[Chiefspants]

Originally Posted by DJ's left nut

But they were MOSTLY effective due to speed. That's something people forget about old school 'formation' combat - most of the casualties didn't come during the engagement, but rather during the route. That's when you'd loose your cavalry and they'd mow down fleeing soldiers. The number of soldiers killed after formations would break and run was just staggering. To run those numbers up you need to be able to overtake fleeing soldiers - that's where Cavalry was at its strongest.

It's important to remember that Dothraki aren't the cavalry that's often thought of when we think of European medieval style battles. It's arguable that the term cavalry doesn't fully represent just how different the mongols used horseback warfare compared to their European counterparts. The Dothraki's main influence in battles were the mongols. Outside of a couple of exceptions, the mongols operated entirely on horseback - and while they did use infantry siege techniques in a couple of instances (primarily through the conscription of other forces), in field battles they were reliant on horseback.

This is consistent with Jorah's description of the Dothraki too in Book 1

"[The Dothraki] are better riders than any knight, utterly fearless and their bows outrange ours. [...] The Dothraki fire from horseback, charging or retreating it makes no matter, they are full as deadly.

Part of the Dothraki strategy has always been to engage, retreat, encircle, and adapt as needed. The plan was to stall, and the hope was that the Dothraki could encircle, retreat, and stall as necessary. They had never fought an army like the army of the dead. No one was, no one had ever engaged them in a battle before. They got flat out ambushed and the tactic to stall didn't work.

Sure, Dany could have risked taking Drogon for an old school BBQ, but risking a WW javelin takes out one of her two biggest weapons in the battles opening salvo would have been devastating, especially since the only path to winning was always going to be taking out the NK.

And while the WW aren't gonna flee, the major cavalry advantage is still there and that's speed/stamina. You don't lead with your damn cavalry. Especially not when you're pretty sure you have pretty strong flanks and at the very least an entrenched center. The Dothraki should've been held in reserve to encircle; they had the speed advantage and plenty of open space.

This is possible, but it may have been very difficult to encircle the AOTD with the sheer number of forces they had. At the end of the day, it's tough for me to look at this battle through a conventional medieval lens. They never would have been able to "beat" the WW in a conventional fashion, the plan, for better or worse, always had to be to kill the NK.

Now, I think criticizing D&D for allowing the WW to be killed through a Queen Bee is completely fair. That was a major deviation from GRRM (the WW don't have the show NK, and always have loomed over as more of a symbolic representation of death that should diminish the importance of the throne itself).

The show still could land that point, but they have an awful lot to cover in the last 4 hours of screentime.