8.3 Spoilers (Saurfang died for nothing, the confrontation of Orgrimmar was pointless and the Horde only lives at the mercy of the Alliance -da heck blizz?)

Lore Story
41

The Horde took a bigger hit throughout “Battle for Azeroth” leaving them weaker and with the Alliance attack on Dazar’alor without a fleet (actual source being a statement coming from Nathanos himself). During the Nazjatar intro we only see a handful of Kul Tiran warships, seemingly meaning that the bulk of the fleet wasn’t in pursuit but either on standby or still returning from the attack on Dazar’alor.

(Ironically that means that Arctur was right during the initial discussions about the cinematic. I cannot accept this, but I have to. Araphant help me.)

Seriously, you argue about something that has never played any role at all. Fleets, armies, airships, manpower, weapons, tanks and everything else will always be at hand when the plot needs it.

6 Likes
42

I was right, yes. So in your opinion, Jaina would have sent the ENTIRE Kul Tiran fleet to pursue a few strugglers, thus leaving Kul Tiras defenseless, as its fleet is its main defense.

So like, have you guys ever played Total War and gotten past the tutorial? Then again, judging by the Battle of Lordaeron, I don’t think the writers have either…

43

Looks at Lordaeron

Yes.

4 Likes
44

Right now I am playing Hearts of Iron 4. Where the production of equipment, manpower, factory output, resources and supply routes (as well as resupply) actually play an extremely large role.

Seriously, you realize how utterly stupid every war in Warcraft actually is when you play the game for some time.

5 Likes
45

The Battle of Lordaeron is glorious in how badly conceived it is both from a storytelling and actual military-strategy perspective. The Alliance is predictably useless and Rule of Cool about it, but the real kicker is the Horde, whose plan is “Let’s get as many of our own troops killed as possible”.

Sure, later on Sylvanas claims that was her plan all along - just like it was her plan to throw a hissy fit and fart-rocket herself to an airship that was hidden just out of view and contributed nothing to the battle - but what, nobody called her out on the whole, putting her own army in front of the wall that they’re defending, thing?

It’s not surprising the Horde lost every war they’ve fought without the Burning Legion’s assistance, when their principal battle strategy seems to be the Zapp Brannigan Maneuver.

6 Likes
46

Entire BFA is pretty much a competition on who is gonna be less stupid, with the “winner” decided by the length of a nose.

6 Likes
47

For a company constantly writing about war and warfare Blizzard is extremely inept in actually writing a war especially in BfA. Every major engagement has so many glaring issues that a commanding officer wouldn’t be demoted…he would be put on the firing line for high treason. (Because willingly sending thousands of soldiers against an enemy with chemical weapons without countermeasures available…that’s like working FOR the enemy.)

5 Likes
48

Jaina has shown some degree of cunning, especially during her invasion of Zandalar, in which she used the Scepter of the Tides to cover her army’s advance in Nazmir, and lured Rastakhan’s army away from his capital. She’s a very brilliant leader for Warcraft’s standards, so she wouldn’t just leave her homeland defenseless to pursue one ship at sea.

49

So I was wondering about something…since Fandral Staghelm was considered a major Alliance leader and character…does that mean I get to say the same about Magatha Grimtotem for the Tauren?

Anyway, BFA’s narrative is utter dogshet…so is it that much of a low that it doesn’t even follow it’s own plotpoints anymore at this point?

Ps: So hoping for a Sylvanas redemption now.

50

Going off topic here.

That’s what’s been going on my mind, regarding the battle of Broken Shore.

If we look at the battle, the Alliance can rely on the powers of the light, magic tactical formations, technology.
Everything is at their disposal, except the numbers, because they lost several Human Kingdoms, the Night Elves are not as numerous and powerful as before.

On the Horde side:

  • Orcs: lack Gul’Dan magic and Mannoroth blood to empower them.
    Shamanistic powers won’t cut through it.
    If it was that powerful, the Orcs wouldn’t had follow Gul’Dan the first time.
    Also the numbers they could present when they came trough the Dark portal.
    BlackRock clan, Warsong Clan, etc.
  • Forsaken: lack of a death Knight like Arthas, wielding Frostmourne, a necromancer as Kel’thuzad, to resurrect the living soldiers who were being killed.
    Where was the blight here ?
    It sure would had helped.
  • Darkspear Trolls are fierce warriors, but I think they lacked the numbers the Amani of Zul’Jin could present, during the second war.
  • Tauren: they had everything in their limited arsenal at their disposal, they lack numbers.
  • Blood Elves: lost 90 per cent of their population, they lack again the numbers, they had during the Amani conflict.
  • Goblins: lack of numbers and kaja’mite.

Of course this is just speculation.
But when we have one army capable of deploying his entire arsenal and the other can’t because most of the powers of both Orcs and Undead came from the Legion, it’s no wonder the Horde was the first to retreat.

Cheers.

3 Likes
51

I haven’t read any WoW book. We must play the batle in game so it 's
difficult to be realistic.

1 Like
52

I think if BfA was a RTS expansion instead of a WoW expansion, that problem would had been minor, to say the least.

Each campaign, would have you start with a handful of soldiers and than you would have to harvest resources, build your base and destroy the enemy.

The Alliance player would had won BfA for his faction in the Alliance arc.
The Horde player would had won BfA for his faction in the Horde arc.
In the end, the faction that won the war would be decided by the writers as in the first and second game.

We would not see Saurfang, Anduin, Jaina, Thrall, Rastakhan, Zul cinematics.
We would had seen actual cinematics of your faction, your army (not your player character) destroying enemy facilities and towns, winning decisive victories.

In this case the burning of Teldrassil would had come less shocking, it’s part of the Horde campaign, you lead Sylvanas, Nathanos and Saurfang as heroes of your army and trough your cunning strategy you go and defeat the Night Elves and in the end the Alliance, winning BfA for the Horde.

Same with Undercity, the Alliance player goes with Anduin, Genn they suffer massive losses at the start, due to blight, Jaina arrive as a playable champion, than Aleria arrives with Mekkatorque to reinforce your army, Sylvanas get away, by the end of the battle, but you chase her with your army till you kill her and win BfA for the Alliance.

Cheers.

1 Like
53

Magatha is not dead, compared to Fandral/Benedictus.

54

This doesn’t excuse several of the glaring plot holes happening throughout BfA. Seemingly no one in an army of tens of thousands of soldiers ever asked what will happen when the Horde deploys the blight. It’s a weapon well known to the Alliance so not preparing any kind of countermeasure is gross negligence especially when you have people like Greymane as part of the high command. Yeah, you couldn’t plan for the Azerite war machine because that was an unknown factor, but you could have planned for the blight.

Then there’s the attack on Dazar’alor which I like to call the Pearl Harbor of Warcraft. I know real life example suck, but this is pretty fitting. The Alliance/The Japanese attacked an important harbor of the enemy, blew up several big and smaller ships and escaped. But, they left the entire infastructure more or less intact. And now they have declared war on an the Zandalari/the United States who are royally pissed.

So, what was the objective of attacking Dazar’alor? You didn’t push them out of the war, you didn’t crush them enough so it would take years for them to rebuild, you didn’t even destroy the entire fleet (as parts of them got send to Nazmir). However you did send a pretty large force as a bait. And they all got massacred. For what? Rastakhan got killed. Great. Now his far more competent daughter takes over and will obviously side with the Horde.

This doesn’t matter that much because the entire attack on Dazar’alor is swept under the carpet. It’s briefly mentioned by Saurfang when you rescue Baine, but then it’s ignored. Just like the fact that Saurfang was the one leading the Horde armies into Ashenvale and he was the one who put Sylvanas into a position where she was able/forced to give the order to burn down Teldrassil.

Ironically now after BfA we have more reasons to hate one another than we had before the conflict started.

6 Likes
55

Deja vu
Just wait a few years and the Horde tries to Genocide the Alliance again and we’ll see this play out for the third time.

6 Likes
56

Great potential leader of the Horde?
That was funny. If he got command of the Horde, I would change faction to Alliance. Even Anduin is better than him.

57

This is so true, I said the same thing in another thread, for an expansion that was meant to end the faction conflict, it ended up putting the sides against each other more than ever, with no real reason to stop the fighting.

And also the whole Dazar battle was so incredibly stupid. Zandalari might join Horde so in order to prevent this we attack the Zandalari, that will make them stop seeking allies to help them defeat the attacker … I mean … logic of a 5 year old.

5 Likes
58

Just throwing it out there:

I’m just a bit peeved by Saurfang’s death, because I don’t really understand how that closes his arc. Dying in honorable combat for a gesture of defiance? We could and should have had that from the start. We didn’t need him experiencing the crushing loss of hope and pride, the realization that he hoped others would do his work for him, the acceptance that he doesn’t get to hide and the rejection of the flaw in the heart of the Horde concept for that. I always felt his arc made sense - if it would have ended in him taking up responsibility. In him accepting that he was the one who had to modernize and create the faction he wanted to see.

With his death I’m not sure what he is supposed to have learned at all, it just seems like a depressive episode… Or rather it doesn’t really feel like it’s about the character at all, but about the faction. As if it was never about Saurfang being disgusted with himself, but the Horde being disgusted with itself. That it wasn’t about him accepting that he was relying on the Alliance to do his dirty work, but the Horde accepting that they had to clean house themselves. And the Horde learning in the end to stand and die for high-minded ideals, and not Saurfang at all.

I don’t appreciate a character being bent just to make a point like that, and that’s really how it looks like to me. Challenging Sylvanas to a duel after she crossed his own personal red lines would have made sense from the very start. Having him give up on… well, everything, including the Horde and the concept of honor instead is something that should have led somewhere.

Meh.

P.S.:
I haven’t read the WotA trilogy… how much does his “arc” parallel that of Broxigar? I know that Broxigar started out suicidal, got over it, but sacrificed himself in the end anyway. Is there actually a parallel they were going for?

2 Likes
59

I do admit though that the writers, in an unexpected turn of events, are seemingly aware of this problem to a certain degree. There are several characters on the Alliance side who make comments about the whole outcome of the conflict. From Tyrande and Greymane down to some random Stormwind City Guards and dwarves with many essentially saying, “Wait…that’s it?” I can’t remember if the Zandalari talk about the outcome as well.

60

Maybe they are hoping for a D&D moment and “we (the player) simply forgot about it” … god im still salty about GoT.

3 Likes