The entire Highgarden scene tells everything you need to know about the last seasons. Excellent camera work, brilliant acting, great music but extremely illogical writing
Also completely fucked up the castle. I know its just shown for a couple of seconds, but its just some random, normal looking castle on a hill. Highgarden is supposed to be an absolutely massive white castle, with incredibly high walls. This is the richest family aside from the Lannisters, and has been for literal millennia. Every castle of every major regional lord is either huge or something special, and you wanna tell me they just build a small castle on a little hill?
Scout: "Yes mam, the Lanniser have amassed a great army and are converging on Highgarden" Olenna: "So we are well fortified for a siege, we stick it out and wait for the dragonqueen, her army of cockless bastards and dothraki to relieve us?" Scout: "No mam" Olenna: "what do you mean no?" Scout: "Well mam, Jaime had the most badass rendition playing ot the rains of Castamere while marching down in an epic af shot towards the castle, so all we could do is open the gates and surrender and let them slaughter us" ........................................ Olenna: "Damn you d&d"
It was so awesome that at dusk an army of maybe 10,000 infantry plus 1,000 horse, with absolutely no siege towers, battering rams, ladders, or any other siege equipment, walked up to a city that has three layers of high walls and captured it before the sun finished setting. Meanwhile Riverrun, with its 2,000 man garrison, couldn't be taken with 30,000 lannister soldiers, thousands of bowmen, siege towers, trebuchets, and sappers digging tunnels without the prospect of enduring a 2 year siege. I guess Randyll Tarly had the skeleton key to unlock the layers of gates, whipped out heartsbane, and single-handedly slaughtered the whole garrison while they were either blinded by the sun gleaming off his shiny head or keeled over laughing that his son was named dick-on?
Hardly surprising that the infantry would travel faster than the baggage train. Siege equipment was probably still in transit. And who says it's the same day? That's an assumption on your part and isn't implied by what's shown.
@@hannotn olenna tyrell says it's the same day, and also tyrells had more than 5 thousand troops, and if I counted correct, lannisters has around 7 thousand. That was the worst written season i've ever seen, except the season 8 of course.
Sieges in history: *Setting up barricades, trenches, siege weapons, having siege engineers building rams and ladders to scale the walls, cutting all routes of escape and raising the nearby villages for supplies and demoralising the defenders within, all in the time span of months* Sieges in GOT: *"oh we just kinda marched in one morning and killed your defenders by tea time having no logistical supplies with us"*
I was just thinking, "why doesn't Olenna just escape" lol. Army that small approaching from one direction towards to continent's second largest capital...
Firstly, it's a series, and secondly, think, like, you're the creator of the series, are you willing to add extra money to make a few episodes of the castle siege.
Yes Just look at the castle on top of a hill surrounded by boulders. The castle walls are high. The castle itself is large. The lanisters would need 5X more men than Highgarden to breach those walls. That castle easily has enough food stored to last them 4-6 months to outlast a siege. That was common practice in those days to store enough food to outlast sieges. Riverrun had 12 months worth of food. Highgarden was the wealthiest lands in all westeros and most of that wealth came from food they shared with everyone. This was very poorly written. Even if the lanisters won it would have cost them many many men.
@@eduardomaldonado1647 the usual ratio is more like 13 20xtimes the defenders so even with 1000 highgarden soldiers manning the walls the lannisters would have needed 15-20k to siege it down without a breach
Ah yes, a Lannister army in massive debt, who saw major losses in two wars. Wiped out a completely full strength House Tyrell and basically all of their Reach bannermen, who had completely control of food production in the seven kingdoms after the Riverrun was decimated in wars, in less time it too for Jaime to take a bath.
@mianin1879 they might as well not exist, and the story only works if you imagine they don't exist. But the biggest insult is that House Hightower and Houe Redwyne would ever flip for House Lannister. Leyton Hightower would be Daenery's biggest cheerleader in lopping the heads of everyone at kingslanding for what they did to his family, and House Tarly is not surviving with their seat sandwiched between Oldtown and Highgarden while their army is marching from Kingslanding.
@@tysonleblanc8862 Right, the families who have historically hated the lannisters, loved the Tyrells, and were directly involved with the management of the reach switched for a house they hated because "KHALEESHI A WUMNA?!?!? A WUMAN RULING DA 7 SEVEN KINGDOMS?!??!". That's such stupid writing.
Not to mention the writer made Highgarden a sorry ass castle on top of a will with no outer walls while in the books it's literally a impregnable fortress with a maze like garden. It's even more hilarious they all did that without siege engines as if the Tyrells fought outside of their walls and leave their gates open. Oh wait nvm the writers would actually prefer them fighting outside the walls LMFAO
Visited the castle today, it was awesome. Recognized everything, almost everything is intact. The flags of house Lannister and Tyrell wave proudly at the entrance.
Yet he wasn't qualified to succeed him. Jaime was too weak toward love to lead lannisters. Tyrion was a chad, and was weak towards love too but he learned the lesson and became a giga chad after he sacrifised his love.
So I understand the Lannister Army is powerful but didn’t they lose like a third of their forces to the Starks? And I understand the Tarly’s are the Reach’s finest soldiers and leaders but does their loss really mean that the Reach’s army of 100k is now completely outmanned? Should be like 55k Lannister-Tarly forces against 70k Tyrell forces. Perhaps a victory for the Lannister’s regardless but surely a pyrrhic one, not a walk in the park? I guess D and D forgot the original power levels of the houses and the events of the previous couple seasons like Dany forgot about the Iron Fleet.
I’m not sure about the numbers but I think you can compare it to Robert Baratheon’s army during the trident even though they were outnumbered the were already battle hardened from other battles and that gave them the edge over the Targaryen army. It probably works out the same the with the Lannister army having fought more than the Tyrells at this point.
The show makes it look like they took the castle in a day without any siege equipment…There is no way especially for a castle with so much high ground.
@@kakarrot15 even if that were the case they had a castle to defend from, which means the enemy no matter how experienced will need siege engines and a 3 to 1 numbers advantage to overcome it in a fight, otherwise it will become a long siege, which also didn’t happen.
I think if I remembered correctly, it was stated that the Tarly’s are the prominent banner house under the Tyrell and is known to produce the very finest soldiers within the Reach. Add that to the lost of Tyrell’s main army & family members when the Great Sept of Baelor exploded. By then the Tyrell are taking so many losses and has greatly reduced morale so I guess they are not fighting as well as they could or could be Olenna herself wishes not to put up a fight as she lost hope when all her family members died.
Its name is "A Lion's Legacy". And the credits soundtrack of this episode is "The Queen's Justice". Here is the mix of both soundtracks ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-DMFR-Q3NXe8.html
You know, Robb's plan worked because he ditched his infantry and relied on only his calvary to defeat Jaime. It worked because he moved too fast be reliably tracked, and the Blackfish did a great job of killing scouts before they got spotted. This "trick" makes no sense. Jaime would've been found out immediately.
@@LostMyGoatsAgain Randyll was mobilizing his army to meet at highgarden, he probably emptied highgarden of its forces sent them elsewhere, and had people on the inside to open the gates, he was the ranking general and commander for any reach force, olenna would have no reason to be suspicious of him marching his men to highgarden, like i said they may have just switched in to their lannister armour near, so as to not get mixed up with the tyrells, even randylls troops were in lannister attire, it's not that difficult when its randyll that orchastrated it, its not a long march. The mongols would send people to cities for a decade to know it inside and out, and its capabilities before attacking, randyll knows highgardens capabilities, its weaknesses, he would have probably had men in there 'to defend it incase of a flanking maneovre'
@@WhySoSerious551 You literally proved yourself wrong, because they see the Lannister army from miles away. Therefore, Randyll would be shown as a traitor, any men he had sent inside would be butchered and the gates sealed. Stop trying to explain for stupid writers, it’s just bad.
@@WhySoSerious551 Olenna is well aware that Randyll answer the call of Cercei and went to King's ladning. She is no fool, she knew that Randyll betrayed her way before he came to Highgarden
I love how in this scene they showed the lannister forces at their peak. How they tore down the tyrells with ease. Then in the same day were totally annihilated. It brings you back to something tywin told arya stark in season 2, aegon changed the rules with dragons
@Xizo Firstly, how do you expect them to push a siege tower and rams with all of that forest in the way? It's the same as the moat of Riverrun. Not excusing the generally poor writing in the show, but the Tarly's could easily have convinced a few of the Tyrell's to open up the gates and let them in, since they fought with the Tyrrell's for a long time. Secondly, the Tarly's had the highest quality of battle hardened men in Westeros, and were the most important/numerous bannermen for House Tyrell. Randall was the cause of Robert's only defeat in the whole rebellion. Morale is one of the most significant factors as shown in history, especially for an untrained garrison who have never seen battle. Seeing what was supposed to be your dependable, steadfast allies coming at you? Yeah, no. Thirdly, House Tyrell literally only had Olenna. They saw the Lannister's coming for days but how many bannermen saw the Tyrell's as a lost cause? No Mace, Margaery, or Loras, the elite knights escorting Mace in King's Landing died, and again, the Tarly's defected - who really wanted to come to aid Highgarden?
@Xizo The Lannisters and Frey's didn't seige riverun. Just the Freys. And they don't resort to storming the castle because they defeat Blackfish through subterfuge using edmure. And no siege weapons would be in the march shot because siege towers, trebuchets etc are assembled on location not carried to the siege, and you wouldn't see ladders in such a large scale shot. You also don't see the traveling caravan of peasants that followed medieval armies, or the wagons of food water and supplies.
@@millennialpeter6807 Olena stopped giving food to the Lannisters ages ago and also not all of their soldiers were loyal to the Lannisters most were still loyal to them this was just bad writing
@@Duhehejeh man Tarly was the most loyal family and when they went to the Lannisters I think other houses were also swore their allegiance to Lannisters.And after the last Gardener king died Aegon made tyrells warden of reach. Most house disliked it cause Tyrells were no noble house but steward of house Gardener.So yeah basically nobody from reach loved them much.But yeah the bad writing was that the Lannisters didn't brought any siege item.
Выдающийся драматизм сцены. Музыка, войско, Оленна Тиррелл, понявшая, что это конец, и камера, следующая за генералом, входящим в захваченный замок. Так наверно даже лучше, чем если бы была сцена осады. Рамин Джавади проделал невероятную работу. Наверное один из самых запомнившихся моментов сериала.
0:56 the Rains of Castamere(lannister's family song) playing as Jamie enters is just sheer goosebumps and a powerplay. They might have messed up the story so much, but Music and severals scenes were done so well..
This was one of the dumbest scenes ever. Highgarden can field 100,000 men in a total war against the other great houses. You are telling me they are just going to give up and let the Lannisters take everything?
But high garden needs it’s lords to get the troops all of high gardens banner men swore loyalties to the crown and new queen. Only those loyal to House Tyrell fought hence why it was easy but still lazy writing 😂😂
One thing that season 7 did not disappoint in was the camera work. Those shots of the army marching, Olenna watching, and Jaime walking thru the wreckage after were fantastic.
Sorry but how did they tyrells lose so easily? They have literally 100 000 men at their disposal, I get that the tarlys turned on them, so let's say they lost a good 5th of their fighting force, they still have a massive number of bannermen
Dont forget that the last season were nonsense, but we can admit that the Tyrell have rallied the others lords of the reach with them and the lannisters
Their banners are 100k strong not Highgarden itself. This was a surprise attack and they were not prepared. Still, no one can justify the fact that this was stupid. The Lannisters marched all the way to Highgarden and not a single person warned the Tyrells. Not to mention that the Lannisters had no siege weapons and they still were able to occupy Highgarden, one of the biggest castles in Westeros, in a day. Epic scene and music though 😅
A lot of the reaches army turned on them. Plus they really didn't expect it, their forces were not united and they were not ready to face such a big force.
@@claydee7092 Dont forget that Olenna was present at Danys war council on Dragon Stone , an Isle not so far away from the shores of Kings Landing. She had to pass Kings Landing on her travel home to Highgarden.
They could have easily made this scene more believable by showing that some of the soldiers inside the castle were secretly with the Tarlys and they pretty much started attacking the other loyal soldiers in the castle and let the Lannisters and other Tarly's in the castle. Like the Red wedding 2.0.
This is just bad writting . There is no way this big lannister army arrives highgarden without knowing them . They had hundreds of houses loyal to them and thousands of scouts across the Reach . Tyrells had plenty of time to send a raven to daenerys . Even if they didn't knew about them coming to attack , tyrells still could have hold the castle for few days at least until daenerys arrives with drogon to rescue the castle just like she goes to rescue jon . Because they don't need a big army to hold a castle .
so the highgarden has the most wealth of all westeors and can't even make an army that could hold the lannisters for day or two even with a well defended position ?
@Deepak Karnadhar honestly, I have no idea how the dothraki even landed in westeros. There is no way they could have landed in the stormlands and if they landed in dorne, god knows how they were able to intercept Jamie's forces on the kingsroad.
@Deepak Karnadhar Yup, plus Dany has three dragons and Lannisters do not have effective counter-dragon measure at that point (Scorpion has not been widely implemented). So Jamie's "surprise match" on a plain with an army composed of mostly infantry (which by definition is a force lacking mobility) should be a theoretically impossible in the very first place, provided one take advantage of dragons' air supremacy. All it takes is just to regularly fly over castle rock and take a look. Because the show let it happen, it is really dumb.
@@Kiviyt312 Show got dumber true. Sieges like this don’t happen in Game of Thrones. Even small castles takes a while. A top tier house like Highgarden would take half of Westeros to lay siege on it. It would even take months to move armies, plan the siege, and lay the siege. Large scale troop movements in the books isn’t as organized as this. It’s a chaotic train of humans that leaves destruction at its trail. Disease, wastes, pillaging, rape, and natural resources are plundered. It was subtlety described in the books.
It wasn't treachery, he said himself he wouldn't join hands with a foreigner and her whole foreign army who didn't belong to Westeros. He was a proud knight true to his words maybe not a very good father for Sam but I had respect for him for his decision and not being a coward. He also was the last person who surrendered to Robert baratheon and fought till all the houses surrendered.
Literally the largest army in Westeros defeated by infantry with no siege towers in a matter of hours. This fight would have arguably been just as difficult if not more so than the war against the North.
Not much to be honest, he’s cool and he’s good with a sword in hand, but he’s a shitty tactician. He walked up to a fortress, with infantry and cavalry, he had no siege piece or anything alike. Even the formation of the army is pretty useless. After he took that huge castle super defendable, he just thought of making his army’s outpost in an open field, without having scouts maintaining a perimeter of defense. His army wasn’t ready an he had no ballistas to fight dragons, he’s up against a girl with he hugest dragon anyone ever seen in 300 years and he decided to not care about it at all. He’s cool like Tywin but all his brain power went to Tyrion
@@frozenlama23 the unsullied were across the kingdoms, the only reason Danny made it there in time to catch up is because she had a dragon, dothraki are mounted and plot armor. The dothraki would would have never defeated the Lannister army without the help of a dragon, their swords can't even penetrate armor, while wearing 0 armor themselves
@@afriendlycadian9857 the Dothraki strenght is its mobility, in open field they just would win any fight that doesnt involve something unbeatable for infantry, like fortresses or navy, the Lannister would have won easily if they used the castle they just earned to defend themselves, but they understimated the situation in a stupid matter. Probably if this was made when this show was still good written, the Lannister would have used Highgarden’s cadtle to defend the position and ballistas to take out Drogon, maybe with some difficulty but they could kill Dany. If Tywin was alive he would have thought some kind of plan or alike and would have beaten Daenerys, after all… most of her strategy consists in attacking blindy with cavalry and her dragons, a good tactician would have used her stupidity at his advantage, but Jamie simply becomes an idiot after S6
Man, it was so smart of Jaime to attack just before Highgarden closed its gates for the night. Any later and they wouldve had to, idk, besiege them or something. Phew, close one.
While playing a GoT mod for Medieval 2: Total War I understand now how this can happen. So I played the main campaign as Stannis, after defeating Renly I absorbed the Stormlands. While some of my troops advance westward, I sailed Stannis and his army at the southwest coast of Reach. Captured Oldtown, and continued capturing settlements until I reached Highgarden. There was an encamped army outside the castle, which I attacked. The garrison and reinforcements sallied out. With shrewd tactics Stannis won against an army twice the size of his'. All routing enemy men were chased down and captured. None were left to retreat to Highgarden. So I marched my army in formation to simply occupy the castle, just as shown.
This is a pretty cool scene in the series, but it also makes so little sense. For one thing, it’s impossible to march an army of that size through the countryside without word of it getting to the castle beforehand. For another, a castle like that would be impossible to take so quickly (Olenna even says it was in a single day), especially without siege equipment. That siege would’ve lasted months or years, and the Tyrells probably had enough grain to last years, giving the Unsullied plenty of time to follow the Lannisters south and attack them mid-siege.
The biggest stupidity was that the reach has the upper hand. More men, controls the food, lannister army lost many men in war of the five kings too, So how the f did they win the siege of reach?
I could buy maybe Jaime wanting to raid the Reach countryside and seize supplies that way, but good lord this attack on highgarden doesnt make sense. @@bait5257
It's funny how highgarden has the most number in army and yet still lost within a day. Lol pretty sure even Theon hold off winterfell longer than that.
A siege like that would’ve taken YEARS more than enough time for Daenerys to show up with her three dragons and destroy this army in fire… sometimes this writing really does get to me
everyone is saying how great Jaime is and all that but no one is talking how they conveniently shrunk Highgarden to a small country chateau. Let's not forget the sudden stupidity of the entirety of Dany's council consisting of the "smartest" people in Westeros, the sheer stupidity of how Cersei got the Tarlys on their side, with a meeting with all the lords of the reach that are supposed to be in open rebellion against the crown in Kings landing which would risk them all getting slaughtered, and the 0 consequence Cersei suffered for blowing up the Sept.
@@Nrzpokrter because that's not how Highgarden is supposed to looks , it's a huge castle on a big hill surrounded by several outer walls and a giant hedge maze between them. There's a big sept and a gods wood. Its described as a pleasure palace but that doesn't mean its not a strong fortress. Furthermore they can withstand a long siege, given the fact that they have most of the food , enough to wait for reinforcement atleast . The castle is conveniently reduced to a joke in the show.
Yeah it's like if let's say Canada blew up the Vatican and everyone was just like "meh" At the end of season 6 we see everyone hate that Cersei is on the thrones yet literally nothing comes of that. And the fact that Randyll Tarly joins Cersei in the show is the dumbest thing imaginable. Randall is very religious in the books. He cut off seven fingers from a thief who stole from the faith. Imagine what he'd do if someone blew up the Sept of Baelor. He'd do a full on crusade against the Lannisters.
Highgarden was called highgarden for a reason. And thats because the walls are very high. Just place thousands of archers shooting and raining arrows at the charging lannister army Im pretty ure thousands would die. 🤔 yet they looked almost unscathed after the battle. Plus it took what? Only 3 hours?
Jaime would never get the Lannister army moving against an enemy in the field, never mind one behind walls, unless the soldiers knew they have an element of surprise and outnumbered the foe. That's the only way Lannister soldiers know how to fight. See: Jaime's fight with Ned Stark in King's Landing streets, the courtroom slaughter and the subsequent massacre of the Stark household, the implied battles between The Mountain That Rides & the Lannister forces versus Robb's ever dwindling army leading up to the Red Wedding.....
This is so stupid. Highgarden had the largest store of food in the seven kingdoms. They could have outlasted a siege without the Lannisters breaching a single tier of the city. I will be glad when the book corrects all of this.
This is stupid, not even the Lannisters can against the Tyrells. The Tyrells can form up to 100,000 soldiers apart from the fact that Randyll Tarly would never betray them.
"The Tyrells aren't really good at fighting" is one of the worst copouts for bad writing I've ever heard. And the fact people keep on parroting it like it's gospel is even worse than the statement itself.
Yep, it's not as if they managed to hold on to the Reach for 300 years whilst managing a number of vassals who want Highgarden, had skilled warriors such as Loras, and Garlan(Who was cut from the show), intelligent Lords like Willas(Also cut from the show) and would have had the loyalties of AT least House Hightower and Redwyne through family ties, Fossoway as well if they hadn't cut Garlan. Though if Garlan and Willas hadn't been cut then they'd have never let this happen
0:03 I always find it funny how the march like this. Imagine watching an army getting into formation in little ass steps. I crack up and then tell my men to decimate them with a volley of arrows.
This is ridiculous enough, that Jaime was able to take this castle in seemingly a couple hours with minimal effort with no trebuchets or seige weapons of any kind. It’s also ridiculous that the Tyrell forces of tens of thousands didn’t take an enormous chunk of Jaimes army. Especially when Jaime was attacking a well fortified position atop a high hill. That’s all ridiculous enough. What’s even funnier is that the show writers got Highgarden and the reach in general very wrong. The reach is supposed to be lush and beautiful. Highgarden is supposed to be a huge castle, comparable to the red keep with lofty towers and three layers of walls surrounding it as well as mazes of green gardens all over the place. Here it looks like a drab, tiny castle atop a minor hill in the landscape.
I agree with you and if (as I expect0 the main Tyrell force was off doing something else, on there way to the red keep for example then that should have been make clear, I can see how jasmines army could take a castle held by a small skeleton force but he has maybe 25,000 men going by the pictures and being generous, a force of 3,000 could easily hold out in a castle for significant time against those odds... As per usual it's just lazy writing and distinct misunderstanding of military tactics.
I really like those shots of Jaime from behind. They do it a few times in the show, with Ned Stark in season one and again with the Blackfish in season 6
Unsullied never met the main Lannister force in the field, Robb Stark never fought the main lannister force in the field, at oxcross he beat a reserve force under ser Stafford and at whispering woods he ambushed 5k lannister horse men under Jaime's command. The Northern army was crushed in the battle for Winterfell and only saved by a mass cavalry charge from the knights of the vale, the Boltons had virtually annihilated the Stark army, and they only had about 2000 more men. The Lannister army at various times had anywhere from 40k- 12k. Where as Jon Snow's army only ever had maybe 4-5000 men. Also you need to consider all of the Lannister Garrisons during the war of the 5 kings. a large garrison was at Kingslanding, another large one at casterly rock, 1 at harrenhal, untill they abandoned it, Clegan's band of 500 men, and countless more most likely. Plus the force that had seiged River run while jaime was ambushed at whispering woods was then routed as well in an ambush battle. My point is, that if the Stark force ever fought the main Lannister army in the field they would get crushed. As for daenerys army well if you discount the dragoons which is the original comments point, I think the Lannisters would win. 6k unsullied because there is no way that zero died in slavers bay and the assult on Casterly Rock, plus probs like 2-4k unsullied MAX could defeat the 12k-40k lannister army, I think is season 7 its around like 12-15k. The lannisters have more men plus experienced officers and men who had just fought the war of the 5 kings. The unsullied only had experience fighting a small Lannister garrison at Casterly Rock and they got punished for it, and in slavers bay they had only fought light infantry.
In honesty I prefer this type. There is plenty of big battles and it truly shows that danny was outplayed here and it creates a sense of despair which is good. Tough to be fair there is some issues with this, but the scene was epic
I mean from what Ive read i thought highgarden have walls that increase in height as they go inside and have maze of garden to confuse enemies? Was it that easy to conquer it than Blackfish’s castle? Im saying this cos I recently got into GOT series and reached this episode, also I love Lady Olenna so I expected more of a difficulty conquering her proud house at Highgarden. Guess it was that easy 😢😮
I don’t know how credible this is but this is what I found online North: 50,00 (12,000 Stark) Westerlands: 70,000 (18,000 Lannister)(10,000 Reyne) Riverlands: 50,000 (12,000 Tully) The reach: 100,000)(25,000 Tyrell)(18,000 Hightower) The vale: 45,000 (13,000 Arryn) Drone: 30,000 men (8,000 Martell) Stormlands: 40,000 (12,000 Baratheon) Iron Islands: 25,000 (7,000 Greyjoy) MEANING house Lannister was outnumbered and does not have the defensive advantage Show logic 😂😂😂😂
The Westerlands can only field about 50,000 men at most. But you’re also forgetting that two entire Lannister armies were wiped out back in seasons 1 and 2. Robb smashed Jaime’s host at Riverrun and Stafford Lannister’s host at Oxcross. So all the Lannisters had Eldar was Tywin’s army of 20,000 at Harrenhal. Except in season 7 it’s revealed that Casterly Rock has a never before mentioned garrison of 10,000 men who were never used before.
Would have been pretty cool if they actually made the long night the climax battle. And the lannister army actually came marching to aid winterfell in the fight for the living.
All other matters aside, the prospect of a Lannister-Tarly invasion of Tyrell-Reach bannermen territory, in the Reach, would more often be involving massive numbers of forces on both sides. Plenty note the lack of a major Army of the Reach, which was deliberately overlooked by D&D (kinda just forgot etc) However, I'd argue that even in a weakened state, the Lannister-Tarly forces are too small. The Tarly Army was untouched until this time and should number roughly 5,000-6,000 men in it's own right. The Lannister forces _used_ to number >60,000 men. Now they would be lucky to be scratching together a third of that but it goes to show that their host wasn't quite large enough here. The Lannister forces would make up the bulk of the invasion forces of course. Nevertheless, the Reach would still have largely unscathed forces, with some losses in the War of the Five Kings (mainly fighting the Baratheons and Ironborn for their part) Estimates for Army of the Reach combined numbers reach anywhere between 50,000 and 100,000 men. Maybe even more than 100,000 at a push (assuming the Tyrells and Tarlys are still allied) The Tarly Army is smallish but considered one of the best in Westeros, pound for pound, with professional, well-trained infantrymen led by perhaps Westeros' 2nd best field commander after King Stannis Baratheon; Lord Randyll Tarly; the only man to have ever defeated Robert Baratheon (at the Battle of Ashford, the only major rebel defeat of the war, although still not such a massive loss for them) The Army of the Reach would outnumber the Lannister-Tarly invasion force. Whether some bannermen might be scared to show their faces in battle against the Lannisters is somewhat debatable, especially with Randyll Tarly joining the Lannisters in this scenario. All the same, if the full-might of the Reach (minus the highly prized Tarly army) gathered, they'd likely still have something in the general figure of 75,000-95,000 men. Or, if some are scared (let's generously, to the Lannisters, say about 1/4 were too scared to go) then maybe it's be closer to ~67,500-75,000 ish. Still a massive force, especially on the defensive where their archers will have a defensive advantage. Even assuming Lannister heavy infantry will be better in CQC than the average Reach bannermen forces, there are still a lot of Lannister troops (especially at this point in the TV series timeline) whom are basically militia levies, less heavily armed. Partly for practical budgetary reasons and partly to demonstrate the decline in quality of Lannister forces (at least, I think that might have been the dual intention), the show started to have a lot more extras in cheaper outfits like light leather (as seen in the disappointing scenes at Casterly Rock in Season 7) The reasoning behind this was more likely than anything else, purely budgetary, however, I'd like to think that the show had enough sense to realise that after many years of fighting the Lannisters were not in the best shape and that there might have been as many as half the army they had by the time of Daenerys' invasion, being light militia chucked into the places of fallen guardsmen whom were better equipped all round. They'd still have basic training and a bit of combat experience in the case of a smaller proportion, but in real terms they'd be pretty much equivalent to your average militia levees from the Reach. In other words, the qualitative difference between the Lannisters and the Reach forces won't be that bad. Most of them, anyway; and the more elite units within the Reach, would cancel out a lot of the more elite units of the Westerlands (of House Lannister and it's bannermen) In general, the Lannisters could be assumed - especially with House Tarly help - to have a serious tactical advantage against the bulk of the forces of the Reach. The loss of the Tarlys to the Lannister side would indeed be a severe blow to the Army of the Reach. All the same, House Tyrell has it's own elite guard units and arguably more lavished armoured and funded ones at that. They just get clowned on in this episode and made to look worthless but in Season 6 they are used to try and convince the High Sparrow to release Margaery Tyrell. Although politically outflanked and outsmarted by the High Sparrow, the fact Olenna brought those guards into the capital shows that they must have been able to fight. The Lannisters just slaughtered them, though, in S7. Especially defensively, at and around Highgarden, they should be putting up a much, much better fight than this scene implies. In fact, it'd be something of a bloodbath with two of the most powerful armies left in Westeros going at each other in a battle for survival. The Knights of Highgarden would take a heavy toll on the Lannisters and the Tarlys. Perhaps Lannister-Tarly longbowmen would suppress the Reach archers, but they lack the cavalry to match the sheer scale of the forces the Reach can bring to bear. The infantry battle would be slightly in favour of the Lannister-Tarlys but the Reach bannermen and Tyrells would outnumber them anyway. The Lannister-Tarly force also seems to completely lack siege artillery (besides the anti-dragon ballistae) or rams. Wouldn't take long to acquire the latter in the form of chopped down tree trunks fashioned into battering rams, but still. It's not going to be very easy for the Lannister-Tarly forces to capture Highgarden like that. The whole plot contrivance of the allies against House Lannister being 'distracted' by watching the events at Casterly Rock unfold, is stupid beyond belief. It is perhaps some of the worst writing in the later seasons and that is saying quite a lot. Conclusion: even if the Tarly vanguard and elite units among the Lannister battalions actually get inside Highgarden, their losses would have likely been almost catastrophic. Nobody can pretend as though the Reach army doesn't exist it was a major element of why Stannis could not take King's Landing in S2. D&D kind of just 'forgot' that the Reach has the largest potential army in Westeros short of the Army of the Dead...
It takes weeks, if not months to actually lay siege to a fortress, no? Interesting that the Lannister army was able to do this in less than a day. Maybe two if we're being generous. Very interesting.
Tyrell has 2 Advantage A Castle, and more Soldiers I don't know why the plot armor is so thick in this series. if the scenario happen in real life after Joffrey poisoned it only led them to the their trap Lannister will attack first, losing lot of soldiers due the high defense of Tyrell Castle and Tyrell will counter attack & repel the attack.
