkchoice

[sifth]

2 hours ago, astarkchoice said:

Well theres the constant flaring up of the 3 cities disputed lands , norvos  apparently bloodily contests the axe region with the ibbenese , unknown length of time for massive  yi-ti civil wars and their wars with jogos nhai . 

 The free cities , quarth and slavers  may want a minimum amount of merc muscle  in/near  their cities to help supress any slave uprising (in case the slave troops in the city join in)   not to mention some cities probably get nervous and  hire some just when khalassars get close.  In  peacetime many will probably be broken up to protect merchant convoys on land and sea. A brave talented few may even get into mereens fighting pits!!!

On top.of that theres the self inicted wound of patrolling ravenous slavers (dothraki and costal pirates) picking off people so anyone wealthy will want some hired muscle with their merchant convoys  as they travel ! Not to mention agressive internal political power  fueds [like in quarth] and rival merchants as powerful as minor westerosi lords wanting to wipe each other out!

The offical wiki also says theres constant fighting in the disputed lands (we can assume these flare up from small scall skirmishing to full blown w0t5k scale wars!). It says 2 score companies are active in the region !!!!   and  worse sometimes captains can ignite  wars themselves outside of free city orders (as we see there are bitter personal rivalries between captains!) 

 

So seems theres plenty of work for tens of thousands of mercs.on top of slave troops for hire and assasins.

 

Add in various companies will have various levels of quality! We can assume the golden companys officers may pay out of their own pocket to keep the company largely together for large scale drills and  high levels of training  if theres 0 work or not enough for the whole force  whereas lesser companies will release large numbers of infantry  men in peacetime and expand again in wartime! 

Yea, but why aren’t any of these locations just creating their own armies? Trusting a sellsword company seems a lot more risky than using your own army of loyal soldiers.

[astarkchoice]

1 hour ago, sifth said:

Yea, but why aren’t any of these locations just creating their own armies? Trusting a sellsword company seems a lot more risky than using your own army of loyal soldiers.

Just as in medieval times companies can be pretty loyal as future work depends on their reputations and sticking to contracts, like so.much of asoiaf everything is based on your pov....the lords of westeros as we see are utterly delusional to think their bonds of feudalism/vassals are any way more dependable than professional merc companies!

 

Theres also the fact we see the stormcrows former captain (prendahl something)  refuses danys offer to betray yunkai  and break their contract as he is ghiscari,  so there is some element of statehood/kinship involved too.  It also reinforces the idea that breaking a contract even for a promised vast fortune is a big deal needing talked over among the captains! 

Also the slavery aspect means large standing forces outside the city states for hire sorta fits as a natural element in case any slave uprising movement sways the slave city guard troops to their side!

Finaly between the slavery and capitalism the free cities have most things sorted withtrade so it makes sense military  issues would also be sorted with such forces but without the nationhood or sense of unity needed for large  standing forces outside city guards.

[Aldarion]

On 4/11/2024 at 7:03 PM, sifth said:

Yea, but why aren’t any of these locations just creating their own armies? Trusting a sellsword company seems a lot more risky than using your own army of loyal soldiers.

They probably do have them. But if there is no constant threat, but rather frequent flareups, mercenaries are a good way to quickly raise troops in an emergency.

[SeanF]

On 4/11/2024 at 6:03 PM, sifth said:

Yea, but why aren’t any of these locations just creating their own armies? Trusting a sellsword company seems a lot more risky than using your own army of loyal soldiers.

A standing army is hugely expensive, and most of the time, it’s idle.  Only the mightiest empires would consider that the expense justified it - because mighty empires need to maintain garrisons, use soldiers to extract taxes from subject populations, and to repress insurgencies.  Imperial armies (eg Rome, China, the East India Company), are just as much gendarmeries, as forces intended to fight external enemies.

That simply does not apply in Westeros.  Nobody views the Kings as a foreign imperial power.  And the free cities aren’t empires either, although Volantis is the closest to one, and their tiger soldiers likely are a standing army.

What Westeros does have is a standing navy, and that makes sense as piracy is a constant menace.