This is a mirror of the now defunct eesite ASOIAF webboard.

The discussions for G.R.R. Martin's awesome series "A Song of Ice and Fire" are now being held at: Current ASoIaF Webboard

You cannot post new messages to this board. Go to the Current ASoIaF Webboard for the most current discussions.

A Song of Ice and Fire / A Clash of Kings II / Bolton II

Next 20 Messages
labor
User ID: 0798784 		Jan 10th 1:50 PM
Ran
User ID: 0867924
Jan 10th 11:01 AM
Actually, there was no chance in hell that he'd beat Tywin. That was
known fact. He had to steal a march (thus weakening his men) to quickly
approach the Lannister encampment so as to screen the fact that Robb's
troops weren't there.

Given that he kept his losses to a relative minimum given the disparity in
troops (particularly as he had far, far fewer cavalry) and was able to take a
secure position at the crossroads, he certainly was quite capable at
keeping the troops under his command cohesive and and in fighting order.


Usually when a medieval army was smashed up like that, they were routed
and cut to pieces as they fled. In this case, however, he was able to
withdraw rather smartly.

So, like I said, not a brilliant commander. But at the least competent, with
a knack for maintaing troop cohesion in the face of bad odds.

Did Gregor, BTW, ever attack Roose? I can't recall it being mentioned. He
spent his time foraging after Tywin withdrew to Harrenhal. Perhaps he
clashed with Roose's outriders?

------------------------------------------------------------
Flayed Man
User ID: 1467524
Jan 10th 11:46 AM
Well Bolton is not like sun tzu but in military courage is only part of
making a commander but not so brilliant one. botlon being cautious, and
use his brain is brilliant and way he sent the lords to drunksdale so he may
buy time against rose and the lions. Also being weasly as he is he is plan
to go to north to devise another brilliant stragety to recover north and gain
trust from his liege.

Also side to that RAN all commanders lose the battle. even sun tzu lost the
battles. the loss brings the wisdom and bolton gained wisdom by gettin his
butt kicked by tywin, but tywin lacks one thing...the sly cunning that bolton
has. twyin would never thought like bolton who turned hoat to his side, not
a lot of lords can do that and hoat does have some sense of honor (maybe
a fellow northerner?)

Also I assure all of you that next time rose and lion attacks on river lands
there will be different results. because all river commanders had
experience of losing the battle and back then they were un sure (robert
being alive an all or the believed and ned held captive ect) now they are
sure and they know the river lands better than anybody else and number is
not everything edmure defeated gregor with small number (yes I know
geolography is involved)

also bolton will find way to defeat tywin, if water cannot cut the iron , then
fire can melt it and bolton can discover the "fire" to melt iron

Also in terms of rose and lions they are pretty stupid by wearing heavy
armor in naval battles brax was good example. brax sunk before he even
landed and half of ships were sunk. also if river land's ship sank the lord
and soldiers dressed lightly enough to swim.










labor
User ID: 0798784 		Jan 10th 2:05 PM
Well, the old thread died, just as I wanted to unburden myself on the subject <grin>. Perhaps it's time to do another board-cleaning...

Anyway, Ran, what is somewhat strange, it's the universal conviction of the characters on the Stark side, that if they met Lord Tywin in battle with all their numbers, they would be bound to lose, although he didn't have more men than they...
Roose managed to keep his army together, but then, Lannisters failed to pursue, due to Robb's ruse. IMHO, if Tywin sent his cavalry (about 6K?) in pursuit, as military doctrine normally dictated, then Bolton and Co likely would be in much worse straits...

Flayed, I almost agree with you, Bolton will go north and has likely already devised a brilliant strategy to take it back... but for himself. People he sent to Duskendale are, IMHO, dog meat. They are all foot, thus Lannister and Tyrell cavalery will easily cut them off and severely outnumbered, so they'll be cut to pieces.

Btw, it was Hoat (who is from Free City of Qohor), who came to Bolton with the sly plan to take Harrenhal, not the other way round... And many consider Tywin one of the sneakiest people around, "as much a fox as he is a lion". He is behind Varys and Littlefinger and maybe Tyrion in cunning, but few people else.
Flayed Man
User ID: 1467524 		Jan 10th 4:22 PM
Bolton...he is native northman who bow to old gods. he does not have title sir or anything like that. bolton well knows that if he cause rutgers around north for himself, then he would destroy north and no lords will remain loyal to him and many will try assassinate him, also i don't think bolton want to listen to 12 year old lannister punk.

dunksdale people? calvery..labor labor labor the lords are not dumb. they have scouts ahead (few has horses) and they will alert the lords and all calvery to get to drunksdale is exhausting for men and horses and takes about day or two to get there and also lords be gone like "gone with the wind" with little units the have the quicker they can go and Trapped??!! labor HOW DARE YOU!!! maidenpool is the port city and most likely they can get the ship and go according to plan for themselves. Bolton is not so idoiot to take north for himself.
Ran
User ID: 0867924 		Jan 10th 5:03 PM
labor,

Hrm ... convinced that they would lose if they went toe-to-toe? Well, if they marched to Harrenhal, he'd be the one with the superior supply and with the advantage of having a massive fortification to back him up. Harrenhal is certainly massive enough that he could defend the rear and probably at least part of a flank of his army, while scorpions and such above provided devastating fire.

So ... marching on him would mean ... well, nothing. They don't have the numbers to surround him in Harrenhal and cut off his supply, so they'd just be wasting their time. Further, they risked having the second army coming up behind them and either cutting off their own supply or otherwise causing them trouble by placing them between two armies.

Finally, one of the most important rules of warfare is to never give the enemy what he wants. Clearly, from Tywin's disposition and Martin's own statements, Tywin wanted to lure Robb into attacking him. So Robb denied him that and did the unexpected -- he hit the Westerlands hard, shattered the growing army there, and is currently running amok.

I don't know what Robb would have done if he didn't find that goat path. Would he have tried some bold, crazy plan to take the Tooth? Who knows. In any case, they had every reason to believe that attacking him at Harrenhal was to their great disadvantage.

If you're referring to some other fears, like meeting him in open battle, I don't recall it. But with his experience, they certainly would have to fear him still.

Now, as to Tywin ... Would he have been able to use his cavalry to defeat the Northerner force? I'm not certain. They were quite cohesive. They certainly would have inflicted more casualites, but without archers for support or infantry to help them crack open the Northerner units, they'd have been paying a dear price just to score a couple more thousand dead.

Flayed,

The distance from King's Landing to Duskendale is shorter than the distance from Harrenhal to Duskendale. One can presume that Tywin would learn relatively soon about this troop of men marching towards Duskendale (Varys always gets such information quickly.) Tywin sends horse while the Northerners are marching at foot speed.

The end. The Lannister men will arrive at Duskendale sooner than the Northerners and be able to rest up while the Northerners will not be able to. The Lannister men will also be able to send out a screening force of riders to hide the fact they're present.

Or, if the Northerners find out and try to run, they can be chased down. If they break up into little groups, it'll just mean more of them will be easy meet and the casualties on the Lannisters shall be even fewer.

Finally, I'm not sure where Maidenpool fits into this. Assuming that there are at least a couple thousand men with Ser Helman Tallhart and Robett Glover, they need at least ten large sea vessels to carry them. We know from Martin that having dromonds large enough for that many men in such concetration are rare.

Maidenpool would be lucky to have even a single ship able to carry four hundred men. Further, it'd be lucky to have more than, say, ten ocean-going vessels at all, period. Part of the troop might be saved, _if_ they were able to get to Maidenpool (which is doubtful -- once the Lannisters figure out they're trying to make for Maidenpool, they'll cut them off), and _then_ manage to take Maidenpool and its docks with vessels intact and present...

Those men are dead meat if the Lannisters respond quickly enough. Bolton sent them out to die. Notice that he claims it was by the King's command that they go raid Duskendale, but we hear nothing of the King sending him any orders of that kind. He's misusing his position as holder of Harrenhal, the commander of the forces there, and the controller of all communications to and from there.

The only purpose would be to remove those men from consideration in his plans by having them killed off or otherwise pushed aside painlessly (for him.)
Flayed Man
User ID: 1467524 		Jan 10th 7:40 PM
But lords who went to dunksdale are not dumb as stumps and if they know that they must have plans too cause north man is not dumb as stumps and twyin has his problem as well. first he don't trust roses well enought, second he has enemies all over the places internally and externally, so I dont think twyin can sand like 10000 units while edmure, stannis (he has power of south) even lords of vale might cause grif so sending huge calvery is not that easy.

um also there is thing called territory rule...and that sea area belongs to vale and lords of vale are itching to get excuse to attack lannisters (they are all boiled up) and since it is lysa's territory, lysa won't let them pass easily so cut to maiden pool impossible and he has to send ships through dragon stone and pirates supports stannis and they will be sorry to go to that route so only road is king's road. and once again lannisters ae not sea man they are land fighters.

amd so little lie won't hurt other wise they won't listen' to bolton's brilliant ideas.
Ran
User ID: 0867924 		Jan 10th 8:05 PM
Maidenpool is, in fact, sworn to the Tullys. The Vale lords have no jurisdiction with Maidenpool.

Further, he doesn't need to send 10,000 troops. He certainly has something ranging in the 40,000 or more area. He can spare 4,000 to 6,000 horsemen to deal with the men being led by the Northerners.

Do not forget that Roose controls communication in Harrenhal. It is potentially doubtful that the Tallhart and Glover are completely unaware of the fact that the Lannisters and Tyrells won a great victory at the Blackwater, effectively destroying Stannis' hopes (if Stannis has more than a relative handful of men left to him, I'll be surprised.) And, further, Robb is a known quantity -- he's running around in the Westerlands.

The only danger to Tywin would be Roose. And Roose has just sent some thousands of his men to certain death to Duskendale.

Now, you say that the northern lords -- Tallhart and Glover -- aren't idiots and no doubt they're making plans. Well now ... why is Roose sending them there? Is Roose an idiot, to send men to certain death? No. He's a traitor, is all.

Perhaps Tallhart and Glover realize that they're in great danger by going to Duskendale. But it was the king's very own command, given to them from Roose Bolton. They can't disobey it. Though, to be honest, I don't think they really realize their danger -- if Robb sent the message, no doubt he has good reason to think that their attack will be successful and without major incident.
labor
User ID: 0798784 		Jan 10th 8:33 PM
Mm, no Ran, I meant events pre- Green folk, i.e. something along the lines of : "We have 20 thousand swords!" "They'll be that many fresh corpses when Lord Tywin gets here", etc. Of course Robb was an untried boy at the point, but his lords, (i.e. Bolton, etc) weren't and it is not quite clear to me why their chances were judged so pessimistically...
Ran
User ID: 0867924 		Jan 10th 9:52 PM
Hrm ... I think you're misreading. It was Walder Frey who was saying there'd be 20,000 fresh corpses by the time Tywin got there _if_ Robb tried to storm the Twins.

In other words, by the time Tywin got there, they'd be as good as dead because they would have broken their strength on the Twins.

That's my reading, anyhow. In any case, that bit of dialouge is definently Walder Frey, whose opinion is questionable at best.

More to the point, though, Robb certainly didn't like his odds against Tywin head-on, and some of his lords councilled completely avoiding Tywin to go to Riverrun (showing that they didn't like the odds either.) However, the reason for this is because Tywin has both more men (I'd say some 5,000 for) and much, much more armored horse. While the Greatjon said it didn't matter if they caught Tywin by surprise, Robb doubted they'd be able to catch him.

In any case, never saw the suggestion that the Northerners were fatalistic about their odds against Tywin in GoT. Some pessimistic, some optimistic, some realistic. The biggest worry was, of course, when he had Harrenhal and was clearly baiting Robb.
Flayed Man
User ID: 1467524 		Jan 10th 10:27 PM
uh no really the news of victory over stannis that can be at maiden pool and maiden pool does have some defense there too. so after brief skirmish they can escape quickly too. look ran although in map there isn't any forest regions in real life or in fact in the story there is a forest regions and calvery cannot spare to go through the wood and search them like a rats and lords of vale some who are itching for action will join up. bolton as i say again he only wants hornwood but he is not that ambitious to take whole north or boltons and freys will be killed by tretchery and people of north will cause rioats day and night
Ran
User ID: 0867924 		Jan 10th 10:39 PM
Err ... So you're saying that the problem is that, in fact, there is a forest all through that area which will keep the horses from being able to do anything useful against the infantry?

Is that what you're really saying? That there's this forest right at the battle site which they'll be able to hide in like Robin Hood and his Merry Men, so that almost none of them will die?

And they'll be able to get to Maidenpool?

And there'll be enough ships there to carry them away to safety?

Because, if you are, you're wrong. You can't argue based on, 'Well, there must be forest for the men to hide in because otherwise Bolton wouldn't send them.' That's circular: 'There's forests there to protect the men, because Bolton wouldn't send the men to their deaths, so there's forests there to protect the men, because Bolton wouldn't send the men to their deaths . . .'

You see the problem? Certainly, there are probably woods and the like in the area. But a forest to hide a whole army? Just what are they going to live on? Is Maidenpool right in the woods, that the cavalry can't race around and cut them off?

Bolton is sending those men to their deaths. They're Tallhart men and Glover men and others he's deemed too likely to turn against him. No doubt he's already plotting how to convince the ones he's got to stay with him. Perhaps he's plotting Robb's downfall with the Lannisters, and they'll give him the support he needs to take the North.

Who knows. But it's undeniable that Robb did _not_ send a message commanding that attack, though Roose Bolton claimed it was the King's own command. It wasn't.
Mike
User ID: 1014104 		Jan 10th 10:41 PM
I'm not sure if the Vale lords would fight, Flayed Man. I believe that they have their own problems with the Lannister-armed clansmen. Plus, Lysa, being the psycho-freak that she is, would never permit her lords to openly attack the Lannisters. Especially now since they(Lannisters, I mean) are in excellent shape.

At one point, I felt that Bronze Yohn Royce might want retribution for the death of his son, Robar, by the Knight of Flowers. But since he has yet to make an appearance or to declare anything, I assume that Lysa has a good rein on him, and therefore he will not join the fight on the Stark's side. More's the pity, since I think that he is a cool secondary character.

I agree w/ most everyone else on the whole Bolton as traitor issue. He definitely is going to turn, for the reasons mentioned in the previous posts.
Flayed Man
User ID: 1467524 		Jan 11th 11:46 AM
ran ran ran...my dear ran..

listen the forest regions are not a best place where calvery units can fight nor does pike units use their pike as their desire. the north man have the archers hidden. and believe me even medival european lords know how to use hide and hit tactics. so if lannisters march in the woods the hidden units will hit hard and will confuse the lions big time. also the calvery will have hard time to strike the unhorsed units down because of forest will hemper them. and tallert and other guy is not stupid as stump and bolton used them so they will follow orders, and he has good purporse to send them to dunksdale.

to buy robb more time and edmure too where as he would be hungry to take castery rock (looking but not ready to attack) their purporse is to hold lannister or distract them for long time and with small units it will happen.

hey some lords of vale will be itching and will make any stupid excuse to fight and right now yes Lysa the psycho bitch is haveing them on the rope right now.. but dogs will chew through rope if they get really pissed off. and way I see it the lords are getting to pissed off and lords of vale will not like lion and rose alliance (vale lords hate rose for some reason) so they will obviously chew the rope out from the psycho bitch and will even go to riverrun with theirr man and join robb and thus robb will use them as they see fit and they will rescue the man of north who is in drunksdale (maybe part of martin's surprise as he done so many times)

remember some of them has strong connection with ned and hoster so they will help.
Ran
User ID: 0867924 		Jan 11th 12:14 PM
You're expecting magical woods and stupid Lannisters. I don't buy it. Find a reference for a large forest region there. All the Lannisters need to do is defend Duskendale. IF the Northerners avoid a fight and try and run back, they can get chased down in open territory and cut off from forage.

If they continue to refuse battle, they'll get surrounded and crushed or surrounded and starved out.

If they give battle, it will _not_ be on terrain of their choosing.

Sorry. There's no major forest there. It seems the area north of King's Landing is very well developed. There are woods, but not extensive woods. There may be a forest, but not a very extensive forest. It's no use for the Northerners. They are meat.

The Vale Lords have no excuse to fight for Maidenpool. None, zip, zero. It'd take them _days_ to learn of the attack (if anyone bothers to send them news) and it'd take them _weeks_ to be able to bring about a response. Weeks in which Lysa would be able to stop them.

Again, sorry. If the Lords of the Vale were truly interested in fighting the Lannisters, they would have done so already. They may chafe at being held put ... but they don't seem too upset.

Why don't you find references for your arguments, rather than trying to make up situations, Flayed? You'd improve your argument quite a lot.
Anon
User ID: 2205324 		Jan 11th 2:42 PM
What the hell has Maidenpool got to do with the price of chicken? Have I missed something?
Jeff
User ID: 1536664 		Jan 11th 5:42 PM
Flayed, your argument might make some sense if Glover and Tallharts' mission was to go to this supposed forest and lay in wait for the Lannisters. But it's not. It's to raid and then return. _If_ such a forest does exist -- and I think Ran's right that there's no evidence for it -- Glover and Tallhart still would have to retreat across all the open country that isn't forested in order to meet up with Bolton. And as Bolton himself retreats further north, Glover and Tallhart must cover more and more open ground in order to catch up. I can't believe that the entire route from Duskendale to the rendezvous point is forested, so at some point they will have to cross open ground. Where they can be cutoff and hammered.

Another point. You're argument assumes that Glover and Tallhart's troops are on foot -- its the reason you give them an advantage in the forest. That means that they will be much slower and less mobile than whatever mounted forces the Lannisters send, which makes it that much easier to cutoff their escape route to the rendezvous point. Of course, Flayed, why couldn't Tywin send a combined force of infantry and cavalry to wipe out Tallhart and Glover? He's got _plenty_ of troops at King's Landing. So he sends 6,000 horse and 10,000 infantry. Forest or not, the northerners are heavily outnumbered.

Finally, you failed to address Ran's excellent point that Bolton lied to Glover and Tallhart about the source of the order to go on the raid. Why would Bolton lie about Robb having given a particulary order if he was _not_ a traitor?

In fact, maybe Roose expects some of the Gloever/Tallhart force to escape and blame _Robb_ for sending them on such a stupid mission. Possible Bolton's way to gain their loyalty for himself.

Dirjj
User ID: 6960173 		Jan 13th 2:28 PM
Everyone has good points here. Since I think that Bolton is still loyal, I will side with Flayed.

1. The mission that Bolton sent Tallhart and Glover on was to destroy the crops and food supply around Duskendale. Scorched earth. King's Landing, and more importantly, the troops located there need a lot of food to remain cohesive. If the Crown can't feed their troops, then their troops will weaken. Perhaps there are already supply trains enroute from the Reach, but that's doubtful, as the area around KL is well populated and should have a lot of food. In ACOK, KL was starving mostly because a lot of the farmers in the area were hoarding food, and not taking it to market. I'm sure that KL is under the impression that they have lots of food because there is no significant enemy around to fear. But, if Bolton's little raiding party achieves their goal, then the Crown will be starving again for a while.

2. This scorched earth policy does accomplish two things, while it still serves the same purpose, which is to buy Robb and Edmure more time. Time to either re-take the North, or to take the Lannister lands. The Crown forces can't march without sufficient food supplies to feed them, and they can't live off the land because the Lannister forces already destroyed everything in the central riverlands. Thus they would have to wait until supplies could be re-routed from the Reach. There's more here, but why need I go on.

3. Who's to say that Tallhart and Glover don't have cavalry now, or atleast Hobilars. I'm sure that Lorch had cavalry at Harrenhal, so I don't see why Boltons forces couldn't have taken them, and if he's loyal, he would have given them to his Scorched Earth Force. Plus other horses and forces can be rounded up along the march to Duskendale. Remember, a lot of Riverlords stayed in their Castles to defend themselves and their people.

ab
Ran
User ID: 0867924 		Jan 13th 3:02 PM
Dirjj,

Good analysis, though I think some of your points are incorrect.

1. The area of King's Landing cannot and does not support the population of King's Landing, much as the area around Paris or London or Rome could not and did not support the population of those great cities. King's Landing was dependent on grain and other foodstuffs from the riverlands and the Reach. When that was cut off, we came to the present problems in KL.

To quote p. 47 of U.K. hardback:

"There is no food coming in, is there?" he [Tyrion] said to Vylarr.
"Little enough," the captain admitted. "With the war in the riverlands and Lord Renly raising rebels in Highgarden, the roads are closed to south and west."

I.e., they don't get food because they can't get food from the Riverlands or the Reach.

I don't recall any reference to farmers in the region hoarding food, though I suppose one could infer it from references to only a trickle of food coming into the city -- but then, it seems more likely this refers to the cutting off of supply from the riverlands and the Reach.

No doubt some farmers _did_ hoard, but the fact that Tyrion and the crown could do nothing to get that food to the people ... well, that just goes to show there was nothing to do, because food truly _was_ scarce. As Tyrion stated more than once, it was now only Stokeworth and Rosby that were really providing the food for the Red Keep.

I am quite certain that the Tyrells will now be providing supplies from the untouched Reach to King's Landing. It only makes sense. I'm sure it makes sense to Roose, as well ... so, why should he send troops to attack lands sworn to King's Landing if it'd do nothing to dent the food supply?

To take a quote to support the argument, BTW:

2. Stumbling across the same food supply argument and its problems. Since the food supply is almost certainly fine, and Roose almost certainly knows this, he knows he hasn't hampered anything. Again, remember, Roose gives the orders some days after the Battle of the Blackwater (since he and the Frey men are discussing the victory there, the alliance between the Tyrells and the Lannisters, and the way it changes things.)

3. There's very little calvary left. Most of it was taken by Robb, who had about 5,000-6,000 horse (exact figure escapes me) which was named as 9/10ths of what the Northerners had all together. The rest that Edmure could scrape together (I'd be surprised if it were more than 1,000-2,000 at the present time) was with him defending the Red Fork.

In comparison to that, Roose Bolton had something like the remaining tenth of the Northerner forces -- 550-650 horsemen, some of which were killed at the battle on the Green Fork. Tallhart, surely, brought down some more -- but if it was more than 100, I'd be surprised.

Now, certainly, Helman Tallhart and Robett Glover have horse under them -- but the force is vastly composed of footmen. Vastly. You're not going to gather 2,000+ horses just like that. And you're certainly not going to find the oats that almost all horses require, so there's no point in having them if they start falling dead under you.

Even if half the force gets mounted, it means they still have to move at marching speed or the forces will be separated, and in fact they'll be slowed by having to bring wagons of oats (wherever they got those from) with them.

As to those lords in their castles, as the Blackfish told us, most of those were cut to pieces. The remaining few who survived from those foolish attempts probably hobbled back to Riverrun and participated in the defense of the Red Fork crossings.

And Lorch's men are, all in all, dead. How many horses are they going to have? 100? 200? Nothing like what Tallhart and Glover need to make even a fifth part of their force mounted.
KAH
User ID: 0541004 		Jan 14th 4:13 AM
Nothing about Bolton, but just to intrude... :o)

IIRC, Edmure had 3K horse in his reserve. And yes, while not all the River lords were 'cut down' (I think only Darry was fully obliterated), it stands to reason that there horse is still on the Red Fork with Edmure, or only now returning to their castles.
Ran
User ID: 0867924 		Jan 14th 7:26 AM
Ahh, you're right. Forgot that he broke down the figures. Should also have remembered that he'd certainly have a good ratio of horse to foot, since the horsemen wouldn't exactly be farmers who had to stay to gather in crops. ;)
Dirjj
User ID: 1954724 		Jan 15th 1:09 AM
Ah yes, but it will still take time for supplies to come from the Reach. And whether the area around Duskendale fully supported KL or not, with the roads closed (Riverlands & the Reach), food from that locale may have been the only food that was sustaining KL.

Are you familiar with Hobilars? They are mounted infantry. The ride to battle, get off their horses, draw up ranks, and fight. No they're not cavalry, but they do move faster than infantry. If my theory about the Scorched Earth is correct, then how many men need the Glover/Tallhart take with them when they go to cause mischief? All they need do is take out small forces and burn fields (and steal livestock). I believe their mission was to deprive the Southrons of supplies while replenishing their own. So, they'll probably be burning what they can't take. Also, they can set traps in the area to slow pursuit. Their foot can fortify a local castle, and make it their base while they're in the area.

Thus, all our theories are good, depending on which scenarios you follow. Whether Duskendale is surrounded by a forest, or KL food comes from the Duskendale area, or Duskendale is barren, whichever belief you hold regarding the area will carry weight with whichever scenario you believe regarding Roose's deployment of Glover/Tallhart. As we don't know Martins thoughts as to the Duskendale area, we call all just speculate. Basically, if we all believed that Bolton were loyal, then I believe my arguement would carry much more weight.

ab
Next 20 Messages