[AGOT mod] The Lions of the Garden -- A LannistAAR

Machiavellian said:

It's been a while since we had an update, any chance of one soon? I am really looking forward to it.

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I think tomorrow sometime. I have to root through my screenshots and edit them, but I think I have a viewpoint and a story. The fifth (and final) Part will be the entire war, so expect some in-depth combat detail.

Part 5: A Lion's Claws Are Sharp - Lord Willam

The crowds were screaming. For a moment, Lord Willam Wythers was transported to that day at Lord Bryce--King Bryce's tourney.

Ser Jaime had galloped off almost immediately after knighting the young Lord Dennis, which Lord Willam had thought suspicious. He had an eye for these things, though he had never been a resounding success as a knight. They were to feast the day after. Were Kingsguard only allowed to travel to gain prestige, and not join in frivolities? As Willam recalled, Ser Jaime had been one for festivities that were accompanied by flowing wine. He and Willam were of a mind in that regard.

Note: This is Lord Willam 14 years after the start/end of the war. I didn't realize he'd be the centerpiece of this, so didn't take a screenshot at the time. He was 22.

At that very feast, then-Lord Bryce had risen and called his bannermen, new and old, to silence.

"My good lords," he began. "My very good lords. It pleases me to see you share in our triumphs, and in our pleasant Arbor wine, my deepest gratitude to Lord Garrett."

The bald Redwyne raised a fist in salute.

"It has been a long time since the Reach and the Westerlands were united in common cause," said Bryce. "The last time the Lords of the West and the Lords of the South were even on the same field together, it was when the armies of my grandfather marched south to place my mother on the seat of Highgarden. Some of you were even alive for that conflict. I was myself, come to think of it, though just a babe."

He looked around the room to make sure these words had not stirred the two sides to enmity. He had interspersed the two at the tables, including at his own. It would not do to see the hall erupt into fighting. It made no difference to Lord Willam, he had not been alive during Lady Margaery's War. Such pieces of the game of thrones were beyond his family.

"The last time these armies were joined together was at the Field of Fire, when Aegon Targaryen and his sisters had their dragons burn the armies of King Loren and King Mern Gardner. And so we knelt. All of Westeros knelt before the dragons and their Targaryen masters.

"But then the dragons all died, and do you know, it was a funny thing, we kept on kneeling. We just went on, as though we'd forgotten how to rise. Kneeling, as though we were worms before men who are not Aegon the Conqueror."

Once more, he looked around the room, but this time it was to meet each man's eyes and judge how his words had fallen. There was a murmuring in the hall. No, we are not worms, though Lord Willam.

"There is a man on the throne currently who claims to be Aegon the Conqueror reborn. A fool, I call him. A Mad Targaryen Dragon. The last time such a king sat the throne, he almost lost it to the Baratheons. And if this king is Aegon the Conqueror come again, let him conqueror Westeros again, as the first Aegon did. There were Seven Kingdoms once, let there be Seven Kingdoms once more. And let the men of the Westerlands and the knights of the Reach show the others how to straighten the bends in their knees again! For Lions do not bow to mad toothless Dragons! And we are, all of us, lions today!"


And it seemed like the Lords were of a mind with Lord Bryce, as the hall rang out with shouts. "King of the Rock!" shouted the Westermen. And Lord Willam found himself roaring, "King of the Reach!" with his fellows.


And now crowds were screaming. But when Willam glanced up, he realized it was the sounds of a battle being fought, and it wasn't crowds screaming, but men screaming as they died, or as they fought. Arrows fell around him and his horse shied away from a corpse lying on the ground, an axe buried in a man's face. It's former owner was slumped not to far away, one hand still wrapped around the long handle. Willam screamed for his men to fill a gap in the attacking line, and looked behind him to realize there were barely enough to do so. Where had they all gone?

Loras Caswell of Bitterbridge had not joined King Bryce. He had fought instead for Targaryen, and one of the new King's orders was for a force to march on Bitterbridge and the other keeps that the Caswells had acquired since Robert's Rebellion and conquer them.

Twenty-five thousand men had been encamped outside of the the Caswell's castle with days, Lord Willam among them. King Bryce had not joined with them. Some said he had run to Casterly Rock, and sat there with a host for forty thousand, drawing in reinforcements every day while the Lords of the Reach clashed with the Storm Lords and the Targaryen forces. The Tullys had apparently decided to sit out the war, as they had not marshaled their men and sent them towards the Golden Tooth. The Greyjoys, too, had seemed content to avoid conflict with the new King of the Rock.

The castle had yielded, and then they had turned their attention to the town and other holdings in area that remained rebellious. However, as they had been waiting for the surrenders, Targaryen forces had marched up around them. While not a single one could challenge the might of the army at Bitterbridge individually, together they might easy crush them. The army had moved west to fight the nearest one, abandoning Bitterbridge to be more thoroughly put down at a later date.

They had come together at a field not far from Leygood Keep. Willam had been shocked to discover that when two large bodies of men came together in combat, there truly was a clash as steel collided with steel.


Willam and the men he'd raised from Wythers were on the left flank. They were to hold the center of their part of the line. The battle had begun with the archers trading arrows with each other, but when it had become apparent that they were being outshot, the commander of the Targaryen forces had called it off and commanded a charge. They were brave, Willam had thought. They had the smaller force, a mere thirteen thousand to the West's host.

And the charge was folly, though perhaps not as much as one as it would have been had the archers continued to rain shafts down upon the lines. The Targaryen left flank collapsed almost at once, with the Knights of the Reach charging around to take the rest in the rear and prevent their escape. And yet the center seemed to hold. From his saddle, Willam could see there was a knight, his armor black and stained red, perhaps by blood, shouting to the footmen on the ground around him, encouraging them on. He held a fine sword in his hand, covered to the hilt in blood. Willam had not even drawn his yet, though his men had begun to fight. There was no need to involve himself if the smallfolk men-at-arms had it well in hand.


"Whitecloak!" he heard his men shout, and his blood froze. Kingsguard? Was it the King himself? No, that would be quite unlike King Rhaegar. It was probably a member of the royal family. He looked to where the shouting had come from.

Striding across the field was indeed one of the Kingsguard, his white cloak and armor stained by the blood and grime of battle. Upon his head was an antlered helm, giving clue to his identity. Steffon Baratheon, the Lord Commander himself. The nephew of Robert the Rebel was the son of Robert's warlike brother, Stannis, hard as the rock they'd carved his father out of. And no poor swordsman. Men charged him and he cut them to ribbons as though they were practice mannequins. When he saw a man fall desperately trying to stuff his guts back inside himself, Willam could take no more. He turned his mount and drove his spurs into its flank.

But the stupid beast stumbled on a corpse and fell, depositing Willam on the ground. There was a sickening snap of bone, and for a moment Willam thought he might have broken something before realizing it had been his horse. He realized his sword was hanging from his saddle pommel. Desperately, he tried to get to it, scrabbling over the corpse that had caused the fall. And then Ser Steffon was upon him.

The Kingsguard knight raised his visor and surveyed the fallen lord with a critical eye. Willam looked up in terror, expecting a killing blow to fall across his neck.

"I yield!" he cried.

But Ser Steffon seemed to pay him no mind. Instead, he walked over to the horse where it thrashed on the ground.

"A shame," he said aloud, though it did not seem to be directed to anyone in particular. "A fine animal."

He looked at Lord Willam.

"...That should have belonged to a fine knight. Not some cowardly cur."

He reached out a mailed hand and stroked along the horse's neck. He seemed to be talking to it.

The initial shock of still being alive had worn off for Willam. Now he had a mind to be insulted. He was as much a knight as the man in front of him, albeit a far less worthy fighter. And he had done nothing to insult Ser Steffon's honor. Willam looked down at his belt and realized his dagger still hung off his belt.

Ser Steffon stood and his sword lifted into the air over his head. It flashed down quickly, lopping off the horse's head with one strike. Ser Steffon turned, beginning to say something.

Willam caught him about the chest just as the words were slipping out of his mouth.

The two of them fell to the ground in a wild rattling of their armor smashing together. Ser Steffon sputtered as mud was driven into his face. He tried to rise and Willam stabbed him once in the lower back. Ser Steffon screamed and tried to swing wildly with his sword, attempting to feebly swat Willam away. Willam fumbled with his dagger, accidentally wiggling it inside Ser Steffon and he tried to pull it back out. It came out grudgingly and slick with blood. The Lord Commander' tried to roll so that he faced Willam, and when he'd gotten onto his back, Willam stabbed him in the neck, this time leaving the dagger behind as he danced just out of reach of the swing of the Kingsguard's sword.

To his surprise, Ser Steffon, despite his back wound and the knife in his throat and his advanced age, struggled up to his feet. He raised his sword, though it waved back and forth with a drunken unsteadiness.

Ser Steffon opened his mouth to speak and blood dripped out of it. Lifting his sword with one hand, he used the other to find the knife in his neck and pull it out. He threw it to the dirt. Willam was horrified to see him take his sword with both hands again. Ser Steffon took a step forward.

But that step seemed to sap him of all his strength. His sword fell to the ground, and he looked at Willam with a pained expression on his face. More blood spilled out of his mouth as he tried to speak, until finally he managed to croak out a pair of words.


"You...yielded..." he said, and fell on top of the headless horse's corpse.


There was cheering, and for a moment Willam thought it might have been for him. But when he looked up, he could see that men were running away from him, towards the center of the field.

"What's happened?" he shouted at a passing man-at-arms.

"We've won, milord!" the man answered. "They captured the other commander. It's the King's brother, Vaeron Targaryen!"

Herbert West said:

While the AAR is very, very good, I have to ask: how do you stab someone in plate?

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Because a man encased entirely in solid plate from head to toe wouldn't be very mobile (as in, he literally wouldn't be able to move or turn or draw his sword), plate armor was constructed from lots of overlapping sheets of steel, especially in areas where knights needed to have mobility (joints, and certainly at the waist and lower back, so that he could turn to face an opponent). And then that would be laid over mail. This provides the dagger's main advantage over the sword when dealing with armor: it is smaller, and therefore can penetrate these weak spots (commonly referred to as "chinks," thus "a chink in the armor") more easily than a sword can (a sword's primary advantage over a dagger is that it has the capability to penetrate through plate, when given enough force).

In my mind, Lord Willam stabs Ser Steffon once in the lower back, probably under the point at which the backplate would have lifted away from the armor protecting Ser Steffon's lower half, and then once under the gorget, which would've been a piece of freestanding plate protecting the neck. That said, with enough force behind his attempt, he might easily have penetrated directed through the gorget with his dagger. It probably would have been slightly thinner than the rest of the plate a knight would have worn. I probably should have mentioned that in the text, but I generally only write first drafts for these things (I'm slow enough as it is without revising too much).

Nikolai said:

Fantastic AAR you've got here.

I have one question btw: Is there no attack from the Wildlings or the Others in this mod?

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Wildlings weren't introduced when I first started playing this version. There aren't any Others in the mod so far. They're low priority for inclusion until more is known about them.

Part 5: A Lion's Claws Are Sharp - Lords Jonthor & Garrett

Lord Jonothor

He had put the men to forced march for almost a week, so much so that the whole army appeared to sleep on the move. Even the horses dreamed of drums beating out the time. But it had been required of him, and Lord Jonthor Serrett would not disappoint his king. He was no turncloak, he had answered the call at the Tourney at Highgarden, and for it had been rewarded with battle command for the southern half of the Westerlands' forces and some of the northmost Reach.

He knew time was of the essence. The Iron Throne and the Stormlands marched on the east of the Reach, while Lord Lefford, after defeating Prince Vaeron at Leygood Keep, had marched south to relieve Highgarden itself. His forces marched ahead of Lefford's, and then push east along the Rose Road to staunch the Rhaegar II Targaryen's forces as they marched east.


He had heard the Wythers Lord had killed Ser Steffon of the Kingsguard in single combat, though Lord Jonthor scare believed a word of it. Each telling was different. The last he had heard was that Wythers had met Steffon blow for blow for one hundred crosses of their swords, until each blade was notched and toothed like a saw and they'd had to call their squires for new ones. Lord Jonothor recalled that Wythers had been disqualified at Highgarden when he'd thrown sand in the face of his opponent, a hedge knight of no renown, after the hedge knight had knocked him about. And yet men now spoke of him as some great warrior.

In the east, House Meadows had a sizable force arrayed to defend Grassy Vale from the Iron Throne forces moving south to the Blueburn River, but it was doubtful they would hold without help. They were surrounded on all sides, according to the last raven to make it out of Grassy Vale. Serrett needed to move quickly.


A rider had come up to him that afternoon and he had had to summon his generals, the Lord Benfrey Falwell and Lord Owain Redding.

"My Lord Serrett," said Owain as he rode up. "What trouble ails you?" Lord Owain chafed at his inferior position to Lord Jonthor. The Redding lord was both older than him and a Reachman to boot. But he was loyal, nonetheless. Jonthor offered some thanks to the gods for Reachmen and their sense of chivalry and honor. Some commanders might have expected a knife in their back with such slights laid on one of their commanders.

"It would appear that an army from the Vale and Crownlands managed to land an army and join forces with Caswell," said Jonthor. Redding spit at the mention of the traitor Bitterbridge lord's name. "He has intercepted Lord Lefford to our rear."


"How large a force?" asked Lord Benfrey.

"The scouts estimate Caswell's forces to almost equal Lord Lefford's."

"We should turn and face them down," said Lord Owain. He must have desired greatly to take the traitor Lord prisoner.

"It is not in our orders," said Lord Benfrey.

Lord Jonthor nodded. "Our orders are to push east. We must link with the Reachmen in the east and defend the Rose Road from attack. Lord Lefford will have to win this battle himself."

And so they'd marched east, leaving Lord Lefford to his own devices. They encountered a few outriders, but other than that, they met little resistance. Until Appleton.

Lord Beren Caron must have been extremely mad, extremely brave, or both at once, Jonthor reflected later. The Stormlanders had held their ground when the men of the West had come marching along the road. They were outnumbered five to one, and any man with sense would have struck his banners and quit the field immediately. Lord Serrett knew there were Targaryen forces to the immediate south, not enough to challenge his army, but still more than the six thousand odd soldiers that Lord Caron had thrown together to cut Lord Meadows off from the rest of the Reach.

And yet, it had not gone as well as he'd thought it would initially. Jonthor had commanded the center while Falwell had led the left and Redding the right, with ten thousand men to each of their commands. Jonthor had planned to strike as a single mailed fist, and bring the entire force to bear at once. But Redding's knightly instincts had taken over instead. The man had charged before the signal had been given.

Instead, he'd been forced to watch in horror as Lord Caron had ordered his pikemen to the front. The Stormlander line suddenly bristled with spear points, seconds before the first of the Reachmen cavalry had gotten to them. Lord Serrett was sure he'd seen Lord Normund Oakheart thrown clear from his horse, and had fancied he could even hear the snap of the man's back breaking apart when he'd landed. The screams, half of them horses, half of them men, had begun almost instantly.

He'd drawn his sworn, thrusting it into the air in front of him as he'd spurred his horse forward. "For the Rock!" he shouted. Then his own home, "For Silverhill!" A roar went up along the line behind him, and he knew he need not look back to see if his men were pursuing--he could heard his army lurch into motion.

The Stormlander pikes were too busy with the knights of the Reach to react to this new threat in time. Jonthor rode down the first man to oppose him, the man's doublet emblazoned with the Caron nightingales. The next man was felled with a slash of his sworn, blood streaming across his chest. Jonthor wheeled his horse about to rally his men. He could see his Serrett peacock banner streaming behind him, his squire struggling to keep up.

"Come on, then!" he roared, his voice carrying across the field. "Strike! Strike! Strike at their hearts!"


And again without looking to see if they followed, he charged back into the fray. His knights had finally caught up with him, and together they formed into a lance point, wheeling out of the combat, then wheeling back around to take the enemy in the rear. It was Lord Jonthor's first true battle, his first experience with combat and he marveled at the thrill of it, especially the moment when he almost died at the end of some foeman's spear until one of his men had hacked the man's head half off and saved him.

It seemed to have ended as soon as it had started. The Lords Falwell and Redding were at his side again.

"An excellent victory, my Lord Serrett," cried Benfrey Falwell. "We have killed or captured the lot of them. Lord Caron was last seen fleeing along the road, pursued by some of our knights."

"And what of our loses in that disastrous charge of yours, Lord Redding?"

"My lord," said Owain Redding. "It was no charge of mine. Lord Normund Oakheart, may the Father have mercy on him, called the charge, and save for his and some of his men's deaths, we lost not a man, thanks to your most timely intervention."


Jonthor gave the man a hard stare, but with the dead Lord Oakheart unable to speak in his defense, it was hard to contradict Redding.

"Then no matter," he said. "For now, the way is clear."

Lord Garrett

"Move quickly, move silently. Yours is the task that most needs doing. I will join you when possible," the new King had instructed Lord Garrett by way of a raven before they had left Oldtown. King Bryce had never seen war, but he had constructed what Garrett felt to be a daring plan, and one that exploited the concentrated naval power that his lands now possessed.

There had been some grumbling from Lord Hightower to learn that Garrett Redwyne had been named battle commander for their army of thirty-five thousand, but he had acquiesced to Garrett's superior experience with sailing. Garrett doubted that Denys Hightower would have thought to paint the ships' hulls black or use black sail.

And it would have killed them, here in the tight confines of the Blackwater, had he not. "Douse the lamps," Lord Garrett had commanded when they'd grown near enough to see the light from King's Landing. It had taken them weeks to reach this position, slipping carefully up the Narrow Sea, avoiding detection by the Stormlander ships.

His first mate, Benjen, had protested, but the command had gone through anyway, and then they were sailing towards those distant lights, the men falling deathly silent.

They all jumped when there was a sudden creak of wood behind them.

"What was that?" Lord Garrett asked.

"Two of our ships collided in the dark. I believe out of Lannisport," answered Benjen. Lord Garrett shook his head. The Westermen captains were ill-suited for this sort of thing. They were trained to fight Ironmen, not lead landings against port cities. But Lord Garrett spent many a day thinking about how to hold the Arbor against assault. If he could plan to defend against a landing, he could plan one just as well.

When he judged them close enough, but not too far, he ordered all the men save the archers into the longboats. "Light infantry first," he ordered, slipping into the first boat. All the men in the first wave would be wearing boiled leather and carrying wooden shields and axes. It was not Lord Garrett's favored method of fighting, he preferred horses and plate and swords, but tonight those were just as liable to get him killed as not.

As the men rowed him closer, he could see that there were campfires along the beach. Some of the fires illuminated the banners gathered there, and he saw that it was the men of the Vale arrayed before him.

"How many do you make, Ben?" he asked. Even in the dark he could see his mate's mouth moving as the fellow counted fires and estimated. The man had a head for numbers, but he had to do it out in the open and could not conceal it to any degree.

"Ten thousand, my lord," answered Benjen. "Or near as makes no difference."


"Milord," called a sailor in the front of the longboat in a hushed whisper. "The depth is right, milord."

Lord Garrett nodded. He tapped the man in front of him, and was surprised to see it was no more than a boy. "Into the drink, lad," he said. "As we planned."

The oarsmen lifted their burdens, and Garrett turned to look at Benjen, holding the rudder.

"Return to the ships and bring the knights back," he said.

"I don't care for this none, my lord," said Benjen. "We ought not leave you."

"If you don't leave me, you can't bring help back," said Lord Garrett.

"I can guarantee you Lord Denys and Lord Meribald aren't goin' swimming," said Benjen.

"That's the difference between a Redwyne and a Hightower or a Florent," answered Lord Garrett. "Redwynes aren't afraid of getting wet." He shot Benjen a grin and slipped over the side.

Blackwater Bay had a long shallow shelf before it fell off, and it was on this shelf that Lord Garrett had deployed the first of his infantry. He stood up in the water, and saw it was barely up to his shoulder. He had timed it perfectly, so that the tide was just coming in, pushing the men forward as they muddled through the water. If a force had tried to move on land in such fashion, their weapons and armor would have produced an awful racket, alerting the enemy to their presence. But though it was thunderous below the surface, above and the water muffled it better than if he'd had each man wrap himself in wool.

As he made his way to the shore, he could see his men moving up it ahead of him, toward the camp fires. The alarm had still not been raised when the first of them fell on the unsuspecting Valemen. He saw the axes rise and fall, chopping men like wood as they slept.

As he put a foot on dry land, a cry went up from the camp. "The enemy!" he heard a Valeman cry. "They're in the camp!"

"Reachmen, to me!" cried Lord Garrett. "The Arbor! The Arbor!" He pulled one of his men out of the water, pushing the fellow forward so that he broke into a run. Lord Garrett followed after, surrounded by his soldiers. "Kill them, now, my lads," he called to them. "And the finest Arbor Red shall be yours!"

Light infantry and archers had comprised almost half the Vale forces put against them, no doubt expecting to light his ships on fire within the narrow confines of the Blackwater Bay. But in the dark and with his men already in among the campfires, it was impossible to tell friend from foe, and the archers had only their long knives to defend themselves. Garrett killed one man with an axe blow that cleaved right through the fellow's wrist and into his chest. As he was wrenching his axe free, he was shouldered roughly aside, and looked up to see a man with the Arbor grapes on his doublet catch a Vale knight's longsword with his face. He had no idea who the man was, but he had saved Lord Garrett's life.

Only for a moment, though. The knight kicked the Arbor man off his sword, and turned on Lord Garrett, still on the ground. Garrett swung the axe with all his might, and was rewarded with a jolt as it struck the man in the knee. He could hear the knight's shouts of pain muffled inside the full helm he wore. Garrett leapt to his feet, and kicked at the knight's sword hand, knocking the longsword free. Then he was grappling with the helm, forcing the visor open, looking into a bearded face in agony. The knight raised his fists to grab at the Lord of the Arbor, but Lord Garrett jammed his elbow into the knight's exposed nose. There was another shout from the man, and when Garrett pulled away his arm, he could see blood running freely. He pulled his knife free and jabbed it into the bloody face. The screaming stopped, but the knife was lost when the knight collapsed backwards.

"Milord!" cried one of the men-at-arms. He was pulling at Lord Garrett, helping him to his feet. Garrett saw that somehow the knights of the Vale had managed to array themselves into one organized force, and was pushing his lightly armored troops up along the beach.

"Back! Back!" he called. "Back or we are lost!" What few men were able broke off their attack, retreating to his position. Garrett gritted his teeth. The Valemen were preparing for a charge, hoping to drive his forces back into the water.

"On my command!" he called. If they were to die, they'd at least do it meeting the knights of the Vale charge for charge. No man could say a Reachman lacked in valor.

"Redwyne! Redwyne!" he heard, and turned to see Benjen running up the beach, the knights of the Arbor churning the sand up behind them. He could hear "Hightower!" and "Brightwater!" echo in the distance. Denys Hightower and Meribald Florent had landed.

Too late, the Valemen tried to turn and react, but the Reachmen were upon them, and Garrett saw the blue swallowed up by the green of the Reach.

"Charge!" he commanded, and his men ran to help their reinforcements.

"Benjen," he called, when he reached his mate. "Find Lord Hightower and Lord Florent. Tell them I want four thousand men posted at every gate into King's Landing. We may have won the battle, but we've yet to win the siege. I want to be feasting in the Red Keep by the time King Bryce reaches us!"