Who is the best military commander in fire and ice?

[gougef]

A man that eats rats to win has my vote.

[E-Ro]

Agreed. Stannis is the best.

[Queen Daenerys Stormborn]

I don't see there is any evidence Stannis is better than Tywin.

[E-Ro]

I don't see there is any evidence Stannis is better than Tywin.

Don't you think that taken all together, stannis' victories are more impressive then tywins?

We have the siege of se, fair isle, the battle at the wall, and his current campaign in the north vs the destruction of the reynes and tarbecks, the green fork and the blackwater.

[Nyrhex]

It doesn't help his case that the person most supportive of him, thought he was a moron. Perhaps, she hoped she could get him to amend his strategy after he'd had his taste of blood and cooled off.

...

Asha's idae of "conquering" the North was basically to reave it's western shoreline, and to flee at the first sign of enemy. Balon at least got himself to believe that he can both hold the Northen army to the south, and take the Northern castles from the weaklings.

Watching Greyjoy "war plans", any of them other than Theon, is quite entertaining.

[Queen Daenerys Stormborn]

Don't you think that taken all together, stannis' victories are more impressive then tywins?

We have the siege of se, fair isle, the battle at the wall, and his current campaign in the north vs the destruction of the reynes and tarbecks, the green fork and the blackwater.

They might be more impressive in certain senses but that doesn't mean Stannis is a superior general. In one way Tywin's CV looks better than your boys because he won two big land battles against westerosi armies.

Stannis has never done that.

On the other hand, both of Tywin's wins did not display anything more than competence. Fair Isle supposedly involved clever deception, and was decisive. But do the following thought experiment. Imagine that instead of facing Robb Stark and Roose Bolton Tywin faced a commander like Victarion in his campaign against the north. His idea of advancing from the crossroads and annihilating the Stark army through weakening his flank might have worked in that scenario. The fact it didn't reflects the calibre of the opposition, not the fact he wasn't as cunning as Stannis.

I don't think Storm's End and the Wall show anything above competence either. Most people seem to think putting down the Reynes and Tarbecks was quite impressive so Tywin probably displayed competence doing that. I'm sure Tywin is capable of routing a bunch of wildlings if he hits them in the flank too.

I think the only general clearly above average is Robb. Robert and Jaime seem to have been good but ropey. So Stannis/Tywin and Ned are the next best tier after Robb, in my opinion.

[Erkan12]

Tywin has no great victory like Stannis has or Robb has.

Tywin is just very very cautious man on field. Like turtle. He just waits and waits. Like he waited and hide at Robert's Rebellion.

Stannis's victory of Fair Isles and Robb's Whispering Woods and Camps was epic victories. Tywin has no victory like that as commander, he is not bad about it but not good either.

[Queen Daenerys Stormborn]

Tywin has no great victory like Stannis has or Robb has.

Tywin is just very very cautious man on field. Like turtle. He just waits and waits. Like he waited and hide at Robert's Rebellion.

Stannis's victory of Fair Isles and Robb's Whispering Woods and Camps was epic victories. Tywin has no victory like that as commander, he is not bad about it but not good either.

Okay Marco. I don't want to have a huge debate about this. All I can say is I am not sure what book you have been reading. Tywin didn't come across like a turtle to me. He stayed at Harrenhal for specific reasons. The rest of the time he attacked people. Moreover, what makes you think Fair Isle was an 'epic' victory? We don't know numbers, but they were probably in Stannis's favor. We know Victarian is stupid, so trapping him might not be the height of generalship. What is so 'epic' about this in your opinion?

[The Broke Howard Hughes]

The Starks tend to have a good head for war. I'll go with Ned with Robb a close second. Even Jon pulled off an impressive victory at Castle Black.

[Trigger Warning]

I didn't say Balon was a great commander or that attacking the north was a good plan.

He did strike swiftly and efficiently and achieve his initial strategic goals though.

[Arthur Dayne's Honor]

IMO it would be between

Robb vs. Stannis

Who would win would depend on multiple different factors.

-Where the battle is. If it was in the North or Riverlands. Robb would destroy him

-What resources were available to each of them

-Loyalty of men

-Expierience

- Battle Mojo, Robb had some great battle mojo. While Stannis......not so much.

[Victor227]

I'd argue it's pretty tough to come up with an undisputed 'greatest commander'. They all have different strengths and weaknesses.

Robert for instance, probably had the greatest impact on any battlefield he was on compared to the other commanders. He was a nigh-unstoppable hammer-toting war-god. That sort of thing is brilliant for morale, and he's always at the front, first over the wall and scoring all the really important kills that break the enemy force. However, he's faced his failures as well, like at Ashford where Randyll Tarly beat him at his own game, drove him from the field, and scored the high-profile kills. When leading from the front fails, the whole army tends to go with it, and Robert did lose the entirety of his Stormlands host. He also was the furthest thing from managing the war. He went with the battles and was pretty much the figurehead, with Jon Arryn and Hoster Tully taking strategic control.

Robb, for all the three battles he had, was good at listening to his advisers, winning the recon game, and setting up his battles to give him an immense advantage in surprise. It's no coincidence that he had exclusively night attacks on his record. He was another guy however, who followed the battles rather than taking control over the strategic situation. He equated winning the war with winning battles, while Tywin, Littlefinger, and Tyrion ran strategic circles around his downright feeble outreaches, building the nigh-unstoppable Lannister-Tyrell juggernaut with tacit Dornish backing. Also, getting into the Westerlands via magic wolf wasn't exactly a move that could be predicted by him. It would have looked pretty stupid if he poked along the border looking for a good point for a few months, then fell back when he didn't.

Tywin is more a politician than a general. He takes the Green Fork battle at face value, and his strategy is pretty much a standard, predictable, but very solid move. He kept one his flanks secure by the river, and simultaneously baited it as a trap. His leadership style is also shown as very stable and methodical, which is a great way to manage an army. At the same time, he underestimated Robb, and fell for his and Blackfish's Riverrun trap. Likewise his family pride leads to strategic failings, like giving Jaime command of a siege (it played to his strengths to fight at the Golden Tooth though, apparently no one wins the 'hack through the opposing army' game like Jaime). Stafford was another blunder. He should have given the command to the much more sensible Daven. He shined though in strategic awareness, using Harrenhall as a launch point to respond to any threat, and he was quick to exploit the slightest bit of division in opposing ranks.

Last but not least, we've got Stannis. He's another Tywin-esque commander. Very stable and in-control in battle, with some good tactical flexibility. He's the only leader we've seen so far with expertise on land battles, sieges, and naval battles, making him definitely one of the most flexible commanders on the continent. He has some good battles under his belt as well, more mentioned than most. It's sort of strange, but I have to describe him completely contrary to his character. He's strategically flexible, making use of his fleet to hit no less than three points on the continent, only one of which was ever predicted by anyone (King's Landing), he can keep a host together in a bad situation without their 'love', but more force of example and discipline, and when he does get into battle, he can execute multiple tactics (like at the Battle of the Wall, where his force certainly does more than march in straight lines).

The big flaw I see in Stannis is that he's a gambler who isn't willing to act recklessly to stack the deck when taking chances. He risks everything on the Blackwater, but doesn't have the intelligence in the city to learn completely about the chain and wildfire, nor even the basic recon to notice two large hosts closing in on him. Likewise he gambles everything on Winterfell, and goes as far as to admit that he'd be totally screwed in doing so if Roose decided to let him sit out in the cold and freeze. Jon points out that Robert wouldn't have consolidated his forces, and instead blitzed for Winterfell day and night to beat Roose there the instant it was announced, and there was time to do it, considering they were rallying at Barrowtown before moving.

All in all, I give it to Jon Arryn, the strategic mastermind of Robert's Rebellion. He didn't do much, if any, fighting himself, but he was the guy that put the armies in the field and built the alliances needed to win the war. He was like a rolled-up Eisenhower and Churchill.

[Ramsay Gimp]

"rocket surgery"? Do you mean rocket science?

That was the joke

Strategically? Balon Greyjoy.

Everyone jumped down your throat for this, but there's some truth to it. Had Balon not died, the Ironborn hold of the North may have held on for some time

[Erkan12]

Okay Marco. I don't want to have a huge debate about this. All I can say is I am not sure what book you have been reading. Tywin didn't come across like a turtle to me. He stayed at Harrenhal for specific reasons. The rest of the time he attacked people. Moreover, what makes you think Fair Isle was an 'epic' victory? We don't know numbers, but they were probably in Stannis's favor. We know Victarian is stupid, so trapping him might not be the height of generalship. What is so 'epic' about this in your opinion?

Victorian is stupid, Jaime is stupid... everyman become stupid if they lost. Robert was stupid because he lost to Randyll. These man are brave enough to fight and win. Yes Tywin won't lost like that , but he would never win like these men either. You can read battle of Fords. He failed to defeat Edmure while Edmure has half of his number. His great strategy waiting in Harrenhal (or hiding) and pillaging the poor smallfolk. Meanwhile Robb destroyed his second army at Oxcross.

Tywin is not brave or he is not soldier type character. He is just cunning. I'm not saying he is bad commander (since he is very very cautious), but there is no info that he won a battle just because his commandership talent. All his victories are mismatches (like Mummer's Ford) or treachery (like Sack of King's Landing)

[Gurkhal]

So far I would think that Tywin and Robb have proved themselves the best commanders although in very different ways. Tywin mastered the big picture while Robb mastered the small picture.

[Queen Daenerys Stormborn]

Victorian is stupid, Jaime is stupid... everyman become stupid if they lost. Robert was stupid because he lost to Randyll. These man are brave enough to fight and win. Yes Tywin won't lost like that , but he would never win like these men either. You can read battle of Fords. He failed to defeat Edmure while Edmure has half of his number. His great strategy waiting in Harrenhal (or hiding) and pillaging the poor smallfolk. Meanwhile Robb destroyed his second army at Oxcross.

Tywin is not brave or he is not soldier type character. He is just cunning. I'm not saying he is bad commander (since he is very very cautious), but there is no info that he won a battle just because his commandership talent. All his victories are mismatches (like Mummer's Ford) or treachery (like Sack of King's Landing)

Victarion is actually said to be thick. He isn't thick because he lost a battle. He's just dumb. In the author's own words, 'as dumb as a stump.' This isn't a circular argument that says Fair Isle is not impressive because Victarion was stupid and the evidence Victarion is stupid is because he lost at Fair Isle. I have independent evidence he is thick, namely the fact he is thick.

[Darth Visenya]

I guess Aegon the Conqueror deserves a mention.

[James Arryn]

I guess Aegon the Conqueror deserves a mention.

Maybe. But when you actually analyze his battles, they generally fall along the : army lost/was losing until dragon(s) roasted enemy.

In which case, what kind of commander do you have to be? Among other things, why sacrifice your armies in the first place if you have the nuclear option at hand? What's the point? But more than that...I don't see any skill in having a super weapon your enemy doesn't have.

[Darth Visenya]

Maybe. But when you actually analyze his battles, they generally fall along the : army lost/was losing until dragon(s) roasted enemy.

In which case, what kind of commander do you have to be? Among other things, why sacrifice your armies in the first place if you have the nuclear option at hand? What's the point? But more than that...I don't see any skill in having a super weapon your enemy doesn't have.

Yeah he should have just spared his soldiers by using the Dragons straight away, and while I don't think he was perfect the guy did have some rather large victories and make 6 of the 7 Kingdoms bend the knee.

[Trigger Warning]

Dragons can be killed.

He probably didn't want to risk them until his forces failed.