Solo4114
Master Member
Dorne presents a decent locale to marshal your forces, mostly because it's defended by a region of mountains to its north, and is otherwise surrounded by the sea on all sides. There's an area in the northeast that borders the Stormlands where you might take a few hits, but the Stormlands are leaderless (at the moment) without any Baratheons (again, barring some random cousin) to rule from Storm's End.
The problem with Dorne is that a lot of it is desert or at least not particularly well suited to massing a large army. The land can't support vast numbers of troops. And while the Unsullied and Dothraki combined probably number around, oh, 12,000 or so, to also bring in the Dornish forces (which we should assume number upwards of 50K if brought together in full) would mean that you're putting a lot of strain on the region while everthing gets mobilized. The Reach is a much better position in which to mass your forces. From there, you can sail up the Mander and attack King's Landing from the land (although that requires you to cross the Blackwater, which is problematic). But, the Reach also allows you to march north to Casterly Rock and take out the Lannister base of power.
Make no mistake: Cersei's strategic position is incredibly weak. This is a big part of why Littlefinger is actually pretty well positioned to get at least half of his wish (sitting on the iron throne himself). Cersei has almost no allies to support her rule. She's got wildfire and holds the capital with Lannister troops, but the Crownlands surrounding it have no particular reason to be loyal to her. She has the Lannister forces led by Jaime, but otherwise, she's got basically nobody.
The North is a complete wash and has been since the War of the Five Kings. The Vale has shut up its gates until recently, and now supports the North. They won't be riding to her rescue any time soon. (Plus, it's a long ride from Winterfell...) The Riverlands are nominally sworn to Littlefinger, and/or the Freys, but with Walder dead and his most competent sons dead, too, the Riverland lords need have no great loyalty to anyone who claims to rule them. For generations, they were sworn to the Tullys. You might see some opportunistic lords back whoever's currently in power, but I wouldn't count on their undying loyalty. The Stormlands, as mentioned, are a mess. They were loyal to the Baratheons under Renly and Stannis, but with no more Baratheons, who will they follow? Not Cersei. That's for sure. They'll keep to themselves. That leaves the Reach, which has now declared for Dany, and Dorne, which just did the same and anyway were always against the Lannisters. All she has is the Westerlands -- Lannister lands -- and control of the capital.
Her days as queen are numbered, and that number is not a high one.
There's no reason to march to Volantis. You have to cross some pretty inhospitable land to do so, and Volantis won't support that many troops. Better to sail directly to Dorne or the Reach, in my opinion. I think what happened is that Highgarden sent some ships, Dany loaded her troops, and they're headed to Westeros. I think it took a while, which gives the Iron Islanders time to build new ships and attack them on the sea, but also gives time for Varys to return (on, say, a Martell or Tyrell ship, bringing others with him), report to Dany, and then load up the troops and head to Westeros.
