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.

What makes you think Brandon would be any more experienced? RJ was in Vietnam and studied at the Citadel so you can quite clearly see why he was qualified...Brandon not so much. In fact he admitted it was an area he struggled with and consulted Bernard Cornwell in an attempt to get a better understanding.

Why would you think the armchair generals in this thread know better? BS writes about battles for his profession, people on this website play warhammer 3d and think that makes them Eisenhower.

I just read twelve pages of battle criticism and i'm feeling exhausted, so just a simple question: can anyone tell me why that pallisade on the little map of Merillor somewhere before Chapter 37 is oriented north-south facing the woods, while the entire time the riverbed formed part of the front line? I can more or less deal with all the other complaints and points of criticism raised, but the pallisade, the flaming pallisade, it drove me nuts.

I was under the impression they rebuilt it to some "catwalk" for the archers to stand on, but yeah, it would still face the wrong way. Hmm.

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.

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)

Pure epicness from start to end. Loved the pace, the changing POV's, the chaos... truely suiting for the finale of a series this big. I don't understand people arguing the book lacked build up. The story has been building up for 23 years to reach this point, and as its final chapter it should be climactic from head to tail, which it rightfully was. Being "superficial" has nothing to do with it.

Anyway, the book surely exceeded my expectations. Even Saunderson's writing style didn't bother me as it did in the 2 previous books. A huge improvement for that matter. My only complaint, for now, would be that I wished it to be darker: more casualties under primary and secondary charachters. Mellar should have cut the babies out of Elayne. Brigitte returned too soon after she died, diminishing the impact of her gruesome death, etc. Other than that: a fantastic ending in my opinion.