How good are the unsullied?

[Xcorpyo001]

"By the time the Unsullied reached the city the sun had set. Crows and wolves were feasting beneath the walls on what remained of the Qohorik heavy horse. The Bright Banners and Second Sons had fled, as sellswords are wont to do in the face of hopeless odds. With dark falling, the Dothraki had retired to their own camps to drink and dance and feast, but none doubted that they would return on the morrow to smash the city gates, storm the walls, and rape, loot, and slave as they pleased.

"But when dawn broke and Temmo and his bloodriders led their khalasar out of camp, they found three thousand Unsullied drawn up before the gates with the Black Goat standard flying over their heads. So small a force could easily have been flanked, but you know Dothraki. These were men on foot, and men on foot are fit only to be ridden down.

"The Dothraki charged. The Unsullied locked their shields, lowered their spears, and stood firm. Against twenty thousand screamers with bells in their hair, they stood firm.

"Eighteen times the Dothraki charged, and broke themselves on those shields and spears like waves on a rocky shore. Thrice Temmo sent his archers wheeling past and arrows fell like rain upon the Three Thousand, but the Unsullied merely lifted their shields above their heads until the squall had passed. In the end only six hundred of them remained ... but more than twelve thousand Dothraki lay dead upon that field, including Khal Temmo, his bloodriders, his kos, and all his sons.

-they are extremely well trained in all sort of combat with spear, sword and bow;

-they know no fear(will never run in battle, even against unsurmountable odds, like let's say...dragons);

-they don't feel pain, so they'll keep fighting even if they lose a limb(at least for several minutes until they bleed to death);

-they know no mercy, take no prisoners, aren't afraid to spill blood

If they have a good leader and also good equipment they can defeat any army(heavy cavalry, light cavalry, archers, infantry).

From what we saw in the battle form Westeros, no army demonstrated all of the above.

When they saw they were loosing, they just fled(and suffered huge casualties in doing so)

When they were attacked at night, they didn't even tried to mount any defense

The Westeros armies do't have many knights. They have sellswords, and many peasants that just learned which part of the spear/sword they have to point at the enemy.

They can't perform perfect formations, and even if they do, they can't hold it for long.

Granted, they are some major players that will probably take down at least a dozen Unsulied, like the Mountain, Greatjon, etc, but they are so very few; one hundred at best.

[Xenophon]

I'd take the unsullied any time. In open battle, that is. Especially if they're led by dragons.

That's really all that matters, as far as I can tell. I don't care what the armies look like, I'm picking the side with the flying fire-breathing monsters that can melt castle walls.

[Chirios]

^That's the kind of stupidity I'm talking about. You don't charge head on, on horseback, into a wall of spears unless you enjoy death. If the Westerosi were that dumb, then yes, they'd be demolished.

[Chirios]

triple post, sorry...

delete please.

[Chirios]

deleted

[Talleyrand]

That's really all that matters, as far as I can tell. I don't care what the armies look like, I'm picking the side with the flying fire-breathing monsters that can melt castle walls.

See, Torrehn Stark had the right idea.

"We will fight to the last!"

*Sees Dragons*

"Fuck this"

[Xenophon]

I'd be interested to know how a Roman legion - which was so disciplined that 4000 legionaries defeated Gallic barbarian hordes 10 times their number - would do against European knights that reached their peak about a 1000 years after the Legions faded from history.

Surely the knights were much more formidable than the barbarian hordes of Vercingetorix's time. To me the Unsullied are a Roman legion, and the Westerosi knights are the armies of Richard the Lionheart.

Would the Roman discipline be as effective against armored knights as it was against unwashed, fur-clad primitives?

I wonder.

Well, you've got a semi-analogous situation in the Roman-Parthian wars. The Parthian archers throw the comparison off a bit, but you can still see that the Romans were impressed enough by heavily armored lancers to start equipping their own cataphracts.

As for the Unsullied, if they weren't covered in a thick layer of plot armor, they'd have been destroyed by the Dothraki, or pretty much any general with half a brain. They apparently have no missile troops, skirmishers, or cavalry, so they should easy prey for any combined arms force.

[Hazl]

Well, you've got a semi-analogous situation in the Roman-Parthian wars. The Parthian archers throw the comparison off a bit, but you can still see that the Romans were impressed enough by heavily armored lancers to start equipping their own cataphracts.

As for the Unsullied, if they weren't covered in a thick layer of plot armor, they'd have been destroyed by the Dothraki, or pretty much any general with half a brain. They apparently have no missile troops, skirmishers, or cavalry, so they should easy prey for any combined arms force.

They are said to be as good with bows as with swords or spears, right?

But against an intelligent mixed army, they'd probably need support. The problem is the "intelligent" bit. I can see the Dothraki being entirely useless against organized footmen, simply for not being able to consider them a threat.

[Valonquar]

I think the Unsullied are merely a warrior "caste" with better quality control than most in Westeros, as well as a greater focus on discipline and cohesiveness rather than honour and dueling. That is to say; Westeros is probably filled with knights and nobles who due to bad training or lack of willpower aren't really great warriors, but also many capable knights and strong nobles (I'd consider Jon Snow an example of someone with good training, while Joffrey probably is quite weak in that regard due to his personality.) According to Arya, Braavos is filled with "fake" water dancers, but you also have people like Syrio Forel. Point being that I don't think culture and fighting style matters all that much (beyond technology of course), however training and discipline does.

Beyond that though, Westeros seems to be the most advanced nation in asoiaf considering their millitaries. No other nation seems to have heavy cavalry, plate armour or the same level of fortifications, certainly not the Unsullied.

[Talleyrand]

Well, you've got a semi-analogous situation in the Roman-Parthian wars. The Parthian archers throw the comparison off a bit, but you can still see that the Romans were impressed enough by heavily armored lancers to start equipping their own cataphracts.

As for the Unsullied, if they weren't covered in a thick layer of plot armor, they'd have been destroyed by the Dothraki, or pretty much any general with half a brain. They apparently have no missile troops, skirmishers, or cavalry, so they should easy prey for any combined arms force.

But they're aren't really any combined arms force in Westeros. They don't seem to have any massed Archer units like England in the 100 years war and even if they did the Unsullied shields did well enough against an entire Dothraki army loosing arrows at them. Also Westerosi infantry don't seem disciplined enough to take on the unsullied and the Huge spears would take care of the knights i think

[Xenophon]

But they're aren't really any combined arms force in Westeros. They don't seem to have any massed Archer units like England in the 100 years war and even if they did the Unsullied shields did well enough against an entire Dothraki army loosing arrows at them. Also Westerosi infantry don't seem disciplined enough to take on the unsullied and the Huge spears would take care of the knights i think

True (although I'm inclined to call that part of their plot armor ;) ).

In fact, all the other armies we see are of quite poor quality (or just lazily written?). In Westeros, we have late medieval knights in full plate but their footmen all seem stuck at the level of early feudal levies. And the Dothraki, despite being described as horse archers, are apparently so undisciplined/stupid that they prefer to charge the enemy (and, to make matters worse, they've never developed armor or lances).

[zmflavius]

Depends on which Roman legion you're talking about. Republic legion or Empire legion? Republic legion probably wouldn't do as well as the Empire legion, because Republic legions were mostly conscripts and militia. Empire legion was a standing army, professional, so they'd do better.

It also depends on what weapons they're using and who's leading them. If they're using spears, or pikes, the Westerosi knights would have a hard time getting their horses to charge, and if they did, if they were stupid enough to charge head on into a wall of spears they'd deserve the pointy death that was waiting for them. No, you use cavalry to attack the sides of the formation, or to sweep round behind and do a hammer and spear, but some Westerosi knights wouldn't know that, being, as they are, used to fighting against villagers with rakes and not professional troops.

In truth, I think this really would depend on who was leading them. For example, let's say, hypothetically, Randyll Tarly, the Blackfish, or Tywin were to come up against Unsullied. None of these three are stupid or ignorant and they're professional soldiers, so you could expect them to defeat unsullied in battle using their cavalry to attack the unsullied at the flanks or from behind, especially if the unsullied general was incompetent. However, one of those generals is dead, and another unlikely to fight them. Most other Westerosi generals would be stupid enough to believe that they could "shatter the lines of the unsullied with the cavalry," an invitation to suicide.

[The Undead Martyr]

FWIW Tyrion thinks that "lines of spearmen" are formidable in battle (vs. a "lone spearman against a skilled swordsman") after the Red Viper has his spear tossed to him (sounds queer in text) before the TBC; Tyrion isn't a dullard but he's not a general (or a soldier- the skirmish in the MotM is his first battle, and I doubt he was contemplating the proper deployment of spearmen in any of his other battles) either, so I think that he would have picked it up in a history book/strategy guide. This in turn suggests that a) these startegies are common enough for a "renaissance man" to get mention of them, B) Tyrion is a history/strategy buff, c) Tyrion truly has no social life & read any book he could find, or any combination thereof. Also I doubt that it would have been just a passing mention- Tyrion is pretty clever, so I doubt he would have taken it at face value; he wouldn't have accepted it as a "formidable" tactic if there wasn't sound reasoning and/or historical examples to back it up. In any event if someone bothered to write it down in enough detail to convince him then I think that the tactic would be fairly common.

...I put too much thought into that...

The point I'm getting at is that I doubt most competent generals would be unfamiliar with pikes/spearmen walls- if the Unsullied presented their walls of pointy death then the head general would know what's going on. Given that "freeriders" and squires seem to use horse archer tactics (probably b/c plate/armor/lances are way too expensive- archers are pretty cheap wrt the death they can inflict) so it's not as if the general has to use foot archers or infantry. Now, given the whole "only cravens use bows" thing going on, I don't think the knights would want to stay put forever, and if the Unsullied can fend off thousands of Dothraki (=best horse archers in the world) then I don't think westerosi freeriders are going to do much. So it plays out like this:

1. general sees unsullied steel wall

2. general wrinkles his face in disgust, then gives the order for freeriders/horse archers to attack (send cravens to fight cravens)

3. Unsullied withstand the attacks, general gets impatient, orders infantry to advance

this is where things get interesting: if the Unsullied slaughter the infantry then the cav. probably charge to their doom, but the cav. could flank while the infantry advance... basivally it boils down ot tactics, numbers and discipline like every other battle.

[Alcatur]

As an army in their own right, the unsullied lack most of all scout troops/pillaging parties - of course they would be propably supported by other troops, but then - the quality of those other troops would seriously hinder the unsullied. They are actually suited for battles and sieges - while the second was historicaly extremly important in medieval period, there were usually few battles in open field. General could well defeat the unsullied simply by avoiding major engagements and slowly tiring them - and this was tactics well known in Europe (Karol V of France defeated in this way English efforts in the 100-years war, entire 13-year war between Poland and eutonic Order (1453-1466) consisted of small scale engagements, digging and few sieges after Polish forces were smashed in battle of Choinice in 1454, there are many more examples). For such war the unsullied are rather unsuited.

In battle they certainly are excellent to be reliable basis of formation. With their discipline and training they are propably capable of rapid charges without breaking ranks, reforming into various alternative phalanx formations - under historical examples, I would assume they certainly can reform into square, wedge, stairs-like formations as enviosned by Epaminondas, various echelons. They propably can fight in closed and opened phalanx. I do not have my SoS copy right now, but I think that they can also fight in something resembling triples acies, as well as are capable of digging in and fortifieng; in general, they certainly do not seem to lack tactical diversity.

Again, their usefullness would depend largly on the rest of their army. The unsullied are not very numerous, Dany has 8 000 and thats all she can get. Even if some of the children in training join formation and will be of similar quality, with the casualties she will never have more that 10 000 troops; with armies in Westeros in decesive battles being usually about 40 000 (Trident, Field of Fire, Blackwater), this is certainly not enough to be an army alone.

The unsullied are quite vulnerable to missile weaponary. The battle of Quohor is hardly an exaple; the Dothraki propably faced similar iron shortages problems as steppe people in our world (it only lessened later with the influx of gold after conquests; also at the time of books, the Dothraki are around for quite a long time and they propably can afford large amount of iron, but it was not the same when they came from the steppes for the first time, when the battle was fought). This could explain why there were no problems with shield becoming unwieldy due to the weight of arrows - wooden/bone/stone/bronze/rough iron arrows bounced of heavy shields. Also the unsullied came late in the battle, after the initial fight - propably the Dothraki spend most of their arrows earlier agains cavalry forces. There were some left, but not enough; being impetious and having comtept for infantry, Dothraki charged instead of ressuplying (historically, missile battles could last for days) - and were defeated.

Ranks of Westerosi crossbowmen would be much greater threat. I believe that there are really many of these weapns - for example apparently the entire Jamies guard send by Roose is armed with crossbows. I actually makes sense, since crossbow training is very simple, thus it is well suited for non professional troops of Westeros. The unsullied can propably defeat most of melee infantry forces of Westeros; those seem to be primarly anti-knight oriented with various polearms, which are less usuful agains other infantry.

Unsullied would fare quite well against cavalry ainly due to their discipline. Historically even the XVII century pikemen could be broken by direct frontal charge of heavy cavalry (eg Kircholm 1605) and the sheer momentum of charging cavalry would propably break their ranks and longer lances would inflict serious loses in the first moments, but then the knights would be stuck in the mass of enemy who would not flee. Tactics of repeated charges after breaking the lances would work quite well, but it apparently is not practiced in Westeros. OF course this still would leave the unsullied with multiple casualities. In close quaters, their apparently weak protective equipment would be an issue (bronze helmets would crack nicely under westerosi swords) and given the lower level of metallurgy in the Old Ghis (if they are using bronze helmets, they are propably on late roman level), thier weapons would be propably less effective agains armoured horses and knights; still ultimatly they would stop the charge. Of course, the ranks of knights are more replenishable than those of unsullied...

And I do not believe that Dany is capable of supplying her forces with westerosi grade equipment right now - it is simply not available due to level of metallurgy, and given her conduit i am not sure she can aquire it from free cities - she is somehow not a good partner for trading your military advantages :D

[Jo498]

As has been pointed out, we have no reliable knowledge how the Unsullied ever fared against a diverse force using smart tactics.

their pro's:

- discipline (a big one against about every foe in Essos (like Dothraki and Sellswords) and also in Westeros, of course depending on the leadership),

- meleé fighting

- defense

con's:

- for biological reasons I think a boy cut in his teens or earlier will never become physically as strong as a grown man with balls (or as Brienne ;)). So it is doubtful that you can just give them plate armor they are not used to wearing and expect them to fight as well as Westerosi knights.

- unclear how well they would fare against combined forces with missiles and heavy cavalry, but they probably would have some support anyway

- what if their leaders are killed? they will rather fight to the death than run, but depending on the situation their robot-like manner might be their undoing

- not very feasible that they could pursue and rout a cavalry force on foot.

Plot reasons will be make the difference anyway. The outcome of most battles in most fantasy novels seems due to excessive stupidity of one party (or magic), not on real tactics in line with battles from classical or medieval times... (of course there were real battles decided by excessive stupidity/repeatedly wrong tactics like many of the French against the English in the 100 y war

[Talleyrand]

con's:

- for biological reasons I think a boy cut in his teens or earlier will never become physically as strong as a grown man with balls (or as Brienne ;)). So it is doubtful that you can just give them plate armor they are not used to wearing and expect them to fight as well as Westerosi knights.

- unclear how well they would fare against combined forces with missiles and heavy cavalry, but they probably would have some support anyway

- what if their leaders are killed? they will rather fight to the death than run, but depending on the situation their robot-like manner might be their undoing

- not very feasible that they could pursue and rout a cavalry force on foot.

Plot reasons will be make the difference anyway. The outcome of most battles in most fantasy novels seems due to excessive stupidity of one party (or magic), not on real tactics in line with battles from classical or medieval times... (of course there were real battles decided by excessive stupidity/repeatedly wrong tactics like many of the French against the English in the 100 y war

1)Being a eunuch won't stop you from being strong if you practice with weapons and run each day. Plus Hittite Emperors used to have Eunuch guards for executing people which were mostly for show as they were huge huge muscle men that would crush the prisoner's skull in their hands.

2) Dany seems to be training some of the unsullied to have tactics and think for themselves in a battle.

3) can't really argue there.

[TrueMetis]

We know they are good against light cavalry stupidly charging but heavy cavalry may be an entirely different matter. Though if the horses aren't armoured Westerosi knights might be better considered medium cavalry.

[Talleyrand]

We know they are good against light cavalry stupidly charging but heavy cavalry may be an entirely different matter. Though if the horses aren't armoured Westerosi knights might be better considered medium cavalry.

They still have huge spears which history has shown us deals well with any kind of cavalry. Plus not too many horses are actually willing to charge straight into a solid wall of spikes

[Rodrik the Reader]

-they are extremely well trained in all sort of combat with spear, sword and bow

Forgive me for nitpicking, but the Unsullied are not trained in archery - or, at least, it has never been mentioned.

“[The Unsullied] begin their training at five. Every day they train from dawn to dusk, until they have mastered the shortsword, the shield, and the three spears."

If they have a good leader and also good equipment they can defeat any army(heavy cavalry, light cavalry, archers, infantry).

That is certainly possible, but you have to realize that in the event that Ser Jorah described, the Dothraki, despite having the opportunity to do so, didn't flank the Unsullied. In their contempt for infantry, they decided to charge them head-on, again and again. Which, I daresay, played a huge part in the Unsullied's successful stand.

That's not to say that the Unsullied aren't formidable, which they certainly are. But I do think a force from Westeros would prove a much tougher foe, as they do not share the Dothraki's deep contempt for armor and infantry and are generally willing to adapt their tactics according to the situation instead of sticking to the good ol' "charge them head-on" strategy.

The Westeros armies do't have many knights. They have sellswords, and many peasants that just learned which part of the spear/sword they have to point at the enemy.

While Westeros's cavalry and men-at-arms obviously is outnumbered by the levies, I think you underestimate the number of professional soldiers in Westeros.

Renly had 20,000 mounted soldiers (though besides knights and mounted men-at-arms, the force also included sellswords, freeriders and mounted archers and what have you) when he confronted Stannis at Storm's End, Tywin counted roughly 7,000 knights and heavy lancers among his forces at the Battle of the Green Fork and Robb's cavalry was 5,000 strong when he divided his forces at the Twins.

In fact, if I would wager a guess, I don't think Jaime's and Tywin's hosts included much levies, if at all (Jaime gathered his host very swiftly, so he probably took mostly knights and men-at-arms from nearby bannermen and Tyrion made no mention of levies when he seized up his father's forces at the Green Fork). The bulk of the Westerlands levies were probably left for Ser Stafford and Ser Devan to gather and give some semblance of training.

[strongboar]

I'd be interested to know how a Roman legion - which was so disciplined that 4000 legionaries defeated Gallic barbarian hordes 10 times their number - would do against European knights that reached their peak about a 1000 years after the Legions faded from history.

Surely the knights were much more formidable than the barbarian hordes of Vercingetorix's time. To me the Unsullied are a Roman legion, and the Westerosi knights are the armies of Richard the Lionheart.

Would the Roman discipline be as effective against armored knights as it was against unwashed, fur-clad primitives?

I wonder.

Gauls weren't exactly "fur-clad primitivres". None of Roman enemies really were, except perhaps for Picts.

Rome fought against the antique equivalent/precursor of armored knights - the Persian Cibinarii.

EDIT:

Re: Unsuilled.

Personally I would have been dissapointed if Unsuilled turned out to be an undefendable army of doom. That would pretty lame, story-wise.