Winter is Coming: House Stark Quest
- Thread starter Charcolt
- Start date
I can't help but feel that Plan Cteatus just doesn't make sense logistically.
For example, let's assume that Tywin acts as we expect and deduces that our siege is a fake, and that our real plan is to attack Jaime at Riverrun. How does he respond to this? Well, first off, he'll realize that his information is at least several days old, due to the delay of his scouts traveling back to report to him, which means our force which crossed the twins already has a headstart of several days. Now, he could try to cross the river and cut us off halfway to Riverrun, but due to our headstart and his force being mostly infantry, it will take him long enough to reach, say, Oldstones, that he runs the very real risk (actually likelihood) of completely missing us, as by the time he gets there we're already at Riverrun.
However, he knows, (or at least thinks he knows) what our destination is, so why would he take the chance of trying to corner us somewhere on the west bank of the Green Fork, instead of taking the sure option of marching straight down the River Road to smash us as we reach Riverrun? In that case, it wouldn't matter even if we succeed in killing or shooting down all his messengers to Jaime, as Tywin will likely take his army straight there anyway.
Also, how do people expect our infantry at the Twins to actually reach the battle in time, regardless of where it happens? Just like with Tywin, by the time the news reaches the Twins that Tywin has taken the bait and has marched, either to Riverrun or Oldstones, the news is already several days old. They then have to march from the Twins down to the Crossroad Inn where Tywin was camped, and then from there to wherever the battle will take place, which is twice the distance Tywin will need to travel, and as mentioned, he has a headstart. Frankly, our infantry will never get there in time.
Finally, even assuming all of this timing somehow works out, there's the logistical nightmare of actually keeping our two forces in contact and coordinating our pincer attack on Tywin, despite his army being squarely between ours.
I understand that this quest isn't going to be too serious, but Charcolt has stated that failure is definitely possible, so we should still make sure that our plan has as few points of failure as possible.
For example, let's assume that Tywin acts as we expect and deduces that our siege is a fake, and that our real plan is to attack Jaime at Riverrun. How does he respond to this? Well, first off, he'll realize that his information is at least several days old, due to the delay of his scouts traveling back to report to him, which means our force which crossed the twins already has a headstart of several days. Now, he could try to cross the river and cut us off halfway to Riverrun, but due to our headstart and his force being mostly infantry, it will take him long enough to reach, say, Oldstones, that he runs the very real risk (actually likelihood) of completely missing us, as by the time he gets there we're already at Riverrun.
However, he knows, (or at least thinks he knows) what our destination is, so why would he take the chance of trying to corner us somewhere on the west bank of the Green Fork, instead of taking the sure option of marching straight down the River Road to smash us as we reach Riverrun? In that case, it wouldn't matter even if we succeed in killing or shooting down all his messengers to Jaime, as Tywin will likely take his army straight there anyway.
Also, how do people expect our infantry at the Twins to actually reach the battle in time, regardless of where it happens? Just like with Tywin, by the time the news reaches the Twins that Tywin has taken the bait and has marched, either to Riverrun or Oldstones, the news is already several days old. They then have to march from the Twins down to the Crossroad Inn where Tywin was camped, and then from there to wherever the battle will take place, which is twice the distance Tywin will need to travel, and as mentioned, he has a headstart. Frankly, our infantry will never get there in time.
Finally, even assuming all of this timing somehow works out, there's the logistical nightmare of actually keeping our two forces in contact and coordinating our pincer attack on Tywin, despite his army being squarely between ours.
I understand that this quest isn't going to be too serious, but Charcolt has stated that failure is definitely possible, so we should still make sure that our plan has as few points of failure as possible.
- Location
- New York
[X] Plan Amnon
Though I do think it should be clarified how much of Glover's force (including the Freys' own) will be left behind. Even a relatively small force should be able to hold the Twins against Tywin Lannister, as well as being insurance against a Frey betrayal. Honestly I somewhat like the idea of straight-up leaving Glover's army at the Twins, only to surprise Tywin when the Freys turn out to be on our side after all, and trying to use that to win the Green Fork in full.
Trying for the double-deception has its issues. Most notably: how is Tywin supposed to cross the Green Fork in order to get to us?! The only reasonable crossing is at the Twins, but if Tywin knows the Freys are on our side, he's no more able to take them than we are. He'd have to return back along the Red Fork and cross at the Ruby Ford, in which case he links up with Jaime and our chance at a pincer is lost. Or he re-turns the Freys, which also seems like a poor outcome.
Edit: Re-read discussion, which answers my first question. Still confused about how @Cteatus plans to trap Tywin between us and the Twins, given the geography. If Tywin crosses at the Ruby Ford and marches west along the Red Fork, we have Tywin in the SE, Jaime in the SW, Glover in the N, and Robb at the triangle's center. The only pincer that comes out of this is the two Lannister hosts converging on us.
Though I do think it should be clarified how much of Glover's force (including the Freys' own) will be left behind. Even a relatively small force should be able to hold the Twins against Tywin Lannister, as well as being insurance against a Frey betrayal. Honestly I somewhat like the idea of straight-up leaving Glover's army at the Twins, only to surprise Tywin when the Freys turn out to be on our side after all, and trying to use that to win the Green Fork in full.
Trying for the double-deception has its issues. Most notably: how is Tywin supposed to cross the Green Fork in order to get to us?! The only reasonable crossing is at the Twins, but if Tywin knows the Freys are on our side, he's no more able to take them than we are. He'd have to return back along the Red Fork and cross at the Ruby Ford, in which case he links up with Jaime and our chance at a pincer is lost. Or he re-turns the Freys, which also seems like a poor outcome.
Edit: Re-read discussion, which answers my first question. Still confused about how @Cteatus plans to trap Tywin between us and the Twins, given the geography. If Tywin crosses at the Ruby Ford and marches west along the Red Fork, we have Tywin in the SE, Jaime in the SW, Glover in the N, and Robb at the triangle's center. The only pincer that comes out of this is the two Lannister hosts converging on us.
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[X] Plan Cteatus 1.0
I'm here to see crazy shit, so let's do crazy shit!
I'm here to see crazy shit, so let's do crazy shit!
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- Location
- Europe
Presumably, the dice will allow us to teleport the different armies into the desired positions and allow us to coordinate the attack with an army we have no means of contacting. At least, that's my understanding of what it would take for the plan to succeed. Because this is a crack-quest I don't find it that unlikely, merely annoying because some people genuinely believe they've devised a cunning stratagem.
Cteatus
A Guy Who Fell Down a Hole
I don't have to come up with an actual cunning stratagem.
This is a game. No one here is an actually military commander (if you are, then, you know, speak up). All I need to vote for some hare brained idea is GM approval and the dice.
I have that. And if the dice support us then we capture Tywin, Kevan, the Mountain, Tyrion, and probably have time to go beat up Jaime and capture him to. To be honest, I don't really see why Tywin wouldn't just go link up with Jaime, and come up North to crush Riverrun, but then I don't have to.
These plans will live and die by the dice.
Basically, why are you getting annoyed by any of this?
- Location
- Europe
Because half your claims/arguments don't make sense.(I'm being generous) Here, I'll make a list of some of the claims you've made:
- We're betraying the Freys by pretending to besiege the Twins.
- We'll be ceding the Twins by leaving a large part of our army there.
- Tywin is going to take the Twins easily despite the fact that it has a garrison of 800 men.
- We can trap Tywin's army between our own even though it doesn't make any sense if you look at a map of the Riverlands and know about the lack of crossings along the Green Fork.
- Our forces would be "too spread out" despite the fact that our forces would actually be less spread out than in canon if we do Plan Amnon.
See, this is what I mean. This is you, failing to grasp the military situation in the Riverlands. You can't just "crush Riverrun" by a frontal assault on the castle without taking massive casualties in the process. Riverrun is being besieged because an actual assault on the castle would prove too costly, even if it did succeed.
Also, the Ruby Ford where Tywin is camped is actually further north than Riverrun, so he would have to move south-west to get there... well, mostly west after crossing the Trident but that's beside the point.
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Now don't mind me, all of this is terribly fascinating. But I'd like to point out a single thing.
Both of these counterpoints could be raised against plan Amnon. How do you justify that?
What?! You doubt the capacity of armchair generals? Heresy!
- Location
- Europe
If you actually read my post, you'd see that those weren't claims I made, those were claims made by @Cteatus. I merely listed them to point out how he had made several nonsensical claims during this... discussion. They're not counterpoints to anything because they're patently false.
To clarify, Cteatus said we'd be betraying the Freys by pretending to besiege their castle and that it would be a breeze for Tywin Lannister to take a castle garrisoned by 800 men that he can't even properly surround. This is obviously false but Cteatus has refused to acknowledge this in any way and simply moves the goalposts continuously to the point where I decided not to engage with him anymore.
Charcolt
Comic Fan
Rolling is moved back to 1:30 EST so I can help a friend from the airport. ~2 hours left to vote.
I know how contentious votes like this can be (second perhaps only to love interest selection) so good job on everybody keeping civil and not getting banned! I shall reward this behavior with a Good Boy PointTM which can be applied to one roll this coming session for +/- 20.
I know how contentious votes like this can be (second perhaps only to love interest selection) so good job on everybody keeping civil and not getting banned! I shall reward this behavior with a Good Boy PointTM which can be applied to one roll this coming session for +/- 20.
- Location
- United States
More to the point, are we allowed to decide which roll it's applied to or do you just automatically do it to our most unlucky roll?
- Location
- Europe
I don't know why I'm doing this but I just can't help being the party pooper. If I've understood the winning plan correctly, this is what's supposed to happen:
Route 1 being what Tywin thinks we're going to do, Route 2 being the planned engagement.
The main problem here is timing, distance and geography. By the time that the Lannister scouts "realize" our fake siege of the Twins and they report back to Tywin, he would have to assume we'd made it most of the way towards Riverrun with our cavalry army. He can't make it to the supposed ambush site of Oldstones in time to actually ambush our army since he'd have to move almost twice the distance with his army, which is a mix of cavalry and infantry compated to our own cavalry based army. This is quite simply not possible.
Route 1 being what Tywin thinks we're going to do, Route 2 being the planned engagement.
The main problem here is timing, distance and geography. By the time that the Lannister scouts "realize" our fake siege of the Twins and they report back to Tywin, he would have to assume we'd made it most of the way towards Riverrun with our cavalry army. He can't make it to the supposed ambush site of Oldstones in time to actually ambush our army since he'd have to move almost twice the distance with his army, which is a mix of cavalry and infantry compated to our own cavalry based army. This is quite simply not possible.
Btw Charcolt, just in case Plan Amnon somehow does make a comeback(yeah right...), it doesn't call for the destruction of the Twins. It's a pretend siege, not an actual siege of the castle. It also doesn't entail abandoning the Twins and allowing Tywin to take them without a fight, since it has a substantial garrison already.
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Well, it is a write-in, and you are writing a strategy to get something more than what mine offered... so you kinda do. Otherwise it's just throwing words like "I plan to defeat the enemy by shooting bullets at them... more than the other guy...".
When you work out that my plan has too many points of failure, and then bring yours which has far more, you can't say "my plan is better, but it also doesn't have to make sense so don't judge me". You can't eat the cake and keep it at the same time.
Well I am. I'm also studying to be a historian with a focus on military and geo-political matters. But I don't think I need to push credentials over stratagy in a game, especially one based on a book series written by an auther who has a very limited understanding of such matters.
Still, the strategy I wrote was very simple. Take something that worked (Whispering Woods and Battle of the Camps) and change as little as possible. Take something that didn't work (Battle of the Green Fork), and change it.
My idea was to break down what didn't work first. Roose got orders to confront Tywin. There was no sense to that order. Robb feared open battle with Tywin even with his entire force including the Freys. He also dismissed the idea that he could take Tywin by surprise. He considered sending Umber because maybe he could go hulk and figure something especially violent (an idiotic notion), but was then convinced to sent someone with cunning (another idiotic notion, since Robb had already gone over this with his commanders and ruled out that Tywin would be surprised). So the battle starts from the position that the Northern host has no plan, and is marching with even fewer forces and abilities than what Robb deemed insufficient earlier. It was a fantastically idiotic decision which Robb simply gave because Martin couldn't be bothered to write a better reason.
We want Tywin to march north, so as to be as far away from Jaime. Well, Tywin already starts too far away. We also know that he plans to march north to quickly finish Robb, so he could be free to deal with Stannis. There is no reason to send the infantry south, because that shortens the distance that Tywin would need to make when he doubles back in his rush to aid Jamie.
So if the ideal is to keep the Northern host further north, what are we going to do to keep Tywin guessing regarding our ability to cross the Green Fork and threaten Jamie? Considering that Tywin is already on the eastern bank of the Green Fork, he is clearly already working under the assumption that Frey would remain neutral. A completely in character assumption to make, and one which we have meta knowledge to confirm, is that we can play on this card and keep Tywin thinking that Frey is not on our side. If we tell the foot to pretent to lay siege, Tywin sees the rash boy flailing around in impotent rage over his incompetence - exactly what he expects to see. Tywin marches north, wasting his time, while Robb and the cavalry continue to scatter Jamie's host as per canon.
When Tywin arrives at the Twins, he sees the Northern host is gone, the Twins are flying the Wolf banner, and the battlements are bristling with missile weapons ready for any foolish Lannister assualt. Tywin, who will now realise that he was wrong and that Frey joined the Starks, has no realistic option but to retreat with his tail between his legs. To his north is Moat Cailin, strongly held by 200 of our bowmen, a fortress which had never fallen to a southern assault. To his west are the Twins, strongly held and even if he destroyed his host and manages to break his way through, only offers a larger hosts on the other side and Jamie would be defeated well before he could reach him. To his east is the Vale, thankfully still out of the war, but then again also not an option for movement. All he has left is to rush to Harrenhal to defend King's Landing from the Stark host, and continue as in canon.
In contrast, your plan says:
1. Let's start by informing Tywin that the Freys are with us. Surely, this cannot backfire, because I really don't want it to.
2. Let's then hold on defeating Jamie so that we could be in position to trap Tywin, who would be so kind as to place himself away from Jamie, and between us and the host he knows has the option to come from his rear because we just told him that the Twins are with us. Because that would really help my plan if he does that.
3. We would be able to expand our counter-scout operations on a much larger scale than in canon to avoid any birds/riders from Tywin, who has all of the southern Riverlands to send messangers from, and we can bank on our success to remain as in canon because... I really want it to.
4. Tywin will then cross the Trident on an imaginary crossing that does not exist pretty much as far as Riverrun, in order to attack us with Jamie's host coming from another direction, instead of marching to Riverrun with the help of river barges for speed to combine the strength of the two hosts. Because again, I really want him to.
5. Not only do we have Crannogmen, which Robb did not have in canon, but they are all also expert anti-scout weapons, because I missed all the parts in the books where they are described as little bog dwellers that have little to any worthwhile contribution outside of what is described as a thick and shadowy Floridian Bayou. Again, because I really want expert anti-scout weapons to make my plan work. Aside of course of also mind-controling Tywin into following steps that make no sense.
So, not pulling credentials, I just point out that I am trying to present a plan that makes sense. If all we need is rolls and there are no modifiers if a plan is bad or good, what is the point of a plan? Every roll can be "Robb tries to single-handedly fight every Lannister knight to win the war" and there would be no difference if someone offered a rational plan that presents a strategy and tactics to lead to an eventual victory.
There is a difference between "you can try", and "these plans are equal".
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- Location
- Brazil
If.you want to pretend a siege you gonna need to a whole lot of things, including harvest taking, clearing everything on one side of the Twins, destroying a lot of woodland for siege weapons, etc etc. And it will need to have pretend attacks or skirmished. So yes. It involves destruction. And I wonder how big that Garrison to be able to deal with Tywin's massive army without much problem.I don't know why I'm doing this but I just can't help being the party pooper. If I've understood the winning plan correctly, this is what's supposed to happen:
Route 1 being what Tywin thinks we're going to do, Route 2 being the planned engagement.
The main problem here is timing, distance and geography. By the time that the Lannister scouts "realize" our fake siege of the Twins and they report back to Tywin, he would have to assume we'd made it most of the way towards Riverrun with our cavalry army. He can't make it to the supposed ambush site of Oldstones in time to actually ambush our army since he'd have to move almost twice the distance with his army, which is a mix of cavalry and infantry compated to our own cavalry based army. This is quite simply not possible.
Btw Charcolt, just in case Plan Amnon somehow does make a comeback(yeah right...), it doesn't call for the destruction of the Twins. It's a pretend siege, not an actual siege of the castle. It also doesn't entail abandoning the Twins and allowing Tywin to take them without a fight, since it has a substantial garrison already.
[X] Plan Cteatus
You and Amnom should learn how to make a feasible, short and direct plan. Overcomplicating it and making it overlong is asking for a disaster. The longer the series of rolls, the easier it is to get fucked. No one here is a West Point trained strategist. Don't try to pretend you are, don't overestimate your abilities.
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Walpurgis Knight
Guardian of Folkvang
- Location
- Union of Cascadian Socialist Republics (UCSR)
That plan still involves pretending to fake a siege, so, by the same logic, there still has to be some destruction to avoid making it too obvious. And over-complicating things? You just voted for the most convoluted plan and it relies on Tywin being a complete dumbass and forgetting about an entire army to his rear.
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This is literally a few days start to finish. Tywin would be there before the end of the week, so all you need to do is just make camp and start building a ram and a tower or two. There is no point in skirmishing the castles when you can't get men through the door, that is literally sending them to die for no gain.
And 800 men to guard the Twins is more than enough. Think of the sheer amount of metal coming your way when you launch an assault, the small area you have to cover with siege engines to get over the walls, and you quickly realise that it is going to be a bloodbath.
Then the butchery really begins because even if you lost thousands taking the first castle, you only got one side of a bridge. The entire thing is now a giant death alley where your men have to move in the open while being conviniently narrowed to a concentrated killing zone before they can even get the ram to the next gate. Then they have to do everything all over again.
When your host is broken and your losses are in the high thousands and you have the wounded to match, you have the fun prospect of an army that was already larger than yours, now reinforced with local Riverlords, and you severaly weakened. Even if you keep to the Twins, said enemy army now marches to King's Landing and ends the war. So you have no real goal served by attacking the Twins in the first place.
Medieval fortresses were a pain in the ass, and the lack of long, boring as fuck sieges was always a point against the books. But in the end, large battles in short periods of times are more fun to read than "and after 47 days of campaign and one siege, the king ran out of money and returned to his kingdom for the next 15 years to raise more funds for his next move".
Robb's lords tell him he can't assault the fucking thing for a reason. Assaults were rarely attempted, and were usually bloody in the period the books draw from.
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- Location
- Europe
No, you don't need to have pretend attacks or skirmishes. A siege is simply the act of surrounding a castle, not the actual assault. Fun fact, the word "siege" comes form the the latin word "sedere" which means "to sit."(learned that one on wikipedia, don't quote me on it.) Often, castles weren't assaulted because such a thing would prove far too costly in terms of loss of life. The siege instead devolved into an act of attrition on both sides, with the defenders also hoping reinforcements might arrive to relieve them.
We also don't need to take harvests or burn everything. We can pretend to be the dumb, noble son of Eddard Stark who refuses to punish the smallfolk. We don't need to destroy a bunch of woodland because we don't need to build a large number of siege engines. Even if we did, such a thing does not require extraordinary amounts of timber and we might even have brought it along with our army.
A garrison of 800 men is more than enough to deal with an army of 15000, at least for the time we require them to do so. Castles are huge force multipliers and Tywin won't be able to assault us with his entire army.
EDIT: Ninja'ed by @Amnon.
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This talk about how a fortified garrison at the Twins can hold against Tywin's army reminds me of this saying by Ned.
"500 men could hold Winterfell against 10,000."
Granted this quote is for the defenders winning or achieving a stalemate. It shouldn't be much more of a difference with the Twins.
"500 men could hold Winterfell against 10,000."
Granted this quote is for the defenders winning or achieving a stalemate. It shouldn't be much more of a difference with the Twins.
- Location
- Europe
"Hmmm, that Amnon fellas plan seems a tad complicated. That pretend siege is bound to fail. Why don't I vote for a different plan that not only has a pretend siege but also wants to prevent all communication between the two enemy armies and rely on our enemy finding out about our rouse and then attempting their own ambush while conveniently forgetting about an enemy army in their rear. So simple!"
My Plan:
1. Don't send Roose to be defeated by Tywin, instead keep the infantry on the eastern bank for another couple of days, then cross the Twins.
The plan you voted for:
1. Let's keep the infantry on the eastern bank.
2. Get them to pretend to siege so bad that the enemy scouts figure out the Freys actually let the cavalry pass, but not so bad that they realise we wanted them to think that.
3. Use Crannogmen that Roob did not have in canon to expand anti-scout operations from the north-eastern Riverlands to all over the southern Riverlands to make sure that Tywin can't send a rider to Jamie in the most direct route... which is quite far from us.
4. Hope that Tywin completely forgets that the infantry can cross the Twins at any moment.
5. Hope that Tywin picks a pincer attempt instead of linking up with Jamie at Riverrun.
6. Hope that Tywin could actually cross the Red Fork without having to go all the way to the fords near Riverrun, where he can just link up with Jamie and make sure that he got his last orders and warnings about the Freys joining the Starks.
7. Hope that Tywin would continue with this plan with 100% blind faith that Jamie did as he was told, and didn't bother sending a reply that he got said orders because... fuck if I know.
BTW, love it that now we moved from "none of us is a military commander" to "none of us went to West Point" after I said I was one...
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Charcolt
Comic Fan
Didn't mean to suggest Robb would genuinely destroy the Twins, merely that Walder would be frightened at the prospect of an angry and tricked Tywin at his banks. He'd likely request a slightly stronger garrison or a call for reinforcements, but it certainly is plausible as a plan! I liked it a lot.
The reason I allowed it as plausible that Tywin could move faster than Robb is he's working along the Kingsroad and River Road while Robb is trying to avoid being detected by scouts. But I confess I tend to be generous
Also funny enough, both plans could turn into the other once the rolls start happening, given that Tywin's understanding and assumptions will come down to a dice roll. I'll be home soon to start on that.
The Good Boy Point can be used at any point if the majority of players in the dice room want to use it.
The reason I allowed it as plausible that Tywin could move faster than Robb is he's working along the Kingsroad and River Road while Robb is trying to avoid being detected by scouts. But I confess I tend to be generous
Also funny enough, both plans could turn into the other once the rolls start happening, given that Tywin's understanding and assumptions will come down to a dice roll. I'll be home soon to start on that.
The Good Boy Point can be used at any point if the majority of players in the dice room want to use it.