Stannis' tactics at Winterfell

[Thucydides]

So if Roose keeps the gates closed, it means that an army of several hundred men appear en masse arrive (apparently) victorious. They blow the Horn of Herrock, and they make the request to the guards on the wall that they open the gates.

Roose has three possible choices if he wants to shut out the returning Northmen:

1. Make sure that everybody guarding the walls of Winterfell is a Bolton man
   
2. Pull all guards off of the outer wall.
   
3. Let word of the army abandoned in the cold outside of Winterfell spread
   

So I think that the Northment will find #1 pretty fishy. After only a short while, people inside Winterfell hearing the Horn of Herrock will say "I want to go see for myself."

If Roose does #2, then the returning army can simply scale the wall and open the outer gates.

If Roose does #3, then Roose will have to deal with a revolt inside Winterfell in response to Roose abandoning loyal Northmen returning from a battle that Roose sent them to

I just don't see how Roose can shut the returning Northmen out of Winterfell.

[Brother Seamus]

Well I don't think the "commando" theory or any other crackpot theory is believed enough to be even worth discussing in length.

If you want to dissent, do so to the popular theory of thought on what will occur:

Roose thinks the Freys will critically damage or defeat Stannis b/c of Karstark treachery (e.g. Ramsey defeating a larger Rodrick Cassel host with deception).

Stannis believes he can crush the Freys and use fArya as leverage to lure Roose out of WF, possibly north......but when Stannis realizes he has a friend in Manderly, they will concoct a plan that kills all Freys to the man. Then fake Stannis death, by sneaking Stannis men into WF under Frey flags and them along with the Manderlys slaughter the Boltons by surprise. Note, they will not sneak in commando style, Roose will let them in to celebrate Stannis death and receive Stannis sword.

The Ramsey letter to Jon happens after WF has received word of Stannis fake death, but before the Southron soldiers and Manderlys can make it back to WF.

Who wants to offer the next most likely alternative?

I mostly agree. roose's motivation is a kind of 2-3-4 birds with one stone; get rid of the groups who are creating dissension and conflict; test manderly's loyalty; weaken manderly and perhaps the freys to the extent they suffer casualties; fewer mouths to feed; and, if he's lucky, inflict harm, maybe decisive thanks to karstark, on stannis.

stannis basically is playing the cards he's dealt. he's preparing to inflict a good hurt, maybe a big one, on the bolton/frey forces, by planning a trap. he knows he has two advantages: the terrain (ice on the lake, mainly) and that the foe doesn't know that he knows about karstark. assuming the manderly force turns cloak mid-battle, as we expect, stannis will be surprised (unless davos shows up in time and explains what's going on with manderly, possible but doubtful), but will figure it out quickly enough to take advantage, and after the battle they'll come up with some scheme along the lines suggested to get into winterfell.