Battles (Full Spoilers)

[Suttree]

 

 

 

Instead of culling the light side channelers to make the OP users on both sides equivalent,I wonder why Sanderson did not just bump the no of channelers from Shara to make up the difference.Instead of 400 why not have them bring 3000? 

Because it wouldn't have been enough. Plus, they had no males. At the most they would have matched the Aiel, which leaves the windfinders, the seachan and the BT/WT to outnumber them. So, still over 2 to 1

 

They had males channelers.And the difference could be made up by the Aiel red veil channelers. I think Sanderson missed a chance here.

Think Vards means they shouldn't have had many male channelers as they are all killed once they reach a certain age.

[Morden]

 

 

 

 

Instead of culling the light side channelers to make the OP users on both sides equivalent,I wonder why Sanderson did not just bump the no of channelers from Shara to make up the difference.Instead of 400 why not have them bring 3000? 

Because it wouldn't have been enough. Plus, they had no males. At the most they would have matched the Aiel, which leaves the windfinders, the seachan and the BT/WT to outnumber them. So, still over 2 to 1

 

They had males channelers.And the difference could be made up by the Aiel red veil channelers. I think Sanderson missed a chance here.

Think Vards means they shouldn't have had many male channelers as they are all killed once they reach a certain age.

Unless Demandred followed Taim's tactics for the black tower, all the Ayyad bloodlines up until 17 would have been available and they could have most likely forced anyone from 13 upwards. Morr wasnt exactly much older than that.

 

Add in scouring parties travelling across Shara and in the 2 years Demandred had there he could have gotten them all well and truly sorted, and thats assuming he wasnt smart enough to start before the cleansing. He could have 13x13'd them and gotten them protection against the taint.

 

The entire Demandred arc wasnt that well thought out in my opinion. I enjoyed it because I think he's a cool character. But it makes him look inept as hell that while in control of an entire continent that he managed such a piss poor army. Sorry but a few hundred channellers and a few hundred thousand troops is a little on the small side in comparison to any large nation and Shara is the better part of 2x Randland. He could have had an enormous slave army backed with a stonking load of channellers. And then we could have had the last battle we'd been led to believe was coming before the Aiel and Seanchan decided to have a bath and a tea party and sit out the last battle.

[Gisli]

 

 

Instead of culling the light side channelers to make the OP users on both sides equivalent,I wonder why Sanderson did not just bump the no of channelers from Shara to make up the difference.Instead of 400 why not have them bring 3000? 

Because it wouldn't have been enough. Plus, they had no males. At the most they would have matched the Aiel, which leaves the windfinders, the seachan and the BT/WT to outnumber them. So, still over 2 to 1

 

They had males channelers.And the difference could be made up by the Aiel red veil channelers. I think Sanderson missed a chance here.

 

And if he wanted to still make the nos equivalent he could have used a powerful forsaken attack which destroys a huge no of light channelers in one shot.That would have been better instead of just forgetting about huge nos of channelers on the light side and inversely making it so that the dark side has an advantage in the no of channelers in every single battlefield.

 

 

I also thought about it. But I suspect we have missed the point here. Simply Jordan or/and Sanderson didn't want to write a big war dominated by channelers. There is a reason that we have only a few One Power combat (BT, Egwene/Taim (twice), Demandred/Logain, Graendal/Aviendha and everyone else), especially compared with the true honest battle scenes. It is easier this way to show the struggle for the victory, the hopelessness after the initial battles, the contribution and heroism of the common folk etc.

My theory is that Jordan made a mistake both with the number and strength of channelers and there was no good way to correct it without changing the plot.

[Gisli]

 

 

 

 

 

Instead of culling the light side channelers to make the OP users on both sides equivalent,I wonder why Sanderson did not just bump the no of channelers from Shara to make up the difference.Instead of 400 why not have them bring 3000? 

Because it wouldn't have been enough. Plus, they had no males. At the most they would have matched the Aiel, which leaves the windfinders, the seachan and the BT/WT to outnumber them. So, still over 2 to 1

 

They had males channelers.And the difference could be made up by the Aiel red veil channelers. I think Sanderson missed a chance here.

Think Vards means they shouldn't have had many male channelers as they are all killed once they reach a certain age.

Unless Demandred followed Taim's tactics for the black tower, all the Ayyad bloodlines up until 17 would have been available and they could have most likely forced anyone from 13 upwards. Morr wasnt exactly much older than that.

 

Add in scouring parties travelling across Shara and in the 2 years Demandred had there he could have gotten them all well and truly sorted, and thats assuming he wasnt smart enough to start before the cleansing. He could have 13x13'd them and gotten them protection against the taint.

 

The entire Demandred arc wasnt that well thought out in my opinion. I enjoyed it because I think he's a cool character. But it makes him look inept as hell that while in control of an entire continent that he managed such a piss poor army. Sorry but a few hundred channellers and a few hundred thousand troops is a little on the small side in comparison to any large nation and Shara is the better part of 2x Randland. He could have had an enormous slave army backed with a stonking load of channellers. And then we could have had the last battle we'd been led to believe was coming before the Aiel and Seanchan decided to have a bath and a tea party and sit out the last battle.

 

I agree, but see my earlier post. And Demandred also was portrayed as an inept general, he had several option to won the war and he chose one of the worst one.

[XXX]

 

 

 

Instead of culling the light side channelers to make the OP users on both sides equivalent,I wonder why Sanderson did not just bump the no of channelers from Shara to make up the difference.Instead of 400 why not have them bring 3000? 

Because it wouldn't have been enough. Plus, they had no males. At the most they would have matched the Aiel, which leaves the windfinders, the seachan and the BT/WT to outnumber them. So, still over 2 to 1

 

They had males channelers.And the difference could be made up by the Aiel red veil channelers. I think Sanderson missed a chance here.

 

And if he wanted to still make the nos equivalent he could have used a powerful forsaken attack which destroys a huge no of light channelers in one shot.That would have been better instead of just forgetting about huge nos of channelers on the light side and inversely making it so that the dark side has an advantage in the no of channelers in every single battlefield.

 

 

I also thought about it. But I suspect we have missed the point here. Simply Jordan or/and Sanderson didn't want to write a big war dominated by channelers. There is a reason that we have only a few One Power combat (BT, Egwene/Taim (twice), Demandred/Logain, Graendal/Aviendha and everyone else), especially compared with the true honest battle scenes. It is easier this way to show the struggle for the victory, the hopelessness after the initial battles, the contribution and heroism of the common folk etc.

My theory is that Jordan made a mistake both with the number and strength of channelers and there was no good way to correct it without changing the plot.

 

Ya here we have to place the blame completely on Jordan.He made the no of channelers on the light side so big that the only way to put them at a disdavantage in the LB was to either use an external source like Shara to shore up the dark side channelers,destroy a huge no of light channelers using some plot device or just forget about 2/3 of light channelers. Unfortunately Sanderson choose the last most stupid option and in this I balme him completely.

[Vardar]

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Instead of culling the light side channelers to make the OP users on both sides equivalent,I wonder why Sanderson did not just bump the no of channelers from Shara to make up the difference.Instead of 400 why not have them bring 3000? 

 

Because it wouldn't have been enough. Plus, they had no males. At the most they would have matched the Aiel, which leaves the windfinders, the seachan and the BT/WT to outnumber them. So, still over 2 to 1

 

They had males channelers.And the difference could be made up by the Aiel red veil channelers. I think Sanderson missed a chance here.

Think Vards means they shouldn't have had many male channelers as they are all killed once they reach a certain age.

Unless Demandred followed Taim's tactics for the black tower, all the Ayyad bloodlines up until 17 would have been available and they could have most likely forced anyone from 13 upwards. Morr wasnt exactly much older than that.

 

Add in scouring parties travelling across Shara and in the 2 years Demandred had there he could have gotten them all well and truly sorted, and thats assuming he wasnt smart enough to start before the cleansing. He could have 13x13'd them and gotten them protection against the taint.

 

The entire Demandred arc wasnt that well thought out in my opinion. I enjoyed it because I think he's a cool character. But it makes him look inept as hell that while in control of an entire continent that he managed such a piss poor army. Sorry but a few hundred channellers and a few hundred thousand troops is a little on the small side in comparison to any large nation and Shara is the better part of 2x Randland. He could have had an enormous slave army backed with a stonking load of channellers. And then we could have had the last battle we'd been led to believe was coming before the Aiel and Seanchan decided to have a bath and a tea party and sit out the last battle.

He hasn't been there two years unless he was in cohoots with Greandal, which we know he wasn't. Recall she stole the leaders in book 6 or 7. So a most he had a year. All the male channelers were used at breeding animals, thus were completely ignorant. How much training could he have done to subhuman animals in less than a year? Morr was at least 15 men start later than women. At most they'd have a handful of untrained men, it's barely feasible.

[Vardar]

Oh and yea I forgot about the red veil Aiel. Still not enough given the wise ones and seachan.

[Morden]

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Instead of culling the light side channelers to make the OP users on both sides equivalent,I wonder why Sanderson did not just bump the no of channelers from Shara to make up the difference.Instead of 400 why not have them bring 3000? 

Because it wouldn't have been enough. Plus, they had no males. At the most they would have matched the Aiel, which leaves the windfinders, the seachan and the BT/WT to outnumber them. So, still over 2 to 1

 

They had males channelers.And the difference could be made up by the Aiel red veil channelers. I think Sanderson missed a chance here.

Think Vards means they shouldn't have had many male channelers as they are all killed once they reach a certain age.

Unless Demandred followed Taim's tactics for the black tower, all the Ayyad bloodlines up until 17 would have been available and they could have most likely forced anyone from 13 upwards. Morr wasnt exactly much older than that.

 

Add in scouring parties travelling across Shara and in the 2 years Demandred had there he could have gotten them all well and truly sorted, and thats assuming he wasnt smart enough to start before the cleansing. He could have 13x13'd them and gotten them protection against the taint.

 

The entire Demandred arc wasnt that well thought out in my opinion. I enjoyed it because I think he's a cool character. But it makes him look inept as hell that while in control of an entire continent that he managed such a piss poor army. Sorry but a few hundred channellers and a few hundred thousand troops is a little on the small side in comparison to any large nation and Shara is the better part of 2x Randland. He could have had an enormous slave army backed with a stonking load of channellers. And then we could have had the last battle we'd been led to believe was coming before the Aiel and Seanchan decided to have a bath and a tea party and sit out the last battle.

He hasn't been there two years unless he was in cohoots with Greandal, which we know he wasn't. Recall she stole the leaders in book 6 or 7. So a most he had a year. All the male channelers were used at breeding animals, thus were completely ignorant. How much training could he have done to subhuman animals in less than a year? Morr was at least 15 men start later than women. At most they'd have a handful of untrained men, it's barely feasible.

 

Sorry but if you think Demandred couldnt train men to be weapons in a year then you seem to be under the impression that Taim is superior to him at leading channellers which is something I do not think is possible. The men who fought at Dumies Wells had under 6 months training on average. 

 

As for the Ayyad males, we've limited information on how they bring them up, I was under the impression that they use them as breeding stock from 13-18 then execute them that doesnt necasarily mean they are caged like beasts, they could be raised to believe they have to be killed at 18 and live a good life until then, This seems more likely as the mothers etc would handle that much better than seeing their kids abused. As for sub-human animals... We have the Demane kennels? They're perfect examples of using people as sub-human weapons. 

 

Men might spark later than women, but that does not mean he couldnt have tried to force some of them. And that is discounting that he could scour Shara in the same way Taim did. Not just for men, but for women who could learn.

 

As for Graendal, she was there to collect specimens and Demandred knew she was there, it could well be that Demandred went to Shara around the time Rand faced Ishammael at Falme, because just after that the entire Sharan nation experienced a lot of internal problems. Also Graendal didnt go after the Ayyad, I doubt she went near them. She went after the Sh'boan and Sh'botay who were mere mortals. Perhaps Graendal took them and thats what caused the internal strife, but that would mean she pulled them out of Shara long before they were shown in the books. 

[Vardar]

They've said the men are treated like animals. They don't even teach them to read or write and they don't see who they are bred with. I'm not saying he couldn't train the men, but could he train the men while taking over the rest of the country and stabilizing it? Didn't Moggy ask his little gf about never seeing Demandreds weaves. Teaching men while maintaining your illusion of a prophetical figure would be more than difficult.

 

Grendel too them, and knew the hierarchy or the channelers, thus dealt with them a little, before he got there since she didn't know where he was. So at that point he was not gathering armies.

 

So, the few men who are alive at any given time, all sub 18, would ave to be gathered and trained, while creating and maintaining your illusion, and gathering armies and prepping them to fight alongside shadow spawn. Where'd he fine time? That's my point. It's totally illogical if not plain impossible

[Morden]

They've said the men are treated like animals. They don't even teach them to read or write and they don't see who they are bred with. I'm not saying he couldn't train the men, but could he train the men while taking over the rest of the country and stabilizing it? Didn't Moggy ask his little gf about never seeing Demandreds weaves. Teaching men while maintaining your illusion of a prophetical figure would be more than difficult.

 

Grendel too them, and knew the hierarchy or the channelers, thus dealt with them a little, before he got there since she didn't know where he was. So at that point he was not gathering armies.

 

So, the few men who are alive at any given time, all sub 18, would ave to be gathered and trained, while creating and maintaining your illusion, and gathering armies and prepping them to fight alongside shadow spawn. Where'd he fine time? That's my point. It's totally illogical if not plain impossible

Moggy asked because she used the True Power rather than Saidar. I assumed Demandred had demonstrated he could channel without using Saidin. But the truth is even if Demandred did channel, no woman would have been able to see the weaves...  (+ he was channelling Saidin during the battle at Merrilor so they knew he could channel and presumadly had known for a long time, he was playing some alternate Dragon Reborn part out over there, so why wouldnt the Dragon... the most famous channeller that has ever lived Reborn or not be able to channel.)

 

Thats the real question though, is Shara stable now? If yes then why would he care more about that than the army and power that he should have been gathering for the Last Battle, if no then where is the rest of the army he should have had. personally I think he could, all he would need to do is take over the Ayyad and everything else would be cake once you factor in compulsion. The Ayyad would have been harder than the rest of Shara combined. 

 

But that still leaves very very large holes in the entire plotline. If Shara's standing army was 200k which is entirely reasonable due to the size of it and the nature of the realm. Then why did he not add a buffer of crazy amounts of slaves wielding spears. It would not have mattered if they had died easily, every man they killed would have been one less for the real army.

 

And if the Ayyads total numbers were only 400, then they should probably be extinct by now, that is a ridiculously low number for a society which breeds the gene. Granted they most likely lose out on diversity but thats a few villages worth of people. That is not enough to keep it going.

 

Maybe he only took control of 1 village? and then gathered some slaves and the regular army from a small sub-district of Shara. But if it was the entire nation's showing then it was pathetic and the Seanchan alone would have steamrolled them in an afternoon and had tea and biscuits shortly afterwards.

[smileyman]

 

 

i have a problem with how long the batle lasted.  I mean really, how long did open field battles last?  Not counting the facts that there are people doing magic everywhere.

 

Not long. Culloden (1745), lasted an hour or two. Agincourt (1415), lasted something like four hours before it was all over. Crecy (1346) also lasted just a few hours. The Battle of Barnet (1471), lasted around 3-4 hours and was fought almost entirely in a thick fog. 

 

Medieval battles didn't last long. The armies weren't that big, fighting in armor is tiring, and generally speaking one army or another would break after a few hours and start running, and that's when the real killing would begin. 

 

A long battle like those described in the books just wouldn't happen. The battle in FoH at least made partial sense because Mat moved around, and presumably had time to rest. In AMoL there's a scene describing rest periods for the men at Tarwin's Gap, only they don't happen nearly as much.

is a good clip from the series Rome, which shows how a Roman Legion fought so as to not tire out the men. Other Medieval armies would have had something similar. Either men fighting in pairs and switching off, or ranks fighting for a bit and then moving back. 

yea the rest scence kinda threw me off, i understand in a war sending people to the front lines and pulling squads out for rest.  But this is kinda like everywhere was the front lines right?

You have to rest them. Otherwise they'll drop from exhaustion inside an hour and then where are you? You do it by having them work in shifts, which works when you've got a battle like Tarwin's Gap where you can block the bulk of the enemy forces with a portion of your own.

[Vardar]

Don't get me started on the whole breeding thing. Bottom line, the way it was explained in the book is totally not how genetics works and isn't plausible. But yes, the numbers were LE, but maybe that many died during the takeover.

[jwillis7]

 

 

 

i have a problem with how long the batle lasted.  I mean really, how long did open field battles last?  Not counting the facts that there are people doing magic everywhere.

 

Not long. Culloden (1745), lasted an hour or two. Agincourt (1415), lasted something like four hours before it was all over. Crecy (1346) also lasted just a few hours. The Battle of Barnet (1471), lasted around 3-4 hours and was fought almost entirely in a thick fog. 

 

Medieval battles didn't last long. The armies weren't that big, fighting in armor is tiring, and generally speaking one army or another would break after a few hours and start running, and that's when the real killing would begin. 

 

A long battle like those described in the books just wouldn't happen. The battle in FoH at least made partial sense because Mat moved around, and presumably had time to rest. In AMoL there's a scene describing rest periods for the men at Tarwin's Gap, only they don't happen nearly as much.

is a good clip from the series Rome, which shows how a Roman Legion fought so as to not tire out the men. Other Medieval armies would have had something similar. Either men fighting in pairs and switching off, or ranks fighting for a bit and then moving back. 

yea the rest scence kinda threw me off, i understand in a war sending people to the front lines and pulling squads out for rest.  But this is kinda like everywhere was the front lines right?

You have to rest them. Otherwise they'll drop from exhaustion inside an hour and then where are you? You do it by having them work in shifts, which works when you've got a battle like Tarwin's Gap where you can block the bulk of the enemy forces with a portion of your own.

haha no i get it why you need to rest.  But i just cannot picture this battle where there is time to rest.  I picture it like a giant Braveheart battle with all these forces crashing into each other at different parts of the field.  And with Gateways why would you not just go to where people are eating/sleeping and attack.

 

If this was like a campaign in germania where all of your forces are not engaged in battle. but these are.  I just got the feeling everyone was fighting.

 

and we have not seen any of the nations using the shild formation like in that rome clip which is key to the rotation.

[bmunge]

Personally, the battle plans and descriptions ruined the book for me early on. The whole strategy for the Caemlyn trollocs was absurd. Convince them to attack and then let them chase you 250 miles north to Braem Wood? Of course, there is no detail given whatsoever about how this chase was pulled off or why it was even necessary. In one POV the trollocs are charging Perrin's harrying force, in the next POV they are 250 miles north outside Braem Wood. This would take 1-2 weeks in traveling time for an army. How did Perrin's army prevent from being overrun during this time? It was so poorly written I had to put the book down for a bit at this point.

 

Also, it's noted that the trollocs in Caemlyn number in the "tens of the thousands." In KoD's Rand and a few friends destroy 100,000 trollocs at the manor house, yet in aMoL they decide to kite the trollocs halfway across the continent (which would have taken a good month). Really? They fought the same group of "tens of thousands" of trollocs for a month and traveled over 500 miles despite having dragons and channelers? This whole tactic/battle was so sloppily written it was hard for me to engage myself in the book from that point on. What a massive disappointment. I'm glad we get an ending, but the execution of this book was awful. 

[Agitel]

What's so difficult to understand about the rotations at Tarwin's Gap? There was a single front, they weren't fighting on all sides. Fighting there went on for weeks. Committing everyone at once would have been pure suicide on Lan's side. Everyone would drop from exhaustion within a few hours and the Trollocs would just murder them as they lay helpless and move on.

[jwillis7]

Personally, the battle plans and descriptions ruined the book for me early on. The whole strategy for the Caemlyn trollocs was absurd. Convince them to attack and then let them chase you 250 miles north to Braem Wood? Of course, there is no detail given whatsoever about how this chase was pulled off or why it was even necessary. In one POV the trollocs are charging Perrin's harrying force, in the next POV they are 250 miles north outside Braem Wood. This would take 1-2 weeks in traveling time for an army. How did Perrin's army prevent from being overrun during this time? It was so poorly written I had to put the book down for a bit at this point.

 

Also, it's noted that the trollocs in Caemlyn number in the "tens of the thousands." In KoD's Rand and a few friends destroy 100,000 trollocs at the manor house, yet in aMoL they decide to kite the trollocs halfway across the continent (which would have taken a good month). Really? They fought the same group of "tens of thousands" of trollocs for a month and traveled over 500 miles despite having dragons and channelers? This whole tactic/battle was so sloppily written it was hard for me to engage myself in the book from that point on. What a massive disappointment. I'm glad we get an ending, but the execution of this book was awful. 

it was 150 miles but still WAY to far.  for any force to travel 150 miles to get some archers.

 

it is like an army attcking London for the people in london to chase them 30 miles north of Nottingham.  go look at google maps it is crazy

[jwillis7]

dp

[bmunge]

 

Personally, the battle plans and descriptions ruined the book for me early on. The whole strategy for the Caemlyn trollocs was absurd. Convince them to attack and then let them chase you 250 miles north to Braem Wood? Of course, there is no detail given whatsoever about how this chase was pulled off or why it was even necessary. In one POV the trollocs are charging Perrin's harrying force, in the next POV they are 250 miles north outside Braem Wood. This would take 1-2 weeks in traveling time for an army. How did Perrin's army prevent from being overrun during this time? It was so poorly written I had to put the book down for a bit at this point.

 

Also, it's noted that the trollocs in Caemlyn number in the "tens of the thousands." In KoD's Rand and a few friends destroy 100,000 trollocs at the manor house, yet in aMoL they decide to kite the trollocs halfway across the continent (which would have taken a good month). Really? They fought the same group of "tens of thousands" of trollocs for a month and traveled over 500 miles despite having dragons and channelers? This whole tactic/battle was so sloppily written it was hard for me to engage myself in the book from that point on. What a massive disappointment. I'm glad we get an ending, but the execution of this book was awful. 

it was 150 miles but still WAY to far.  for any force to travel 150 miles to get some archers.

 

it is like an army attcking London for the people in london to chase them 30 miles north of Nottingham.  go look at google maps it is crazy.

 

Exactly. The strategy didn't make any sense. Once they had the trollocs outside of Caemlyn, Perrin's army and a couple dozen channels could have finished off the trollocs in a afternoon.

[Jkx]

I suspect that the reason the burning of Caemlyn wasn't even brought up was because of the Compulsion being laid on all the Great Captain (such a brilliant stroke by Demandred). The Captains are going to fight well and give commands that make sense, but aren't necessarily the best ones for the situation. Once the decision was made to not burn down the city, then the battle plan made sense. From the beginning Itulrade suggested drawing them out, and everybody just went with that plan without any discussion of alternatives. After all, if one of the Great Captains says that the best option is to draw them out, why argue? In addition when you've got a second Great Captain suggesting Braemlyn Wood as a good place, and a third Great Captain suggesting that Caemlyn offers the greatest chance of a quick victory, well who's going to argue against three Great Captains?. 

 

It is safe to assume this, since we know for a fact that the Shadow had planned the trap in front of Cairhien's gates for months. (Logain had found its battleplans in Taim's rooms at the Black Tower iirc)

[Amandera]

TL;DR: Nuke Caemlyn, make sure channeler numbers are accurate, don't mess with the rules of OP too much and for the love of Light make sure the whole war takes no more than 200 pages. Tell us about the psychology of the war, not the mindless "Person X killed a Trolloc, then another, then another, Cauthon must be a genius, then another"


My humple opinion of how the battles should have gone. First let's start with numbers. Mind you, I am excluding camp followers, these are fighting men only. The post is too long as it is so I'm not going to include my explanation for numbers. I think they are accurate enough. Also, the numbers ignore pretty much everything we see in AMoL because I think they were wrong. No one can make me believe Shara can only house 400 Ayyad, sorry.

Light
Regular Troops
Aiel: 500k
Borderlands: 250k
Andor/Cairhien/Band of the Red Hand: 250k
Tear: 150k
Illian: 100k
White Tower: 100k
Wolf Guard/Two Rivers/Ghealdan/Mayene/Whitecloaks: 75k
Arad Doman/Murandy: 40k
Seanchan: 800k
Dragonsworn/Mercenaries: 30k fighting men perhaps
Total: 1.665.000
Channellers
Aes Sedai: 600 total AS = 400 fighter + 200 healer / 1000 novices+Accepted to provide circles for healers and logistics (each gets 500)
Wise Ones: 2500 = 1000 fighter + 1000 healer/circle + 500 logistics (pure gateway duty for supply and troop deployment)
Windfinders: 200 = 100 at SG using BotW + 100 logistics
Damane: 1000 fighter
Asha'man: 600 fighter = 400 that Rand ordered sent out in CoT or KoD + 200 Logain brings out
Kin: 1000 = 500 healing + 500 logistics (I'm assuming the rest 700 is just hiding)
Total: 6900 = 3000 fighter + 2200 healer + 1600 logistics

Shadow
Regular Troops
Shadowspawn: 2 million
Sharans: 1 million
I don't think DFs would make good soldiers so I'm excluding them. They are better as spies among the armies of Light.
Channellers
Black Ajah: 150
DF/Turned Asha'man: 200
Turned Aiel: 1000
Ayyad: 7000
Total: 8350


Deployment and Tactics:
Caemlyn
Shadow: 100k Trollocs + 100 channellers
Tactic: Move as many civilians as you can through gateways to other armies and delay the enemy as long as you can.
It is only a distraction and demoralisation tactics by the Shadow. Also the civilian population makes a nice food supply. So don't commit any channellers for anything but making gateways to move prisoners. 200k civilians here + however much Kandori they got + dead enemy soldiers should be enough to keep the Shadowspawn fed for the duration of the War. Only deploy 200k Shadowspawn here to sack the city and take prisoners. Don't engage the enemy for anything but holding them off. Let the Shadowspawn die but move your channellers out.

Light: 100k soldiers + 500 channellers including reserves
Tactics: Nuke the city
The original idea is a good one. Beat the enemy here and go to other battlefronts as soon as possible. Siege serves no purpose, fighting in the city is better for the Shadow, drawing them out is meaningless. So option four: obliterate the entire city with the enemy. Caemlyn has 5 gates and a hole in the city wall made by Talmanes earlier. 50 channellers choosing targets and 10k soldiers at each gate to trap the enemy inside. Use as much oil as you can to start fires all over the city and lightning/fireballs to finish the job. A day to destroy the city then you're off to other battlefronts.


Thakan'dar
Light: 400k soldiers + 1000 fighting channellers + 100 Windfinders to operate the Bowl
Tactic: Hold until you cannot
Keep it as simple as you can. 5000 thousand soldiers and 100 channellers to guard the slopes of SG. 1000 guards for Windfinders. The rest to hold until they can't.

Shadow: 1m Shadowspawn + 1000 channellers
Tactic: Overwhelm the enemy
You have the numbers in troops and you can match the enemy channellers. Tire the enemy channellers, bloody the enemy soldiers. After that unleash the Wild Hunt, pretty much what actually happens in the book.


Kandor and Tarwin's Gap
Light: 400k soldiers + 1000 fighting channellers
Shadow: 900k Shadowspawn + 350 fighting channellers
Seanchan: 800k soldiers + 1000 damane
Demandred: 1m Sharan soldiers + 7000 Ayyad
Tactics: Seanchan, Elayne and Logain arrive and give the Light obvious advantage until Demandred. Gap is a defensible position so deploy the bigger part of your soldiers and channellers in Kandor. Because of Compulsion on Great Captains, Light can't achieve a victory. Then Demandred comes, divides his Sharans and takes each armies of Light from behind. Light is screwed, loses large numbers, they immediately retreat to FoM.

 

 

Shienar gets completely destroyed like Kandor. Light gains some time to rest, Mat takes command. Then the Battle of Merillor starts. Trollocs and Sharans surround FoM. Armies of Light commit everything, pull a miracle victory but lose 90% of their soldiers, Rand seals the Bore.

[Jkx]

It seems this community is blessed with numerous battle-hardened desktop generals, all with a better understanding of how (imaginative) large scale battles are being fought than the author of the book.

[Amandera]

Lol, what makes you think I claim to be anything of the sort? I only wrote what made sense to me. What actually happens in the book does not.

[jwillis7]

I have a problem when things dont make sense...if you can detach yourself from thinking about if what is happening is even plausible in the world that have been created than more power to you, i cant do it

[jwillis7]

It seems this community is blessed with numerous battle-hardened desktop generals, all with a better understanding of how (imaginative) large scale battles are being fought than the author of the book.

o and i am awesone at medieval total war 2 and Age of Empire so..............................................

[jwillis7]

hahaha