Stannis' Army at the Blackwater

[Lord over Seas]

This is a question which has popped me up after reading some topics about Lannister and Reach forces during tWo5K.

In aCoK we are said that, after dying Renly, Stannis inherits his force, forming a enormous army with which he launches the attack over King's Landing.

But where does he get this great army from?

When meeting Renly and comparing both armies, we are shown Stannis' forces are much lower than his brother's, numbering some thousands. Renly has the power of the Reach and of most of the Lords of the Stormlands on his side.

So, assuming Stannis gets the support of the Stormlands' Lords and some others, the main powers of the Reach ally themselves with the Lannisters: the Tyrells and a vast majority of their bannermen don't join Stannis.

How is it then possible that he unites such a great army with only the Stormlands and the Lords of Dragonstone (and the Florents and few others)?

ASOIAF's Wiki numbers the army in 20.000 men, though it seems low IMO for 200 full armed galleys and a much larger land force. In other pages of the same Wiki it is said too that Stannis has an "enormous force" making it very probable that he actually has much more than the number said before.

[Lord over Seas]

According to wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galley#Middle_Ages_2

the typical medieval galley had 108 oars, one for each men. If we assume that not all the ships involved in the battle were Galleys, (maybe one third) it still leaves us with a much higher number than 20.000 men.

[viking warrior]

The stormlands alone would have given him around 35 000, dragonstone around 3000, + some sellswords, 20 000 is not a extremely difficult number to achieve

[GallowsKnight]

From what I understand Stannis' army was made of the mounted men and nobility from the Stormlands, a chunk of the Reach's mounted men and nobility (there was House Florent, Crane, Fossoway, Mullendore, Varner and Willum that we know of). The soldiers from Dragonstone, the Royal Navy and the Sellswords/Sellsails.

The majority of the Stormlands foot were at Bitterbridge with the Reach's infantry.

[viking warrior]

From what I understand Stannis' army was made of the mounted men and nobility from the Stormlands, a chunk of the Reach's mounted men and nobility (there was House Florent, Crane, Fossoway, Mullendore, Varner and Willum that we know of). The soldiers from Dragonstone, the Royal Navy and the Sellswords/Sellsails.

The majority of the Stormlands foot were at Bitterbridge with the Reach's infantry.

Then he got the best then

[kkae]

Rowers are not necessarily fighting men. That could mean that there are 20k or less men who are never mentioned. Although I have no idea if this is the case in the books. Hopefully someone here knows and tells us.

[Stannis Eats No Peaches]

Not all the ships were carrying soldiers, there were just a few whose job it was to deploy spearmen and archers on the north bank to form a beachhead.

[Manderlay]

This is a question which has popped me up after reading some topics about Lannister and Reach forces during tWo5K.

In aCoK we are said that, after dying Renly, Stannis inherits his force, forming a enormous army with which he launches the attack over King's Landing.

But where does he get this great army from?

When meeting Renly and comparing both armies, we are shown Stannis' forces are much lower than his brother's, numbering some thousands. Renly has the power of the Reach and of most of the Lords of the Stormlands on his side.

So, assuming Stannis gets the support of the Stormlands' Lords and some others, the main powers of the Reach ally themselves with the Lannisters: the Tyrells and a vast majority of their bannermen don't join Stannis.

How is it then possible that he unites such a great army with only the Stormlands and the Lords of Dragonstone (and the Florents and few others)?

ASOIAF's Wiki numbers the army in 20.000 men, though it seems low IMO for 200 full armed galleys and a much larger land force. In other pages of the same Wiki it is said too that Stannis has an "enormous force" making it very probable that he actually has much more than the number said before.

I don't know why aSoIaF wiki has said 20k perhaps because those are the only numbers mentioned in ACoK, but I just came across the numbers in ACoK, he has 20k mounted forces, as we know he is already encamped south of the Blackwater, his ships arrive late, they have lost 12 ships on the way, but there is no mention how many forces he has on foot or how many ships he has.

Stannis got the greater part of the mounted forces which Renly brought to SE, we do not know if he got any men from Bitterbridge but he had sent envoys to take that host in hand, however Loras got their first and took all the Reach forces with him. I would say Stannis had an combined force of 40k since some of the reach lords had joined him too. His vanguard was 5000 strong under Ser Guyard Morrigen.

[Ser Areo Mace]

I don't know why aSoIaF wiki has said 20k perhaps because those are the only numbers mentioned in ACoK, but I just came across the numbers in ACoK, he has 20k mounted forces, as we know he is already encamped south of the Blackwater, his ships arrive late, they have lost 12 ships on the way, but there is no mention how many forces he has on foot or how many ships he has.

Stannis got the greater part of the mounted forces which Renly brought to SE, we do not know if he got any men from Bitterbridge but he had sent envoys to take that host in hand, however Loras got their first and took all the Reach forces with him. I would say Stannis had an combined force of 40k since some of the reach lords had joined him too. His vanguard was 5000 strong under Ser Guyard Morrigen.

Ser Parmen Crane and Ser Erren Florent were sent to get the footmen from Bitterbridge but were captured by Loras so they couldn't take them. So, I don't know if Stannis got those troops. He could have gotten some more troops from SE and the surrounding lands if they were left there by Renly to defend the Stormlands.

[StannisandDaeny]

^ Might be that he theoretically could have, but he didn't, or there should've been some mention of it...

He only had his own personal forces (mostly the larger part of the Royal Fleet, which he built) and those Renly took to attack him with minus the Tyrels who fled (so just the cavalry, not the foot, which he never captured). Add in the fact that Renly's knights sucked balls (seriously, they're getting killed en masse by Tyrion of all people) and you reach the conclusion that his army was nowhere as impressive as people seem to want to make it. He even lost men prior to the actual siege to the Hill tribes, plus 12 ships including crews that got lost at sea. That he has the ships, doesn't mean the ships couldn't have been undermanned (actually, this was probably the case), and a lot of the rowers aren't fighting men...

In short, his army was nowhere near 'enormous', in fact it is comparable to the army Robb marched South with before he even recruited the Freys. The combined forces of the Lannisters / Tyrells on the other hand... yeah, enormous.

[Chaircat Meow]

Renly's knights weren't getting killed by Tyrion, they were all on the other side of the river when the wildfire went off. Tyrion's men were routed by the few survivors from the wrecks who came ashore and whatever small force got over the boat bridge.

He clearly lost that battle and was only saved by the arrival of Tywin-Mace-Garlan.

[StannisandDaeny]

What do you make of that part where Tyrion thinks he's being as awesome as Jaime as he's taking life after life after life despite his short stature and lack of battle experience / training then, and people are surrendering to him etc.? Hallucination? Imry Florent put knights on the ships and some were able to reach the shore, it is known. Then when they were outnumbered they all gave up almost instantly. No, Catelyn was completely right in her assessment of those knights, even though it begs the question why all those knights should be such unexperienced chaps as opposed to knights of other houses.

[Chaircat Meow]

What do you make of that part where Tyrion thinks he's being as awesome as Jaime as he's taking life after life after life despite his short stature and lack of battle experience / training then, and people are surrendering to him etc.? Hallucination? Imry Florent put knights on the ships and some were able to reach the shore, it is known. Then when they were outnumbered they all gave up almost instantly. No, Catelyn was completely right in her assessment of those knights, even though it begs the question why all those knights should be such unexperienced chaps as opposed to knights of other houses.

It is indeed known, but Stannis has 5,000 Dragonstone men + 16,000 storm and Reach land cavalry. I assumed the Dragonstone men were on the boats with the force Stannis acquired at SE were on the other bank.

The knights disgorged from hulks would be a bit worse for wear, no, disordered, waterclogged burned ..?

[StannisandDaeny]

Sure, but I never quite could come to terms with Tyrion's battle prowess (GRRM said even Peter Dinklage is too tall for the role), not in this battle, and not in the battle of the Green Fork.

I think the forces got mixed up, because Florent is leading the ships, and even he only joined Stannis after Renly died. There is mention of spears and archers among the 'land army', which points to Stannis having at least some of his 5000 original army among the land army (because Renly had only cavalry taken to attack Stannis with), plus Stannis eventually managed to escape due to a 'rearguard offensive' by the Bastard of Nightsong (who must have lead the cavalry Stannis originally had since almost all of the ex-Renly knights immediately defected). I then assumed, because the numbers of those who didn't belong to the original army were bigger (because islands produce less knights, Stannis wouldn't have so many knights) most knights we see would have a higher percentual probability of being men who once were pledged to Renly. Also, Stannis' knights have proven to be rather tough bastards on a few occasions already...

[Daemon Dagoghlor]

Renly left his infantry at Bitterbridge and took nearly all of his cavalry to Storm's End to meet Stannis. The 20,000+ men that Renly took to Storm's End wouldn't all be armored lances, most of them would be men-at-arms, freeriders and sellswords who were mounted for faster travel.

After Renly is killed, the force splits. Most of the Reachmen and a few Stormlords go back to Bitterbridge with Loras and Randyll Tarly while most of the Stormlords and a few of the Reachmen stay and join Stannis. Roughly 4/5 of the force joined Stannis so it can be inferred that Renly left his Reach cavalry at Bitterbridge and took mainly troops from the Stormlands to fight Stannis.

With the 5,000 men sworn to Dragonstone, this would give Stannis about 21,000 men. Most of the men on the ships would have been from the Narrow Sea houses, we know that the Velaryon spearmen were aboard. It's also safe to assume that Imry Florent would have brought some of his house's troops aboard as well.

Tyrion's battle prowess seems more like an adrenaline high. He probably was riding through the men and he probably was swinging at this with his axe, but how many he actually killed or even hit could probably be debated. If someone is riding down on you on horseback and you're on foot, you dive out of the way. Someone like Tyrion who'd never been in battle before and was obviously disorientated could probably equate this with battle prowess.

[RenlyIsNotRight]

As others have said, people tend to underestimate the amount of men of The Reach Stannis had in his force. House Florent alone can field about 2,000 iirc, and he also had House Fossoway and plenty of others that we know of, as it were a lot of the smaller noble houses of The Reach, probably with their eyes on bigger lordships and such as rewards for staying with Stannis - I mean its no secret the Florents had their eyes on Highgarden for one. But that combined with the forces of the Stormlords, Dragonstone, and sellswords and pirates employed by Stannis was basically his force.

[Lord Bresteil of the North]

Where did the Stormlanders go after the battle. There's supposed to be about 20 - 30 k troops available from the Stormlands. We know many died at the Blackwater but I would be surprised if this would be more than 5,000. Another 2,000 or so went North with Stannis. It also seems that the Dondarrions and Tarths didn't go to war and they would amount to about 4,000 at most. This leaves about 10 to 15 k Stormlanders. I have heard very little mention of them at Kings Landing and if they are in the Stormlands then why is Aegon taking everything so routinely. The same question can be asked of the Blackwater Bay lords although since Sunglass is in exile and Celtigar is in KL there is less mystery to this. Did more men die at the Blackwater than I thought? If not where are these missing Stormlanders.

[unSonofStannis]

I'm guessing 25k from the Stormlands, 5k from Dragonstone and those islands under it and 2k from the Florents. So his force at Blackwater was over 30k, pretty big. After Blackwater, Florent men make up over half of his 1,500-2,000 man force.

[unSonofStannis]

Where did the Stormlanders go after the battle. There's supposed to be about 20 - 30 k troops available from the Stormlands. We know many died at the Blackwater but I would be surprised if this would be more than 5,000. Another 2,000 or so went North with Stannis. It also seems that the Dondarrions and Tarths didn't go to war and they would amount to about 4,000 at most. This leaves about 10 to 15 k Stormlanders. I have heard very little mention of them at Kings Landing and if they are in the Stormlands then why is Aegon taking everything so routinely. The same question can be asked of the Blackwater Bay lords although since Sunglass is in exile and Celtigar is in KL there is less mystery to this. Did more men die at the Blackwater than I thought? If not where are these missing Stormlanders.

Most of the Stormlanders bent the knee to Joeffrey and went home, others like Red Ronnet Connington stayed, and some like Lord Fell and Peasbury escaped with Stannis.

[Chaircat Meow]

I think he had 8,000 Reachmen, 8,000 stormlanders and 5,000 men from Dragonstone and the islands.